The Fighting Machine (also known as "Tripod")
is one of the fictional machines used by the
Martians in H.G. Wells' 1898 classic science
fiction novel The War of the Worlds. It is
a fast-moving, three-legged walker, reported
to be 100 feet tall, with multiple whip-like
tentacles used for grasping, and two lethal
weapons: the heat-ray and a gun-like tube
used for discharging canisters of a poisonous
chemical black smoke that kills humans and
animals. It is the primary machine the Martians
use when they invade Earth, along with the
handling machine, the flying machine, and
the embankment machine.
== Novel ==
The fighting machines walk on three tall,
articulated legs and have a grouping of long,
whip-like metallic tentacles hanging beneath
the central body, a single flexible appendage
holding the heat-ray projector, and atop the
main body a brazen hood-like head that houses
a single Martian operator. H. G. Wells first
describes the fighting machines in detail
in Chapter 10:
And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it?
A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses,
striding over the young pine trees, and smashing
them aside in its career; a walking engine
of glittering metal, striding now across the
heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling
from it, and the clattering tumult of its
passage mingling with the riot of the thunder.
A flash, and it came out vividly, heeling
over one way with two feet in the air, to
vanish and reappear almost instantly as it
seemed, with the next flash, a hundred yards
nearer. Can you imagine a milking stool tilted
and bowled violently along the ground? That
was the impression those instant flashes gave.
But instead of a milking stool imagine it
a great body of machinery on a tripod stand...
Seen nearer, the Thing was incredibly strange,
for it was no mere insensate machine driving
on its way. Machine it was, with a ringing
metallic pace, and long, flexible, glittering
tentacles (one of which gripped a young pine
tree) swinging and rattling about its strange
body. It picked its road as it went striding
along, and the brazen hood that surmounted
it moved to and fro with the inevitable suggestion
of a head looking about. Behind the main body
was a huge mass of white metal like a gigantic
fisherman's basket, and puffs of green smoke
squirted out from the joints of the limbs
as the monster swept by me.
Another eyewitness described the fighting
machines as "Boilers on stilts, I tell you,
striding along like men".
A London newspaper article in the novel inaccurately
described the fighting machines as "spider-like
machines, nearly a hundred feet high, capable
of the speed of an express-train, and able
to shoot out a beam of intense heat". Ironically,
earlier newspaper articles under-exaggerated
the Martians as being "sluggard creatures".
The main character witnessed the fighting
machines moving "with a rolling motion and
as fast as flying birds".
The fighting machines are armed with a heat-ray,
which is fired by a camera-like device held
by an articulated arm, and a chemical weapon
known as "the black smoke", a poison gas which
is deployed from gun tubes, not unlike a soldier's
bazooka. The fighting machines can also discharge
steam through nozzles that dissipates the
black smoke, which then settles as an inert,
powdery substance.
It is still a matter of wonder how the Martians
are able to slay men so swiftly and so silently.
Many think that in some way they are able
to generate an intense heat in a chamber of
practically absolute non-conductivity. This
intense heat they project in a parallel beam
against any object they choose by means of
a polished parabolic mirror of unknown composition,
much as the parabolic mirror of a light-house
projects a beam of light. But no one has absolutely
proved these details. However it is done,
it is certain that a beam of heat is the essence
of the matter. Heat, and invisible, instead
of visible light. Whatever is combustible
flashes into flame at its touch, lead runs
like water, it softens iron, cracks and melts
glass, and when it falls upon water, incontinently
that explodes into steam.
The metallic tentacles, which hang below the
main fighting machine body, are used as probes
and to grasp objects. These machines sometimes
also carry a metal cage or basket which is
used to hold human captives so the Martians
can later revitalize themselves by fatally
transfusing their captives' blood supplies
by using pipettes. The height of the fighting
machines is unclear; a newspaper article describes
them to be more than 100 feet (30 m) tall.
But they are also observed wading through
relatively deep sea water. HMS Thunder Child,
a Royal Navy torpedo ram, engages a trio of
tripods that are pursuing a refugee flotilla
heading to France from the southeast English
coast; the Thunder Child is eventually destroyed
by the Martian heat-ray, but not before taking
out two fighting machines.
In the novel the fighting machines crash-land
to Earth in massive cylinders, shot from a
sort of gun from Mars (in the PC game adaptation
as well as the live musical version, the Martians
refer to this device as a "large-scale hydrogen
accelerator"). Once they arrive on Earth,
the fighting machines are quickly assembled.
A London newspaper article cites unnamed authorities
who believed, based on the outside dimensions
of the cylinders, they carried no more than
five tripods per cylinder.
The original conceptual drawings for the fighting
machines, drawn by Warwick Goble, accompanied
the initial appearance of The War of the Worlds
in Pearson's Magazine in 1897. When Wells
saw these pictures, he was so displeased that
he added the following text for the novel's
hardcover appearance:
I recall particularly the illustration of
one of the first pamphlets to give a consecutive
account of the war. The artist had evidently
made a hasty study of one of the fighting
machines, and it was there that his knowledge
ended. He presented them as tilted, stiff
tripods without either flexibility or subtlety,
and with an altogether misleading monotony
of effect. The pamphlet containing these renderings
had a considerable vogue, and I mention them
here to warn the reader against the impression
they may have created. They were no more like
the Martians I saw in action than a Dutch
doll is like a human being. To my mind, the
pamphlet would have been much better without
them.
== Adaptations ==
=== 
The War of the Worlds (1953 film) ===
The Martian fighting machines designed by
Albert Nozaki for George Pal's 1953 Paramount
film The War of the Worlds barely resemble
the same machines in the H. G. Wells novel.
The novel's fighting machines are 10-story
tall tripods and carry the heat-ray projector
on an articulated arm connected to the front
of the machine's main body. In the film each
fighting machine is armed with a visible,
reddish heat-ray, atop a moving goose-neck,
mounted in a cobra-like head.The film's fighting
machines are shaped like copper-colored manta
rays, with a bulbous, elongated green window
at the front, through which the Martians observe
their surroundings. The lead character, Dr.
Clayton Forrester, states they glide along
on three electromagnetic legs. These legs
are visible only when the Martian machines
emerge from the pit made by their crash-landing,
and are shown later, indirectly, by the faint
tracings of a sparking, burning effect where
the near-invisible legs touch the ground.The
machines also have weapons which fire green
energy bursts from both wingtips. These are
identified as "skeleton beams" for the ghastly
visual effect, in which an x-ray-like silhouette
of the victim's skeleton becomes briefly visible
as the body disintegrates. They are immediately
hypothesized by Dr. Forrester as neutralizing
mesons, "the atomic glue holding matter together",
causing the target to vaporize, leaving a
black stain on the ground (either remnants
of the burned bodies or a scorching of the
terrain where they were standing). The weapon
appears deployed as a long-range surface weapon,
as compared to the heat-ray which is used
at closer range and against taller structures
or overhead aircraft. As they advance, "... they
slash across country like scythes, wiping
out everything that's trying to get away from
them".The fighting machines are also equipped
with a retractable cable tipped with an electronic
eye housing, which has three colored lenses
(red, green, and blue). It is used as a probe
and slightly resembles the Martian "face"
located on their upper torsos. It is deployed
from a round hatch on the underside of the
machine, which appears seamless at any other
time. The use of this probe and a subsequent
physical reconnoiter (and contact) by a single
Martian is the only time the Martians display
any interest in humans.The novel's fighting
machines had no protection except for a fast
moving offense and were therefore vulnerable
to British Army artillery fire and a Navy
torpedo ram. The film's machines have a force
field surrounding them; this invisible shield,
identified by Dr. Forrester as a "protective
blister", resembles, when briefly visible,
the glass jar placed over mantle clocks: cylindrical
and with a hemispherical top, which protects
each of the fighting machines from heavy ground
fire. Therefore, the film's machines are invincible
to all standard Earth weapons, including an
atomic bomb.
=== Television series ===
The serialized War of the Worlds (1988–89)
television series was established as a sequel
to the 1953 film with many of the alien technology
in the first season cued with visual references
to the design of those in the aforementioned
film.While almost never using fighting machines
in general, the series does reveal in one
episode that these same aliens (from Mor-Tax;
not Mars) did at one point use tripod machines
in their past before evolving into the floating
machines as seen in the film. This "older
model" resembles the latter machines with
only a few noticeable differences.
Aside from the legs, there is no visible mounted
heat-ray, however, where the latter models
have a green window along its front edge,
the fighting machines have an orange/red colored
window (framed in blue circle) coupled with
its pulsating glow, suggesting a cruder version
of their heat-ray built into the body of the
machine. Whether it is a heat-ray or other
weapon this model possesses is unknown. While
the new models are reminiscent of a swan,
these tripods seem more inspired by an insect,
both in its (briefly seen) movement, as well
as the sound it emits. The TV series also
gives insight into the machines, referred
to both by humans and aliens alike as ships.
In "The Resurrection" the interior of the
machines are seen to be lit by cold colors
of blue and black (with only a sliver of neon
green). The machines have an on-board computer
that the aliens can communicate with even
when distanced by location and time, and even
with relatively primitive equipment
When asked how the aliens make the machines
fly, Dr. Blackwood refers to Dr. Forrester's
unconfirmed speculation that they are able
to use brainwave impulses. This is given credibility
when three aliens later take possession of
the tripod. From inside, it can be seen that
there is no obvious physical means of operation;
instead, the three are simply seated back-to-back,
a formation seen quite commonly among the
aliens throughout the season, frequently in
a state of some type of shared mental exercise
(though what this practice is exactly is never
detailed in the series). A similar seating
construction appears to be present in the
later machines with the device clearly identified
as the computer placed in the center.
Information given in the show also suggests
that deflector shields were not used until
the 1953 invasion, after a recon mission proved
that humanity had the means of effectively
damaging their machines. The limited strength
of their unprotected warships is also suggested
by the fact that two or more of them were
downed by a militia of no more than just 38
men. Curiously, a late episode features a
mysterious Martian pod found that is made
of an element that is, by all accounts, virtually
indestructible. The pod in question appears
to have to no weaponry and can only seat a
single alien. Its purpose is not given, leaving
its connection to the invasion and the aliens'
technological progress unknown.
=== War of the Worlds (2005 film) ===
There are several differences between the
fighting machines as described in Wells' novel
and those in Steven Spielberg's 2005 film,
which come from an undisclosed alien world.
In this version the tripods were long ago
brought to Earth, having been buried underground
sometime in its distant past. The aliens instead
travel in capsules to their buried machines
by some kind of "beaming" process resembling
lightning (from where or what is never revealed),
which transports them underground. The lightning
containing the capsules travel faster than
the human eye can see, and the unearthing
of the first fighting machine suggests they
may have each been kept in something similar
to a cylinder (which might have been part
of a rocket or other transportation that brought
them to Earth long ago). In a published interview
screenwriter David Koepp stated his belief
that they were planted by these extraterrestrials
as a part of some kind of alien "contingency
plan" (said plan never being revealed to the
audience).The features of the fighting machines
of this film also differ. They do not possess
the novel's killing chemical black smoke and
are equipped with some type of invisible force
shield that only becomes visible when struck
by Earth weapons; no human weapons can penetrate
them (an obvious reference to George Pal's
original 1953 film). They are armed with two
heat-ray-like weapons that incinerate humans
to ash, leaving the victim's clothing behind
while destroying and burning everything else;
this caused confusion for some viewers and
also among critics. It has been suggested
that the aliens' heat-ray only destroys "organic"
matter, but this does not fully explain the
destruction of buildings and vehicles, nor
the untouched cotton and wool of clothes,
both of which are organic. Another offered
explanation is that the heat-ray is a high
energy coherent emission of microwaves similar
to a Maser that causes the water in the human
body to superheat into very high temperature
steam, which then causes the victim to explode
into ash as it instantly expands; this would
also account for the metal objects it hits
catching fire as they heat up, like metal
objects placed in an activated microwave oven.
The lethality of the fighting machines can
be summed up in a phrase spoken in the film
(a paraphrase of a line from the 1953 Pal
film): "Once the tripods start to move, no
more news comes out of that area."The fighting
machines of this film have several searchlights
mounted on the fronts of their main "heads,"
facing forward for navigation and night illumination.
As in Wells' novel, the tripod's three legs
are completely flexible, even rubber-like
in their appearance and movement, with no
visible mechanical joints or pivot-points;
they propel themselves by truly "walking"
over any terrain. This can be viewed as faithful
to the original novel, where Wells describes
the fighting machines as being more organic
than mechanical in their appearance. Spielberg's
tripods also emit loud, deep bellows, which
seem to be a means of calling out to one other,
similar to how Wells' originally described
them doing in his novel. The sounds used by
the tripods in the film consist of one loud
113 Hz blast (between A2 and A#2 on the musical
scale) for three seconds, followed by a deep
136 Hz blast (near C#3) for another three
seconds, sounding very much like Earth lighthouse
foghorn blasts. Some have noted that the bellows
created by the Tripods sound similar to a
Gjallarhorn, specifically the one the Minnesota
Vikings installed after moving to U.S. Bank
Stadium. The fighting machines are also equipped
with numerous retracting and expanding tentacles
for capturing humans and for other tasks.
They also have two possibly detachable metal-wire
cages attached directly underneath along the
rear and on each side of the machine's main
body, used for temporary human prisoner storage;
a metal hatch in the body over each cage dials
open, revealing an organic hole that then
opens to allow a smaller tentacle to reach
into the cage, pulling a captured victim into
the machine every few minutes for off-camera
blood processing. At one point, it is revealed
that a human with explosives, after getting
put into one of the cages and later being
pulled into the tripod, destroys its interior
by detonating the explosives, demonstrating
an effective, yet highly risky method of bringing
down a tripod.Additionally, the fighting machines
of this film have a tentacle that is used
as a camera probe to explore small places,
such as the inside of buildings, and another
used as a pipette to drain human blood directly
from humans. The collected human blood is
then sprayed from the tripods' "heads" as
fertilizer to aid the spread of their fast-growing
terraforming red weed. Similar to the novel,
the fighting machines appear to emit some
kind of novel-like black smoke before arming
and firing the heat-ray, although this may
only be accumulated dust and fine debris or
a chemical steam for clearing vents. The huge
tripods appear to have been made to resemble
the aliens themselves. They have three legs,
each with three branching toe pads, a large
mantle-head, and three arms with three-fingered
hands attached to their thin bodies; the tripods'
main body and the aliens' heads resemble cuttlefish.
=== H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (2005
film) ===
In Pendragon Pictures' low-budget, direct-to-DVD
H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (aka Invasion
internationally or War of the Worlds), the
only Victorian-set adaptation of Wells' novel,
the tripod fighting machine design is loosely
based on the look of a praying mantis, which,
according to director Timothy Hines, was a
favorite insect of H. G. Wells.Tripods have
a large, free-moving head atop the smaller
main body, giving its sole Martian occupant
a panoramic view. It has four thick, metallic
tentacles, which are held on high, made up
of boxy-looking segments, making them appear
like large bicycle chains rather than slim
and whip-like, as described in Wells' novel;
they are used mainly to capture humans during
the film. The tripods have three long, ridged,
and stilt-like legs, which occasionally stride
with the right and rear leg moving forward
together in a clumsy, unconvincing manner.
The heat-ray sits atop the tripod "head" and
has a round, spinning mirror on a metallic
arm; when the mirror rotates rapidly, it emits
a long-range heat-ray. The deadly chemical
black smoke is emitted from the tips of the
thick tentacles in the form of a spray, instead
of the novel's gun-like device that fires
canisters of the deadly gas over distances.
The fighting machines each have a collecting
basket for storing captured humans, but in
the film it looks more like a standard solid
metal bucket. There are other Martian machines
seen in the film: a four-legged fighting machine
and six-legged handling machines that somewhat
resemble scorpions.
==== War of the Worlds 2: The Next Wave (2008
film) ====
In 
the Asylum's 2008 sequel War of the Worlds
2: The Next Wave, the walkers are tripods
called squid-walkers, and are capable of flight.
Unlike the first film, the Martians do not
control the fighting machines directly from
the inside but manipulate cyborgs by remote
control. A heat-ray is attached to the walkers,
as well as a kind of ray that teleports humans
directly to the alien mothership, where humans
are then drained of their blood to feed the
invaders. Whereas Wells' fighting machines
carried cages to hold captured humans, these
tripods place humans directly into the tripods'
interiors. These appear organic, with no windows
or controls, and the walls absorb anyone unlucky
enough to touch them, sending them to an unknown
destination.
=== Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War
of the Worlds ===
The fighting machines are described in Jeff
Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the
Worlds and depicted on the album artwork painted
by Michael Trim. This version of the tripods
does have major inconsistencies when compared
to Wells' description in the novel; for example,
the heat-ray emanates from a proboscis in
the cupola rather than from a camera-like
box carried by an articulated arm on the tripod,
the basket to hold captured humans is a cage
on the handling machines instead of the fighting
machines, and the "cowl" (cockpit) of the
fighting machine is fixed in place, instead
of being a separately moving hood. The three
legs of the fighting machine have fixed joints
and stiff legs rather than the jointless,
free-flowing organic legs described in Wells'
novel. They are also described in the prologues
of the live stage versions as being modified
versions of similar walking machines the Martians
use on Mars.
This interpretation of the Martian tripods
also appears in the 1998 and 1999, video games
based on the Jeff Wayne album.
=== Parallel and sequel novels ===
In Kevin J. Anderson' The Martian War the
Martians use two type of tripods, the ones
from The War of the Worlds and a smaller,
"overseer" variant. In Sherlock Holmes's War
of the Worlds, the fighting machines are described
as having legs that can telescope down allowing
for entry and exit, and as being possibly
based upon the original body type of the Martians.
=== The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
===
The second volume of the comic book The League
of Extraordinary Gentlemen retells the story
of The War of the Worlds, and the tripods
are prominently featured. It should be noted
that the aliens are not actual Martians as
many of the characters believe, but are actually
from a further world and are forced off of
Mars by John Carter. These fighting machines
are more organic-looking than in other depictions,
with wide, crested heads, and it is implied
that the materials of the machines are secreted
by the aliens themselves. They are depicted
with details of the tripods from Wells' original
novel; they have the heat-ray and baskets
for captured humans. The fighting machines
are shown to be destroyed by heavy artillery,
launched from Captain Nemo's submarine. Furthermore,
Edward Hyde brings down a tripod by ripping
off one of its legs, questioning why the aliens
would use a tripedal machine as a form of
transport. A tripod is left standing as a
memorial, and is seen gradually decaying throughout
the events of Black Dossier (set in 1958)
and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen,
Volume III: Century (set in various dates
between 1910 and 2009).
== Influence on later fiction ==
Alien tripod fighting machines have appeared
in several novels, movies, video games, and
television series. In John Christopher's trilogy
an alien species has subdued the Earth. The
aliens travel in three-legged machines known
as tripods, as they cannot survive in Earth's
atmosphere. The Tripods was later made into
a BBC TV serial, which ran for two series
but was cancelled before the three-part story
was completed.
In Larry Niven's Rainbow Mars 31st century
time travelers, passing through the late 19th
century, observe the Martian fighting machines
attack a Brazilian city.
The tripods also inspired the AT-AT, AT-ST,
and other war-machines in the Star Wars series.
In Scary Movie 4, a spoof of Spielberg's film,
the fighting machines have only three tentacles
and fire the heat-ray from their central eyes.
When the first tripod emerges, it appears
as a giant iPod (named a triPod), playing
through a playlist of songs before selecting
"Destroy humanity".Creatures and machines
similar to the fighting machines are featured
in many video games, such as the Striders
from Half-Life 2 and their companions, the
Hunters from Crysis and its sequels and spin-offs;
Annihilator Tripods from Command & Conquer
3; Colossi from StarCraft II; Science Walkers
and Defilers from Universe at War, and Darkwalkers,
which use rays and emit a similar noise, from
Unreal Tournament 3.
Alien tripod mecha have appeared in many animated
films and TV series, for example: the three-part
pilot of the Justice League; the Japanese
animated film Be Forever Yamato; in episodes
of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy,
Ed, Edd, n Eddy and Kim Possible, as well
as (albeit based on automotive spark plugs,
and with four legs) in a daydream sequence
in the 2006 film Cars.
Inspired by the tripods, and the Japanese
anime Space Runaway Ideon, several of the
Buff Clan's heavy mecha have three legs.
Issues #7 and #12 of the Sonic X comic book
feature a three-legged alien machine reminiscent
of a tripod. The machine is armed with laser
weapons and shields, and goes on destructive
rampages when activated. The origins of the
craft, however, has not yet been explained.
The Mechwarrior collectible miniatures game
also has its own version of the tripods, called
the Ares. Developed under the fictional "Rhodes
Project", the 135-ton mechs closely resemble
the tripods in the Steven Spielberg film,
except that their legs are more squat and
robust. Their names are also adapted from
prominent Greek gods (Hera, Hades, Zeus, Poseidon).
In the 2005 movie Chicken Little, alien tripods
attack the Earth. The aliens themselves sit
inside the tripods and they are similar to
The War of the Worlds Martians.
In the animated superhero film Ultimate Avengers
2, a race of aliens called the Chitauri invade
Earth. Machines resembling Wells' fighting
machines are briefly seen attacking London,
as a deliberate homage to The War of the Worlds.
In the 2010 TV movie High Plains Invaders,
a Western film about an alien invasion of
the American Wild West in the 1890s, the alien
antagonists were inspired by the machines
of Wells' novel. The fighting machines walk
upon legs (four legs instead of three) and
carry a weapon above their head on a neck,
resembling the Martian heat-ray from George
Pal's 1953 film adaptation.
== See also ==
Handling machine (The War of the Worlds)
Flying machine (The War of the Worlds)
Embankment machine (The War of the Worlds
