The Tripods
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The Tripods is series of novels written by Samuel Youd (under the pen name "John Christopher") beginning in the late 1960s. The first two were the basis of a science fiction TV-series, produced in the UK in the 1980s (it was aired between September 1984 and December 1985).
The story of the Tripods is post-apocalyptic: Humanity has fallen into an age of social stagnation, with technology in decay, and the population living in a society reminiscent of the 1700s, or even the Middle Ages. The humans live in total, naive and ecstatic adoration of the "Tripods", huge metallic-looking alien creatures, which they see as their saviours. They are kept under thought control from the age of 13 by cranial implants called "caps", which leave them with a life of modesty and serenity by preventing curiosity and creativity, not to mention any traces of dissent.
Disney has held the rights to The Tripods since 1997. There is speculation that a film version is in pre-production with Australian-born director Gregor Jordan signed on to rewrite and direct for Walt Disney's Touchstone Pictures label[1].
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[edit] Books
[edit] The White Mountains (1967)
The story begins in the small village of Wherton in England. Will, the narrator, is 12, not quite a year short of the time when he will be "Capped". His cousin, Henry, is of a similar age. Although neither understands how the Caps work, they know that the Capped appear to worship the Tripods, who rule the Earth, and that they are unquestioning and uncreative. Feeling uncomfortable with the idea of losing their creativity, the two follow the advice of a mysterious Vagrant who goes by the name of "Ozymandias" and undertake a long journey to the "White Mountains" (actually the Swiss Alps, literally translated from the French Mont Blanc). After crossing the Channel, they join forces with a young, inventive French boy, Jean-Paul (his name is Anglicized to Zhanpole [nickname: Beanpole, owing to his tall, thin stature] by the narrator, and he is so referenced for the rest of the series), and head for the Alpine region. The boys go through the remains of Paris, abandoned and ravaged by some ancient war, and finally arrive at the General Quarters of the human resistance, having while en route, and mostly by sheer luck, destroyed a Tripod.
While written for a young audience--being rather short (under two hundred pages) and availing itself of markedly unsophisticated vocabulary--the book is swiftly plotted and filled with narrow escapes, except for a brief period during which the boys live at a manor owned by a wealthy French count. Will forms a strong relationship with their preteen daughter, Eloise, and is heartbroken when Eloise is chosen "queen of the tournament" at an athletic competition that the count hosts for knights living in the surrounding countryside, for Eloise must then go off to serve the Tripods in their domed city. (The Tripods, it turns out, actually have three cities: one in Germany, one on the Chinese coast, and one on the Panama Canal.)
[edit] The City of Gold and Lead (1967)
The Resistance charges Will, Beanpole and a young German boy, Fritz, to infiltrate a Tripod city by competing in a sporting exhibition (very similar in nature to the Summer Olympics) in which the winners of the events are to be offered to the Tripods "for service". Will, a boxer, and Fritz, a runner, win their respective contests, while Beanpole is unsuccessful in the jumping events. Will and Fritz are taken by a Tripod, which they discover to be a machine, to the Tripod city, which is located in a sealed, pressurized dome that sits astride a river (presumably the Rhine) somewhere in northwestern Europe. Inside the city, the boys are confronted with the actual Aliens, which call themselves The Masters: three-legged, three-eyed, reptilian creatures from a planet which has a stronger gravitational field and a hotter ambient temperature. The Masters also breathe a greenish gas toxic to humans. Conditions on the Masters' world are re-created inside the city. The humans in the City are treated as slaves and pets--being given their own airlocked rooms in which they can live, though not very comfortably, but without gas masks, when their Masters do not require their services.
Since the Masters are unaware that the Will and Fritz are false-capped, they never consider the possibility of hostile behaviour. Thus, the boys are able to spy unobtrusively on a significant portion of the city. In addition, Will is able to develop an emotional bond with his Master that results in him learning the details of the Masters' conquest of the earth, and that the stakes of the mission are much higher than anyone had foreseen: the Masters have initiated a project to replace the Earth's atmosphere with their own in preparation for the colonization of the planet, which will obliterate the human race in the process. The spaceship which carries the processing equipment is already on its way, and is due in a few years. Will compiles a detailed journal of his observations and findings for the benefit of the resistance movement--which his Master ultimately discovers, leading to an unpleasant fallout. Will kills him and is able to flee the city.
The title of the book refers to the great gold colored wall surrounding the Masters' city, and the Will's comment that increased gravity inside the city made him feel as though his body had become as heavy as lead.
[edit] The Pool of Fire (1968)
Will returns to the headquarters of the Resistance, which has significantly grown and joined with similar movements in Asia and America. Will and his companions undertake tasks aimed at the destruction of the three alien cities which control all the caps and tripods on Earth. The first of these is the ambush of a Tripod and capture of a living specimen. Having discovered that alcohol has a very strong soporific effect on the Masters, the Resistance schedules simultaneous commando attacks on the cities. Will is one of the leaders of the attack on the European city. By introducing alcohol into the city water system, the raiding party is able to incapacitate all of the Masters and ultimately to destroy the integrity of the City's sealed environment, killing all the Masters. The attack on the second city, in eastern Asia, is likewise successful, but the attack on the last city, in Panama, is not. After aerial bombing attempts fail, because the Masters can disable motors from a distance, the third city is eventually destroyed in a suicide bombing attack launched from air balloons. The world is liberated from the Masters' thought control and technology is rediscovered at a vertiginous rate. The Masters' spaceship finally arrives, only to launch nuclear devices which destroy the remains of the cities, presumably to prevent the humans from reverse engineering the Masters' technology and using it to launch a retaliatory expedition against them. Humanity is saved, but the saga ends with the rebirth of nationalist sentiments. The reader is invited by Will's musings to wonder: having mastered the Masters, can men master themselves?
The title of the book refers to the mysterious power source of the Masters' cities, which is a crucial element in the attack on the first city.
[edit] When the Tripods Came (1988)
When the Tripods Came is actually a prequel written twenty years after the publication of the original "trilogy", allegedly because science fiction author Brian Aldiss questioned the story of The Masters being able to overcome 20th century technology.
In the second book of the main trilogy, one of the Masters tells the main character about the Masters' conquest of the Earth. The plot of the book follows the description of the conquest previously given. We learn that the Masters were afraid of the technological potential of Humanity and decided on a pre-emptive strike. Unable to defeat Humanity in a conventional war, the Masters use their superior mind-control technology to hypnotise part of Humanity through television, and then use the caps to control them permanently when they eventually land. The capped then cap other people until the capped are in control in most places.
Like the narrator of the original trilogy, the narrator of When the Tripods Came is a young English boy. As society slowly falls under the control of the Masters, he and his family escape to Switzerland, which adopted an isolationist stance to hold out against the initial invasion. Eventually it is invaded by France and Germany, who have fallen under the subjugation of the Masters, and the narrator is forced to flee into the Alps with his family as the Swiss are also enslaved by the Masters. Here, they establish the "White Mountains" resistance movement that features heavily in the original trilogy, and the book ends on a hopeful note.
The Tripods trilogy can be read and understood without any need to have read the prequel.
[edit] Comic books
Multiple adaptations to comic books form have been done. Two notable ones are:
Boys' Life The Boy Scouts of America magazine serialized all three books in the trilogy from May 1981 to August 1986. Frank Bolle, now a resident of Connecticut, drew the single page black and white proofs which were then inked by another person. The comics were a fairly accurate retelling of the original series, although one criticism is that the dialogue was "dumbed down" and changed to be blatantly expository. One example is a frame showing Julius looking obviously very haggard, and yet Will has a thought-bubble saying "Julius looks so tired."
In 1985, the BBC launched BEEB, the BBC Magazine, and started to present additional adventures of Will, Henry, and Beanpole on their way to the White Mountains. Each issue contained two colour pages and one black and white page. The strips were drawn by John M. Burns. The BEEB magazine folded after 20 issues (approx 6 months), leaving the three heroes in the middle of an adventure.
[edit] TV series
Season one of the Tripods, broadcast in 1984, which had 13 half-hour episodes, covers the first book, The White Mountains; the 12-episode second season (1985)covers The City of Gold and Lead. The project was cancelled before the third season went into production. The first season is available on DVD but the second has yet to be released. Although preorders were taken in 2003 for the second season, they were all canceled. As of 2006, there was some hopeful discussion on different websites about a release of Season 2, or possibly a release of both seasons plus extra materials. Unfortunately, there is still no date set for this, which has done nothing to stem the flow of bootleg copies at conventions.
The series features titles which look like computer-generated credits but were actually made by human animators, as well as a soundtrack by Ken Freeman. It can be noted that the series introduce several minor changes from the book, notably the shape of the Masters and Tripods, which have no tentacles (although the Tripods do have a mechanical (?) claw-arm that they sometimes use); in the book, inside the Golden City gravity was artificially increased, which is not mentioned in the series; the introduction of "cognoscs", spiritual life-forms vastly superior to the Masters themselves; and more interesting main characters, including love interests for both Will and Beanpole. The original texts have almost no female characters at all. Mr. Youd was recently asked about this for an interview on Wordcandy. He replied that at the time of writing the series, it was generally accepted that girls would read books with boy main characters, but not vice versa. He also stated that he felt the addition of an entire family of girls to the TV series was a bit "over the top". The series is also notable for featuring non-humanoid aliens, which was uncommon at the time.
A film adaptation was announced by Touchstone Pictures, to be directed by Gregor Jordan slated for release in 2007.
[edit] Influence of H.G. Wells
H. G. Wells' book The War of the Worlds, published in 1898, initiated the entire "Invasion of Earth" sub-genre. In it, invaders from Mars land in England, construct huge tripedal "fighting machines" and completely overwhelm all resistance which humans try to put up. One character, a former artilleryman whose comrades were killed and their guns destroyed by the Martians, proposes that those humans determined to go on resisting the invaders hide out in tunnels and sewers and carry on the resistance from generation to generation until their descendants find a way to defeat the invaders and liberate the Earth.
In the event, within the framework of Wells' book all this proves unnecessary as the invaders are killed by earthly microbes within a few weeks. However, the alternate ending remains a tantalizing possibility, which quite a few writers following Wells tried to write out in full.
Christopher follows the general outline set out by Wells, though with various changes. Christopher's invaders do not come from Mars but from another solar system (when the books were written, the possibility of intelligent life on Mars was already discounted, and conversely the themes of interstellar travel, invasion and colonization have become common in SF, as they were not in Wells' time). Also, Christopher's invaders, unlike Wells', do not use humans as food animals (which would have created a far more ghastly setting for the boys' childhood) though their ultimate plan for humanity is even more devastating than in Wells' book.
In the 2005 cinematic version of "War of the Worlds", the protagonist Ray, played by Tom Cruise, kills one of the alien craft in a similar manner to Will's destruction of the Tripod in The White Mountains.
[edit] Vocabulary
The Tripods are immense metal hemispheres (in the books; the television series re-imagines them somewhat). Three tall legs are positioned such that their points of attachment form an equilateral triangle. There is at least one (and probably three) tentacle like manipulators that can interact with objects near and beneath the Tripod, and there is at least one opening in the lower flat surface and another somewhere in the hemispherical surface. At the beginning of the story no one understands the nature of the Tripods but all accept that they rule the Earth. Theories suggest that they invaded from another world or that men built them and they rebelled and enslaved him. The Capped do not question their rule or speculate on their nature; the Cap forbids it. Eventually the protagonists learn that the Tripods are merely machines that carry the Masters from place to place.
The Caps are mesh-like metallic objects that conform closely to the skull and are "married" to the flesh. Although the details vary from region to region, sometime in the fourteenth year a boy or girl is taken to be Capped. In some places the Tripod visits the village; in smaller and more remote places the villagers take their children to a more central location to meet the Tripod. The individual is taken into the Tripod and returned some hours later with the Cap attached. Capped individuals accept that the Tripods rule the Earth and do not question them. Their interests and drives are carefully controlled within a narrow range of acceptable behavior. The ritual of capping marks the passage from childhood to adulthood, at least in Will's land. The cap cannot be easily removed but the Resistance learns to disable it by severing certain parts of it, strongly suggesting that it is a receiver for some sort of transmission or a mechanism.
The Masters are tall conical beings from some other star. They are adapted to much greater gravity and heat and prefer these conditions, which they replicate within their cities. Masters have three eyes arranged in a triangle over two mouths, one for respiration and speech and the other for ingestion of food. They have three extremely strong, whip-like tentacles that emerge from points about halfway up the body. Any one tentacle is capable of lifting a grown human effortlessly, even in the Masters' greater gravity. They move about somewhat awkwardly on three thick and stubby legs that emerge from the flat bottom of their bodies. At need, they can move very rapidly using a kind of spinning gait; this form of locomotion is faster than a human can manage. There is a vulnerable spot on the body near the mouths; even a weak blow to this spot can stun or incapacitate the Master, and a strong blow will kill one instantly. Although Masters demonstrate a significant ability to detect foreign substances in their food, they cannot detect simple grain alcohol at all, and this chemical will render them unconscious in even small quantities for an extended period of time. Masters breathe a green atmosphere that is as poisonous to humans as Earth's air is poisonous to the Masters. It is likely that their air contains at least some oxygen, as a simple filtering sponge, probably chemically treated, is sufficient to remove the toxic elements from their air so that a human can breathe it. A key psychological trait is that the Masters do not deceive each other, even for entertainment. They found the human concept of fiction somewhat difficult to understand at first. Masters are periodically vulnerable to a mild illness whose symptoms include malaise, lethargy, probably pain, and mood changes. They occasionally refer to this as "The Curse of the Skloodzi" and treat it chiefly by wallowing in water and ingesting mild intoxicants. They are long lived - lifespans measuring centuries are common - and extremely patient creatures.
The Cities of the Masters are three large enclaves spaced more or less equidistantly about the Earth. Each straddles a river, for the Masters require immense amounts of water. In Germany, their city probably spans the Rhine river, in China, the city probably spans the Yangtze and in Central America the City spans the Panama Canal. City walls are constructed from a very hard golden metal and the city is capped by a crystal of some sort that retains the poisonous atmosphere. Water enters the city through a deep channel under the wall where it is heated and treated to be suitable for the Masters. Water leaves the city similarly, after most of the heat is removed (presumably it is recovered). Will and Fritz escape a city this way, although the journey is hazardous. Within the city the atmosphere and gravity are suitable for the Masters; these parameters are inimical to the long term survival of humans, and slaves within the city are lucky to last more than a few years. The city is powered by some form of atomic energy generated by a mechanism located near the center. Other mechanisms created food packets and the mild intoxicants called Gas Spheres. The cities include various cultural repositories, including spaces for the few human books the Masters did not order the Capped to destroy, and a display of taxidermically preserved humans. It is here that Will discovers the horribly preserved body of Eloise, whom he believed had gone to slavery within the city; she is arranged in an array of red-headed females whose purpose is chiefly to demonstrate the variations in human hair color. Other notable structures within the city include the Sphere Chase arena and the Place of Happy Release.
The Sphere Chase is a game played by Masters within their city, using much smaller versions of their Tripod machines. The game seems to involve capturing a sphere and forcing it through a goal and may be similar to basketball. It is arranged as a triangle, suggesting three teams or participants.
The Place of Happy Release is where slaves go when they decide they can no longer adequately serve their masters (usually because the heavy gravity has injured them). Slaves stand on a belt that conveys them beneath a hemispherical mechanism; this flashes with a bright light that kills the slave. The description strongly implies that electrocution is the method of execution. The belt then conveys the body to a furnace where it is destroyed.
