In the Trisolaran headquarters, four light years away, Tri-General Miao receives first reports from the Earth taskforce.
– General, this is tri-colonel Bao. The first sophon has reached the Earth. We are ready to begin the program of interference with their research activities. We will use the sophon to drive their top scientists crazy and prevent them from making the discoveries they are working on.
– General, I am tri-lieutenant Zuo. Perhaps, first you would like to hear the report about what they are working on there on Earth?
– Hmm… Hmm… Sure that sounds interesting. How close are they to the breakthroughs that will endanger our superiority?
– Okay. So there is a group of their elite minds, who are busy with the problem of achieving conducting materials without any heating loss, in their ambient condition. They call this ‘room-temperature super-conductivity’.
(A lot of raised ocular framing organs around the room)
– That’s right. They are thinking this would somehow solve their energy woes. But from the looks of it most of what they do is just scream at each other.
– Lieutenant, this must be an anomaly, tell us what other research they have going!
– Certainly, Sir. For example, they are obsessed with finding something they call ‘non-abelian Anyons’, for which they would need to pack in one or two dimensions, not expand into 11 dimensions, and they need to reach very low, completely useless energies. They do it just because they wrote down mathematical equations that tell them this should be possible.
(Telepathic chuckling is transmitted throughout the room)
– Most bizarre! And for what possible benefit might they be looking for these ‘anyons’?
– Oh, this is the craziest part. Quite a lot of them are busy with building what they call a ‘quantum computer’. They think that by using entanglement between particles they will solve computational problems a lot faster!
– HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA AHHHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHA HAH H AHHAHAHA HAH AH AH AH AH AHHAAHHAHAH wait wait WHAT? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHH AHHHAHAHH HHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAAHA
– HAHAHAHAHAHHAAH hold on – a quantum computer? HAHAHAHA I just can’t HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHHHAAAAAA
– Now, wait let me catch my breath. Okay, now seriously. Are they at least sharing data with each other so that they could understand that none of this will ever work?
– No Sir, they are not.
– Okay, tri-colonel – abort the sophon interference program.
– Yes Sir! Why did we even send the damn thing there? I am sorry for wasted resources. What should be my punishment?
– Well, in principle you deserve to die. But I have an even worse idea for you: you will create a “science journal”, and you will write down and publish all of their silly projects.
– Sir?…
– Yes?
– They already have that on Earth!
spin and coffee 