The Embankment-machine (also known as the Digging Machine) was an automated machine used by the Martians in The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.
Description
The machine is featured only once in the novel in very little detail. Rather than describe its appearance, Wells describes it as an excavator used to widen the pits where the Cylinders have landed. Wells explains that the machine itself has no pilot or a form of cockpit, and that it appears to be a form of automation. When the Martians are on the move, either the Embankment-machine is abandoned or taken with them to work elsewhere.
In other adaptations
The Embankment-machine has been featured in the graphic novel by Dark Horse Comics. The machine here is portrayed as a mechanical Earthworm that feeds the soil into a mouth-like intake rather than actually dig, and moves about on several mechanical feet like a Centipede. Several of these are seen at the main Martian camp in London, left abandoned as the Martians succumb to the Earths' bacteria. Another version appears in the 1998 PC Game based on Jeff Wayne's adaption. This Digging Mechanism was a bulky, four-legged machine whose purpose was to build defensive fortifications and related structures. Unlike the novel's version though, this machine does not seem to be automated.
External links
- Martian Technology - Detail on the workings of the Embankment-machine / Digging Machine
| The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells | |
|---|---|
| Battles | Battle of Weybridge/Shepperton • Fall of London • HMS Thunder Child |
| Martians | Black smoke • Embankment-machine • Flying-machine • Handling-machine • Heat-Ray • Red weed • Tripod |
| Radio | The War of the Worlds • Grover's Mill, New Jersey • The Night That Panicked America |
| Films | The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds (Hines, 2005) • H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds (Latt, 2005) • War of the Worlds |
| Jeff Wayne | Musical Version • Highlights • Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds game |
| TV series | War of the Worlds (Mor-Tax • Mor-Taxans • list of episodes) |
| Sequels | Edison's Conquest of Mars • Killraven (Earth-691) • Sherlock Holmes's War of the Worlds • War of the Worlds: Global Dispatches • Rainbow Mars • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume II • War of the Worlds: New Millennium • Scarlet Traces • The Martian War |
| Miscellaneous | Doctor Clayton Forrester • Comic • The Space Machine • Superman • Arcade game |
