Chapter 22 The Vulnerability of the Trisolaran Interstellar Fleet

Lin Sen continued, "Next, let's discuss our advantages and disadvantages.

Our main advantages are twofold: stratagems and resources.

The Trisolarans, encountering human civilization, surely faced a huge shock to their society, and thus they have implemented many measures.

From the information we currently possess, there are projects like the Sophon program, the 'Coloring' plan, and the 'Miracles' project, and even plans to prevent humanity's escape as well as the Wallbreaker initiative.

The Sophon program is a demonstration of their technological supremacy and also suggests that, hidden behind the High-Energy Particle Collider, there is a way to counter them.

But the 'Coloring' plan and the 'Miracles' project seem somewhat naive. These plans might influence our human society in the early stages, but the more they intervene, the more of their intelligence will be exposed.

Their best option would have been to only use Sophons to block our technology from the very start. This alone would have had a significant impact on our physical sciences and might have even plunged our human technology into stagnation, but they unnecessarily executed the 'Coloring' plan and the 'Miracles' project as well.

The 'Coloring' plan aims to exploit the side effects of science and technology to instill fear and aversion towards science in the public. The 'Miracles' project involves displaying supernatural forces to Earthlings, attempting through a series of 'miracles' to construct a fictitious universe beyond the explanation of scientific logic.

The goal of the plan is to turn Trisolaran civilization into an object of worship by potential religious followers in the human world, allowing non-scientific modes of thinking to overwhelm scientific thought.

If our guesses are correct, this plan was likely proposed by the ETO to their 'masters'. Think about it carefully—this plan truly benefits the ETO. The ETO acts as Trisolaris's spokesperson on Earth, issuing 'divine decrees' in their stead.

This may also be why the Trisolarans allowed us to destroy Evans's Second Red Bank Base and acquire critical Trisolaran information without intervention.

The true reasons behind the plan to prevent human escape have been discussed by Mr. Logic during the Wallfacer hearings, so I will not elaborate further on that point.

The Wallbreaker initiative shows that our Wallfacer plans are feasible. If the Wallfacer plans can instill fear in the Trisolarans, it indicates that they must contain threats to the Trisolarans. This is the battle between Wallfacers and Wallbreakers.

If, in the future, Trisolaris ceases all interference in the human world except for the Sophon blockade, it would mean that we are truly in danger, as it would suggest that they do not perceive anything we do as a threat.

Although Trisolaran stratagems currently seem primitive, their tactics are bound to improve significantly in the future, and we must not take them lightly.

Beyond stratagems, our greatest advantage is resources. We have the entire undeveloped Solar System at our disposal, replete with endless resources.

We even boldly conjecture that the Trisolaran interstellar fleet is actually very weak, fragile as paper!"

The audience was immediately abuzz. This was the first time someone had called the Trisolarans weak. Had he lost his mind? Could he not see the level of technology required for starships that traverse stars? Could he not recognize how powerful the technology represented by the Sophons was?

Chang Weisi, maintaining his composure, signaled for silence from the crowd and addressed Lin Sen on the stage, "Can you explain specifically? How do you analyze the weakness of the Trisolarans?"

Lin Sen spoke confidently, "The level at which a civilization utilizes materials determines the level of their technology, and the Trisolarans' technological level is undoubtedly formidable.

All levels of technological utilization follow the rules of energy use. For example, we developed industrial civilization using fossil fuels with the expectation that before we exhaust our supply, we will advance our material utilization to the nuclear level and harness nuclear energy, which would offer us an 'inexhaustible' supply of energy.

But that is not feasible; it requires that our technology progresses to the next level before we deplete the energy resources currently available, otherwise civilization might be shackled and doomed.

The Trisolaran civilization faces an even more difficult problem: their fleet is very weak!

Firstly, Trisolaris has consumed too many resources after enduring 200 cycles of civilization!

It's estimated that their resources are nearly depleted, any unnecessary expenditure is prohibited, and they minimize resource consumption as much as possible.

The rate of technological advancement for the Trisolarans is too slow. That they managed to sustain their civilization into the Interstellar Era is a miracle within miracles.

Perhaps they have reached their limit; seeking a new home is not only about fleeing the hellish Trisolaran Star System but also a symptom of resource consumption reaching an unsustainable level, compelling them to undertake interstellar travel using the last of their resources to wager on a future.

Secondly, why does the Trisolaran fleet possess only 10% of light speed and must stop and go, taking 400 years to reach Earth?

If they were truly powerful, they would accelerate to the maximum, reach 10% of light speed, and use inertia to fly directly here, ensuring they'd still be strong enough to overwhelm humanity after arriving in the Solar System.

The key point is that we haven't yet been able to construct any defense systems, and we can't even flee; we are like lambs waiting for slaughter. Why would the Trisolarans make such an unwise choice? Let's not even talk about 10% of light speed—if they moved at 5% of light speed, humanity would have no chance to resist.

400 years is so much longer than 40 years, and anything could happen in those additional 350 years. Seizing Earth in advance would have been their best solution.

However, they did not do this, and there is only one possibility: their battleships simply can't.

It's possible that their ships are too dilapidated, even unable to withstand collisions with interstellar dust, which is why they cannot accelerate to 10% of light speed and rely on inertia to fly directly here.

Not building stronger battleships is not an issue of lack of technology, but rather, constructing such a massive fleet with advanced materials would be beyond their resource capabilities.

In the game Trisolaris, the Trisolaran leader said a single attempt to accelerate a proton for dimension-reduction testing consumed the resources of an entire fleet, which indirectly indicates that the cost of building a fleet is actually very low—low enough to barely manage interstellar travel.

We can doubt everything about the Trisolarans, but we will never doubt their calculating and logical abilities. If they act this way, it shows that this is their best solution, even at the risk of giving us 400 years of time and space to resist.

A rickety fleet in deep space, without the help of Sophons, might not necessarily be able to crush us when facing our future warships.

Thirdly, why do their battleships use antimatter engines? The best way to obtain antimatter is by collecting it in space. Reliance on manufacturing, even with Trisolaran technology far surpassing ours, would not be feasible.

The advantage of antimatter energy is the high efficiency of energy usage, not that it is highly valuable. If the cost were low, that would be one thing, but the cost of antimatter can't be low; its best application should be for attack.

There's only one reasonable explanation: they have almost no other energy resources left and can only collect antimatter from the cosmos as they travel. Their battleships require continuous acceleration and deceleration, both to collect antimatter and to conduct repairs on any potential damage."

To be continued…