Martian Victory- War of the Worlds

What would the effect on later books and later fiction if H. G Wells ended his novel with a Martian victory?

The victory could mean the eventual extermination of humankind or just it's enslavement.
 
What would the effect on later books and later fiction if H. G Wells ended his novel with a Martian victory?

The victory could mean the eventual extermination of humankind or just it's enslavement.

Well in OTL, Some listeners heard only a portion of the broadcast and, in the atmosphere of tension and anxiety prior to World War II, took it to be an actual news broadcast. Newspapers reported that panic ensued, with people across the Northeastern United States and Canada fleeing their homes. Some people called CBS, newspapers or the police in confusion over the realism of the news.

This is with a good ending, with a Martian victory, we may see, suicides, riots and massacres.

H.G. Wells' aliens would have just exterminated the earth, the humans were of no use to them.

Its influence on literacy would most likely be the same, the first alien invasion book painting mars as an ancient world, nearing the end of its life. It would be seen as the modern Tim Burton Mars Attack.
 
Well in OTL, Some listeners heard only a portion of the broadcast and, in the atmosphere of tension and anxiety prior to World War II, took it to be an actual news broadcast. Newspapers reported that panic ensued, with people across the Northeastern United States and Canada fleeing their homes. Some people called CBS, newspapers or the police in confusion over the realism of the news.

This is with a good ending, with a Martian victory, we may see, suicides, riots and massacres.

H.G. Wells' aliens would have just exterminated the earth, the humans were of no use to them.

Its influence on literacy would most likely be the same, the first alien invasion book painting mars as an ancient world, nearing the end of its life. It would be seen as the modern Tim Burton Mars Attack.

The book imagines humans being 'farmed' by Martians, and some accepting it
 
The book does show the artilleryman discussing about humanity under the heel of the Martians, in which he suggest of rebuilding human civilization "underground" (mentions of using the London Underground as early base for human resistance) and reverse-engineering Martian technology and used it against the invaders, and he really talked about human quislings.

But the narrator saw his ideas of "rebuilding civilization" as a damnable pipe dream and the artilleryman was becoming a sort of loony proto-survivalist.

In a way, humanity becomes the "savage primitives" being cowed as livestock by the Imperialist Martians, as H.G. Wells intended as a critique on 19th century imperialism by asking what it would be like to be the "savages" at the other end of the gun. If taken the artilleryman's suggestion, there would be an existing underground resistance.

The Jeff Wayne's "War of the Worlds" game have a Martian campaign which ends in a cliffhanger where the Martians, victorious over Earth, accidentally discover a human underground city and gets blasted by human re-engineered Martian weaponry.
 
Top