Chapter 5: The Meeting of Minds

"The Meeting of Minds" is the fifth chapter of The King of the Monsters' fanfiction GODZILLA: Monster Universe.

Synopsis
Admiral Kazuma Aoki describes the United Earth summit with an emissary from the Kilaak race, in which the United Earth learn that they are not the only victims of a monster which stole their planet from them. More troubling is the revelation that the terrifying space monster which destroyed Kilaak is still at large.

Story

 * Journal of Admiral Kazuma Aoki, commmander of the Oratio; month 4 day 8 on Kepler-452b

Today was the day of our summit with the Kilaak people. I didn't know much what to expect as I entered the makeshift conference building which had been erected in the New Earth settlement. Glenn had mentioned that the Kilaak he saw looked like a human woman, but with a face that approached the uncanny valley. Most bizarre was that he remarked that this particular Kilaak's face reminded him of my wife's. Azusa was accompanying me to the summit, as she was granted clearance as an important scientist. Her photographer partner Maki was seated off to the side of the grand table, carrying his camera with him as always. Maki was an older fellow, so I imagine he did this sort of thing at the press conferences which were so common before the world went to hell. I took my seat at one head of the table, with Azusa, Aso, Kuroki, and Glenn seated to my right and Numa-nu, Dalu-da, Sanctor and Namikawa to my left. At the other head of the table directly across from me sat the Kilaak. Glenn was right, her eerily lifeless face was the spitting image of Azusa. Behind her stood two other identically clad Kilaak women, both bearing recognizably human faces but with lifeless faces and grotesquely pallid skin.

I opened the conference, struggling to hide just how unsettled I was by the Kilaak emissary's resemblance to my wife. "On behalf of humanity, the Exif, and the Bilusaludo, I welcome our guests from the Kilaak race to this meeting of minds. We are prepared to hear any information or concerns you would like to share with us, and look forward to a long friendship with our brethren from across the stars."

The Kilaak's expression did not change whatsoever in response to my words, she maintained the same eerie grin the entire time. Finally she spoke.

"Thank you, Commander Aoki. And my people's gratitude to everyone assembled here. We welcome you to the planet you call Kepler-452b, which we have called home for many centuries. We have no concerns about coexistence between our peoples, as we Kilaak make our home under the surface of this planet while you seem to prefer dwelling above the surface."

"We are encouraged by your words, Miss... I'm sorry, but what is your name?" Glenn said in response to the Kilaak's opening statements."

"Ah yes," she replied. "You races require names for everything. While it may surprise you, we Kilaak have no concept of names or even spoken language. You may be able to tell I am speaking to you through the use of a universal translator we developed, which transmits our telepathic impulses into audible language you can comprehend. The name 'Kilaak' is entirely an invention we created so you would know what to call us. But I must confess we never thought about individual names for ourselves. I suppose I would be the 'leader' of our people by your standards, so perhaps you could adress me as the Kilaak Queen if that makes things any easier."

"That works just fine, your highness," Glenn replied. I apologize if this question is too personal, but I get the impression the form you have currently taken is not what your people truly look like. In fact, your face is virtually identical to Dr. Aoki over there," he said pointing at Azusa.

"Indeed," the Kilaak Queen responded. "Our true forms would be most unpleasant to your eyes. While the people of your races look very similar I imagine due to shared ancestry, our evolutionary path was very different from yours. We have been observing your people as they explored the surface, and have captured their images for use in our humanoid uniforms. We do apologize if you feel as though we have stolen your likeness, we simply wanted our appearance to not be unfamiliar or intimidating to you as we made first contact."

"No worries, your highness," Azusa said, with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "My look certainly suits you."

Numa-nu suddenly pounded his fist on the table and interjected. "I knew these beings were not humanoids like us. You can forget about inviting them to the United Earth, they don't meet our criteria for intelligence."

"Now Supreme Chieftain," Namikawa replied calmly. "Intelligence is not a matter of appearance. The goal of our faith is to gather all who will listen under the Universal Intelligence, regardless of what they may look like."

"Their culture is obviously completely alien to us. Do you bleeding heart Exif really believe we can coexist with these animals as we can with each other? Their technology may be advanced enough so they can pass off as poor facsimiles of the Earthlings and talk to us, but that doesn't make them a race to the prestige of ours." Numa-nu impatiently responded.

Sanctor finally spoke up. "Our doctrine states that once any race advances to the point we have all reached, they will give rise to a monster that destroys their world. The Kilaak Queen told Glenn that her people were refugees who came to this planet just like us. Perhaps they met a fate similar to ours, in which case they are just as sacred in the eyes of God as any of us."

The Kilaak Queen, who remained completely silent and stoic through this entire exchange, finally spoke in response to the Pope's statement. "Yes, we gathered that all of you have come here to escape from a monster of your own. You have faced the same hardship that brought the Kilaak here to this same world."

"Our technology is more advanced than the simple smoke-and-mirrors we have used to assume the form of and communicate with you humanoids. We possess an entire civilization underneath your very feet in which we have thrived for centuries. Our technology is roughly on par with what we have seen of your own, though we have had a longer period of time to develop our civilization here.

"But on our home planet, which we call Kilaak for your convenience, our technology granted us a power unmatched by most of the humanoid races with which we came into contact. We were the apex of life on Kilaak, and had developed a complete mastery over minerals, allowing us to reshape our planet to our liking. But as your Pope said, we eventually went too far with our reckless advancement. We found that through manipulating crystals, we could terraform any terrain and construct any number of structures with virtually no labor. We began using a type of animal native to Kilaak which lived in symbiosis with the naturally-occurring crystals on the planet's surface to spread our civilization across Kilaak. Soon the entire planet was a singular connected citadel, and as our population exploded the time came for expansion. We further genetically manipulated these animals and sent them in pods to other worlds, colonizing them in the name of our race. The crystals allowed us to change the atmosphere to be suitable to our needs and near-instantaneously construct colonies. Our great empire spanned across several solar systems at our height. But our hubris cost us dearly in the end. One of the pods we sent off to terraform a planetoid was absorbed by a black hole we somehow failed to detect in the system. We thought nothing of it and moved on, but the hole sent something back to us. The crystal creature which was inside the pod survived the infinite nothingness of a black hole, and adapted to its new environment. Then, as if driven by vengeance, reemerged as a monster and progressively wiped out each of our colonies. When it finally reached Kilaak, the monster caused the planet's surface to be overgrown with colossal crystal spires which ripped open the atmosphere and killed every living thing there save for the few of us which jettisoned from the planet before the beast's arrival. We came here, a planet far from the abomination's reach at the time. We rebuilt, this timem more responsibly using only our ability to manipulate minerals and our technical prowess to develop a completely peaceful and sustainable civilization."

Namikawa reacted to the Queen's long explanation, directing her statements to the rest of the Central Committee but mostly the Bilusaludo. "You see? Their experience mirrors ours almost perfectly. They became a truly advanced civilization, and in their narcissistic glory forsook God and created their own demise from their own hubris. Just like us they made the choice to start again in a new world and avoid the mistakes and sins of their past."

"This is why we have asked for this summit," said the Queen. "While we have paid the price and repented for our past sins, we know that the abomination we created will one day come to fulfill his purpose and consume this planet, as he will never be satiated and continues to crystallize planets across the universe every day. One day he will find us here, and we will be able to do nothing against his wrath. We wish not for you to be punished for our sins when that day comes."

Finally, I decided to speak up. "So what you are telling us is that there is a... Space Godzilla out there that is going to do to this and every other planet what it did to your home."

"Yes, sadly" she responded. "We have created the end of our entire universe in our own reckless pursuit of domination, and have by extension doomed you to share our fate."

"Oh please, we won't stand idly by and let another Godzilla take another planet away from us. We nearly killed him with our own technology before circumstances forced us to flee. But if 'SpaceGodzilla' decides to come here, we can be ready for him. We have a small sample of the most powerful alloy in the universe: the autonomous Nanometal. If you Kilaaks are as proficient as you claim in mineral manipulation, perhaps you can allow us to convert this otherwise useless sample into a weapon that can kill this SpaceGodzilla once he gets here."

"Furthermore," proclaimemd Sanctor. We cannot ignore the hand of God in all of this. God is more powerful than Godzilla or any SpaceGodzilla, and there will be no end to the universe except that which He brings at the end of time. God has intervened to bring us all together, and we can rely on him to deliver us from the coming evil."

"Yeah, yeah, it's always about your fickle God and his 'infinite' wisdom," Numa-nu said dismissively. What matters is that if you Kilaaks are as advanced as you claim, you may be able to help the humanoids finally triumph against a Godzilla."

"This name... Godzilla," the Kilaak Queen began. "Is this the name which you give to your destroyer? The one equivalent to the abomination that destroyed Kilaak."

"Yes," I said. Godzilla stole our home from us and we left it to him. The creature you described is your race's very own Godzilla. We may have escaped our Godzilla, but if what you say is true then perhaps we will one day face another. But I agree with what the Pope and Supreme Chieftain have said. If we can combine our races' individual proficiencies and talents, maybe this time we can finally make a weapon capable of stopping a creature of Godzilla's caliber. After hearing your words, I will leave it up to a vote of the Committee whether to invite the Kilaak into the United Earth, if you are interested."

"Yes," replied the Queen. "We would like nothing more than the chance to cooperate with your people and maybe put our demons to rest at last."

I asked who was in favor of inviting the Kilaak into the alliance, and it was a unanimous approval from all of the Committee members. Even Numa-nu and Dalu-da, who had been apprehensive to the Kilaak for most of the summit, seemmed resolute and enthusiastic as they raised their hands in favor of the motion.

"Your highness, on behalf of humanity, the Exif, and Bilusaludo, I humbly welcome your people to the United Earth" I said.

"While my uniform allows for only a limited display of emotions, please know that were I a humanoid I would be crying tears of joy and gratitude at this gesture. Thank you all."

I walked out of the meeting with my wife, when Glenn ran up beside us.

"You guys get a weird feeling with how the Bilusaludo reacted?" he asked us.

"I got a weird feeling about everything in there," Azusa replied.

"I had my concerns about what the Bilusaludo intended with Project Mechagodzilla," I told Glenn. "I get the feeling they see this as an opportunity to finish what they started."

When Azusa and I returned to our home, I asked her what she really made of all this.

"Well, I'm now certain I saw what these Kilaak truly look like. I caught them observing me several times during my field studies, which explains why the Queen was wearing my face. I'd like to say I trust them, but Kazu, I cannot emphasize enough that the Kilaak are nothing like us or any of the other races we've encountered. They are aliens in the truest sense of the word. We have no idea how their thought processes work or what their culture is like. I'd like to see them in their natural habitat. I'm fairly certain they have a high concentration of metals in their bodies, explaining how they could manipulate minerals as they say. Best I can figure is that they are magnetic metallic worms who communicate with each other telepathically."

"That's very interesting dear," I said as I felt myself overcome with exhaustion. "But like with all things we just need to give this time to sort itself out like all other things. I think we're living on borrowed time already, so maybe we should work on a way to borrow more time."