From: Peter Westlake <peter@harlequin.co.uk>
Subject: Re: (urth) Wellsean Tripod Stalks Urth
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1998 16:18:39 +0100

At 15:05 1998-06-12 GMT, m.driussi@genie.com wrote:
>Spectacled Bear,
>
>FWIW I too identified the walking tower at the battle front as a
>look-alike for Wellsean Martian war machine heat ray poison gas
>projecting tripod.  But for one reason or another I placed it in the
>Ascian forces, with all their other mechanized units.  (This was for
>some unpublished game.)

Yes, the ones we meet in Citadel are on the Ascian side, and the
Commonwealth is not famous for its machinery, but the mine's
defences are the province of Father Inire. He knows all about
high tech.

>Such a tower from the roots of the continent, how interesting!
>Perhaps it can go gaseous to get out quickly through such tiny
>passageways.  Or maybe the mine links up with a vast open pit with a
>long spiral ramp that the tripod can stump up to the surface.  Or
>maybe it walks through an essentially hollow Urth and finds the
>Tower Access To Surface Tube nearest to the battle front and appears
>just in time.

The level of the mine that we see is big enough for buildings and
a cliff, so I don't think any special pleading is needed to get
a tripod in there. I used to worry about taluses fitting in tunnels
too, but the answer's the same: they're just big tunnels. It's an
interesting question, though: just how much space is there down there?

All this underground stuff is quite evocative of Tolkien, and the
underground parts of _Perelandra_, with its sense of inaccessible
depths briefly glimpsed. The air striders reminded me a little of
the spinning wheels in _Perelandra_ too.

SBear.


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