3 Body Problem is the latest Netflix sci-fi sensation, coming right from the minds of David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, the pair who went from royalty to royally hated after the way they handled Game of Thrones. Now they’re back, with another IP to adapt.
3 Body Problem is an intriguing sci-fi mystery, full of interesting clues and plenty of issues to ponder but hey, let’s not waste any more of your time, let’s jump right into the crux of the matter.
Why is Auggie picked?
The countdowns in 3 Body Problem occur early on in the story, and they only affect the greatest scientific minds across the planet. This ominous countdown appears as wavy orange lines in the peripheral vision for various different characters, and after several deaths, the latest to reach the countdown is Auggie Salazar.
While the countdown continues to go down, Auggie ponders what it all means. She’s told to quit her work on nano fibers, which are on the verge of a huge scientific breakthrough. She’s one of the best in her field, which explains why she’s picked initially.
As one may expect, seeing a countdown timer all day every day for nearly a week is not exactly a great way of staying sane.
What happens at the end of the countdown?
The implication here is that at the end of the countdown, something awful would happen to that individual if they didn’t play ball and stop what they’re doing. For Auggie, it comes from shutting down her project and stopping the nano-work completely. She gets all the way down to 6 seconds before deciding she doesn’t want to find out what happens and complies. And just like that, the timer disappears.
As we learn later on in the story, the entire thing was a complete fabrication. It was a projection by the Sophon, the human sentient machine created by the San-Ti alien race watching over Earth and hindering scientific progress; it was their way of scaring and fooling humanity.
Why do the Sophons want to scare humanity?
Nanomaterials, particle colliders and other brilliant scientific breakthroughs are a threat to the San-Ti race, whom we learn midway through the series are en-route to Earth and will be here in 400 years time.
The Sophon can’t physically interject with humanity so instead, it uses tricks on the mind to frighten all those scientists into either quitting, or driving them mad so they killed themselves.
The Sophons really are just here to hinder humanity and stop us from advancing.
So what would have happened at zero?
Well… nothing, really. It’s not explicitly said within the series (or the book) but the idea is that this was simply a very effective tool to make people quit – and all of them did so.
Had the timer reached zero then there’s a possibility that the Sophons may have managed to alter reality for that individual and make them see horrific images for a while, but we’re reaching here. In reality, there’s not a whole lot they could have done to stop the experiments from continuing.
Read More: 3 Body Problem – Episode 1 Recap & Review
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