(OOC thread here)
But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited?
Are we or they Lords of the World?
And how are all things made for man?
-Johannes Kepler
5th Mechanized Cavalry, British Expeditionary Force
Artolian Hills, Kingdom of Helium
October 19th, 1908
The city below had stood for a thousand years before Rome was a glint in the eyes of a wolf-child. Crystal spires had pierced the midnight-blue sky while red-skinned lovers had dined upon the shores of the life-giving canal, with its polar waters so clear as they reflected the sky that they resembled the darkest of wines, a resemblance that could only be enhanced if one was to drink from the chilled sweetness that flowed within. The library had contained uncountable scrolls of the delicate and ancient writing of the patron's of the city's enlightened and benevolent jeddaks. When Man had still been but a half-tamed animal emerging from Darkest Africa, the philosophers and alchemists of the city had already learned to trap light in crystal, to harness the flux of lightning. Wealth, power, beauty, knowledge, it had been a bastion and citadel of them all.
It was a shame, the reporter mused as he dared peek up from the window of the bunker, that it was now crumbled to dust.
"Out of the way, lad, there's a good sport," an officer, Major Well Endue, said brusquely as he pushed past the older war correspondent. "The enemy will be in range soon, recon says. Make sure you keep your fookin' 'ead down when the shots fly."
"Of course, Major," the reporter answered contritely, hiding his anger yet again. Listening to him, one might get the impression that he hadn't been here for almost a year already, hadn't spent the entire Invasion before that moving on his own through occupied zones, hadn't survived in postwar London before order was restored...And yet, amazingly, he still managed to hold his tongue. The major was no doubt under a great deal of stress. He and the rest of the Fifth had been here far longer than he had. And if he made him angry or got in the way, they could order him to leave, and then he wouldn't be able to finish his war reporting contract for the Pall Mall Gazette, and then they would charge him for the return home, and he already wasn't very rich as it was...
"Ulla! Ulla!"
The mechanical, hooting call was clearly far off in the distance, but still it made the reporter's blood run cold. In his mind's eye, he was a decade ago and a million miles - thirty-five million miles, to be precise - away, among the burning ruins of London with the palls of the Black Smoke hanging overhead, and the hooting calls, driving out survivors for their metal grasping appendages. The horrifying, opening, and nearly closing skirmish of this war of the worlds...
"Steady there," a gruff, American voice came from behind him, a strong, reassuring hand on his shoulder. "You're in good hands. Stay calm."
"Yes...Thank you, Colonel," the reporter said, but already the colonel was passing on, surveying the artillery emplacements that were now readying to deploy. The man was from Virginia, and when the reported had first taken notes from him upon his arrival, had claimed he would much prefer to fight for the King of England than the Washington tyrants who had themselves invaded his homeland. The reporter considered him a very theatrical man, but apparently an undeniably martial one.
The colonel was one of the overseas volunteers who had been allowed to join the Expeditionary Force in return for the contributions the United States had made to the Imperial counter-offensive. Many Britons had opposed any sort of help from foreigners, let alone the uppity colonists from across the pond, but after the Invasion they had little choice. And in any event, without the precise astronomical mapping performed by Mr. Lowell, or the electrical inventions of Tesla that powered the land-cruisers so far from the oil derricks of Araby, or the help provided by the Baltimore Gun Club to Dr. Cavor in designing the gravitic cannons and aether-dreadnoughts that the Expeditionary Fleet had consisted of, it was doubtful that any sort of retaliation could have been dreamed of.
"ULLA! ULLA!"
The sound was now deafening, and the reporter broke into a cold sweat - even after all the previous confrontations of the past - when, over the swells of the Artolian Hills, appeared an entire squadron of the Fighting Machine tripods.
“The enemy is in range. Fire, fire, fire,” the colonel yelled out. Instantly, from the regiment’s land-cruisers, thundering retorts, unbearable even through the hardened shells of the bunkers, announced that each iron behemoth had set off its four-hundreds. A second later, one of the tripods exploded into a second sun that rivaled the original distant ball of flame made pale by distance. A second and third joined their comrade.
“Huzzah!” The reported joined in the cheer, cut short by a blaze from nearby and a pattering of rain – molten metal droplets, really – upon the top of the bunker. One of the British land-cruisers, its Cavorite armor penetrated by the combined blasts of the nefarious Heat-Rays.
“Mourn ‘em later, gentlemen,” Major Endue called, “we’ve got the devils on the run.”
"ULLA! ULLA! ULLA! ULLA!"
“What in the…” the colonel asked, turning to another periscope, before backing away from the rangefinder. “Good God. Reinforcements from the east. Must be stragglers from the Battle of the Toonolian Marshes. They’re coming up behind us…”
“Colonel? What should we do?” the major asked. The rear of the regiment was undefended. Their armor could hold out for a time, but if it was pierced, the Black Smoke would finish them off. And to redirect the land-cruisers was a task that would take time and leave them even more vulnerable.
The colonel, however, was not one to be indecisive, and as if thriving from the near-hopeless odds, stood up straighter. “I will tell you, Major. We-”
“Sir!” The colonel’s young adjutant ran up to him. “Cable from the Twelfth, Sir. Reinforcements!”
“I am well aware of that, Lieutenant Jones,” the colonel coolly told the blonde man. “I imagine everyone from here to Cydonia could hear their arrival.”
Just then, through the quartzite observation bubble, one of the incoming tripods suddenly burst into phosphorescent flames.
“No, not the invaders, Colonel,” Lieutenant Jones said breathlessly. “Our allies.”
The reporter watched in awe as the small flotilla of sky-boats – presumably sent by the nearest city-state, Helium – incinerated the remaining tripods with their radium-cannon, with the loss of only one of their own. The colonel quickly gave the order to continue firing, and the BOOM of the four-hundreds interspersed with the hissing of the Heat-Rays and the electrical discharges of the Helian radium-weaponry. It was not long before the enemy force had been completely destroyed, and as the colonel send out the combat engineers and Military Police to secure any salvageable wreckage and deal with survivors, he and his command staff – with the correspondent in tow – went out to meet with their Martian counterparts.
For the reporter, adrenaline still winding down after the battle – no more than fifteen minutes from calm to tense to fear to relief, he was still in a chemical transition – this was almost as exciting as the combat had been. He had seen the invaders, of course, both live and dead during and immediately after the Invasion. And though he had heard descriptions and seen illustrated and the rare returned photographic depictions of the other races inhabiting this Abode of Life, for all his time assigned to the Expeditionary Force he had never actually met, face to face, any of the fellow members of this Grand Concord that joined Albion in alliance with the kings and warlords of Mars.
From the way several of the junior officers reacted, the reporter judged that he was not alone in that regard.
The largest and most ornate sky-boat came down to land, its gossamer wings folding up like a dragonfly. A section near the middle opened, not so much as if it hinged or swung but as if the door had grown there. A gangplank was lowered to the ground, and no sooner had it touched than four huge, beast-like creatures, with green skin, an extra pair of arms, tusks and an ape-like demeanor. They were completely nude save for the plumed helms and leather cuirasses upon which rested any number of medallions and weaponry, ranging from the sabers that would not look remiss on a Turkish Janissary to gleaming, jeweled pistols that the reporter could only presuppose to be an example of the advanced native technologies which had built such wonders which now were threatened.
The green men - they appeared to be even less than apes, yet in the spirit of the Grand Concord the reporter awarded them that attribution in his head - assumed a phalanx at the end of the walkway, two to each side in the undeniable sign of an honor guard. The reporter found himself nodding. Yes, that made sense that the commander would send his guards ahead of him. For a second, he had feared that these brutes were the leaders.
That might have proven less of a shock than what was to happen next.
The green men drew to attention, and the jaws of the Englishmen dropped at the sight of the figure who appeared at the sky-boat's portal - all save the colonel, however, who seemed quite unsurprised, and the reporter wondered just how long he had been on this planet. A slender, petite woman who held herself with the refinement of the nobility that was implied by the expensive yet tastefully sparse jewelry she wore around her arms, neck and wrists.
Which also happened to be the only things she wore.
A pleasant smile on her mouth, she stepped gracefully down the walkway to the red Martian soil, turning to offer a polite bow to the colonel, and with the men all averting their eyes from the added spectacle that the action no doubt produced.
"I greet you, men of Thulcandra-" by which she meant Earth "-on behalf of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. I am Ambassador Ylla. I command this flotilla on behalf of His Splendor. Who might I have the privilege of addresing?"
An ambassador of a Martian court, the reporter suspected, would know quite well - and not just by diplomatic communications or research - who she was speaking to; yet would still ask so as not to off-put her allies. The colonel bowed in return, kissing the ambassador's proferred hand.
"We are the 5th Mechanized Cavalry, 9th Division, British Expeditionary Force, Your Honor, and I have the privilege to lead these fine men. The name's Carter. Colonel John Carter, of Earth."
"Welcome, John Carter of Earth," Ylla said with a smile as brilliant as the diamonds in the tiara upon her bronze hair. "And to you as well. His Splendor wishes for your regiment to withdraw to Helium. Flying Machines have not located any further enemy activity in the Artolians. Your men may rest and recuperate while enjoying the thanks of our great city. I would be honored for you and your officers, Colonel, to ride with me for the journey."
Carter eagerly agreed - as much to leave the greasy, sweltering confines of a land-cruiser for a few hours - and was busy making arrangements to the effect, when Ylla approached the reporter, staring at him for a few seconds before smiling.
"I believe I know who you are," she said.
"Truly?" His surprise - and, to be confessed, flattery - outweighed the unease in his mind at being so close to such a...well, naked woman, and certainly one as beautiful as her. But then all of her race were beautiful, and all lived eternally, and the thought of her as being past his forty-two, let alone perhaps one or two centuries...
"Oh yes," she added, extending her hand to be kissed. "I have read your works with great interest since you arrived, especially the accounts of the invaders' foray to your home province. It is, indeed, a great honor to have you with us."
"Well...Thank you. Thank you very much." The reporter did not know what to say, and so more to hide his blushing than anything else, bent over to pick up her hand and kiss it, just as an honest-to-god gentleman might have done.
"No, I do believe it is I who should be thanking you." Ylla smiled again, and started to walk back to the returned Colonel Carter, but not before turning back to add one more thing:
"Welcome to Mars, Mr. Wells. I do hope it will live up to your expectations."
* * * * *
OOC: The basic idea of this thread is that the fictional, fantastical, "scientific romance" Mars of Percival Lowell, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Heinlein, and H.G. Wells actually existed and coincided with each other. Bradbury's psychic Martians sup from their wine canals and grow fat off of trade with Burrough's nubile red-skinned princesses, as C.S. Lewis's séroni tend to their highland livestock, always on the lookout for the sounds of the aggressive Tripod Fighting Machines.
In case one is interested, the main inspirations for this came from the first issue of Allan Moore's comic "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. II;" Ian Edginton's comic "Scarlet Traces;" Larry Niven's book "Rainbow Mars;" and Kevin Anderson's books "War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches" and "The Martian War."
Knowledge of those works is not required, nor is knowledge of the original sources, just a good sense of the sort of steam-age, pre-spaceflight romantic notion of alien life meets fantasy meets steampunk meets the dawn of the Age of Progress. Please PM me if you are interested in joining.
But who shall dwell in these worlds if they be inhabited?
Are we or they Lords of the World?
And how are all things made for man?
-Johannes Kepler
5th Mechanized Cavalry, British Expeditionary Force
Artolian Hills, Kingdom of Helium
October 19th, 1908
The city below had stood for a thousand years before Rome was a glint in the eyes of a wolf-child. Crystal spires had pierced the midnight-blue sky while red-skinned lovers had dined upon the shores of the life-giving canal, with its polar waters so clear as they reflected the sky that they resembled the darkest of wines, a resemblance that could only be enhanced if one was to drink from the chilled sweetness that flowed within. The library had contained uncountable scrolls of the delicate and ancient writing of the patron's of the city's enlightened and benevolent jeddaks. When Man had still been but a half-tamed animal emerging from Darkest Africa, the philosophers and alchemists of the city had already learned to trap light in crystal, to harness the flux of lightning. Wealth, power, beauty, knowledge, it had been a bastion and citadel of them all.
It was a shame, the reporter mused as he dared peek up from the window of the bunker, that it was now crumbled to dust.
"Out of the way, lad, there's a good sport," an officer, Major Well Endue, said brusquely as he pushed past the older war correspondent. "The enemy will be in range soon, recon says. Make sure you keep your fookin' 'ead down when the shots fly."
"Of course, Major," the reporter answered contritely, hiding his anger yet again. Listening to him, one might get the impression that he hadn't been here for almost a year already, hadn't spent the entire Invasion before that moving on his own through occupied zones, hadn't survived in postwar London before order was restored...And yet, amazingly, he still managed to hold his tongue. The major was no doubt under a great deal of stress. He and the rest of the Fifth had been here far longer than he had. And if he made him angry or got in the way, they could order him to leave, and then he wouldn't be able to finish his war reporting contract for the Pall Mall Gazette, and then they would charge him for the return home, and he already wasn't very rich as it was...
"Ulla! Ulla!"
The mechanical, hooting call was clearly far off in the distance, but still it made the reporter's blood run cold. In his mind's eye, he was a decade ago and a million miles - thirty-five million miles, to be precise - away, among the burning ruins of London with the palls of the Black Smoke hanging overhead, and the hooting calls, driving out survivors for their metal grasping appendages. The horrifying, opening, and nearly closing skirmish of this war of the worlds...
"Steady there," a gruff, American voice came from behind him, a strong, reassuring hand on his shoulder. "You're in good hands. Stay calm."
"Yes...Thank you, Colonel," the reporter said, but already the colonel was passing on, surveying the artillery emplacements that were now readying to deploy. The man was from Virginia, and when the reported had first taken notes from him upon his arrival, had claimed he would much prefer to fight for the King of England than the Washington tyrants who had themselves invaded his homeland. The reporter considered him a very theatrical man, but apparently an undeniably martial one.
The colonel was one of the overseas volunteers who had been allowed to join the Expeditionary Force in return for the contributions the United States had made to the Imperial counter-offensive. Many Britons had opposed any sort of help from foreigners, let alone the uppity colonists from across the pond, but after the Invasion they had little choice. And in any event, without the precise astronomical mapping performed by Mr. Lowell, or the electrical inventions of Tesla that powered the land-cruisers so far from the oil derricks of Araby, or the help provided by the Baltimore Gun Club to Dr. Cavor in designing the gravitic cannons and aether-dreadnoughts that the Expeditionary Fleet had consisted of, it was doubtful that any sort of retaliation could have been dreamed of.
"ULLA! ULLA!"
The sound was now deafening, and the reporter broke into a cold sweat - even after all the previous confrontations of the past - when, over the swells of the Artolian Hills, appeared an entire squadron of the Fighting Machine tripods.
“The enemy is in range. Fire, fire, fire,” the colonel yelled out. Instantly, from the regiment’s land-cruisers, thundering retorts, unbearable even through the hardened shells of the bunkers, announced that each iron behemoth had set off its four-hundreds. A second later, one of the tripods exploded into a second sun that rivaled the original distant ball of flame made pale by distance. A second and third joined their comrade.
“Huzzah!” The reported joined in the cheer, cut short by a blaze from nearby and a pattering of rain – molten metal droplets, really – upon the top of the bunker. One of the British land-cruisers, its Cavorite armor penetrated by the combined blasts of the nefarious Heat-Rays.
“Mourn ‘em later, gentlemen,” Major Endue called, “we’ve got the devils on the run.”
"ULLA! ULLA! ULLA! ULLA!"
“What in the…” the colonel asked, turning to another periscope, before backing away from the rangefinder. “Good God. Reinforcements from the east. Must be stragglers from the Battle of the Toonolian Marshes. They’re coming up behind us…”
“Colonel? What should we do?” the major asked. The rear of the regiment was undefended. Their armor could hold out for a time, but if it was pierced, the Black Smoke would finish them off. And to redirect the land-cruisers was a task that would take time and leave them even more vulnerable.
The colonel, however, was not one to be indecisive, and as if thriving from the near-hopeless odds, stood up straighter. “I will tell you, Major. We-”
“Sir!” The colonel’s young adjutant ran up to him. “Cable from the Twelfth, Sir. Reinforcements!”
“I am well aware of that, Lieutenant Jones,” the colonel coolly told the blonde man. “I imagine everyone from here to Cydonia could hear their arrival.”
Just then, through the quartzite observation bubble, one of the incoming tripods suddenly burst into phosphorescent flames.
“No, not the invaders, Colonel,” Lieutenant Jones said breathlessly. “Our allies.”
The reporter watched in awe as the small flotilla of sky-boats – presumably sent by the nearest city-state, Helium – incinerated the remaining tripods with their radium-cannon, with the loss of only one of their own. The colonel quickly gave the order to continue firing, and the BOOM of the four-hundreds interspersed with the hissing of the Heat-Rays and the electrical discharges of the Helian radium-weaponry. It was not long before the enemy force had been completely destroyed, and as the colonel send out the combat engineers and Military Police to secure any salvageable wreckage and deal with survivors, he and his command staff – with the correspondent in tow – went out to meet with their Martian counterparts.
For the reporter, adrenaline still winding down after the battle – no more than fifteen minutes from calm to tense to fear to relief, he was still in a chemical transition – this was almost as exciting as the combat had been. He had seen the invaders, of course, both live and dead during and immediately after the Invasion. And though he had heard descriptions and seen illustrated and the rare returned photographic depictions of the other races inhabiting this Abode of Life, for all his time assigned to the Expeditionary Force he had never actually met, face to face, any of the fellow members of this Grand Concord that joined Albion in alliance with the kings and warlords of Mars.
From the way several of the junior officers reacted, the reporter judged that he was not alone in that regard.
The largest and most ornate sky-boat came down to land, its gossamer wings folding up like a dragonfly. A section near the middle opened, not so much as if it hinged or swung but as if the door had grown there. A gangplank was lowered to the ground, and no sooner had it touched than four huge, beast-like creatures, with green skin, an extra pair of arms, tusks and an ape-like demeanor. They were completely nude save for the plumed helms and leather cuirasses upon which rested any number of medallions and weaponry, ranging from the sabers that would not look remiss on a Turkish Janissary to gleaming, jeweled pistols that the reporter could only presuppose to be an example of the advanced native technologies which had built such wonders which now were threatened.
The green men - they appeared to be even less than apes, yet in the spirit of the Grand Concord the reporter awarded them that attribution in his head - assumed a phalanx at the end of the walkway, two to each side in the undeniable sign of an honor guard. The reporter found himself nodding. Yes, that made sense that the commander would send his guards ahead of him. For a second, he had feared that these brutes were the leaders.
That might have proven less of a shock than what was to happen next.
The green men drew to attention, and the jaws of the Englishmen dropped at the sight of the figure who appeared at the sky-boat's portal - all save the colonel, however, who seemed quite unsurprised, and the reporter wondered just how long he had been on this planet. A slender, petite woman who held herself with the refinement of the nobility that was implied by the expensive yet tastefully sparse jewelry she wore around her arms, neck and wrists.
Which also happened to be the only things she wore.
A pleasant smile on her mouth, she stepped gracefully down the walkway to the red Martian soil, turning to offer a polite bow to the colonel, and with the men all averting their eyes from the added spectacle that the action no doubt produced.
"I greet you, men of Thulcandra-" by which she meant Earth "-on behalf of Tardos Mors, Jeddak of Helium. I am Ambassador Ylla. I command this flotilla on behalf of His Splendor. Who might I have the privilege of addresing?"
An ambassador of a Martian court, the reporter suspected, would know quite well - and not just by diplomatic communications or research - who she was speaking to; yet would still ask so as not to off-put her allies. The colonel bowed in return, kissing the ambassador's proferred hand.
"We are the 5th Mechanized Cavalry, 9th Division, British Expeditionary Force, Your Honor, and I have the privilege to lead these fine men. The name's Carter. Colonel John Carter, of Earth."
"Welcome, John Carter of Earth," Ylla said with a smile as brilliant as the diamonds in the tiara upon her bronze hair. "And to you as well. His Splendor wishes for your regiment to withdraw to Helium. Flying Machines have not located any further enemy activity in the Artolians. Your men may rest and recuperate while enjoying the thanks of our great city. I would be honored for you and your officers, Colonel, to ride with me for the journey."
Carter eagerly agreed - as much to leave the greasy, sweltering confines of a land-cruiser for a few hours - and was busy making arrangements to the effect, when Ylla approached the reporter, staring at him for a few seconds before smiling.
"I believe I know who you are," she said.
"Truly?" His surprise - and, to be confessed, flattery - outweighed the unease in his mind at being so close to such a...well, naked woman, and certainly one as beautiful as her. But then all of her race were beautiful, and all lived eternally, and the thought of her as being past his forty-two, let alone perhaps one or two centuries...
"Oh yes," she added, extending her hand to be kissed. "I have read your works with great interest since you arrived, especially the accounts of the invaders' foray to your home province. It is, indeed, a great honor to have you with us."
"Well...Thank you. Thank you very much." The reporter did not know what to say, and so more to hide his blushing than anything else, bent over to pick up her hand and kiss it, just as an honest-to-god gentleman might have done.
"No, I do believe it is I who should be thanking you." Ylla smiled again, and started to walk back to the returned Colonel Carter, but not before turning back to add one more thing:
"Welcome to Mars, Mr. Wells. I do hope it will live up to your expectations."
* * * * *
OOC: The basic idea of this thread is that the fictional, fantastical, "scientific romance" Mars of Percival Lowell, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert Heinlein, and H.G. Wells actually existed and coincided with each other. Bradbury's psychic Martians sup from their wine canals and grow fat off of trade with Burrough's nubile red-skinned princesses, as C.S. Lewis's séroni tend to their highland livestock, always on the lookout for the sounds of the aggressive Tripod Fighting Machines.
In case one is interested, the main inspirations for this came from the first issue of Allan Moore's comic "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. II;" Ian Edginton's comic "Scarlet Traces;" Larry Niven's book "Rainbow Mars;" and Kevin Anderson's books "War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches" and "The Martian War."
Knowledge of those works is not required, nor is knowledge of the original sources, just a good sense of the sort of steam-age, pre-spaceflight romantic notion of alien life meets fantasy meets steampunk meets the dawn of the Age of Progress. Please PM me if you are interested in joining.
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