I love the Three Body Problem book series by Liu Cixin.

Without giving too much away, at a certain point in the series the Trisolarans send a probe out to the human fleet. It looks something like a metallic Prince Rupert’s Drop. A shiny teardrop with no moving parts. A piece of alien art? A gesture of friendship?

At first glance, it’s nothing special.

But then we study it. At 100x magnification, the surface remains completely smooth.

At 1,000x magnification, the surface remains completely smooth.

At 1,000,000x magnification, the surface remains perfectly smooth down to the atomic level.

And so, in an instant, we go from hopeful to terrified.

Why?

This beautiful object is now the smoothest thing in our entire solar system. We recognize that it’s far smoother than our technology could ever dream of creating.

We can see, from a simple, immobile object, that the alien race is far more technologically advanced than us—that we are completely outclassed.

The ultimate flex.

It doesn’t always take struggle and complexity to show superiority. Sometimes the simplest thing, done remarkably well, can speak volumes.