Martian Landings in the War of the Worlds

by Dylan
(Illinois, Wisconsin)

I'm glad you've ordered a copy of Global Dispatches! I have War of the Worlds to thank for first sparking my interest in Mars as a child, although I didn't read it until much later. Often, I like to read "The Crystal Egg", followed by WotW, then Global Dispatches, and then "Queen of the Niht's Aria", "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", or "Scarlet Traces", so that it is almost like reading a great epic of the Martian War. Admittedly, these tales contradict each other in places, but since I want it bad enough, I can ignore that.

In response to your annoyance with the landings of the Martian pods, I will postulate two things. First, no one ever actually sees the Martian cylinders land, they only witness their entry into our atmosphere. There is every possibility that they have reverse thrusters to cushion their fall. In fact, I'd say that's likely, for if objects of the size Wells describes truly collided with the Earth at full speed, the resulting explosion would likely be akin to a small nuclear blast. Furthermore, the fire trail of their descent is tinted green, which could be evidence of the working of rockets. Once the cylinder lands, its thruster cones are submerged in dirt, and thus not noticable to humanity until well after the invasion is over.

Secondly, the Martians possess no skeleton, and a remarkably simple anatomy compared to ours (apart from their enormous brains). Their bodies could compress in response to g forces, making them able to tolerate a more sudden stop than a human might be able to withstand.

With rockets to slow them and elastic bodies, it is conceivable to me that they could survive the landing on Earth, and that such a landing might produce a crater only as large as is described in the book. Hopefully that will help you too!

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Jul 04, 2016
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Here is the Link
by: Dylan

Forgot to post this in the last comment, sorry!

http://web.archive.org/web/20010501001141/www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Galaxy/3773/waroftheworlds/martians/tech.html

{note from Zendexor: thanks for this - I've tested the link and had a look at the report. As a bonus it includes consideration of "The Crystal Egg" as well as "War of the Worlds". Wow, the inspirational power that some writers have, making their fans work hard and joyously a century later!!}

Jul 04, 2016
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Martian Technology
by: Dylan

It took me a while to track down again, but I have located a page put together by a WotW fan who put together a "Report on Martian Technology". It goes more in depth than Wells did, even explaining the spurts of green gas that erupt from the Martian machines as they operate.

I'd have to agree about Verne. While he was visionary in his own time (and indeed, something of a technological prophet in a few cases), he was always concerned with "how does it work?", rather than "how does it affect people?". Wells took the opposite view, which I think is the reason his work remains so vivid today, even as his some of his assumptions about science prove erroneous.

Jul 04, 2016
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an acceptable explanation!
by: Zendexor

I find your explanation easier to believe in than my notion of the Martians having invented an inertialess drive. If the latter were true, if they were really that clever, they'd be all over the place and there'd be no stopping them, microbes or no microbes...

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