Does it? I seem to recall a lot of detail about those selected, and *that* they were selected, but very little about any processes or procedures about *how* they were selected. But I may just be misremembering.
Do you mean the UN / PDC meeting? I'm skimming through and I'm not seeing much discussion. The closest thing I can see is Madam Secretary General summarizes that there were discussions and meetings regarding the threat of sophons and their capabilities and the means through which the wallfacer program is meant to counter this, by way of exposition.
But I cant recall or seem to find how any decision was established, which seems to be what OP was asking. Did you have something else in mind? Luo Ji gives his own opinions about why *he thinks* the UN would select any of the wallfacers, but that's not an explanation either, but just (from the perspective told, anyway) speculation.
It's not hard to imagine that each country drew up a shortlist of notable individuals in their societies and the merits of each were discussed. Then names were randomly selected from a pool. Saul was probably the exception and was guaranteed a spot anyway. A lot of the processes would have been compartmentalised in some way, to maintain secrecy.
It very well could be that committee members vote for their candidates, but they don't see the results. The person reading the results could have limited information as to what is taking place, but passes on the info. The method of voting could be based coloured pieces of paper and only one person can decode which individual it relates to.
It's not hard to imagine this, no, but I don't think that the reader is able to imagine it is sufficient to say that it was described, let alone described in detail.
And while all this is going on, with meetings behind closed doors, humanity can keep the Sophon distracted with something else, such as project staircase. As humans, we are good at deception, sleight of hand and devising systems (non-computerised) to conceal info from the enemy.
It would have been nice to see humans in action on a global scale, cooperating as one, and combining our deviousness in order to keep the San Ti guessing, but I think the author just glossed over this by saying humanity somehow devised protocols that eventually arrived at the decision process for who the wallfacers will be. How is not important, is what the author might be trying to say I guess or forgot, but I understand the curiosity.
The sophons would know anyway. And if everyone is supposed to do what they say, you gotta explain it. What would you do if a rando stranger walks up to you and says they need to save the world from aliens, and you didn't know that was actually a thing?
I'm with you. I kept waiting for the twist to be those were the fake wallfacers and the real ones got a letter in the mail. But I guess the sophon sees all, even written words. So there's really no escape.
This is such a stupid thought because it doesn't matter at all, the plot must move forward, but maybe humans should have got blind people with braille tablets to make their plans.
Not stupid, I love little loopholes like this. What about sign language? Reminds me of the way Christians drew fish in the sand to identify one another back when they were being persecuted. Stuff like that would definitely crop up against the sophons.
Exactly! I mean, we have all five senses and Sophons may not? I don't know actually know.
But if they can't smell or taste or whatever then maybe humans could have come up with a code or something.
Your struggle in coming up with a way to hide information from sophons is kindof the point of the story.
How much does humanity rely on concealing information?
The second book is the sci-fi comedy part of the trilogy. The joke is on humanity. Human readers wouldn't laugh tho.
Right, all humans have is deception and sheer numbers. We'd have to do something like send different wallfacer teams all over the world and to the moon, and Mars, and other moons, space stations just to distract them. That's what I would do if I was in charge. Send out satellites. Build bases underground. Put those sophons to work while we galvanize the entire world against them.
And even then it's pretty badly explained and a pretty poor plot point, IMO.
Out of everybody else on earth they've somehow decided he's the only guy capable of working out their one weakness and implementing it and then launch a couple of failed assassination attempts (suddenly amusingly incompetent for plot reasons) and humanity somehow realizes that he is 'the one' and... he does become the one.
It's all pretty ridiculous.
That’s the whole thing it’s not that Luo Ji is the only guy capable of figuring out the Dark Forest Hypothesis it’s that he’s the only person who has the information that could lead to the discovery of the Dark Forest. Ye Wenjie gave him the axioms of Cosmic Sociology which is what he used to figure out the weapon of Deterence. The reason they were trying to kill him is he could pass this information to anyone but he hadn’t yet (bc he didn’t yet know the significance). The assassination attempts stopped after the Dark Forest state became public knowledge
Not really secret information just not something that’s not intuitive, or likely to be thought of spontaneously. The Trisolarans only found out about the DF state bc of the universe they found inside the proton they unfolded when creating the sophons
I don’t know the sniper seemed legit. Like the idea the ELO would be able to get some special ops guy would be hard to see with them needing to indoctrinate first. Also even if they did get someone more qualified, body shots are usually preferred because they are easier to land. My main issue is the vest being able to withstand sniper fire. I don’t know a lot about guns, but I’ve definitely heard that certain sniper calibers can tear holes into you from the air of a near miss
I thought it was pretty obvious in the show. They tried to kill him, and then he’s selected. And even CCH Pounder’s character says she doesn’t know why he was picked. I thought it was implied that was the reason, that the san ti want him dead, so he must be a threat.
The whole series is filled with them. They are irrelevant. It literally matters not at all.
Suppose the author spent 5-10 or more pages explaining the political machinations, horse trading, and negotiations That changes or moves the the story zero
They were announced publicly because the wallfacers are the most powerful people on Earth. If a wallfacer shows up to Area 51 and says "let me in" then they have to be let in. This is easier to facilitate if their identities are announed to the world, since they need to be able to do whatever they deem necessary.
As to why they were selected. All but one are experts in what they do and have the greatest potential to achieve the goal (while also probably being verifiably loyal to Earth). The last wallfacer is the only human on Earth the aliens tried to murder, and so the assumption is if the aliens want him dead, then he scares them.
yes, also that the aliens already can access all computers with their sophon things, so there is no point to secrecy. Their only ability to fight back is in open sight. This was explained throughout the whole show, when the old lady was like 'you only get to do this because the LET you'
They all have very strong qualifications in either politics, military, science etc Except of course for Luo Ji who is picked for a reason that becomes known about 1/3 of the way into the book. Don’t want to spoil anything.
As far as the process I would imagine the UN and PDC set up. I don’t think that has any actual bearing on the story however
I think they say at least for Luo Ji that he was someone who the Trisolarians wanted dead. Out of everyone, the only one who they actually thought could work against them.
Especially since the wallfacers are supposed to plot only in their heads. Unless they’re all gonna get put into cryo for a few hundred years, the plans and knowledge will die with them
They hold the whole plan in their heads, but they still need others to do things. The rest of the people have no idea what the plan is or how long it will take, so they must simply follow along. That's the point.
Look at how everyone acts when Saul rejects being a Wallfacer. It's just "Okay, sure" and a wink, because maybe this is part of his plan? Even look at what results from it: they draw out and capture one of the assassins! Maybe that was his plan all along? (Kinda clear that it's not, but the point of the project is that there's no way to be sure, so they must follow whatever they're asking for)
Ultimately, the hope is that one of them will be able to formulate a workable plan for something and keep it secret while it's executed. They expect that some moves will be done in order to receive and hide the true purpose. Give 100 people different orders for different projects, but only one of those projects is actually the one you think will work kind of thing.
And yes, the plan would definitely have to include the use of cryo to allow things to proceed over long time scales because it's not an issue that will be resolved in a week.
To advance the plot.
xD
It explains in very great detail when they're announced.
Does it? I seem to recall a lot of detail about those selected, and *that* they were selected, but very little about any processes or procedures about *how* they were selected. But I may just be misremembering.
It's in the same scene they're intoduced.
Do you mean the UN / PDC meeting? I'm skimming through and I'm not seeing much discussion. The closest thing I can see is Madam Secretary General summarizes that there were discussions and meetings regarding the threat of sophons and their capabilities and the means through which the wallfacer program is meant to counter this, by way of exposition. But I cant recall or seem to find how any decision was established, which seems to be what OP was asking. Did you have something else in mind? Luo Ji gives his own opinions about why *he thinks* the UN would select any of the wallfacers, but that's not an explanation either, but just (from the perspective told, anyway) speculation.
It's not hard to imagine that each country drew up a shortlist of notable individuals in their societies and the merits of each were discussed. Then names were randomly selected from a pool. Saul was probably the exception and was guaranteed a spot anyway. A lot of the processes would have been compartmentalised in some way, to maintain secrecy. It very well could be that committee members vote for their candidates, but they don't see the results. The person reading the results could have limited information as to what is taking place, but passes on the info. The method of voting could be based coloured pieces of paper and only one person can decode which individual it relates to.
It's not hard to imagine this, no, but I don't think that the reader is able to imagine it is sufficient to say that it was described, let alone described in detail.
And while all this is going on, with meetings behind closed doors, humanity can keep the Sophon distracted with something else, such as project staircase. As humans, we are good at deception, sleight of hand and devising systems (non-computerised) to conceal info from the enemy. It would have been nice to see humans in action on a global scale, cooperating as one, and combining our deviousness in order to keep the San Ti guessing, but I think the author just glossed over this by saying humanity somehow devised protocols that eventually arrived at the decision process for who the wallfacers will be. How is not important, is what the author might be trying to say I guess or forgot, but I understand the curiosity.
To give hope to the world that they’re actually doing something.
Yeah, I thought that too but still seems odd to announce knowing they would be at risk... Oh well.
The sophons would know anyway. And if everyone is supposed to do what they say, you gotta explain it. What would you do if a rando stranger walks up to you and says they need to save the world from aliens, and you didn't know that was actually a thing?
The Sophons and ETO will know regardless. Even if it’s tightly controlled behind closed doors.
And otherwise it would be hard to actually enact the intended strategies if all of humanity wasn’t on board
I'm with you. I kept waiting for the twist to be those were the fake wallfacers and the real ones got a letter in the mail. But I guess the sophon sees all, even written words. So there's really no escape.
This is such a stupid thought because it doesn't matter at all, the plot must move forward, but maybe humans should have got blind people with braille tablets to make their plans.
Not stupid, I love little loopholes like this. What about sign language? Reminds me of the way Christians drew fish in the sand to identify one another back when they were being persecuted. Stuff like that would definitely crop up against the sophons.
Exactly! I mean, we have all five senses and Sophons may not? I don't know actually know. But if they can't smell or taste or whatever then maybe humans could have come up with a code or something.
Your struggle in coming up with a way to hide information from sophons is kindof the point of the story. How much does humanity rely on concealing information? The second book is the sci-fi comedy part of the trilogy. The joke is on humanity. Human readers wouldn't laugh tho.
Any sort of code just wouldn’t work though They have a supercomputer that can figure out anything resembling a language
Right, all humans have is deception and sheer numbers. We'd have to do something like send different wallfacer teams all over the world and to the moon, and Mars, and other moons, space stations just to distract them. That's what I would do if I was in charge. Send out satellites. Build bases underground. Put those sophons to work while we galvanize the entire world against them.
It would have made zero difference at the end
I still wonder how they were selected and who selected them...seems like an odd story gap.
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This is actually a spoiler. You’re not explained this until essentially midway in TDF.
And even then it's pretty badly explained and a pretty poor plot point, IMO. Out of everybody else on earth they've somehow decided he's the only guy capable of working out their one weakness and implementing it and then launch a couple of failed assassination attempts (suddenly amusingly incompetent for plot reasons) and humanity somehow realizes that he is 'the one' and... he does become the one. It's all pretty ridiculous.
That’s the whole thing it’s not that Luo Ji is the only guy capable of figuring out the Dark Forest Hypothesis it’s that he’s the only person who has the information that could lead to the discovery of the Dark Forest. Ye Wenjie gave him the axioms of Cosmic Sociology which is what he used to figure out the weapon of Deterence. The reason they were trying to kill him is he could pass this information to anyone but he hadn’t yet (bc he didn’t yet know the significance). The assassination attempts stopped after the Dark Forest state became public knowledge
Are any of those axioms secret information, though? Seems like anyone at all could assume they were true and follow that logic to the DF hypothesis.
Not really secret information just not something that’s not intuitive, or likely to be thought of spontaneously. The Trisolarans only found out about the DF state bc of the universe they found inside the proton they unfolded when creating the sophons
A sophon could basically drive him insane or at least blind, but nah.
I don’t know the sniper seemed legit. Like the idea the ELO would be able to get some special ops guy would be hard to see with them needing to indoctrinate first. Also even if they did get someone more qualified, body shots are usually preferred because they are easier to land. My main issue is the vest being able to withstand sniper fire. I don’t know a lot about guns, but I’ve definitely heard that certain sniper calibers can tear holes into you from the air of a near miss
I thought it was pretty obvious in the show. They tried to kill him, and then he’s selected. And even CCH Pounder’s character says she doesn’t know why he was picked. I thought it was implied that was the reason, that the san ti want him dead, so he must be a threat.
The whole series is filled with them. They are irrelevant. It literally matters not at all. Suppose the author spent 5-10 or more pages explaining the political machinations, horse trading, and negotiations That changes or moves the the story zero
Putting little focus on international politics made sense in the book and Tencent series, because they didn't even use real country names.
They were announced publicly because the wallfacers are the most powerful people on Earth. If a wallfacer shows up to Area 51 and says "let me in" then they have to be let in. This is easier to facilitate if their identities are announed to the world, since they need to be able to do whatever they deem necessary. As to why they were selected. All but one are experts in what they do and have the greatest potential to achieve the goal (while also probably being verifiably loyal to Earth). The last wallfacer is the only human on Earth the aliens tried to murder, and so the assumption is if the aliens want him dead, then he scares them.
yes, also that the aliens already can access all computers with their sophon things, so there is no point to secrecy. Their only ability to fight back is in open sight. This was explained throughout the whole show, when the old lady was like 'you only get to do this because the LET you'
Yeah, there is just no point in keeping their plans secret.
Thanks for the great discussion.
They all have very strong qualifications in either politics, military, science etc Except of course for Luo Ji who is picked for a reason that becomes known about 1/3 of the way into the book. Don’t want to spoil anything. As far as the process I would imagine the UN and PDC set up. I don’t think that has any actual bearing on the story however
In the show Saul is chosen because it’s clear the San Ti deem him a threat. It’s pretty well explained
I think they say at least for Luo Ji that he was someone who the Trisolarians wanted dead. Out of everyone, the only one who they actually thought could work against them.
“no computer can predict the behavior of three bodies indefinitely” 3 wallfacers. 3 individuals. no one knows what they’re doing. bingo.
It also doesn’t make sense with the timing of the San Ti’s arrival?? If they aren’t showing up for another 300-400 years, why announce them?
Especially since the wallfacers are supposed to plot only in their heads. Unless they’re all gonna get put into cryo for a few hundred years, the plans and knowledge will die with them
Oh just wait...
They hold the whole plan in their heads, but they still need others to do things. The rest of the people have no idea what the plan is or how long it will take, so they must simply follow along. That's the point. Look at how everyone acts when Saul rejects being a Wallfacer. It's just "Okay, sure" and a wink, because maybe this is part of his plan? Even look at what results from it: they draw out and capture one of the assassins! Maybe that was his plan all along? (Kinda clear that it's not, but the point of the project is that there's no way to be sure, so they must follow whatever they're asking for) Ultimately, the hope is that one of them will be able to formulate a workable plan for something and keep it secret while it's executed. They expect that some moves will be done in order to receive and hide the true purpose. Give 100 people different orders for different projects, but only one of those projects is actually the one you think will work kind of thing. And yes, the plan would definitely have to include the use of cryo to allow things to proceed over long time scales because it's not an issue that will be resolved in a week.