Sublime

“There were several key pieces of data here, sir. The star is a yellow G2 class with an absolute magnitude of 4.3 and a diameter of 1.2 million kilometers. Quite similar to our sun. The planet was about four percent of the mass of Earth, or a little smaller than Mercury, and the spiral cloud of material produced from the collision had a radius of u

“What is it?” asked the US representative, who, like the rest of the attendees, was inspecting the images carefully. “Wallfacer Luo Ji, according to the basic principles of the Wallfacer Project, you do not need to answer that question,” the chair said. “It’s a spell,” he said. The rustling and murmuring in the auditorium stopped abruptly. Everyone

“But will the Trisolarans preserve humanity’s cultural heritage? They have no regard for us at all.”

why on earth would we believe that a colonizing impulse would magically lead to universal prosperity this time around?

offering not just Earthly analogy but often a caution against hubris: we don’t even understand other intelligent species here.