This time, the San-Ti, represented by the placid-voiced swordswoman who’s served as their mouthpiece throughout the series, detail their plan. Unlike their disaster-shattered civilization, humanity accrues technological development at an accelerating pace over time, leading the aliens to conclude that their invasion will be defeated easily by the time it arrives. Unless, that is, the aliens impede humanity’s progress.
They intend to do this using sophons, stupendously powerful sentient computers carved into single protons by use of redirected extra-dimensional energy. (The visuals here are as extravagantly sci-fi as the concept.) Two of the San-Ti’s four linked sophons are already on Earth, messing with particle colliders and creating those hallucinatory visuals. The end goal is to destroy human science and plunge the species into a superstitious, fearful new Dark Age.
Since the sophons can expand and contract exponentially in moments, the aliens have a chance to make that plunge into darkness literal. A sophon encircles the planet and replaces the sky with a colossal mirror reflecting the ground. In the middle, in place of the sun, a massive eye opens up. One message accompanies this display on every electronic device in the world: “YOU ARE BUGS.”
It’s around this point that Wenjie begins reconsidering her allegiances. Clarence has, by now, played her a recording of the conversation in which the San-Ti first turned on and then abandoned Evans. No one knows how powerful these beings are better than Wenjie, so no one has a better sense of the odds.
Again, this all plays out in micro with Will. Bequeathed a fortune by Jack, he’s choosing to spend it by laying back and chilling out rather than pouring his money into experimental and likely painful new treatments. In his way he’s the opposite of Wade, who comes across more and more like a character from a 1960s secret agent thriller as he speeds around in expensive cars, throwing his apparently bottomless resources at the problem. The eye in the sky suggests they simply will not be enough.
Once again, “3 Body Problem” closes on a horrific high note, something that seemed impossible to do in an episode featuring hundreds of julienned corpses. The closing of the sky by a giant mirror once again conjures up intense feelings of vertigo. There’s something obscene in the idea that sentient beings could cause a disruption of the natural order on that scale at that speed. But this, of course, is a lesson humanity is currently learning in the real world.
