History Literature / TheWarOfTheWorlds1898

-->I recall particularly the illustration of one of the first pamphlets to give a consecutive account of the war. The artist had evidently made a hasty study of one of the fighting-machines, and there his knowledge ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff tripods, without either flexibility or subtlety, and with an altogether misleading monotony of effect.

* AdaptationalBadass: In the novel, humans manage a few isolated successes against individual Martian tripods, and there are mentions of damaged tripods. The Martians simply pause, regroup, and change tactics or introduce new technology each time which makes those prior successes much less likely - they start flooding the ground underneath with chemical weapons prevent soldiers lying in wait with cannons, they introduce flying machines after the HMS Thunderchild manages a Pyrrhic victory. In the 1938 radio play, we are explicitly told that the Martians lose only ''one'' machine. By the 1953 film, the war machines are totally indestructible, and even an atomic bomb fails to put so much as a scratch on them. Arguably this is an unavoidable part of technology lag - the main problem the humans had in the book was hitting the fast-moving Martian machines directly with conventional artillery (as well as a lack of defence against chemical weapons), and modern weapons are both more powerful and more accurate. If later adaptions didn't "cheat" on behalf of the Martians by making them ImmuneToBullets, they would either be an EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion or the fight would have been more drawn-out as the aliens developed countermeasures.

* AlienKudzu: the Red Weed

* AliensNeverInventedTheWheel: Despite inventing both tripods and the Heat Ray, the Martians have no concept of the wheel.
* ApocalypseHow: Class 0. Much of Southeast England and the Greater London Area is purged of human life and converted to a Martian habitat. Early in the book the unnamed narrator bemoans that modern people have no conception of things like the variety of magazines and newspapers England once enjoyed. However, with the help of other nations the country is clearly rebuilding by the end of the book.

* BigCreepyCrawlies: Wells notes when introducing the Martians proper that all present expected "a man." What emerged was decidedly more Lovecraftian (or rather, ''proto''-Lovecraftian). Even granted the genre was an outgrowth of terrestrial varieties, future AlienInvasion stories seem to have largely missed this delightful precedent.

* CitywideEvacuation: After the incapability of the army to stop the Martian advance on London in the face of the Black Smoke becomes apparent, the entire population of the city flees north and east in a chaotic stampede ultimately aiming to get on a ship to mainland Europe.

* AccentuateTheNegative: Wells may have written the alien invasion hitting Britain first as an example of CreatorProvincialism, possibly for the same pragmatic reason the [[Film/WarOfTheWorlds2005 Spielberg film]] has them hitting the USA first (If you want to conquer Earth, take out its greatest military power first. In the late 1800s that was Britain, today it's the USA), or as a subtle criticism of the actions of the British Empire. However, a more personal reason to Wells has been advanced. He may have had the all-destroying alien tripods land in London, at least partly with the intention of having them reduce his home region, the towns of Woking and Bromley, to smouldering corpse-heavy rubble. Wells utterly despised this part of Surrey for its parochial mentality and its lower-middle-class smug smallmindedness. He also wanted to get even for long, soul-destroying thirteen-hour days spent in a miserable [=McJob=] working for a tiny-minded bully. Today's Woking boasts [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Woking_tripod.JPG a statue of an alien tripod]] on the main street to commemorate Wells' vision.

%% * SpiritualSuccessor: ''The War of the Worlds'' is arguably this to ''The Crystal Egg'', a short story written by Wells the same year, featuring an [[CrystalBall optical gateway]] to Mars. Martians and their machines are described, although the events in ''The War of the Worlds'' are not clearly foreshadowed.
** ''Literature/TheTripods'', a series of young-adult novels by Creator/JohnChristopher, is in all but name a sequel set in an AlternateContinuity where the Martians were successful in dominating the world.[[note]]Except Christopher's aliens are three-legged chlorine-breathers from a (different star's) world with ''higher'' gravity than Earth, and they took over via MindControl ("The Trippy Show") rather than war.[[/note]]
** There was, of course, an actual (and, very dubiously, claimed to be "authorized") sequel. It was almost entirely unrelated to the original book (setting the original invasion in Boston, America, among other things) and involved the cannibalisation of Martian technology by Earthly masterminds, including the man who both supported the publication of and lent his title to the book. This was called (and was, indeed, about) ''[[Literature/EdisonsConquestOfMars Edison's Conquest of Mars]]''.
** And there's also ''The Second War Of The Worlds'' which involves would-be Quislings helping the Martians overcome their lack of a viable immune system and travel between parallel universes. Oh, and the hero is Sherlock Holmes, so you can probably guess at the actual quality of the work.
** ''Film/IndependenceDay'' is an obvious {{Expy}} for the book and film. Instead of a ''biological'' virus, they're brought down by a ''computer'' virus.
** One of the most famous evil alien races in fiction, the Daleks of ''Series/DoctorWho'', are essentially miniature legless tripods with one-eyed Martian Nazis inside, sporting a DeathRay rather than a Heat Ray.

So begins ''The War of the Worlds'' by Creator/HGWells, the first AlienInvasion story to take off,[[note]]The 1892 novel ''The Germ Growers'' by Robert Potter predates it by some years[[/note]] and perhaps the best known, in which late-Victorian England, then homeland of the world's greatest empire, is conquered with casual ease by Martians. In the end, only chance saves humanity from slavery or annihilation. The novel is arguably the ancestor of nearly every single book, TV show, movie and video game that features aliens. Certainly, it [[TropeCodifier codified]] many of the tropes we now associate with alien invasion stories, while [[TropeMaker making a few new ones]] in the science fiction genre in general.

The story begins with the [[NoNameGiven unnamed]] narrator, a lightly disguised [[AuthorAvatar version of Wells]], visiting an observatory, where he is shown explosions on the surface of Mars. Shortly afterwards, an apparent meteor lands close to the narrator's house in Surrey. When he goes to look, he sees the first of the Martians emerging from its spacecraft. The invaders swiftly set up strange machinery, incinerating all humans who approach.

A few are making grandiose plans for resistance, but it is clear they have no prospect of success: Great Britain, one of the most technologically advanced and powerful countries on Earth, has been utterly defeated. The narrator becomes trapped in the ruins near another Martian landing-site, where he gets a first-hand view of the aliens drinking human blood. It seems they intend to treat humanity as [[ToServeMan nothing more than food]].

The novel is generally regarded as an {{allegory}} of colonialism, depicting Great Britain receiving the same kind of treatment as it had been delivering to the natives of its empire (although figuratively speaking, Englishmen did not ''usually'' drink human blood).

** Dying off to disease also fits in with the [[{{Allegory}} parallels with imperialism]]: European explorers coming to contact with previously undiscovered (from European point of view) groups of people often involved new and previously faraway diseases being spread in one direction or another, with severe consequences. Africa used to be known as the [[DarkestAfrica "White Man's Grave"]] because Europeans were never able to penetrate the African interior until the advent of modern medicine in the 19th century. Up to that point, they mostly sticked to the coast to establish resupply ports on the long sea journey to Asia and to do trade with the African kingdoms further inland (including slaves).

* RammingAlwaysWorks: # ''Come on, Thunder Child!'' # [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] as this is what Torpedo Rams [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin were built for]], and at the time this was believed to be an effective tactic. Torpedo Rams were far less useful in real life though this wouldn't be proven until well after the book's publishing but given that the tripods are standing on three rather skinny legs, ramming them to knock them off balance makes a fair amount of sense.

* HoistByTheirOwnPetard: Maybe. When discussing the lack of microorganisms in Mars' biosphere, the narrator suggests the possibility that the Martians had used their medical technology to wipe out all native microorganisms, and therefore all diseases, on their home planet. Meaning that it was by their own hand that the Martians became woefully inept against the diseases found in Earth's biosphere

* RammingAlwaysWorks: # ''Come on, Thunder Child!'' #

* LesCollaborateurs: The Artillery soldier believe that the Martians eventually will recruit certain humans to steady their hold of Earth and to keep their other human subjects in check once they'd finished conquering it. More so, he believes that the Martians will offer former priests and politicians local influence and privileges in exchange that they propagandize in favor of the Martian supremacy, as well as offer former soldiers the chance to serve as their auxillary troops. Just like how Europe's colonial powers that Great Britain was the biggest part of would offer local chieftains, aristocrats and warriors local influence and privileges in their colonies in exchange for their allegiance.

[[caption-width-right:250:[-This isn't a war. It never was a war, any more than there's war between man and ants.-] ]]

** Dying off to disease also fits in with the parallels with imperialism: European explorers coming to contact with previously undiscovered (from European point of view) groups of people often involved new and previously faraway diseases being spread in one direction or another, with severe consequences.

The novel is generally regarded as an allegory of colonialism, depicting Great Britain receiving the same kind of treatment as it had been delivering to the natives of its empire (although figuratively speaking, Englishmen did not ''usually'' drink human blood).

So begins ''The War of the Worlds'' by Creator/HGWells, the first AlienInvasion story, and perhaps the best known, in which late-Victorian England, then homeland of the world's greatest empire, is conquered with casual ease by Martians. In the end, only chance saves humanity from slavery or annihilation. The novel is arguably the ancestor of nearly every single book, TV show, movie and video game that features aliens.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: One would initially think the title "The War of the Worlds" refers to the war between humanity and the Martians, but it quite literally refers to the war between Mars and Earth. While the Martians effortlessly manage to defeat humanity, Earth ''decisively'' comes out on top over Mars in the end. Mars (in the novel of course) is a planet where disease has been utterly eradicated, meaning that any and all Martian life is completely defenseless against Earth's bacteria.

* DidntThinkThisThrough: The humans attempt to communicate with the Martians by advancing on their spacecraft while brandishing a white flag, not knowing whether the Martians would understand what this means. It gets them killed.

* DoubleMeaningTitle: One would initially think the title "The War of the Worlds" refers to the war between humanity and the Martians, but it quite literally refers to the war between Mars and Earth. While the Martians effortlessly manage to defeat humanity, Earth ''decisively'' comes out on top over Mars in the end. Mars (In the novel of course) is a planet without any microorganisms in its biosphere, meaning that any and all Martian life is completely defenseless against Earth's bacteria.

* ForgottenFallenFriend: Despite apparently being a good friend to the narrator, Ogilvy is almost never mentioned again after his early death.

* GlassCannon: In the original book the tripods are not armored at all, they're just so fast contemporary artillery can't hit them without getting very lucky and they've usually wiped out opposing forces before they can get more than two shots off. The few times we do see them hit they go down immediately. Adaptations set later than the original have to change this detail, for obvious reasons.

* HomeworldEvacuation: May be the UrExample: the Martians attempt to evacuate Mars ''en masse'' using fairly primitive space travel due to their planet being in the process of drying up. Unfortunately for humanity, they've chosen Earth as their backup (it is implied that they ''can't'' reach any other suitable planet, or else they might not have chosen the Earth, whose heavier gravity is uncomfortable for them).

* IComeInPeace -- Subverted. The humans attempt this when they first meet the Martians. The peace party in question is slaughtered, and things get worse after that. The Martians don't even try to hide their intentions.

* NominalImportance -- Inverted; the named characters, such as Ogilvy, Henderson, and the Elphinstones are minor players, while the majority of the significant characters, such as the Artilleryman and the Curate, remain nameless.

** Imagine the same invasion in the year 2013, with the same tripods, same heat rays and same bloodthirsty Martians. They'd be up against missiles, tanks and possibly nuclear weapons. Definitely not so invincible after all. This is why all subsequent adaptations usually give the war machines indestructible forcefields.

* TechnologicallyAdvancedFoe: The technology of the invading Martians far outstrips that of the British military (or that of any other nation on Earth). The Martians have towering three-legged "fighting-machines" (tripods), each armed with a heat-ray and a chemical weapon: the poisonous "black smoke". These tripods are capable of wiping out entire army units. The military is able to score some minor successes through combined artillery fire or the firepower of a warship like ''HMS Thunder Child'', but these are mere drops in the ocean and the Martians swiftly crush all resistance.

* VillainousValour: The narrator acknowledges that the Martian operate like cool-headed professional soldiers; they not only have superior technology, they know how to use it. Nor does the book deny the (possibly desperate) courage required to cross millions of miles of space to launch an invasion against much more numerous and little-known opposition in far-from-indestructible machines.

* YouCouldHaveUsedYourPowersForGood: In the 1953 movie especially. The understanding of science and advancement of technology necessary to create the war machine's force fields and skeleton beams is hundreds, if not thousands of years ahead of human understanding. With that at their beck and call, certainly the Martians could have come up with a better solution to their climate change problem than invading Earth.

* AdaptationalBadass: In the novel, humans manage a few isolated successes against individual Martian tripods, and there are mentions of damaged tripods. By the 1938 radio play, we are explicitly told that the Martians lose only ''one'' machine. By the 1953 film, the war machines are totally indestructible, and even an atomic bomb fails to put so much as a scratch on them. Arguably this is an unavoidable part of technology lag - the main problem the humans had in the book was hitting the fast-moving Martian machines directly with conventional artillery (as well as a lack of defence against chemical weapons), and modern weapons are both more powerful and more accurate. If later adaptions didn't "cheat" on behalf of the Martians by making them ImmuneToBullets, they would be an EasilyThwartedAlienInvasion.

* AliensAreBastards: Subverted. The Martians launch their invasion only because they are facing imminent extinction, and their brutality towards the humans is qualified by comparisons to the colonial powers' own MoralMyopia towards "inferior" cultures. The author even gives the supposed bad guys a sort-of happy ending by inferring that after the failed invasion they found a more secure settlement on Venus.

* ApocalypseHow: Class 0. Much of Southeast England and the Greater London Area is purged of human life and converted to a Martian habitat.

* BittersweetEnding: Although humanity survives, and is reasonably confident of its ability to hold off any further Martian invasions, it's clearly been a desperately close thing, and the Martians remain technologically vastly superior. The narrator is still suffering nightmares.

* CoolBoat: HMS ''Thunder Child''. At the time, a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torpedo_ram torpedo ram]] like ''Thunder Child'' represented the most powerful destructive force in the world - fully armoured, with a sharp ram on the bow, torpedo tubes, heavy guns and powerful engines to take it up to [[RammingAlwaysWorks ramming speed]]. In the real world, however, torpedo rams were completely useless; all that they ever destroyed was a single, grounded ship and a harbour jetty. Website/TheOtherWiki says "''It has been suggested by some that, in view of the limited military value the torpedo ram demonstrated, Wells's immortalization of the type in what would become a literary classic was the torpedo ram's [[DamnedByFaintPraise greatest achievement]].''" The idea is so thoroughly forgotten that the few adaptations that include the scene at all have it replaced with a conventional battleship, which incidentally renders it's tactics (ramming as a first resort) nonsensical.

** Forget Ireland; Edinburgh and Birmingham are mentioned as sending ships down to London after the aliens die. Apparently while the Greater London Area was being wiped off the map the rest of the country was just getting on with life as usual.

* CurbStompBattle: The entire war. While the humans manage to down several tripods, it's pretty one-sided, especially after the Black Smoke comes into play.

** Averted in one incident involving [[IncrediblyLamePun Chekov's gunfire]]. At one point, the narrator hears the sound of heavy gunfire that sounds like artillery pieces. [[AbortedArc Never expanded upon]].

* TheGreys: The novel predates this archetype, but it's interesting to note that the Martians are informed to have enslaved a second alien race, described as "standing about six feet high and having round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets".

* IWillFightSomeMoreForever: Even after the tripods prove almost impossible to hit, the military still keeps (ineffectively) using ordinance on them.

* MythologyGag: During the sequence where the narrator is watching the Martians from the ruins, he comments that they remind him of an essay he once read about how humans might evolve in a technology-dominated future, by some chap whose name he can't quite remember. The essay actually existed, and was used by Wells as the basis for the Martians' biology; its author was Wells himself.

* SpiritualSuccessor: ''The War of the Worlds'' is arguably this to ''The Crystal Egg'', a short story written by Wells the same year, featuring an [[CrystalBall optical gateway]] to Mars. Martians and their machines are described, although the events in ''The War of the Worlds'' are not clearly foreshadowed.