It's like someone asked ChatGPT to turn the book into a dumb anglo sitcom.
-Every character is emotionally immature, spiteful, and sassy. None of the 'friends' act like friends. None of the characters talk like real people. They're constantly insulting or hitting each other. It's just embarrassing. The actors have nothing to work with.
-All the major twists/reveals are shown in the first two episodes. No suspense, no build-up, no pay-off. Rushed is an understatement.
-Single characters from the book have been unnecessarily split into multiple new characters adding nothing to the story.
-The story is a cosmic horror but comedy and romance have been forced in for no reason whatsoever except as filler, which is even more mind-boggling because they've essentially rushed all of the good stuff in the book to make room for unfunny jokes.
-Apparently they could barely afford any sets and extras, so scenes and locations that are supposed to be bristling with sights and people just feel oddly empty. Even the special effects feel muted. The budget is just weirdly limited, and the show looks much cheaper than the Tencent series.
-Almost all of the science (which is the interesting stuff) has been gutted from this science fiction.
I hate anglo slop. Where is the kino. Tencent pls adapt The Dark Forest.
Because nations aren't people, they're not monolithic, they're barely even real. Afaik the idea of ancient, durable enmity between nations rarely if ever happens unless they're constantly at war, and even then it breaks down as soon as people start talking to each other.
Warfare and international violence are games played by capitalists and kings. Normal people mostly don't identify the world that way, and the second they start to actually interact with each other the walls start breaking down. An excellent example would be the US invasion of Grenada. Afaik the very explicit danger Grenada represented to the US was an English speaking communism that could talk to Americans directly.
Defection and fraternization, basically learning, tolerance, and acceptance, have always been critical threats to imperial and colonial projects. The kind of blind hatred and ignorance required to keep up colonial and imperial relations usually has to be enforced by the state.