The New Age of Monsters had begun.
— Chapter 1
In 1954, a giant creature attacked Tokyo and killed countless people in it's rampage through the city. And while this so called "Godzilla" was apparently killed, it soon turned out that it was only the first of many creatures who soon appeared all over the globe. In the following decades, dozens of these so-called Kaiju caused massive damage and millions of deaths before the number of kaiju incidents started to rapidely decrease in 1995. This timeframe is now generally called "The first age of monsters"
Now, 25 years later, the original Godzilla reawakes after spending the last 66 years healing from his injuries. But he soon learns that the world has changed quite a bit during his sleep.
The New Age of Monsters
by welcometodunscaith is a crossover fanfiction that combines the worlds of Godzilla, Pacific Rim, Neon Genesis Evangelion and Symphogear to create a world where kaiju regularly go up against giant mechs, artificial bioweapons, Magical Girls and each other while trying to figure out if and how coexistence with the humans could be possible.
The New Age of Monsters provides examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: In order to survive against the kaiju, humanity has researched all kinds of possible counters and has progressed a bit further than they did in the real world.
- Advanced Ancient Humans: The people of Mu and other ancient civilization lived tens of thousands of years ago, but were far more advanced than humans currently are. Among their greatest achievements are the creation of the Symphogear and bioengeneering artificial kaiju
- Alien Invasion: The first Mechagodzilla and Gigan both came from space and had the original mission to conquer the planet for their creators. Luckily, Mechagodzilla has since been reprogrammed and Gigan has broken free from their control long ago. Now, he is doing this for fun.
- A Million Is a Statistic: Ever since the first age of monsters began back in 1954 with Godzilla's attack on Tokio, kaiju attacks with thousands of casualties have become quite common all over the globe and humanity seems to have more or less accepted this as the status quo. However, it is noted that for all of the destruction caused by kaiju, the causality numbers are still dwarfed by those of the second world war.
- Applied Phlebotinum: There seem to be thousands of different uses for Godzillas cells. It can be used to create LiNKER note , to fight cancer and even turn humans into human-kaiju hybrid.
- Armies Are Useless: Zig-Zagged: As usual for kaiju stories, most regular weapons are next to useless against the kaiju. But in the sixty-six years since Godzilla's first attack against Tokyo, earth's military forces have been reorganized and are now equipped with maser cannons and similar technology. And while more powerful kaiju can still easily smash through them, they are capable of driving of and even capturing weaker ones like Zilla or Gorosaurus
- Attack Reflector: Mothra can scatter her scales in front of her, creating a shield that can send Godzilla's atomic breath right back at him.
- Behemoth Battle: Pretty much every battle that doesn't involve the Symphogears is this.
- Benevolent Monsters: Next to Mothra, there are also many other kajus or other creatures that protects humans like King Caesar, Gamera, Manda and Sanda. However, there also quite a few that don't agree with that philosophy...
- Big Good: Mothra, period. She is one of the strongest Kaijus on the planet and protects humans against all threats, kaiju or otherwise. As a result, people have started a new religion around her.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Many scientists point out that the taxonomy of most kaiju makes absolutely no sense.
- Canon Welding: The world the fic takes place in is mostly based on an amalgamation of the entire Godzilla franchise. As a result, the backstory of many characters and events has been changed to fit in the new continuity
- The Symphogears were created with Mothra's and are powered by her song
- The drift technology was developed by studying Saegusa Miki's brain
- Jet Jaguar is an AI-controlled Jaeger
- The creator of the Pacific Rim kaijus is the long-lost civilization of Mu
- Doctor Ver and Finé are now eco-terrorists who want humanity to stop fighting and give earth back to the kaiju
- The Evangelions are created by giving Godzilla's blood to humans
- Several of the Evangelion angels appear as Breachers
- The Autoscorers are Hotua that have been exiled for misusing Mothra's gift of alchemy
- Shem-Ha is the last survivor of the martian civilization that was eradicated by King Gidorah
- Captured Super-Entity:
- Over the years, humanity managed to capture some of the weaker kaiju like Gorosaurus on monster island. Said prisoners are usually content with staying there since their long lifespan makes their imprisonment feel more like a short vacation
- Nerv has Gozilla's younger sibling and use him to create their Evangelions
- Child Soldiers: None of the EVA pilots is anywhere near adulthood, which disturbs several people quite a bit when they learn that they are only fourteen.
- Several of the Symphogear users qualify as well.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Because of the frequency of kaiju attacks in their country, the Japanese have accepted them as part of everyday life.
- Conveniently Timed Distraction: Back in 1986, an undercover agent had infiltrated the “Red Bamboo” terrorist organization that had managed to bring Ebirath under their control. But while he was undercover to gather intel, Megaguirus started a fight with Ebirath, allowing him to use this opportunity and blow up their means to control the kaiju.
- Cool Airship: The Super-X-III used by Finé. It even has a cloaking device.
- Creature-Hunter Organization: In order to fight back against the kaiju, several of these were created. Their methods and tasks differ somewhat, but they are all working side by side to protect humanity
- The Pan-Pacific Defense Corps fields giant robots that are called Jaegers. Originally developed to stop the Breachers, the latest models are also capable of going up against true kaiju
- NERV deploys Evas, giant bioorganic battle mechs that are much faster than Jaegers and possess self-healing abilities
- S.O.N.G has the Symphogear system that allows regular humans to fight kaiju
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- Baragon completely destroys Kamacuras when the latter attacks Paris.
- Gamera vs the Gyos. Which makes sense since he was literally created to be their perfect counter.
- Dawn of an Era: Godzilla's first appearance in 1954 heralded the begin of the first age of monster. His reappearance in 2020 soon awakens several other kaiju who have been inactive for decades, signaling that a new age is about to begin again.
- David Versus Goliath: 1.57 meter Hibiki Tachibana vs 105 meter Godzilla. Doesn't really get more extreme than that.
- In General, every fight where the Symphogear users fight Kaijus is this.
- Downer Beginning: In the very first chapter, Godzilla awakes from his decade-long sleep, destroys the MONARCH outpost he is in and kills over 3000 people.
- Emergency Transformation: When shot by Alan Jonah, Dr. Ver injects himself with unaltered Godzilla-Cells. This allows him to survive the injury and over the next month, he gradually transforms into a small human-kaiju hybrid.
- EMP: Some of the Breachers and kaiju have the ability to generate one, forcing any opposing Jaeger to temporarily insulate their conn pods to avoid having their entire system fried. Evangelions on the other hand are mostly immune to it.
- Enemy Mine: Happens all the time across all faction and races in order to confront bigger threats.
- In a particular notable instance, Gigan's appearance in chapter 10 turns what was about to be a three way brawl between Finè, Jishin-Mushi and the united forces of SONG, Eva-00 and Striker Eureka into a with it on the receiving side after every single faction changes priorities and targets him.
- On a larger scale, conflicts between different countries have become almost nonexistent since the kaiju present a common threat to all of humanity. Most superpowers have greatly reduced their nuclear arsenal and some even say that the emergence of kaiju prevented World War 3.
- Epigraph: Each chapter starts with a short text that is taken from an in-universe news article or book. They mostly serve to provide some backstory for the individual kaijus and as exposition for the world in general.
- Everyone Went to School Together: Stacker Pentecost and Gendo Ikari went to the same college. Nowadays they are leading two of the world's biggest anti-kaiju agencies
- Foe Romance Subtext: When Tsubasa and Maria fight each other at Fine's first outing, their battle banter soon almost turns into flirting. They continue this later in Paris.Maria (In reponse to Tsubasa's last attack): So aggressive-
Tsubasa: Maybe I’ll get some answers out of you if I take you to bed. - Fun with Acronyms: In this universe, S.O.N.G stand for "Special Operations for the Neutralization of Gigafauna". Dr. Ver even lampshades it.Ver: How long did it take you lot to come up with a name that would let you use that acronym?
Fujitaka(In the background): I thought it was clever. - Giant Animal Worship: The ancient civilizations did this with the kaijus, constructing giant buildings that could accommodate their size and praying for their support and protection. The Hotua and Iwi are tribes that stayed loyal to their gods (Mothra and Kong respectively) to the present day.
- Due to her role as protector of the human race, Mothraism has started to gain more and more followers all over the globe.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: Despite being on opposite sides, Maria and Tsubasa visit a cafe in Paris together, something that Maria describes as a date. Justified because she disagrees with the upcoming attack on the city and plans to help Tsubasa in defending against it.
- Greater-Scope Villain: King Gidorah. While he hasn't shown up yet due to being stuck frozen on Mars, he is clearly being built up as the greatest threat to earth out there and even the other antagonists are wary of him.
- Great Offscreen War: The first war. As in the first war ever! It happened many thousand of years ago and consisted of a series of battles between many different humans factions and their respective “gods”. Eventually, the kaijus grew disillusioned with their followers and stopped supporting them, leading to an last attempt by Mu to conquer the world by controlling kaiju to attack their weakened enemies. This proved to be the last straw for Manda and she allowed Mu to be destroyed by the other kaiju.
- Hollow World: There exists a whole network of giant subterranean tunnels beneath the earths surface, called Hollow Earth. It is filled with all sorts of gigafauna, ranging from dinosaurs to kaiju, and makes it easy for it's inhabitants to travel between continents in record time.
- Hostile Terraforming: Biollante has transformed a good part of the Sahara into a prehistoric jungle. Public opinion is divided on whether this is a good or bad thing.
- Humans Are Bastards: Quite a few Kaijus and more than one eco-terrorist organization believe this and would love to eradicate all humans - or at least kill a few billion so that the rest know their place.
- Magical Girl Warrior: While they are technically not magic but powered by phonic gain like Mothra's songs, the Symphogear users check pretty much every box on the list.
- Martians: Mars used to be inhabited by an intelligent species hundreds of thousand of years ago. Then King Gidorah came...
- Masquerade: The Breacher crisis is kept secret from the general populace because the governments fear that knowledge of a growing, malicious kaiju army will cause worldwide unrest and anarchy. However, once the the numbers become to big to suppress anymore, they inform the public.
- Monumental Damage:
- Kamakuras attack on Paris destroys the Arc de Triomphe
- The Tokyo Sky Needle is destroyed during the battle against Megaguirus
- Nanomachines: Gigan is partially made out of self-repairing nanometal. The JSDF later use recovered samples to built Mechagodzilla III
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Asuka attacking Spacegodzilla causes the latter creature to abandon any attempt to communicate with the assembled Kaiju and attack all of them.
- Poor Communication Kills: The fact that humans and kaijus can't really communicate with each other is considered to be one of the greatest obstacles for true peace between the species and one of the central topics of the entire fic. A few of the more intelligent kaiju can understand the meaning behind human words, but with the exception of Mothra's Shobijin, they usually have no way of showcasing what they themselves think beyond their actions.
- Power Gives You Wings: When they are fighting, the energies around the Symphogear users form small (nonfunctional) versions of Mothra's wings that can only be perceived by kaiju.
- Psychic Link:
- Saegusa Miki connects herself with Godzilla in an attempt to understand him and stop his second Tokyo raid. He does not appreciate it, leading to heavy backlash on her end.
- King Gidorah has also created one with Vivienne Graham while she was studying his frozen body on Mars. Fortunately, she is saved by Shem-Ha who manages to cut the connection
- The drift technology creates this between two Jaeger pilotes
- Scissors Cuts Rock: Spacegodzilla has a near perfect dust shield that can deflect the atomic breath of other kaijus and is physically about as strong as Godzilla. Biollante's breath easily obliterates this defense and cuts of one of his arms in one shot.
- Shout-Out:
- The author likes to give characters from various Godzilla movies or comic series background roles as bridge bunnies or similar roles.
- The cook of S.O.N.Gs headquarters is named Emiya
- A reporter in chapter 19 is named Clark Kent. He even works for the Daily Planet.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Happens a lot whenever kaijus and humans team up against a bigger threat.
- Tempting Fate: In chapter 13, Chris wonders how the situation could get worse when Hibiki is refusing to stay down despite the fact that equipping her Symphogear is threatening her life at this point. Cue Kirika and Shirabe singing their superb song.
- The Stations of the Canon: The main story follows the story of Symphogear, starting with season 2. Several incidents like Finé's attack on the concert and destruction of the Sky Needle happen similar to how they did it canon and stay largely apart from the Pacific Rim-inspired Breacher storyline that happens simultaneously.
- Underwater Ruins: The ancient civilization of Mu was destroyed thousands of years ago and is almost completely flooded with the exception of a few air bubbles in some if the buildings.
- Unstoppable Rage:
- When Godzilla first emerged in 1954 and laid waste to Tokio, he destroyed anything and anyone in his path. The reason? The Americans had tried to kill his entire family with an atomic bomb and he was the only survivor. Or so he thinks....
- Later, Alan Jonah uses a brainwashed Miku and the Shénshòujìng relikt to make Godzilla become as furious as he was back during his 1954 rampage with the goal of eradicating humankind.
- Villainous Rescue: Maria saves Miku during the Sky Needle attack. However, the rescue quickly turns into a kidnapping when Dr. Ver finds out that they could use her for their plan.
- The Worf Effect: In his debut chapter, Mechagodzilla II is described as an old but still powerful machine that has successfully driven back several kaijus in the past. Godzilla destroys it in less than fifteen minutes and moves on to Tokyo.
- World's Strongest Man: Or, in this case, Worlds Strongest Kaiju. Surprisingly, it is neither Godzilla or Mothra, but Biollante whose atomic breath produces more energy than the entire human population uses in a year.
