A highly advanced sentient race of benevolent beings composed of living crystal, later to be known as the Ancient Ones and Old Ones (though what connection they may have to the Cthulhu Mythos is unknown) thrive in a vast crystalline metroplex in one of the many subterranean regions of the Earth beneath the modern Antarctic continent; they would be virtually extinct by the beginning of the 21st century [GODZILLA AT WORLD'S END].
An advanced human civilization flourishes on the ancient island continent (roughly the size of modern Texas) known as Lemuria in the Pacific Ocean, though often referred to in the modern East as Mu. This civilization developed many advances in genetic engineering, bio-technology, and power generation and storage by means of crystals, much of which was likely appropriated by studying the science of the then largely extinct subterranean race of sentient crystalline beings known as the Ancient Ones [GODZILLA AT WORLD'S END].
This technology enables them to create genetically modified and enhanced dinosaurs and other giant animals for use as bio-weapons against the Atlanteans, living remnants of which would survive into the 20th and 21st centuries; the enhanced genetics of these ultra-dinosaurs would enable them to mutate upon absorbing large amounts of atomic and nuclear radiation to become the legendary dai kaiju, the Japanese term for "giant monsters" [GODZILLA AND THE LOST CONTINENT, along with Mark Brown's online article "Prehistoric Survivors in the Pacific"].
The U.S. government begins secretly testing atomic bombs for use as weapons of mass destruction during WWII in the waters of the South Pacific. The atomic energy released is absorbed by many remnants of the genetically enhanced ultra-dinosaurs created millennia earlier by the Lemurians/Muans, thus causing several of them to mutate into far larger and more powerful creatures. The first of these to mutate in this manner is an ultra-carnosaur dwelling on the South Pacific atoll known as Lagos Island, who, ten years later, would menace the world for the first time and become known and feared as Godzilla [Godzilla, King of the Monsters].
Godzilla appears for the first time, initially menacing the natives of Odo Island in the Ogasawara Island chain, and soon arriving on the coast of Japan, where the kaiju devastates the city of Tokyo and easily defeats the Japanese military. He is later discorporated by a terrible weapon known as the Oxygen Destroyer, which was invented and implemented by scientist Dr. Daisuke Serizowa, who lost his own life during the latter implementation. The entire event was recorded by the Chicago-born American photojournalist Steven Martin (Godzilla, King of the Monsters).
Steven Martin publishes the best-selling book THIS IS TOKYO, detailing his near-fatal coverage of Godzilla's 1954 attack on Tokyo [GODZILLA RETURNS].
The adolescent explorer Zoe Kettering is extremely embittered when her father, a dedicated scientist whom she greatly admires, dies while attempting to prove his theory that civilizations exist beneath the surface of the Earth. Upon locating the antediluvian civilization of the advanced crystalline beings known as the Ancient Ones, along with Biollante, the plant-like kaiju they created long ago through advanced genetic engineering, she somehow expropriates their technology, and uses it to take the last three surviving Ancient Ones captive. She then absconds with their technology to transform herself into a partially crystalline being, and to begin the process of creating various other dai kaiju to serve her will [GODZILLA AT WORLD'S END].
Godzilla somehow manages to reconstitute himself, larger and more powerful than before, due to the incidences of the French government experimenting with nuclear weapon detonations in the Pacific [GODZILLA RETURNS].
Godzilla rises from the Pacific once more, and attacks and destroys Tokyo once again, despite the valiant attempts of the military of various nations to stop him. He is successfully led away from Japan deep into the depths of the Pacific Ocean via a specially designed transmitter in a heroic suicide mission by American Naval officer Admiral Maxwell B. Willis and the renowned elderly Japanese scientist Dr. Hiroshi Nobeyama. The entire event is recorded by the youthful journalist Brian Shimura of the Independent News Network [GODZILLA RETURNS].
[Note: It's the personal conjecture of creative mythographer Chuck Loridans that the events of GODZILLA RETURNS represents the WNU analogue of the film Godzilla 1985, which took place in the Heisei Toho Universe, and this author does not disagree.]
The U.S. government works in concert with the U.N. Security Council on the top secret Project Valkyrie, designed to recruit a talented group of adolescents to form the team known as G-Force, who will use the most advanced military technology then available to oppose Godzilla. The U.S. team is based at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada.
When a group of asteroids head towards the Earth, threatening to destroy it, not only does Godzilla re-appear, but so do other dai kaiju who were also likely surviving Lemurian-created ultra-dinosaurs mutated by exposure to nuclear energy. These other dinosaur mutations include Varan and Rodan.
A group of small meteors that land in Kansas release a strange alien fluid which mutates the DNA of praying mantids, causing them to re-engineer themselves into a deadly swarm of giant mantids known as the Kamacuras, who kill hundreds of people in a few rural Kansas towns until a military unit wipes them out.
Varan is defeated and seriously wounded in battle with G-Force, and Rodan eventually retreats to the North Pole after the creature asexually spawns the first of his progeny above Mt. Rushmore.
The largest asteroid is successfully destroyed by nuclear missiles utilized by a U.N. team, but this inadvertently releases the entrapped tri-headed, extraterrestrial dragon-like kaiju known as King Ghidorah, who promptly comes to Earth and begins wreaking havoc there [GODZILLA 2000].
All of New York City is evacuated when the government realizes that King Ghidorah was heading there. The mystical kaiju known as Mothra, a manifestation of the feminine Mother Spirit of the Earth itself, appears and directs Godzilla to NYC, where the King of the Monsters, Mothra herself, and the G-Force team combine their efforts to seriously injure the three-headed dragon-like monster by severing one of his heads and driving him from the city [GODZILLA 2000].
The remains of King Ghidorah are recovered by the ruthless Mongolian warlord known as Kulgan Khan, who resolved to use the advanced technology at his disposal to rebuild the tri-headed monster as a vastly powerful cyborg under his control [GODZILLA VS. THE ROBOT MONSTERS].
[Note: it is unknown at this time whether or not Kulgan Khan has any connection to other Asian warlords and masterminds who are prominent members of the WNU, such as Fu Manchu, or of other WNU figures bearing the name of the legendary Genghis Khan (either as a forename or a surname), such as Khan Noonian Singh, one of the chief architects of the covert Eugenics War of the late 20th century; see the two EUGENICS WAR novels and TO REIGN IN HELL: THE EXILE OF KHAN NOONIAN SINGH by Greg Cox, the Star Trek episode "Space Seed," and the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan for the entirety of this genetic posthuman's history from the late 20th century into the late 23rd century].
The young woman named Zoe Kettering, who has managed to use the technology of the three remaining sentient crystalline Ancient Ones to take control over them and the ruins of their city, bio-engineers several kaiju: the sea serpent Manda, the insect/mammalian hybrid Battra, the cybernetic Gigan, the insect-like cyborg Megalon, and the animated sludge-like creature known as Hedorah to attack the cities of the world, as well as unleashing a wave of energy known as the Babel Effect, which cuts off all communication technology on Earth for weeks. Moreover, another new dinosaur mutation, Anguirus, rises from the Caspian Sea, where he defeats Gigan in combat. Godzilla defeats Manda and Hedorah in battle, Battra is driven off while in a skirmish with an adolescent Rodan progeny, and Megalon is driven into the jungles south of Mexico by the military. Mothra also psychically intervenes to reveal the cause behind the Babel Effect to humanity via another chosen priestess.
A large and powerful airship known as the Destiny Explorer, helmed by Captain Jack Dolan and his first mate Shelly Townsend, undertake an expedition to the subterranean realm of the Ancient Ones, where they free the three remaining crystalline entities and defeat Zoe Kettering and her horde of genetically created insectoid soldiers known as the Kamiraks. Godzilla soon arrives there, and engages in battle with Biollante, the hybrid plant/reptilian kaiju guardian of the realm. Most of the crew of the Destiny Explorer escape from the ruined necropolis, as the last of the Ancient Ones cause the remains of their once extraordinary city to self-destruct as they depart for deep space [GODZILLA AT WORLD'S END].
Godzilla finds himself trapped in the subterranean realm, and would remain confined there for three years [GODZILLA AT WORLD'S END; GODZILLA VS. THE ROBOT MONSTERS].
The Mongolian warlord Kulgan Khan drives the Chinese forces out of Mongolia, and becomes the new ruler of that nation.
Anguirus begins attacking Russian oil rigs around the Caspian Sea, and a new and deadly dinosaur mutation known as Baragon appears in Montana, ravaging the small town of Denning. Moreover, the adult Rodan, nicknamed 'Fire Rodan' by the press due to his uranium heat beam, returns to the U.S. to once again spawn another progeny.
In an attempt to deal with the continuing kaiju incursions at the beginning of the 21st century, America and Japan create the gigantic kaiju-battling robot known as Mechagodzilla, whereas the Russian Republic creates a similar giant robot, MOGUERA (an acronym for Mobile Operation Godzilla Universal Expert Robot Aero-type). Mechagodzilla successfully battles and defeats Baragon, while MOGUERA manages to defeat and capture Anguirus, thus making Russia the first nation to actually capture one of the kaiju.
Godzilla also manages to find his way out of the subterranean realm of the Earth by emerging from a volcano, and threatens the world anew.
Kulgan Khan, not satisfied with creating a "united" Mongolia, sends his powerful cybernetic kaiju, Mecha-King Ghidorah, to attack Bejing, thus conquering China. However, he then turns his attention to Japan, who refuses to give in to his demands.
When Khan sends Mecha-King Ghidorah to Tokyo in order to make good on his threat, the cyborg finds resistance in the form of Mechagodzilla and MOGUERA, along with the unexpected arrival of Godzilla. The three mecha-kaiju are destroyed in the melee, and the seriously injured Godzilla retreats to the sea.
Khan is also apparently destroyed during the conflict [GODZILLA VS. THE ROBOT MONSTERS].
The ancient Lemurian continent rises again, where a small group of survivors to that ancient civilization is discovered. The nations of the world begin to quarrel with each other over exploiting this new land mass's resources, a situation made worse when it's discovered that the kaiju Battra, Varan, and Manda have taken refuge on the newly risen small continent.
Soon, Godzilla also appears there, and battles an entirely new kaiju, the truly last remnant of the creatures created by ancient Lemurian science, when it emerges from the land mass [GODZILLA AND THE LOST CONTINENT; note: the latter novel remains unpublished at this writing].
Note: Creative mythographer Chuck Loridans has speculated that many of the Showa Era G-films, and likely some of the Heisei Era G-films, had WNU analogues further into the 21st century, following the year 2005 (and the events of GODZILLA AND THE LOST CONTINENT, which all took place during the latter year in the WNU). Some of the evidence he has cited for this has included the presence of maser weaponry in those films, the manned space station at the beginning of the American version of King Kong vs. Godzilla, the experimental intra-solar manned spacecraft from Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, and other tidbits of anachronistic technology to be seen in the various G-films. This is all certainly possible, as maser weaponry wasn't invented in the WNU for use against dai kaiju until the year 2004, appearing for the first time as part of MOGUERA's onboard anti-kaiju arsenal in GODZILLA VS. THE ROBOT MONSTERS.
On my Showa Timeline, I explain how maser technology likely appeared by the late 1950s on that universe's Earth, but Chuck's hypothesis may work well in a WNU context.
Crossover note: The only clear crossover suggesting the presence of Godzilla in the greater WNU is the mention of Miskatonic University more than once in GODZILLA AT WORLD'S END. As all fans of H.P. Lovecraft and most creative mythographers are well aware, Miskatonic University is the WNU center of higher learning where a copy of the dreaded volume of evil magick known as the Necronomicon is kept…and is the setting of several Lovecraft stories dealing with the Cthulhu Mythos, and mentioned in several other sources, as well.
Moreover, others may argue that the crystalline, subterranean Ancient Ones bear some connection to the Lovecraftian entities of the same name also situated beneath the Antarctic continent, as seen in the prominent Lovecraft novella "At The Mountains of Madness." As noted above, 'The Ancient Ones' and 'The Old Ones' are also epithets of the Cthulhu Mythos. What actual connection between the crystalline, apparently technologically oriented and benevolent Ancient Ones of GODZILLA AT WORLD'S END may have to the Xothic entities of Lovecraft remains a mystery, but certainly cannot be outright dismissed.
To my knowledge, this intriguing crossover between the Godzilla mythos and the Cthulhu Mythos was mentioned for the first time years ago on Win Scott Eckert's substantive timeline of the WNU, which can be found on his site, and is an inspiration to this timeline and all of the work I do in creative mythography (as it was my initial introduction to the Wold Newton Universe concept).
Important Note: As of the immediate present, Win Scott Eckert has decided that no dai kaiju has existed in the "consensus" WNU. I am currently arguing for the re-inclusion of a few isolated but prominent examples of dai kaiju assaults that would not alter the political and technological infrastructure of the world overly much, as occurred in realities that had frequent kaiju incursions, such as the various Tohoverses. The kaiju incidents that I would like to see retained in the "consensus" WNU includes the basic series of 1954 events depicted in Godzilla, King of the Monsters, along with Zilla's 1998 rampage through New York City as seen in Tri-Star's Godzilla. Other creative mythographers, such as my friend and colleague Crazy Ivan Schoblotski, is hoping for the eventual inclusion of the events from the initial 1965 Gamera film in the "consensus" WNU (though in this reality, the fire-breathing turtle-shaped kaiju obviously never escaped from the experimental rocket that took him off Earth and en route to Mars as he soon did in the Showa Daiei Universe), along with the other isolated kaiju incursions by Yongary and Gorgo; yours truly has hoped for the retention of Konga. Of course, the events seen in the four comic book series published during the 1960s by Charlton Comics which featured Gorgo and Konga (two series for each of them) could not have occurred in the WNU. Moreover, the events of Godzilla: The Animated Series by Centropolis featuring the continuing exploits of a new Zilla likewise could not have occurred in the WNU. I would also like to see the inclusion of Reptilicus in the "consensus" WNU--sans the events of Charlton's 1960s comic book series featuring the giant dragon-like kaiju, of course--but that will perhaps be the focus of a future article of mine that will hope to convince Win to restore a few classic kaiju incidents on his site's detailed timeline, along with future updates of his CROSSOVERS book series.
However, the events depicted in the Cerasini novels featuring Godzilla are no longer considered canon in the "consensus" WNU, as the events were just too far-reaching and major in regards to their effect on the world to continue to be included. Hence, the Cerasini novels are now considered to have taken place in one of the many alternate Tohoverses that is "closer" in its cosmological schema to the WNU than most of the other Tohoverses we have thus far seen. Thus, the Cerasini Tohoverse includes at least some WNU elements on its timeline, e.g., the Cthulhu Mythos and various pulp-like villains such as Kulgan Khan, thus suggesting the exisence of a version of the Wold Newton Family in that reality.
Thus ends Godzilla's Wold Newton Universe timeline.
Source Material:
For those who would like to see a quick overview of my source material for the above timeline, look below:
The following film:
Godzilla, King of the Monsters
The following five novels, all authored by Marc Cerasini:
GODZILLA RETURNS
GODZILLA 2000
GODZILLA AT WORLD'S END
GODZILLA VS. THE ROBOT MONSTERS
GODZILLA AND THE LOST CONTINENT [completed but unpublished at this writing]
Also, I am indebted to the following for supplementary info on this timeline:
Wold Newton scholar Mark Brown, and his ideas regarding the ancient science of the lost super civilization of Mu as being responsible for the presence of the often extra-large dinosaurs and other large mysterious animals (e.g., giant apes, octopi, sea serpents, etc.), extant in various alternate universes, including the Wold Newton Universe itself, with many of them to be found on uncharted islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean (where the continent of Lemuria/Mu once stood). All of this was first postulated by Mark in his great article "Prehistoric Survivors in the Pacific" (which can be found here). Much of his evidence was backed up on GODZILLA AND THE LOST CONTINENT.
Many thanks to Mark for his insightful article.
And, of course, much of my own speculations and observations were included (within [brackets]) to supplement the information seen in all of the above source material, and various G-fans and Wold Newton historians may or may not agree with them.
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