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Published: 2021-06-02 00:38:21 +0000 UTC; Views: 55973; Favourites: 567; Downloads: 47
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Description
The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms: RHEDOSAURUS
Titanus Foghorn
Rhedosaurus bradburius (“Bradbury's backwards reptile”, from Latin rhed, “backwards”, Greek sauros, “reptile”, and science fiction author Ray Bradbury)
Statistics
- Classification: Retrosauria (Metatyrannidae)
- Length: 200 feet/60.96 meters
- Height: 75 feet/22.86 meters
- Mass: 500 short tons/453.59 metric tons
- Locality: The Rhedosaurus specimen that attacked New York City in 1953 was originally sighted emerging from what is now called Caspak, a subterranean ecosystem beneath the Arctic Archipelago with multiple entrances in the ocean floor surrounding the islands. Additional members of the species have since been confirmed to exist within the hollow.
History:
The history of kaiju attacks, despite being quite storied, is actually only relatively recent in academic circles. While many historians now believe that a variety of myths and legends around the world are attributable to the various supergiant organisms that are now known to exist on every continent, the study of these creatures only began sometime during the 1930's, shortly after the famous expedition that led to Titanus Kong I being transported to New York City. This would only be the first in a series of incidents wherein this famous metropolis would witness a slew of different kaiju attacks over the next century, the first of which would happen just twenty years after Kong's topple from the Empire State Building.
Ever since the use of atomic energy as a utility aid and as a weapon began at the close of the 30's, a major concern was the effects of radiation on the ecosystem and on the general public, with a number of incidents of sickness induced by proximity to atom bomb testing being reported - culminating in the infamous use of Fat Man and Little Boy to obliterate the cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshma, respectively, killing somewhere between 129,000 and 226,000 people and aiding in World War II coming to an end. As part of the aftermath of these incidents, the global public, especially in Japan, rained utter condemnation upon nuclear energy and the harm it had done to the world at large, forcing many nations to run nuclear tests in a more secretive manner where they would not disturb human civilization. Among these tests was Operation Experiment, conducted somewhere within the Arctic Archipelago off the coast of Canada in May of 1953, although the exact coordinates of the test itself remain classified. While it was expected that there would be no immediate disruption to humanity due to the choice of location, however, the blast front and radioactive fallout did disrupt something else seemingly trapped in a nearby iceberg. Physicist Thomas Nesbitt, the only witness to have escaped with his life, was later dismissed as being delirious from what was claimed to be a faulty test, but he insisted on being truthful about the discovery of what he would later describe as a prehistoric monstrosity awakened from the ice that had contained it.
"It was a beast of truly colossal size, clearly reptilian in nature, and hailing from the Jurassic period. It was like it had come from twenty-thousand fathoms below - incomprehensively enormous and indescribably terrifying. Perhaps the heat from the blast had melted the ice and awakened it after its 100-million-year hibernation..."
- Dr. Thomas Nesbitt, describing the soon-to-be-called Beast From 20,000 Fathoms
Obviously, as the sole survivor of the incident, Nesbitt found next to no support for his suspicion, but then fishing boats began disappearing off the eastern coast of the North American continent. Then a lighthouse on the coast of Maine was destroyed, with reports claiming that the creature was attracted to the sound of its fog signal, perhaps mistaking it for the bellowing of a rival of its species. The major events of the "Foghorn Incident", however, would occur only after the beast, identified as a member of the transitional tyrant retrosaur species Rhedosaurus bradburius by the late paleontologist Thurgood Elson, found its way to the Hudson River and into Manhattan, possibly due to the conditions of the river being similar to the species' ancestral biome. Perhaps it was looking for a new nesting ground, or maybe it was passing through in search of an inland region that may have been covered by the sea in the Jurassic - none could say. But in any case, the Rhedosaurus would cause total chaos as it made its way through New York, destroying everything in its path, easily routing military resistance despite suffering from a neck injury in the process, and leaving behind its own infectious pathogens which prevented a more destructive means of dealing with it from being carried out. After confirmation that it had been mutated by the radiation from Operation Experiment and was suffering from its deleterious effects, Nesbitt deduced that the creature would need to be put down in a way that neutralized its immune system, the only way being one of the radioactive isotopes which would go on to be used in chemotherapy decades later. With time running out, the Rhedosaurus was lured to Coney Island where a concentrated dose of the isotope was delivered into its wound, eventually causing it to level the amusement park in its death throes and spark a fire that consumed the whole establishment including itself.
While the remains of the Rhedosaurus were retrieved for further study, the United States government had to confiscate them to avoid causing a potential scare among the public, with Nesbitt being the only one involved in the Foghorn Incident who had clearance to reach them. Realizing that there was a connection between atomic energy and giant monsters, he would attempt a study later in the year on the effects of radiation on the health of the natural environment, but the government swiftly defunded it, again to avoid controversy in the face of nuclear energy being increasingly considered as an alternative to fossil fuels. It wouldn't be until June of the following year, when another bomb test in the southwestern U.S. would produce a nest of gigantic mutant insects, that Nesbitt's opinion would be validated, but more importantly, another even more famous calamity would transpire a mere four months later, quickly overshadowing the Foghorn Incident. With the world now knowing that nuclear energy and daikaiju were connected somehow, there had to be some way to address the new surge in titan-related phenomena. And so it was that just a month after the destruction of Tokyo , a certain palaeontologist by the name of Kyohei Yamane met Nesbitt for the first time under the supervision of their respective governments. Of course, the "Yamane-Nesbitt Division" sounded too obvious as a name for the collaborative efforts of these two men and their colleagues, so an alternative name was picked instead: Monarch Sciences*.
Ecology and Behavior:
The Rhedosaurus that ransacked New York, while notable in being the second kaiju attack on New York City and the first to involve a monster affected by nuclear radiation, was at the end of the day an ordinary if somewhat glorified animal as opposed to a more advanced organism. It never was a guardian beast, embodiment of nature, or bioengineered superweapon, it just was, and the folly of man was as much to blame for its rampage as the creature itself. Most of the behavior ascribed to Rhedosaurus in Monarch's records is based on observations of other specimens known from the Caspak Earth Hollow, which remained largely inaccessible by most marine transportation both before and after the Foghorn Incident and has been deemed a protected region since its discovery. This is in part to preserve the biodiversity of the hollow and to prevent any repeats of the same collateral that led to the Rhedosaurus type specimen attacking the U.S. Eastern seaboard, which led to calls for retaliatory persecution of the species as a whole. Claims that these animals are bloodthirsty abominations bent on destroying humanity are best ignored - these relics of the Jurassic are, in fact, an important part of the Caspak ecosystem, and are as important to the region's health as the other species native to the so-called "Land That Time Forgot".
The Rhedosaurus is the largest predator of Caspak by a fair margin, and though a few herbivorous species eclipse even it in scale, it is still capable of hunting them and may in fact be the only species that can reliably do so. For the most part, though, adults of the species prefer to dine on creatures about their size or smaller, finding easier pickings among the mammoths, aurochs and other ungulates, slurpasaurs, and other smaller kinds of retrosaur they share their habitat with, along with large fish such as sharks, whales, and sea reptiles of all stripes which they can chase after due to being amphibious. If given the chance, they may even hunt other terrestrial carnivores such as bears, theropods, other predatory retrosaurs, or smaller members of their own kind. With a vicious bite that can crush a truck like an empty soda can, it can grapple with creatures as large as itself and then either choke the windpipe, shatter their bones, drag them underwater to drown them, or rip great bleeding chunks out of them to kill by exsanguination, if not simply crunch them to a pulp should they be small enough to swallow in one mangled piece. The creature may seize larger prey in its jaws and, while holding onto it, sink the large talons on its front feet into it to further drag it down to a vulnerable position. Devouring every part of the corpse from bones to scales to teeth to fur, the Rhedosaurus can eat up to half its body weight in a single meal, and will readily feast on carrion as well as live prey, easily cracking open marrow-rich bones that no other carnivores can. In some places, the Rhedosaurus is the only creature powerful enough to can keep the populations of certain equally destructive species in check via predation, which is part of why they are a protected species and have largely been avoided rather than systematically slaughtered as with other apex predators known to man... to say nothing of how the armored hides, sheer size, and brute strength of the creatures are regardless too much for even the most experienced hunters to handle.
Rhedosaurus are adaptable predators capable of both pursuit and ambush hunting, as while its inverted limb proportions compared to other, swifter predatory retrosaurs - short, stocky hind legs and long, heavily muscled forelimbs - are suited more for wrestling prey into submission than running it down, its muscular, paddle-like tail makes it a swift, powerful swimmer that can outpace most other aquatic prey animals. Keeping track of its prey by using the highly acute taste recepters on its flickering, forked tongue (in lieu of a Jacobson's organ, which archosaurs lack), the beast will slowly stalk a chosen victim for hours or days at a time before coming at it with a short burst of speed when it is least vulnerable - attacking a prey item in its sleep is a common tactic. The un-mutated animal at adult age is only three-quarters of the size recorded for the type specimen from the Foghorn Incident, but at 150 feet long, this is still enormous enough that it requires a large territory, usually at around 1,000 acres or so, for there to be enough game at any given time to sustain it - especially because the latitude of Caspak means it has to be somewhat more endothermic than a hypothetically similarly-sized crocodile. As such, the animals are fiercely territorial, viciously battling whenever they come across each other; they will size each other up, emitting deep, foghorn-like bellows in challenge, and if no clear size advantage can be gauged, they will throw themselves upon each other in a thrashing mass of scales, fangs, claws, and blood. Even if one doesn't meet its fate at the teeth of the other, both will come away with heavy, bleeding wounds - every adult has a unique pattern of scars from previous fights over the years, which some naturalists use to identify specimens in the same manner as human fingerprints.
Perhaps the only exception to the Rhedosaurus' violently antisocial streak is when mature members of opposing genders meet, and even then they will only mate for long enough to procreate and then part ways without a second thought. Like most other retrosaurs, Rhedosaurus lay soft-shelled, crocodile-like eggs and care for their occupants until the young can survive on their own; a gravid female will bury her clutch of about a dozen eggs in any patch of soft ground near a body of water and remain in the area to prey on any potential egg thieves that try to steal them, at least until they hatch two months later, upon which she will then ferry the young on her back to the nearest lake or pond for safekeeping. Like crocodiles, the alligator-sized hatchlings remain in creches until they grow old and large enough that doing so is unsustainable, but they grow slowly enough that they hold a comfortable niche as mesopredators in the meantime, taking around 50 years to reach adulthood. Only one or two per clutch will make it that far, though, as many other carnivores, including larger Rhedosaurus, will try to dispatch their competitors/potential predators while they're still small. Even those that do make it to maturity aren't necessarily safe, as though obviously formidable when in good health, clashes with rivals or injuries from especially difficult hunts often take their toll, with more than 50% of individuals failing to make it past 80 years of age (Titanus Foghorn itself was found to be a mere 130 years old at its time of passing); the oldest-aged Rhedosaurus remains known have been determined to be around 260 years old at the time of death, and though longer lifespans could be achieved, the harsh ecosystem of Caspak has made most biologists skeptical of this possibility happening naturally.
The Rhedosaurus has a somewhat strained relationship with the sapient inhabitants of Caspak as well as mankind - so difficult is it to kill that many tribes either take heavy losses or are eventually forced to flee (or both) when confronted by one, even though they are well within their right to try and fend it off because of its tendency to attack any other creature they encounter, often without provocation, as an insurance that its place at the top of the food chain remains undisturbed. An adult animal can flatten a village in a half-hour or less if not lured away by some other source of interest, and whole populations of people have been driven from their homes just because a Rhedosaurus decided that it didn't like the placement of their town. The Foghorn Incident aside, though, the species has not suffered significantly from human intervention, but even so, its numbers are still in decline, with only around 500 left in the wild. The greatest threat to its existence is the climate change induced by global industrialization: the warming of the planet's atmosphere and the resultant shrinking of the polar ice caps has led to the entrances to Caspak becoming less protected from invasive species which may venture in through Hollow Earth passageways that were previously inaccessible. This could potentially impact the Rhedosaurus population by putting additional pressure on the vulnerable juveniles, to say nothing of the changing climate of Caspak itself altering the habitats the creatures are used to potentially for the worse. Sadly, as other, more significant kaiju sightings have eclipsed the notoriety of the Foghorn Incident, the species' significance has faded from public opinion and is only maintained nowadays by Monarch and kaiju-centric naturalists monitoring the Caspak ecosystem. If something doesn't change soon to better the global condition, the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms may well disappear from the Hollow Earth completely by the turn of the next century.
Combat StatisticsNormal Abilities:
- Standard Sub-Kaiju Strength: The Rhedosaurus is the apex predator of its realm, and is as such built for tackling the largest prey of the region - few creatures short of kaiju are capable of withstanding its attack. It is not an animal built for long-distance land pursuit, but its mismatched leg proportions are significantly better built for swimming, burrowing, and even climbing, traversing even the roughest terrain when tracking prey. The Rhedosaurus' main weapon is its large, short, and solidly built head, with powerful jaws bearing thick, slightly recurved, and finely serrated teeth like a tyrannosaur for piercing and gripping; its bite force measures at over 12,000 pounds, easily able to rend substances as hard as refined metal and crack open the toughest of bodies. Tearing gigantic chunks of flesh from its prey, thrashing it around like a ragdoll, it lacks subtlety in mauling it to pieces, using its front claws and bludgeoning strikes from its powerful tail to aid in nullifying potential resistance. With its tough, scaly hide and more solidly built skeleton than most other retrosaurs - a must for deep diving - it's able to take punishment better than other smaller relatives can, and often gives as good as it gets as many overconfident assailants find all too late.
- Amphibious: Able to hunt both on land and in the water, the Rhedosaurus seems almost custom-made to prowl the depths of the sea in search of food. Its muscular, paddle-like tail is its main propulsion system, its web-fingered hands being its main means of steering. With relatively smooth scutes and a low-slung body, it is a scarily efficient stealth cruiser that can dive to great depths thanks to certain adaptations such as reinforced, collapsible lungs and a reduction in air cavities in much of the skeletal system, as well as a somewhat streamlined form to move through the water more efficiently. The "Foghorn Incident" Rhedosaurus was able to travel from the far north of Canada to the waters off Manhattan within less than a week, and other Rhedosaurus specimens have been observed diving as deep as 2,000 feet below sea level. Although the species has above-average hemoglobin levels in its blood for greater oxygen storage, like deep-diving marine mammals do, it's also able to breathe underwater thanks to an oxygen-absorbing membrane lining the inside of its mouth and throat, so it can avoid or surprise competitors by remaining below the waves for much longer than strict air-breathers can.
- Infectious Body Fluids: Scientists have speculated that Rhedosaurus evolved from a fossorial or burrowing ancestor, which had to get used to confinement in relatively closed-off environments such as underground cavern systems. It therefore stands to reason that the Rhedosaurus has retained a powerful immune system to keep infection at bay, as it is in constant proximity to all sorts of pathogens. The "Foghorn Incident" specimen, however, revealed just how powerful its immune cells could be - while beneficial to the creature itself, they became a deadly disease when other organisms contracted them from its spilled blood, acting of their own accord almost like infectious bacteria. It used to be thought that this was due to radiation mutating its anatomy, but other Rhedosaurus specimens have displayed the same ability. Every substance containing immune cells including blood, bile, and saliva have tested positive for this pathogen-like property, making close-quarters combat with a Rhedosaurus a dangerous prospect. Why the species' anti-infection mechanisms are so unnecessarily powerful is a mystery, but it's been suggested that because the permafrost and glacial ice above the Arctic Circle is known to contain all kinds of dangerous diseases, the Rhedosaurus' biology and microbial ecology probably had to adapt to the possibility of contracting them. As such, it is highly resistant or outright immune to all manner of pathogens, toxins, and other biological weapons.
- Cryogenic Suspension: Another distinctive aspect of the Rhedosaurus' biology is its ability to withstand extreme cold almost indefinitely. Proteins in its blood not unlike the ones found in many species of fish and amphibians found in polar latitudes allow it to curb the growth of ice crystals in its system before they can spread to dangerous levels, enabling it to go into a state of torpor and hibernate even when frozen solid. During this period, its vital processes slow to just barely enough for it to be considered alive; should it be thawed out, it can easily revive and resume normal activity. While it was initially speculated that the type specimen was preserved in ice since the Jurassic, it has since been found that a Rhedosaurus can remain in this state for only around five years or so - though this is often more than long enough to withstand the seasonal cycle of the Arctic circle and endure especially harsh winters until conditions improve.
Weaknesses:
- Kill It With Fire: Rhedosaurus are technically ectothermic, meaning that their body temperature is based on the environment, but as adults they are gigantothermic and can retain heat to some extent by virtue of both their sheer size and a complex circulatory system to transfer outgoing heat back towards the vitals - a must for polar conditions. Unfortunately, this also means that the creatures have no means of discharging heat that they accumulate from the outside at a pace capable of keeping them from dangerously overheating. Intense heat is thus an anathema to them, and they will retreat from even the smell of smoke or other indications of fire. While a Rhedosaurus has few combustible body coverings or surfaces for flames to stick to, a large enough inferno such as a forest fire can overwhelm it completely if it has no means of escape into water or underground.
- Certain Radioactive Compounds: The immune system of the Rhedosaurus has been found to be neutralized by the same kinds radiation that are now used in modern cancer treatment. Although in humans the risk of a defective or inactive immune system is that foreign pathogens are capable of infecting the body more successfully with fewer defenses available, the mutations induced in the "Foghorn Incident" Rhedosaurus' immune system seem to have caused it to turn against its own body and attack its still-living tissues, causing a deadly allergic reaction followed by catastrophic organ failure. It is still not known if this is the standard condition for all Rhedosaurus, let alone why this occurred in the first place.
- Animalistic Mindset: A Rhedosaurus is not a complex creature - its needs such as food, territory, or breeding are very simplistic and easy to predict with enough knowledge of its behavior. This means that ideally it can be easily dealt with in a nonlethal fashion, assuming it hasn't already made the choice to actively antagonize humanity by nesting in civilized regions. Unfortunately, however, this also makes it less capable of holding its own against more intelligent foes, as it has to rely on its size and strength to do so with only its pathogens as a special technique, and even these can be resisted and do not affect machinery. A Rhedosaurus is less a sapient being and more a wild animal, and can only be communicated with in the most rudimentary forms if its attention isn't focused on its own wants and needs. It is also relatively difficult for a Rhedosaurus to come up with sophisticated strategies, especially in combat, and conversely it is easy for more intelligent opponents to trick it into stumbling into circumstances it can't resolve with brute force alone.
*It should be noted that a prototypical organization related to the study of M.U.T.Os had already been founded prior to this, having been started in 1946 following the end of the second World War. The group at the time was, however, largely a set of collaborating governmental divisions as opposed to a separate institution, an idea which would be proposed by Nesbitt himself to avoid potential intervention by future political upheavals. Yamane and Nesbitt can thus be considered the co-founders of Monarch's modern incarnation, though not the ones responsible for the origin of the research effort itself.
**********
KAIJUNE 2021 STARTS NOW.
We're turning back the clock this time around - for this batch we'll be focusing on some of the kaiju that showed up elsewhere in the world during the time period when the events of all the previous bios took place. First up is none other than Rhedosaurus, a big inspiration for - and a precursor of - the Big G himself!
I actually drew Rhedosaurus once before, many years ago - but the pic was so old that it might as well have been lost, so I don't know what design tics I gave it. I do remember it being inspired by Triassic crocodile relatives such as Postosuchus, which fits the fact that retrosaurs in this world are most closely related to crocodiles. Rhedosaurus is in fact the first actual retrosaur to make a proper appearance in this redesign set, because even though I could've had Godzilla be one, that would've been a little too obvious and a lot of other people who've done Godzilla redesigns have went with the archosaur route, and anyway I decided to go with something better fitting the Atomic Era being at the end of the Permian, before the Age of Reptiles began. So Rhedosaurus gets to be the retrosaurs' debut, befitting one of the earliest true creature features aside from Kong! I vacillated between making Rhedo a primitive carnivorous retrosaur or a transitional tyrant (i.e. man-in-suit-inspired), but ultimately I decided on the latter because I figured it fit Rhedosaurus being semi-aquatic somewhat better. The croc-like armor was carried over from the original traditional illustration, but I refined the proportions a lot to fit the original model better and made plenty of adjustments all around to fit my current aesthetic sensibilities. The color scheme always was planned to have green as a primary basis with orange accents, which was what was present in the original, but I subdued both colors a great deal, and used Big Bad Toy Store's figure of the creature as the main palette inspiration.
With this, the next batch of kaiju redesigns for Let Them Fight is underway! I will be posting them on Tuesday and Saturday optimally depending on how my real-life business goes, but the plan is for me to have added 18 new bios (including this one) by July 31, which conveniently happens to fall on a Saturday. LET'S HECKIN' GOOOOO!
Rhedosaurus (c) Eugène Lourié and Jack Dietz Productions
The Land That Time Forgot [the literature series the Caspak hollow is based on] (c) Edgar Rice Borroughs
All Godzilla-related property mentioned (c) Toho and Legendary Pictures
NEXT: THE ATOMIC SEA MONSTER
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and you really nailed him too! good job skar!
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