Read more about Martians (War of the Worlds) at: Wikipedia Official Site: H. G. Wells The Martians, also known as the Invaders, are the fictional race of extraterrestrials from the H.G. Wells novel The War of the Worlds. They are the antagonists of the novel, and their efforts to exterminate the populace of Earth and claim the planet for themselves drive the plot and present challenges for the book's human characters. They are notable for their use of extraterrestrial weaponry far in advance of that on Earth at the time of the invasion. Little about the Martians is definitive due to the nature of the novel, as it is told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator and his limited witness to the events of their invasion of Earth. The Martians are described as octopus-like creatures; the "body" consists of a disembodied head about four feet across, having two eyes; a beak-like mouth; and two branches of eight 'almost-whip like' tentacle each around the mouth, which have been nicknamed the 'hands'. They reproduce asexually, children being born by "budding" off a parent. Internally, the Martians consist of a brain, lung, heart, and blood vessel; they have no organs for digestion, and therefore sustain themselves by mechanically transfusing blood from other animals into their arteries by means of pipettes. The ear, a single membrane located in the back of the head, is believed to be useless in Earth's atmosphere. Their arrival on Earth is by means of cylindrical capsules launched by a cannon from Mars, and their chief weapon of war is the Martian 'Heat-Ray', which produces a white flame consuming any organism it touches. This is mounted on long poles sometimes attached to a "monstrous tripod", later titled the fighting-machine, which travels across the landscape destroying cities. A secondary weapon appears in the "Black Smoke", a toxic gas released from canisters launched at a distance, which kills a multitude of people but is rendered harmless by water. Mention is also made of an aircraft; but this is never used, except (possibly) to spread the Black Smoke over a wide area. Evidence of a second race of Martian is found to have existed in the dominant race's cylindrical transport vessels, presumably for use as a food supply, but they were all killed before the Martians reached Earth. These Martians are vaguely similar to humans as they are bipedal, about six feet tall, and have a round head shape; however, their fragile physical structure, made up of weak skeletons and muscles, would have been broken in Earth's heavier gravitational pull. It is possible that these creatures are not in fact native Martians, but similar to the Selenites described in Wells's other interplanetary work, The First Men in the Moon. It is also possible that these creatures are the inspiration of popular culture's "Greys", a stereotype of extraterrestrial depicted as a humanoid sharing with Wells' secondary Martians the features of "round, erect heads, and large eyes in flinty sockets".
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Martians (War of the Worlds)