Which society would survive better?

[Commandingtripod]

Which society would survive better?

Would Wells' era (1890's) survive better than ours (2000's)?

I'm not talking about would we be able to blast the Martians off the face of the Earth - I'm talking about survival in general.

The Martians have taken over and lost - which era would be able to get back on their feet quicker after all the devestation?

[deadsword]

A good question. I would have to say the turn of the century era because it was only a hand ful of tripods and only in Britain and life was not as complicated back then, they did not have over population(I wonder what earth's population waw back the) like now and complicated, advanced, modern tech and plus they had better morals or ideals back then i think.

[theredweed]

But then again we have more money and more comunication so rebuilding our world would probably be easier than 1890, as it would be hard back then as transport of materials and lack of labourers would mean it would take longer

[nervouspete]

Also, resources hadn't been so exhausted back then, there were still big seams of ores and coal and oil near the surface, juicy stuff needed to get humanity going again.

[Lensman]

Well it wasn't the 1890s, actually the invasion took place shortly after 1900. But certainly the earlier era would have recovered faster. In Wells' novel only London and the surrounding areas were destroyed; the world wasn't interconnected economically nearly to the degree it is now, so there would be no worldwide economic collapse; there was a lot more self-sufficiency by people in the industrialized nations than there is today; and there were no networks of instant communication, data processing, and nationwide electrical grids to collapse and cause chaos.

For instance, in the modern era banks use computers to store and transact deposits and exchanges of money. If the telephone or the electrical system collapsed, our banking system would collapse-- therefore we'd have complete economic collapse. But in the early 1900s all records were on paper, and they didn't rely on instant transactions between banks.

[theredweed]

I thought the invasion took place in 1898

Plus in wells novel there was no talk of tripods being anywhere else or that they didn't attack anywhere else, so we dont have a fair question really

[mctoddridesagain]

theredweed said:

I thought the invasion took place in 1898

Nope, that's when the novel was published, but Wells was explicit that the events it depicts took place early in the new century:

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water... Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

He didn't specify the exact year, however - see various threads debating this in the Novel section...

[nervouspete]

I mean, I reckon in the novel at least a million Brits are lost in the attacks, but still it's a localised area around the South of England. Britain would move the capital to York or Birmingham and things would pick up again in a decade. London strikes me as being more gassed than heat rayed, so although the death is appalling the infrastructure is there.

Compare to what must have happened to Britain in Spielberg's version. Every infrastructure network ripped apart by those 'zero gravity beams', two weeks of farming and red weed. And they'd be all over the country, destroying everything. Far higher toll it seems, unbelivably.

Remember the end of Fight Club? The big plan to destroy the bank records and plunge America into glorious anarchy? Think that, only bigger.

Yeah, bigger than the latter Orson Welles.

That big.

[Commandingtripod]

lensman said:

Well it wasn't the 1890s, actually the invasion took place shortly after 1900.

Very true.
I was thinking more of when the book was published rather than the actual date of invasion.

[theredweed]

Fine go ahead pick on me for my youth and my inability to read and take note *sniff sniff*

[Lensman]

nervouspete said:

Compare to what must have happened to Britain in Spielberg's version. Every infrastructure network ripped apart by those 'zero gravity beams', two weeks of farming and red weed. And they'd be all over the country, destroying everything. Far higher toll it seems, unbelivably.

What in the Spielberg movie indicates two weeks pass?

[Rocka]

I thoughts Spielbergs movie happens in less than a week.

[wotwfan48]

Oh it though it was 17 days??, I took that from a wotw forum, i dont remember witch one. Chantale.

[Herulian Martian]

Britain in 1901 would recover more easily...eventually they would be dissecting the Martian tech and putting it to good use. We would have a more difficult time...but eventually we would have a steeper learning curve concering Martian tech. In Amazing Adventures #18, it was more than hinted that we put the Martians' tech to good use between 1901 and 2001 when the Martians successfully invaded again. If they had attacked our world and failed or be nuked, we would learn enough quickly enough to bring the war back to their world and finish it.