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Post by Dinsley on Feb 15, 2005 21:23:21 GMT
I have listened to the Jeff Waynes version and it states that they drain the fresh blood and inject it into there own veins, how do they do that, needles, some sort of sucker. Can anyone help.  |
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Post by theheatray on Feb 15, 2005 21:26:35 GMT
They dont drink anything they have no digestive tract, they drain us (thats not explained) and inject the blood into their own veins, mmmm nice!
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Post by Cylinder on Feb 15, 2005 22:45:33 GMT
Because Human blood tastes lush!!!! Especially with some father beans and a liver pate.
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Post by theheatray on Feb 15, 2005 23:38:57 GMT
I wonder are the martians picky, would they pick up a warty tramp that stinks of poo and wee, think about it for a second and then drop him, suddenly not so hungry?
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Post by EvilNerfherder on Feb 16, 2005 0:36:22 GMT
No, blood is blood at the end of the day..
Certainly as far as the story in question is concerned.
HOWEVER..
That does raise interesting questions about 'donor' suitability.
Would todays blood be suitable? For that matter would the blood of someone, back then, with an STD be rejected by the Martians?
Would blood carrying an infection put the Martians off?
Could it be that it may have alternatively ended up with Herpes.. not the common cold.. that halted the invasion?
If Wells wrote WotW NOW.. would the common cold still be the disease to put a stop to the Martian's dastardly plans?
To really answer these questions we'd need to know more about the Martian immune system (or lack of as Wells would lead us to believe).
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Post by malfunkshun on Feb 16, 2005 2:34:34 GMT
seems to me that it would have to have been some kind of bacteria common to all humans, not just a cold (which is a virus btw) or herpes, which might not be present in the blood of every human.
so, i don't know which or if any type of bacteria are ubiquitous in the blood of all humans, but it would seem to me that since all of the martians died, that it would be some kind of bug found commonly in everybody that we just don't get sick from at all.
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Post by twistedrabbit on Feb 16, 2005 3:37:35 GMT
Obviously the Martians did not focus their intelligent minds on germs and microscopic organisms...it's not too hard to imagine, a massive intellect missing something important in the universe.
I never saw the Martians as being much smarter than humans...though their dexterity and intellect of machines and light beams was well beyond are own. While humans were still evolving socially, the martians had been evolving for who knows how long...into massive bloated brains. Martians injected blood into their veins via a "pipette"--which most believe was mechanical and artificial, but there have been incarnations of organic bone needles and such. Not sure if the original novel was clearer, but I always got a sense it was mechanical.
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Post by theheatray on Feb 16, 2005 4:01:26 GMT
H G Wells does say that the martians rid mars of bacteria a long time ago so it just was no longer applicable to them anymore, it did not exist to them why worry about it.
We all carry germs that we become immune to either before we are born (genetic) or after when we develop antibodies, we all carry certain virus strains too like the AD virus, there are some 50 types of AD virus, thats the one thats like either the flue or gastric enteritus which we all get from time to time.
Remember that HIV kills when AIDS kills off the immune system and germs we would have been immune to simply run riot and kill the victim. Thats the martians natural state, no immune system.
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Post by Bayne on Feb 16, 2005 4:36:50 GMT
[glow=red,2,300]I always favour the surgical method as it emphasises their reliance on machinery.
[/glow]
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Post by Killraven on Feb 17, 2005 19:19:17 GMT
Would todays blood be suitable? For that matter would the blood of someone, back then, with an STD be rejected by the Martians? Would blood carrying an infection put the Martians off? Could it be that it may have alternatively ended up with Herpes.. not the common cold.. that halted the invasion? If Wells wrote WotW NOW.. would the common cold still be the disease to put a stop to the Martian's dastardly plans? How about syphilis??   |
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Post by Cylinder on Feb 17, 2005 22:22:14 GMT
How about syphilis?? No thanks.  |
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Post by DarkElastic on Feb 18, 2005 10:46:39 GMT
I think they drained and took in the blood the same way as 'The Killer Clowns from Outer Space' with extremely long and twisting red and white straws. And because they don’t have a digestive system, whatever goes into their mouth, goes into their blood.
You will have to watch the said film to know what the hell i'm going on about - very funny!
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KDF
Junior Member
Ulla!
Posts: 5
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Post by KDF on Feb 18, 2005 12:07:16 GMT
Christopher Priest's "The Space Machine" had an interesting take on the whole blood sucking thing by the Martians..both the why and the how.
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Post by jeffwaynefan on Feb 18, 2005 12:55:29 GMT
<<How do they drink our blood!>>
In a tall glass with ice and a slice and a wooden umberella? ;D
H_C
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Post by theheatray on Feb 18, 2005 14:06:25 GMT
...with milk and two sugers.... Sorry that was bad  |
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Post by Lensman on Feb 23, 2005 8:35:08 GMT
From Book two, Chapter 2: "They were heads--merely heads. Entrails they had none. They did not eat, much less digest. Instead, they took the fresh, living blood of other creatures, and injected it into their own veins. [...] blood obtained from a still living animal, in most cases from a human being, was run by means of a little pipette into the recipient canal..."
And later on, Wells says that either diseases never developed on their planet, or else they conquered disease so long ago that it is no longer a concern for them. Presumably that's the justification for them not thinking of the possibility of catching diseases from humans.
Exactly what disease was it that killed them? Very likely none of the things others have mentioned. It's rare for a disease to "jump species," and even if you presume the life of Mars and Earth had a common origin (from microbes being carried by meteorites from one world to another), odds are that whatever was so bad for them didn't bother us at all.
Re the blood type problem: Now we get into pure speculation, since Wells never mentions it. Perhaps the blood was filtered and processed before being fed into the Martians' veins, altho the description of "fresh, living blood" argues against that.
But I note that anyone can receive type "O" blood during a transfusion. What causes reaction against the wrong type of blood is actually an immune response. It would be simplest to speculate that the Martians evolved so that different blood types did not trigger an immune response in them.
Come to think of it, that fits right into the story. If the Martians had conquered disease that thoroughly, they wouldn't need much of an immune system. That makes it much more believable that the immune system was weakened and/or suppressed in their species.
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Post by zipper on Feb 23, 2005 16:38:09 GMT
I think they achieve this by inserting some kind of tube to extract the blood. Bodies are then ground up and scattered over a wide area. Cheers!
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Post by Rob on Feb 23, 2005 17:18:36 GMT
And what if the martian in question was watching their weight? Slim line blood?
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Post by Topaz on Feb 23, 2005 18:54:17 GMT
Exactly what disease was it that killed them? Very likely none of the things others have mentioned. It's rare for a disease to "jump species," and even if you presume the life of Mars and Earth had a common origin (from microbes being carried by meteorites from one world to another), odds are that whatever was so bad for them didn't bother us at all. Very likely whatever disease killed them would be inconsequential for us. As I understand it, the current population has a fairly effective resistance to the 'Black Death' variation of the plague. That relative immunity was bought with millions of lives, and the disease would still be profoundly lethal to a species that was susceptible and had never been exposed to it. In regard to diseases 'jumping species', we can probably safely assume that whatever killed them was a bacterial disease, rather than a virus. Viruses find it difficult to jump species (fortunately for us!) because they have to be intimately adapted to the proteins and genetic structures of their particular host. Bacteria, as far as I understand, find it much easier to cross species since they just need the right stuff to feed upon in the host; they don't need to turn the hosts own systems into a 'virus factory'. |
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Post by Topaz on Feb 23, 2005 18:56:56 GMT
And what if the martian in question was watching their weight? Slim line blood? Heh. I have visions of two Martians out 'jogging' around the Tharsis volcanos, griping about how much they 'overdid it' at the budding festival. ;D |
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