Other Science Fiction Series

* spoiler alert * My review of War of the Worlds

POSTED BY: AURaptor
UPDATED: Tuesday, August 2, 2005 11:28
VIEWED: 15587
PAGE 5 of 6

GUNRUNNER

Monday, July 4, 2005 8:57 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
2) "... so with all the drilling and digging we've done, why weren't they found?" What is the deepest building foundation or subway tunnel ever dug? Perhaps a couple hundred feet? Put the machines 10 feet deeper and no construction company will ever find them. Why didn't any geological drillings find them? What is the cross section of a geological/oil core? A foot? Two? Need to drill a lot of those to find a few thousand machines scattered about the face of the planet.

A giant metal alien killing machine would show up nicely on a Magnetic Anomaly Detectors found on naval sub hunting aircraft and Gunships like the AC-130. Any nuclear reaction (I assume the aliens are using some for advanced form of nuclear power) would show up on military surveillance satellites.

Quote:
Originally posted by SimonSays:
Select to view spoiler:
You also know that the Military has got a lot of "Star Wars" toys that would easily bring down a 1 million year old man eating tri-pod space craft

“Star Wars” toys? Hah! Good old-fashioned cold war era tactical nuclear weapons would bring them down. Even some Maverick, Hellfire or Ataka missiles could disable one if it blew off a leg. A few thousand Alien Tri-Pods don’t stand much of a chance against the million plus military and militia forces of the combined nations of Earth; NATO alone has sufficient conventional firepower to level every major city a Continent.

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DAIKATH

Monday, July 4, 2005 9:17 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
“Star Wars” toys? Hah! Good old-fashioned cold war era tactical nuclear weapons would bring them down.

In the original movie atomic weapons failed.

ALso in referance to the bacteria and virusses. Any idea how many indians died when europeans brought the flu?

GUNRUNNER

Monday, July 4, 2005 9:41 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Daikath:
Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
“Star Wars” toys? Hah! Good old-fashioned cold war era tactical nuclear weapons would bring them down.

In the original movie atomic weapons failed.

Weapons technology has changed alot since 1953. A 1950’s bomb vs. a 1980’s one is like a brick vs. a gun. Besides in the Original movie they were dealing with an advanced aircraft, while a walking vehicle is much more vulnerable by design, the blast would knock them over possibly disabling them, and an air burst could even suck them up in to the air and drop them a mile away probably destroying.

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DANFAN

Monday, July 4, 2005 11:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
2) "... so with all the drilling and digging we've done, why weren't they found?" What is the deepest building foundation or subway tunnel ever dug? Perhaps a couple hundred feet? Put the machines 10 feet deeper and no construction company will ever find them. Why didn't any geological drillings find them? What is the cross section of a geological/oil core? A foot? Two? Need to drill a lot of those to find a few thousand machines scattered about the face of the planet.

A giant metal alien killing machine would show up nicely on a Magnetic Anomaly Detectors found on naval sub hunting aircraft and Gunships like the AC-130.

Passive MADs are used to detect feromagnetic artifacts (iron and steel alloys used in ship hulls for example), or iron oxides such as hematite and magnetite (used to detect large geologic structures). Passive MADs could indeed detect a large buried steel object. But not a large bured object made of any non-ferrous material (such as titanium... which is a much better material for use in an object expected to survive several thousand years of subsurface exposure). There are active electromagnetic detectors that do detect non-ferrous materials. They require the generation of pulsed electromagnetic fields that induce electrical current in the non-ferrous object. As the field collapses, the effect of that induced current on the collapsing field can be measured. Such techniques are very dependent upon the strength of the inducing field and the proximity of the the object being detected. This technique is not used to detect large structures from a distance.

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
Any nuclear reaction (I assume the aliens are using some for advanced form of nuclear power) would show up on military surveillance satellites.

Lots of assumptions in that one statement.

1) "Aliens are using some advanced form of nuclear power." Unless they are using something else.

2) "Any nuclear reaction would show up on military surveillance satellites." Unless the nuclear reactor was inactive during its entire sojourn underground and was only started upon insertion of the pilots.

3) "Any nuclear reaction would show up on military surveillance satellites." From my research, it appears that military satellites detect nuclear events (i.e., detonations) and perhaps significant radiation sources. Much more information than that appears to be hard to come by. If an underground reactor is inactive (or if it ISN'T a nuclear reactor in the form we are familiar with... say a fusion reactor) then our sats might not detect a thing.

But hey, it's a movie...

GUNRUNNER

Monday, July 4, 2005 11:24 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
Quote:
3) "Any nuclear reaction would show up on military surveillance satellites." From my research, it appears that military satellites detect nuclear events (i.e., detonations) and perhaps significant radiation sources. Much more information than that appears to be hard to come by. If an underground reactor is inactive (or if it ISN'T a nuclear reactor in the form we are familiar with... say a fusion reactor) then our sats might not detect a thing.

Surveillance Satellites can detect the heat produced by a reactor (an inactive reactor still produces some heat) and the effect that heat causes on the local environment (melting ice, changes in local water and soil)- the USAF and NRO use(d) these tip offs to located subterranean nuclear plants and warhead manufacturing plants in Russia.

And yes the Aliens could use something totally foreign to us, but I assume they have the same basic technologys we have.

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DANFAN

Monday, July 4, 2005 11:53 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by GunRunner:
And yes the Aliens could use something totally foreign to us, but I assume they have the same basic technologys we have.

We are one century removed from the time of the author of the original novel. When he was alive, the greatest scientists of the time were investigating the fundamental nature of radiation and energetic particles... it was cutting edge science. The prevailing theories of the time held that the source of the sun's energy was that it was contracting under its own gravitational field and compressing the gasses in its core, thus heating them up and emitting light. The technology of nuclear energy didn't exist. I would think that assuming that aliens capable of making such machines several thousand years ago would use energy technologies the same as ours is a big assumption.

Be that as it may, we understand the basic technology of a fusion reactor (even if we don't possess the expertise to create one at this time). An inactive fusion reactor is at ambient temperature and produces no unusual radiation if it has never been activated.

Or, when the pilots were inserted, they could have brought magnetic bottles of antimatter with them. It makes far more sense not to store potentially volatile fuel (chemical, nuclear, or otherwise) for such long periods of time. Fuel by its nature is energetically unstable... that's why it's fuel. Hence, even unused, it tends to lose potency. Nuclear decay isn't a significant consideration for a few thousand years... but maybe the aliens wouldn't want to leave it around for us to detect before they were ready. Fill the tank up when you're ready to drive, not a few millenia earlier.

And on a related topic... debating fuel sources for a fictional craft in a B movie makes me feel so ... pathetically geekish. But it's fun. Why is that? ;-)

EDITED to include a little more mat'l about scientific understanding of energy sources at the end of the 19th century.

GUNRUNNER

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 12:44 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
And on a related topic... debating fuel sources for a fictional craft in a B movie makes me feel so ... pathetically geekish. But it's fun. Why is that? ;-)

I don't know but I bet people like Einstein, Galileo, Drebbel, Craven and the Wrights were considered pathetic geeks at one point.

Anyways good points and a good discussion.

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GINOBIFFARONI

Tuesday, July 5, 2005 2:24 AM

I watched this movie last weekend and just have one observation.......

I liked the characters so much, I found myself cheering the aliens on. To quote a halfremembered line from Bablyon5, " after you are all dead, we will send our people to your planet to plant flowers spelling the words Too annoying to live, in letters large enough to be read from orbit.

Maybe those were the red vine things ?

When my eloquence escapes you
My logic ties you up and rapes you

http://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/the_police/de_do_do_do_de_da_da_da.h
tml

BEA

Tuesday, July 12, 2005 5:13 AM

Finally someone who agrees with me. Thank you auraptor! I must admit, I have never seen the original nor read the book, so there I am in the theatre looking forward to some quality entertainment and what happens? The whole story does not make any sense to me whatsoever and the only thing saving me from getting my brain sucked out by boredom are the special effects...

There's no place I can be since I found Serenity

SHATTERER

Friday, July 15, 2005 12:31 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by danfan:
As far as the plot goes, I too admit that it had its holes. Yet, the journey was enjoyable enough for me that the plot holes didn't break me out of the story.

However, some of the complaints I've seen from several people don't seem quite cricket to me:

1) "...the things have been buried for millions of years, why weren't they found?" Only one character said they had been buried for millions of years and he was a NUTBAG! Before he was a nutbag, he was an AMBULANCE DRIVER. I don't get my scientific information about subterranean features from nutbags or ambulance drivers (no disrespect meant to the drivers... I think they are great at what they do). So why does this one crazy man's pronouncement become gospel? Far more likely they were buried a few thousand years ago. Hence geologic activity is no impact. And the nutbag's knowledge that the devices were buried millions of years ago came from the same store of knowledge that informed him he could dig with a shovel all the way to New York where the Resistance was forming up in the subway tunnels.

2) "... so with all the drilling and digging we've done, why weren't they found?" What is the deepest building foundation or subway tunnel ever dug? Perhaps a couple hundred feet? Put the machines 10 feet deeper and no construction company will ever find them. Why didn't any geological drillings find them? What is the cross section of a geological/oil core? A foot? Two? Need to drill a lot of those to find a few thousand machines scattered about the face of the planet.

3) "... so why didn't the aliens do X or Y like we would?" I think the operative word is "alien." They would operate by their own precepts... some of which might be fatally flawed. Just as we do... just as ours are. Viet Nam. Waterloo. The list is endless.

4) "... so why didn't they think of vaccinations?" This ending was cutting edge, state of the art when Wells wrote it a century ago. It is admittedly weak now. But it doesn't take much forgiveness to make it work. Say they buried the things 7000 years ago. They vaccinated against the tuberculosis of that time. With our own medical technology, we have grown TB that eats yesterday's antibiotics like potato chips. How effective would a 7000 year old vaccination be against that? We've grown Super Staph that makes yesterday's version look geriatric. A new flu virus every year. The list goes on. Admittedly, why wouldn't the invaders have thought of that? Good question. A plot hole. I'll accept it because the story was entertaining.

Just a few thoughts.

Thank you,

I was going to write all of this stuff myself but since you did it I do not have to. In fact I was going to write about every single point you mentioned. Ah, hell, I'm going to anyway.

We don't know how far back in the past these things were buried. It appeared to me to be uninformed guesswork on the part of a lot of people trying to make sense of the tragedy happening around them. Likewise, no info is given as to how deep they were buried. 50 feet? 500 feet? 10 miles? Without this information we can't know if humanity would have ever happened to have found them. If you go far enough down no modern MAD would find them. We know these aliens are much more advanced than us but we are not told how much more advanced. Specific details regarding their technology is not supplied. Therefore it is just as reasonable (well, as resonable as you can be considering this is a sci-fi story about an alien invasion force) to assume that they could have drilled their craft 30+ miles below the surface as 30 feet.

I like your assessment of "aliens". I have also thought about this myself over the years. Most people view aliens through the filter of science fiction shows like Star Trek and Babylon 5. Aliens are usually depicted as human looking people with latex noses who act and behave like 20th-21st century earth people. If life developed independently elsewhere, their beliefs, thought processes, e

*** spoiler alert *** My review of War of the Worlds

* spoiler alert * My review of War of the Worlds