The martians from the war of the worlds hold of their invasion until 1940 and instead launch it in the middle of the...

>the martians from the war of the worlds hold of their invasion until 1940 and instead launch it in the middle of the second world war

Would thismake for an interesting setting?

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That's literally the setting of Strike Witches.

What's that

Shitty weeb show about lolis with propellers for feet shooting fucking ayys.

>Would thismake for an interesting setting?
Yes, it's a very popular WotW fan idea

It's the common cold that kills them in the end isn't? I imagine then that the invasion would be rather shorter as the major power were all experimenting with chemical and biological weaponry and non human adversary would be a perfect opportunity to test them out.

What could be really interesting would be if it was a colonisation effort by multiple Martian nations. If they were trying to play off human nations against each other and competing alien interests and supplying arms and military support to friendly Nations

How do the Japanese come up with this nonsense?

Harry Turteldove did a series on this. I only read the first book.

The aliens sent probes hundreds of years ago because FTL travel doesn’t exist, and expect our tech to advance slowly and only bring enough weapons to roflstomp medieval knights before finding out that out tanks and planes are only a hundred years behind instead of thousands.

Also they are wielded out about how many independent countries there are with all kinds of governments, all other species they’ve encountered were completely unified under some kind of Emporer. The Soviets in particular freak them the hell out.

Any nation that isn’t a major folds immedietely (including Italy). The poles become race traitors in order to stop being holocausted.

Also the importance of naval warfare is lost on the aliens, who’ve never encountered a planet with large oceans.

>How do the Japanese come up with this nonsense?
Their culture basically terminates your social life the instant you leave high school, so the majority of the distraction media produced and consumed in Japan features teenagers who have more to look forward to than an office job followed by death.

Its a perfectly good concept ruined by being a Harry Turtledove book.

Not really. They aren't anything like the War of the World aliens.

Turtledove is pretty good. Don't be salty because you can't come up with anything better.

The invasion is blunted by sudden and stiff resistance from an ersatz alliance between belligerents. When the disease factor kills the ayys, we pool our resources to develop space macrocannons and proceed to shell Mars with atomic bombs for the next 10 years. They beg us to stop after 2. All contact ceases after 5.

I think there's a dartboard, or maybe a hat with some paper in it.

Who am I kidding, this is Japan, it's probably a pachinko machine.

The Martians would get their asses kicked very quickly. Wouldn't last long enough to be interesting

>Aliens invade during WW2
It’s close enough, okay?

WoW Martian's key advantages were highly mobile lightly armored vehicles, heat rays, and poison gas, none of which humanity had good answers to in the 1890s. 1940s humanity can return all of that in spades.

Those walkers can shrug off rifle fire, but pre-ww1 HE artillery was able to drop them if it got lucky enough to land a hit. Tanks will fuck their day right up. Bazookas will fuck their day right up. Heavy machine guns will probably fuck their day up. Flack guns will *severely* fuck their day up.

The Martians' gas was fairly lethal, but was a strictly inhalation vector toxin as I recall, and gas masks should handle it fine. It certainly isn't up to par with the nerve toxins they would be getting in reply.

The Martians seemingly understood powered flight and were working on assembling a few flying machines when they died, but weren't done yet after most of a month. Leaving your airspace uncontested for more than a month is going to have dire consequences. Especially when the entirety of you support base is bound up in individual cylinders sitting out in nice open craters where it can't be decentralized.

THIS. The Martians in Well's book would have their collective asses quickly stomped by a 1914 Earth let alone a 1940 Earth. Just for starters, no one is going to let the Big Fucking Cylinders sit unmolested long enough to cool for the Martians to exit.

Regarding aircraft, the Martians have them in WotW and use one to destroy 3 pre-dred ironclads from the Channel Fleet after they successfully engage the tripods which sank HMS Thunderchild.

>It’s close enough, okay?

It's only seems close enough to simpletons.

That's almost literally the concept behind the Worldwar series.

Probably lots and lots of acid.

>I only read the first book.
Believe me, it shows.

Go back to /pol/.

ouch

Its more that Turtledove falls into a kind of James Patterson/ Tom Clancy sameyness that makes each successive book feel like it was ghost written. That and his awkward sex scenes between historical figures.

How does not liking Turtledove make me /pol/?

Oh man, imagine if it wasn't the 1940s, but around the start of 1918. Right when the Spanish Flu is starting to become a pandemic.

>Would thismake for an interesting setting?
Dawn of Victory seems to say "yes".
highgatefleetsystems.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Seems you would like to know about the Great Martian War:
youtu.be/bERNcnaT-ko

>How does not liking Turtledove make me /pol/?
It's just like how not liking [THING] makes you reddit. user's a busy guy, he doesn't have time to come up with an explanation for why he's upset, it's easier to call you [WEBPAGE] and feel like he got the upper hand.

He's jewish. Jewish characters do things in his books.
Thus, by kneejerk hating of him, you are marking yourself out as one of /pol/'s resident anti-semites.

>a jew was the mastermind behind the holocausting of black people in turtledove's books
How does /pol/ feel about this?

Wouldnt really call it 'knee jerk'. Ive read a lot of his books and while I liked them back in high school, I kinda grew out of them as my tastes changed. I know they're a staple of the alt history community, but I cant really get into them anymore. Theres nothing wrong with liking something I dont like user. If I think turtledove is kinda meh that doesnt reflect on you. Also, I had no idea what his racial/religious affiliation was.

>they're a staple of the alt history community

A staple of alt history book sales maybe, but most of the alt history community uses Turtledove's works as examples of what NOT to do when building a time line.

I can never decide if I hate or love that documentary - on one hand, it's extremely shallow and completely ignores every possible front save for the Western one. On the other hand, it's a History Channel special, so of course they would completely ignore everything else. And, of course they'd make some sensationalized claim like 'the aliens' metal drives species to invade other worlds', they're the History Channel.

Though I can't forgive the one German guy barely speaking German.

The alt history channel did a fairly good video on this scenario. It's between 00:00 - 05:57.

youtube.com/watch?v=it_ogiiQIA0

Is that the series where they shot down spaceships using the Schwerer Gustav, that fuck-off huge railway cannon the Germans had, and eventually won by getting the vast majority of the alien race hooked on meth?

They blew up space ships that were on the ground. Didn't shoot them down.

Pretty amusing scene of the lizard air defence commander having anti-missile missiles fired at the incoming artillery shell. Fat lot of good that'll do.

As a setting in general? Absolutely, it'd be interesting to see how humanity would react to aliens attacking them, from all the various fronts, and seeing humanity actually put up a fight to Well's Martians is always a fun time.

For a TTRPG? I don't know - a part of me has always wanted to do a WotW setting in general, but I'm not sure what kind of system would be good for a game wherein the only enemies you have can utterly destroy you and even other humans are dangerous because you're all just regular people. It'd have to be some kind of survival/stealth system... does anything like that exist and is it any good?

/pol/ here
he gets a bunch of flowers on his way to the oven

>I'm not sure what kind of system would be good for a game wherein the only enemies you have can utterly destroy you and even other humans are dangerous because you're all just regular people

Sounds like every zombie RPG ever published.

Maybe. I'm just sick to death of WWII.

Zombies are more dangerous because of huge numbers so you really shouldn't pick a fight with them, that's not quite the same as fighting machines that see you and more or less on the spot burst you into flames.
I suppose you could re-purpose the idea of "a horde" to be one fighting machine though.

>that's not quite the same as fighting machines that see you and more or less on the spot burst you into flames.

Read the book again, if you've ever read it in the first place that is.

The Martians capture humans, keep them in corrals, drain the humans of their blood, and the Martians then "feed" by injecting that blood directly into their own veins. Humans are seen as a FOOD SOURCE and not merely as targets for the Heat Ray.

1940 is not the middle of the Second World War unless you happen to be Chinese or Japanese. The African, Eastern, Pacific and Italian fronts hadn't even opened up yet.

Opium I believe.

so basically Tiberium series?

>1940 is not the middle of the Second World War unless you happen to be Chinese or Japanese.

So much stupid in just 18 words.

>>The African

The UK and Italy are fighting both in East and North Africa by 1940.

>>Eastern

Finland and the USSR are fighting in 1940.

>>Pacific

Japan fighting in China and forcibly occupying French Indochina.

>>Italian fronts

Italy has crossed the Adriatic to fight with Greece around occupied Albania.

1940 also saw fighting in Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France along with fighting over the UK and Malta.

Read it once, a few years ago. Guess it sticks more in my head through pop culture osmosis than actual source material.

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I might well be) but don't they only start doing that after the occupation of Earth, when the Red Weed has taken root and they've constructed the machines to capture people? If your players are running around in the immediate aftermath of the invasion (you know, while humanity is still putting up a fight) aren't they more likely to be zapped than anything?

>The UK and Italy are fighting both in East and North Africa by 1940.
Serious attempts by the UK to challenge Italy only began in late 1940, with Operation Compass beginning two weeks into December 1940.
>Finland and the USSR are fighting in 1940.
The winter war was ENDING in 1940. the Finnish government was already attempting to secure negotiations by January.
>Japan fighting in China and forcibly occupying French Indochina.
Read the part you quoted again. The part about "unless you happen to be chinese or japanese"
>Italy has crossed the Adriatic to fight with Greece around occupied Albania.
I don't think you know what the word "Italian Front" means in the context of world war II. Hint: It's not just fronts involving Italy unless you consider Russia to be the "Italian Front."
>1940 also saw fighting in Norway, Holland, Belgium, and France along with fighting over the UK and Malta.
Events that are considered the beginning of the second world war, not the middle.

It's ginger, not opium or meth. It acts as a narcotic for both sexes and triggers estrus in females which causes all sorts of other problems.

Different user here. You're basically right, but the Winter War is a separate conflict from WWII, although related.

>Correct me if I'm wrong (and I might well be) but don't they only start doing that after the occupation of Earth, when the Red Weed has taken root and they've constructed the machines to capture people? If your players are running around in the immediate aftermath of the invasion (you know, while humanity is still putting up a fight) aren't they more likely to be zapped than anything?

IIRC they brought a few humanlike food animals with them from Mars, and once those rations ran out they started looking at us with hungry eyes. I don't remember if they ran out of foodans, or if they still had some left and just went straight for high-grav pig.

>Serious attempts by the UK to challenge Italy only began in late 1940, with Operation Compass beginning two weeks into December 1940.

That's still 1940.
>>Finland and the USSR are fighting in 1940.
>The winter war was ENDING in 1940.

Still being fought while negotiations started.

>Read the part you quoted again.

I did. The moron only mentioned China and Japan thus ignoring Thailand and the Frecnh.

>I don't think you know what the word "Italian Front" means in the context of world war II.

I do. I just know there was more fighting oin 1940 than the moron mentions.

>Events that are considered the beginning of the second world war, not the middle.

Pedantic quibbling. Fighting was occurring in more places in 1940 than the moron listed, places like Syria & North Africa between UK & France or Iraq between the locals & UK.

>Serious attempts by the UK to challenge Italy only began in late 1940

I mean, Italy only even entered the war on 10 June 1940, so I don't know what point you're trying to make; Britain wouldn't have been in a real position to fight Italy until later in the year anyway.

>That's still 1940.
And a cup with two drops of water is still technically a cup of water in the technical sense, but whoever asked for it will still be angry when you bring it to him.

>Still being fought while negotiations started.
And still not a significant part of the second world war anymore than Khalkin Gol is.

>I did. The moron only mentioned China and Japan thus ignoring Thailand and the Frecnh.
I was talking about significant fronts, not minor skirmishes that involved fewer people than the battle of Hong Kong.

>I do. I just know there was more fighting oin 1940 than the moron mentions.
I don't think you understand the point of the post.
Read the post you quoted again. The part that says
>1940 is not the middle of the Second World War unless you happen to be Chinese or Japanese.
1940 not being the middle of the war was the whole point of the post. You bringing up skirmishes not even worthy of being considered a theater does not in any way detract or change the fact that the
>Pedantic quibbling. Fighting was occurring in more places in 1940
I never insinuated that those fronts I mentioned were the only conflicts of world war II you colossal fucking idiot, merely that they were the major theaters that defined mid-world war. Unless you consider the Japanese seizure of French Indochina or a Jewish insurgency in Palestine to be equivalent in significance, you can't argue that these conflicts somehow make 1940 the "middle of World War II" when one of its largest participants was fighting a regional war in Finland and the other was not even in the war.

>Correct me if I'm wrong

Sure. Within a week of the Martians leaving their cylinders and beginning their attack, the Narrator and the Curate are scavenging for food in the ruins of Kew. A tripod arrives, they hide, and they watch the machine grabbing any people it finds and throwing into a "basket". The Narrator realizes that the invaders have other reasons than destruction.

A day or two later, they're hiding in another house in another village when another cylinder "lands" destroying the house and trapping them in the ruins. The ruins are incorporated in the defenses surrounding the new "nest" allowing the Narrator and Curate to witness the Martians feeding. The Curate goes mad, begins raving, and the Narrator has to knock him out to stop the noise. A Martian tentacle then "searches" the ruins, finds the unconscious Curate, and takes him away.

The Narrator then successfully hides for another week or more until the Martians leave the nest allowing him to leave safely. He soon suffers a mental breakdown too from what he saw.

>you can't argue that these conflicts somehow make 1940 the "middle of World War II"

Yes I can because I'm not some super-sperg solely focused on the mathematically precise meaning of the word "middle".

In their use of the word "middle", the OP wasn't suggesting that 1940 was precisely equidistant in time between 1939 and 1945. Instead, they were stating that the war was in progress. Normal people usually talk in generalities. It will help your socialization process if you learn to do the same.

Cheers my man. See, I remember being trapped under the house and seeing the Martians "eating", and taking the unconscious curate away, but not the tripod grabbing people for that purpose earlier.

>In their use of the word "middle", the OP wasn't suggesting that 1940 was precisely equidistant in time between 1939 and 1945.
Nor was I, I was basing it in the significance of the fronts in progress, which puts 1941-1942 as the "middle" of World War II.
>Instead, they were stating that the war was in progress.
And I would not have said anything if the had said "during" World War II, "while" World War II was in progress or "in" World War II.
>Normal people usually talk in generalities.
Someone trying to make an alternate history setting in the middle of World War II should not be held to the same standards as "Normal" people, whose knowledge of the war starts with Pearl Harbor and ends at Hiroshima/Nagasaki.

Believe it or not, people who want to discuss a World War II setting want to do it with some matter of seriousness. Context is important; it will help your socialization process if you learn to do the same.

It's a quick read and it's at Gutenberg. Grab a copy and spend an evening enjoying it. I found it rather nuanced, Wells would often "show" rather than "tell".

Spergs gonna sperg.

pot calling the kettle black.

All of you need to see WotW goliath, it's an animated sequel set 15 years after the book, humans have reverse-engineered Martian tech(with the help from Tesla), humans now have Zeppelin battleships and tripods of their own.
The Martians attack with even more advanced weapons and we are shown a running battle across the US.
It also has one particularly awesome scene in which Teddy Roosevelt dual-wields energy cannons while riding on top of a walking tank

Isn't this the plot of Worldwar: In the Balance

HMS Thunderchild is a Torpedo Ram, and is able to hold off three martian walkers, destroying two.

This means pretty much any WW2 Destroyer can carve it's way through the Martian fleet. A Martian Walker is described as probably just a match for a late war medium tank.

Why does everyone seem to think that the Martians would invade in 1940 with 1899 Martian technology instead of 1940 Martian technology?

If I remember correctly, weren't basically shot in the gerneral direction of Earth from massive cannons.

All I can remember is "a bright green flash, followed by a whoosh of smoke"; but that is coming from the musical, so it may be different in the original book.

Presumably they wouldn't have time to adapt their technology because they'd be in some form of stasis whilst travelling through the void at sub-light speed.

Unless they were able to set up some-sort of teleporter, I don't think they'd be able to reach Earth fast enough to out-tech us severely or land in sufficient numbers.

>weren't they basically

Oops, sorry about that.

>Why does everyone seem to think that the Martians would invade in 1940 with 1899 Martian technology instead of 1940 Martian technology?

1899 to 1940 on Earth sees multiple arms races, two world wars, and several smaller conflicts all of which advanced technology, especially military technology. What comparable events will spur a similar spare of advances in Mars' technology?

Wells does mention how Earth had been studied by the Martians before the landings, but how much are you going to be able to learn via telescopes? Wells also mentions that the Martians were perplexed by ships when the first encountered them. Apparently whatever they were able figure out didn't include an appreciation of ships. Artillery initially catches them by surprise too.

True, but I meant it in the same way most people would talk about entry level pop works. Stuff like Drakka or IiaSoT. Its not necessarily good, but its most peoples first exposure.

>Its not necessarily good, but its most peoples first exposure.

That's a good way to describe nearly all of Turtledove's alt-hist work. I've found his short fiction much better than his novels and series. Having to work within a word count means he's less likely to suffer from authorial diarrhea.

Yes. It's a cute book series. Clever methods to make the invasion something other than a complete roflstomp by the aliens. Really wooden characters. Not terrible, but supported more by its ideas than it's plot

>Presumably they wouldn't have time to adapt their technology because they'd be in some form of stasis whilst travelling through the void at sub-light speed.

The point is, whenever they left to arrive in 1899, they would have had to leave much later to arrive in 1940.

Agreed. Hes kind of got Stephen King Syndrome.

Whilst were on this subject, does anyone else get chills whilst listening to Thunderchild?

youtube.com/watch?v=cROemjs8YD4

I think it's the tail end of Forever Autumn and that long drawn out ending after the victorious Martians yell out a victory cry that does it. It just makes my skin crawl.

Absolutely, the entire album is fantastic. Thunderchild especially is so full of energy and hope (as it should be), I really connect with that energy.
Spirit of Man is another that I think hits it's emotional ques very well, the slow down and soft music of Beth's parts contrasted with the Parson's is beautiful.

youtu.be/lfzRbvJ9fdM

> whenever they left to arrive in 1899

Assuming they launched at the closet point between Earth and Mars orbit, possibly still in 1899, depending on when they landed. Our own spacecraft traveling at sublight speeds take six months to reach Mars when launched at a similar point, and I can't think of any reason why the Martian craft would be any slower, especially since the speed at which our craft reach Mars has little do do with their engines and more to do with taking advantage of gravity.

Well, considering that they launched them out of land-based cannons (so presumably the spacecraft didn't have onboard propulsion systems)... the escape velocity of Mars is about 5 km/s but that's obviously just the minimum speed that they'd have to be going as they left and I'm not smart enough to figure out what that would mean as Earth started pulling them in faster.

Don't worry and believe me when I tell you that Wells wasn't worried about doing any of that math either. All we're told is that the flashes seen on Mars before the cylinders started landing had scientists Earth suspecting that the cylinders had been launched by "large cannons". Whether they then just acted as unguided projectiles or could maneuver, accelerate, or brake in some manner is never addressed.

All we know is that the flashes were seen in an unnamed one year and then the cylinders began "landing" during the same year. Was it a week later? A month? Six months? Who knows. All we know is that it took less than a year meaning the Martians "then" were able to make the trip faster than we can "now".

>you can't come up with anything better.

But I can

>Pretty amusing scene of the lizard air defence commander having anti-missile missiles fired at the incoming artillery shell. Fat lot of good that'll do.
Never read the series but that certainly would do a lot. Should detonate the shell in mid-air and if it doesn't would definitely knock it off course. I mean we currently have laser, missile, and gun systems capable of shooting down both missiles and incoming artillery fire. Why wouldn't the aliens?

I entirely agree. I don't think it would be exaggerating at all to say that the whole thing is a work of art. The way the whole piece just perfectly flows from beginning to end is an incredible orchestral achievement. I can honestly say that I have never heard of anything quite like it.

I especially loved how they contrasted the Human Spirit and the Martians by having the humans represented by this melodic panpipe, whilst the Martians were represented by this heavy, repetitive electronic sound. I really helps you to visualise the story.

For anyone who hasn't heard it yet and has a spare hour and a bit, the album can mostly be heard here:

youtube.com/watch?v=mrMfrUjk7Zc&list=PLYa84zSxTXm_oiNQd4eiHaKzISMXoR_nV&index=2

The only part that is missing is the introduction, The Eve of War, because it is blocked in my country. The only full version I can find is of the newer version they released a while ago.

youtube.com/watch?v=kLtly4rEzWA

Both the new and the old versions are equally good. It mainly comes down to whether you prefer the vocals of the original or the updated version in my opinion.

The entirety of the newer version can be listened to here:

youtube.com/watch?v=kLtly4rEzWA&list=PL1PGYsWEHw-GFRqIFv3mSNpioJArh0SVi

Just shut up and kiss already

lol!!! weird creative ideas must come from drugs!!XDDD

>Ironclad torpedo ram destroys two walkers with little effort
>Add twenty years of technological development
>Interesting setting
Sure, if your some kind of HFYfag or an American filmaker who's utterly incapable of understanding how to make a British-centric, dawn of the 20th century film.

Not that user but Thunderchild is such a fucking tune.

To give patterson some credit. at least he puts his ghost writer's name on the book cover, which is more than you can say than for a lot of other authors

That's what wipes out the entire invasion force, but a few individual tripods got fucked with conventional, late-19th-century artillery and battleship cannons.

Given the technological advances between then and WWII, humans may well beat them in a straight-up slugfest, depending on how many resources the aliens are willing to commit to their invasion.

There's really no way to discuss 1940 Martian technology without making things up whole cloth.

I think the main problem is that there really is now where the Martians can really go in terms of tech upgrades.

They already have heat-rays and what's essentially power-armour in the form of their Tripods. The only thing we can really give them is atmospheric flight and even then the only logical step from there would have them bombard earth from orbit.

The humans would go from fighting chance too none at all.

>is no where

Whoops, my mistake.

>an American filmaker who's utterly incapable of understanding how to make a British-centric, dawn of the 20th century film

When you remember the fact that Well's novel was firmly part of the "Invasion Scare" genre the UK "enjoyed" for 20 years or so from 1890 onward, the idea that a 1950s film maker would make a Cold War version or that the 2000s film maker would make a terrorist version doesn't seem that odd. Then again, you'd have to know about the "Invasion Scare" genre in the first place.

I'd love to see the book made into a real period piece with all the SFX trimmings. I've seen the fan effort made several years back and it sucked.

As you both note, updating the Martian's tech to 1940 is very hard. There's no guide as it were, no earlier tech to compare against the tech in the book to point where tech advances may lead.

The Martians already have aircraft, they use one to destroy the three ironclads who arrive after the Thunderchild fight. Things like ships and artillery catch them by surprise and that despite "studying" Earth before invading.

I suppose one way to balance a 1940s invasion would be for the Martians to create beachheads in remote locations where they can safely expand first rather than the 1890s invasion where they landed inside a major power.