Edited by Chris N
[Prominent additions to the text by this editor will appear in brackets and will be initialed]
Okay, first off, let me apologize if this just comes across as a barely coherent listing of various ideas or arguments. Indeed, next to the works of incomparable authors such as Chris N. and Den Valdron, it may be just that. But there have been several things I've been curious about (or have been bothering me), and I decided it was time to write them all down, in the hopes of making sense out of them, or at least providing some fuel for further discussion. That said, let's get on with it.
First thing: Atlantis.
Let's face it, while they seem to feature fairly predominately in the Daiei Universe (both Showa and Heisei), they seem to appear nowhere in the Showa Tohoverse. Who created the Showa Gamera, be it Atlanteans or the Pairans (the alien race from Warning from Space), or perhaps some collaboration, is open for debate. The Heisei Gamera was stated fairly explicitly to have been created by the Atlanteans. Whether the Pairans exist in the Heisei Daieiverse is anyone's guess. But Atlantis isn't really mentioned at all in the Tohoverse, even in Chris's exceptional timeline.
Think about that for a second.
The common theory is that the reason Mu's artificial dinosaurian creatures and other genetically designed weapons are able to absorb radiation and electricity so well is because the Muan (Lemurian, if you prefer) scientists engineered them to do so in order to counter Atlantean weapons that utilized such forms of energy. Okay, that makes sense. Perhaps Atlantis even had kaiju-weapons of their own. Who knows? Some of the creatures wandering around the Pacific might actually be of Atlantean origin, rather then Muan. That could even be the reason King Kong was so adversarial to Godzilla when the two met. He went VERY FAR out of his way to go and fight the big G, after all.
But soon afterwards, the Muans achieve space travel and begin establishing intrasolar colonies... and the Atlanteans don't? That doesn't make sense. If they were as opposed to each other as they seemed to be, given all the [atomically altered] kaiju weapons that are extant in the Showa Era and just wandering around, wouldn't the Atlanteans be extremely concerned about the Muan space program? After all, from such a position, if they wanted to, the Muans could just drop large rocks on the Atlanteans, which would impact with the force of atomic weapons. And even if the colonies were made up of dissidents (and who said they ALL were?), it would still give Mu too big an edge.
Also, Mu was bigger than Atlantis. There were, quite simply, far more Muans than Atlanteans. The only way the Atlanteans could have not been beaten was if their technology was superior to the Muans. Indeed, that may have been why the Muans had to turn to engineering monsters to fight - their other weapons just weren't good enough.
Thus, I would propose that Atlantis established colonies of their own. They may not all have succeeded, of course, but for the sake of argument, let's say a large number of them did. Why does there seem to be no trace of them by the time the Muan colonies begin launching their almost successive attacks on Earth? There are several possibilities:
1) The Atlantean colonies are more peaceful then their Muan counterparts, and would, as a result, have no desire to conquer their former homeworld. Of course, this option leads us to acknowledge the possibility that one or more of these colonies might have been conquered by the Garogain, much as the Muan colony known only as Peaceland was.
2) They have the same cloaking capability as the Xians and Mysterians seem to have had, perhaps even superior. If this is true, then, how does one explain their apparent lack of interest in the Muan colonies trying to invade Earth? One possibility is that they merely wish to be left alone. Or, perhaps, they were interested, but since Earth beat the invaders back every time, they felt no need to reveal themselves or get involved.
3) The Muans destroyed them. Given that an unspecified Great Cataclysm destroyed both Atlantis and Mu, each side might have decided that the other was to blame, and declared war. Given their higher numbers, the Muans won, but soon ended up turning on each other, with Mars being destroyed by the Xians, and both 'Planet X' and 'Mysteroid' cloaking themselves.
Of course, it's entirely possible that it was a combination of reasons. Perhaps by the time of the 1950’s, there are only a small number of cloaked colonies left - maybe only one or two - and due to either their peaceful nature or the fact that they have so little resources or manpower to spare that they'd be at a significant disadvantage in taking on the former Muan colonies. And there does seem to be evidence of either former Atlantean colonies or refugees on Earth (Warlords of Atlantis and other such non-Toho films, for example). Another possible piece of evidence is found in the video game ‘Godzilla: Monster of Monsters!’ There are an awful lot of ancient ruins on the planets in that game. More then we'd be able to account for using just the known Muan colonies. Now, that could mean that there are or were additional Muan colonies, but I prefer to think that at least some of them were Atlantean.
The second thing: The Simeons and the "black hole."
If we're to accept the idea that the Simeons live inside our own solar system, then there are obvious problems with the idea that their world is in danger from a black hole. Again, Chris and Den have already addressed this, and I agree that the most likely culprit is Gorath. What is Gorath, you ask?
...well, that's a pretty good question. The main contenders are either a neutron star (or a fragment of one) or a black hole (likely a fairly 'small' one), wrapped up in a cyst of degraded matter. Personally, I would be more inclined to lean in the neutron star direction. But how would it be so mobile? I haven't actually seen Gorath, but from everything I've read, it was moving along at a pretty good clip, and while the gravity wells of the various planets, asteroids, and such that it had passed on its way to us wouldn't have been strong enough to stop it, they would have at least have affected it a little, possibly even slowed it down.
My guess - and given my absolute LACK of astronomical credentials, I cannot stress the word "guess" enough - is that the neutron star inside Gorath was originally part of a binary pair. Eventually it's stronger gravity pulled too much matter and was too severe for its larger (yet containing less mass) companion, their orbits were drawn too close together, and the companion went nova, forcibly expelling Gorath from the system. Over the many, many years it took to reach us, it acquired a shell of extraneous matter. How much or how little of the neutron star was left inside Gorath's core, I'll leave up to people more knowledgeable than myself. (Though I consider it likely that it was a fragment, as a whole neutron star likely would have decimated the entire system, no matter how we rearranged the planets, in my opinion.)
But I've strayed away from my point, haven't I? Sorry about that. So, if the "black hole" in question is Gorath, why do the Simeons say that their world is "third from the sun"? A possible solution for that actually comes from the Showa Gamera movies.
Several times in the various films, the characters mention stars when it's obvious they're talking about planets. It's debatable that they do it in Gamera vs. Viras, and absolutely certain that they do it (repeatedly) in Gamera vs. Guiron. Tera is referred to as a star, Earth is a star, they're 'twin stars'...you get the idea. Perhaps it was just a mistranslation, but the terms ‘star’ and ‘planet’ sometimes seem to be interchangeable. (Note that in Gamera vs. Guiron, the sun was called 'the Sun'. I've never seen Warning from Space, so I can't say if they did the same there.)
So perhaps we have the same sort of thing happening here. Perhaps the Simeons are actually located on the third world from the planet, in this case Saturn. And from what was said in Terror of Mechagodzilla, Gorath may have destroyed at least two other Saturnian moons. Though they could have also just been destabilized and rendered temporarily (on the geological scale of measuring time) uninhabitable for human - or Simeon - life.
As a side note, it's my personal theory that the moon seen destroyed in Gorath was not just any Saturnian satellite, but the Simeon homeworld, explaining their lack of further invasion attempts after 1975.
The third thing: Planet X and the A-Cycle Light Ray
Do they ever give a good explanation of just what the hell the A-Cycle Light Ray is? All I know that they said for certain is that it's a laser that can cut off magnetic waves, which was what the Xians were using to control the kaiju. Okay, sure, energized, focused light waves (along the A-cycle, whatever that is?) can block magnetic waves. Somewhat goofy, but I've accepted worse, in sci-fi. Obviously, this is either recovered Mysterian technology, or inspired by it. So, they used the Light Ray/laser to free the monsters, while simultaneously attacking the Xians themselves with a sound frequency discovered to be harmful to them (which was first used as a personal alarm device by an inventor named Tatsuo). Everybody got that?
Good, because here's where it gets confusing. The fact that a laser can somehow block magnetic waves is difficult enough to believe, but now we're also supposed to believe that the citizens of Planet X are vulnerable to just this one thing, this one specific sound...and not only do they NOT destroy the invention, and/or kill the inventor, they leave the invention WITH the inventor, who then uses it to free himself and another captive, Glen. (Off topic, Glen is the co-pilot of Fugi, who's the older brother of Tatsuo's girlfriend. Small world, isn't it?) Granted, Tatsuo didn't know his invention hurt the Xians until he and Glen read about their vulnerability in a letter by the then late Miss Namikawa, but still...this is the sort of logic the Xians employed? I'm starting to understand how Earth beat them so easily.
The Controller and his flunkies seemed to be aware that the humans of Earth were devising ways to stop him. That was, I believe, why they decided to begin their attack before the deadline they'd given Earth to surrender expired. But then, they DON'T attack the place(s) where these weapons are being developed? So...what? They know there's a threat, they just don't know where it is? Their sensor technology seems to be a bit fickle. Remember, they also utterly failed to detect that Glen and Tatsuo weren't on the boat that they blew up, or that there were now two humans swimming away from their island base. Perhaps their attention was too focused elsewhere?
Another mystery is why the Xians didn't just invent some kind of sound dampening technology. (Yes, they had sound proof material, but the "soundproof" bars on the jail cell holding Glen and Tatsuo didn't seem to help the two guards all that much.) It's seemingly their ONE weakness...and they take ZERO steps to neutralize it? Earth's sound attacks seem to get through their spaceship hulls with astounding ease. Perhaps their technology was set up so that they couldn't help but pick up audio signals, especially with not only the military directing it right at them, but also with every radio or television within range playing it as loud as they could. Or perhaps the scientists were utilizing some kind of Mysterian technology to get through to them? That's entirely possible.
I'm guessing, though, that the Xians had figured something out by the time they came back in ‘Godzilla, Monster of Monsters!’, because there didn't seem to be any such sound attacks used against them then.
You have to wonder, though, just whatever became of Glen's "appointment" to be the first ambassador to Planet X.
Misc. Ruminations
Looking for perfect logic in a sci-fi series (televised or cinematic) is often an exercise is futility. I know this, as does, I think, just about every G-fan. Some things make perfect sense, while others leave you scratching you head, going, "Huh? What?" While the G-films contain many such moments, Chris, Den, and several others have done an exceptional job of explaining many of them. Hopefully, I've helped with at least one or two more.
One could make the argument that if at least one Godzilla video game is being counted as more or less canon, why not the rest of them? The problem would be that at least two of them (maybe more) feature aliens that are definitely non-human. Or at least they seem to be. ‘Super Godzilla’, for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, would be one such game. The invading aliens (did they ever identify themselves?) don't really even resemble humans. I'm not sure which continuity it would fit in, given that, one the one hand it features the Showa Mechagodzilla [in the American version of the game only; the Japanese version of this game, it should be noted, featured the Heisei Mechagodzilla—CN], King Ghidorah being controlled by aliens (that tramp!), and, well, aliens. On the other hand, it also has Heisei characters and devices like Biolantte, Battra, the Super X-2, Mecha-King Ghidorah, and a new monster, Bagan. (As a side note, Bagan was originally intended on being a villain in a solo Mothra film that never quite happened.) If I had to choose, though, I'd pick the Showa continuity, albeit something of an AU. It could be seen as that universe's version of the events of Destroy All Monsters (it did happen in the year 1999, after all), though with much fewer monsters.
The other two games I'll mention are related. ‘Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee’ and ‘Godzilla: Save the Earth’ both feature the same alien invaders, the Vortaak (if I spelled that right), with StE being something of a sequel to DAM. Again, we have a fairly inhuman alien race... almost. They're definitely humanoid, and while unlikely, it's not entirely outside the realm of possibility that they could have used Muan genetic experience to alter their own DNA, perhaps to adapt to an environment that could no longer support human life. It's interesting to note that the Vortaak ships bear a certain resemblance to Xian ships. Given that both games feature multiple versions of Godzilla, Mechagodzilla (StE has both Heisei and Millennium versions), as well as a mixture of Showa, Heisei, and Millennium monsters, it's almost impossible to include either game in any continuity. So we'll move on.
It's been suggested that Hedorah might have been created by the Nebulans. An interesting idea, in my opinion. As I recall, they stated in the film itself that the organisms that became Hedorah were alien in origin. So why not the Nebulans? They certainly have the experience with pollution-created monsters. And think about this for a second: Hedorah eats pollution. This suggests that it evolved in an environment where there's almost nothing to eat except for pollution, which matches the Nebulans description of their homeworld perfectly. They, like the Xians, might have decided to covertly send a monster to test the Earth's defenses and level of technology. Unlike the Xians, though, they likely have much less resources to work with, and are able to make only one overt attack, one with an attack force that seems, comparatively, to have much less manpower (bugpower?) then the other colonies’ attempts. Sending a collection of the organisms to utilize earthly pollution to form into Hedorah would have cost them very little. So I think it's safe to attribute Hedorah's attack to the Nebulans. The Nebulans, incidently, would have been my choice for villans in Godzilla: Final Wars, rather then the Xians. On the one hand, well, the original Xians from Godzilla vs. Monster Zero will always be the "real" ones to me. Director Ryuhei Kitamura wasted an incredible opportunity to do something with the Xians, IMHO. They were originally emotionless, machine-controlled bad guys with an almost hive mind. If he really needed to update them, Kitamura could have made them somewhat like the Borg from the Star Trek Universe. The Xians were NOT leather coat wearing martial artists led by a kid who freaks out if things don't go his way.
But the villains in this movie are not only disguised non-human aliens (which would narrow it down to the Nebulans, Simeons, or Kilaaks) and control an army of Earth's monsters (which might have signified the Kilaaks, who would have been my second choice), but the only monsters that belong exclusively to them are Gigan and Monster X/Keiser Ghidorah - and the only aliens/colony to control both monsters at once (not counting the Garogain, as not only did they control them separately, but a lot of G-fans might not know who they are, and had they been included, we'd also need to have Zone Fighter, which would only have further complicated the film) are the Nebulans. The villains in GFW also use the explanation/excuse/rationalization that they're doing this for Earth's own good, because of all the damage humans had been doing to the planet, just like the Nebulans did. The Xians just wanted to conquer us.
As such, the Nebulans would have been a better choice in GFW than the Xians.