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Post by bradhig on Jan 22, 2006 3:35:47 GMT
Were the cylinders launched or fired from a large cannon? I saw some cgi test video showing a cylinder with boosters that looked liked it was launched.
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Post by Commandingtripod on Jan 22, 2006 8:15:32 GMT
Hi there. Well, if I can remember (not that I'm 100% sure about this) I think the narrator said that they "fired their missiles at us." Well at least I think that's what he said. If anyone knows for sure that would be good.
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Post by Lensman on Jan 22, 2006 9:44:21 GMT
Keep in mind the story is told from the viewpoint of an observer on earth, so we never "see" the launch site of the cylinders or any details of the launches. The Narrator from his observations infers that the cylinders are fired from a giant cannon, which is the same method of space travel used in the earlier Jules Verne novel From the Earth to the Moon. A relevant quote from Book 1, Chapter 1 of WotW: "He compared it to a colossal puff of flame suddenly and violently squirted out of the planet, 'as flaming gasses rushed out of a gun'." And from Book 2, Chapter 7: "After the tenth shot they fired no more--at least, until the first cylinder came." "How do you know?" said the artilleryman. I explained. He thought. "Something wrong with the gun," he said. ~~~~~~~~~~ As far as launching via rocket: As has been pointed out fairly recently in another thread, the idea of using liquid fueled rockets for space travel was almost unknown at the time WotW was written. Almost certainly Wells had not heard of it, and even if he had I question he would have used it, because he would have had to spend some time explaining the concept to his readers. The idea of the gun is fairly simple and straightforward, and at least some of his readers would have already been exposed to that method by reading Verne's novel. Well, if I can remember (not that I'm 100% sure about this) I think the narrator said that they "fired their missiles at us." I believe the quote you're thinking of is from the book's first chapter: "...those missiles the Martians had fired at us drew earthwards..." But don't read too much into the word "missile" there. In the broader meaning of "missile," bullets and arrows (and thrown rocks) are missiles, too. The Victorian era was long before guided missiles. The closest thing they had was gunpowder (fireworks-type) rockets. If you want to know more about those, see the article on the Congreve rocket at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congreve_rocket
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Post by Commandingtripod on Jan 22, 2006 10:00:55 GMT
Cool thanks for clearing that up with me Lensman.
Like I said I wasn't really 100% sure about what I was saying was correct.
I thought that I remembered that it was in the book somewhere. Though your right, missile doesn't mean like the ones we have now.
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Post by TOMAHAWK on Jan 22, 2006 10:21:27 GMT
Erm
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Post by TOMAHAWK on Jan 22, 2006 10:30:06 GMT
Erm when was the last time you launched a bullet at somebody or launched an arrow ...
this has been discussed in depth on a previous thread... however ... despite what Lensman said
Heat Rays weren't around in Wells's time .... but he still wrote about them and I am pretty sure 100ft metal Tripods didn't exist in 1897 either ..... so given that
A :Wells never elaborates on the description of the cylinder ...it could have had engines... but we are never told
B: the Martians more then likely had rocket technology
C: for all we know the "GUN" could have been an underground launching tube for the cylinder (makes sense if you live underground i suppose) for example .... similar to the Viper launching from Battlestar Glactica
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Post by mctoddridesagain on Jan 22, 2006 11:38:58 GMT
Erm when was the last time you launched a bullet at somebody or launched an arrow ... this has been discussed in depth on a previous thread... however ... despite what Lensman said Heat Rays weren't around in Wells's time .... but he still wrote about them and I am pretty sure 100ft metal Tripods didn't exist in 1897 either ..... so given that A :Wells never elaborates on the description of the cylinder ...it could have had engines... but we are never told B: the Martians more then likely had rocket technology C: for all we know the "GUN" could have been an underground launching tube for the cylinder (makes sense if you live underground i suppose) for example .... similar to the Viper launching from Battlestar Glactica Of course heat rays and tripods weren't around when Wells wrote, Tomahawk, although presumably you've got inside HG's head and can see that when he wrote about a giant gun, he actually meant a rocket. Nice work Sherlock, what next? That when he wrote about tripods he really meant giant rabbits? Lensman's point still stands that Wells thought in terms of a cannon because that's what would have been seen as about the only way of launching a space craft at that time (Wells went on to use a space gun even as late as 1936 in the film Things to Come, which he scripted), and the precedent was there with Jules Verne's gigantic Columbiad in From the Earth to the Moon, which used a cannon cast in a hole in the ground, a technique Wells's narrator infers from observations of Mars. However, a rocket launched from a silo produces huge vertcal jets of flame which, if seen from a distance by someone who knew nothing of rockets but did know of big guns, might be misinterpreted as a cannon. So it's possible the Martians did use rockets launched from an underground silo, but that does nothing to alter the fact that Wells assumed it was a huge gun. Basically, all I'm saying is that if you choose to depict rocket-propelled cylinders, then it is possible to argue around Wells's account which does imply a giant gun, though I'm not saying I necessarily subscribe to that approach, although I do subscribe to the view that Tomahawk needs to get a bloody life (as evidenced by his rattle-throwing tantrum on this thread: robk.proboards13.com/index.cgi?board=book&action=display&thread=1122236064&page=2).
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Post by Thunder Child on Jan 22, 2006 17:03:41 GMT
Wells described the cylinder launcher as a big gun. So I think it is pretty clear that Wells intended it to be a huge gun...
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Post by Lensman on Jan 22, 2006 20:06:47 GMT
Erm when was the last time you launched a bullet at somebody or launched an arrow ... this has been discussed in depth on a previous thread... however ... despite what Lensman said *Sigh* In the first place Wells never used the word "launched" (I just checked an online searchable text copy) nor "launch", altho the word "launches" is used in relation to a type of boat-- that is, a noun and not the verb you mean. In the second, even if he had used the word "launched" for a cylinder fired from a giant cannon it would be appropriate because-- unlike the objects you mentioned-- it is a *vehicle* carrying *passengers*. Yes this has been discussed at length in the "Uncontrolled Landing?" thread, but the goal of that thread was a revisionist reinterpretation in light of modern science, and veered rather far from what Wells intended when he wrote it... which was the question which started this thread.
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Post by Lensman on Jan 23, 2006 5:01:59 GMT
Tomahawk:
There's an important distinction between what *could* have been done and what the evidence indicates *was* done. This distinction is lost on many who believe in "fringe science". I've read books suggesting the Egyptian pyramids were built using concrete casting, or pulleys and counterweights to pull the huge stones to the top, or even huge round wooden frames put around the stones to roll them across the desert.
Yes, the Egyptians *could* have used any and all of these techniques. But what those proposing these ideas either fail to realize-- or deliberately ignore so they can get attention and sell more books-- is that there is no real evidence they *did* use any of these techniques. And if there's no evidence for it, we can't assume they did.
Similarly, the Martians *could* have used liquid fueled rockets to reach earth, but there's no evidence Wells intended to suggest they *did*. Stubbornly insisting that they did, without any facts to back up the claim, and in the face of solid evidence to the contrary, is not only pointless, it's annoying.
If you want us to give more respect to your posts and arguments, do yourself a favor and read up on the rules of logic and the various categories of fallacious arguments. For example, raising issues entirely irrelevant to the point of contention-- such as your mention above that the Martians used unknown technology-- is annoying to those of us who recognize the fallacy of Digression when we see it, and who understand what "beside the point" means.
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Graz
Junior Member
I bring Sutekh's gift of death, to all humanity!
Posts: 43
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Post by Graz on Jan 28, 2006 12:29:41 GMT
I always imagined the launcher to look like the, 'Space-gun' from the movie of, HG Wells' 'Things to come.'
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Post by Tripod Bait on Feb 7, 2006 16:46:51 GMT
Erm when was the last time you launched a bullet at somebody or launched an arrow ... this has been discussed in depth on a previous thread... however ... despite what Lensman said Heat Rays weren't around in Wells's time .... but he still wrote about them and I am pretty sure 100ft metal Tripods didn't exist in 1897 either ..... so given that A :Wells never elaborates on the description of the cylinder ...it could have had engines... but we are never told B: the Martians more then likely had rocket technology C: for all we know the "GUN" could have been an underground launching tube for the cylinder (makes sense if you live underground i suppose) for example .... similar to the Viper launching from Battlestar Glactica Just for the record: anytime a trigger is pulled that gun's projectile is launched. Just as anytime a bowstring is released an arrow is launched. So to answer your question: last time I was at the shooting range I was launching bullets down range at my target. The term launch is in no way isolated to a projectile that uses liquid or gas propulsion. It relates to the action of hurling an object from it's point of origin to a designated destination. Why assume that the martians had rocket capable technology? According to the novel they had no comprehension of the wheel, and it is never explained what held the flying machine aloft... it could have relied on propellers, or even a type of glider that relied on being launched from a tripod. ...Perhaps it used the same green gas that squirted from the tripods' joints, but under more pressure to force the machine up, and from this point it could ride the air currents. ...We need to think in terms of Victorian science fiction, not contemporary sci-fi. And from the sound of it flying was a relatively new technology for the Martians - I think they were still working the kinks out of it. If it wasn't then why not use flying machines at the start of the invasion as opposed to tripods. I feel that space flight was also relatively new - otherwise they would have attempted to invade earlier, orpossiblly even investigated Venus earlier. I tend to envision a large cannon as well - for a few reasons: because of Well's description, because that was the mind set of how things like this might work in Victorian times, and because of the lack of possible flight technology on behalf of the Martians. Actually, my view of the cylinder is a large bullet shaped object with spiral groves over its surface moving bow to stern (like a form of rifling ) to aid in streamlined atmospheric flight (both during launch and after entering our atmosphere), as well as small ports were air or the green gas can be squirted out to aid in directional flight and possible stabilization during space flight.
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Post by Thunder Child on Feb 7, 2006 17:31:11 GMT
This piece of text from "The Eve Of The War" always strenghtened my thought that the cylinders are indeed fired from a huge gun.
Johan
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Post by Topaz on Jul 22, 2006 3:33:50 GMT
I personally think it's fairly obvious that Wells himself had an actual gun in mind for the "launch", as Verne's book was out and about at the time and there certainly wasn't any other technology in the late nineteeth century that his audience could accept as a realistic possibility.
I'd say it's equally likely that Wells conceived of the cylinders as following a simple ballistic trajectory to Earth, followed by a direct atmospheric entry and unbraked ballistic impact.
I would say that all of his narrative points to that conception.
The point of the "revisionist" discussion alluded to earlier was to fit a realistic technological solution into Wells' fortunately vague verbal description. An interesting thought excercise, as it were. As it sits, the Martians (if they'd been hugely lucky enough to hit the Earth in the first place) would've been oily brown jelly on the inside of their cylinder if the event had been real and the scenario had followed Wells conception. That's mostly a consequence of Wells lack of engineering background, the general state of aerospace technology at the time, and the simple fact that the details of the flight and equipment involved really had little to do with the point of his story and were simple plot devices to lend an air of completeness to the narrative.
Lensman and I disagreed on some of the technical details of the discussion, but I think we both enjoyed the exercise.
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Post by Lensman on Jul 25, 2006 23:42:05 GMT
Hear, hear! Well said, Topaz. Altho I would describe the remains of the Martians upon a meteoric landing as "chunky salsa" rather than "an oily brown jelly".
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Post by Topaz on Jul 26, 2006 5:06:09 GMT
... Altho I would describe the remains of the Martians upon a meteoric landing as "chunky salsa" rather than "an oily brown jelly". See, there you go again. ;D
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Post by Killraven on Aug 4, 2006 13:04:01 GMT
... Altho I would describe the remains of the Martians upon a meteoric landing as "chunky salsa" rather than "an oily brown jelly". See, there you go again. ;D Actually guys, I think you'll find the evidence points to the remains being like Branston pickle Especially as chunky salsa was no doubt unknown to Wells and indeed the majority of Victorian Britain at that time ;D KR
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Post by Lensman on Aug 6, 2006 5:24:14 GMT
LOL! Glad you got me out of that "pickle", Killraven!
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Post by EvilNerfherder on Aug 8, 2006 15:02:34 GMT
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Post by Killraven on Aug 11, 2006 9:38:54 GMT
Pedant!! ;D Okay make that Heinz then... KR
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