As in the original trilogy, the narrator of "When the Tripods Came" is a young English boy. He and a friend bear witness to a seemingly botched initial invasion by a single Tripod in the British countryside. After the event is old news, "The Trippy Show" begins broadcasting, and engenders in some viewers an enthusiasm that gradually becomes a mania. As an increasingly hypnotized society falls under the control of the Masters, he and his family escape to Guernsey by boat. When they find it is also controlled by the Capped, they hijack a plane to Switzerland, which has managed to restrict its hypnotized population better than other European nations. When the Swiss are eventually invaded and enslaved, the narrator and his family establish the "White Mountains" resistance movement of the original trilogy.