Alternate ‘War of the Worlds’ Plots
Excerpt from “Why Knot?” Buy the book at Amazon
Watching the Tom Cruise remake of War of the Worlds, alternate disaster-movie plots occurred to me.
In the H.G. Wells story, the microbes to which man has built immunity operate as a global defense system against invaders from outer space. But the same mechanism could work in reverse. When Europeans first arrived in America, they were lucky not to die of diseases that Native Americans were immune to. Rather, they brought new diseases, like chicken pox and small pox, that decimated the natives. Along those lines, a benevolent, well-meaning alien species might inadvertently bring with them microbes that wipe out the entire human race.
In another plot line, the delicate environmental balance of Earth could act as a defense. Global war against alien invaders causes devastating weather consequences that wipe out the aliens. A handful of humans survive to start afresh. Global environmental collapse turns out to be the Earth’s defense mechanism.
In still another plot line, aliens might use the delicate environmental balance of Earth to their advantage, as a way to destroy mankind, without the risks to themselves that would come from war. In this story, aliens, not man, are responsible for toda’s global warming.
