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Post by Earthrise on Jul 3, 2003 4:44:15 GMT
In the book, the Martian Fighting Machines communicated with each other by booming audio bursts "Aloo" and "Ulla". Later from the ruined house, The Journalist hears the Martians hooting while feeding. He later suggests the Martians might communicate by telepathy. So what is the deal?
If they have telepathy, there must be a range, probably very short. Is the hooting some form of feeding noise? The fighting Machines should have some form of wireless communication, so what are the "Ulla's" for?
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Post by Charles on Jul 3, 2003 6:05:47 GMT
Its tough to know because once again Wells was deliberately vague. The narrator states that he did not believe that the hooting was communication, but the exhalation of air performed before feeding...but then he later refers to 'cheerful hooting.' Um...
The telepathy bit is very interesting because Wells himself did not believe in such paranormal powers, but I think he brought it up for his Martians for dramatic effect, to make them even more alien. He mentions he thought this telepathy might be a supplement to tentacular gesticulations.
That's H.G. for you, keeping us guessing.
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Post by Curate on Jul 3, 2003 21:39:46 GMT
I've always thought that the martian howling might have been a form of psychological warfare. The loud cries of 'Ulla' would in no doubt terrify any humans in the vicinity and perhaps even make seemingly dedicated soldiers abandon their posts in terror. The martians could well have been taking advantage of natural human fear. That said, you'd think that 100 foot tall fighting machines would be scary enough without the added sound effects
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Post by Bayne on Jul 4, 2003 8:43:50 GMT
Well maybe sound waves are the machines wireless communication? The martians still have ears (albeit one each) so they must have a need for sound still. Maybe they made sounds outside the range of human hearing or the range thing could be the issue.
Early in the book we get the aloo aloo. Was the ulla an emergency siren? The martian equivalent of
"I'm running low on hydrogen, the refuelling device is back at the pit and I'm too sick to lift my tentacle to pull the lever to go home. Please come and help"
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Post by Omega2064 on Jul 4, 2003 18:01:05 GMT
Perhaps they use a combination of vocalizations so subtle and complex that to a human they sound much the same so the the various ululations heard conveyed complex ideas and thoughts. The Martians are continually expressed as supremely efficient and ecomomical so a very economic language seems appropriate. Also its likely tentacle gestures play into this and all the machine tentacle waving was part of the communication.
The telepathy part was most likely the musings of the Narrator as there is never any substantiation for it, though also none against. The Martians of course arent telling. heh.
Omega2064
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Post by Bayne on Jul 6, 2003 1:30:49 GMT
While I like the telepathy myself, another alternative could be that the martians normally used verbal communication (the weird shaped mouth could be for sound making) and, with the earths density rendering their ear useless, they simply "new the plan" well enough that they didn't need communication at all. Where the narrator says he saw several performing an extremely complex opperation together, it could simply be that each new what the others where doing...
But then I like the telepathy idea.
On the other tentacle, I got the impression last I read that the martians were doing a lot of stuff on the fly. Certainly I think the black smoke was invented purely as the need arose.
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Post by Earthrise on Jul 6, 2003 4:36:52 GMT
Great stuff, guys; ideas above I hadn't thought of. "Cheerful hooting", exactly Charles. Couple this with Bayne's "ear" and "mouth" and you get the idea of verbal communication. As Charles pointed out though, the "hooting" seems to accompany feeding (maybe some sort of blowback/inhalation/suction noise) and may not be communication; maybe the "cheerful" part was the subjective observation of a horrified observer. The ear though develops before verbal communication (to alert the wielder to danger), it is still evolutionally useful without verbal communication. Maybe the thin Martian air caused their large, drum-like ear. The Martian atmosphere would have thinned out over the last million years or so; maybe verbal communication became too much effort and drove the rise of telepathy and electro-magnetic communication. So the ear and "hooting" alone doesn't prove verbal communication. Their mouth though isn't for feeding and it's beak shape suggests it's not for breathing. Hmmmmmm. Psychological warfare, Curate, very good. The PC game went this way where you could build Martian Psy Ops machines, using telepathy. One of those delicious bits HG left us to chew over. Bayne's ideas on FM communication are very interesting. I was thinking through the idea that the "Aloo's" were some kind of burst communication too. Or maybe it was the thin Martian air again. With air particles so far apart on Mars it would take more energy to transmit sound. Maybe that's why the Martians are so d**n loud. And I agree that the "Ulla's" are a distress signal, they only popup at the end of the book. Maybe some kind of request for Aloe Vera tissues Earthrise
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Post by Omega2064 on Jul 14, 2003 0:46:36 GMT
Reading through more it looks increasingly like the Martians calls were communication and conversation. At several points they are calling eachother over a fair distance.
One possibility is that this developed like this because at the time Radio did not yet exist and the Fighting- Machines would have looked a bit silly with telegraph lines stretched between them.
In any case its interesting to consider that the calls are in fact most likely alot louder than they would normally be because on Mars the air is much thinner and sound carries so much less. Earths thicker atmosphere would not only enervate them with extra oxygen to offset slightly the gravity, but also allow them to co-ordinate movements and communicate over greater distances, allowing the Martians to range wider and still stay in "earshot" of another.
What would be the increase in range? Double? Tripple? I'll have to look up the propigation of sound in an atmosphereic density when I can. Unless someone with a good scientific grounding can answer first.
Omega2064
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Post by Earthrise on Jul 15, 2003 0:21:30 GMT
This line answers the question:
"They communicated with one another by means of sirenlike howls, running up and down the scale from one note to another." (ch.15, bk 1)
In this scene, the Martians have spread out in a skirmish line and are about to unleash the Black Smoke on the London batteries. They seem to be keeping in contact outside visual range, passing battle orders through these siren-like musical tones. A little like Close Encounters?
Earthrise.
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Post by Omega2064 on Jul 16, 2003 1:24:23 GMT
Yep. Had they approached the Cylinder with a marching band instead all that hardshop could have been avoided. Now why do I all of a sudden envision pudgy Martian Elvis Impersonators? Gaaaaah! nooooooooo! Omega2064
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Post by Earthrise on Jul 16, 2003 2:50:00 GMT
Yeah, I could just see the Narrator dragging a piano out onto Horsell Common and playing ragtime to the Martians. Might have scared them off. Still researching my script and Martian communication is an important question. So far, I propose to have the Martians communicate through clicks and hoots in personal contact; augmented by tentacle gestures and telepathy. I'm looking at their artificial musical communication as a form of audio writing. Bear with me, I'm getting there. Something stops the Martians from amplifying their normal communication over long distances. Maybe Martians rely more strongly on non-verbal communication than we thought (tentacle/telepathy). Here a separate, artificially produced audio language would facilitate long-range communication. I am thinking of how the Chinese have many local languages, but only one written language, which everyone can read. Universal communication; but instead of pictoral characters to represent words, we have musical notes (or combinations). Otherwise... The Martians have left the building. Earthrise.
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Post by Earthrise on Jul 16, 2003 23:07:10 GMT
Also thinking of how Human music can convey emotion, even without lyrics. When we speak, our voices rise and fall in pitch, helping to convey complicated emotional meaning. Now Martians are almost emotionless, but may augment their simple language with telepathy and body language. Martian musical communication should mimic their verbal communication too (clicks and hoots), and for them the different pitches and combinations would also communicate the non-verbal component. To us, it would sound very alien, as the combination of notes and even the pitches wouldn't even fit into our regular musical scales (Ab through to G#).
And to expand on the issue of communication, there doesn't seem to be any evidence of Martian writing. This is why I feel their musical language is a form of writing. Image typing on a keyboard and instead of letters appearing, you get different sounds. Though the Martians may have a telepathic way of generating these sounds artificially.
Maybe the Martians have poor eyesight due to a higher reliance on the other senses, including telepathy.
Earthrise, the rambler.
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Post by thegoonden on Jul 17, 2003 2:04:55 GMT
Ahhhh, you've woke the musician in me. There is a pure scale, mathematically derived (actually there are at least two, pure major and pure minor) the "equal tempered" scale we use in western music is a compromise, designed to sound ok in either major or minor keys. The martians would almost certainly be using pure major, as it is the one most mathematically correct. That's something that sucked in Close Encounters, they were using equal tempered. Wierd foreign scales like those used in China, India and Bali, are derived more from instrument resonances than maths, hence gamelon music is enough to send most westerners marching up to a fighting machine in short order.
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Post by Earthrise on Jul 17, 2003 3:32:53 GMT
Thegoonden, I'm a muso too, except I'm a rock guitarist and we're not known for our music theory. Very good point about music and maths. If the Martians created their musical language from scratch using their intellect, pure maths would make sense. I was trying to find an evolutionary explanation for the progression from natural communication to artificial. This is where your last point supports my theory.
"Wierd foreign scales like those used in China, India and Bali, are derived more from instrument resonances than maths"
Instrument resonances in this case is due to the original language. As a muso, I've come to realise all instruments mimic the human voice, or our natural rhythms. This is why I believe the Martian musical communication would mimic their original language.
I haven't studied pure music (remember, I play hard rock) but I have a good head for maths. To tune our instruments, we set to concert pitch (440hz), which is the standard across the art. I can't see why we couldn't choose another standard, or uneven gaps between notes, or discordant scales (to our ears). The idea of mathematical music sounds like a contradiction. Maybe we can chart the human preference for particular musical notes and combinations, but there should be so many other combinations that we would find unpleasing that could still be used to communicate.
Earthrise, floundering
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Post by Rob on Jul 18, 2003 17:37:16 GMT
Well thats just what you need, come back off your holidays and someone leaves you an essay of a topic to read... Thanks guys. Only kidding. I've read over everything and I have to say you've all put some great discusions up with some great intellectual rambling from Earthrise. You've opened my mind to some things I've never really thought about before. Firstly I really like the idea that the martians ULLA is infact long distance communication and that it acts as some for of physcological weapon. Can you image the fear that noise would strike into you as it's unearthly sound waves boomed around the hills. I too am a musician I played violin for 8 years and now play Rock Guitar (saving up for a nice new Epiphone Les Paul with Gibson neck and pickups...sweet) and as said I don't think that my appreciation of the theory behind music is great. I'd never heard of the mathmatical scales in music but surely if the martians do communicate via hooting that runs up and down a scale they are going to use a very mathmatical approach. The only problem comes with the fact that I like to think that all the things that the martians do are infact evolved, for instance theire scale may only be different from ours and not mathmatical, if it has evolved from some for a language spoken my more ancient martians. The telepathy idea is a very forward thinking notion but at the same time I see practical problems with it, for instance wouldn't the Curate and the Narrator have been detected, surely the martians would 'hear' their thoughts, if not in a coherant fashion but simply as a disturbing noise, also it would have helped the martians to track down humans, of which there is no evidence. MAybe wells just didn't think about that bit. The martian beak could be a redundant feature that still remains from the ancient martians who may have fed via it. Think of things on humans like the Coxis (spelling?) which was our tail, and the Apendix, all no longer needed. Phew....
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Post by Bayne on Jul 18, 2003 20:43:32 GMT
Martian telepathy need not be able to pick up human thoughts. Martian brains are HUGE! and part of this could be used up with specialised biological equipment to transmit and recieve martian brainwaves. Human brainwaves could be on an entirely different frequency. With our puny little brains we might not make much noise at all.
As for the beak, with the description of all that quivering etc perhaps it had a fair bit of muscle for facial expression or sound control... or maybe it was just there to close like human nostrils, keeping all that red dust out of martian lungs during sandstorms.
The bit that I wonder about is the constant stream of saliva. What was it for? perhaps the only waste product of the blood absorbed in the martians tissues?
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Post by thegoonden on Jul 19, 2003 3:12:00 GMT
With regards to the musical scale: If I remember correctly, the scale we use can be easily derived through calculation. If we start at A=110Hz (-2 8ve from concert A), and project a harmonic series, we get. 110 220 330 440 550 660 770 880 990 and so on. if we then divide those numbers repeatedly by 2 ( a factor of one octave) untill they fall between 110 and 220, we will end up with our scale.Worth pointing out that they don't come out in the order they appear on a keyboard/fretboard. I should point out that my knowledge of the harmonic series is based on synths and how the overtones create the waveform, but the above is correct, at least as far as a pure, natural scale is concerned. there are alternate methods of deriving scales, a little googling will twist your brain nicely Now there is no reason to suppose the martians would assume concert A as 440Hz, but, irrespective of where the scale starts, this mathematical progression should be relatively universal.
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Post by Rob on Jul 19, 2003 10:10:34 GMT
Good point dave. Didn;t think about it like that.
Telepathic communication would probably only pick up intentional communication. Maybe the idea that the martians would try and expand their brains to detect or control humans is something for the next invasion.
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Post by Bayne on Jul 20, 2003 1:18:14 GMT
Well, there is always a certain amount of electromagnetic brain 'leakage'. There have been numerous, mostly classified, attempts to both read and effect the workings of human brains over various distances. There is a whole branch of conspiracy theory dedicated to claims that they are successful. The US govt. certainly hasn't given up on the notion, and just this year there was talk of anti-terrorism mind-reading devices. For the martians though, human leakage could be astoundingly weak... their brain is most of their bear sized body, ours is about the size of a grapefruit. Also the signal for say "I'm gonna kill that curate if he doesn't shut up" in a human brain could be "Gee my third tentacle from the left sure is itchy" in a martian one. The Martians may also need to concentrate to hear the other Martians, let alone squeeky inferior human minds. Reading minds could be too much effort, with the martians having to exert so much effort just to crawl about. But The Crystal Egg story has a suggested psychic component, an interesting idea could be of an english psychic who is able to 'hear' the martians thinking... hmmm... the madness from Lovecrafts story The Call Of Cthulhu suddenly springs to mind... I can see it now, just prior to the first invasion there is an explosion amongst madmen, poets, mystics and suggestables of obsessive interest in the number three and with octopi and falling stars. This went unnoticed by the community at large except for a small number of researches at the British Museum and a small New England University called Arkham.... then in the twenties... it began again..... When the stars are right indeed!
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Post by Omega2064 on Jul 20, 2003 17:13:51 GMT
I think you are on the right track about the telepathy not being inter-species. Also the Martian mind is not a human mind. It is unified and lacks virtually all of the emotional baggage a human carries. That and their minds must be intensely mathematical and precice.
But since the Martians still rely on vocal communication it leads me to believe that their telepathy must have been short range. Or that it could not carry through the hull of a Fighting-Machine. (It is a common thought that certain metals block mental waves, lead in particular. Though obviously the craft are not composed of that.)
So the question might be what is the effective range of their telepathy? Based on how far apart the Fighting- Machines tended to get before they resumed vocal communications.
Omega2064
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