SVSylvia Van Buren
Harry, do you remember Clayton's study of the alien eye?
HarrisonVaguely. Why?
SVSylvia Van Buren
Because the way these things see us is more like...this doohickey little Saint Nicky.
Harrison, we're wasting our time.
Harrison
Hang in there, Suzanne.
SVSylvia Van Buren
Oh, yes, dear. Quite mad! And so would you be if you lived in a world all topsy turvy. I told them the aliens would be back and they didn't believe me. They said I was insane. So they hooked electrodes up to my brain 'til I couldn't even remember my name. Bzz, bzz, bzz! Rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain. This is not Spain, Harry.
Harrison
What are you trying to tell me, Sylvia?
SVSylvia Van Buren
This is someplace on Earth. As seen from...outer space.
Harrison
[referring to the aliens] Gone. They're all gone.
We did everything we could!
Harrison
It's not good enough, Suzanne.
He's right. If we keep losing like this, we're dead meat on this planet.
Harrison
They must've revived a thousand of them. And now, they're out there. They're out there among us!
PTPat Thistle
I just want you both to know... we are God-fearing Christians who have never been in trouble a day in our lives.
Harrison
I'd appreciate it if you just tell me what happened.
PPat
We were out at our cabin, while we have a cabin on Saturday pond in Maine. We were watching the sun go down, like we do, when, for some reason, we started to walk through... to the woods.
ATArnold Thistle
That's where we saw them.
PPat
There were six of them. We were about to walk over to them when we heard them speak. We've never heard anything like it. It sounded like... I could hear it, but I don't think I could ever describe it. They had this strange thing. It looked almost like one of those old vacuum cleaners from the 30s. And they were... looking around for something.
AArnold
You could tell... by the way they were moving it across the ground.
Harrison
What did they look like?
PPat
I know this sounds crazy. We've had a lot of time to think about it. It looked like a cross between a giant green frog... and a huge slimy walnut.
AArnold
With three fingers on each hand.
PPat
Other people have seen them, haven't they?
Harrison
Quinn, if you have any information about aliens, tell me.
Oh, I'll tell you, Harry, but just about one. I'll tell you about one who did not fall to the bacteria in the great invasion, one who was stranded alone 35 long, lonely years on a hostile alien planet... called Earth.
Harrison
You're an alien.
Oh, no, Harry. You're the alien.
Harrison
Why do you hate humans so much, Quinn?
I have nothing really against humans; some of my best friends are humans. But as a group, they stink and you know it. I say kill them all.
Harrison
Is this the only way to end the war, Quinn? Why can't we start here and now, between you and me, some interspecies dialogue which, for all we know, might bring peace?
Dialogue, no. Demand, yes. You will tell the U.N. Security Council leaders tomorrow night that 10% of the human race will be allowed to live, only if they follow my orders. The rest will be poisoned. Otherwise, total annihilation is inevitable. It's an offer you can't refuse.
Harrison
That's not a peace offer, Quinn; that's the slaughter of billions of innocent people!
Harrison
Why? Why our planet?!
We come from an ancient world, Harry. A garden planet called Mor-Tax. But our sun is dying. And without light, there is no life. Earth is the closest planet by far to continue our eternity under a new sun in a new world. A world you don't deserve. A paradise your kind treats like a toilet! You're all vermin! A plague this planet can well do without.
Harrison
We belong here, Quinn. You don't!
We are the future, Harry! In less than five years, three million colonists will arrive here from Mor-Tax, and an army of thousands up there right now works to slaughter all of you. But I offer mankind a compromise!
Harrison
What happens to the ones that you spare, Quinn?
I will have them put on reservations far from my kind. The world will be a better place for it, and we will live life immortal.
Harrison
Even if I was to convey this grisly offer to the U.N., how do I know that your kind would accept this idea, especially coming from a renegade like you?!
Because I am Muura-esuk, one who knows. Supreme Commander of the army. I sacrificed everything. I left my mate, my children, my home, to come here to make a refuge for my dying race. But our ruling class thought only of its own glory, ignoring the warnings of our scientists.
Harrison
Yes, I know that problem well.
The army will accept me to quickly win this war. Earth is a new world with new rules. We are thousands ruled by only three, the Advocacy. But now, Harry, I will rule alone.
Harrison
And me?
You... You will make the final selection: Who among you lives...and who dies.
Harrison
Do you realize that you're unique?
What's your point, Harry?
Harrison
My point is that you've lived here for so long that you're more human than you are alien.
Don't try my patience; I've very little left.
Harrison
That's what I mean. The truth is that you've lived here for 35 years in torment, in suffering, in a terrible kind of loneliness. Now you're revolting against your condition. Despite the pain, you want to live, Quinn. That's a human feeling!
What I've done, I've done to survive, no matter what you read into it!
Harrison
From what I know of your people, they are short on humor and they are long on murder. Do you think that millions of alien society are going to, going to accept that body? That mind and its human feelings, let alone allow a half-breed like you to lead them?! No, Quinn; your kind is intolerant in their superiority!
Your kind murders anything different from its own. Yours is the killer race, Harry, not mine!
Harrison
But we have learned the value of tolerance, Quinn. And your species hasn't! Tolerance is, and always will be, the saving grace of humanity.
Tolerance, Harry. What good is tolerance to me?
Harrison
Because if you want to live, Quinn, humans will tolerate you. They might even celebrate your half-alien identity, but your kind, your kind will squash you! They will kill you out of fear!
I will rule this planet, and anybody who stands in the way will die.
Harrison
That's been tried before, Quinn. Maybe not by one man operating all by himself!
Oh, but I'm more than one, Harry. I have you. And if you're good, really good tonight, Harry, the United Nations will end this war.
Harrison
And put you on the throne?!
You'd better pray that they do. Because if this fails, you'll be extinct... along with all the rest of your God-forsaken species.
Harrison
35 years ago, a great invasion force of aliens nearly obliterated mankind in an all-out attack from the stars. They came here in these spaceships, and they fell from the sky dead... or so we all thought. Earth was saved from interstellar conquest by the presence of common bacteria found on this planet, but they were not dead, as my adopted father, Dr. Forrester, tried to warn everyone. They were only asleep. Dr. McCullough?
They are capable of inhabiting human bodies, a perfect cover which allows them to roam our cities undetected, unnoticed.
We are at war, gentlemen, and we had better win.
Harrison
There won't be any second chance.
Harrison
[talking to Norton Drake on the phone] Norton, crank it up, will you? We've got some work to do.
Harrison
Well, I need you to access any of Suzanne's research pertaining to the alien growth rate.
Which, I can tell you right now, amounts next to nothing.
Harrison
I want you to calculate its effect on the human rate of physical development.
Listen, while I've got you both, I've been doing some checking of the police reports in the area and I scored. I came across a report, and I quote, of a strange doughnut-shaped corpse of the remains of a human being.
Harrison
Is that the residue of an alien body transfer?
Harrison
Where did they find that?
Well, that's the interesting thing. Less than a mile from the hospital. In fact, in the same shopping mall where the paramedics picked up Nancy Salvo.
Harrison
So we've got an alien saboteur who, in order to avoid capture, takes over the nearest available body which, unfortunately for her, happens to be Nancy Salvo.
The very pregnant Nancy Salvo.
Harrison
And this takeover creates so much physiological havoc that it triggers premature labor, and the result is the birth of–
A monster. Half-human, half-alien.
Okay. Here are some examples based on eyewitness reports of the aliens utilizing everyday items to make high-tech tools and devices. There's a report from Canada where kitchen appliances were jury-rigged to make radio receivers and locators. And a story from New Jersey where the aliens were seen using a vacuum cleaner-like device to locate an alien warship buried underground. They've even used their technology to create artwork unlike anything we've ever seen before. We also believe that they can communicate over light-years in a matter of seconds using their make-shift devices. So, as we've seen, the alien technology runs from the lethal to the sublime.
Harrison
The closest that we've ever come to actually examining an alien artifact was in an automated power plant North of San Francisco. The aliens had taken over the facility, brutally killed every single member of the crew, and then had gone on to set up this bizarre device. When I finally found the aliens we'd been looking for, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a device using a logic system far unto ours in every way. It was fascinating. After they'd gone, Dr. McCullough and I went up to examine this strange alien handiwork. It worked like a distillery, reducing human brains to their very essence, and then one very potent drop of that extract would drip into the sick alien's mouth, curing it. But apparently they'd anticipated us, and the device was booby-trapped, and disintegrated immediately upon touch. Clearly, they do not want anyone to get ahold of their technology.
War of the Worlds · 63 quotes
