The Heat-Ray…
Well, if you're hearing this, if you're reading this, and you're in the United States, it means you've survived yet another Black Friday, a cherished ceremony in the Cult of Gobble. It wouldn't be the United States if there wasn't some sort of angle towards selling something, no, it would be some other place. Not that the United States invented selling things or buying things or capitalism for that matter, just that the United States is the crucible in which all of those things were enriched to breathtaking, supersized proportions and that nothing stands in the behemoth's way lest ye be mowed down or CIA'd down, whichever is easier for the moment.
Kind of like the Martians invading Earth! Though I do kind of wonder if the Martians weren't just a little more honest about the whole thing. This episode we get to hear all about the heat ray for the first time and we'll establish that there is not going to be a meeting of the minds, so to speak. The intentions of the Martians are pretty clear. Whereas with the United States, it's more never ask a man his salary, a woman her age, or the United Fruit Company what they're willing to do to get...bananas.
No backrooms-dealing with the Martians, No Sir E. Bob. No sneakily convincing those in power that those who are not in power are communist devils and need to be exterminated, subtle-like of course, with a good old-fashioned coup. Because all of this fruit is really, really important, right?
Riiiiight.
These Martians are straight shooters, so to speak. I do often wish, however, that Wells had done more to flesh out the history of Mars. There's a tiny skoehsch of it in his short story, The Crystal Egg, but its never fully explained how this final version of the Martians came about, that they had become so skilled with their machine building that they merely built contrivances to move their giant freaking heads around or that all they needed for sustenance was a bit of air and, well, blood, which sounds like kind of like... I don't know... a billionaire?
Getting youth treatments from the youth of today?
In their little technocratic ego machines?
And they just kind of go wherever they want to without, you know, asking for permission, and doing shit and getting in your business?
And we just kind of let them do that? Because...reasons?!?
Perhaps at one time Mars itself was a crucible for the Martians and they ran into a billionaire problem. Certainly they brought along that other, less talked about, Martian species that Wells mentions in a future chapter as being a food supply. A creature that looks suspiciously like what we call in current parlance a Grey... Oddly prescient that Wells was.
But wait...have you heard the news from the pit?!? Horsell Commons is on fire...
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