The Modern Kaiju Era

Part III: Earth's Greatest Battle 1/3

Part III

"Earth's Greatest Battle"

Part 1 of 3

By: 2nd LT. Anthony Hicks

United States Army

"There are more things, in Heaven and Earth Horatio, than are dreamt of, in your philosophy"

- William Shakespeare, "Hamlet" Act 1, Scene 5

If Mankind had learned anything since the Dawn of the Age of Monsters, the Mysterian War, and the advent of the god-like Kaiju Quetzalcoatl and Mothra, it was that despite the size difference, Humanity were not helpless victims to the whim of supernatural forces. We could stop them. We could kill them. In was with this new invigorated spirit of agency, that the superpowers resumed nuclear testing.

Armed with the assimilated Mysterian technology, it wasn't just the arms race that went into full swing between the Soviet Union and the United States, the Space Race took off. So to speak. Confident they could handle any Kaiju that reared their ugly, horned, scaly, pointy-head; the American government resumed atomic testing in the southwest.

The test stirred fears worldwide, not just that the Kaiju would be agitated, but the sides being taken along the superpowers. The contingent of countries that flirted with Communism drove the United States Government into near paranoia. As my father would say; "Those pencil-necks in D.C. found a bigger monster to worry about, The Red Menace".

Nevertheless, even as the world became a chessboard of economic and political warfare, there was one threat they were all on the lookout for, one misplaced Godzilla.

Although the idea of joint operations was out of the question, Soviet, American, Japanese, Canadian, and Chinese naval units scoured the north Pacific for any sign of the titan, but found not so much as a blip of his radioactive signature. Some proposed that the creature was dead, his body rotting on the ocean floor. Even then, it left them lacking any proof one-way or the other. So as the search continued, the rest of the world spun on for man and monster alike.

The United States hummed along with atomic tests in the desert and Pacific, a practice that rankled the 'stop-pissing-off-giant-monsters' crowd to no end, and it was the tiny nation of Peru that surprised everyone by being the next site of tragedy. Early in the year, 4,000 souls perished in an avalanche in Ranrahirca. As if to try and match the disaster, Mount Huascaran erupted not an hour later, destroying 7 villages and exterminating a further 3,500 luckless people.

Those inclined towards imbuing the Earth with a will of its own, proclaimed that the calamity in Peru was the planet's retaliation for resuming atomic testing. More practical commentators speculated that it was a terrible act of capricious yet neutral natural forces. The obvious specter of Kaiju involvement was prepared for, but never acted upon as the threat never materialized. The horrible events at the very least reminded Humanity that not everything was the doing of wild monsters or scheming aliens.

Africa, which had remained largely unaffected by the wrath of the Kaiju, nonetheless, several nations of Northern Africa formed the United Arab Maghreb to establish a coalition of protection. Libya, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia comprise the union, creating a geopolitical check on Europe, and a unified block to respond to Kaiju attack and natural disaster. The formation had the side effect of inspiring revolutionary efforts in the Arabian Peninsula, which would lead to the creation of the Republic of Saradia in 1976.

Not to be outdone, the USSR preformed their own nuclear test on February 2nd, in Kazakh/Semipalitinsk. I should note here that I will be foregoing many mentions of the continuing efforts of the United States and Soviet Union to build a better bomb. The minutia of noting the literally dozens of incidents that took place just in 1962, while not unimportant, is not the focus of my effort. Though I will say that the renewal of the testing is arguably the bold point of escalation in the struggle of Man against Monster.