Information that can be made public: Regarding Background Time_1

About the timeline of "Three-Body," Da Liu only provided a vague timeline,

at the beginning of "Death's End," there's a "Chronology Contrast Table," where the Crisis Era spans from AD 201X to 2208.

However, at the last segment of "The Dark Forest," it is clearly stated that it was the 208th year of the Crisis Era when Logic buried himself and successfully deterred the Trisolarans.

So, logically speaking, if we trace back, the Crisis Era should have begun in the year 2000, but it's obvious there's a discrepancy in the "Contrast Table" in "Death's End."

The version of the book in the author's hand is from Chongqing Publishing House published in 2010, and it's unknown if later editions corrected this error.

Since the Chronology Contrasts time is unreasonable, the author tried to use iconic objects mentioned in the books to determine a rough time period.

In "The Dark Forest," many real-life converging events and objects are mentioned, such as the "Tang"-class aircraft carrier. Could it be the one currently under construction, the 003?

But then the author recalls that in "Ball Lightning," which is regarded as a prequel, there were already two operating aircraft carriers, and they even had a skirmish with Great Old America, plus post-war reconstruction, and loads of other stuff.

Clearly, using aircraft carriers as "navigation marks" would only make the timeline more tangled.

Reluctantly, the author had to follow Da Liu's example and keep the timeline vague, roughly using the publication year as the background setting.

However, this conflicts hugely with the original, as around 2015 (some believe as early as 2012), we began to regain national confidence, and economically, we have widened a considerable gap with old Japan.

These were changes to which Da Liu would have been oblivious when writing "Three-Body" in 2006.

This leads to a conceptual contradiction, as today we believe that China should play a bigger role internationally.

One manifestation of this is the selection of the Wallfacers... but that's a topic to be revisited repeatedly later on.

Anyway, everyone certainly hopes that the international issues touched upon in the books are interpreted differently than they are in the original, reflecting China's current international status.

This is also why the author chooses the present as the background setting. Starting the story around 2006 just wasn't very interesting.

This chapter is meant to give readers a vague understanding of the timeline so that certain descriptions in the book do not feel contradictory.

However, this also leads to some discrepancies, such as the age of certain characters.

If we use the present as the timeline, then Shi Qiang would be in his fifties or sixties, as he mentioned having served in the Vietnam War, which we could use to estimate his age.

Yet, in this book, he is only portrayed as being in his thirties or forties.

This discrepancy requires further obfuscation. After all, no specific years are mentioned in the original, so we might as well combine the timelines of the original and this book, which are both vague, and just consider him to be in his thirties or forties.

It is only in these details that inconsistencies arise; otherwise, using around 2006 or around 2020 as the background setting does not cause any major conflicts.

Therefore, this setting is clearly more advantageous than not, and thus, it was adopted by the author.

Lastly, I wish everyone a Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, may your family be united, and your lives full of happiness!

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone for their support and votes, and, while I'm at it, canvass for more monthly and recommendation tickets.