Transformers vs. Martians

[Anguirus]

How would the combined forces of all Transformers from the live action movie (all undamaged and agreed to work under the command of Optimus) fare against a Spielberg-Martian invasion?

For the sake of argument, assume that the world's militaries are focusing on getting civilians to safety rather than allying with the Transformers, but if necessary they will devote cargo planes and ships to moving non-flying Transformers across inconvenient oceans.

The way I see it, the Martians' shields probably present a pretty good defense against the Transformers' projectile weapons, but they don't have a good way to deal with robots just stomping the crap out of them. Also, if Ironhide and Optimus can take huge energy blasts with essentially no damage, I think the Martians' rays will be of limited effectiveness. But, the Transformers are presumably pretty heavily outnumbered.

What do you guys think?

[Peptuck]

From what we see in the Spielberg movie, the Martians' biggest advantage was their shield generators, and those seemed to operate a lot like the Gungan shields in TPM: they would stop fast moving objects and explosives, but slow moving objects like people seemed able to pass through them - though I will admit that this is most likely due to the Martians opening gaps in their shields to let humans through.

There's also the question of whether energy weapons will be stopped by the Martians' shields. From what we see in the film, they work well against missiles and tank shells, but we have no clue if they are vulnerable to energy weapons.

Another good question would be whether Blackout's ECM suite would disrupt their targeting. He also had some kind of force field protecting him, according to Epps, which may extend to the other Transformers.

There's just a lot of unknowns here, but I think we can all agree that if a Transformer can bypass that shield, the tripods will fall like wheat.

[Zor]

Do they have access to the Allspark?

Zor

[Darth Wong]

Given the way he sent Optimus Prime flying away like a toy with his arm-cannon blast, I would suspect that Megatron could fuck up the Tripods pretty badly, shields or no shields. With that kind of impulse, the only thing a shield would do is provide an intermediary for transmitting the forces.

[Crossroads Inc.]

There are a bunch of unknowns in this... First off we have yet to see what the upper limit of the shield in WotW was. One was never brought down by direct force, so we simply don't know it. Also we have no idea exactly how the "Magic Flesh to Dust" beam works, or what effect it has uppon the Transformers.

For one, we can 'assume' it generates intense heat, which IS something that will hurt the big bots.

Also, how tall where the Tripods? If nothing else I invsion the Bots getting in close and simply taking them down.

[weemadando]

Admiral Valdemar and myself spent a loooooong afternoon discussing WotW capacities from the Spielberg adaption.

The "flesh to dust" ray is soon kind of "insta-microwave" which, based on production design, production notes, cut scenes and on sceen details, appears to boil the water in the body to steam.

It also isn't "always on", the beam pulses before each "dusting", and there are shots of people surviving "non-pulse" hits.

There also is a significant KE component to this beam, as it appears to be the same kind used to "slice" the bridge. The slicing of the bridge significantly raised the bridge sections attacked during the process. I can't be arsed with calcs, but lifting an elevated highway segment has to be worth something, especially when the force causing it is imparted in a remarkably short time (no sustained lift).

There's also the vivid blue beam which appears to be the classic heatray which we see being used during the "battle" carving up the hillside.

Shield-wise, there isn't much in the way of an upperlimit test. But there are at least two separate "shield bubbles", one covering the head, the other the legs, with an apparent overlap around the joints - this is visible from the shield flashes.

[Darth Servo]

If nothing else I invsion the Bots getting in close and simply taking them down.

Indeed, the bots do seem to have far superior maneuverability.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Given we have no real limits shown for the new tripods, I refrain from suggesting these debates. The weapons the Autobots and Decepticons had were formidable and they could take a hell of a beating too. Likewise, the tripods were shown to be nigh unstoppable.

Really, without better info on the latter, I couldn't call it any easier than the '50s tripod machines.

Though if anything, the shockwave blasts from Blackout and Megs' arm cannon would screw with the tripod's stability if the shield does transmit physical force like an invisible wall of armour.

[Peptuck]

Then again, after less than a week of combat, the Transformers/humans autowin anyway, so its kind of a moot point.

I'm amazed the Martians are so incompetent as to not think of using NBC gear in the first place.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Gone over that reasoning many times before too.

[Anguirus]

No Allspark, and let's assume that the Martians remember to wash their hands this time.

[Crossroads Inc.]

No Allspark, and let's assume that the Martians remember to wash their hands this time.

What is that supposed to mean?

[Admiral Valdemar]

No Allspark, and let's assume that the Martians remember to wash their hands this time.

What is that supposed to mean?

Don't be dense.

[Crossroads Inc.]

If he means that the Martians don't topple over dead after a few weeks from germs, then the world is in deep trouble. There was never any count, but the tripods should up all over the world in pretty heft numbers. So far, the 11 transformers are the only thing that can take them on.

Thats pretty heft odds there.

[Peptuck]

If he means that the Martians don't topple over dead after a few weeks from germs, then the world is in deep trouble. There was never any count, but the tripods should up all over the world in pretty heft numbers. So far, the 11 transformers are the only thing that can take them on.

And the Japanese.

[Sidewinder]

No Allspark, and let's assume that the Martians remember to wash their hands this time.

We saw a Martian drink from a broken pipe in the movie, and the novel specifically states that Martians were infected through the air, the "food" they ate (human blood, injected directly into their bloodstream, as the novel's Martians didn't have digestive systems), etc. Washing their hands won't help much when they're breathing in airborne viruses and germs, drinking water filled with viruses and germs, shredding humans for their xenoforming project, which covers their equipment with the viruses and germs in a human body...

[Peptuck]

No Allspark, and let's assume that the Martians remember to wash their hands this time.

We saw a Martian drink from a broken pipe in the movie, and the novel specifically states that Martians were infected through the air, the "food" they ate (human blood, injected directly into their bloodstream, as the novel's Martians didn't have digestive systems), etc. Washing their hands won't help much when they're breathing in airborne viruses and germs, drinking water filled with viruses and germs, shredding humans for their xenoforming project, which covers their equipment with the viruses and germs in a human body...

Holy crap, I forgot about that.

Is it now some kind of Hollywood law that all aliens must be complete morons or something?

[Sidewinder]

Is it now some kind of Hollywood law that all aliens must be complete morons or something?

Maybe, but I don't mind-- if we were living in the 41st millenium, I'd support Ordos Xenos' efforts to keep the human race on top of the food chain. (I'm sick and tired of stories where the humans are arrogant jerks that deserve to become extinct, or dumbasses who don't deserve freedom of choice or free will-- I'm looking at you, Arthur C. Clarke.)

[Darth Wong]

Holy crap, I forgot about that.

Is it now some kind of Hollywood law that all aliens must be complete morons or something?

It's necessitated by the way the stories are constructed. Once you establish that the aliens are virtually invincible, it becomes necessary to make them do stupid things in order to let the humans win, like walking around unprotected or using MacOS and open wireless networking to control their ships.

However, this case is special. War of the Worlds is basically a religious parable at heart: something that is far more obvious when you watch the original 1950s version. The idea of the story is that Mankind has become arrogant, and is crushed by an unstoppable force. In his darkest hour, he realizes his error and turns to God, who brings salvation. That's why the 1950s World of the Worlds movie ended with the hero literally praying in a church, just prior to the Martians all dropping dead.

And that, by the way, is why I never bothered seeing the Spielberg version. The whole story concept of War of the Worlds is fucking stupid and offensive.

[Stark]

Eh what? The book is a commentary on colonialism etc, which explicitly demonstrates the uselessness of religion before out-of-context problems like massively advanced aliens showing up and rounding you up/slaughtering you.

I've never seen the American 50's version, but in the book the narrator is so harried by his experiences he cracks and charges a Fighting Machine in London, expecting to be killed: this is how he discovers that they have died. He isn't even the first human to discover this.

[Darth Wong]

Eh what? The book is a commentary on colonialism etc, which explicitly demonstrates the uselessness of religion before out-of-context problems like massively advanced aliens showing up and rounding you up/slaughtering you.

I've never seen the American 50's version, but in the book the narrator is so harried by his experiences he cracks and charges a Fighting Machine in London, expecting to be killed: this is how he discovers that they have died. He isn't even the first human to discover this.

I'm talking about the American 1950s movie, not the book. The movie was a religious parable, which is not surprising given the era of its creation.

[Stark]

I'm talking about the American 1950s movie, not the book. The movie was a religious parable, which is not surprising given the era of its creation.

I know, it just sounded like you were under the impression the Macarthy-ised 50s version was the original. A great many people do, sadly. I was boggling under the idea of the climax changing so much - I'd assumed they made the Martains fly and set in in America but left the story basically the same. I mean, in the book the only guy praying for anything had been driven batshit insane.

I may actually have to watch the 50s version now: I wasn't interested in 'WotW with UFOs on strings' but 'WotW as a religious parable' sounds perversely amusing.

[Sidewinder]

Eh what? The book is a commentary on colonialism etc, which explicitly demonstrates the uselessness of religion before out-of-context problems like massively advanced aliens showing up and rounding you up/slaughtering you.

And scattered about it, some in their overturned war-machines, some in the now rigid handling-machines, and a dozen of them stark and silent and laid in a row, were the Martians--_dead_!--slain by the putrefactive and disease bacteria against which their systems were unprepared; slain as the red weed was being slain; slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.
<snip>
All I knew was that these things that had been alive and so terrible to men were dead. For a moment I believed that the destruction of Sennacherib had been repeated, that God had repented, that the Angel of Death had slain them in the night.
<snip>
All the gaunt wrecks, the blackened skeletons of houses that stared so dismally at the sunlit grass of the hill, would presently be echoing with the hammers of the restorers and ringing with the tapping of their trowels. At the thought I extended my hands towards the sky and began thanking God. In a year, thought I--in a year. . .

And then there's H. G. Wells' support of human eugenics-- exactly what Hitler supported-- in the damn book.

"Well, it's like this," he said. "What have we to do? We have to
invent a sort of life where men can live and breed, and be
sufficiently secure to bring the children up. Yes--wait a bit, and
I'll make it clearer what I think ought to be done. The tame ones
will go like all tame beasts; in a few generations they'll be big,
beautiful, rich-blooded, stupid--rubbish! The risk is that we who keep
wild will go savage--degenerate into a sort of big, savage rat. . . .
You see, how I mean to live is underground. I've been thinking about
the drains. Of course those who don't know drains think horrible
things; but under this London are miles and miles--hundreds of
miles--and a few days rain and London empty will leave them sweet and
clean. The main drains are big enough and airy enough for anyone.
Then there's cellars, vaults, stores, from which bolting passages may
be made to the drains. And the railway tunnels and subways. Eh? You
begin to see? And we form a band--able-bodied, clean-minded men.
We're not going to pick up any rubbish that drifts in. Weaklings
go out again."
<snip>
"Those who stop obey orders. Able-bodied, clean-minded women we
want also--mothers and teachers. No lackadaisical ladies--no blasted
rolling eyes. We can't have any weak or silly. Life is real again,
and the useless and cumbersome and mischievous have to die. They
ought to die. They ought to be willing to die. It's a sort of
disloyalty, after all, to live and taint the race.
<snip>
For a while the imaginative daring of the artilleryman, and the
tone of assurance and courage he assumed, completely dominated my
mind. I believed unhesitatingly both in his forecast of human destiny
and in the practicability of his astonishing scheme, and the reader
who thinks me susceptible and foolish must contrast his position,
reading steadily with all his thoughts about his subject, and mine,
crouching fearfully in the bushes and listening, distracted by
apprehension.

So the book promotes religious fundamentalism and Nazi ideas on "improving" the human race. Not a good sign.

[Stark]

So, a journalist using flowery language during a period of shock and a batshit insane artilleryman with laughably impractical views on a future utopia mean the book supports these ideas? Grow the fuck up. If you think the book supports what the artilleryman says, you've got to fill me in on how you got that impression. Clearly, the journalist should have been an atheist in 1894, right?

I mean, some guy who has cracked under the pressure and plots totally unworkable ideas from a military perspective on how the human insurgency would be run against the invaders is clearly a statement on how the world should be run, right? Even the journalist knows he's full of shit!

Saying Wells is racist is hardly news, but this is just ridiculous. I've never heard anyone view the artilleryman as anything other than a failure, or perhaps a symbol of how far people will go to keep fighting while losing their humanity in the process.

[Stark]

GHETTO: holy shit, your own fucking quote includes the journalist shrugging off the artilleryman's ideas! He found them attractive in a time of desperation - as people often find totalitarianism attractive - and then shares a laugh with the reader as the ideas are so utterly laughable, even to a Victorian mindset! Clearly this is the book 'promoting' the artilleryman's ideas, right? Fucking JESUS.