Brave New World - would it have worked?

[broton]

Just how feasible was the artilleryman's plan?
Could Man have lived underground and built up viable communities without the knowledge of the Martians? How long would it be before humanity got sick of mushroom soup? Your thoughts please.

[theredweed]

The main thing you have to look at is food, there is little can food or long life food in 1898 and with no natural sunlight they would not be able to survive very long, they couldn't have made fields of crops above the sruface cos the red weed would kill it all.

I don't think it would work in the long term, but its a great short term answer

[Thunder Child]

And a few Black Smoke cannisters shot into the drains would be the end of it all...

Johan

[theredweed]

Good point.

[broton]

Exactly, that's why I said "without the Martians knowledge" - once they found out where the people were it would be extermination time.

[theredweed]

The humans may die before then with the lack of fresh air and fresh food

[lanceradvanced]

It -might- work, but prolly not in the cities, out in the countryside, more so in wales and scottland using natural caves and or barrows, planting crops and the like in a disquised manner on the edges of meadows and the like..

The red weed wouldn't be -that- much of an issue is it didn't spread far from water, even the black smoke could be dealt with by a water lock ( connect two rooms with a quick underwater passage)

I wouldn't put the martians past using the tunnels and drains of londen for their own purposes either, a handling machine probably wouldn't have any problem traversing one if push came to shove...

[Lensman]

Could humans live like "rats in the walls"? As vermin, stealing supplies from the Martians, living on the edges and on the crumbs? Certainly some of them could. And like vermin, they will do so only so long as they don't make too big a nuisance of themselves. If they attract the attention of the Martians, they'll be exterminated... like vermin.

But the artilleryman's idea of actually fighting a resistance against the Martians is absurd. Without outside help they have no chance of accomplishing anything. Like the French Resistance in W.W. II, they might be able to cause some minor problems for the Martians, but they'd never overthrow the Martians' rule by themselves.

When I read this passage in the novel, it seems that the Artilleryman is just spouting pipe dreams. I never thought Wells intended for his readers to take the Artilleryman's ideas seriously. I think Wells was showing that even in the midst of a civilization collapsing, that self-delusion could still allow some complacency to exist. The complacency of saying "Oh, someday we'll overthrow the Martians. But I've got more important things to worry about right now."

[Moorkey]

Referencing a point made by my dad on reading the book.

"Isn't it funny how he [H.G.Wells] suggested an idea in this book that, after initially seeming ridiculous, worked all too well for the Vietnamese."

He went on to say that, although they didn't have railways, cricket fields, etc... the idea of a subversive resistance organised below ground is not only feasible, but has, since the book was written, been proven effective.

[mctoddridesagain]

Interesting point. But the Vietcong were supplied with weapons by external sources, just as the French Resistance was as well. In that respect, they weren't totally self-sufficient, which is what the Artilleryman implies will be the case with his plan. No self-sufficient resistance has ever been proven viable, because there never are self-sufficient resistance movements (at least, not successful ones) - a rival power always supports the rebels. The Afghans ground the Soviets down - but who financed, supplied, and trained the Islamist guerillas? The Americans. Look even to the American Revolution - the British were only beaten because the French backed the colonists.

Also, the US never lost a pitched battle with the North Vietnamese, they lost because the folks at home could watch endless reports on TV of the grinding effects of guerilla warfare. Now unless Joe Martian back home is watching reports on the War On Earth on his crystal egg and gets sufficiently riled to start protest marches (maybe chanting, 'Martian Overlord, Martian Overlord, how many squids did you kill today?') I doubt the Artilleryman's 'resistance' would be more than nuisance value, unless his people were to get overseas help. And the geographical factor that made Britain so safe from foreign invasion, the fact of her being an island, would also be the very factor preventing foreign help reaching the resistance.