i must have missed some things...
1.) so they sent the guy's brain to the aliens to observe them, but even if the brain manages to gather useful information, how will it be returned to earth and in time?
2.) how did the aliens get the VR devices and the sophon to earth?
3.) if the aliens are constantly observing the humans via the sophon, why would they be worried that human technology will someday surpass their own?
1. You did not miss anything, this was not explained.
2. Well, this seems to be a contradiction, created by the adaptation. In the book, there was no future tech. What the aliens sent was only the software, the game itself, but the hardware was an existing widespread "VR suit" which explains the hot, cold, kinetic effects, etc. This was handled differently in the series, and it was not explained how they did it. Did they only transmit the blueprints for the VR devices? That seems most likely, but Team Wade did not make any effort to trace these back to where they were manufactured or something... which makes this point confusing. It was better handled in the book.
3. This also was not properly explained, but the implication is that the alien fleet is already on the way. They are on the ships, most likely in suspended animation, which prevents them to do research, update their science, etc. So it is a real and threatening scenario for them that humanity will catch up by the time they get here, and they will be wiped out. So even if the sophons spy on everything and would be able to transmit the theoretical background of tech advances, they would not be able to manufacture updated weapons en masse, since they only have limited resources in the fleet, and those resources sever only the purpose of getting them to Earth.
1.I think they were intending for the aliens to pick him up, which they confirm at the end they were going to do if it had worked. After that, it was up to Will to be smart enough to figure something out.
2. The Sophon was the size of a proton, so it could be transmitted at the speed of light. Then something to do with multi-dimensional blah blah blahs allows it to get bigger.
3. The aliens progressed extremely slowly compared to humanity and they were estimating that based on earths current rate of tech, they'd be behind the humans in 400 years and get bitch slapped upon arrival. I'm guessing their slowness for innovation is connected to their inability to understand the concept of fiction, fantasy, and lies. Hard to be creative if you're unable to picture what isn't.
The whole part about the aliens not understanding the concept of lying and fantasy really is rather stupid, not just considering how intelligent they're supposed to be and how observant of the human race they've been, but also because they've actually been tricking humans to see things that aren't actually there, basically masking the truth themselves.
shareThey did not observe humans for a longer time, they just reacted to the call for help from this Chinese woman.
After they learned the concept of lying they became aware that it is better to monitor humans than to trust them.
They don't mask the truth, they just demonstrate that their technology is more advanced.