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Flyin’ like an airplane, feelin’ like a space brain. It’s terminal cancer patient Will Downing’s time to shine in Episode 7 of 3 Body Problem, because his unique skill set – willing temperament, Oxford-trained smarts, eroding physical form – makes him the perfect candidate for Thomas Wade’s Staircase Project. At one percent light speed, the probe designed by Jin and her team will reach the San-Ti fleet in 200 years. Obviously a journey much too long for any human being. But what about just part of a human being? The part with all of the neurons firing. The essence of each of us. How much does the scientific expression of a human soul weigh? How the San-Ti will react to the probe is a known unknown. But if and when the aliens discover Will’s space brain, packed into a cryo tube, bolted to a nanosail, and hurtling toward them at seven million miles per hour, he figures whatever they decide to do to him is a better prospect that the alternative, which is just plain regular old dead.
“Not dead, not alive…somewhere in between.” That’s how the doctor who developed this stasis technology describes the state it renders the subject, which he demonstrates with a chimpanzee who’s been under for over a month. As Wade, Jin, and the team watch, Kolya the chimp emerges from the chamber, accurately performs a few cognitive tests, and proceeds to vomit banana goo. Success! In fact, Wade thinks the tech is so effective – just get your cells flushed out with an antifreeze cryoprotectant so they slow down a thousand percent, no big deal – he wants to use it himself. He could stay alive for hundreds of years, waking up for a week here and there to delegate and regulate, keep the attack plan against the San-Ti on track. In a post-sophon world, where the threat to humanity is four centuries away but still imminent, sending supercooled heads into space or freezing yourself to fight another day is just part of the program. “The future is not as far as it used to be,” Wade tells Jin. “Not for us.”
Wade has a catchy name for this new, more focused, and even more weaponized form of scientific research and development: Only Advance. And the cagey intelligence chief is actually full of fun new terms. “Have you ever heard of the term ‘Wallfacer’?” he asks an unknown man over the phone. With their sophons, the San-Ti see and hear everything. But even with that impossibly advanced quantum technology, they can’t see inside the human mind. Our thoughts, which power our ability to plan, make decisions, even to lie, remain pure from alien meddling. So if somebody was to design a strategy to take the San-Ti down, if that somebody kept the plan hidden inside their head, no one would be able to fight it, right? Their intentions would not be known. Like guessing someone’s expression while they’re facing a wall.
For Auggie, science and technology advancing by leaps and bounds as fortifications against humanity’s destruction does not paper over who gets left behind. While she agreed to help Jin with the Staircase Project, she can’t in good conscience continue to do so, and instead makes a turn toward scientific egalitarianism. “Some days I think the people getting fucked over will always get fucked over. None of them will get to sail away.” Auggie departs Wychwood Manor and Staircase, says a final goodbye to Will at the hospital, and sets a meeting with Denys Porlock (Adrian Edmondson). Last time we saw the wealthy investor, he was threatening to mess with Auggie’s visa status if she didn’t turn the nanofiber project back on. This time around, she just makes it so all of their proprietary research, the software, every single equipment spec is uploaded to Wikileaks. The nanofiber shouldn’t belong to her as its inventor, nor to one percenters like Porlock, who will just get more rich exploiting it. Innovative technology like that should make the real world stronger. It should belong to everybody.
Instead of Jin, it was better that Will called Saul. He made his peace with his feelings for her when she pitched him on becoming the space brain; she didn’t need to be with him at the very end. So it’s Saul who runs through San-Ti scenarios as Will completes the five commands on a tablet that will authorize his medically-assisted death. What if they lock up his mind, so he’s unable to see and touch and feel? Forever? What if they return his physical body only to torture him to death? Will says all of that is still better than the alternative, which is a simple flatline. And he admires the notion of flying across the universe for the sake of science, the saving of humanity, and helping out his friend and unrequited crush in the meantime. He even references Porno for Pyros’ “Pets.” And before Jin can arrive to protest his decision, it is done. She cries in the observation room as Will’s head is inserted in its cryo tube and prepared for its Staircase space brain takeoff.
Remember the mystery woman, Tatiana? When the San-Ti make contact through the television in her caravan, they make it clear that they aren’t done with her yet. Sure, they let Mike Evans and his entire shipborne colony be eviscerated by weaponized nanofiber. But they’ve still got a job for Jack’s murderer, their still-eager sympathizer. When Ye Wenjie returned to the ruins of Red Coast Base in China, it seemed to be for some final reckoning with the decisions she made there before she ended her life. (3 Body Problem Episode 2, “Red Coast.”) Instead, Tatiana appears beneath the remains of the satellite dish, and the two share a tender embrace as they look out on the vast expanse of Inner Mongolia. Was this the final move Ye mentioned at the end of 3 Body Problem Episode 6? Or is it her contrived joke about Einstein playing his violin with God in heaven? Saul didn’t know what to make of the joke when she told it, after they visited Vera’s grave. But the punchline – “Never play with God” – feels like it might find a way to resonate in a world where science is in a prizefight with the inevitable.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
