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 SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!

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PostSubject: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyFri Jul 10, 2009 8:52 pm

Aliens invade the Earth! New York is leveled in a giant explosion! Evil Germans! Aliens building the Great Pyramids! America (FUCK YEAH!) comes to the rescue with advanced military hardware! A brilliant scientist reverse-engineers the alien's technology! Earth's only hope is it's nascent Starfleet and first core of Space Marines!

The latest summer blockbuster? Maybe a sequel to Independence Day? NO! It was published 99 years before Independence Day! It's an unauthorized fanfiction sequel to HG Well's War of the Worlds!

:aaa:

. . . . wait, what?

I am dead serious. This is a real thing that was published in 1897, and it's now in the public domain. Edison's Conquest of Mars is at once the best and worst thing I've ever read. The best, because it's incredibly ahead of it's time, because it's an authentic Steampunk Space Opera (which is fuckin' BADASS), perhaps the first Space Opera ever written.

The worst, because it's a a vain, racist, imperialist, jingoist, fucking bizarre story which shits all over the original, and seems to have originated every sci-fi cliche ever written. It was signed off on by Thomas Edison himself! It makes him an obnoxious Marty Stu, so henceforth, the fictional Mr. Edison's name shall be written in a manner befitting his incredible excellence: :lolinsane: THOMAS EDISON :lolinsane:.

Quote :
They possessed a mysterious explosive, of unimaginable puissance, with whose aid they set their car in motion for Mars from a point in Bergen County, N. J., just back of the Palisades.

The force of the explosion may be imagined when it is recollected that they had to give the car a velocity of more than seven miles per second in order to overcome the attraction of the earth and the resistance of the atmosphere.

The shock destroyed all of New York that had not already fallen a prey, and all the buildings yet standing in the surrounding towns and cities fell in one far-circling ruin.

The Palisades tumbled in vast sheets, starting a tidal wave in the Hudson that drowned the opposite shore.

Aliens blow up New York at the very beginning of the story. Somewhere, in Germany, Roland Emmerich's ancestors experience an involuntary shudder, as if the future has been changed in a way that will bring them great shame.

The world starts to rebuild from the last invasion, when astronomers keeping watch on Mars report movement. The Martians might be returning.

Quote :
Suddenly from Mr. Edison's laboratory at Orange flashed the startling intelligence that he had not only discovered the manner in which the invaders had been able to produce the mighty energies which they employed with such terrible effect, but that, going further, he had found a way to overcome them.

Fortunately, :lolinsane: THOMAS EDISON :lolinsane: is on the case, and he only needs a week to completely master the technology of an advanced alien species! (He signed off on this story. He no doubt must have been a humble man).

Quote :
"Let them come," was the almost joyous cry. "We shall be ready for them now. The Americans have solved the problem. Edison has placed the means of victory within our power."

You foreign devils had better thank God that He bestowed AMERICA and especially :lolinsane: THOMAS EDISON :lolinsane: on this Earth to save you from the Martians.

Quote :
I had myself been one of the occupants of the car of the flying Ship of Space on that night when it silently left the earth, and rising out of the great shadow of the globe, sped on to the moon.

And of course, :lolinsane: THOMAS EDISON'S :lolinsane: techno-prowess is such that he builds an interplanetary spaceship in a week.

But how does this miraculous craft function?

Quote :
It would carry me into technical details that would hardly interest the reader to describe the mechanism of Mr. Edison's flying machine. Let it suffice to say that it depended upon the principal of electrical attraction and repulsion. By means of a most ingenious and complicated construction he had mastered the problem of how to produce, in a limited space, electricity of any desired potential and of any polarity, and that without danger to the experimenter or to the material experimented upon. It is gravitation, as everybody knows, that makes man a prisoner on the earth. If he could overcome, or neutralize, gravitation he could float away a free creature of interstellar space. Mr. Edison in his invention had pitted electricity against gravitation. Nature, in fact, had done the same thing long before. Every astronomer knew it, but none had been able to imitate or to reproduce this miracle of nature. When a comet approaches the sun, the orbit in which it travels indicates that it is moving under the impulse of the sun's gravitation. It is in reality falling in a great parabolic or elliptical curve through space. But, while a comet approaches the sun it begins to display—stretching out for millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions of miles on the side away from the sun—an immense luminous train called its tail. This train extends back into that part of space from which the comet is moving. Thus the sun at one and the same time is drawing the comet toward itself and driving off from the comet in an opposite direction minute particles or atoms which, instead of obeying the gravitational force, are plainly compelled to disobey it. That this energy, which the sun exercises against its own gravitation, is electrical in its nature, hardly anybody will doubt. The head of the comet being comparatively heavy and massive, falls on toward the sun, despite the electrical repulsion. But the atoms which form the tail, being almost without weight, yield to the electrical rather than to the gravitational influence, and so fly away from the sun.

Why, it's powered by pure SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 927788 SCIENCE!!!! SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 927788, of course.

Quote :
Now, what Mr. Edison had done was, in effect, to create an electrified particle which might be compared to one of the atoms composing the tail of a comet, although in reality it was a kind of car, of metal, weighing some hundreds of pounds and capable of bearing some thousands of pounds with it in its flight. By producing, with the aid of the electrical generator contained in this car, an enormous charge of electricity, Mr. Edison was able to counterbalance, and a trifle more than counterbalance, the attraction of the earth, and thus cause the car to fly off from the earth as an electrified pithball flies from the prime conductor.

This may be the first authentic technobabble ever printed. This is what Star Trek is going to look like in a hundred years.

Now, the original War of the Worlds was basically an anti-Imperialism tract, which brutally portrayed the invasion of contemporary England by a militarily superior force. The lesson was simple: conquest of the less advanced is a brutal process.

This story?

Quote :
"Let the Martians come," was the cry. "If necessary, we can quit the earth as the Athenians fled from Athens before the advancing host of Xerxes, and like them, take refuge upon our ships—these new ships of space, with which American inventiveness has furnished us."

And then, like a flash, some genius struck out an idea that fired the world.

"Why should we wait? Why should we run the risk of having our cities destroyed and our lands desolated a second time? Let us go to Mars. We have the means. Let us beard the lion in his den. Let us ourselves turn conquerors and take possession of that detestable planet, and if necessary, destroy it in order to relieve the earth of this perpetual threat which now hangs over us like the sword of Damocles."

This story is a response in the form of revenge porn. It's message is "KILL 'EM ALL!"

Okay, so we can outfly the Martians, but they still have their deadly heat rays. Can we possibly win if they outgun us?

Quote :
Testing the "Disintegrator."

We can now! Thanks, :lolinsane: THOMAS EDISON! :lolinsane:

And again, the tension of the original is thwarted by :lolinsane: EDISON :lolinsane: conjuring up a technobabble solution. I swear, this thing is like the Voyager writer's bible.

So, America invites every single world leader to Washington, to discuss funding a starfleet and invading the planet Mars.

However, not everyone is happy with America's sudden power. Oh no. Deeply upset is the worst and most reviled figure in German history: the Kaiser.

Quote :
"I ought to do this thing myself," he had said. "My glorious ancestors would never have consented to allow these upstart Republicans to lead in a warlike enterprise of this kind. What would my grandfather have said to it? I suspect that it is some scheme aimed at the divine right of kings."

Although he is the absolute epitome of evil, he sees no choice but to comply.

Quote :
the Emperor William, following in another carriage with Empress Victoria at his side, condescended to bow and smile in response to the greetings of a free people.

He barely even smiles. Fuck the Kaiser, man.

So, everyone squeezes into the Senate chamber.

Quote :
The President of the United States, of course, presided.

Of course! THESE COLORS DON'T RUN! Yeah

Then, :lolinsane: EDISON :lolinsane: shows up, and drops a fucking masterstroke insult on the assembled kings.

Quote :
"I can explain its details," he said, "to Lord Kelvin, for instance, but if Their Majesties will excuse me, I doubt whether I can make it plain to the crowned heads."

BURN!

Quote :
In this manner he caused an inkstand to disappear under the very nose of the Emperor William without a spot of ink being scattered upon his sacred person, but evidently the odor of the disunited atoms was not agreeable to the nostrils of the Kaiser.

FUCKING TAKE THAT, YOU FUCKING KAISER! TAKE IT!

Unfortunately, if we're gonna invade Mars, somebody's gonna have to float the bill.

Quote :
"How much will be needed?" asked one of the English representatives.

"At least ten thousand millions of dollars," replied the President.

They only donate in increments of "thousands of millions". I'm not sure the author is aware of numbers larger than a million.

Quote :
"It would be safer," said a Senator from the Pacific Coast, "to make it twenty-five thousand millions."

^ CALIFORNIA LIBERAL SPOTTED.

And then, the exploration of other cultures begins.

Quote :
One of the Roko Tuis, or native chiefs, from Fiji, sprang up and brandished a war club.

Quote :
Most of the other monarchs also took a high ride, but when the turn of the Emperor of China came he repeated a fable which he said had come down from the time of Confucius:

Quote :
In this he was quickly joined by a band of Sioux Indian chiefs, whose whoops and yells so startled the leader of a German band on their part of the floor that he dropped his baton and, followed by the musicians, took to his heels.

Quote :
This incident amused the good-natured Emperor of China more than anything else that had occurred.

"Make muchee noisee," he said, indicating the fleeing musicians with his thumb. "Allee same muchee flaid noisee," and then his round face dimpled into another laugh.
Quote :

The dance was followed by a grand banquet, at which the Prince of Wales proposed a toast to Mr. Edison:

"It gives me much pleasure," he said, "to offer, in the name of the nations of the Old World, this tribute of our admiration for, and our confidence in, the genius of the New World. Perhaps on such an occasion as this, when all racial differences and prejudices ought to be, and are, buried and forgotten, I should not recall anything that might revive them; yet I cannot refrain from expressing my happiness in knowing that the champion who is to achieve the salvation of the earth has come forth from the bosom of the Anglo-Saxon race."

Quote :
When the telegram from this last-named place was read the Emperor William turned to his Chancellor and said:

"I want to go home. If I am to die I prefer to leave my bones among those of my Imperial ancestors, and not in this vulgar country, where no king has ever ruled. I don't like this atmosphere. It makes me feel limp."

And by that, I mean "blatant Victorian-era racism."

All of the world's smartest men are placed under :lolinsane: EDISON'S :lolinsane: command, and the rush to build the first Earth Starfleet in the history of fiction begins.


Last edited by Lysander on Fri Jul 10, 2009 10:41 pm; edited 1 time in total
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyFri Jul 10, 2009 10:08 pm

Lysander - you, me, Inkweaver and Delcat have to come together and form some sort of sporking supergroup someday.

That said:
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 1:39 am

Quote :
It is not necessary for me to describe the manner in which Mr. Edison performed his tremendous task. He was as good as his word, and within six months from the first stroke of the hammer, a hundred electrical ships, each provided with a full battery of disintegrators, were floating in the air above the harbor and the partially rebuilt city of New York.

Fuck you, Vulcans! :lolinsane: EDISON :lolinsane: doesn't need your help to build Starfleet!

Quote :
To overcome the destructive forces employed by the Martians no satisfactory plan had yet been devised, because there was no means to experiment with them. The production of those forces was still the secret of our enemies. But Mr. Edison had no doubt that if we could not resist their effects we might at least be able to avoid them by the rapidity of our motions. As he pointed out, the war machines which the Martians had employed in their invasion of the earth, were really very awkward and unmanageable affairs. Mr. Edison's electrical ships, on the other hand, were marvels of speed and of manageability.

:lolinsane: EDISON :lolinsane: has overcome thousands of years of Martian scientific expertise in six months.

He is techno-Jesus.

Quote :
On the model of the celebrated corps of literary and scientific men which Napoleon carried with him in his invasion of Egypt, Mr. Edison selected a company of the foremost astronomers, archaeologists, anthropologists, botanists, bacteriologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, mechanicians, meteorologists and experts in mining, metallurgy and every other branch of practical science, as well as artists and photographers. It was but reasonable to believe that in another world, and a world so much older than the earth as Mars was, these men would be able to gather materials in comparison with which the discoveries made among the ruins of ancient empires in Egypt and Babylonia would be insignificant indeed.

Our army of nerds will trample the vile Martians!

Quote :
But though few in numbers, they represented the flower of the earth, the culmination of the genius of the planet. The greatest leaders in science, both theoretical and practical, were there.

My Martian owner brought his whip down upon my back. In retrospect, perhaps we should have sent some soldiers, first.

Quote :
Mars was desperate because nature was gradually depriving it of the means of supporting life, and its teeming population was compelled to swarm like the inmates of an overcrowded hive of bees, and find new homes elsewhere. In this respect the situation on Mars, as we were well aware, resembled what had already been known upon the earth, where the older nations overflowing with population had sought new lands in which to settle, and for that purpose had driven out the native inhabitants, whenever those natives had proven unable to resist the invasion.

How the fuck do you understand that metaphor so well, and then write an entire story about the glory of invading another world?

Quote :
The car in which Mr. Edison travelled was, of course, the flagship of the squadron, and I had the good fortune to be included among its inmates. Here, besides several leading men of science from our own country, were Lord Kelvin, Lord Rayleigh, Professor Roentgen, Dr. Moissan—the man who first made artificial diamonds—and several others whose fame had encircled the world. Each of these men cherished hopes of wonderful discoveries, along his line of investigation, to be made in Mars.

On Mars, our soldiers will need access to food, air, water, ammo, medical supplies, engineering expertise, xenobiological fieldwork, logistical support on a scale which is unprecedented in the entire history of human warfare, and jewelry. FIND ME THE MEN TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN!


So, humanity has developed it's first fleet of interplanetary starships, armed with batteries of disintegration beams, stocked with newly invented space suits. We have the world's finest minds at our disposal, and all the resources of the Earth. Before we set out, is there anything we forgot to do?

Quote :
An elaborate system of signals had, of course, to be devised for the control of the squadron. These signals consisted of brilliant electric lights displayed at night and so controlled that by their means long sentences and directions could be easily and quickly transmitted.

The day signals consisted partly of brightly colored pennons and flags, which were to serve only when, shadowed by clouds or other obstructions, the full sunlight should not fall upon the ships. This could naturally only occur near the surface of the earth or of another planet.

Quote :
Inside the headpiece of each of the electrical suits was the mouthpiece of a telephone. This was connected with a wire which, when not in use, could be conveniently coiled upon the arm of the wearer. Near the ears, similarly connected with wires, were telephonic receivers. When two persons wearing the air-tight dresses wished to converse with one another it was only necessary for them to connect themselves by the wires, and conversation could then be easily carried on.
Quote :

To prevent accidents, it had been arranged that the ships should keep a considerable distance apart. Some of them gradually drifted away, until, on account of the neutral tint of their sides, they were swallowed up in the abyss of space. Still it was possible to know where every member of the squadron was through the constant interchange of signals. These, as I have explained, were effected by means of mirrors flashing back the light of the sun.

Oh right, we forgot to INVENT THE RADIO! Guess we'll just direct our star fleet and planetary invasion force with signaling flags and lengths of copper wire! :downs:

Oh well, it's off to Mars!

Quote :
And now, as we slowly rose higher, a marvellous scene was disclosed. At first the earth beneath us, buried as it was in night, resembled the hollow of a vast cup of ebony blackness, in the centre of which, like the molten lava run together at the bottom of a volcanic crater, shone the light of the illuminations around New York. But when we got beyond the atmosphere, and the earth still continued to recede below us, its aspect changed. The cup-shaped appearance was gone, and it began to round out beneath our eyes in the form of a vast globe—an enormous ball mysteriously suspended under us, glimmering over most of its surface, with the faint illumination of the moon, and showing toward its eastern edge the oncoming light of the rising sun.

When we were still further away, having slightly varied our course so that the sun was once more entirely hidden behind the centre of the earth, we saw its atmosphere completely illuminated, all around it, with prismatic lights, like a gigantic rainbow in the form of a ring.

Another shift in our course rapidly carried us out of the shadow of the earth and into the all pervading sunshine. Then the great planet beneath us hung unspeakable in its beauty. The outlines of several of the continents were clearly discernible on its surface, streaked and spotted with delicate shades of varying color, and the sunlight flashed and glowed in long lanes across the convex surface of the oceans. Parallel with the Equator and along the regions of the ever blowing trade winds, were vast belts of clouds, gorgeous with crimson and purple as the sunlight fell upon them. Immense expanses of snow and ice lay like a glittering garment upon both land and sea around the North Pole.

This is what I mean about it being ahead of it's time. What we have here is the wonder and marvel of space travel, expressed decades before man at last glanced down upon his homeworld from orbit.

This is good stuff! This is how science brings us all closer together! :eng101: Is there anything that can move men's hearts towards peace more than the beauty and splendor of space exploration?

Quote :
A new determination to conquer or die sprung up in our hearts

:eng99:

Dear God, please provide me with the power to smite these assholes for their hubris!

Quote :
Struck By A Meteor!

Holy shit! Praying actually worked!

So, mild bumps aside, they make it to the moon.

Quote :
The Moon's Strange and Ghastly Surface in Full View of Man.

It was a fearful spectacle; a dead and mangled world, too dreadful to look upon.

THE MOON IS TERRIFYING.

Quote :
At each end of the semi-circular ridge that encloses the Bay of Rainbows there is a lofty promontory.

Sinus Iridum is a real place on the moon, but there are no rainbows.

Quote :
I had often on the earth drawn a smile from my friends by showing them Cape Heraclides with a telescope, and calling their attention to the fact that the outline of the peak terminating the cape was such as to present a remarkable resemblance to a human face, unmistakably a feminine countenance, seen in profile, and possessing no small degree of beauty. To my astonishment, this curious human semblance still remained when we had approached so close to the moon that the mountains forming the cape filled nearly the whole field of view of the window from which I was watching it. The resemblance, indeed, was most startling.

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! Images-1

IT IS SO A MONKEY FACE!

Quote :
As we thus approached I suddenly perceived, crowning the very apex of the lofty peak near the termination of the cape, the ruins of what appeared to be an ancient watch tower. It was evidently composed of Cyclopean blocks larger than any that I had ever seen even among the ruins of Greece, Egypt and Asia Minor.

Sounds rather :cthulhu: to me.

Okay, ladies! Looks like another bug hunt. Two-by-two cover formation, disintegrators on. Mind the shogoths.

Quote :
Although time pressed, for we knew that the safety of the earth depended upon our promptness in attacking Mars, yet it was determined to remain here at least two or three days in order that the wrecked car might be repaired. It was found also that the passage of the highly electrified meteor had disarranged the electrical machinery in some of the other cars, so that there were many repairs to be made besides those needed to restore the wreck.

Man, space sure is electrified today, for some reason.

Quote :
Moreover, we must bury our unfortunate companions who had been killed by the meteor. This, in fact, was the first work that we performed. Strange was the sight, and stranger our feelings, as here on the surface of a world distant from the earth, and on soil which had never before been pressed by the foot of man, we performed that last ceremony of respect which mortals pay to mortality. In the ancient beach at the foot of the peak we made a deep opening, and there covered forever the faces of our friends, leaving them to sleep among the ruins of empires, and among the graves of races which had vanished probably ages before Adam and Eve appeared in Paradise.

We ain't gonna have none of that Darwinism on this interplanetary invasion!

Quote :
But along the shore of the old sea, just where the so-called Bay of Rainbows separates itself from the abyss of the Sea of Showers, there were found some stratified rocks in which the fascinated eyes of the explorer beheld the clear imprint of a gigantic human foot, measuring five feet in length from toe to heel.

The moon was once covered in oceans, you see.

Quote :
It seemed as if a gigantic string of diamonds, every one as great as a mountain peak, had been cast down upon the barren surface of the moon and left to waste their brilliance upon the desert air of this abandoned world.

Goddammit, I can't believe we wasted a seat on the guy who invented artificial diamonds!

Quote :
Professor Moissan, the great French chemist and maker of artificial diamonds, fairly danced with delight.

"Voila! Voila! Voila!" was all that he could say.

SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU USELESS SACK OF SHIT! Angry

Quote :
"Are these diamonds?" asked a third.

"I cannot yet tell," replied the Professor. "They have the brilliancy of diamonds, but they may be something else."

UNLESS THEY MAKE THE MARTIANS EXPLODE, OR ARE MADE OF PURE HOOKERS AND BLOW, I DON'T CARE RIGHT NOW!

Quote :
"Moon jewels," suggested a third.

"And worth untold millions, whatever they are," remarked another.

Oh, so the shiny moon rocks are worth money? I COULD HAVE TOLD YOU THAT, ASSHOLE! I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Quote :
One of them was fortunate enough to discover an even more precious relic of the ancient lunarians. It was a piece of petrified skullbone, representing but a small portion of the head to which it had belonged, but yet sufficient to enable the anthropologists, who immediately fell to examining it, to draw ideal representations of the head as it must have been in life—the head of a giant of enormous size, which, if it had possessed a highly organized brain, of proportionate magnitude, must have given to its possessor intellectual powers immensely greater than any of the descendants of Adam have ever been endowed with.

This place was inhabited by giant moon monsters. Let's get the fuck outta here.

Next time: UTTER FAIL!


Last edited by Lysander on Sat Jul 11, 2009 1:02 pm; edited 3 times in total
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 3:02 am

Lysander, you have discovered a treasure beyond price. Damn, now I'm going to have to go to the site and read the damn thing!

What I find interesting is that I've never heard of this book before, and Well's 'War of the Worlds' is one of the first sci-fi books I ever read. One has to wonder if the general public at the time recognized it for the crap it was, or were simply so puzzled by it, it never gained popularity. I mean, even for the era it was written in, it's wordy as hell.

But the technobabble is brilliant. It works because I say it does! Thank you :lolinsane: Thomas Edison! :lolinsane:
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 7:19 am

Lysander wrote:
It was signed off on by Thomas Edison himself! It makes him an obnoxious Marty Stu, so henceforth, the fictional Mr. Edison's name shall be written in a manner befitting his incredible excellence: :lolinsane: THOMAS EDISON :lolinsane:.
So Thomas Edison was an ninteenth century fanbrat? Who knew.

There's certainly some hidden gems out there if you know where to look.
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 8:03 am

If this isn't a Golden OLDIE, I don't know what is.



Fun Fact: I am amazed at the description of Earth from above.
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 12:42 pm

Alright, we've left the Moon, where we're never returning again because of giant monsters. If we're gonna do this thing, then let's do this thing! On to Mars! WITH GOD AS MY WITNESS, NOTHING CAN STOP US NOW!

Quote :
One morning, if I may call by the name morning the time of my periodical emergence from the darkened chamber, glancing from one of the windows, I was startled to see in the black sky a brilliant comet.

FUCK!

Quote :
No periodical comet, as I knew, was at this time approaching the neighborhood of the sun, and no stranger of that kind had been detected from the observatories making its way sunward before we left the earth.

How did they miss a GIANT ASS COMET right in the middle of our course?! It's giant! It's a comet! IT'S CERTAINLY ASS! Don't the have telescopes on Earth?!

Quote :
The stranger had already been perceived, not only from the flagship, but from the other members of the squadron, and, as I now learned, efforts had been made to get out of the neighborhood, but for some reason the electrical apparatus did not work perfectly—some mysterious disturbing force acting upon it—and so it had been found impossible to avoid an encounter with the comet, not an actual coming into contact with it, but a falling into the sphere of its influence.

In the Wake of the Comet.

In fact, I was informed that for several hours the squadron had been dragging along in the wake of a comet, very much as boats are sometimes towed off by a wounded whale.

We're caught in the tail of the comet.

WE'RE CAUGHT IN THE TAIL OF THE COMET.

WE'RE CAUGHT IN THE TAIL OF THE COMET.

I . . . that . . wha?!

My physics textbook would like to have a word with you, mister comet.

Quote :
Every effort had been made to so adjust the electric charge upon the ships that they would be repelled from the cometic mass, but, owing apparently to eccentric changes continually going on in the electric charge affecting the clashing mass of meteoric bodies which constituted the head of the comet, we found it impossible to escape from its influence.

OH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE! First, the ship is hit by an "electric" meteor that zeroed in on us, and now this! The ship flies due to it's electric charge, and everything in space is electrically charged, including the tail of this comet! It's the only means the author knew of to explain phenomenon in outer space! X-rays had only been discovered the year before this was published.

. . . .

That's it! We have Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen on the ship! We'll just have him explain the concept of radiation to the author, and then the comet won't be electrically charged anymore, and we can just fly away! MY PLAN IS GENIUS!

Quote :
At one instant the ships would be repelled; immediately afterward they would be attracted again, and thus they were dragged hither and thither, but never able to break from the invisible leash which the comet had cast upon them. The latter was moving with enormous velocity toward the sun, and, consequently, we were being carried back again, away from the object of our expedition, with a fair prospect of being dissipated in blazing vapors when the comet had dragged us, unwilling prisoners, into the immediate neighborhood of the solar furnace.

Even the most cool-headed lost his self-control in this terrible emergency. Every kind of device that experience or the imagination could suggest was tried, but nothing would do.

So . . . has anyone thought to disintegrate the comet?

Quote :
Was this to end it all, then? Was this the fate that Providence had in store for us? Were the hopes of the earth thus to perish? Was the expedition to be wrecked and its fate to remain forever unknown to the planet from which it had set forth? And was our beloved globe, which had seemed so fair to us when we last looked upon it near by, and in whose defence we had resolved to spend our last breath, to be left helpless and at the mercy of its implacable foe in the sky?

Just turn the main battery on it, blast it to monoatomic vapor, and fly away?

Quote :
At length we gave ourselves up for lost. There seemed to be no possible way to free ourselves from the baleful grip of this terrible and unlooked-for enemy.

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 724940

Fer God's sakes . . . .

Quote :
As the comet approached the sun its electric energy rapidly increased, and watching it with telescopes, for we could not withdraw our fascinated eyes from it, we could clearly behold the fearful things that went on in its nucleus.

This consisted of an immense number of separate meteors of no very great size individually, but which were in constant motion among one another, darting to and fro, clashing and smashing together, while fountains of blazing metallic particles and hot mineral vapors poured out in every direction.

Are we sure this is a comet?

Quote :
As I watched it, unable to withdraw my eyes, I saw imaginary forms revealing themselves amid the flaming meteors. They seemed like creatures in agony, tossing their arms, bewailing in their attitudes the awful fate that had overtaken them, and fairly chilling my blood with the pantomime of torture which they exhibited. I thought of an old superstition which I had often heard about the earth, and exclaimed: "Yes, surely, this is a flying hell!"

Oh, of course. I knew this would happen eventually if we went to Mars. It's not a comet, it's a Slipgate.

. . . .

Oh, you guys know what a Slipgate is. It's the thing the demons came through in Doom. Just chill, I came prepared.

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! Chainsaw2
*BR-BR-BROOM BROOM BUZZZZZZZZZ*

And you people said I was crazy for bringing this thing to a planet without vegetation.

Quote :
So great was our excitement and so complete our absorption in the fearful peril that we had not noticed the precise direction in which the comet was carrying us. It was enough to know that the goal of the journey was the furnace of the sun. But presently someone in the flagship recalled us to a more accurate sense of our situation in space by exclaiming:

"Why, there is the earth!"

And there, indeed, it was, its great globe rolling under our eyes, with the contrasted colors of the continents and clouds and the watery gleam of the ocean spread beneath us.

"We are going to strike it!" exclaimed somebody. "The comet is going to dash into the earth."

Oh . . . um, shit. Looks like we knocked the comet out of it's orbit, sending it on a collision course for Earth.

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 203843

Well, at least the Martians aren't going to destroy the Earth . . . MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, MEN! WE ARE HEROES!

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 831506

Quote :
"Thank God, this saves us," suddenly cried Mr. Edison.

"What—what?"

"Why, the earth, of course. Do you not see that as the comet sweeps close to the great planet the superior attraction of the latter will snatch us from its grasp, and that thus we shall be able to escape?"

And it was indeed as Mr. Edison had predicted. In a blaze of falling meteors the comet swept the outer limits of the earth's atmosphere and passed on, while the swaying ships, having been instructed by signals what to do, desperately applied their electrical machinery to reverse the attraction and threw themselves into the arms of their mother earth.

We're saved by sheer fucking chance! Hooray for Earth!

Quote :
It would be impossible to describe the chagrin of every member of the expedition.

This sentence written by guest author Stephine Meyer.

Quote :
A Feeling of Shame.

Yeah, we do pretty much suck.

Quote :
I shall not delay my narrative by undertaking to describe the astonishment and the disappointment of the inhabitants of the earth when, within a fortnight from our departure, they saw us back again, with no laurels of victory crowning our brows.

But there's no reason to go into detail about exactly how much we suck.

Quote :
At first they had hoped that we were returning in triumph, and we were overwhelmed with questions the moment we had dropped within speaking distance.

"Have you whipped them?"

"How many are lost?"

"Is there any more danger?"

"Faix, have ye got one of thim men from Mars?"

DAMN IT, THERE IS A STRICT NO HILLBILLY CLAUSE IN MY CONTRACT! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!

Quote :
But their rejoicings and their facetiousness were turned into wailing when the truth was imparted.

We may not have stopped the Martians, but at least we sent a comet into an orbit where it could very well strike the Earth and kill everyone someday!

Quote :
Mr. Edison determined to stop only long enough to test the electrical machinery of the cars, which had been more or less seriously deranged during our wild chase after the comet, and then to start straight back for Mars—this time on a through trip.

Yes, no more fucking around. Also, can we drop fucking Moissan off with the moon rocks? I want to bring someone useful this time. Hmm, George Patton is, like, ten years old, and he's my first choice for invading Mars . . . and I don't dare ask :lolinsane: Edison :lolinsane: to bring Tesla . . . hey, is Wyatt Eurp still alive? We need more badasses like him on this trip.

Quote :
Within twenty-four hours we were ready for our second start.

The moon was now no longer in a position to help us on our way. It had moved out of the line between Mars and the earth.

Thank God. Now that I know that it was home to a race of evil giants, I never wanna look at the moon again.

Next time: We finally fight some Martians!
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Lysander
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 4:52 pm

Alright. Repairs . . . check.

Batteries are recharged . . . check.

Diamond Dweeb was send home crying to his momma. . . double check!

We're ready to blast off and leave to invade Mars! Again!

Let's do this thing this time! Give me all she's got, Scotty!

Quote :
Once started off by this tremendous electrical kick, and with no atmosphere to resist our motion, we should be able to retain the same velocity, barring incidental encounters, until we arrived near the surface of Mars.

When we were free of the atmosphere, and the ships were moving away from the earth, with the highest velocity which we were able to impart to them, observations on the stars were made in order to determine the rate of our speed.

The rate of our speed is FULL FUCKING AHEAD, and we're not stopping to explore any shogoth-infested ruins, this time.

Quote :
This was found to be ten miles in a second, or 864,000 miles in a day, a very much greater speed than that with which we had travelled on starting to touch at the moon.

Settle in, because it's still a month and a half trip.

Quote :
At the expiration of about thirty-five days we had drawn so near to Mars that with our telescopes, which, though small, were of immense power, we could discern upon its surface features and details which no one had been able to glimpse from the earth.

Dear Christ, space travel is boring. Why didn't we bring any women on this voyage? :bang:

Quote :
Among the stars which shone in that quarter of the heavens where Mars appeared as the master orb, there was one, lying directly in our path, which, to our astonishment, as we continued on, altered from the aspect of a star, underwent a gradual magnification, and soon presented itself in the form of a little planet.

"It is an asteroid," said somebody.

OH GOOD MORE SPACE GARBAGE TO EXPLORE.

Quote :
"Yes, evidently; but how does it come inside the orbit of Mars?"

Maybe because Mars is on the edge of a big honking asteroid field?

Quote :
"What is that upon it?" asked Lord Kelvin, squinting intently at the little world through his glass. "As I live, it moves."

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed several others, "there are inhabitants upon it, but what giants!"

"What monsters!"

YES! FINALLY! SOME FUCKING ACTION! Red Alert! Battlestations, everyone! Activate the dim lighting, flashing red lights, and sirens! Launch all Vipers! Fleet formation Lysander Epsilon! Lock S-Foils in attack position! Engage the cloaking device! Stick the needle thing in the red matter beachball of doom! Johnson! Turn off all the lights, and go into silent running, or whatever passes for stealth mode in space. Smith! Man the heavy disintegration guns, let's prepare to blast that entire asteroid to atoms! Anderson, put on some mood music from Battlestar Galactica!



You, hand me that telescope! I wanna look my enemy square in his eyeball-equivalent organs before I blast the very celestial body he stands on to atomized slag!

C'mon, you disgusting blob of snot with tentacles! Smile for daddy!

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! Tecm0810

Quote :
"Don't you see?" exclaimed an excited savant. "They are the Martians!"

. . . you mean, behind the aborted elf fetus with the most severe case of Down's Syndrome ever recorded?

Quote :
Like men, and yet not like men; combining the human and the beast in their appearance, it required a steady nerve to look at them

Alright guys, seriously. We ARE talking about the same Martians who invaded the Earth, right? 'Cause . . . I don't think they looked like . . . whatever THAT is.

Quote :
The startling truth burst upon the minds of all. Here upon this little planetoid were several of the gigantic inhabitants of the world that we were going to attack. There was more than one man in the flagship who recognized them well, and who shuddered at the recognition, instinctively recalling the recent terrible experience of the earth.

That's seriously them. They're not all :cthulhu:?

Quote :
In our eyes their moral character shone through their physical aspect and thus rendered them more terrible!

Well, they ARE terrible. In a sense.

Quote :
Around these monstrous enemies we saw several of their engines of war. Some of these appeared to have been wrecked, but at least one, as far as we could see, was still in a proper condition for use.

How had these creatures got there?

"Why, that is easy enough to account for," I said, as a sudden recollection flashed into my mind.

They flew, jackasses. DUH.

To be more specific, what we saw seven months ago wasn't a second Earth invasion being launched, it was a mission to this asteroid. One which has apparently been destroyed, possibly by infighting.

Quote :
The electrical ships were immediately instructed by signal to slow down, an operation that was easily affected through the electrical repulsion of the asteroid.

Yes, slow down, and put out the lights. We don't want them to see us.

Quote :
When we first saw them their appearance was most forlorn, and their attitudes indicated only despair and desperation, but as they caught sight of us their malign power of intellect instantly penetrated the mystery, and they recognized us for what we were.

Their despair immediately gave place to reawakened malevolence. On the instant they were astir, with such heart-chilling movements as those that characterize a venomous serpent preparing to strike.

HOW THE FUCK DID HE SEE US? WE'RE MILES AWAY IN OUTER SPACE WITH THE LIGHTS OFF!

*glances at pile of gleaming, glowing moon jewels in the corner*

MOISSSSSSSAAAAANNNNN! Angry

Quote :
Suddenly there was a quicker movement than usual among the Martians, a swift adjustment of that one of their engines of war which, as already noticed, seemed to be practically uninjured, and then there darted from it and alighted upon one of the foremost ships a dazzling lightning stroke a mile in length, at whose touch the metallic sides of the car curled and withered and, licked for a moment by what seemed lambent flames, collapsed into a mere cinder.

EVASIVE MANEUVERS!

IT MEANS MANEUVER TO EVADE THEIR SHOTS GOD WHY COULDN'T YOU COME FROM AN ERA WHERE SCIFI TROPES EXIST?!

Quote :
"Back! Back!" was the signal instantaneously flashed from the flagship, and reversing their polarities the members of the squadron sprang away from the little planet as rapidly as the electrical impulse could drive them.

But before we were out of reach a second flaming tongue of death shot from the fearful engine, and another of our ships, with all its crew, was destroyed.

Oh, our war is off to a stupendous start. Swear to Christ, bunch o' scientists with six months of training on untested equipment, one fucking disabled tripod took out two of our ships and there's a whole fucking planet of them, and suddenly they have long range artillery, we should have hired some mercenaries, I have that Schlock Mercenary company in my Rolodex back on Earth mumble mumble

Okay. Okay, deep breaths.

Let's try that again, only this time, how about we use some actual fucking strategy for a change?


Last edited by Lysander on Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:48 am; edited 4 times in total
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Keith Fraser
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 5:02 pm

What, they couldn't even be bothered to use the tentacled worm-things from The War of the Worlds? EPIC. FAIL. Further proof that some things never change: the world may turn, FFNet may replace vanity printers, MS Word may replace typewriters, but fanbrats are still incapable of resisting the urge to completely screw with canon for no purpose.

(Also, Nikola Tesla would have beaten the Martians by now, probably by building a giant array harnessing the sun's magnetic field to smash iron asteroids into Mars or something.)
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Lysander
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 5:45 pm

Keith Fraser wrote:
What, they couldn't even be bothered to use the tentacled worm-things from The War of the Worlds? EPIC. FAIL. Further proof that some things never change: the world may turn, FFNet may replace vanity printers, MS Word may replace typewriters, but fanbrats are still incapable of resisting the urge to completely screw with canon for no purpose.

No shit. I expected Martians, but we're apparently invading the Planet of the This Guy:

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! Pepper1

Quote :
(Also, Nikola Tesla would have beaten the Martians by now, probably by building a giant array harnessing the sun's magnetic field to smash iron asteroids into Mars or something.)

In a perfect world, we'd have an army of badass marines, armed with Tesla weapons, commanded by Teddy Roosevelt. The Martians would shit themselves in terror and surrender at the sight of them.
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Lysander
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 7:47 pm

Captain's Log: Stardate A Long Time Ago.

We have experienced our first setback, or at least, our first setback of an entirely military nature. The fleet has sustained it's first combat losses: two ships were destroyed by a Martian tripod-mounted artillery weapon before the fleet could withdraw to a safe distance.

If I had mechanized infantry or some kind of guided rocket artillery, I could plant it on the other side of the asteroid, and bombard the tripod from outside of it's line of sight. The low-G indirect targeting would also give the nerds on the ship a Trig problem to keep the occupied, while the few real men here do the actual fighting. However, I was given no such resources. All I have to rely on are the untested disintegration guns. This leaves me with no alternative but to take the fleet back into the range of the Martian Heat Ray. Fortunately, the tripod only seems capable of destroying a single ship at a time, so if I disperse the fleet for an envelopment move, there's a good chance that this won't immediately turn into another wholesale slaughter. God only knows how I'm supposed to take on an entire planet with this lot.

If I manage to stop this fiasco from becoming a complete disaster, I deserve to go down in history as the new Hannibal of Carthage.


All ships go to Red Alert. Prepare to commence Operation: Let's Try and Kill a Single Martian, At Least, Before They Inevitably Destroy Us All.

Quote :
Everything being in readiness, the disintegrators all in working order, and the men who were able to handle them, most of whom were experienced marksmen, chosen from among the officers of the regular army of the United States, and accustomed to the straight shooting and the sure hits of the West, standing at their posts, the squadron again advanced.

Wait, we're invading Mars with an army of cowboys? Awesome! We might have hope after all.

Quote :
In order to distract the attention of the Martians, the electrical ships had been distributed over a wide space. Some dropped straight down toward the asteroid; others approached it by flank attack, from this side and that. The flagship moved straight in toward the point where the first disaster occurred. Its intrepid commander felt that his post should be that of the greatest danger, and where the severest blows would be given and received.

Actually, it's because I think we're doomed, and don't want to delay the inevitable. Same diff, I guess.

Quote :
The approach of the ships was made with great caution. Watching the Martians with our telescopes we could clearly see that they were disconcerted by the scattered order of our attack. Even if all of their engines of war had been in proper condition for use it would have been impossible for them to meet the simultaneous assault of so many enemies dropping down upon them from the sky.

But they were made of fighting metal, as we knew from old experience. It was no question of surrender. They did not know how to surrender, and we did not know how to demand a surrender. Besides, the destruction of the two electrical ships with the forty men, many of whom bore names widely known upon the earth, had excited a kind of fury among the members of the squadron which called for vengeance.

Like That Guy, and Whatisface! HE WAS THE BEST ONE OF ALL!

Quote :
Suddenly a repetition of the quick movement by the Martians, which had been the forerunner of the former coup, was observed; again a blinding flash burst from their war engine and instantaneously a shiver ran through the frame of the flagship; the air within quivered with strange pulsations and seemed suddenly to have assumed the temperature of a blast furnace.

We all gasped for breath. Our throats and lungs seemed scorched in the act of breathing. Some fell unconscious upon the floor. The marksmen, carrying the disintegrators ready for use, staggered, and one of them dropped his instrument.

With my dying breath . . . I curse . . . Moissan! :unskilled78:

Quote :
But we had not been destroyed like our comrades before us. In a moment the wave of heat passed; those who had fallen recovered from their momentary stupor and staggered to their feet.

The electrical steersman stood hesitating at his post.

"Move on," said Mr. Edison sternly, his features set with determination and his eyes afire. "We are still beyond their effective range. Let us get closer in order to make sure work when we strike."

Well, considering that we haven't even tested to see what the max range on the D-Guns are, we should probably just open up here and see if it has any effect before closing in on the range of their you're not even listening to me, are you?

Quote :
The ship moved on. One could hear the heartbeats of its inmates. The other members of the squadron, thinking for the moment that disaster had overtaken the flagship, had paused and seemed to be meditating flight.

That's it, I can't put up with these pussies any more right now. :lolinsane: EDISON :lolinsane:, just go use your Mary Sue powers to fix this, so we can get out of here.

Quote :
In the meantime Mr. Edison had been donning his air-tight suit. Before we could clearly comprehend his intention he had passed through the double-trapped door which gave access to the exterior of the car without permitting the loss of air, and was standing upon what served as the deck of the ship.

In his hand he carried a disintegrator. With a quick motion he sighted it.

As quickly as possible I sprang to his side. I was just in time to note the familiar blue gleam about the instrument, which indicated that its terrific energies were at work. The whirring sound was absent, because here, in open space, where there was no atmosphere, there could be no sound.

My eyes were fixed upon the Martians' engine, which had just dealt us a staggering, but not fatal, blow, and particularly I noticed a polished knob projecting from it, which seemed to have been the focus from which its destructive bolt emanated.

A moment later the knob disappeared. The irresistible vibrations darted from the electrical disintegrator and had fallen upon it and instantaneously shattered it into atoms.

"That fixes them," said Mr. Edison, turning to me with a smile.

And indeed it did fix them. We had most effectually spiked their gun. It would deal no more death blows.

Yeah, way to outshoot the trained artillerymen and marksmen we have on board.

Fucker.

Quote :
The stroke that we had dealt was taken by several of the electrical ships as a signal for a common assault, and we saw two of the Martians fall beside the ruin of their engine, their heads having been blown from their bodies.

Oh, NOW that they're COMPLETELY HARMLESS you close and open fire.

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 199471

Cease fire, you retards! Just . . . land this thing. Maybe there's still some valuable intel down there that we didn't destroy.

Quote :
As we got near them a terrible scene unfolded itself to our eyes. There had evidently been not more than half a dozen of the monsters in the beginning. Two of these were stretched headless upon the ground. Three others had suffered horrible injuries where the invisible vibratory beams from the disintegrators had grazed them, and they could not long survive. One only remained apparently uninjured.

Well? I know you're going to say something stupid or craven about our prisoner. Just spit it out.

Quote :
But let the reader not suppose from this inadequate description that the Martians stirred in the beholder precisely the sensation that would be caused by the sight of a gorilla, or other repulsive inhabitant of one of our terrestrial jungles, suddenly confronting him in its native wilds.

I don't even know what to say in response to that, except that this is the worst planetary invasion ever, and I hate everything that has ever existed.

Quote :
I have already referred to the enormous size of his head, and to the fact that his countenance bore considerable resemblance to that of a man. There was something in this face that sent a shiver through the soul of the beholder. One could feel in looking upon it that here was intellect, intelligence developed to the highest degree, but in the direction of evil instead of good.

The sensations of one who had stood face to face with Satan, when he was driven from the battlements of heaven by the swords of his fellow archangels, and had beheld him transformed from Lucifer, the Son of the Morning, into the Prince of Night and Hell, might not have been unlike those which we now experienced as we gazed upon this dreadful personage, who seemed to combine the intellectual powers of a man, raised to their highest pitch, with some of the physical features of a beast, and all the moral depravity of a fiend.

Is there anything that Victorians couldn't pass judgment on the second they encountered it?

Quote :
"No," said Mr. Edison, "I shall not kill him. We have got another use for him. Tom," he continued, turning to one of his assistants, whom he had brought from his laboratory, "bring me the anaesthetizer."

This is dumb. We know nothing of their physiology. We don't even know for certain if they sleep, much less how to make one go unconscious.

Quote :
When Tom had placed the instrument in his hands Mr. Edison ordered the electrical ship to forge slightly ahead and drop a little lower toward the Martian, who, with watchful eyes and threatening gestures, noted our approach in the attitude of a wild beast on the spring. Suddenly Mr. Edison discharged from the instrument in his hand a little gaseous globe, which glittered like a ball of tangled rainbows in the sunshine, and darted with astonishing velocity straight into the upturned face of the Martian. It burst as it touched and the monster fell back senseless upon the ground.
One of the Bellicose Martians Falls Into the Hands of the Worldians.

"You have killed him!" exclaimed all.

"No," said Mr. Edison, "he is not dead, only asleep. Now we shall drop down and bind him tight before he can awake."

Whatever. Let's get out of here, before you guys decide to put off fighting the Martians again to explore some empty stellar backwater.

Quote :
Everybody was eager to see this wonderful little world, which, as I have already remarked, was only five miles in diameter.

There's no radio communication with home. Theoretically, the Martians could already be attacking Earth. I want you all to know that, before you drag us off on another stupid subplot.

Quote :
Several of us from the flagship started out hastily to explore the miniature planet.

:red:

NEXT: Another Stupid Subplot. Also: More Fail!


Last edited by Lysander on Sun Jul 12, 2009 1:58 am; edited 1 time in total
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Root Admin
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySat Jul 11, 2009 8:16 pm

Dude I bet the ship is powered by fucking :lolinsane: lightbulbs :lolinsane:.

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Mr. Comic Book
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySun Jul 12, 2009 1:14 pm

I'd heard about this story back when the Tom Cruise WotW movie came out. A number of articles in the "Fresh Perspectives" reprint of WotW commented on it and compared it to the original...unfavorably, I might add. But it was noted as historically important for being the earliest known story of deep space combat and handheld laser weaponry.

I had no idea it was available online, though.
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySun Jul 12, 2009 2:55 pm

Nihilist wrote:
Dude I bet the ship is powered by fucking :lolinsane: lightbulbs :lolinsane:.

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 611762

The lightbulbs, in turn, are powered by thousands of hamsters running in thousands of hamster wheels. SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 831506
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptySun Jul 12, 2009 7:41 pm

Damn, thought I was the only one who knew about this book.
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unskilled78
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyMon Jul 13, 2009 3:10 pm

Rabid Badger wrote:
Nihilist wrote:
Dude I bet the ship is powered by fucking :lolinsane: lightbulbs :lolinsane:.

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 611762

The lightbulbs, in turn, are powered by thousands of hamsters running in thousands of hamster wheels. SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 831506
Which were in turn nourished by the glorious prescene of :lolinsane: Edison :lolinsane:, Himself.
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyMon Jul 13, 2009 3:16 pm

unskilled78 wrote:
Rabid Badger wrote:
Nihilist wrote:
Dude I bet the ship is powered by fucking :lolinsane: lightbulbs :lolinsane:.

SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 611762

The lightbulbs, in turn, are powered by thousands of hamsters running in thousands of hamster wheels. SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! 831506
Which were in turn nourished by the glorious prescene of :lolinsane: Edison :lolinsane:, Himself.

He's just that :lolinsane:electric :lolinsane:
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Lysander
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Lysander


Join date : 2009-06-10

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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyMon Jul 13, 2009 3:42 pm

Captain's Log: Supplemental

Current alien casualties: about 4.

Current human casualties: 42, two ships, and my sanity. The rest of my army seems to have deserted to go play on the asteroid.

All in all, things are going better than I'd anticipated.


Quote :
And now our attention was recalled to an intensely interesting phenomenon which had engaged our thoughts not only when we were upon the moon, but during our flight through space. This was the almost entire absence of weight.

We've been in space for more than a month. Why is this suddenly a topic for conversation now?

Quote :
Remember, if you give your body an impulse sufficient to carry it away from the car to any considerable distance, you will be unable to get back again, unless we can catch you with a boathook or a fishline.

Tonight's dinner: freshly caught space bass and salad.

Quote :
Having made this mental calculation, I knew that my weight, being 150 pounds on the earth, should on this asteroid be an ounce and a half.

Curious to see whether fact would bear out theory, I had myself weighed with a spring balance. Mr. Edison, Lord Kelvin and the other distinguished scientists stood by watching the operation with great interest.

To our complete surprise, my weight, instead of coming out an ounce and a half, as it should have done, on the supposition that the mean density of the asteroid resembled that of the earth—a very liberal supposition on the side of the asteroid, by the way—actually came out five ounces and a quarter!

"What in the world makes me so heavy?" I asked.

"Yes, indeed, what an elephant you have become," said Mr. Edison.

And thus, :lolinsane: EDISON :lolinsane: invented a little thing called "sarcasm."

Quote :
"It's quite right," he said. "You do indeed weigh five ounces and a quarter. Too much; altogether too much," he added. "You shouldn't do it, you know."

Stop it, right now. Yes, stop weighing that much, before the nerds force me to stay here and figure out why. That is an order.

Quote :
"Perhaps the fault is in the asteroid," suggested Professor Sylvanus P. Thompson.

No excuses on this ship, mister! If he doesn't stop weighing five and a quarter ounces, I want him shot for disobeying orders.

Quote :
"Quite so," exclaimed Lord Kelvin, a look of sudden comprehension overspreading his features. "No doubt it is the internal constitution of the asteroid which is the cause of the anomaly. We must look into that. Let me see? This gentleman's weight is three and one-half times as great as it ought to be. What element is there whose density exceeds the mean density of the earth in about that proportion?"

The word is "mass." You're invading another planet, and you don't even understand Newtonian physics.

Quote :
"Gold," exclaimed one of the party.

Great. Now, you'll never want to leave.

Quote :
For a moment we were startled beyond expression. The truth had flashed upon us.

This must be a golden planet—this little asteroid. If it were not composed internally of gold it could never have made me weigh three times more than I ought to weigh.

You know nothing about physics. NOTHING.

Quote :
"But where is the gold?" cried one.

"Covered up, of course," said Lord Kelvin. "Buried in star dust. This asteroid could not have continued to travel for millions of years through regions of space strewn with meteoric particles without becoming covered with the inevitable dust and grime of such a journey. We must dig down, and then doubtless we shall find the metal."

This hint was instantly acted upon. Something that would serve for a spade was seized by one of the men, and in a few minutes a hole had been dug in the comparatively light soil of the asteroid.

I shall never forget the sight, nor the exclamations of wonder that broke forth from all of us standing around, when the yellow gleam of the precious metal appeared under the "star dust." Collected in huge masses it reflected the light of the sun from its hiding place.

What is it with you people and shiny rocks, anyway?

Quote :
"What do you suppose those Martians were doing here?"

"Why, they were wrecked here."

"Not a bit of it," said Mr. Edison. "According to your own showing they could not have been wrecked here. This planet hasn't gravitation enough to wreck them by a fall, and besides I have been looking at their machines and I know there has been a fight."

"A fight?" exclaimed several, pricking up their ears.

"Yes," said Mr. Edison; "those machines bear the marks of the lightning of the Martians. They have been disabled, but they are made of some metal or some alloy of metals unknown to me, and consequently they have withstood the destructive force applied to them, as our electric ships were unable to withstand it. It is perfectly plain to me that they have been disabled in a battle. The Martians must have been fighting among themselves."

"About the gold!" exclaimed one.

"Of course. What else was there to fight about?"

Artist's Conception of the Battle: :nuts:

Quote :
"This must be the great gold mine of Mars," said the president of an Australian mining company, opening both his eyes and his mouth as he spoke.

Oh, super. We've found a gold mine. We'll set up a barracks, and start pumping out Orc Grunts.

Quote :
"Yes, evidently that's it. Here's where they come to get their wealth."

"And this," I said, "must be their harvest time. You notice that this asteroid, being several million miles nearer to the sun than Mars is, must have an appreciably shorter period of revolution. When it is in conjunction with Mars, or nearly so, as it is at present, the distance between the two is not very great, whereas when it is in the opposite part of its orbit they are separated by an enormous gap of space and the sun is between them."

"Manifestly in the latter case it would be perilous if not entirely impossible for the Martians to visit the golden asteroid, but when it is near Mars, as it is at present, and as it must be periodically for several years at a time, then is their opportunity."

"With their projectile cars sent forth with the aid of the mysterious explosives which they possess, it is easy for them under such circumstances, to make visits to the asteroid."

"Having obtained all the gold they need, or all that they can carry, a comparatively slight impulse given to their car, the direction of which is carefully calculated, will carry them back again to Mars."

So, they launch starships by expending enough energy to blow up a mountain range, and do so to mine gold. This is somehow more profitable than just mining it on Mars.

Quote :
"If that's so," exclaimed a voice, "we had better look out for ourselves! We have got into a very hornet's nest! If this is the place where the Martians come to dig gold, and if this is the height of their season, as you say, they are not likely to leave us here long undisturbed."

"These fellows must have been pirates that they had the fight with," said another.

"But what's become of the regulars, then?"

"Gone back to Mars for help, probably, and they'll be here again pretty quick, I am afraid!"

Super! And for once, I'm not being sarcastic! Maybe we can cripple their economy.

Their stupid, illogical economy.

Meanwhile, our prisoner has overcome a brief fit of asphyxiation . . . by taking a pill.

Quote :
"I will explain to you my notion," said Professor Moissan, the great French chemist. "I think it was a pill of the air, which he has taken."

The Martians still use The Jetsons-based technology, I see.

And damn it, who let him back on my ship?

Shortly afterwards, we got a message from the fleet!

Quote :
The Martians Are Coming.

Oh no!

Quote :
It reported that the Martians were coming!

I can read!

NEXT: Mankind fails at fighting the Martians. Again.
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Keith Fraser
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Keith Fraser


Join date : 2009-06-11
Age : 41
Location : The Emerald Isle

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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyMon Jul 13, 2009 4:33 pm

Sounds like someone posted a review for the previous chapter sent a telegram reminding the author about weightlessness. That might explain why he suddenly remembered it.

Edit: I did some calculations, and if the asteroid was the density of gold, it would have to have a radius of 3-4km to have the surface gravity given. This, shocker, is actually reasonable. I think the book's use of the word 'density' is actually correct - what they're saying is that if the asteroid had the same density as the Earth, for its radius it would have a surface gravity of X. The surface gravity of an object scales directly as its mass, assuming its size stays the same, and mass likewise scales directly as density for a given size
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Toastuh
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Toastuh


Join date : 2009-07-12

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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyMon Jul 13, 2009 6:40 pm

Aaah! I had no idea this book existed! It is wonderful and relevant to my interests!

...Except Tesla should totally have been the hero, not :lolinsane: Edison :lolinsane:.
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Trioculus
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Trioculus


Join date : 2009-06-11
Location : State of Utter Confusion

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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyMon Jul 13, 2009 6:55 pm

Carl Barks once did a story where Scrooge McDuck found a planetoid made of gold. This makes me wonder if he read this story.
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DeeDee
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DeeDee


Join date : 2009-06-03

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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyTue Jul 14, 2009 8:42 pm

This is like a mixture of early Stu-fic and early RPF.
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SirDixonDongs
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Join date : 2009-06-10
Age : 37
Location : how does a penis

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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyWed Jul 15, 2009 9:10 am

Toastuh wrote:
Aaah! I had no idea this book existed! It is wonderful and relevant to my interests!

...Except Tesla should totally have been the hero, not :lolinsane: Edison :lolinsane:.

THIS THIS A THOUSAND TIMES THIS

I CAME INTO THIS THREAD TO SAY THIS EXACT THING
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Toastuh
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Toastuh


Join date : 2009-07-12

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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! EmptyWed Jul 15, 2009 2:43 pm

SirDixonDongs wrote:
Toastuh wrote:
Aaah! I had no idea this book existed! It is wonderful and relevant to my interests!

...Except Tesla should totally have been the hero, not :lolinsane: Edison :lolinsane:.

THIS THIS A THOUSAND TIMES THIS

I CAME INTO THIS THREAD TO SAY THIS EXACT THING

I guess 'The Five Fists of Science' counts for that, though.
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PostSubject: Re: SCIENCE!!!!! Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars!   SCIENCE!!!!!  Experience Steampunk Thrills as Edison Conquers Mars! Empty

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