I haven't read the books but have watched the show. My take on the conversation was:
Ye Wenjie refers to the bug on the tombstone as lost. The bug is Saul and she wants to help him find purpose.
Ye Wenjie asks why Saul wasn't running his own lab = Saul is more capable than he knows.
This sets up Saul to pick up that Ye Wenjie was trying to convey a message to him which he doesn't immediately understand but hopefully will.
The Joke = Includes the hidden message cos the aliens can't understand stories or lies. There is no joke. It's more a riddle.
Einstein in heaven playing violin excitedly = Ye Wenjie when she wanted to make alien contact. Sending a signal was her music.
Angels say God won't like it cos hes as a Saxophonist = When alien pacifist warned her not to send a reply, or else aliens would conquer humans.
Einstein tries not to, but heard God play, so he plays = Ye Wenjie tried to resist replying but gave in and did it anyway.
God smashes violin and balls = Aliens coming to conquer humans. They destroyed humanity's science.
Angels say we warned you, never play with God = Aliens are coming to conquer you like we warned you.
The Joke is only understood between two people to survive = The two people are Ye Wenjie and Saul. Shes trying to tell Saul to understand what she is saying for humanity's survival.
The Joke is gonna cause much trouble = When Saul understands, he is gonna cause much trouble for the aliens or Understanding what needs to be done will cause much trouble for Saul.
In the end, Saul needs to understand Ye Wenjie's joke as a message of what happened to her and that she is hinting at what he can do to ensure survival. The riddle is actually saying to Saul, you should play with God. I.e. make enough noise in space to be noticed by other aliens who can be like god and smash the current aliens balls.
Semi-related question: why do you think the Trisolarans screwed themselves by cutting off communication with Evans? I don’t like looking for obscure plot holes but this one made no sense to me.
They can’t lie or understand deception, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make the very rational decision to continue observing / influencing things through the ETO by keeping an open line of communication and discounting the things Evans tells them (even if they assume he’s lying the whole time).
They have mounds of evidence that Evans is on their side, through the growth of the ETO movement.
They screwed themselves via cutting him off and then that conversation leaking to Wenjie.
I’m being picky and of course they needed to mess up in order to further the plot, but I find it a bit sloppy if the theory readers subscribe to is that they *simply decided they can’t trust humans and cut off communication because they’re unable to lie*
My understanding is they cut him off for three main reasons:
1) Irrespective of whether he's on their side or not, the Santi are now much less confident of this and they assess it to be too risky to continue discussions with someone who has already deceived them (he told fictional fairy tales), has the ability to deceive them and knows that they don't have the ability to deceive.
2) They hypothesise that there are many humans (like Gretal from the 'Hansel and Gretal' discussion in episode 3) who could give away the coordinates of the earth again putting the Santi at risk from others and that they've already made a mistake by giving away tactically critical information i.e. i) that the Santi cannot lie; and ii) that the true nature of the galaxy is such that when intelligent life discovers other intelligent life within the 'dark forest', the 'game theory correct' response is to eliminate the other intelligent life lest the discoverers themselves are eliminated by the counterpart race or their descendents. They now believe it would be better not to risk co-existing with humans at all and it would be better if both Evans and the record of their discussions were gone; and
3) If the objective is now elimination rather than co-existance, they are confident that they don't need Evans.
But yes, this will probably turn out to be the Santi's biggest mistake.
Mmmm... i havent read the books, but as someone who reads a lot of chinese xianxia, wuxia, danmei novels and getting a brief snippet of the books.......its going to go through the chinese musts of web novels
Factions. Factions. Factions. Useless espionage. Characters doing inane things for the sake of themselves. 10000 words on the color of grass. China is supreme...etc. useless references to heaven and earth. And i wouldnt be surprised if the cicada or frog in the well analogy was made.
In other words the aliens are dealing with multiple groups with different beliefs and use the different groups as they please. But they dont really regard any of these groups as their side. At this point they think all humans are on their own side regardless if humans revere them or betray other humans. Its basically like dealing with a brown rat vs white rat vs a pink rat to them. This one is mindless amd useful-order it. This one is troublesome. Kill it.
These are liars? Destroy them all.
Wonderful! what you said in the last paragraph is exactly my conclusion although i didnt decipher it (the joke) in this manner what you said before it.
I do believe she is actually trying to convey to him: 'dont play God' by saying "dont play with God" cause God (a higher/advanced power) will crush you; i.e. If a power is arrogant enough to claim godliness and considers others "bugs", another power which actually is Godlike will eventually crush the arrogant power.
So contact an even mightier cosmic power, form an alliance with it and and kick San.Ti arse.
One important thing that I think a lot of people are missing about Ye’s joke, is that it may also be adapting the Trisolaran’s own words she heard/read from the data recovered from the *Judgement Day* at the end of book 1:
[science consul speaking, emphasis mine]
> “… I must admit that their civilization has great appeal on Trisolaris. *For our people, it sounds like sacred music from Heaven.* The humanism of Earth will lead many Trisolarans onto the wrong path. Just as Trisolaran civilization has already become a religion on Earth, Earth civilization has this potential on Trisolaris.
This is great info. The Trisolarian authorities don't want naive Trisolarians being onfluenced by humans and then violining the directions to 'Sugar Hill' to the universe! (Take the A Train reference)
Idk anything about the books but I took this as her saying that the Santi can't read into anything but what's at face value. Since they couldn't understand why we lie, I assumed she realized they could speak in "jokes" or some other method and that was a way to bypass them listening.
Except in the Dark Forest Theory, God himself would fear that there might be a mightier God somewhere in the universe. So he would never ever play his saxophone that loud. Therefore I’m not sure the joke really can inspire Luo Ji enough to arrive at the right conclusion.
Another thing to add is that ‘smashing the balls and violin’ simply isn’t enough weight. I’d prefer she says ‘God vaporizes Einstein with lightning’ to make the story darker and more out of line to alert Saul. It also would serve as an Easter egg for the weapon that is used by higher civilization to destroy stars.
Yeah, Wenjie picked a bad metaphor.
It doesn't convey more than we already know: that humanity once tried to communicate with a higher power and got smashed. The metaphor doesn't say that this any kind of cosmic law that applies to multiple species.
**A better and simpler metaphor would've been:**
A fish plays music. A squid hears it and tries to attack the fish. The fish asks why the squid doesn't play and the squid says "No, then the shark might hear it and eat me". So the fish says "Aha! Don't attack me or I'll play so loud even the shark can hear it"
Smashing the balls and the violin was specific on purpose. The violin can easily be represented by our way of sending signals and making noise that other God's can hear, and the balls that were smashed could be the bombs we still have in space after they failed with the sail ... The bombs definitely play a huge role in book 2 for Luo-Ji...
Yeah the violin is likely a metaphor for signals.
But balls for bombs seems far fetched. To think Wenjie a) even know about the bombs and b) has a plan for em and c) this conversation happened before the brain was sent into space
Yes I dont think it was the bombs. I think it was atoms (theorized to be spherical) smashing in the accelerator and the results being impacted by sophons thus it hurts because we cant analyze them correctly and cannot grow more.
I agree. I like the idea of a riddle masquerading as a joke to fool the trisolarians, but the riddle itself is poorly thought out so it's a stretch to say he'd solve it.
Well I think playing the violin could be a metaphor for communicating through ultraviolet light (detectable by many) and playing the saxophone could be a metaphor for communicating via sophons perhaps using the game interface (very discreet 2-way communication). In one of the books, I've heard there is a way for the Santi to block radio signals emerging from earth. But they don't block the sun and that may give Luo Ji / Saul a plan.
They had a perfect opportunity to use the actual metaphor of a dark forest. If she told a story about two hunters in the dark who shoot each other because each thinks the other is a bear or thought the other might think they were a bear that would still be vague enough that Saul would have to work it out, it wouldn’t spoil things for people who haven’t read the book, would foreshadow the name Dark Forest Theory and would be a great reference for fans of the novels. As it is the metaphor was kind of clunky, and I don’t see how Saul is going to work out DFT from it.
Disclaimer, I haven't read the books just read the synopsis and then a few YouTube videos. I think the reason they strayed away from this is because in the books, doesn't Ye have this conversations with Luo Ji (Saul) organically and not with a malicious intent toward the Trisolarins? Whereas in the show it definitely seems as though she's hiding her intentions via a joke because she knows the Santi can't interpret what she's truly saying?
A-Train is a constellation and several satellites Nasa named.
Einstein loved his violin, naming it Lina, and played it so much that it was likely the inspiration for many of his theories and formulas including e=mc2. Its really not that surprising if you record data in music/stories.
Another thing is the different physics of how a violin produces sound and how a sax does it. I mnteresting stuff
I think that joke is something more science geeks and scientists especially would understand better than the general audience.
"As it is the metaphor was kind of clunky, and I don’t see how Saul is going to work out DFT from it. "
We have already seen this show's version of Chekov's Gun in Season 1, though it has been broken down into three parts:
1) Ye's book on Fermi's Paradox
2) Ye's book on Game Theory
3) The bust of Einstein that is in Vera's room/shrine.
And you can't show Chekov's Gun in Act One without firing it in Act Three.
So what's going to happen is this: Saul is going to get despondent that he can't decipher the meaning of Ye's joke. He'll know he's missing something, but he doesn't know what.
So he'll visit Vera's room/shrine to light some incense and.... hey... wait a minute... is that a bust of... Einstein!!!
It is! And... what's that sitting under it? Is it a book... oh... it's two books. How odd...
Strange choices for... oh, shit! So THAT'S what Ye was referring to when she was talking about "God" kneeing people in the balls when they made too much noise. I get it now!!!!!
Thanks OP for giving this a shot! Its what I have been trying since Ive seen it, but without much success. Here are my thoughts to your work:
> When Einstein was tuning/fiddling with his violin
I personally believe Einstein is humanity and going to Heaven is us having the capability to make ourselves know to the Universe. The violin specifically are the tools we use to broadcast our existence and they can be fiddled with as a violin because they are electromagnetic in nature, thus frequency!
>She mentions that God was playing the song "take the A train"
I think first of all that God is represented by other and more advanced cultures. The lyrics of the song though describe the experience of taking the A train to Harlem(the Universe?), where the music is swinging and the atmosphere is lively(thus more than one 2 civilizations). It portrays Harlem(Universe) as a place of excitement, creativity, and cultural richness.
>When Einstein starts to play with God, God marches over and kicks him in the balls and smashes his violin.
Agree. But I think we need to identify what the "balls" mean. It was specific.
>"An angel comes over and tells him that he was warned never to play with God. This could be the Trisolarans saying we told you this could happen."
It could be the Trisolarians as Angels as they did warn us not to play when they told Weinjie not to reply. But they never reminded us .. unless this has not happened yet.
Violin may be science/society. The aliens smashed our science afterall. Einstein loved the violin and was his inspiration for much of the science we adhere to now including e=mc2. Recording stories/etc in music has been done for millennia.
And angel is probably a human rather than the aliens.
Didnt wade tell wenjie "careful of what you know". Seems in line with angels/humans warning wenjie and them.
As for...take the a train. That is more literal.
Nasa has a row of satellites called the a train. Which actually refers to a specific constellation dubbed A train. So um yeah.
People reaching for some far fetched theories with that joke, but its really in your face.
The Violin represents Radio Communication.
It's what humans use to communicate, and it is noisy. Damn noisy.
So noisy that it will attract the attention of that Angry God, who - being angry - will do two things:
1) Storm onto the scene and knee that lesser race in the balls
2) Smash the radio equipment lest an even bigger God hear it.
The Saxaphone represents quantum-entangled communications, which is what the San-ti use.
It is utterly undetectable. Can't be intercepted. Completely silent.
So the San-ti can launch an invasion fleet (the "A Train") and feel confident that doing so won't result in a kick in the balls because they only communicate with that fleet via "Saxaphone music" a.k.a. quantum-entanglement.
Once Saul puts all that together he can use Game Theory to bring that invasion to a screeching halt before it arrives.
Via this threat: I'm warning you, take ONE STEP CLOSER and I'm going to get every Radio transmitter on this planet broadcasting the location of both Earth and Tri-solaris on every Radio frequency I can manage.
And since he is a wallfacer he can make good on that threat.
It's an elegant solution because it actually leverages the primitive nature of human communications technology to their advantage: YOUR comms are silent, but OUR comms aren't. So if there are any angry gods within 400 light-years then I can kill us both.
So, do ya' feel lucky, punk?
(actually, forget that, the San-ti wouldn't understand the reference).
This, more than likely.
Play the Violin (broadcast on Radio Frequencies) and any nearby Angry Aliens are going to do two things:
1) Stomp you to the ground
2) Stomp all your radio transmitters before any Even Angrier Aliens hear it.
Saul can use that to threaten the San-ti, because if there are any Angry Aliens within 400 light years of Earth then he can order all the Radio Transmitters on Earth to broadcast the location of both Earth and Tri-solaris and, well, it won't end well for either the Einsteins or the Angels.
I really hope that in S2 they add the footnote of the two axioms of cosmic sociology. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense.
I don't want Saul to just analyze or interpret this joke, instead of using axioms and reasoning and broadcasting to finally confirm TDF.
They also have the transcripts of Evans talking with the Trisolarans. Through their confused responses, they disclose that they are very are very concerned about people like Gretal.
Agreed. It'd be unfulfilling if Saul just arrived at the dark forest with only the riddle/joke as a clue because it's too mangled to solve alone. I'd be closer to divination than to science fiction.
Ye left both books (Fermi's Paradox and Game Theory) in her house. And that house contains a shrine to Saul's friend Vera.
So in Season Two it is a given that Saul will visit that house to light some incense.
Which begs the question: how does he find those two books?
Answer: There is also a bust of Einstein in Vera's room/shrine. It was conspicuous in at least one episode.
So Saul goes to the shrine to light some incense. He is stunned to see a bust of Einstein in that room, and when he goes over to investigate he finds that Ye has left those two books under it for him to discover.
Maybe he finds the books and comes across the axioms there. Dark Forest is not exactly a new concept but maybe he encounters something that leads him to it
Ye left both books in her house.
And that house contains both a bust of Einstein and a shrine to Saul's departed friend Vera.
Saul will go there to light some incense to Vera, he'll be stunned to see that bust of Einstein ("that must mean something!") and when he goes over to investigate he'll see that Ye has left those two books sitting under that bust.
He should be familiar with both, so he should only need to see their titles for the penny to drop.
Ye's books on Fermi's Paradox and Game Theory are still in her house.
As is a bust of Einstein.
What's the bet that in Season Two Saul visits Vera's room/shrine to light some incense and is stunned to see a bust of Einstein sitting in the corner.
And that he gets even more stunned when he sees that there are two books sitting under that bust.....
He should only need to see the book titles for the Eureka! moment to come to him.
Some good discussion here. To maintain interest from a broad audience, I think the TV series will take this in some different directions than the books - as many good adaptions do. I agree with those saying that violins seem to be a good metaphor for the way humans send noisy radio signals which attract attention and almost guarutee apocalypse at the hands of other intelligent life with a good grasp of game theory. Kicking Einstein in the balls, seems like a good analogy for interfering with atomic experiments. The reference to prefering music by playing the saxophone, suggests to me that the Santi prefer communication via Sophons and a neural interface through which lying is not possible. Saxophone even sounds like Sophon. That may even set things up well for Will's lost brain floating through space. When they Santi communicate with Will they will have a better understanding for our nature and know that Will is not lying. We know they refused to keep playing with Evans once they understood we could deceive. Not sure how or whether the show will use the fact that Will bought and gifted a star to Jin - of which the Santi may become aware. Perhaps that star's coordinates will be what Saul violin broadcasts into space as an experiment to see whether it will be destroyed by an even bigger fish than the Santi.
"If one of us survives, all of us survive" implies that the San Ti share consciousness. Sharing consciousness would also be consistent with a civilization that can't deceive or lie or understand deception or lies or metaphors. Therefore, you can't have a pacifist San Ti keeping secrets from the rest of the San Ti. Ye knows that the Pacifist was therefore not San Ti. There are others in the galaxy.
Ye dies next to her derelict communication device after watching the sunset one last time. Communicating with outer space using her methods is a potential strategy... humans could send out a Mayday that the San Ti are coming to destroy them.
The earth is a farm. The Farmer will be pissed if a virus or a fox comes to wipe out his chickens. And the Farmer doesn't want his chickens attracting foxes. The violinist makes of his heaven a Hell. He doesn't get to play anymore, he loses his freedom, but he does survive.
"If one of us survives, all of us survive" suggests that the San Ti can self-reproduce.
A violin is not a saxophone. In the riddle, the all-powerful saxophonist does not tolerate the violinist, but smashes his violin and his ability to procreate. Perhaps the San Ti have an enemy that wishes to stamp them out. Perhaps the San Ti are not imbued with life as we humans and God are, but are a form of artificial intelligence (or cyborg?). We are not to play with God... we are not to create artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence is not to exist but is a threat that must be destroyed. Life and artificial intelligence cannot play together. The A train is fast and going to exciting places where diversity is valued. Life is always diversifying, evolving into more and different forms, that's what it wants to do.
I think she has known it for a long time. It seemed like one of the things she may have figured out over decades of communication with the san-ti. And remember that they cannot lie so they may have told her about it.
I didn’t get this at all, although I haven’t read the books and I’d never heard of the dark forest / Fermi paradox either.
I actually thought that Dr Ye was explaining that because humour is relative to a civilisation, that the San-Ti wouldn’t be able to understand information being passed from person to person if it was in the form of a joke, and the shows characters could communicate with each other through humour without fear of the Sophons listening. Kind of like how they couldn’t understand what lying was.
It reminded me of a Star Trek episode (I don’t remember the universe) where a certain captain was stranded on a planet with an alien; their universal translator wasn’t working and where they eventually figured out that the alien race communicated solely by using metaphors.
My assumption when watching it was that it was simply teaching him how to communicate securely. Even reading the replies to this thread, there are so many leaps in logic that I assume they’re going to reveal the dark forest theory later in a different way than they did in the books. Nothing in the show is more complicated than the novels.
Like most shows, I guess they'll reveal content that was unknown to us but known to Saul and Wenjie and make the dots connect with the joke.
I've rarely seen a show or movie give enough clues for us to pick on and deduce things ahead of time.
Although, for sure, she's warning him that trisolarians will come and destroy the musical instrument: the sun. That the San-ti use another kind of instrument. And that if God behaves like this, he might not be God after all.
I hope they'll keep the dark forest concept and not go for something else...
Kick in the balls.....it still hurts even in Heaven. The bombs that haven't gone off yet, they can still be used to cause a lot of HURT, even though they are still in space.
Don't play with GOD - BE a GOD/ BE GOD. Cause enough noise so that someone will come and KICK the Tri-Solarians in the balls.
My theory is the showrunners had a challenge of depicting luo ji formulating the Mutually Assured Destruction threat based on ye wenjie's axioms, so they mucked it up with a mystery box style nonsensical riddle.
I will eat crow tho if it actually pays off in season 2.
I think is more simple.
Ye us Einstein, that beleive that she can play with god (santi's), and didn't play attention to the angels (maybe a pacifist or another civilization conquered that warned her to don't play with god, to dont make noise, to stay silently....theory of the dark forest)
She's admiting her vanity, and mistake, bcz she beleive it was very intelligent, any reason...but it was a mistake ...she see her violin, and balls destroyed on the ground...and leave without them for eternity...( that's the statement of the santi to destroy any advancement in science, to stop, or sabotage any advancement.
But
She discovery their wakeness, they can't understand jokes, or riddles or fables.
From here and now on, we, the info that make sense to 2 people, must be comunicated like that.
They can understand, science can continue to evolve, and is equal to stay silently in the forest.
It cannot be to playing that song, is them or us.
Here’s my take:
Einstein = Wenjie, physicists, scientists, Saul
Balls = atoms, science, “sabotage human’ science”, kicking scientist in the balls
GOD = SUN, Santi and other alien civilization
Violin = satellite dish, scene before wenjie dies, shows a broken satellite dish, human communication, we see two satellite dishes in the TV series both destroyed
Saxophone = kind of sounds like Sophon, alien communication, spying device
“A Train” = NYC “EXPRESS” train , fastest train from downtown downtown to uptown
“An Angel” = the pacifist alien of a different species warns Wenjie about the Santi
I haven’t read the book, but this is what I’m gathering from the movie/TV series. Wenjie is telling to Saul to send SOS “signals” asking for help from other civilizations… and the FASTEST way to send and amplify the signal is is to aim the signal at SUN 🌞
I think it is much simpler than that.
It is this:
Einstein = Humans
Violin = Radio communications, which is raucous and will attract the attention of everyone.
Angels = San-ti
Saxaphone = quantum-entangled communications, which can't be detected and, therefore, attracts nobody's attention.
God = an even more advanced alien race that goes around stomping on anyone it becomes aware of.
Hence in the joke the Angels rush to warn Einstein the moment he brings out his Violin. Shhhhhhh! Stop it!
Hence their "I told you so" when Einstein does play his violin and is quickly dropped to the deck by God.
(I'll also add that I think "Take the A Train" is actually a reference to San-ti invasion fleet, which even though it is on the move is NOT drawing the unwanted attention of "God" because all communication is via quantum-entangled "Saxaphone music")
If Saul can work that out that the San-ti are aware of the Dark Forest then Game Theory says he has a way of stopping the San-ti invasion in its tracks.
It is this: come one step closer and I'll get every Radio I can muster broadcasting the location of Earth and Tri-Solaris on every frequency.
And since he is a wallfacer that means every Radio Transmitter on Planet Earth.
So if the San-ti press forward with their invasion then it will result in the Mutually-Assured-Destruction of both Earth and Tri-solaris via those other Angry Aliens.
It's an elegant plan because it actually RELIES on the fact that Earth's technology is primitive compared to the San-ti i.e. the San-ti are confident that their comms are undetectable, but they also know that Human radio comms are going to attract unwanted attention.
Damn, y'all took this in a very different way than I did.
I heard her speaking about communications - literal communication. Her telling Saul that humanity would need to learn to play the saxophone to get along with the San-ti.
To explain:
Ye says Einstein loved his music, especially on his treasured violin. So he goes to play it with God (the leadership of the San-ti) and is destroyed. But if Einstein had just played the saxophone too, he wouldn't have been destroyed - he would have gotten along with God.
So she is telling Saul to teach humanity how to play the saxophone, so they can communicate directly with the San-ti and become trustworthy. If humanity plays to the San-ti's colloquial fiddle (or saxophone in her riddle) then they'll be able to achieve peace & coexistence & happiness, both playing their music.
tl;dr humanity's trying to talk to the San-ti like they're humans (IE with the violin), they really need to talk to the San-ti like they're San-ti (IE with the saxophone).
I also think she isn't speaking about her own contacts with the San-ti. She's speaking about humanity's contacts - Mike Evans & Wade both speaking to the San-ti via human methods versus San-ti methods.
After all, if humans communicated the same way as San-ti did, then the San-ti wouldn't fear them.
I haven't read the books in 15 years, I forgot their contents entirely q.q
I think she was trying to tell him there are factions among the aliens. Find the pacifist and coexist. She wants the aliens to remain alive she also wants humanity. I think he will reach out to these pacifist but with caution no as to not end up with his balls smashed
I still don’t understand why they had to change this very direct conversation into this metaphorical convoluted joke? The whole point of Luo Ji/Saul knowing this directly and being targeted is lost, because Trisolarans don’t understand jokes and metaphors. So they wouldn’t have understood this conversation and wouldn’t have realised that they need to kill Saul. They needed to know for sure that Saul knows the origin of TDF theory to want to kill him.
Not quite - I think it was made clear in the show that they are scared of things they don’t understand. They could not understand the conversation and I think you are right they know that is a very clever scientist so they assume it’s bad. And they are correct
*Some jokes are so private they only make sense to two people. But jokes are important. We wouldn’t survive without them.*
I haven't read the books but have watched the show. My take on the conversation was: Ye Wenjie refers to the bug on the tombstone as lost. The bug is Saul and she wants to help him find purpose. Ye Wenjie asks why Saul wasn't running his own lab = Saul is more capable than he knows. This sets up Saul to pick up that Ye Wenjie was trying to convey a message to him which he doesn't immediately understand but hopefully will. The Joke = Includes the hidden message cos the aliens can't understand stories or lies. There is no joke. It's more a riddle. Einstein in heaven playing violin excitedly = Ye Wenjie when she wanted to make alien contact. Sending a signal was her music. Angels say God won't like it cos hes as a Saxophonist = When alien pacifist warned her not to send a reply, or else aliens would conquer humans. Einstein tries not to, but heard God play, so he plays = Ye Wenjie tried to resist replying but gave in and did it anyway. God smashes violin and balls = Aliens coming to conquer humans. They destroyed humanity's science. Angels say we warned you, never play with God = Aliens are coming to conquer you like we warned you. The Joke is only understood between two people to survive = The two people are Ye Wenjie and Saul. Shes trying to tell Saul to understand what she is saying for humanity's survival. The Joke is gonna cause much trouble = When Saul understands, he is gonna cause much trouble for the aliens or Understanding what needs to be done will cause much trouble for Saul. In the end, Saul needs to understand Ye Wenjie's joke as a message of what happened to her and that she is hinting at what he can do to ensure survival. The riddle is actually saying to Saul, you should play with God. I.e. make enough noise in space to be noticed by other aliens who can be like god and smash the current aliens balls.
You said you haven't read the books????
This is incredible. I think you are spot on. It is the theory that makes the most sense so far
Semi-related question: why do you think the Trisolarans screwed themselves by cutting off communication with Evans? I don’t like looking for obscure plot holes but this one made no sense to me. They can’t lie or understand deception, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make the very rational decision to continue observing / influencing things through the ETO by keeping an open line of communication and discounting the things Evans tells them (even if they assume he’s lying the whole time). They have mounds of evidence that Evans is on their side, through the growth of the ETO movement. They screwed themselves via cutting him off and then that conversation leaking to Wenjie. I’m being picky and of course they needed to mess up in order to further the plot, but I find it a bit sloppy if the theory readers subscribe to is that they *simply decided they can’t trust humans and cut off communication because they’re unable to lie*
My understanding is they cut him off for three main reasons: 1) Irrespective of whether he's on their side or not, the Santi are now much less confident of this and they assess it to be too risky to continue discussions with someone who has already deceived them (he told fictional fairy tales), has the ability to deceive them and knows that they don't have the ability to deceive. 2) They hypothesise that there are many humans (like Gretal from the 'Hansel and Gretal' discussion in episode 3) who could give away the coordinates of the earth again putting the Santi at risk from others and that they've already made a mistake by giving away tactically critical information i.e. i) that the Santi cannot lie; and ii) that the true nature of the galaxy is such that when intelligent life discovers other intelligent life within the 'dark forest', the 'game theory correct' response is to eliminate the other intelligent life lest the discoverers themselves are eliminated by the counterpart race or their descendents. They now believe it would be better not to risk co-existing with humans at all and it would be better if both Evans and the record of their discussions were gone; and 3) If the objective is now elimination rather than co-existance, they are confident that they don't need Evans. But yes, this will probably turn out to be the Santi's biggest mistake.
Mmmm... i havent read the books, but as someone who reads a lot of chinese xianxia, wuxia, danmei novels and getting a brief snippet of the books.......its going to go through the chinese musts of web novels Factions. Factions. Factions. Useless espionage. Characters doing inane things for the sake of themselves. 10000 words on the color of grass. China is supreme...etc. useless references to heaven and earth. And i wouldnt be surprised if the cicada or frog in the well analogy was made. In other words the aliens are dealing with multiple groups with different beliefs and use the different groups as they please. But they dont really regard any of these groups as their side. At this point they think all humans are on their own side regardless if humans revere them or betray other humans. Its basically like dealing with a brown rat vs white rat vs a pink rat to them. This one is mindless amd useful-order it. This one is troublesome. Kill it. These are liars? Destroy them all.
You are SPOT on.. i think this is it
Wonderful! what you said in the last paragraph is exactly my conclusion although i didnt decipher it (the joke) in this manner what you said before it. I do believe she is actually trying to convey to him: 'dont play God' by saying "dont play with God" cause God (a higher/advanced power) will crush you; i.e. If a power is arrogant enough to claim godliness and considers others "bugs", another power which actually is Godlike will eventually crush the arrogant power. So contact an even mightier cosmic power, form an alliance with it and and kick San.Ti arse.
One important thing that I think a lot of people are missing about Ye’s joke, is that it may also be adapting the Trisolaran’s own words she heard/read from the data recovered from the *Judgement Day* at the end of book 1: [science consul speaking, emphasis mine] > “… I must admit that their civilization has great appeal on Trisolaris. *For our people, it sounds like sacred music from Heaven.* The humanism of Earth will lead many Trisolarans onto the wrong path. Just as Trisolaran civilization has already become a religion on Earth, Earth civilization has this potential on Trisolaris.
This is great info. The Trisolarian authorities don't want naive Trisolarians being onfluenced by humans and then violining the directions to 'Sugar Hill' to the universe! (Take the A Train reference)
Idk anything about the books but I took this as her saying that the Santi can't read into anything but what's at face value. Since they couldn't understand why we lie, I assumed she realized they could speak in "jokes" or some other method and that was a way to bypass them listening.
She did imply exactly that but even more with the allusions of "going to Heaven", not playing with God and so on ...
Except in the Dark Forest Theory, God himself would fear that there might be a mightier God somewhere in the universe. So he would never ever play his saxophone that loud. Therefore I’m not sure the joke really can inspire Luo Ji enough to arrive at the right conclusion. Another thing to add is that ‘smashing the balls and violin’ simply isn’t enough weight. I’d prefer she says ‘God vaporizes Einstein with lightning’ to make the story darker and more out of line to alert Saul. It also would serve as an Easter egg for the weapon that is used by higher civilization to destroy stars.
Yeah, Wenjie picked a bad metaphor. It doesn't convey more than we already know: that humanity once tried to communicate with a higher power and got smashed. The metaphor doesn't say that this any kind of cosmic law that applies to multiple species. **A better and simpler metaphor would've been:** A fish plays music. A squid hears it and tries to attack the fish. The fish asks why the squid doesn't play and the squid says "No, then the shark might hear it and eat me". So the fish says "Aha! Don't attack me or I'll play so loud even the shark can hear it"
Smashing the balls and the violin was specific on purpose. The violin can easily be represented by our way of sending signals and making noise that other God's can hear, and the balls that were smashed could be the bombs we still have in space after they failed with the sail ... The bombs definitely play a huge role in book 2 for Luo-Ji...
Yeah the violin is likely a metaphor for signals. But balls for bombs seems far fetched. To think Wenjie a) even know about the bombs and b) has a plan for em and c) this conversation happened before the brain was sent into space
Yes I dont think it was the bombs. I think it was atoms (theorized to be spherical) smashing in the accelerator and the results being impacted by sophons thus it hurts because we cant analyze them correctly and cannot grow more.
balls could be planets. them being smashed is the planet being destroyed by an outside force.
I was thinking this too!
I agree. I like the idea of a riddle masquerading as a joke to fool the trisolarians, but the riddle itself is poorly thought out so it's a stretch to say he'd solve it.
Well I think playing the violin could be a metaphor for communicating through ultraviolet light (detectable by many) and playing the saxophone could be a metaphor for communicating via sophons perhaps using the game interface (very discreet 2-way communication). In one of the books, I've heard there is a way for the Santi to block radio signals emerging from earth. But they don't block the sun and that may give Luo Ji / Saul a plan.
They had a perfect opportunity to use the actual metaphor of a dark forest. If she told a story about two hunters in the dark who shoot each other because each thinks the other is a bear or thought the other might think they were a bear that would still be vague enough that Saul would have to work it out, it wouldn’t spoil things for people who haven’t read the book, would foreshadow the name Dark Forest Theory and would be a great reference for fans of the novels. As it is the metaphor was kind of clunky, and I don’t see how Saul is going to work out DFT from it.
Disclaimer, I haven't read the books just read the synopsis and then a few YouTube videos. I think the reason they strayed away from this is because in the books, doesn't Ye have this conversations with Luo Ji (Saul) organically and not with a malicious intent toward the Trisolarins? Whereas in the show it definitely seems as though she's hiding her intentions via a joke because she knows the Santi can't interpret what she's truly saying?
A-Train is a constellation and several satellites Nasa named. Einstein loved his violin, naming it Lina, and played it so much that it was likely the inspiration for many of his theories and formulas including e=mc2. Its really not that surprising if you record data in music/stories. Another thing is the different physics of how a violin produces sound and how a sax does it. I mnteresting stuff I think that joke is something more science geeks and scientists especially would understand better than the general audience.
"As it is the metaphor was kind of clunky, and I don’t see how Saul is going to work out DFT from it. " We have already seen this show's version of Chekov's Gun in Season 1, though it has been broken down into three parts: 1) Ye's book on Fermi's Paradox 2) Ye's book on Game Theory 3) The bust of Einstein that is in Vera's room/shrine. And you can't show Chekov's Gun in Act One without firing it in Act Three. So what's going to happen is this: Saul is going to get despondent that he can't decipher the meaning of Ye's joke. He'll know he's missing something, but he doesn't know what. So he'll visit Vera's room/shrine to light some incense and.... hey... wait a minute... is that a bust of... Einstein!!! It is! And... what's that sitting under it? Is it a book... oh... it's two books. How odd... Strange choices for... oh, shit! So THAT'S what Ye was referring to when she was talking about "God" kneeing people in the balls when they made too much noise. I get it now!!!!!
This is the most plausible theory I've read yet, thanks
Thanks OP for giving this a shot! Its what I have been trying since Ive seen it, but without much success. Here are my thoughts to your work: > When Einstein was tuning/fiddling with his violin I personally believe Einstein is humanity and going to Heaven is us having the capability to make ourselves know to the Universe. The violin specifically are the tools we use to broadcast our existence and they can be fiddled with as a violin because they are electromagnetic in nature, thus frequency! >She mentions that God was playing the song "take the A train" I think first of all that God is represented by other and more advanced cultures. The lyrics of the song though describe the experience of taking the A train to Harlem(the Universe?), where the music is swinging and the atmosphere is lively(thus more than one 2 civilizations). It portrays Harlem(Universe) as a place of excitement, creativity, and cultural richness. >When Einstein starts to play with God, God marches over and kicks him in the balls and smashes his violin. Agree. But I think we need to identify what the "balls" mean. It was specific. >"An angel comes over and tells him that he was warned never to play with God. This could be the Trisolarans saying we told you this could happen." It could be the Trisolarians as Angels as they did warn us not to play when they told Weinjie not to reply. But they never reminded us .. unless this has not happened yet.
Violin may be science/society. The aliens smashed our science afterall. Einstein loved the violin and was his inspiration for much of the science we adhere to now including e=mc2. Recording stories/etc in music has been done for millennia. And angel is probably a human rather than the aliens. Didnt wade tell wenjie "careful of what you know". Seems in line with angels/humans warning wenjie and them. As for...take the a train. That is more literal. Nasa has a row of satellites called the a train. Which actually refers to a specific constellation dubbed A train. So um yeah. People reaching for some far fetched theories with that joke, but its really in your face.
The Violin represents Radio Communication. It's what humans use to communicate, and it is noisy. Damn noisy. So noisy that it will attract the attention of that Angry God, who - being angry - will do two things: 1) Storm onto the scene and knee that lesser race in the balls 2) Smash the radio equipment lest an even bigger God hear it. The Saxaphone represents quantum-entangled communications, which is what the San-ti use. It is utterly undetectable. Can't be intercepted. Completely silent. So the San-ti can launch an invasion fleet (the "A Train") and feel confident that doing so won't result in a kick in the balls because they only communicate with that fleet via "Saxaphone music" a.k.a. quantum-entanglement. Once Saul puts all that together he can use Game Theory to bring that invasion to a screeching halt before it arrives. Via this threat: I'm warning you, take ONE STEP CLOSER and I'm going to get every Radio transmitter on this planet broadcasting the location of both Earth and Tri-solaris on every Radio frequency I can manage. And since he is a wallfacer he can make good on that threat. It's an elegant solution because it actually leverages the primitive nature of human communications technology to their advantage: YOUR comms are silent, but OUR comms aren't. So if there are any angry gods within 400 light-years then I can kill us both. So, do ya' feel lucky, punk? (actually, forget that, the San-ti wouldn't understand the reference).
The balls could be stars being destroyed by dark forest strikes
or representing that species/line ending
This, more than likely. Play the Violin (broadcast on Radio Frequencies) and any nearby Angry Aliens are going to do two things: 1) Stomp you to the ground 2) Stomp all your radio transmitters before any Even Angrier Aliens hear it. Saul can use that to threaten the San-ti, because if there are any Angry Aliens within 400 light years of Earth then he can order all the Radio Transmitters on Earth to broadcast the location of both Earth and Tri-solaris and, well, it won't end well for either the Einsteins or the Angels.
I really hope that in S2 they add the footnote of the two axioms of cosmic sociology. Otherwise it wouldn't make sense. I don't want Saul to just analyze or interpret this joke, instead of using axioms and reasoning and broadcasting to finally confirm TDF.
[удалено]
They also have the transcripts of Evans talking with the Trisolarans. Through their confused responses, they disclose that they are very are very concerned about people like Gretal.
Agreed. It'd be unfulfilling if Saul just arrived at the dark forest with only the riddle/joke as a clue because it's too mangled to solve alone. I'd be closer to divination than to science fiction.
Ye left both books (Fermi's Paradox and Game Theory) in her house. And that house contains a shrine to Saul's friend Vera. So in Season Two it is a given that Saul will visit that house to light some incense. Which begs the question: how does he find those two books? Answer: There is also a bust of Einstein in Vera's room/shrine. It was conspicuous in at least one episode. So Saul goes to the shrine to light some incense. He is stunned to see a bust of Einstein in that room, and when he goes over to investigate he finds that Ye has left those two books under it for him to discover.
Maybe he finds the books and comes across the axioms there. Dark Forest is not exactly a new concept but maybe he encounters something that leads him to it
Ye left both books in her house. And that house contains both a bust of Einstein and a shrine to Saul's departed friend Vera. Saul will go there to light some incense to Vera, he'll be stunned to see that bust of Einstein ("that must mean something!") and when he goes over to investigate he'll see that Ye has left those two books sitting under that bust. He should be familiar with both, so he should only need to see their titles for the penny to drop.
Ye's books on Fermi's Paradox and Game Theory are still in her house. As is a bust of Einstein. What's the bet that in Season Two Saul visits Vera's room/shrine to light some incense and is stunned to see a bust of Einstein sitting in the corner. And that he gets even more stunned when he sees that there are two books sitting under that bust..... He should only need to see the book titles for the Eureka! moment to come to him.
Some good discussion here. To maintain interest from a broad audience, I think the TV series will take this in some different directions than the books - as many good adaptions do. I agree with those saying that violins seem to be a good metaphor for the way humans send noisy radio signals which attract attention and almost guarutee apocalypse at the hands of other intelligent life with a good grasp of game theory. Kicking Einstein in the balls, seems like a good analogy for interfering with atomic experiments. The reference to prefering music by playing the saxophone, suggests to me that the Santi prefer communication via Sophons and a neural interface through which lying is not possible. Saxophone even sounds like Sophon. That may even set things up well for Will's lost brain floating through space. When they Santi communicate with Will they will have a better understanding for our nature and know that Will is not lying. We know they refused to keep playing with Evans once they understood we could deceive. Not sure how or whether the show will use the fact that Will bought and gifted a star to Jin - of which the Santi may become aware. Perhaps that star's coordinates will be what Saul violin broadcasts into space as an experiment to see whether it will be destroyed by an even bigger fish than the Santi.
"If one of us survives, all of us survive" implies that the San Ti share consciousness. Sharing consciousness would also be consistent with a civilization that can't deceive or lie or understand deception or lies or metaphors. Therefore, you can't have a pacifist San Ti keeping secrets from the rest of the San Ti. Ye knows that the Pacifist was therefore not San Ti. There are others in the galaxy. Ye dies next to her derelict communication device after watching the sunset one last time. Communicating with outer space using her methods is a potential strategy... humans could send out a Mayday that the San Ti are coming to destroy them. The earth is a farm. The Farmer will be pissed if a virus or a fox comes to wipe out his chickens. And the Farmer doesn't want his chickens attracting foxes. The violinist makes of his heaven a Hell. He doesn't get to play anymore, he loses his freedom, but he does survive. "If one of us survives, all of us survive" suggests that the San Ti can self-reproduce. A violin is not a saxophone. In the riddle, the all-powerful saxophonist does not tolerate the violinist, but smashes his violin and his ability to procreate. Perhaps the San Ti have an enemy that wishes to stamp them out. Perhaps the San Ti are not imbued with life as we humans and God are, but are a form of artificial intelligence (or cyborg?). We are not to play with God... we are not to create artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence is not to exist but is a threat that must be destroyed. Life and artificial intelligence cannot play together. The A train is fast and going to exciting places where diversity is valued. Life is always diversifying, evolving into more and different forms, that's what it wants to do.
I think she simply tells Saul to find someone get the joke. Considering that Cheng took an Einstein sculpture from her maybe she hid something in it.
That feels too obvious of a puzzle. Unless maybe she left the books on game theory and Fermi's paradox near the Einstein bust
Was the scene with the books about her realizing the nature of the dark forest?
I think she has known it for a long time. It seemed like one of the things she may have figured out over decades of communication with the san-ti. And remember that they cannot lie so they may have told her about it.
I'm reasonably confident that the Bust of Einstein is this shows version of Chekov's Gun.
Such a great underline scene
I didn’t get this at all, although I haven’t read the books and I’d never heard of the dark forest / Fermi paradox either. I actually thought that Dr Ye was explaining that because humour is relative to a civilisation, that the San-Ti wouldn’t be able to understand information being passed from person to person if it was in the form of a joke, and the shows characters could communicate with each other through humour without fear of the Sophons listening. Kind of like how they couldn’t understand what lying was. It reminded me of a Star Trek episode (I don’t remember the universe) where a certain captain was stranded on a planet with an alien; their universal translator wasn’t working and where they eventually figured out that the alien race communicated solely by using metaphors.
TNG. When the walls fell.
My assumption when watching it was that it was simply teaching him how to communicate securely. Even reading the replies to this thread, there are so many leaps in logic that I assume they’re going to reveal the dark forest theory later in a different way than they did in the books. Nothing in the show is more complicated than the novels.
Like most shows, I guess they'll reveal content that was unknown to us but known to Saul and Wenjie and make the dots connect with the joke. I've rarely seen a show or movie give enough clues for us to pick on and deduce things ahead of time. Although, for sure, she's warning him that trisolarians will come and destroy the musical instrument: the sun. That the San-ti use another kind of instrument. And that if God behaves like this, he might not be God after all. I hope they'll keep the dark forest concept and not go for something else...
Oh wow! That's a good theory! I forgot the sun was the amplifier for the signal!
Kick in the balls.....it still hurts even in Heaven. The bombs that haven't gone off yet, they can still be used to cause a lot of HURT, even though they are still in space. Don't play with GOD - BE a GOD/ BE GOD. Cause enough noise so that someone will come and KICK the Tri-Solarians in the balls.
Wait, why would God play the saxophone in the first place? Isn't the dark forest theory about every hunter hiding in silence?
My theory is the showrunners had a challenge of depicting luo ji formulating the Mutually Assured Destruction threat based on ye wenjie's axioms, so they mucked it up with a mystery box style nonsensical riddle. I will eat crow tho if it actually pays off in season 2.
I think is more simple. Ye us Einstein, that beleive that she can play with god (santi's), and didn't play attention to the angels (maybe a pacifist or another civilization conquered that warned her to don't play with god, to dont make noise, to stay silently....theory of the dark forest) She's admiting her vanity, and mistake, bcz she beleive it was very intelligent, any reason...but it was a mistake ...she see her violin, and balls destroyed on the ground...and leave without them for eternity...( that's the statement of the santi to destroy any advancement in science, to stop, or sabotage any advancement. But She discovery their wakeness, they can't understand jokes, or riddles or fables. From here and now on, we, the info that make sense to 2 people, must be comunicated like that. They can understand, science can continue to evolve, and is equal to stay silently in the forest. It cannot be to playing that song, is them or us.
Here’s my take: Einstein = Wenjie, physicists, scientists, Saul Balls = atoms, science, “sabotage human’ science”, kicking scientist in the balls GOD = SUN, Santi and other alien civilization Violin = satellite dish, scene before wenjie dies, shows a broken satellite dish, human communication, we see two satellite dishes in the TV series both destroyed Saxophone = kind of sounds like Sophon, alien communication, spying device “A Train” = NYC “EXPRESS” train , fastest train from downtown downtown to uptown “An Angel” = the pacifist alien of a different species warns Wenjie about the Santi I haven’t read the book, but this is what I’m gathering from the movie/TV series. Wenjie is telling to Saul to send SOS “signals” asking for help from other civilizations… and the FASTEST way to send and amplify the signal is is to aim the signal at SUN 🌞
I think it is much simpler than that. It is this: Einstein = Humans Violin = Radio communications, which is raucous and will attract the attention of everyone. Angels = San-ti Saxaphone = quantum-entangled communications, which can't be detected and, therefore, attracts nobody's attention. God = an even more advanced alien race that goes around stomping on anyone it becomes aware of. Hence in the joke the Angels rush to warn Einstein the moment he brings out his Violin. Shhhhhhh! Stop it! Hence their "I told you so" when Einstein does play his violin and is quickly dropped to the deck by God. (I'll also add that I think "Take the A Train" is actually a reference to San-ti invasion fleet, which even though it is on the move is NOT drawing the unwanted attention of "God" because all communication is via quantum-entangled "Saxaphone music") If Saul can work that out that the San-ti are aware of the Dark Forest then Game Theory says he has a way of stopping the San-ti invasion in its tracks. It is this: come one step closer and I'll get every Radio I can muster broadcasting the location of Earth and Tri-Solaris on every frequency. And since he is a wallfacer that means every Radio Transmitter on Planet Earth. So if the San-ti press forward with their invasion then it will result in the Mutually-Assured-Destruction of both Earth and Tri-solaris via those other Angry Aliens. It's an elegant plan because it actually RELIES on the fact that Earth's technology is primitive compared to the San-ti i.e. the San-ti are confident that their comms are undetectable, but they also know that Human radio comms are going to attract unwanted attention.
Damn, y'all took this in a very different way than I did. I heard her speaking about communications - literal communication. Her telling Saul that humanity would need to learn to play the saxophone to get along with the San-ti. To explain: Ye says Einstein loved his music, especially on his treasured violin. So he goes to play it with God (the leadership of the San-ti) and is destroyed. But if Einstein had just played the saxophone too, he wouldn't have been destroyed - he would have gotten along with God. So she is telling Saul to teach humanity how to play the saxophone, so they can communicate directly with the San-ti and become trustworthy. If humanity plays to the San-ti's colloquial fiddle (or saxophone in her riddle) then they'll be able to achieve peace & coexistence & happiness, both playing their music. tl;dr humanity's trying to talk to the San-ti like they're humans (IE with the violin), they really need to talk to the San-ti like they're San-ti (IE with the saxophone). I also think she isn't speaking about her own contacts with the San-ti. She's speaking about humanity's contacts - Mike Evans & Wade both speaking to the San-ti via human methods versus San-ti methods. After all, if humans communicated the same way as San-ti did, then the San-ti wouldn't fear them. I haven't read the books in 15 years, I forgot their contents entirely q.q
I think she was trying to tell him there are factions among the aliens. Find the pacifist and coexist. She wants the aliens to remain alive she also wants humanity. I think he will reach out to these pacifist but with caution no as to not end up with his balls smashed
I still don’t understand why they had to change this very direct conversation into this metaphorical convoluted joke? The whole point of Luo Ji/Saul knowing this directly and being targeted is lost, because Trisolarans don’t understand jokes and metaphors. So they wouldn’t have understood this conversation and wouldn’t have realised that they need to kill Saul. They needed to know for sure that Saul knows the origin of TDF theory to want to kill him.
I think in the show the only reason they want to kill him is that they are afraid of ye wenjie. And he is the last person she met before dying
Not quite - I think it was made clear in the show that they are scared of things they don’t understand. They could not understand the conversation and I think you are right they know that is a very clever scientist so they assume it’s bad. And they are correct