MARTIANS FROM THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

Here is my interpretation of the Martians from The War of the Worlds (1898) by H.G. Wells and The Crystal Egg (1897). They are often called "Sarmak" when they appear in the works of other writers, so I will use this name to refer to them. Sarmak are cephalopod-like creatures, comparable in size to bears. Their body consists only of a head and tentacles, and their organism consists of their enormous brain, which gives them advanced intelligence. They have no digestive system and survive by transplanting the blood of other creatures directly into their veins, along with all the nutrients they need. For this reason they raise some Martian humanoids in kind of chicken coops (I base myself on the description of the Martians from Our Distant Cousins ​​(1929) by Lord Dunsany). The Sarmak society is one of the oldest in Barsoom, being coeval with the Yorhis. Their supreme leader is the Great Brain, who rules the Sarmak from his crystal palace. Then there are subspecies of Sarmak: the "vampires", a smaller version of the Sarmak with the ability to make themselves invisible, who act as spies (both the Great Brain and the "vampires" come from La Guerre des Vampires (1909) by Gustave Le Rouge, a novel inspired by the works of Wells), and the Edisonians, who are more humanoid, with disproportionately large arms, legs and skulls, bulging eyes and three-toed hands. When they stand up, they are 4.6 meters tall. However, this only applies to males, as the species is sexually dimorphic. To Earthlings they appear unpleasant. Martian females, on the other hand, are graceful and beautiful. (These are the Martians described in Garrett P. Serviss' novel Edison's Conquest of Mars, an apocryphal sequel to Wells' The War of the Worlds.) The Edisonians serve as servants and ambassadors for the Sarmak to the other peoples of Barsoom.