War of the Worlds – Sheffield Style

It’s unbelievable, even in the 21st Century, that there could be even a chance of there being intelligent life outside of our own Mother Earth, no one can scarcely imagine the possibility of life on other planets, yet, across the vastness of the Universe, beings considerably cleverer than humans, are at this moment forming and culminating their plans against us…

At midnight, on the 31st of December 2007, a green flash erupted in the night sky, astronomy experts at Sheffield Hallam assured reporters from the Star that it was nothing, just a perfectly normal falling star, as far as they’re concerned, anyone who thinks there’s even the slightest chance of anything out there, spends far too much time watching Star Trek repeats on Sky.

Oh how wrong they were! 2 days later, a big crater-like hole appears just North of the City Centre in the middle of Penistone Road, several astronomers and reporters from both the Star and the Telegraph gathered round to take a look. A Police Sergeant from Snig Hill peered over the side of the hole; almost fell in until a passer by pulled him back. Suddenly, the top of the “hole” started unscrewing, the lid fell off! Two luminous disc-like eyes appeared the rim, and a huge rounded bulk, larger than a bear, rose up glistening like wet leather, then suddenly a tall funnel rose, and each person was instantly turned to fire at the touch of this savage, unearthly heat ray!

As people ran away blindly, myself included, more Martian tripods advanced on the City, towering above the tallest Buildings, the Town Hall, Meadowhall, even the Arts Tower at Hallam University.. Is this it? Are we all doomed? If Sheffield ever needed a hero, now is the time.

Weeks passed, and more Martian cylinders landed in the City, one big one landed in the middle of Fargate, between WH Smiths and Marks’, and turned its heat ray on a large crowd of Big Issue sellers and Gouranga Monks! Acceptable losses methinks, but no, all-Human life is to be cherished, we as humans have to drive out these terrible alien invaders from another world somehow, some way, until then though, it seems the City has indeed fallen under the control of the Martians..

END OF PART 1


PART 2 – Sheffield under the Martians

As the people now wander through a lurid landscape, which has now succumb to the red stuff which gives Mars its title of the “Red Planet”, has our City now become an unofficial City of Mars? Have Sheffielders come to accept the Martians into their lives rather than the lost cause of fighting them? Only time will tell.

A Vicar from Sheffield Cathedral doesn’t think so, he reckons the Martians are just Demons in another form. He ventures out to the main landing site on Penistone Road, armed with his Holy Cross, his wife begs him not to go, the Martians will kill him she pleads, but the Vicar says “God created the Universe, even Mars! They will not destroy a man who does the bidding of the Lord! Satan has sent these Demons to smite us for everything that is wrong with the world, and I, I alone have been chosen to cast them out, and may God have mercy on my soul!” he shouted, as he stormed out of the Vicarage, his wife laying sobbing on the Settee.

While he was out, the Martians, towering over the Cathedral, the Vicar’s wife cowered with fear at the sight of a menacing claw reaching into the Vicarage and feeling around for things, it almost touched her foot, she almost cried out, and then with slow, deliberate movements it grabbed her, and dragged her lifeless body out of the room and tossed it into a large sack on its back.

The Vicar heard of his wife’s death at the hands of the Martians, raced back to the Vicarage, went down on his knees shouting, “Nooooooooooo! Satan! Why?! Why did you take her?! Why?! Is there no hope for mankind?” He cried as he collapsed sobbing, clutching his Bible close to his heart as he said a prayer for the safety of the City and humanity from these Demons from hell.

Meanwhile, Officers and Soldiers from the closest Army base were attacking the Martians with every weapon they had, as the City Centre lay in ruins, could this, our last line of defence, be enough to force our alien enemies to retreat back to their Martian home world? A few were slain, but the others retaliated in kind, their black smoke sending the brave Army men packing!

All hope appears to be lost! The Martians have conquered the City! When suddenly, everyone felt a chill in the air, and the Martians suddenly began coughing, spluttering, their Tripods falling helplessly to the ground all over the City! Had the Vicar’s prayers for divine intervention worked?! We would soon find out, all across the City Martians were dying of unknown symptoms! And from that moment, they were doomed!

A few days later. There was a big front-page report in the Star; the War of the Worlds was over, the Martians were dead… Is this really the end though? Across the gulf of Space, has the Red Planet learned its lesson? Or are they simply set back, and planning another attack somewhere down the line?..

THE END…. Or is it?

Enjoy! I copied and pasted this here because the upload database isnt working it seems (see my other thread from just now).

The impact crater of an object travelling from Mars to Earth in two days would be considerably more than a simple crater.
"Thus, for example, it is estimated that the meteorite that produced the Barringer Crater was still travelling at 11 km/second when it struck what is now the Arizona desert 49,000 years ago. Such objects do enormous damage, because the kinetic energy carried by the meteorite is the product of the mass and the square of the velocity. " Although the size of the Martian object would be smaller than this, its velocity would be far greater.

The impact crater of an object travelling from Mars to Earth in two days would be considerably more than a simple crater.
"Thus, for example, it is estimated that the meteorite that produced the Barringer Crater was still travelling at 11 km/second when it struck what is now the Arizona desert 49,000 years ago. Such objects do enormous damage, because the kinetic energy carried by the meteorite is the product of the mass and the square of the velocity. " Although the size of the Martian object would be smaller than this, its velocity would be far greater.

I'm not a science geek, so I'm not privy to that kind of knowledge.

Can't people just enjoy the story instead of bitching about it being "obvious" etc? :loopy:

When Wells wrote the War of the worlds, nothing was known about impact craters or interplanetary speeds and what have you.

Contemporary science at the time thought it was perfectly plausable for huge cannons to be able to fire manned projectiles from the surface of a planet into space and plans were actually drawn up for transport systems that would use cannons.

The story is a bit dated now and thats expected after over a century but its still a damn good tale and Riches slant on it is a good one. I quite enjoyed it.

Hi Rich,

I also enjoyed the story and laughed out loud several times. I think you should also be praised for having a go at this month's theme, which has me stumped.

Having said that, I am inclined to jump on the nit-picking band wagon. I'd like to query whether the Vicar was justified in claiming that God really did create the universe (including Mars). We know that God created the Earth in a measly seven days, but not much is known about how he went about sorting out the other planets (Perhaps he created the other inferior planets on the sabbath and justified this by classifying them as a hobby rather than work). Overall I found the vicar unconvincing, but then I find real-life vicars unconvincing too. Not that I'm an Atheist, you understand - I think they're a bit blind also.

So in addition to giving me a bit of a laugh you have got me thinking about the origins of the universe, so double thanks are owed.

Yes, and my version of the story offers nods to both the original HG Wells novel, and of course the Jeff Wayne musical (the bits with the Vicar are a parody of the Parson Nathaniel in the JW version)

I enjoyed reading your offering Rich. :)

Lets hope we never have to face that sort of thing for real, cos if we did you could proudly sit back in your chair and put your feet up on your desk for a minute or two and feel quite smug. :D

Then of course you'd be out there in the thick of it, reporting all the latest events.

'Ta Chuck'

Not very good to be fair.

Nice one Rich, made me titter, although I thought it may end something like.....

All hope appears to be lost! The Martians have conquered the City! When suddenly, everyone felt a chill in the air, and the Martians suddenly began coughing, spluttering, their Tripods falling helplessly to the ground all over the City! Had the Vicar’s prayers for divine intervention worked?! We would soon find out, all across the City Martians were dying of unknown symptoms! And from that moment, they were doomed!

A few days later. There was a big front-page report in the Star; the War of the Worlds was over, the Martians were dead…The Liberal democrats were in control. Ogilvy was heard to say,
“It’s life Jim, but not life as we know it”
But is this really the end? I think not, as across the gulf of Space, minds immeasurably superior to theirs were making plans. (music intro “Da, Da, Darrrr”) The Tories were on the move.
THE END…. Or is it?


Well! That’s me banned from the SFWG Christmas party.:D

Not very good to be fair.

Either tell me what was wrong with it or you're trolling.

Rich

Firstly, thanks for posting your story in the forum. It's never easy to 'let go' of a story and put it out there for review, and anyone that does so deserves a round of applause and some encouragement.

Secondly, I thought it was a good tale; it fitted the bill and did exactly what it said on the tin. I liked your paying homage to both Wells' original and Jeff Wayne's excellent version.

So I hope that you take what comments I make next as constructive, positive criticism:

I hope you might agree with me that, while your story is complete in its own right, you could also treat it as a work in progress, an excellent base for launching in a whole range of different directions.

For instance, the writing style is mostly curt - informative, descriptive to a point, but not overly flowery or full of diversions. It strikes me as being on the way to a journalistic style, but not quite there yet. One way of developing this tale would be to go the whole hog and treat it as a series of news articles - local or national press - perhaps with each 'chapter' dated to show progression of the story and give it some timescale. It would allow you to quote the vicar in interview, for instance, and talk about his wife and her 'tragic death' in typical tabloid terms.

Another development would be to treat the story as an historical one - set in Sheffield, but in the past. This would avoid any scientific anomalies, and let you bring some of Sheffield's history into the tale - perhaps the Peace Gardens would have been named following a much older victory, one over an alien race...

In any case, many thanks for posting your story - I'm with Ron Blanco: it was a good read!

I don't really feel qualified to comment on the story as "sci-fi" is not my genre at all. I confess I hardly even know the original story :blush:. But I did want to add my congrats for being the first to tackle the theme. It's a harder challenge than it looks that you've set us for this month, Rich!

You've had more positives than negatives rich, so try to accept any critisicm and take it on the chin...if you submit a story or poem or anything into a public forum then it is open for debate and is bound to receive good and bad comments.

Re-read any constructive critisicm and it may help you improve and get better...the best way to learn is to put something out there for people to judge (which you have done)...so learn from it and see if you can win over the posters who didn't like it as much as others with another story where you have taken on board the advice on this thread.

Well done on your effort

i'm just relieved it 's only a story! everyone in our house took it to be a news bulletin at first and it started quite a panic, i can tell you! we're a bit slow.

Hi Rich,

I think that the main appeal of the original novel is that even though it has a grand sounding title "The War of the Worlds" it is very much told from the perspective of just one man who is running around trying desperately to survive.

The Hollywood filmmakers stuck to this basic premise despite updating the story into the 'present' - both the the 1953 version (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_Worlds_%281953_film%29) & the 2005 version (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_the_Worlds_(2005_film)) follow the war from the perspective of one man trying to avoid the slaughter, this works despite the action being transferred from Leatherhead to America.

Your story would have benefited from having more of this (emotional) first person perspective, the clipped, journalistic style may have worked better if the story was told retrospectively but that would have taken away some of the urgency of the writing.

I'm in agreement with Hopman regarding the science behind it all, there is a clear anomaly with the large crater on Penistone Road and the Martian cylinder that lands on Fargate (whilst leaving the shops undamaged) - it may have been better to have the cylinders come down on the edge of the city, perhaps the hero could have drove out of town to look at the crater just as the tripods emerge and he is then chased back to Sheffield.

Good to see that you touched on the Vicar's mental deterioration as per the original novel, I think the essence of the original story is chiefly about the psychological effect of the invasion on the vicar, the artillery-man and the narrator.

I liked the humorous touches too about the Gouranga monks, shame you couldn't have squeezed a few clipboard wielding market researchers into the death-ray. As I was reading the story I thought it would have ended in a more comical way, imagine Morgan Freeman solemnly intoning the final speech thus:

Suddenly, the Martian tripods began falling all over the city, again and again, damaging themselves irreparably, mankind was saved by the something invisible to the Martians as they studied us through their powerful telescopes - tiny, but so numerous they were everywhere, the tripods were brought down by a weapon devised and developed by the long dead generations of former town planners…the potholes in the road. :)