Character from dark-forest by
PLA Navy political commissar turned Space Force officer — a perfect performance of orthodox confidence concealing the most lucid defeatist in the fleet.
Zhang Beihai is the most disciplined character in the book. He has decided, alone, that humanity will lose the Doomsday Battle, and he has further decided to act on that conclusion without telling anyone — including his father, including the Party. His public face is impeccable: the morale officer who insists on victory. His private project is to acquire a starship and flee to seed the species. He kills strategic colleagues with bullets so old they cannot be traced. When the droplet appears at Jupiter he is already aboard Natural Selection, ready to do what nobody has authorized him to do.
A tall, ramrod-straight Chinese man, jet hair, severe jawline, the immaculate uniform of a senior commissar. Eyes that meet other officers' gazes a half-second too long. After hibernation he wears the new Solar Fleet uniform with the same exact correctness.
Also known as: 章北海