I don't own War of the Worlds, but I do own some of the ideas I came up with in this oneshot. I hope you enjoy it, and please drop me a review of what you think of my work.
Italics means Martian speech.
"We have been delayed, not Defeated."
The Emperor's council on Mars was in full session, each one of them staring at the massive holographic oval in the centre of the circular hall with the three levels - two for the council and the rest of the court and the third for the Emperor.
Sinister and repulsive with tentacles emerging from a body that looked more like a bloated brain with multifaceted eyes and two hand-like appendages, the Martians were as big as bears found on Earth, but each of them required the use of walking machines which were the Martian equivalent of wheel chairs only their functions were much more complex, and they contained life support mechanisms to keep the creatures from exhausting themselves, the Martians stared at the images streaming from Earth. Some of the Martian council had plastic tubes running into their bodies, delivering vital blood taken from the slaves, and with controls on their travel machines, they were able to control how much blood entered their bodies.
The speed of the data-stream coming from Earth was coming in so fast that if a human, a lesser species of lesser intellect, were to stare at the holographs they would have to look away because their eyes would begin to hurt and their heads with their weak brains would not be able to cope, but it was not a problem for the Martians with the enormously genetically engineered intellects.
They watched the landings of the cylinders that had been set to the Earth with the use of the gravity pulse cannons, aimed directly at the small island known as "England," a name they had gleaned with the use of their sensor arrays which had been developed steadily over the aeons as the Martians had warred amongst themselves in increasingly dangerous wars which had consumed the resources of their planet though it had given the entire Martian race the incentive they needed to introduce more and more radical genetic engineering into their matrix already.
The image showed the suspended animation pods within the cylinders being de-powered and the first of the warrior-scientist elite had been revived before they activated their war machines. The Emperor observed the amount of time it took for the suspended animation pods to disengage, but there was little he could do about that; their people had discovered that their bodies were simply not suited to space travel, so they had decided to simply bypass that.
The data-stream went on, and the council witnessed the first battles; their might against the primitive weapons of the humans (the Martians had to admit to themselves the humans were facing their technology bravely, futile as it was - in the end it made little difference, sooner or later the human race would either be enslaved or destroyed) though their machines were constructed of advanced alloys, and even if the humans had won once or twice, in the long term it would simply not matter; they would eventually lose.
Each section of the data-stream taken from each of the fighting machines from various locations contained information that was critical to the Martian war plan, information like how the humans fared against their fighting machines was sent to Mars constantly for review and study, while the Scientific sections reviewed the analysis provided on the Planetary Transformation plan to distribute the red weed throughout the planet to provide the future Martian overlords was being relayed to their fellow scientists on Mars.
And then everything changed.
The expeditionary force, the scouting party…. they began to collapse and die.
The council were aware that the expeditionary force had breathed in the atmosphere of Earth, sampled the water, and drank human blood, but they began to collapse and die some time afterwards. When the last machine collapsed, they still received the data-streams from each one. That was expected; the expeditionary force had been sent to gather information about the Earth, its people and their weaknesses while accessing the purity of the atmosphere and the general state of the planet for the colonisation.
None of the council was truly bothered by the humans studying their technology. It was to be expected; the humans had witnessed the power of the Martian fighting machines, they knew their pilots were dead, and there was nothing to stop them from studying the machines to learn how they worked.
Finally, the Emperor shut down the hologram with a thought command and his eyes scanned the rest of the council. The Martians didn't show much emotion. None of the council was affected by the loss of their own on Earth, even the Emperor didn't care. The Martian race had done away with empathy a long time ago, but their survival instinct was stronger than ever. Generations of living on a dying world with dwindling resources had pushed their drive to survive on the planet to greater heights.
Our expeditionary force is dead. What caused it?" The Emperor asked without emotion.
One of the scientific leaders on the council spoke. We are continuing our examinations of the readings, but our current theory is there are micro-organisms present in Earth's atmosphere which are not in our own atmosphere.
How were they not detected? One of the Warrior elite asked.
The Scientist's travel machine turned towards the Warrior with only a mechanical whirr as the mechanism turned. They were. They were detected after the first of our cylinders arrived on Earth. The sensor arrays of all of our cylinders were designed to study everything about the soil, the plant life, the air, and the water of Earth with the studies returning to our laboratories on Mars. The microorganisms were detected very quickly, but since we do not have anything similar on Mars unless of course they existed when our world was living, they were ignored.
Is there a cure? The Emperor asked.
We are studying the scans taken by the bio-scanners in each fighting machine. As you are aware, when we planned this expedition our studies of Earth's atmosphere deemed it habitable for our race, but we have no idea what the long term effects would be, so we equipped our fighting machines with bio-scanners while placing nano-sensors in the bodies of our warriors to see what the Earth was doing to them. We also had concerns about the gravity of the Earth, so our scanners were essential in determining whether or not we should genetically re-engineer our race once more to make our people adapt, another Scientist answered.
Satisfactory, the Emperor replied, dismissing the loss of so many Warriors but since their race had done away with sexual reproduction centuries ago and used parthenogenesis to reproduce they were unconcerned with the loss. They would soon be replaced.
The humans….. they have samples of our technology. Is there any real danger they will be able to repel our invasion force when we despatch the next wave? Another Warrior asked.
The Emperor turned to the Scientific members of the council, wondering what their response would be. We may have trouble when we return to Earth, one of the Scientists said slowly and carefully, but the Fighting Machines we sent to Earth were essentially prototypes. We have been studying the Human population of the planet for centuries, and we know that they grow in much the same manner we do, they advance through war and struggle much like we do. When we despatched the Fighting Machines, we despatched models that have been used against the lesser races on our world complete with sensors to help us design more efficient machines designed solely for war on Earth. Answering your question, the only danger we have is if they manage to produce our energy weapons and make them more powerful. There's nothing we can do from here. All we can do is use the information from the data-streams and use it wisely.
To a human observer the Martian Council seemed to take the reply well, but to a Martian from any of the caste races, they would be terrified. The Martians were displeased with the reply since it didn't really answer the question.
The Emperor shuddered lightly as the life support computer of its travel unit pumped tranquillisers when the computer detected the increase in blood pressure as the Martian's hearts began to pump more feverishly despite being usually very sluggish. The Emperor was trying to control his rage at the prospect of more and more of their race being killed though the sacrifice would be expected if it meant their culture survived on the planet Earth.
Personally, the Emperor of the Martians didn't really care if more of his kind were lost - his people had done away with stupid emotions like empathy and compassion because they were wasteful in the face of their dying world, but a war was going on within his mind.
The humans could become a terrible threat when he gave the order to despatch the next wave of cylinders containing the next generation Fighting Machine. They may have learnt enough about the alloys used in the machines and the cylinders already on Earth to develop weapons that could pierce or at least damage the metal sufficiently to slow the advance.
The long term plan of colonising Earth was to despatch cylinders containing the gene banks containing the genetic material of the Martian overlords and the birthing tanks needed to grow the embryos. With weapons that could damage the machines, the cylinders could be destroyed and thousands of gene banks could be lost. The thought angered the Emperor. What made it worse was the humans may find out enough about their heat and disintegration weapons to cause enough damage it may have been wiser to stay on their world.
Once the tranquillisers did their work, the Emperor saw things more logically. Yes, the humans would study their technology, but some of it may be too far ahead into the future before they could truly understand the principles behind most of it.
Continue to study the information received from our cylinders and fighting machines on Earth, and boost the scanning probes so enough information about Earth's technology reaches our world. Study the information carefully. Develop the next models of Fighting machine carefully, and simulate their use using models of Earth's environment. It is essential we develop machines that are more powerful than the ones lost on Earth, the Emperor ordered at last when he had calmed down enough to think about the long term issues.
The Scientists of the Council accepted the order instantly.
But the Emperor was not finished as an idea entered his mind. Begin researching the possibilities of despatching automated Fighting Machines to Earth, he instructed, we will send them to Earth in the next planetary alignment, and we will send them to other parts of the planet where the humans are fighting. We shall use them to study some of the humans' battle tactics, which you will review, he added with a look towards the Warriors, and you shall adjust your strategies accordingly. Remember, we have been delayed, not defeated.
Once the orders had been given, the Emperor turned to other matters of importance. What is the latest news with the lesser castes?
The Martians who had invaded Earth were not the only intelligent race on the planet, there were two others, and all three of them were originally part of the same culture though none of them cared to admit it. When it became obvious to their ancestors Mars was dying and would soon become uninhabitable to any form of life, they had turned to genetic engineering and cybernetics to help them find a way to survive while a small minority opted to remain the same without any extensive genetic enhancement besides the basics to make their bodies more resource friendly.
The Martian race divided after millions of years of evolution developing wondrous technologies all in the face of their dying world. One race turned to cybernetics to remove the need to breathe, to eat, drink, and sleep while removing their organic body parts and had become more machine-like. Another race turned to the underground, genetically engineering their bodies so then they could survive in total darkness. The next two Martian sub-races were the Emperor's own race and what was left of the ancient Martians.
Out of all of the castes the Emperor's race was the only one to make extensive use of genetic engineering while the group who had opted to maintain the original humanoid form of Martian had only adjusted their bodies to take nourishment from the atmosphere of their world rather than depend on anything else, allowing them to live for centuries.
The Emperor's caste had sacrificed everything in order to survive. They removed the need for sexual reproduction and grew their people through the use of birthing tanks, they had altered themselves so many times that they had realised too late that by replacing much of their body mass with brain mass, and now there was little of their original self-left. The Martians of the Emperor's caste were even biologically sorted into various roles; for instance, if the Scientific guild needed more scientists with expertise in robotics, they would breed a new generation of scientists and genetically program them with the knowledge of the field and they would also be programmed to be imaginative and creative in order to address the need.
While all Martians of this particular caste were genetically bred with scientific and engineering ability in order to ensure their race was prepared for any eventuality, in each caste they were bred to exhibit the best traits needed for those roles.
The Emperor's caste was at war with the other castes though their resources were currently trying to tackle the problems they were facing. The Scientific guild of their caste was trying to find new ways of surviving on the increasingly uninhabitable planet while the Warriors were tasked with protecting them. The plan to conquer Earth was highly logical and so their resources were going into making a strike force capable of conquering the planet and moving their entire civilisation to Earth, and as a result, the other castes had been pushed aside. They would remain pushed away for a long time while their caste went over their conflict on Earth, but the Emperor knew the other castes would cause problems. They may not be as intelligent as their cast, their minds bogged down by emotions which his caste had removed in favour of intellect, but they were not stupid; they would know sooner or later what was going on, what they were planning for the Earth, and they would pool their resources together in order to strike.
We have not heard from the Cybernetic caste ever since they destroyed the orbit shot facilities bringing materials from the asteroids, one of the Warrior guild replied. While it slowed down our ability to construct the war fleet to send to Earth, they lacked the resources to truly stop us.
The subterranean caste has been the biggest problem. They have destroyed our deep level water probes, a Scientific councillor reported. They are slowing down our ability to drill deeply for water sources in order to curb the dwindling supplies from the polar regions.
Devise a means of protecting the next generation of deep-level probes, the Emperor ordered. Ordinarily, with the other castes, I would order a complete saturation extermination to ensure our plans succeed. But at present, our intellect needs to be used to ensure our survival. Construct new probes, use them, and if they are attacked then we shall look to other means of dealing with the problem.
Why not deal with the problem now? One of the councillors asked.
The Emperor was not affected to the questioning of one of his decisions - he was the leader, but if there was one thing not screened out of their genome during their progenation it was the need to communicate with one another to determine the best means of survival. At present, our resources are required to ensure our race survives and does not die out. How goes our research into exploring that ocean moon in the inner solar system?
We have built the ship that will take the expedition to the moon in question, it will be launched at the end of the cycle. Another scientist, one of those responsible for the construction, answered.
Satisfactory. If this moon is ideal, we shall prepare to move some of our number to that moon while we continue with the Earth plan, the Emperor said. If the Earth plan fails, I want other possibilities.
There is the chance we can colonise the asteroids. We wouldn't have the kind of quality of life we would get on a world like Earth, but at least we wouldn't have to continually dredge channels for polar water to reach our settlements. The biggest problems with that idea are we would need to find out what long-term life in that particular environment will have on our bodies, and if we need to resort to more genetic engineering just to survive, a Scientist said.
We considered living on the asteroids, one of the city councillors commented. They were deemed too dangerous.
We have to consider the possibilities. Very well, the Emperor said as he made up his mind. Despatch a scientific unit to the asteroid mining and industrial facilities, I want to know what long term living in a high radiation environment will have on our bodies.
That will take time to arrange, a Warrior pointed out.
Good. It will give everyone the means to investigate other possibilities, the Emperor said. Prepare a long-range spacecraft immediately. I want it launched by the end of the cycle. That should give you plenty of time to arrange. In the meantime, study the biological screenings of our people who work in the asteroids as a preliminary study; the effects of high radiation and gravity on them will be limited, but for the scientific team I want them to remain for longer.
And if their results show we can survive in the asteroids, what do we do then? Do you cancel our plans for Earth?
No. The Earth must be conquered. It has the right climates and the right minerals, and the environment for our people. If we conquer the Earth we shall have access to human industry and we can use that to rebuild our civilisation. But it is becoming obvious to me our plan to simply rely on one plan is foolish. It will take us time to breed a generation of our race capable of resisting these microorganisms on Earth, build a new generation of Fighting machine. I will not let us die because we were foolish to depend on just one plan. The Emperor looked around the council chamber. Have the expeditions prepared. In 8 cycles, I want to have a good idea of our long-term plans.
Soon, we shall be the masters of this solar system and the humans will be enslaved and destroyed. And we shall dominate their world, we shall build a world suited for ourselves and for the first time, we can develop a civilisation where we are not constantly at war with derivatives of our own race. Leave me, we have much to do.
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A cycle is Two Martian Years - so 1,374 days.
The Martian castes idea comes from Christopher Priest's novel The Space Machine, a crossover of sorts between the Time Machine and War of the Worlds. There were two forms of Martian in the book, the ones who conquered Earth, and another humanoid race the other Martians feed upon.
The idea that the Martians rely solely on Earth in order to survive is sound, the Martians need a new planet to live on with air and water in abundance along with slaves and a new source of food. But I thought it made more sense if they had other plans in the works.