Stable Era

Stable Era is a term from Three Body, the virtual reality game at the heart of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem. In the world the game depicts, a Stable Era is a stretch of regular sunrises and sunsets, mild weather, and a dependable day-night cycle, the only conditions under which the game's civilizations can plant crops, build cities, and grow. Every other period belongs to the Chaotic Eras, when the sun obeys no pattern and extremes of heat and cold destroy whatever has been built. A Stable Era may last a day or a century, and its arrival is heralded in the game by the appearance of two flying stars in the sky. Because no one in that world can predict how long stability lasts, every mass revival from dehydration is a gamble, and working out the pattern behind the eras is the game's central challenge.