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Godzilla AU Info (Overdue)
This is Showa-era Gigan from a group AU that I should probably explain his part in! So here is a rundown of his history, from canon to where it gets AU-and-Overdue-game specific. Note that Godzilla canon is wacky, to say the least, and is prone to both huge gaps in information that will never be revealed and also information that was revealed in some magazine interview in 1975 or something, so I'm working with what I have and filling in my version as makes sense to me. If I'm missing something blatantly canon then please let me know! I often see fans mention things I then can't find any source on, which could be a me skill issue or a them skill issue. Shrug!
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Anyway, Gigan is a kaiju—an absurdly large monster—who was born on a planet in the M Space Hunter Nebula region. We don't know how long ago, but kaiju tend to have ridiculously long lifespans, so I'm going to say somewhere in the tens of thousands of years. He was originally fully organic; we also don't know exactly what he looked like at that time, but it may have been something like this (so, Gappa). This Earth-like planet (which is unnamed) was home to a race of human-like aliens who began to destroy it in pretty much the exact same way modern-day humans are treating Earth: industrialization, pollution, etc. The situation spiraled far enough out of control that the original Nebulans went extinct, leaving behind a race of alien cockroaches who were hardy enough to survive the harsh conditions—at least for a while. These cockroach aliens began to evolve into the niche the human-like aliens had left behind, growing to human proportions and developing human-level intelligence and beyond, becoming the new dominant species on the still-dying planet.
The creature that would become Gigan had also survived the planet's gradual decline, and the new "Nebulans" decided to bring him under their control for use as a weapon and protector. They modified him with cybernetic parts to make him both more durable against the poor conditions and more dangerous to any potential enemies, eventually turning him into this form. While full mind control wasn't necessary to keep the monster under their control, as he was willing to work with them after they significantly upgraded his abilities, they also developed the technology to do that and became able to feed directions and compulsions directly into his mind.
But time on their dying planet was running out, so upon discovering Earth, the Nebulans decided to act to save it from the destruction of humans—by killing off humanity and taking over the planet for themselves while it could still be saved. Utilizing Gigan and also King Ghidorah in their plot, then . . . the movies Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla vs. Megalon happened, and I'm not going to fully summarize them here, because those parts are just the movies and you can go watch them or read synopses. Moving on from vs. Megalon!
After the events of that movie, a seriously injured Gigan fled back into outer space, where he was intercepted by another alien race, the Garogas (also suspiciously insect-like). The Garogas nursed him back to health, repaired him, and gave him further upgrades so he could aid them in their own quest to conquer the Earth. Upon deploying him for this purpose—this is where the timeline finally diverges into the AU.
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A feature of this AU is that all kaiju, by nature of being huge, reality-defying creatures who come from a franchise with countless alternate timelines and retcons happening, exist with some vague awareness of the existence of these timelines and the happenings within them. Nothing as specific as a premonition of exact future or other-timeline events, at least not in Gigan's case, but an awareness all the same. In Gigan's case, as he was being deployed back to Earth for the final time, he keyed in to the sense that this was going to be the final time—that his timeline was about to end. (He could maybe have figured this out himself through the fact that he'd already lost to Godzilla twice and almost died the second time, and he wasn't fully recovered from those injuries yet, but hey.) An awkward awareness to suddenly gain while en route to Earth!
He did not really consider just fucking off and not going, being under the mental influence of his new masters on top of having no real sense of any other options available to him. But as he approached the planet, a new mental influence intruded upon the other: a mysterious voice asking him to aid them instead. Eager to snatch any opportunity to follow someone who was maybe not going to get him as immediately killed, Gigan took the bait without question, acceding to the request and getting pulled into the library that is the setting of Overdue to work with the game's NPCs instead.
But in yet another twist of the Timeline Soup, taking this offer also brought him into the direct vicinity of Future Mothra and Battra, who were embroiled in their own Earth drama unfolding some 50+ years after the time he was headed to Earth on behalf of the Garogas (in 1973). In an attempt to rescue Earth from the latest stupid shit humans were pulling in the late 2020s, Mothra transformed the kaiju of Earth into human forms for what were surely going to end up wacky-yet-effective adventures to save the world. Gigan would not normally have been subjected to these antics, being 1. not an Earth kaiju and 2. dead in the 2020s, at least in the timeline he barely escaped by heading to Overdue instead, but he was still a kaiju with a direct personal connection to Earth and Earth's monsters and was now in the same place they were.
And just like that, he was also transformed and sucked into their stupid Earth human drama. Dammit! Why are giant bugs all dumbfucks! (Sorry, Megalon.)
But it's probably better than dying.
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Anyway, Gigan is a kaiju—an absurdly large monster—who was born on a planet in the M Space Hunter Nebula region. We don't know how long ago, but kaiju tend to have ridiculously long lifespans, so I'm going to say somewhere in the tens of thousands of years. He was originally fully organic; we also don't know exactly what he looked like at that time, but it may have been something like this (so, Gappa). This Earth-like planet (which is unnamed) was home to a race of human-like aliens who began to destroy it in pretty much the exact same way modern-day humans are treating Earth: industrialization, pollution, etc. The situation spiraled far enough out of control that the original Nebulans went extinct, leaving behind a race of alien cockroaches who were hardy enough to survive the harsh conditions—at least for a while. These cockroach aliens began to evolve into the niche the human-like aliens had left behind, growing to human proportions and developing human-level intelligence and beyond, becoming the new dominant species on the still-dying planet.
The creature that would become Gigan had also survived the planet's gradual decline, and the new "Nebulans" decided to bring him under their control for use as a weapon and protector. They modified him with cybernetic parts to make him both more durable against the poor conditions and more dangerous to any potential enemies, eventually turning him into this form. While full mind control wasn't necessary to keep the monster under their control, as he was willing to work with them after they significantly upgraded his abilities, they also developed the technology to do that and became able to feed directions and compulsions directly into his mind.
But time on their dying planet was running out, so upon discovering Earth, the Nebulans decided to act to save it from the destruction of humans—by killing off humanity and taking over the planet for themselves while it could still be saved. Utilizing Gigan and also King Ghidorah in their plot, then . . . the movies Godzilla vs. Gigan and Godzilla vs. Megalon happened, and I'm not going to fully summarize them here, because those parts are just the movies and you can go watch them or read synopses. Moving on from vs. Megalon!
After the events of that movie, a seriously injured Gigan fled back into outer space, where he was intercepted by another alien race, the Garogas (also suspiciously insect-like). The Garogas nursed him back to health, repaired him, and gave him further upgrades so he could aid them in their own quest to conquer the Earth. Upon deploying him for this purpose—this is where the timeline finally diverges into the AU.
+++
A feature of this AU is that all kaiju, by nature of being huge, reality-defying creatures who come from a franchise with countless alternate timelines and retcons happening, exist with some vague awareness of the existence of these timelines and the happenings within them. Nothing as specific as a premonition of exact future or other-timeline events, at least not in Gigan's case, but an awareness all the same. In Gigan's case, as he was being deployed back to Earth for the final time, he keyed in to the sense that this was going to be the final time—that his timeline was about to end. (He could maybe have figured this out himself through the fact that he'd already lost to Godzilla twice and almost died the second time, and he wasn't fully recovered from those injuries yet, but hey.) An awkward awareness to suddenly gain while en route to Earth!
He did not really consider just fucking off and not going, being under the mental influence of his new masters on top of having no real sense of any other options available to him. But as he approached the planet, a new mental influence intruded upon the other: a mysterious voice asking him to aid them instead. Eager to snatch any opportunity to follow someone who was maybe not going to get him as immediately killed, Gigan took the bait without question, acceding to the request and getting pulled into the library that is the setting of Overdue to work with the game's NPCs instead.
But in yet another twist of the Timeline Soup, taking this offer also brought him into the direct vicinity of Future Mothra and Battra, who were embroiled in their own Earth drama unfolding some 50+ years after the time he was headed to Earth on behalf of the Garogas (in 1973). In an attempt to rescue Earth from the latest stupid shit humans were pulling in the late 2020s, Mothra transformed the kaiju of Earth into human forms for what were surely going to end up wacky-yet-effective adventures to save the world. Gigan would not normally have been subjected to these antics, being 1. not an Earth kaiju and 2. dead in the 2020s, at least in the timeline he barely escaped by heading to Overdue instead, but he was still a kaiju with a direct personal connection to Earth and Earth's monsters and was now in the same place they were.
And just like that, he was also transformed and sucked into their stupid Earth human drama. Dammit! Why are giant bugs all dumbfucks! (Sorry, Megalon.)
But it's probably better than dying.