Wrapped up the first book after much struggle. Am I crazy for finding it extremely poorly written? Writing aside, the characters suck, the motivations suck, and the scenario building feels like it was tossed together by a 12 year old. I don’t get the hype. Everything is paper thin. The fictional science aspect is the most compelling part but as a cohesive whole it fails to land.
The premise of The Dark Forest is extremely explicitly not MAD though.
The point of the story is
spoiler
The wallfacers have to have a secret plan that they cant share because the sophons can intervene if it is known. The Sophons are so powerful because they can interfere with any technology, only the human mind is beyond their reach. So he creates a technology to do exactly what he tested out that would achieve mutually assured destruction and the sophons cant do anything about it because… reasons.
It was obvious the entire time what he was planning and the result of that plan was MAD. If you come to destroy us, we will both die. He couldnt say it outloud because the premise was he was a wallfacer and there is no good reason this particular plan would suceed.
Ah, I see what you mean, I thought you meant the Dark Forest theory itself.