H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds is an impression, taken from life, of the conquest by the European whites of a certain portion of the world, an impression in particular of the civilizing methods of a great European trading company face to face with the non-Europeans. In this story, human life, both Earthmen and Martians, is presented as an unusually serious affair. Wells’s art here lies in his catching of the infinite shades of the Martians’s uneasy disconcerted and fantastic relations with the Earthmen. The weirdness, the brilliance, the psychological truth of this masterly analysis of two worlds in conflicts, of the deep gulf between the Martians’ technologically superior system and the Earthmen’s comprehension of its results is conveyed to us through a rapidly moving narrative of war events. The novel begins with Martians visit and attack the Earth with their powerful weapons. They have had specific purpose behind visiting. The purpose is to conquest. This is exactly the modern symbol of imperial world- ‘the conquest of nature’. This symbol is advocated by modern Science Fiction writers in to the form of galactic imperialism. Ironically in the text Martians attack on the nation England which itself is conqueror of the Earth. Man has established a space travel that is why he is very anxious to establish his significance or presence in the universe. Apart from this he actually aspires to dominate the whole Universe by conquering one planet to another by Time Machine or Space aircraft. He has already established Space Stations in the Galaxy.

Galactic empire may be controlled by humanity and threatened or menaced by alien or it may be an alien oppression threatening the earth. H.G. Wells projects the 20^th Century imperialistic violence, self –assertion and brute facts establishing power in this work. The text presents the concept of ‘Galactic imperialistic vision’ of the author.

The novelist H.G. Wells embodies the persistent fallacy that science can be made to do everything for man. Wells' work dealt almost always with the actual possibilities of invention and discovery .Many of his ideas of inventions have 'come true'. His works such as The Time Machine (1895), The Invisible Man (1897) and The War of the Worlds (1898) are examples of scientific romances.

The relationship between the theory of imperialism and basic element of science fiction i.e. space travel-an exploration of domination of new world of galaxy has been examined in Wells’s The War of the Worlds. The projection of ‘Galactic imperialism’ [1] in the text is very vivid. 

H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds is a most complex novella, which offers a brilliant fictional account of savage journey.Here visiting Martians’ invasion of the Earth has had a specific purpose behind visiting. The purpose is to conquest. This is exactly the modern symbol of imperial world- ‘the conquest of nature [2]. This symbol is advocated by modern science fiction writers into the form of galactic imperialism. Man has established a space travel that is why he is very anxious to establish his significance or presence in the universe. Apart from this he actually aspires to dominate the whole Universe by conquering one planet and another through Time Machine or Space aircraft. Scientists have already established Space Stations in the Galaxy. It is about an exploration of new world of galaxy through space travel and hidden intention of ruling the same world of galaxy. This investigation will explore the innate quest of material interest in the modern science and its development. Further, this research project will probe the lack of spiritual and moral strength of Wells's earthmen.

Imperialistic and materialistic interest continues to lead earthmen to abandon moral and ethical principles even today and in future. The imperialistic mission for the materialistic greed is still present in different forms in different places. Therefore, studying Wells’s scientific romances from pre and post ‘colonial’ angel in the contemporary situation is relevant. The visionary presentation of scientific development and imperial world could easily be seen.

Science Fiction and Galactic Imperialism

H.G. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds presents the contemporary imperialistic point of view. The imperialistic angle expressed in it and its relation to the mainstream Science Fiction is an attempt to criticize geo-economical greed of British Empire or colonizes as well. The researcher here tries to trace the development of Science Fiction as a background to study H.G. Wells’s scientific romances. 

Alien Encounter

All the definitions of a Science Fiction emphasize the encounter with a world that is different. It is the ‘otherness’ of the aliens, of the landscape; of the flora and fauna, which, the Science Fiction explores with help of a “novum’’. McCracken says, ‘at the root of the all Science Fiction lies the fantasy of alien encounter [3]. And later he says ‘the meeting self with the other is perhaps the most fearful, most exciting and most erotic encounter of all’. This explains the tremendous interest of the Science Fiction readers in the Science Fiction dealing with aliens from Mars and other planets. The planets, the terrestrial land, also function as the alterity-the otherness of the earth. What is more, the Science Fiction provides a form to deal with the otherness, or alterity of gender, race and even alternative ideology. Science Fiction can give symbolic expression to female experience or the experience of being black in the white majority, or in the Indian situation belonging to the low-caste.

Science Fiction proper is distinguished from the Scientific Romances even from the time of Galileo onwards. These may include a Syrian novelist Lucian’s True History written in the second century A.D., in which the narrator sailing in the ship is caught by a hum cane and hurled into the sky from where it sails on to the moon. Fabulous tales of imaginary voyage or Utopian Fiction in which ideal societies were imagined are not Science Fiction in the sense the 20^th Century Science Fiction criticism defines it. But these works include conventions and characteristics which were later assimilated into Science Fiction. Thomas More’s Utopia (1516), Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver Travels (1726), Kepler’s Somnium (1634), Cyrano de Bergerac’s fantastical Voyages to the Moon and Sun (1656) make use of imagined societies to criticize the world of reality with which they were utterly dissatisfied. The element of the ‘other’ in them appears to relate them to the Science Fiction, but they cannot be listed as such. The Science Fiction requires material and physical rationalization rather than merely fabulous or supernatural set of events. These Utopias do not have scientific outlook. Even the element of ‘other’ in them is disputed, because the imagined society in them actually reinforces the existing society by criticizing only the evils in them.

Patrick Parrinder calls Wells ‘the pivotal figure, the evolution of Scientific Romance into modern Science Fiction’ [4]. Wells explored a number of themes in Science Fiction, namely, time-travel, the alien invasion, biological mutation, the future city and the anti-utopia. Like Verne’s submarine, Wells was also prophetic about the tank in Warfare, the atomic bomb and the warplanes. But he was also interested in the purely hypothetical scientific fantasy as in his Time Machine and the short novel The Island of the Doctor Morean (1896). He requires his readers to accept his speculative hypothesis-the Time Travel-and then he explores its consequences in a rigorous realistic mode of writing. It can be observed in his The Invisible Man (1897), The War of the Worlds (1898) and other Scientific Romances. 

Imperialism: A Thematic Tool in Science Fiction and the War of the Worlds

History of Science Fiction assumes that several writers used this genre to comment on colonial experience, imperial past, or memory of invasion. Some envisage future wars and effects of imperialism in their works by presenting Alien encounter. Wells has introduced the concept of galactic imperialism. The concept actually related to the ultimate symbol of ‘the conquest of nature’. This symbol is advocated by some modern Science Fiction writers in the form of galactic imperialism. Man has established space-travel, which is one of the common themes in Science Fiction in the 1920s and 1930s, therefore, he wants to establish his significance in the Universe and moreover he aspires, desires to dominate it. Galactic empire may be controlled by humanity and threatened or menaced by alien or it may be alien threatened the earth. In modern Science Fiction writing, writers project 20 the century imperialistic violence, self-assertion and the brute facts of establishing power. Wells, Heinlein, Stapledon, Clarke presented the phenomenon galactic empire in their works. Therefore the researcher here is making sincere attempt to illustrate the relationship between the theory of imperialism and its relation with Science Fiction. Science-Fiction is given or assigned to those narratives in which a writer uses authentic scientific information as a base of his story. Most of Science-Fiction writers were used the Space-Travelling in a galaxy as a major setting for their scientific stories. In this regard Brian W. Aldiss very rightly put it

A writer of Science-Fiction writes a novel. He begins by creating a solar system and galactic atmosphere and he sets future time in it. In that system he sets one planet in particular, gives it an appropriate biosphere and ecology within that biosphere. He gives his creatures life and purpose, gives them a social system, domestic life, architecture and local substitute for water. He brings in some visiting Earthmen and the chapter begins [5].

Here visiting Earthmen have had specific purpose behind visiting. The purpose is to conquest. This is exactly the modern symbol of imperial world- ‘the conquest of nature’. This symbol is advocated by modern science fiction writers in to the form of galactic imperialism. Man has established a space travel that is why he is very anxious to establish his significance or presence in the universe. Apart from this he actually aspires to dominate the whole Universe by conquering one planet to another by Time Machine or Space aircraft. He has already established Space Stations in the Galaxy.

Galactic empire may be controlled by humanity and threatened or menaced by alien or it may be an alien oppression threatening the earth. H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Heinlein projected the 20^th Century imperialistic violence, self-assertion and brute facts establishing power in their works. They illustrate the readers the concept of ‘Galactic imperialistic vision’.

Imperialism in general can be defined as to rule, to dominate one particular state or nation or society. John A Hobson in his book Imperialism: A Study (1902) explains the concept, by having had experience of visiting of South Africa, “imperialism was essentially a creation of monopoly capitalism. It is an acquisition of territory” [6].

In this regard Clarke’s Islands in the Sky where the protagonist Roy Malcolm meets accidentally to some Martians such as May, Ruby and John. Their visit to earth and Malcolm’s visit to Mars is depicted in the light of galactic imperialism. Star Trek Series is all about imperialistic territory. H.G. Wells and Alexander Korda made a film of Science Fiction Things to Come in 1935. In the film as well as in the book galactic empire is stated very plainly. Cabal is a spokesman who points out bifurcation/split in two worlds of the human race. Cabal speaks.

Rest enough for the individual man. Too much of it and too soon and we call it death. But for MAN, no rest and no ending at all. He must go on-conquest beyond conquest. This little planet and its winds and ways and all the laws of mind and matter that restrain him. They the planets about him and at last out across immensity to the stars. And when he has conquered all the deeps of space and all the mysteries of time-still he will be the beginning [7].

Thus The War of the Worlds, The Martian Chronicles and Star Trek highlight the theme of imperialism. The issue of escaping from native planet is one Man is following. Earth is now not regarded as fenced in and secure planet for Man. The novels depict the history of imperialism. At the same time novelists like Wells and Bradbury present only the physical, ethical and psychological damage caused by imperialism. Wells tries to analyze how imperialism is rooted at economical, environmental, psychological and ethical sections of society. If we consider imperialism is an attack to conquer and establish the own colonies then is also a historical process of change. Change is of both positive and negative. In this process many sections of society suffer namely economy, culture, religion, history and mind of colonized and colonizer community which are at larger level considered to be pillars of any society. Therefore this policy of extending a country’s power and influence by establishing colonies may cause both positive and negative changes to economical, environmental, psychological and ethical assets of a country from colonizers. Many literary texts represent and project these changes. H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds is one of such texts which project imperialism in the form of damages done to society of London (representing society of Earth) in relation with economical, environmental, psychological and ethical imperialism.   

It is very important to consider the change in the history in the process of imperialism of any nation or a society. Both in imperialism and Science Fiction history is deconstructed. Each nation or society has its own socio-cultural past and legacy converted into history. When imperialism takes place the whole history of the same nation dismantles and parameters of history find changes. Literary writers and historians present these changes into their works. Writers of Science Fiction concentrate more on would been damages to the history of the planet (the Earth) in relation with the invasion of other planet (Mars and so on). Coincidently this is identical in European imperial process where many colonized countries have had the experience of deconstructed history due to imperialism. The problems of inferiority, insecurity, otherness, dominance, power, hegemony, racism emerge through this deconstructed history which can be seen both in Science Fiction and imperialism. Sometimes it leads nation to understand the major drawbacks and limitations. By handling the issue of imperialism the writers of Science Fiction bring out the strengths and weakness of our planet. Sometimes Earthmen are presented as being traditionally weak, technologically unadvanced over aliens who try to take advantage of Earth’s weakness. Sometimes Earthmen are presented as most powerful intellectuals’ creatures of the universe in invading Mars or other Planets. This again leads to deconstruction of both the history of invaders and the history of colonized countries. In short dismantled history is present in Science Fiction when they deal with imperialism. H.G. Wells in his book The War of the Worlds handles the deconstructed history paradoxically. The novel comments on reaction to imperialism. Like other Science Fiction of Wells, this too highlights the theme of imperialism and colonialism.

H.G. Wells was more concerned with the effects of science rather than the mechanics and this I think makes him the greater writer of Science Fiction. Wells in the text with no surprise involves himself in the question of life on Mars. On October 19^th 1888 Wells had spoken to the debating society at the Royal College of Science in London. His topic was "Are the planets habitable?" and on the subject of Mars he had stated, "there was every reason to suppose that the surface of Mars was occupied by living beings." He returned to the subject in an unsigned article for the April 4th 1896 issue of the Saturday Review, proposing that any Martians were they to exist, would have little in common intellectually with humans. The pieces were falling into place for the creation of his greatest novel.

The story Wells selected for The War of the Worlds was however a completely new concept in literature, through he was not quite the first to put forward a visit to Earth from the Martians. This honor belongs to the German author Lasswitz Kurd. In his 1897 text Auf Zwei Planeten (Two Planets) the Martian visitors were essentially gentle. Wells chose instead to create a race of warlike beings with no interest at all in dialogue. The Martians as envisaged by Wells are quintessential bug eyed monsters. Though they are inhuman in appearance they are all too human in character. Later the Star Trek presented the Martians busy in invasions.

The title refers on a literal level to the invasion of the Martians and man’s attempts to stop them from taking over. The book can also be seen as a social commentary on imperialism, whereby the clash of worlds would be between the British and native peoples they conquered and ruled under the British Empire. The opening chapter of The War of the Worlds set the scene of a dying Martian civilization and an England that is comfortable and secure in its compliancy as a power upon the Earth. Upon a peaceful corner of that country falls a manufactured cylinder of metal. From within emerge the horrifying Martians. At first it seems these creatures can be contained within the pit gouged out by the arrival of their cylinder, but they quickly battle for supremacy. Rifles are pitched against a foe armed with giant walking machines, devastating heat rays and a choking black gas. The fighting is brutal and uncompromising and shows to merciless effect how thin the surface of civilization is. The scenes of refugee columns, stampedes and selfish acts of brutality are amongst the most harrowing passages of the book.

The story goes as Mars is a planet older than Earth and is in the cooling-off stage. The drop in temperature and sea level forces its inhabitants to plan a method of getting off the planet. They decide the Earth. The astronomer Ogilvy and the rest of Britain take an interest in Mars due to cylinder shots into space around midnight for ten nights altogether. The military starts to become involved, realizing the danger of the situation. The second cylinder lands. The narrator tries to get some news about the Martians. The narrator takes his wife to Leatherhead, where she has cousins. Shortly after their arrival, the narrator goes back by telling the reason of returning the cart. The Martians destroy everything around him with the Heat-Ray. The narrator continues on his way, seeing many people preparing to leave at Weybridge. When the narrator lands on a bank, he falls asleep from exhaustion and when he wakes up, the curate of the Weybridge church is sitting beside him. The Martians are unstoppable and are headed for London.

The city is covered with dust and dead bodies and is ominously quiet. The sound “ulla, ulla” repeats for some time but then it too stops. The narrator soon discovers it was the sound of a dying Martian. The narrator is overtaken with a desire to end his life by running at one of the Martians and having it kill him. However, when he reaches the top of Primrose Hill and looks down into the final pit the Martians have created, he sees them lying dead due to earthly bacteria to which men have become immune. He is not the first to realize that the Martian threat is gone. Life gradually begins to take on its previous appearance. But the narrator still occasionally has flashbacks of the world under the Martians and fears their return.

The important point can be noticed that of Wells' own innate dislike of the society he lived in and the social inequities he saw about him. Even read today, over 120 years after its publication, The War of the Worlds has hardly dated at all. The action scenes read as if from the latest science fiction blockbuster. For example an attack by a Martian war machine on the town of Shepperton. In the middle of the book, the Martians are well on their way to completing what Wells called "the rout of civilisation." The setting of the novel is most suitable to handle the double purpose of imperialism. Most of the story takes place in the small towns found in the countryside of England. Ironically enough England itself colonizers, imperialistic nation was ruling so many countries of the Earth. Martians’ attack on London presents this irony. Wells infact deliberately selects England to comment on cotemporary imperialism. As the Martians move from place to place, the imagery changes drastically. In the beginning, the Earth looks as one would expect and in the end, dead and dying people are in the roads, buildings lay in ruins and black dust and red weeds cover everything. Thus Wells presents the damages of imperialism.

H.G. Wells presents two differently races conflicting for the purpose of survival on Earth. First race is Native Earthmen comprises the Narrator, Artilleryman, the Curate, Wife of Narrator, Ogilvy, Henderson and the people of London, Waybridge and Woking. The second race is of imperialists Martians. Physically, they resemble an octopus, with their many tentacles and a head that stands without a body and they feed by injecting the blood from a live organism into themselves. They show no signs of mercy when they arrive on Earth, their intent being conquest rather than compromise. They also show signs of recent awareness of microorganisms and are killed by an earthly bacteria. 

The narrator represents order and morals amidst the destruction and death caused by the Martians. As a protagonist, the narrator is a good choice. He is an average man who wants only to live his life peacefully with his wife. The narrator has a practical, scientific side as well. It is what puts him into conflict with the curate but also what keeps him alive for so long. One thing the Martians represent is imperialism. When life on their world becomes difficult, they see Earth and set out to take it over with no attention of pursuing peaceful cohabitation. Much of the same thing could be said for imperialism, when European countries set out to take over native people and often failed to treat them appropriately. 

The meaning of the Martians can also be applied in a broader sense, to the awful power of all wars. The Martians are portrayed as technologically capable beings, but show few signs of emotion. Without the machines, the Martians are weak. Thus Wells handles very vividly the theme of imperialism in relation with two races, two societies of two different planets-Earth and Mars. The plot of the novel is basically imperialistic. There is an invasion of Martians on Earth which also indicates the invasion of England over other parts of the contemporary World. The title of the novel also indicates this broad conflict between the world of Earth and that of Mars. Wells projects this imperialism as a possible galactic imperialism in the future. Through the text, Wells warns contemporary society to be ready for galactic imperialistic attack of aliens.

H.G. Wells used Science Fiction as a tool to express his opposition to the political, military, economic, environmental, ethical and cultural imperialism that the world is currently facing. He projected the effects of imperialism in his almost all scientific romances, especially, in The War of the World.  The work was written when British was the ruling agency to many of Eastern Asian, African and Latin American countries. Almost 75% of Earth (geographically) was under the control of British Empire. England was extending the empire day by day solely for their material interest. Wells, like other Science Fiction writers, attacks invasion, imperialism and its effects of contemporary time. At the same time he accepts technologically soundness world of Martians, scientific development. To comment on imperialism of his time, he ironically presents London under the control of Martians. The second part of the book entitled as ‘Earth under Martians’ brings to highlight paradoxically both imperialism of his time and the future imperialism of the distant world. So there is parallel situation. At one side Western control over colonized countries is in parallel to Earth under Martians as depicted in the text. Martians are depicted as technologically superior to Earthmen. Allegorically this technologically superiority connects the text to contemporary post Victorian industrialized Western world. Western used their knowledge to establish power over colonized nations for many years. Martians came to visit Earth with intention of conquering the Earth step by step. Though they were not successful in the end finding their nemesis, they taught the important lessons to the natives. The people from both sides of the war need to change the universe and their own world, by exposing injustice, inhumanity, by educating others about that injustice, by peaceful and otherwise protest and most importantly by working with and for those who face injustice. Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds was written in 1898 is the reality of our times [8]. We need to work out solutions to the problems in our world and should work towards utopian future, even if it can never be successful. There is a need to prevent the present crises. Wells very rightly projected the crises of his time and of today’s world.

Thus H.G. Wells is projecting galactic imperialism in his masterpiece The War of the Worlds. The present article brings out the visionary idea and the process of imperialism. Wells attained the connection between Science Fiction and the theory of imperialism. He combined both Science Fiction and imperialism to comment his contemporary process of imperialism and the future imperialism between the Earth and other planet. Wells concentrate more on damages of imperialism by stating the philosophy of change and its need. The researcher finds that help can be appreciated from all sources, but the true force for change should come from the natives, the community itself, not from outsiders, invaders, rulers, colonizers. Otherwise one form of positive imperialism will be replaced with negative imperialism. The selected text similarly suggests Martians will be replaced with another society of different world of different planet of distant universe to establish their own colony. Wells warns his race to be aware of the invasion and resistance. Imperialism is continue to the cost of moral degradation and materialistic interests. The crises are happening on very minor issues like superiority, oil, religion, tusk, gold, money. Injustice is in case of natives, colonized innocent people. Wells projected all these crises through this work. Wells has projected galactic imperialism in the text which can be connected to NASA’s venture to establish colony on the Moon and probably on Mars. What is the intention of NASA team behind this venture is uncertain. I think it is in parallel to Martians intention in conquering the earth. 

However imperialism in any form devalues humanity and values material and selfish interest of invaders. It can be also pointed out that the parallel worlds of Martians and in relation with social, geo-political, psychological and economical world of Europeans ironically busy in imperialism. Thus the text explores how the imperialistic mission for the materialistic greed is still present in different forms in different places.

1. Parrinder, Patrick, ed. Science Fiction: Its Criticism and Teaching. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1980,p p. 37.

2. Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage, 1994, p. 147.

3. McCracken. Science Fiction. 1998, pp. 102.

4. Parrinder, Patrick, ed. Science Fiction: Its Criticism and Teaching. London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1980, pp. 27.

5. Aldiss, Brian W. Billion Year Spree: The History of Science Fiction. London: Oxford University Press, 1973, pp. 11.

6. John A. Hobson, Imperialism: A Study. 1902. pp.25

7. H.G. Wells and Alexander Korda. Things to Come, 1935, pp. 25

8. Wells, H.G. The War of the Worlds, London: Heinemann, 1898, pp. 8.