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The Great Rip
The Earth-Trisolaris Organization (abbreviated as the ETO) is a group led by astrophysicist Ye Wenjie and founded by wealthy American Mike Evans. Members of the ETO believe that humanity is fundamentally broken and incapable of saving itself, and so the organization aims to prepare Earth for the impending Trisolaran invasion. However, the members of the ETO are far from unified in their goals and beliefs. Instead, the group has splintered into Adventists and Redemptionists (though, tellingly, leader Ye Wenjie does not identify with either faction). After flying under the radar for a long time, by the time the novel begins, all the world’s most powerful governments are targeting the ETO.
Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO) Quotes in The Three-Body Problem
The The Three-Body Problem quotes below are all either spoken by Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO) or refer to Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO). For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 21
Quotes
“I'm Raphael, from Israel. Three years ago, my fourteen-year-old son died in an accident. I had his kidney donated to a Palestinian girl suffering kidney failure as an expression of my hope that the two peoples could live together in peace. For this ideal, I was willing to give my life. Many, many Israelis and Palestinians sincerely strove toward the same goal by my side. But all this was useless. Our home remained trapped in the quagmire of cycles of vengeance. Eventually, I lost hope in the human race and joined the ETO. Desperation turned me from a pacifist into an extremist.”
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Chapter 27
Quotes
Now is truly the age of mass extinctions! So, my child, what you're seeing is nothing. This is only an insignificant episode in a much faster process. We can have no seabirds, but we can't be without oil. Can you imagine life without oil? Your last birthday, I gave you that lovely Ferrari and promised you that you could drive it after you turn 15. But without oil, it would be a pile of junk metal and you would never drive it. Right now, if you want to visit your grandfather, you can get there on my personal jet and cross the ocean in a dozen hours or so. But without oil, you'd have to tumble in a sailboat for more than a month…These are the rules of the game of civilization: the first priority is to guarantee the existence of the human race and their comfortable life. Everything else is secondary.
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Chapter 29
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The ETO had once tried to develop membership among the common people, but these efforts all failed. The ETO concluded that the common people did not seem to have the comprehensive and deep understanding of the highly educated about the dark side of humanity. More importantly, because their thoughts were not as deeply influenced by modern science and philosophy, they still felt an overwhelming, instinctual identification with their own species. To betray the human race as a whole was unimaginable for them. But intellectual elites were different: Most of them had already begun to consider issues from our perspective outside the human race. Human civilization had finally given birth to a strong force of alienation.
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Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO) Term Timeline in The Three-Body Problem
The timeline below shows where the term Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO) appears in The Three-Body Problem. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 20. Three Body: Expedition
...if you remain true to the promise you’ve made, please attend the meet-up of the Earth-Trisolaris Organization .” The message tells Wang that a follow-up address will be in his email.
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Chapter 21. Rebels of Earth
...incite a global rebellion, revealing themselves to the world, the commander of the Earth-Trisolaris Organization (ETO) walks in. Wang is shocked to realize that the commander is none other than Ye...
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...they can receive messages from the Trisolarans. Rather than sharing those messages with the entire ETO, however, the Adventists have kept that communication hidden; they have also communicated back to the...
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Chapter 24. Rebellion
Ye finishes her story as the members of the ETO look on with rapt attention. She then explains that the Trisolarans want Wang to stop...
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...group of soldiers and police officers—led by Shi Qiang—burst through the doors. Shi tells the ETO rebels that because they have decided to treat all humanity as their enemy, the police...
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Chapter 28. The Second Red Coast Base
...what he’d named the Earth-Trisolaris Organization. He asked Ye to be the commander of the ETO, and she accepted. The Earth-Trisolaris movement had officially begun.
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Chapter 29. The Earth-Trisolaris Movement
Most of the ETO was made up of intellectuals; while most people were hesitant to betray their families...
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The Three Body game was the main way in which the Redemptionist faction of the ETO spread knowledge of the Trisolarans to earth. Using recognizably human figures and important historical events,...
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Chapter 31. Operation Guzheng
...fight against the Trisolaran aliens—which, right now, means fighting against the human members of the ETO.
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Chapter 33. Trisolaris: Sophon
...a set of “omnipresent eyes.” As soon as Chang reaches this conclusion, Trisolaris communicates with non-ETO humans for the first time. Just for a moment, the same message flashes across everyone...
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