Three years pass without any word from Mike Evans, and Ye Wenjie does not know whether he has truly been trying to verify her account of Trisolaris. She reflects on how immense interstellar distance makes any link between Earth and another world seem fragile and uncertain, even though the two star systems are relatively close on a cosmic scale.

One winter, Ye receives an invitation to serve as a visiting scholar at a minor university in Western Europe. After arriving at Heathrow for what seems to be an interview, Ye is met by a young man who immediately redirects her back to the airfield and escorts her onto a helicopter. As the helicopter flies out over England and then the Atlantic, Ye experiences a strong sense of déjà vu, recalling the helicopter ride that once brought her to Red Coast Base and changed her life.

After half an hour over the ocean, the helicopter descends onto a huge ship. Ye sees that the vessel, a converted sixty-thousand-ton oil tanker later identified as Judgment Day, carries a massive parabolic antenna that strongly resembles the equipment at Red Coast Base. Ye realizes that Evans has effectively built a new Red Coast Base at sea, likely both to optimize transmission and reception and to avoid detection.

On the deck beneath the antenna, about two thousand people are gathered. Evans greets Ye and tells her that, using the transmission frequency and coordinates she once provided, his group has received a message from Trisolaris and confirmed everything she told him. He then reveals the decisive news: the Trisolaran Fleet has already set out for the solar system and will arrive in four hundred and fifty years.

Evans introduces the crowd as the first members of the Earth-Trisolaris Organization. He explains that their goal is to welcome Trisolaran civilization so it can reform humanity, restrain human evil, and restore Earth to harmony. Because Ye made first contact possible, Evans asks her to become commander in chief of the Earth-Trisolaris Movement, and Ye accepts after a brief silence.

Evans then leads the assembled followers in a slogan: “Eliminate human tyranny!” The crowd responds, “The world belongs to Trisolaris!” With that collective declaration, the Earth-Trisolaris Movement is formally founded, turning Ye’s private act of contact into an organized global cause.