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Description
Entity ALPHA (AKA GODZILLA)
First Sighting: Odo Island, 1954
Size: 122 metres in height, 350 metres in length
Weight: 125 000 tonnes

History: On October 27th, 1954, a fisherman from a neighbouring island came to the village heavily injured, claiming that a gargantuan sea monster had risen from the depths, sinking his ship and killing his crew mates. He was covered in severe radiation burns and died of his injuries a few hours later, like the one before him. Investigation near the shore discovered unusually high background radiation levels, and the bodies of numerous unidentifiable arthropods not recognizable by any of the island’s residents and speculated to be of prehistoric origin. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, the many seabirds that usually swarmed near the coast had all vanished, having left the island in large flocks in the hours prior.

That night, most of the island’s natives had already fled to the uplands when the waterline rapidly went out many metres, a sure sign of an approaching tsunami. As the wave closed in on shore, an earthshaking roar split the air, and a colossal beast arose from the boiling sea. The creature rampaged through the island before returning to the ocean as suddenly as it had appeared, killing dozens of people and levelling the coastal village in a span of a few minutes. Survivors described the creature as reptilian, with rows of bone-white spines running down its back like a mountain range and a hide of dark, wrinkled scales stretching for over a hundred fathoms. What little military offensive prepared at the site that was mounted against it had failed to deter the beast in the slightest as it disappeared back into the sea with no apparent injury.

Realizing they were now dealing with an unprecedented event, the newly-formed JSDF began the largest military mobilization Japan had seen since WWII, its naval division setting up a barricade of battleships along the entire eastern coast, and a fleet of cruisers continuously circled the creature from above, dropping depth charges as the organism continued to make its way northward. Despite this, on November 3rd, it made landfall on the mainland in Tokyo, easily plowing through the wall of destroyers and antisubmarine vessels before reaching the prefect that evening. Over the next four days, the immense beast laid waste to Tokyo, killing hundreds of thousands as the city was soon engulfed in a sea of flames. A continuous all-out assault by land, air, and sea JSDF divisions on the monster failed to damage the entity, which retreated each day to Tokyo Bay and returned each night again and again to further reduce Tokyo to irradiated ruin. Even worse, aggressive louse-like parasites were dropping off of the creature and onto the streets, killing even more people. As the Japanese government was about to consider the city and any remaining civilians an acceptable loss for the destruction of the organism and began preparing for a final large-scale bombardment in cooperation with the United States, a paleo-chemist, Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, reluctantly revealed to them a substance he discovered which he believed could kill the animal without complete annihilation of Tokyo and the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands more.

Many years ago, Serizawa had discovered a living fossil from the deep sea, an arthropod-like microorganism which thrived on Earth before the Great Oxygenation Event he had dubbed J-MO7. To survive into modern times, it produced a unique compound he dubbed “micro-oxygen”, which he was able to synthesis into a concentrated substance in order to more easily study its characteristics. But during testing, he found that even in very small quantities, the compound had an adverse effect of rapidly breaking down the cellular structure of aerobic organisms when in contact, particularly when submerged in water. Ashamed of accidentally creating such a powerful destroyer, he kept his findings secret for fear of its ability to produce a weapon that could exceed the atom bomb in destructive power. Only now, with Japan facing an agent of destruction just as great as his hypothetical weapon did he decide he could keep it hidden no longer.

At the dawn of the fifth day, officials released the bio-weapon (dubbed the “0-Bomb”) into Tokyo Bay after the creature had returned to the sea once more. In mere minutes, the entire bay was completely sterilized, as everything down to bacteria were broken apart into organic soup by the concentrated micro-oxygen. The creature that had ravaged the city of Tokyo rose above the surface one last time in its death throes as its body was consumed by the chemical, letting out one final cry as its flesh sloughed off before sinking into the depths and vanishing from sight for seemingly the final time. By the time the water had stopped boiling, not even its skeleton remained. The nightmare had come to an end, but the crisis was still far from over. Following the release of the 0-Bomb, Dr. Serizawa destroyed his laboratory and burned all his notes on it before committing suicide, taking all knowledge of its origins and creation to his grave to ensure it could never fail into the wrong hands.

For the first time in recorded history, mankind had come to blows with another foe that could match them in battle. Early theories suggested that this creature (designated as Entity-ALPHA, but often referred to as Gojira after the Odo legend, and later anglicized to Godzilla) was a species of ancient aquatic dinosaur that had survived to the present day under the sea, heavily mutated and subsequently released from its domain by nuclear testing (later studies have indicated a much more ancient origin however). Only some scraps of tissue could be collected from the site of termination in Tokyo Bay due to the 0-Bomb's nature, but Godzilla was declared dead nonetheless, even without a body. Afterwards Tokyo was more or less completely rebuilt with a few years of the incident, and afterwards the JDSF established a subdivision known as G-Force to defend against future possible incidents of large-scale aggressors. The United States (which had actual begun discovering evidence of organisms similar to Godzilla years prior) secretly formed the scientific organization Monarch to study and contain such life-forms, and the Soviet Union established a very similar parallel organization known as the Anti-Megalosaurus Force not long afterwards. While many hoped that this would be a one-off incident, a one-in-a-million freak of nature, it would soon become clear that this was merely the tip of the iceberg. Knowledge of a new plane of biologic existence had opened up to humanity, and this was not a window but a doorway.

Description: A semi-aquatic hyperfaunal predator, the species represents the absolute apex of life on Earth, the top predator of the planet for all time. Gojira (or Godzilla) is believed to have dominated the planet during the Precambrian 'Nuclear Age' when the surface of the Earth was still molten and bombarded by cosmic rays, an immortal engine of biologic destruction of which there are no known equals. The people of Odo Island worshipped Godzilla as a god and there is some evidence of similar beliefs in other ancient mythologies across the Pacific. Perhaps there is truth in this belief, as it may be insulting to classify Godzilla as a mere organism, for this single entity possesses a significant threat to the whole of humanity’s continued existence, for its strength is seemingly unparalleled by any single creature that evolution on Earth has yet wrought.

Godzilla's body is covered in several layers of plate-like scales which can withstand tremendous force without damage, making him nearly impervious to conventional warfare tactics. However, his resistance is more greatly bolstered by the regenerative properties of specialized cells produced by his body (termed “G-cells”), which quickly repair any wound that might be sustained when fed intense radiation. As Godzilla is effectively a biological nuclear reactor, this makes him capable of weathering intense damage over a long period, almost certainly contributing to his ability to endure fights that may last several hours or even days without rest. These G-cells therefore function somewhat like radiotrophic stem cells, and similarly are only produced continuously through an unusual physiological quirk of Godzilla; he induces himself in a permanent pseudo-pregnancy to facilitate the constant production of new G-cells, which is fed into the bloodstream by a large umbilical cord-like organ. A secondary brain in the lower abdomen near the base of the tail helps to control some of the unconscious functions of the body and also acts as a “backup” of sorts, allowing Godzilla to survive and regenerate even if its primary brain is destroyed.

Although having a vaguely saurian-like outward appearance that originally contributed to his classification as some survivor of the ancient Mesozoic Era, but closer examination of his physiology and genetics have since indicated an origin far more distant than even that. More likely his congruent traits with reptiles are the result of a few other unusual traits of G-cells, their capacity to meld with foreign genes (both hyperfaunal and eukaryotic) and its ability to rapidly adapt in response to situations of intense stress. In effect, Godzilla is an organism which no longer evolves through passing down of traits through generations, and is able to adapt its own body through exposure to new traumas. Over hundreds of millions of years, doubtlessly filled with brutal conflict, his form has been moulded into the alpha predator amongst the kaiju, he who will not flee from any foe, for there are now few who can stand before him.

Powered by a series of internal nuclear reactors, he does not appear to eat food, and instead hibernates for long periods under the ocean floor to passively feed on geothermal energy, and although attracted to strong radioactive signatures, even natural atmospheric background radiation provides him some degree of energy. However, he may often be roused from slumber by the promise of a formidable foe which has challenged him by their existence. Armed with powerful jaws containing dozens of spike-like teeth, clawed arms to grapple with opponents, and a broad tail which can level skyscrapers with one swing, his physical capabilities alone make him able to tackle similar-sized foes, but it is this in tandem with his radioactive attributes that make Godzilla such a powerful entity. Simply passing through an area renders it uninhabitable for months as the radioactive compounds released from his body contaminate the lands, but this true strength comes from actively utilizing radioactivity offensively.

Rather than simply being sustained by it, Godzilla is somehow capable of harnessing his atomic energy for long-range attacks. The large rows of dorsal plates (likely derived from vertebrae protruding through his skin) running down his back are believed to act as control conduits which normally help to stabilize his nuclear output, but he is able to redirect this energy into them and then discharge this as a full-body nuclear pulse. Within a short radius this is strong enough to set fire to the air and blow away large objects, while within a wider circle it acts as an EMP that can fry electronics. By heating up the muscle bundles in his tail, he can cut the air into plasma with its swings, superheating the air and creating explosive shockwaves that can strike things that the tail itself didn’t hit. More infamously, he is also able to redirect his excess nuclear energy into a crop-like organ in the throat, and then eject this through his mouth as a pressurized radioactive vapour, resulting a laser beam-like attack known as his “atomic breath”. This vapour is hot enough to melt through steel and shot with enough force to obliterate entire city blocks, and with his dorsal plates also acting as a sort of radar sense to detect things he can’t actually see, Godzilla can accurately strike targets from more than three kilometres away, although he tires with prolonged repeated use. However, as a single shot can obliterate nearly anything that it targets, it is usually more than enough to send his opponents fleeing or into the ground.

It is theorized that Godzilla likely evolved from some aquatic life-form which dwelt in the Earth’s first seas, and as life on land developed during the Nuclear Age, his species eventually came to dominant as top predator before falling to near-extinction at the end of this time period, leaving Godzilla as the only survivor. With a probable global range and fiercely territorial, when another entity of similar strength appears, Godzilla emerges to fight for dominance, thereby indirectly ensuring balance in the planet’s biosphere by arising to stifle a growing threat. Godzilla does not know surrender and will fight until he is victorious or he is dead, but with his immense power and durability, he is certainly a match for anything that may attempt to overthrow his reign as king of the monsters.

———

NEXT: The Red Scourge

Description
Entity ALPHA (AKA GODZILLA)
First Sighting: Odo Island, 1954
Size: 122 metres in height, 350 metres in length
Weight: 125 000 tonnes

History: On October 27th, 1954, a fisherman from a neighbouring island came to the village heavily injured, claiming that a gargantuan sea monster had risen from the depths, sinking his ship and killing his crew mates. He was covered in severe radiation burns and died of his injuries a few hours later, like the one before him. Investigation near the shore discovered unusually high background radiation levels, and the bodies of numerous unidentifiable arthropods not recognizable by any of the island’s residents and speculated to be of prehistoric origin. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, the many seabirds that usually swarmed near the coast had all vanished, having left the island in large flocks in the hours prior.

That night, most of the island’s natives had already fled to the uplands when the waterline rapidly went out many metres, a sure sign of an approaching tsunami. As the wave closed in on shore, an earthshaking roar split the air, and a colossal beast arose from the boiling sea. The creature rampaged through the island before returning to the ocean as suddenly as it had appeared, killing dozens of people and levelling the coastal village in a span of a few minutes. Survivors described the creature as reptilian, with rows of bone-white spines running down its back like a mountain range and a hide of dark, wrinkled scales stretching for over a hundred fathoms. What little military offensive prepared at the site that was mounted against it had failed to deter the beast in the slightest as it disappeared back into the sea with no apparent injury.

Realizing they were now dealing with an unprecedented event, the newly-formed JSDF began the largest military mobilization Japan had seen since WWII, its naval division setting up a barricade of battleships along the entire eastern coast, and a fleet of cruisers continuously circled the creature from above, dropping depth charges as the organism continued to make its way northward. Despite this, on November 3rd, it made landfall on the mainland in Tokyo, easily plowing through the wall of destroyers and antisubmarine vessels before reaching the prefect that evening. Over the next four days, the immense beast laid waste to Tokyo, killing hundreds of thousands as the city was soon engulfed in a sea of flames. A continuous all-out assault by land, air, and sea JSDF divisions on the monster failed to damage the entity, which retreated each day to Tokyo Bay and returned each night again and again to further reduce Tokyo to irradiated ruin. Even worse, aggressive louse-like parasites were dropping off of the creature and onto the streets, killing even more people. As the Japanese government was about to consider the city and any remaining civilians an acceptable loss for the destruction of the organism and began preparing for a final large-scale bombardment in cooperation with the United States, a paleo-chemist, Dr. Daisuke Serizawa, reluctantly revealed to them a substance he discovered which he believed could kill the animal without complete annihilation of Tokyo and the needless deaths of hundreds of thousands more.

Many years ago, Serizawa had discovered a living fossil from the deep sea, an arthropod-like microorganism which thrived on Earth before the Great Oxygenation Event he had dubbed J-MO7. To survive into modern times, it produced a unique compound he dubbed “micro-oxygen”, which he was able to synthesis into a concentrated substance in order to more easily study its characteristics. But during testing, he found that even in very small quantities, the compound had an adverse effect of rapidly breaking down the cellular structure of aerobic organisms when in contact, particularly when submerged in water. Ashamed of accidentally creating such a powerful destroyer, he kept his findings secret for fear of its ability to produce a weapon that could exceed the atom bomb in destructive power. Only now, with Japan facing an agent of destruction just as great as his hypothetical weapon did he decide he could keep it hidden no longer.

At the dawn of the fifth day, officials released the bio-weapon (dubbed the “0-Bomb”) into Tokyo Bay after the creature had returned to the sea once more. In mere minutes, the entire bay was completely sterilized, as everything down to bacteria were broken apart into organic soup by the concentrated micro-oxygen. The creature that had ravaged the city of Tokyo rose above the surface one last time in its death throes as its body was consumed by the chemical, letting out one final cry as its flesh sloughed off before sinking into the depths and vanishing from sight for seemingly the final time. By the time the water had stopped boiling, not even its skeleton remained. The nightmare had come to an end, but the crisis was still far from over. Following the release of the 0-Bomb, Dr. Serizawa destroyed his laboratory and burned all his notes on it before committing suicide, taking all knowledge of its origins and creation to his grave to ensure it could never fail into the wrong hands.

For the first time in recorded history, mankind had come to blows with another foe that could match them in battle. Early theories suggested that this creature (designated as Entity-ALPHA, but often referred to as Gojira after the Odo legend, and later anglicized to Godzilla) was a species of ancient aquatic dinosaur that had survived to the present day under the sea, heavily mutated and subsequently released from its domain by nuclear testing (later studies have indicated a much more ancient origin however). Only some scraps of tissue could be collected from the site of termination in Tokyo Bay due to the 0-Bomb's nature, but Godzilla was declared dead nonetheless, even without a body. Afterwards Tokyo was more or less completely rebuilt with a few years of the incident, and afterwards the JDSF established a subdivision known as G-Force to defend against future possible incidents of large-scale aggressors. The United States (which had actual begun discovering evidence of organisms similar to Godzilla years prior) secretly formed the scientific organization Monarch to study and contain such life-forms, and the Soviet Union established a very similar parallel organization known as the Anti-Megalosaurus Force not long afterwards. While many hoped that this would be a one-off incident, a one-in-a-million freak of nature, it would soon become clear that this was merely the tip of the iceberg. Knowledge of a new plane of biologic existence had opened up to humanity, and this was not a window but a doorway.

Description: A semi-aquatic hyperfaunal predator, the species represents the absolute apex of life on Earth, the top predator of the planet for all time. Gojira (or Godzilla) is believed to have dominated the planet during the Precambrian 'Nuclear Age' when the surface of the Earth was still molten and bombarded by cosmic rays, an immortal engine of biologic destruction of which there are no known equals. The people of Odo Island worshipped Godzilla as a god and there is some evidence of similar beliefs in other ancient mythologies across the Pacific. Perhaps there is truth in this belief, as it may be insulting to classify Godzilla as a mere organism, for this single entity possesses a significant threat to the whole of humanity’s continued existence, for its strength is seemingly unparalleled by any single creature that evolution on Earth has yet wrought.

Godzilla's body is covered in several layers of plate-like scales which can withstand tremendous force without damage, making him nearly impervious to conventional warfare tactics. However, his resistance is more greatly bolstered by the regenerative properties of specialized cells produced by his body (termed “G-cells”), which quickly repair any wound that might be sustained when fed intense radiation. As Godzilla is effectively a biological nuclear reactor, this makes him capable of weathering intense damage over a long period, almost certainly contributing to his ability to endure fights that may last several hours or even days without rest. These G-cells therefore function somewhat like radiotrophic stem cells, and similarly are only produced continuously through an unusual physiological quirk of Godzilla; he induces himself in a permanent pseudo-pregnancy to facilitate the constant production of new G-cells, which is fed into the bloodstream by a large umbilical cord-like organ. A secondary brain in the lower abdomen near the base of the tail helps to control some of the unconscious functions of the body and also acts as a “backup” of sorts, allowing Godzilla to survive and regenerate even if its primary brain is destroyed.

Although having a vaguely saurian-like outward appearance that originally contributed to his classification as some survivor of the ancient Mesozoic Era, but closer examination of his physiology and genetics have since indicated an origin far more distant than even that. More likely his congruent traits with reptiles are the result of a few other unusual traits of G-cells, their capacity to meld with foreign genes (both hyperfaunal and eukaryotic) and its ability to rapidly adapt in response to situations of intense stress. In effect, Godzilla is an organism which no longer evolves through passing down of traits through generations, and is able to adapt its own body through exposure to new traumas. Over hundreds of millions of years, doubtlessly filled with brutal conflict, his form has been moulded into the alpha predator amongst the kaiju, he who will not flee from any foe, for there are now few who can stand before him.

Powered by a series of internal nuclear reactors, he does not appear to eat food, and instead hibernates for long periods under the ocean floor to passively feed on geothermal energy, and although attracted to strong radioactive signatures, even natural atmospheric background radiation provides him some degree of energy. However, he may often be roused from slumber by the promise of a formidable foe which has challenged him by their existence. Armed with powerful jaws containing dozens of spike-like teeth, clawed arms to grapple with opponents, and a broad tail which can level skyscrapers with one swing, his physical capabilities alone make him able to tackle similar-sized foes, but it is this in tandem with his radioactive attributes that make Godzilla such a powerful entity. Simply passing through an area renders it uninhabitable for months as the radioactive compounds released from his body contaminate the lands, but this true strength comes from actively utilizing radioactivity offensively.

Rather than simply being sustained by it, Godzilla is somehow capable of harnessing his atomic energy for long-range attacks. The large rows of dorsal plates (likely derived from vertebrae protruding through his skin) running down his back are believed to act as control conduits which normally help to stabilize his nuclear output, but he is able to redirect this energy into them and then discharge this as a full-body nuclear pulse. Within a short radius this is strong enough to set fire to the air and blow away large objects, while within a wider circle it acts as an EMP that can fry electronics. By heating up the muscle bundles in his tail, he can cut the air into plasma with its swings, superheating the air and creating explosive shockwaves that can strike things that the tail itself didn’t hit. More infamously, he is also able to redirect his excess nuclear energy into a crop-like organ in the throat, and then eject this through his mouth as a pressurized radioactive vapour, resulting a laser beam-like attack known as his “atomic breath”. This vapour is hot enough to melt through steel and shot with enough force to obliterate entire city blocks, and with his dorsal plates also acting as a sort of radar sense to detect things he can’t actually see, Godzilla can accurately strike targets from more than three kilometres away, although he tires with prolonged repeated use. However, as a single shot can obliterate nearly anything that it targets, it is usually more than enough to send his opponents fleeing or into the ground.

It is theorized that Godzilla likely evolved from some aquatic life-form which dwelt in the Earth’s first seas, and as life on land developed during the Nuclear Age, his species eventually came to dominant as top predator before falling to near-extinction at the end of this time period, leaving Godzilla as the only survivor. With a probable global range and fiercely territorial, when another entity of similar strength appears, Godzilla emerges to fight for dominance, thereby indirectly ensuring balance in the planet’s biosphere by arising to stifle a growing threat. Godzilla does not know surrender and will fight until he is victorious or he is dead, but with his immense power and durability, he is certainly a match for anything that may attempt to overthrow his reign as king of the monsters.

———

NEXT: The Red Scourge