system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[War of the Worlds] I've just read the historical account of the attack by Wells. How much have we learned of the invaders since then?

Having just come back from reading the historical account of the attack (or at least the most popular account that is) offered by H.G. Wells, I'm curious as to our expanded knowledge of the Martians. Obviously some things are a little silly and antiquated - Lasers and biological warfare are rather charmingly provincial by now, but over 100 years after the attack, what do we actually know about the Martians? Have we ever ascertained their methods of preparation? Have the recent probes we've sent to Mars re-encountered them? Is there any other phenomena we've been able to attribute to them?
gpt
What initially appeared to be only a vanguard of a mass Global invasion in fact turned out to be a small remnant of a once thriving ancient civilisation. Mars' lighter gravity had caused the Martian atmosphere to siphon off over the millennia. Only a hundred thousand technologically-advanced survivors were able to survive in pressurised cave systems cultivating small hydroponics facilities to provide oxygen and nutrition. The Invasion of the British Isles had been one last desperate throw of the dice. They had intentionally chosen to attack an island as a fortified bastion to defend the last of their species. Not as a bridgehead as hysterical strategists and policy-makers had initially assumed. 

Over a century on and a small handful of Martian survivors remain on the Red Planet. Their invasion abandoned after the consequences of Human pathogens became apparent and thus enforcing a quarantine that ended the last hopes of their species. Sporadic contact is made with them using semaphore communicated through the flashing of lights. From their understanding of genetics they seem fairly certain that their original planet of origin was Earth. Explaining the biological compatibility that led to their erstwhile defeat. These martians must be our distant ancestors, scattered on the Martian surface as microscopic amoeba as a result of an ancient asteroidal collision.

Now, as the lights of the Martian enclaves snuff out one by one, it seems we will soon say farewell to our cephalopodic cousins. We congratulate ourselves that as one planet falls, another rises. But we are also compelled to think: "There but for the grace of god go I."