So hear me out for a moment:

[PCIntern]

I do not know if this is an original thought but as a SF fan since I was about 5 years of age, something jelled in my brain last night as I drifted off after a not-so-bad SNL………

H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds is actually allegorical vis-a-vis the Trump Administration. To wit: a hostile takeover/invasion occurs wherein the enemy cannot be deterred nor can it be reasoned with. There exist force fields which prevent attack and the enemy is well-supported by utilizing military triangulation to attack and destroy civilization in rapid transiting through the major nations of the world.

Although the righteous fight with everything they have, it seems as though no weapons can possibly have any effect upon the aliens or their spacecraft. Almost impossibly, it seems as though there is no hope and then…and then it happens. Microorganisms are the instruments which eventually destroy the invaders and render them impotent, at least for the moment.

In the same fashion, the Trump Administration was foiled, despite their scheming and “fixing” of the “Game”. Amazingly, they could have utilized it to consolidate their power and strengths but chose to attempt to weaponize it against their enemies. Like the use of poison gas on the battlefield, the blowback was lethal, both politically and medically.

Now, when you read that “life imitates art”, you have lived through the experience of it doing so.

[Phoenix61]

1. I love science fiction. One of my favorite sayings

is from Dune
“ Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.”

[soothsayer]

2. It was corona that killed the martians! In the form of the common cold

So fitting.

[PCIntern]

3. I think you're confusing that with

“First Men In The Moon”. Professor Cavor had a cold.

[soothsayer]

4. No, War of the Worlds, most definitely

A deadly virus once saved humanity from destruction. A civilization so technologically advanced as to appear invincible was brought down by microscopic pathogens it had not known existed, let alone considered in its plans for global domination. Inside their gleaming mechanical tripods armed with all-consuming heat rays and poison gas, the invading Martians had brushed aside all our military defenses and reduced the great cities of the world to rubble. Yet at their moment of conquest the great machines tottered, swayed, and fell. The flabby, shapeless alien creatures who controlled them had been felled by the common cold, to which they had no resistance. “After all man’s devices had failed,” the narrator concludes, the Martians were destroyed by “the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.”

—-
Well certainly in the movie from my childhood... the common cold gets em!

[ProfessorGAC]

6. Cold or Flu

I always interpreted it as it could be either.
Because, humans actually have poor resistance to the common cold. But, it's benign enough that we just wait 10-12 days.
So, I always went with flu because it kills, and the Martians had zero resistance to it.
Either way, it was a virus that got the bad guys!

[PCIntern]

7. Yes absolutely

In First Men In The Moon, the Scientist who makes the journey there has a cold and it wipes out the entire community of lunar beings.

And yes absolutely the Martians died from infiltration of bacteria and viruses when invading earth.

[Xavier Breath]

5. I nearly bailed when I thought that in the opening you were saying

you were a 'San Francisco fan' (and I couldn't imagine the relevancy), but I hung in there

I recall a political cartoon at some point early in the pandemic that portrayed Trump as a king inside the invincible walls of his kingdom. Scattered about were the remains of all manner of misdeeds and scandals he perpetrated, none of which were able to scale the walls and penetrate his defenses. But then, a single Covid particle wafts over the wall. And, like the aliens, Trump was vulnerable.

Good analogy.

[PCIntern]

8. You're right...

I should’ve been more explicit. When I was growing up the magazine Fantasy and Science Fiction was known as F & SF and thus the abbreviation was born.

[Xavier Breath]

9. I see. I used to subscribe to Starlog

and waited eagerly for each issue's arrival. If memory serves it never actual contained any fiction, but it was great at illustrating how science fiction movies were made. It was like my own personal Comicon panel arriving in the mail.

[abqtommy]

10. All fiction and history too is based on the protagonist/antagonist formula of telling a story

or facts. Some writers/movie makers are very good at forming or relating plots and
outcomes and many authors/filmmakers build up large audiences (and bank accounts) due to their skill and our enjoyment.

I read a LOT of science fiction and I'm sure we could make analogies for former guy out of all of it. Ya done good.

[Pobeka]

11. I have thought that, but the death toll of over 500,000 of us by the virus ruins the analogy for me.

But, yeah, in a twisted way, it was the microorganism that saved us.

[Wounded Bear]

12. Always got a kick out of that one...

yeah, it worked for 1900 when the original story was written, and after the Spanish flu in 1918-19 it became more believable that an advanced civilization wouldn't know about microorganisms. Wink, wink.

Of course there was the modern corollary, Independence Day, where the evil bad guy alien invaders were brought down because their subscription to Norton antivirus apparently expired.



BTW, I actually like good sci-fi, and sometimes I can just sit back and relax and watch those popcorn movies with pretty predictable plot lines and be ok with it. Not everything can be Shakespeare, but sometimes I have to when they screw up the physics or the bio-science too badly.

Sorry for the buzzkill. Please carry on.

[brooklynite]

13. Ridiculous analogy...

The Martians were strategic and technologically advanced. They were stopped by microbial diseases they had no immunity to.

Trump had no strategic impulses and was stopped by actual voters.

[PCIntern]

14. Oh. Ok.

If you say so.