Category: WotW: Earth

I don’t know if anyone is even reading this 🙂 Certainly doesn’t look like it in the comments.
I’ve got two more WotW articles on the back-burner. About the actual technology, machines of war, recovery of civilisation and what we were left with afterwards.

I’ve not written a jot on system yet. Will likely re-use one of the myriad systems I’ve already published in some form or another.

The tragic story of a face-eating fungus on Youtube and another about mind-controlling fungi has pushed me to write a little about the Red Men.

“The church bells were ringing for evensong, and a squad of Salvation Army lassies came singing down Waterloo Road. On the bridge a number of loafers were watching a curious brown scum that came drifting down the stream in patches.”

The War of the Worlds, by H. G. Wells

Of all things, a man’s home is his castle and such was our affrontery at being attacked by distant alien intelligences in our own homes. That they had travelled millions of miles in order to exterminate our way of life was taken by some to be a sign of extreme malevolence. I, on the other hand, presume their opinion of us to be quite different. Indifferent to our plight they came to destroy and plunder, treading roughly on the ant-hills of our civilisation.

In hearing the scope and magnitude of their plan, we must recognise they have come to disrupt everything – planning all but the most meticulous details and it is in those details that we eventually found our salvation. The plans they saw through to fruition go far beyond jets of black smoke, the unstoppable heat ray and the red weed which still stymies our agriculture.

If reports are to be believed, it was in Shepperton where the first of the Red Men appeared. He attacked two women who were walking along the canal and could only be subdued by two men from a passing barge who claimed his skin was dark and oily and he took “a lot of hammering” to break his grip on the women. When the civil defence militia arrived, there was a large crowd around what seemed to be a heavily waterlogged and extremely rotten corpse. Though there was much damage to the head, the body was identified as one Albert Hargreaves, a part-time labourer in the village who often operated Shepperton Lock when the Lock-keeper wasn’t about.

The body was shipped to London and reports were few and far between but one alleged witness reported that “even though old Bertie was dead, you could see things wriggling under his skin”.

Advanced examinations brought forth a dread warning for everyone to steer clear of any sign of brown scum upon the water and report it immediately. The scum was the spore clump of a fungal fruiting body which had infected poor Bertie. With their alien hyphae forcing themselves through his flesh and interfering with his mind, Bertie must have been driven insane. Weeks later, when the women who were attacked came forth with their story, one was adamant that the thng which had once been Bertie Hargreaves was pleading with them to help him and not attacking them as previously thought. One can only imagine his horror as his attempts to find help were met with violence, swift and deadly.

Shepperton spent weeks under quarantine but no other cases were reported there. What is known is that the Brown Fungus invades the human body and spreads quickly, attaching hyphae threads to nerves and through muscles. This process is extremely painful as the hyphae eat the protective myelin from the nerve sheaths causing jerking, threatening-looking spasms. Eventually the threads reach the torso where they start to build their fruiting body for spore production and the threads then travel north to the brain and drive the victim to water, for this is where the terrible spores will break free. The hyphal elongation of limbs is common, dissolving bone and leaving a flesh-wrapped fungal tentacle and as the fruiting body grows, the torse swells to enormous proportions, as does the skin surrounding the skull.

What I do know is that the Ministry of Science and War have samples of the fungus and they have been testing them on animals and humans to see what remedy can be found. The spores could be anywhere, or indeed everywhere by now.

“At the corner of the bridge, too, I saw one of the common contrasts of that grotesque time–a sheet of paper flaunting against a thicket of the red weed, transfixed by a stick that kept it in place. It was the placard of the first newspaper to resume publication–the Daily Mail. I bought a copy for a blackened shilling I found in my pocket. Most of it was in blank, but the solitary compositor who did the thing had amused himself by making a grotesque scheme of advertisement stereo on the back page.”

In the weeks following invasion, the news organisations of the world were quick to find their feet. Not only are stalwarts like The Times, The Daily Telegraph or the Daily Mail recovering but there are a plethora of independent news-sheets making their rounds in London. Most of them carry sensationalist headlines and in many cases can be obtained for free from their various hawkers.

Telegrams, of course, provide our international news. While the Martians had decimated the telegraphic communication infrastructure in England, they had not seriously damaged the links across the Channel or the Irish Sea. News from Paris flooded in about their own invasion and soon after we heard reports from Dublin, Berlin, Geneva. It seems odd now to think that it was easier to get news to Paris than it was to get news from Manchester or Edinburgh, but that was the way it was until the lines were again restored, a process which would take months and not weeks.

In every town and district, you will find notice boards with entreaties, offers, wishes and promises. Everyone needs some sort of help, be it help to find someone, needing help to rebuild, not wanting to travel alone in these dark days. There is certainly no reason to be idle and perhaps even less so now than before – I wonder at the actual worth of my savings considering the world came so close to ruin. How much is this paper worth?

All said, a good wage can be had for a fast runner in these times. Better still if he had a bicycle, can handle a horse or has an encylcopaedic knowledge of the train timetables. Information now, much more than before the invasion, is a valuable commodity and with millions of people worldwide displaced or missing family members, News has become the new currency.

Last time around we talked about the legacy of alien species added to the ecosystem. I happened across a cool web site called Human Descent which has some interesting if a little cartoonish hybrids.

Taking a stand here, to establish the ground rules.

What if the Red Weed was not a plant but an animal or a motile fungus?

What if the invasion plan was all about interbreeding, something made a lot easier when the dominant despoiler species, humanity, was extinct?

With the introduction of the alien species, we will see terran-martian hybrids which blur and, at times, obliterate, the barriers between plant, animal, fungus and even bacteria.

Examples:

Red Dogs
Referring to dogs in the main, but also applying to felines and other predators which feasted on the remains of the Martians. The average Red Dog looks like a normal member of it’s species but has crimson catfish-like feelers around the nose and mouth. These are prehensile, functioning both as a feeding apparatus as well as having a secondary offensive weapon and a tertiary sensory organ. The sensory nature of the feelers enables the Red Dog to sense toxins. The offensive capabilities are because the feelers are covered in tiny stinging cells which cause numbness in the affected area. Red Dogs will hunt in packs and attempt to take down prey much larger than themselves. Whether they are more intelligent than their terran progenitors is unknown but these creatures breed true and progressive generations show more of their martian heritage with slick, reddish, inflamed-looking skin.

Red Crows
This refers to the large black birds which seem to be populating the skies and replacing the carrion birds which have been mainstays of the countryside. Gone are the rook, the raven and the crow, and we are left with these heavy monsters. Bald-headed like a vulture and bearing the same mouth-feelers around their sharp, piercing beaks as the Red Dogs, the Red Crows have exterminated most of the aerial wildlife and are beginning to wage war on the rodents and other small wildlife. Stories abound of them attacking farm livestock and even children.

Black Fruit
The legacy of the Black Smoke was not as pervasive as that of the Red Weed. The Smoke, although immediately and painfully toxic to humans if inhaled, became inert and harmless on contact with water or steam. Once it entered the water table, we could see the harm it would do to our food chain. Plants which were subjected to large amounts of the Black Smoke would quickly wither. But if the particles were absorbed from the water table, after the smoke was left inert, then the problems would become much worse. Fruit and grain from affected plants would be black in colour and plants and trees would begin to weep a dark ichor where they had previously leaked sap. The fruit is not palatable to the taste, except to creatures already changed to the Martian strain, which find it delicious. It seems edible though and can be used to survive – and the markets that have sprung up around the cities to help stem the tide of hunger as the economy recovers have begun to sell Black Fruit as if it without taint. Rowing along the Thames on a Sunday is not the same with Black Strawberries and whipped cream. Not the same at all. The sap, if collected, burns well and in quantity is extremely flammable, which considering the state of our mines and refineries is fortunate indeed.

The Red Cull
As a result of the contamination of terran species, the government has started a progrom against any alien hybrid species. The fields of the english countryside would be signposted with great black plumes of smoke as the bodies of contaminated livestock and fields of crops were rendered by fire.

“A couple of hundred yards out of Baker Street I heard a yelping chorus, and saw, first a dog with a piece of putrescent red meat in his jaws coming headlong towards me, and then a pack of starving mongrels in pursuit of him. He made a wide curve to avoid me, as though he feared I might prove a fresh competitor. As the yelping died away down the silent road, the wailing sound of “Ulla, ulla, ulla, ulla,” reasserted itself.” – The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells.

The presence of a new type of organism upon the earth would have consequences upon the delicate ecosystem which proved so effective against the martian invaders. Even though the Martians were vulnerable to the invisible, microscopic bacteria, the effects of the Red Weed, the Black Smoke and indeed the corpses of the Martians themselves would echo upon the earth for decades.

Already we have seen the carrion birds and stray dogs feasting on the flesh of the dead Martians. The red weed is but a plant and will be subject to the same senesence of terrestrial plants. What will happen to those creates which feed upon the flesh of these alien bodies. As it was our bacteria which was the finish of them – what dark secret has their god placed in their bodies which will be th end of us?

It may cause us to look upon the earth and see new creatures upon the lands, in the sea and in the skies over which we had no dominion. As quickly as we caused species to become extinct with our own lack of care for our environment, we would see new hybrid species, twisted mockeries of our own garden Earth. Our dogs and cats, lifelong companions, now changed. The birds of the air seeing with martian eyes, tasting the air with martian tongues.

There would be a new science, one dedicated to the new zoology and botany brought by our invaders. We could not capture a martian alive but perhaps in death they may reveal more secrets. I feel we must learn and learn fast. Their revenge will be swift.

This was the question that struck me last night as I tried to process the jalapéno peppers in my pizza.

When is WotW: Earth set? (and for that matter, when am I going to get a better name for it?)

The way I see it, there are several options

• 1898 – this was when the book was written. This would allow us to bring a lot of estbalished background, real and fiction alike. This was the era of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Wells himself, Jack the Ripper, Spring Heeled Jack. For fiction, we can turn to the tales of Sherlock Holmes, Fu Manchu, “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, Victor Von Frankenstein, Dracula and of course, Van Helsing. In a post-invasion world, would you want to meet some of these luminaries? Would Dracula ally or fight against the Martians (considering both of them are technically vampires, would Dracula want to protect his “cattle”?)
• 1938 – the date of the Orson Welles radio broadcast. In the real world we had the beginnings of World War II, the work of Robert E Howard and H.G. Wells was still alive. Crowley was moving from latest madness to the next big fad. In fiction we had the birth of Batman, Superman was in his adolescence. We had Zorro, Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers. Lots of options for heroic player characters.
• 1953 – the year of the film which depicted them as flying swan-necked machines. Not long after Roswell, the US gripped by McCarthyism, Winston Churchill in his third cabinet – the era of Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly, Humphrey Bogart, the beginnings of Hammer Horror. In fiction we had the birth of James Bond in 1952.
• Modern Day – well, wouldn’t that be easy?

At this point, I don’t know quite where to start. I have some more “martian-related” stuff to post, but I think the “When” question will decide a lot of things. My gut feeling is to go for either 1898 or 1938….

As humanity climbs out of the ruins of their devastated society, we must now look at our future. We have seen the terrible destruction wrought by the Martian fighting machines and flying machines and the awful power of the Heat Ray as it turned all it touched to fire.

We hurry along the roads, as gusts of smoke continue to erupt into the air, fearful of attracting the baleful stare of one of the few fighting-machines left stalking the countryside. This morning, we passed two of the fighting-machines, toppled and stinking, by the roadside. A third fighting-machine appeared in the horizon and we did not tarry to investigate. The ghostly touch of the Heat Ray and the issue of the Black Smoke keeps us scuttling from crater to crater, from fox-hole to fox-hole. We can only guess what keeps these monstrous tripods moving when so many of their brethren have fallen. Some new dark surprise may await us.

There are nearly twenty of us now, holed up in a small village. We have enough food to live for a few months perhaps and we have begun to venture forth in the early morning when the fighting-machines seem less active to plant new crops and sow the seeds of our future. We can only hope that the grey skies will pass – at times I forget which season it is. The continued spread of the Red Weed frustrates our attempts to cultivate even the smallest plots but we have seen the first green shoots and with that, renewed hope.

Last night I turned my eyes skyward, looking again for the red planet and though I know it to be impossible, I could swear I saw a tell-tale green plume. I returned to our camp in the crypt of the village church and fell into a fretful, restless sleep.

“No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space. No one could have dreamed that we were being scrutinized as someone with a microscope studies creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. Few men even considered the possibility of life on other planets. And yet, across the gulf of space, minds immeasurably superior to ours regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely, they drew their plans against us.” – Narration by Bichard Burton at the beginning of Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds.

You may be a fan of the book by H.G. Wells or have seen the recent film with Tom Cruise. You might remember the 1953 The War of the Worlds or have even listened to the Orson Welles radio broadcast which caused mass hysteria in 1938. All of them end the same with a bit of a damp squib. I’m sure it was entirely deliberate of Wells to depict science and the military as being utterly ineffective against the Martian war machines. In this way he reminds me of Lovecraft’s Mythos stories where the actions of humankind are ultimately ineffective.

From a RPG plot point of view, it’s not very interesting. The players can’t really get into the mix at the start as, frankly, they’d get pasted. They would have to dodge the evil Black Smoke, the insidious Red Weed, the deadly Heat Rays and the throngs of panicked humans. And after all of this, the blinking aliens are defeated by some innoculous bacterium? How deus ex machina can you get! If this were a scenario, it would indeed be one of the world’s worst.

So, we can’t play in that sort of game world. We have to think of something else. The logical thing to do is extrapolate. Here’s the things we have to consider.

The Living Martians – not all of them will be dead.

The Dead Martians – what happens to a dying Martian. Does it decompose?

The Humans – society is still in a shambles.

The Red Weed – although affected by Earth’s bacteria as well, it obviously was able to survive better than the Martians themselves.

The Black Smoke – a binary nerve agent? Very topical in todays terrorist-fearing news.

The War Machines – there’s all this alien technology just lying about….

More Martians – they wouldn’t have committed this much without ensuring a second wave for resupply. By now they would have realised the attack was a failure….

George Pál, who produced the 1953 film, conceived of a War of the Worlds TV series which was finally shot and which ran from 1988 to 1990. Their premise was the aliens had not died but had slipped into a state of “suspended animation”. There’s some vague explanations as to why the aliens now look human (ahem, budget!) but the entire series seems a little tired (and frankly too hard to obtain to give a good review).

So, we’ll begin this by writing a little prose….and covering the areas we have mentioned above…

I was reading a posting on RPG.NET about how War of the Worlds was a typical game-master railroad, total player kill and then GM fiat to save the day. I disagree.

I reckon it was just background flavour.

The game starts now. Invasion over….ish. Some Martian war machines will alive on iron rations as they hadn’t been drinking blood. They’re getting desperate as their rations run out and waiting for the resupply from Mars. New machines, new rations…they’re forewarned and forearmed.

Meanwhile on Earth, our scientists are making Earth-Mars technology hybrids – human war machines – ….they just need 2 fighter pilots, 2 field scientists and some support team members…