Sep. 25, 2018 - By Aglon Rede
When the invaders, which we now know as the Visiri Coalition, first made planetfall, very little was understood about them. For the entire first year of the conflict, it was believed that the tripod walkers that made up the bulk of the aliens' military were disposable drones piloted by artificial intelligence.
However, as more and more Visiri technology falls into human hands, we have discovered that we had only been half correct. The tripods are actually controlled by a remote signal emanating from the Visiri's ships in orbit, linked up with Visiri pilots. Larger Visiri walkers acted as nodes that increased the strength of the signal,allowing for the smaller walkers to coordinate more effectively. The aliens could deploy any number of walkers without risking their own lives.
The weaponry employed by the aliens is energy-based, and it is extremely deadly; a beam fired from a tripod only needs to touch you in order to kill you. Curiously, no damage marks the body, even from a head-on collision. As such, these beams have colloquially been referred to as "death rays."
Another detail that wasn't known to us until some time into the war was the fact that each tripod had energy shielding technology. Thankfully, ballistic weaponry proved able to puncture their shields without difficulty. Physicist Adam Lorkin likened breaching their shields to "a person throwing a rock to pop a bubble."
We don't know for sure if their ships use the same shielding technology, as the vessels in orbit quickly retreated and held anchor above the dark side of the moon once it became clear how easily we could break through their defenses. Judging by the rapidity of their exodus, it is safe to assume that they do.