The book The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells is the story of one British man’s struggle through an alien invasion when beings from Mars attack Earth. The events of this book are set sometime in the late 19th century, which is the same period of time during which the book itself was written and published. In the book, practically all life in Great Britain is decimated as a result of this alien invasion. Today, in the 21st century, the outcome of this war between Earth and Mars could be very different due to a number of factors that were not present in the late 19th century. These significant factors that could bring about a different outcome of war include technology—more specifically, rovers, communication, and weapons—and population size.

The technology that humans have today compared to the technology available to humanity in The War of the Worlds could possibly be the single most important factor affecting how different an outcome a war between Mars and Earth would be if it happened in the present day. For example, in the book, the only instruments that humans have that allow them to see any sort of activity on Mars are telescopes. With these telescopes, the most they can see on the surface of Mars relating to the approaching alien invasion is a flash light and gas that is mistakenly assumed as some sort of anomaly, which the main character of the book witnesses through the telescope of his friend Ogilvy, who is an astronomer (Wells 15). In actuality, this release of light and gas is the result of a large cannon on Mars shooting pods of Martian invaders toward Earth. Because of this mistaken enigma, the human race was caught completely off-guard when the Martians invaded in the book. Today, however, humans actually have an advanced rover exploring Mars that sends pictures of its surface back to Earth right as this analysis is being written. If there were to be a giant cannon on Mars sending invaders toward Earth with no other intention than to kill every last human today, we would be able to see clear and close-up pictures of it because of rovers like the one on Mars now. This would give humans a good chance to prepare for a coming invasion before it happened.

Another factor regarding technology that would affect a war with Mars today is communication. In The War of the Worlds, telegraph, newspapers, and letters are the only means available for a person to communicate with others and learn about the current happenings of the rest of the world. These methods of communication can be skewed and slow. For example, in the book, the main character’s brother who is in London, which is a fair distance from his brother’s house, first hears the news of the hostile Martians from a telegram placed in a newspaper, quite a while after the Martians have already started their onslaught against humanity (Wells 117). The telegram describes them as creatures that surely will never be able to move from their pit-like crash-zone due to the greater gravity on Earth (Wells 117). The writer of the telegram fails to mention, however, that Earth has far more oxygen than Mars, which would make up for the greater gravitational-push on the Martians. Because of this outdated news, the people of London are led askew with a false sense of security, which causes their fast-approaching evacuation to be a hasty and fear-filled one when the danger of the Martians approaches the city, at that moment being too late for any sort of before-hand preparation for the exodus. Today, however, people can be made aware of current events with television and the news. If pods of Martians were to land on Earth – as they did in the book – in the present day, news crews with high-definition cameras could be at the scene, and within moments the images of these strange beings could be viewed on television screens by millions of people all over the world. Also, writing a letter or sending a telegraph to family and friends leaves people at the mercy of the travel-time of the postal system or the limitations of a telegraph cable, which was what happened in the time period that Wells’ book is set in. Today, however, people could dial a number on a phone and instantly confirm with those people the news of the aliens. Social media and the internet would play a large role in fast communication as well with widely-used websites such as Facebook and Twitter. These means of almost-instant communication would allow people to evacuate to safer areas before all-out war began, which is more practical than trying to evacuate when an enemy is practically knocking at the door like in the book.

Weaponry of the 21st century is an important factor of technology that would make interplanetary war with Mars today different than in H.G. Wells’ novel. In The War of the Worlds, humans were fighting the Martians with rifles and artillery cannons. These weapons are primitive compared to the arsenal of the aliens, which includes the “Heat-Ray”, a beam of light that has the capability to incinerate a human as it makes contact and cut through a building literally like a knife through butter (Wells 40). Also at the disposal of the Martians is the “Black Smoke”, a weapon of chemical-warfare released by rockets shot into the air that drifts down and kills everything that breathes it in (Wells 132). This weapon is not unlike mustard gas that was of popular use in World War I. Though humans still don’t have any weapons like the Heat-Ray today, we have much more deadly and effective guns and missiles that could be used against these Martians. In the book, the main character is able to witness the destruction of a Martian tri-pod, the giant war-machines that the slug-like Martians travel around in and fight from, at the hands of a lucky shot from an ordinary artillery cannon (Wells 103). This scene proves that the Martians in Wells’ novel do not have any sort of energy shields encasing their tri-pods which allowed an ordinary cannon to take it down. Because of this crucial detail, the assertion can be made that if these same aliens invaded Earth today and were vulnerable to the fire of a 19th century artillery cannon, much more accurate and explosive heat-seeking missiles that militaries could use today would have no problem obliterating them.
A major advantage that militaries of our planet also now possess is armed aircraft. Humanity had access to no sort of airplane in the time in which Wells’ book is set; aircraft in general was just starting to become a reality. Thus, this was a disadvantage for the militaries of Earth, because today we could take the Martian fighting machines from the sky and, being vulnerable to attack, they would easily be disabled or destroyed by bombs dropped from fighter planes.
If, for whatever reason, the same malevolent Martian forces in Wells’ book were able to make as much progress upon the destruction of humanity as they did in The War of the Worlds today, regardless of the greatly-enhanced guns and missiles that human militaries have at their disposal, there would still be one weapon left could turn the tables: nuclear warheads. These weapons would have to be used sparingly and only in absolute dire need, because the firing of just one could take out a myriad of innocent human lives as well as the lives of the alien invaders. Just as the United States did before dropping the two atomic bombs on Japan, the governments of the world today would have to make the crucial decision of whether the risk of killing thousands of humans would be worth ending a war that otherwise would see no clear ending except more and more death day after day. Again, this would certainly prove effective against Wells’ Martians if they were able to be killed by a 19th century cannon.

Aside from technology, world population could bring about a different outcome in a war between humanity and the Martians created by H.G. Wells. The population of the world today is roughly 7 billion people, compared to a population of about 1.5 billion people in the late 1800s, the time in which The War of the Worlds is set. These population estimates share a difference of over 5 billion people. Martially, this could be a great advantage in favor of the human race; there would be billions more humans on the planet who were able to fight the alien threat and in general make it harder for the invaders to wipe everyone out. However, this larger population could prove a disadvantage to the people of Earth as well when it comes to civilians. In The War of the Worlds, the main character’s brother tells of his experiences during the evacuation of London, a city the Martians are fast-approaching in order to attack and destroy any government left in Great Britain. He witnesses a mass-exodus of people, all yelling at each other and fighting for room on the road, literally trampling anyone who gets in their way without a tinge of regret (Wells 161, 162). This situation would be far worse today than in the late 19th century. Roads would be even more crowded because of the much larger population, making traffic jams much more extensive. Also, in Wells’ book, the exodus from London is being made by people on foot and driving horse-drawn carriages (Wells 158). Today, this evacuation would be made by an even larger population, and this population would be driving cars. The danger for pedestrians would be far greater, and any accidents caused by a car or truck would make a much more inconvenient road-block than a horse and cart; a dead horse and a wooden cart can be dragged out of a road fairly easily compared to trying to do the same with a car weighing several tons.

The militaries and people of Earth would stand a much better chance in ousting the Martians in The War of the Worlds from our planet today than they did in the time set in the book. Because of means of communication such as television and the internet, humans could in a sense fight these alien invaders before they even attacked by being aware of where they were and what they looked like without any skewed visual description like someone might find in a slowly-received telegram, all by just turning on a news station. With this information, militaries and citizens could fabricate plans for attack and evacuation before the aliens got the chance to strike. The technology that has been invented since the late 19th century that the book is set in is so much more advanced today that the Martians would no longer find themselves up against rifles and gunpowder but rockets and bombs and planes. The Martians would find the people of the 21st century to be a formidable foe.




Wells, H.G. The War of the Worlds. Racine, Wisconsin: Whitman Publishing Company, 1964.
Print.