How we cite our quotes: (Volume.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #10
If the Martians can reach Venus, there is no reason to suppose that the thing is impossible for men, and when the slow cooling of the sun makes this earth uninhabitable, as at last it must do, it may be that the thread of life that has begun here will have streamed out and caught our sister planet within its toils. (2.10.9)
The narrator doesn't use the word "war" here, but that's what he's thinking of. Just as the Martians had no choice but "to carry warfare sunward" (1.1.5), so humans may have no choice but to go to war with Venus. (Well, according to the narrator, people will have a choice: go to war against Venus or die on Earth when it can no longer sustain life.) It's not entirely clear to us how we should feel about this ending. Does it mean that we have to understand why the Martians did what they did? Or does it mean that we're going to turn out to be as bad as they were?