"Ruddy-Brown Fluid"

[Thunder Child]

Hi al,

From "Chapter Twelve
What I Saw of the Destruction
of Weybridge and Shepperton ":

Enormous quantities of a ruddy-brown fluid were spurting up in noisy jets out of the machine.


What are your personal thoughts about this fluid? What was it and what was it function in the Machine?

Johan

[mctoddridesagain]

Diaohrrea. The Martians died of Delhi Belly...

[Thunder Child]

;D LOL ;D

[Chris Oakley]

;D

Joking aside my interpretation is it's something that powers the machine, a bit like brake fluid.

Whilst we're on the subject, in the "Dead London" painting what are the birds pulling at?

[Lensman]

Oil or hydraulic fluid... brake fluid is a type of hydraulic fluid, so that's similar.

Just a guess of course...

I also think the color "ruddy-brown" was intended to be suggestive of the air of decay of the descriptions of the Martians in this section. So the fact that someone may think "rust" or "blood" or "diarrhea" (I've seen at least 3 ways to spell that word) is IMHO no coincidence.

chrisoakley said:

Whilst we're on the subject, in the "Dead London" painting what are the birds pulling at?

From the "Dead London" chapter of the novel:

"...I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster . Out of the hood hung lank shreds of brown, at which the hungry birds pecked and tore."

I'm fairly sure that's the body of a dead Martian, especially since a description of Martian bodies immediately follows that passage.

[Poyks]

Sounds more feasible than Martian Squits! hehe!

[BrutalDeluxe]

I always thought of it as the silt and mud of the river being drawn into the intake system of the fallen tripod and expelled. Mind you I haven't given it much thought in years. Hydraulic fluid seems to make more sense.

[Commandingtripod]

Didn't Wells write something about some 'brown scum floating down the Thames watched by a group of boys' or something like that?

[jeffwaynefan]

commandingtripod said:

Didn't Wells write something about some 'brown scum floating down the Thames watched by a group of boys' or something like that?

I believe that is to be 'dead' Red Weed.

[Thunder Child]

I think the Brown Scum is indeed from the fallen Machine:

From The Epiloque:

None of the brown scum that drifted down the Thames after the destruction of Shepperton was examined at the time, and now none is forthcoming

From In London

On the bridge a number of loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down the stream in patches

Johan

[jeffwaynefan]

Maybe the Martians had a home brewing kit inside each machine.

[the Donal]

Or their blood stores oxidising?

[sunnyrabbiera]

Maybe it was tomato soup, the Martians got mixed up between chicken soup and Tomato as they heard that Chicken soup is good for colds...
and no wonder why they got the soups mixed up, the Martian word for tomato is "CHHHHHKKKKKIIIIINNN"
and the Martian word for chicken is "TOOOOMAAAAAAAATTTTTOOOOO"


well I think that would work for Spielburgs version

[Luperis]

lol ;D

Seriously though, Hydrolic fluid/etc does make sense.

Or maybe it's supposed to be some kind of waste from the construction process?

[Chris Oakley]

lensman said:

Oil or hydraulic fluid... brake fluid is a type of hydraulic fluid, so that's similar.

Just a guess of course...

I also think the color "ruddy-brown" was intended to be suggestive of the air of decay of the descriptions of the Martians in this section. So the fact that someone may think "rust" or "blood" or "diarrhea" (I've seen at least 3 ways to spell that word) is IMHO no coincidence.

chrisoakley said:

Whilst we're on the subject, in the "Dead London" painting what are the birds pulling at?

From the "Dead London" chapter of the novel:

"...I ran up the hill towards the motionless monster . Out of the hood hung lank shreds of brown, at which the hungry birds pecked and tore."

I'm fairly sure that's the body of a dead Martian, especially since a description of Martian bodies immediately follows that passage.

That's what I thought too. It's just the painting almost suggests that the hoods of the FMs are full of a reddish goo. If you think about it a dead Martian wouldn't be so close to the eyes, or windscreen if you like.

Maybe I need to not look into it too much

[Moorkey]

Wells describes a gas hissing from the joints of the machines as they walked. He also described this 'ruddy brown fluid' jetting from the machine. To me, these both point to the martian war machine having a hydraulic/oleo system powering it. (or the legs at least.) The reservoir, and fluid/air accumulators would have been under extreme pressure, hence jets of fluid when ruptured. (to move the landing gear on a harrier takes thousands of pounds per square inch. They are only small compared to the 150 feet or so of the war machine's legs!

I have seen the effects of a ruptured hydraulic oleo (Harrier landing gear rupture) It wasn't pretty, but the jets of cherry red, almost brown fluid, in hindsight, remind me of the fallen martian.

Also, by it's oil based nature, hydraulic fluid forms a film on top of water that, if left to oxidise, turns brown.

[Leatherhead]

Interestingly, we saw this fluid in SS's movie. At the end where they detroyed the FM in Boston,

[malfunkshun]

odd that hydraulic fluid would be contained within the living quarters of aliens inside the machine. after all, who expects hydraulic fluid to be expelled when opening an exit hatch? wll maybe it all leaked inside the machine after it got whomped with hand held (hand held mind you) rocket launchers. i guess that makes sense, but then wouldn't all of that pressure from the leaking hydraulics have ruptured the hatch? instead it openes and the fluid just pours out. and the martian, having been subjected to these zillions of pounds of hydraulic presure accumulating inside its living quarters, is still alive, even though its sick with the flu. and since when was hydraulic fluid orange?

personally i think if hydraulic fluid had leaked into the interior of the tripod where the aliens lived, it would have ruptured the structure of the machine and splahsed the aliens againts the walls.

[Lensman]

Hydraulic fluid is viscous, like a heavy oil. I don't think the large volume of watery fluid that gushed out of the SS tripod was composed of that.

[Commandingtripod]

I'm in agreement with you Lensman, I don't think the stuff that came out of the SS tripod was anything like hydraulic fluid.
Come to think of it, I don't even know what that stuff was anyway.