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The Fighting Machine (also known as a Tripod) is one of the fictional machines used by the Martians in H. G. Wells' classic science fiction novel ''The War of the Worlds''. It is a fast-moving, three-legged walker, reported to be 100 feet tall, with multiple whip-like tentacles used for grasping, and two lethal weapons: the heat-ray and a gun-like tube used for discharging canisters of a poisonous chemical black smoke that kills humans and animals. It is the primary machine the Martians use when they invade Earth, along with the handling machine, the flying machine, and the embankment machine. ==Novel== The fighting machines walk on three tall, articulated legs, have a grouping of long metallic tentacles underneath, a flexible appendage holding the heat-ray projector, and atop the main body a brazen hood-like head that houses a single Martian. H. G. Wells first describes the fighting machines in detail in Chapter 10: 〔"Chapter 10: 'The War of the Worlds' by H.G. Wells." ''Wikisource''. Retrieved: January 31, 2015.〕 Another eyewitness described the fighting machines as "Boilers on stilts, I tell you, striding along like men". A London newspaper article in the novel inaccurately described the fighting machines as "spider-like machines, nearly a hundred feet high, capable of the speed of an express-train, and able to shoot out a beam of intense heat". Ironically, earlier newspaper articles under-exaggerated the Martians as being "sluggard creatures". The main character witnessed the fighting machines moving "with a rolling motion and as fast as flying birds". The fighting machines are armed with a heat-ray, which is fired by a camera-like device held by an articulated arm, and a chemical weapon known as "the black smoke", a poison gas which is deployed from gun tubes, not unlike a soldier's bazooka. The fighting machines can also discharge steam through nozzles that dissipates the black smoke, which then settles as an inert, powdery substance. The metallic tentacles, which hang below the main fighting machine body, are used as probes and to grasp objects. These machines sometimes also carry a metal cage or basket which is used to hold human captives so the Martians can later revitalize themselves by fatally transfusing their captives' blood supplies by using pipettes. The height of the fighting machines is unclear; a newspaper article describes them to be more than 100 feet tall (30 m). But they are also observed wading through relatively deep sea water. HMS ''Thunder Child'', a Royal Navy torpedo ram, engages a trio of tripods that are pursuing a refugee flotilla heading to France from the southeast English coast; the ''Thunder Child'' is eventually destroyed by the Martian heat-ray, but not before taking out two fighting machines. In the novel the fighting machines crash-land to Earth in massive cylinders, shot from a sort of gun from Mars (in the PC game adaptation as well as the live musical version, the Martians refer to this device as a "large-scale hydrogen accelerator"). Once they arrive on Earth, the fighting machines are quickly assembled. A London newspaper article cites unnamed authorities who believed, based on the outside dimensions of the cylinders, they carried no more than five tripods per cylinder. The original conceptual drawings for the fighting machines, drawn by Warwick Goble, accompanied the initial appearance of ''The War of the Worlds'' in ''Pearson's Magazine'' in 1897.〔Dalby 1991, pp. 92–93.〕 When Wells saw these pictures, he was so displeased that he added the following text for the novel's hardcover appearance: 〔("Chapter 2." ) ''War of the Worlds''. Retrieved: February 1, 2015.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Fighting machine (The War of the Worlds)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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