While social dynamics feature in many works of science fiction, Liu’s plots not only play with social developments or individual relations, but also constitute an overarching social theory in relation to what happens to societies in crisis. One of the ways in which Remembrance of Earth’s Past distinguishes itself is that although it constitutes a fictional prospect – like many other works of science fiction, certainly – it stands out in that it is substantively and explicitly a sociological prospect.

Crisis and collective hysteria follow resilience and prosperity, and vice versa, in what follows. Others are looking forward to the extraterrestrials’ arrival, with some seeing them as saviours, others as hangmen (but that is what these cynics wish for humankind, anyway).Īs the story unfolds, the aliens’ strategy forces humanity to redefine leadership, not to everybody’s agreement, and to experiment extensively with models such as benevolent dictatorship. Some claim humanity should arm itself and fight. What now? For one thing, with some impressive sociological sensitivity, Liu depicts how social movements form. They will be here in a couple of centuries. The trilogy commences when, after Earth has broadcast a message, an invading force embarks on its way to Earth from the exterrestrials’ doomed home planet. The central lesson from the trilogy is that the only way to remain safe in the universe is not only to refrain from actively sending out messages, but rather to more or less hide inside a black hole.

The societal futures Liu depicts are neither good nor bad, but are extrapolations of what he understands as evolutionary mechanisms of society and human nature. Both the dramatic problem of the trilogy and its solution are based on Liu’s Hobbesian anticipation that it is indeed a really dangerous idea. In the trilogy Remembrance of Earth’s Past, Liu Cixin explores the consequences of what is called “active SETI”, the attempt to send signals to extraterrestrial life. Most people are probably unaware that thinkers as prominent as Stephen Hawking have debated what would happen if humanity revealed its existence to extraterrestrial species – and, in sum, many of these commentators are reasonably concerned.

The remembrance of earth's past