| dc.description.abstract | As the trilogy that shows the encounter between humans and an extraterrestrial civilization, Remembrance of Earth’s Past is unique in how it depicts the encounter. Interestingly, the reader cannot see a direct meeting between a human and a Trisolaran. The war between both civilizations is a battle of nerves, and the main battlefield is the border between the two civilizations. In my thesis, I will mainly focus on the border between Earth civilization and the Trisolaris civilization; the border not only refers to the geographical frontier but a distinction between two different ideologies and ethics, and when humans confront the unknown and powerful extraterrestrial creatures in the universe, how do both humans and Trisolarans modify and submit themselves to the “megamachine,” which is a power complex that is combining the definite political and religious power and the operation of mechanics, making both believe that they will build a strong border to defend against the Trisolaris civilization or invade Earth. Nevertheless, the border built by the megamachine is risky and in danger; hence, both civilizations go to destruction.
Another crucial element I want to discuss is the social background in the third novel, Death’s End, and the relation between the border and the social background. I will use the concept of the first man and last man, which comes from Francis Fukuyama, and how the idea of the last man influences the protagonist in Death’s End, Cheng Xin. The last man society makes Cheng Xin a “saint” in the novel and how the Trisolaris civilization uses this “saint” image to be the weapon to try to conquer Earth. In the end, even if the Trisolaris and Earth civilizations are destroyed, and the border seems to disappear anymore, what the posthuman Cheng Xin confronts is another border built by the god-level advanced civilization (The Returners). She does not enter a disciplined and fantasized utopian-like border made by a god-level civilization, showing her final agency to make the border ambivalent, making a potential possible futurity that future human beings may control. | en_US |