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Post by Stormdragon666 on Jan 22, 2005 19:07:14 GMT
How long did the invasion actully last??
from the goings on at Horsell Common to the actual Discovery of the dead and destroyed martians after the bacterial onslaught.
anyone??
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Post by Thunder Child on Jan 22, 2005 21:01:16 GMT
Almost a month I believe...
Johan
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Post by Gnorn on Jan 22, 2005 21:11:33 GMT
An hour and a half I thought? :-p
-Gnorn
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Post by Curate on Jan 23, 2005 0:57:55 GMT
I seem to remember the narrator saying his return to Woking was almost 4 weeks after his encounter with the tripods in the storm. Remember - he was trapped in the ruined house for at least two weeks.
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Geis
Full Member
Nice planet. We'll take it.
Posts: 59
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Post by Geis on Jan 23, 2005 2:50:20 GMT
The first cylinder fell at midnight on a Friday in June (I assume the 7th of June, 1901). The Narrator meets the Currate on Sunday. They are penned in by the Black Smoke through Monday. They are trapped in the house that falls at Midnight on Tuesday. The Narrator spends 15 days in the house (to Wednesday the 26th. Meets the Artilleryman the next day. Enters London the day after that. And discovers the dead Martians on Saturday (the 27th).
22 days. A day over three weeks.
He then spends three days insane (July 2nd) and returns home on Saturday (July 6th).
Wells makes a pretty careful count of the days of the week but seems to make a mistake on the falling on the 5th cylinder. The mistake probably came from trying to sync up the stories of the Narrator and his brother.
Again, the days are pretty clear, I just put them on the 1901 (the generally agreed upon year of the invasion) calendar to keep it all straight.
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Post by Thorgrimm on Jan 27, 2005 19:30:30 GMT
Day-1 Friday- Midnight; The first Martian cylinder lands in Surrey on the Common between Horsell, Ottershaw and Woking.
11PM- A company of soldiers form a cordon around the edges of the Common. A squadron of Hussars, two Maxim guns and four hundred men of the Cardigan Regiment depart for the Common from Aldershot.
Day 2- Saturday-6 PM- A clash between the Martians and the soldiers around the first pit on Horsell Common occurs.
7 PM- The artillery at Horsell Common is wiped out by the first of the Martian Fighting Machines.
Day 3 - Sunday- 8PM- Heavy fighting is audible all over South London. They move on a line through Byfleet and Pyrford towards Ripley and Weybridge. The guns on St. Georges' Hill are destroyed.
9:30PM- The Martians unleash their Black Smoke against the forces between themselves and London.
11PM- the siege guns at Richmond Hill and Kingston Hill are destroyed within a quarter of an hour.
Day 4- Monday- Early morning shortly before dawn- The exodus from London begins. Approximately half of the members of the government gather at Birmingham. It was the beginning of the rout of civilization, the massacre of Mankind.
2PM- A fighting Machine appears beyond the clock tower(Big Ben) and wades down river.
After that it is just the Martians wiping out scattered resistance as organised resistance is crushed.
So as you can see the Martians Wiped out British resistance in southern England in just four days.
Cheers Thorgrimm
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Post by lanceradvanced on Jan 27, 2005 19:45:03 GMT
Enters London the day after that. And discovers the dead Martians on Saturday (the 27th). That's when the -narrator- finds the Martians dead, but it's noted that someone else had discoverd it the night before, and telegraphed Paris. I guess I had wrongly assumed that the war lasted 19 days, because of the chaper of that title, though clock might only be from the killing on horsell common to the point where the narator leaves the house..
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Post by Thorgrimm on Jan 27, 2005 20:56:29 GMT
Gents i think the war took place in 1902. As this list of dates from the book bears out my thinking.
Late July/Early August, 1894 - During the opposition of Mars, a great light is seen on the illuminated part of the Martian disk.
1896, 1898 - Strange marks seen on the Martian disk during opposition.
Midnight, August 12 1900 - First jet of green gas seen erupting from the surface of Mars by Lavelle of Java.
Midnight, August 13-22 1900 - Jets of green gas spurt out from Mars at 24 hour Intervals.
June 1902 - He doesn't give the day in June just Day1: Friday
Midnight - The first Martian cylinder lands in Surrey on the Common Between Horsell, Ottershaw and Woking.
Cheers Thorgrimm
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Post by Topaz on Jan 28, 2005 7:22:34 GMT
I won't necessarily argue particular years with you - I haven't a clue and generally abide by the '1901' date I've seen elsewhere in the forum, just on faith that more intelligent heads than my own have worked it all out.
However, it shouldn't take the cylinders two years to get to earth. More like 5-7 months, depending on the launch system and the exact geometry of the planets at the time. Wells probably would have understood that it should have taken a 'few months', since he was talking about the cylinders "drawing nearer every minute by so many thousands of miles."
So, if your martians did launch in August 1900, they ought to be landing between March and April 1901. Wells mentions "June" at one point in the book, although that was after a week or two of battles and so the martians could have landed in very late May.
Unless I'm mistaken, I don't believe Wells actually mentions the year of the landing (or the launches) in the book, nor the year that "Lavelle of Java" made his observation.
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Post by Thorgrimm on Jan 28, 2005 11:11:49 GMT
Topaz, yup those dates are right out of the book my friend. ;D Also, today with our rockets and slingshoting the probes, even at the closest approach of Mars it takes 2 years to reach Mars, or vice versa. And since the Martians used an evident Ballistic approach to invading Earth , it would take at least that long. Cheers Thorgrimm
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Post by Topaz on Jan 28, 2005 16:34:14 GMT
Huh. Maybe I'm just missing something on the dates. Lord knows, I sometimes think I'm carrying around a chunk of granite in my skull. ;D Thorgrimm, could you do me a favor? I've got a MSWord copy of the book and a search doesn't show up 1902 at all. Or even '190'. Both came up empty handed. Nor does "nineteen" come up with a specific date. I see the others, but not 1900 or 1902. Could you point out the passages that explicitly mention 1902 or 1900? As for Earth-Mars travel times, The MER rovers made it in about seven months ( marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/overview/). The upcoming Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will take the same amount of time: marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/newsroom/pressreleases/20040809a.html (second paragraph). Perhaps you were referring to the proposed manned missions, which are supposed to take about two years round trip, including the stay on the surface?
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Post by Thorgrimm on Jan 28, 2005 17:52:14 GMT
These are the passages i was referring to. I think the only thing in question is how many G's could the Martians take. As that would be the determinent as to how fast the cylinders would be heading to Earth. As Mars has a lighter gravity it would take less velocity to reach breakaway speeds. But doing some research I am now inclined to agree it was 1901. I stand corrected. ;D
Cheers Thorgrimm
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Geis
Full Member
Nice planet. We'll take it.
Posts: 59
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Post by Geis on Feb 3, 2005 15:28:35 GMT
I was involved in a rather heated discussion concerning the travel time. The book clearly mentions the lights seen on Mars during the opposition of 1894 by date and the next two (1896 and 1899) by inference. One assumes that the next opposition, February 1901, is the time of the invasion. Wells says that the Invasion happened in June. Some, myself included, have interpreted the passage that the Narrator and Oglevy observered the gas eruptions on a warm night before the opposition to imply that the observation was made the previous summer, August 1900. Which would make a 10 month travel time. Others argue that it all happened in a very short period, that the warm weather of the observation was the same season as the June of the invasion. That would place it with the Opposition of May 1905 and give a travel time of a month or two. Still, others say that Wells was a science fiction author and didn't know squat about science so you can make no inferences about when the invasion actually happened. I tend to give Wells a little more credt than that. He was pretty careful about what happened on what days during the invasion so I assumed he had a timetable for the whole invasion. I did a bunch of math with orbital mechanics, escape velocities and modern travel times, threw in some interpretations based on Jules Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon" (the assumed model for the Martian Gun) and was lead to believe the longer travel time: Launch from Mars in August 1900, land in England June 1901. robk.proboards13.com/index.cgi?board=book&action=display&thread=1105019908
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Post by I own a cylinder on Feb 5, 2005 0:55:19 GMT
Some of this is speculation but...
1894
31st JULY - 2nd AUGUST
A light illuminates part of the Martian disk.
Magazine NATURE publishes a report on it.
(Apparently Mars moves into opposition roughly every two years so if we assume thats correct and the Martians needed time to cast and set up the gun then...)
1896
12TH AUGUST
(00:00) - Levelle of Java sees a jet of gas come from the planet surface.
(00:15) - The gas becomes invisible.
13TH AUGUST
- DAILY TELEGRAPH publishes a small note on it.
(00:00) - The Narrator and Ogilvy take a vigil and the 2nd cylinder starts on its way.
14TH -21ST AUGUST
(00:00) spurts of Gas from Mars.
(Using Whats been said about a period of months rather than years, i have assumed it took the Martians roughly 9 months to travel to earth arriving roughly at the end of May.)
1897
MAY
FRIDAY
(00:00 - 02:00) - The first cylinder hits on Horsell Common. (05:30) - Ogilvy Discovers the Cylinder. (06:00) - Ogilvy meets the Wagoner. (06:30) - Ogilvy meets Henderson. (08:00) - People start to head for the Common. (08:45) - Narrator gets paper and heads for Common. (11:00) - Narrator heads home. (16:30) - Narrator heads back to Common. (17:15) - Narrator goes home for tea. (18:00) - Meets Lord Hilton. (19:00) - Cylinder Unscrews and Martian emerge. (20:30) - Deputation approaches and are destroyed. Heat Ray sweeps the Common. (20:45) - Narrator dashes home. (23:00) - A Squadron of Soldiers deploy along the Common. (23:00 - 00:00) - Soldiers Question crowd.
SATURDAY
(00:00) - The Second Cylinder lands at the Byfleet Golf Links.
(08:00 - 14:00) - Narrator Tries to get on Common and takes in the state of society in Woking. (14:00 - 14:30) - Narrator gets a bath. (15: 00) - Narrator hears the sound of the Chertsey Guns shelling the Second Pit. (16:30) - Narrator gets a paper. (17:00) - A field Gun reaches Horsell Common. (18:00) - There is an explosion of firing from the Common. The Narrator takes his wife and servant to Leatherhead.
(21:00) - Reaches Leatherhead. (23:00) - Sets out back for Woking.
SUNDAY
(00:00) - Reaches Pyrford. The Third Cylinder Lands. (00:15) - Narrator encounters the Fighting Machines. (00:30 - 05:00) - Makes it home and meets Artilleryman. (05:00 - 08:00) - Artilleryman and Narrator head for Byfleet. (12:00) - Are at Weybridge. (12:30: - 04:00) - Battle of Weybridge and Shepperton and escape.
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Post by Killraven on Feb 5, 2005 1:05:18 GMT
Wow! Now that's what I call precise! ...though I assume you mean 1894, 1895 etc...
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Post by I own a cylinder on Feb 5, 2005 1:59:59 GMT
;D ;D errrrrr...silly me. Mistake shallt be recified ASAP.
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Geis
Full Member
Nice planet. We'll take it.
Posts: 59
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Post by Geis on Feb 7, 2005 19:16:41 GMT
> Wow! Now that's what I call precise!
There are some things that Wells was very precise about and others that he was vague on. For the first few days of the war, he noted out days (Friday, saturday, etc) and times to the half hour.
On the other hand, is vague about many other things. He says that lights were seen on Mars during the opposition of 1894 and the next two but doesn't say whether the invasion began at the very next opposition (1901) or perhaps nothing was seen then and the invasion began at an opposition after that.
He says that Levelle of Java saw the first jet on the 12th "as opposition approached" but doesn't actually say the 12th of which month. If we ASSUME the opposition of 1901 (which happened in February) and combine that with the Narrator's statement that they were observing on a warn night, we ASSUME that it was the 12th of August, 1900. But it could have been the 12th of July. Or he could have been talking about the Opposition of May 1905 and the 12th could have been in April or even March.
I tend to fall in the category that Wells set the invasion around the Opposition of Feburary of 1901. It seems to work best with both Wells's suggestions and with the orbital mechanics of a 10 month travel time.
As the the precision of the early days of the war, Wells lived in Woking while he was writing War of the Worlds so he no doubt knew how long it took to get from Woking to Horsell Commons or to Leatherhead by horse cart. He made those travel times very precise to add to the realism of the account. Many other things, like the year of the invasion, were left vague, perhaps to keep the work from becoming "dated".
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woking98
New Member
oooh crikey.
Posts: 3
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Post by woking98 on Feb 9, 2005 19:56:38 GMT
For some reason I thought it was set in 1904
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Post by I own a cylinder on Feb 9, 2005 23:42:07 GMT
For some reason I thought it was set in 1904 I think its like Geis said, Wells avoided actual dating of the text to keep the story timeless. The story lives without dates but not with out times.
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Post by I own a cylinder on Feb 10, 2005 0:28:28 GMT
Regardless of dates, heres a continuation of the story times and events. If anything, you can see the breakdown in actual times Wells uses particularly during the Cylinder landing on the house. and how it echoes the narrators disorientation at being stuck.
After Weybridge and Shepperton...
(16:00 - 00:00) - Martians set about transferring equipment from fallen cylinders to Horsell Common (16:00 - 20:00) - Narrator talks with Curate.
(20:00) Martian Fighting Machines emerge again in a 12 mile line. (20:30) Martian is overthrown. (21:00) Martian completes repairs and rejoins the line. (21:05) Martian’s deploy Black Smoke tubes. (21:05 - 21:30) Martian’s deploy Black Smoke. (21:30 - 23:00) Curate and Narrator take cover in a house at Upper Haliford. (23:00) Both men hear the Siege guns of Richmond and Kingston Parks.
MONDAY
(00:00) Fourth Cylinder falls in Bushy Park and the Surrey country side is a war zone. (Narrator and Curate are trapped in the Upper Halliford house by the black smoke all through Monday.)
(12:00) Martian Fighting Machine sprays the Black smoke with steam. (17:00) Curate and Narrator set out towards Sunbury.
(20:00) Reach Hampton Court (20:30) Narrator and Curate Cross Richmond Bridge
(20:30- 23:00) Narrator and Curate hide in a potters shed in Kew to avoid Martian Fighting Machine which is picking up fleeing humans and putting them in the basket on its back. (23:00) Narrator and Curate set out again. (23:30) Narrator and Curate break into a House in Sheen in search of food. They then cross the street into a second house.
TUESDAY (1st day )
(00:00) The Fifth Cylinder lands in the house they first entered and traps them in the kitchen/pantry/scullery.
(00:00 - 05:30) Narrator and Curate realise what has happened.
(20:00 - 21:00) The Narrator observes the Martian Pit for the first time and sees the Handling Machine, Digging Mechanism, the Martian Creatures and the furnace.
WEDNESDAY ( JUNE) (2nd day)
(21:00) The Narrator observes the Martians feeding.
THURSDAY (3rd Day)
(Narrator sees the lad killed and tries to dig a hole for escape. Hears six gun shots and no more.)
SUNDAY (8th day)
(Narrator and Curate fight over bottle.)
TUESDAY (10th Day)
(Narrator kills Curate and Martian drags body away.)
TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY (11th day)
(Narrator stays put in Coal cellar terrified of Martian return.)
THURSDAY (12th day)
(Narrator gets a drink)
FRIDAY (13TH day)
(Narrator has another drink and dreams horrible dreams.)
SATURDAY (14th Day)
(Red Weed has grown across the hole.)
SUNDAY (15th Day)
(Narrator sees dog and escapes the ruined house.)
(Spends night in an Inn on Putney Hill)
MONDAY
(Morning: Sets out through Wimbledon)
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