Character from three-body-problem by
A lonely Trisolaran officer manning Listening Post 1379 who, in 1979, intercepts Wenjie's signal — and chooses, against orders and against the survival of his own world, to send back a warning: Do not answer.
Listener 1379 has spent decades alone in his post listening to the cosmic background, believing his life is meaningless because no one ever transmits anything. Then a signal arrives — from a small blue planet four light-years away. The transmission contains the location of Earth and a self-translating language primer. He is supposed to flag it for Trisolaran command. He knows what command will do. He knows the fleet that will leave. He has read enough about the war-weary cycles of his own civilization to recognize that Earth is a place where life is allowed to live, and he does not want to take that. So he writes back instead, in human language he has just learned: Do not answer. Do not answer. Do not answer. He tells Wenjie that if she does not respond, no one on his world will know Earth is there. He signs his execution warrant with that message.
On Trisolaris, the Listener has no human form the novel describes — his physicality is alien, hidden behind the pictographs of his recorded thoughts. In the Three Body game his presence is rendered as a single illuminated workstation in an empty observation tower, and on the screen, three Mandarin words flashing: 不要回答. 不要回答. 不要回答.
Also known as: 1379, the Listener