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I don’t really have much to say directly on the topic - too big for me for now.However, I think it’s worth noting that Falkenstein has a feud with Taleb. Falkenstein wrote some harsh things about Taleb, and by his account Taleb contacted Falkenstein’s boss (and my former boss’s boss from a different life) complaining about him. Falkenstein didn’t develop warmer feelings for Taleb as a result. My point is he has something of an axe wrt Taleb.Review of Taleb's The Black SwanBlack Swan argues that standard statistics is flawed because it is backward looking — it uses ‘historical’ data — and argues that standard measures of risk like the normal distribution are ‘frauds’. I too prefer future data, but it is hardly a practical alternative.…Taleb belittles predictions that have large or unmentioned error rates, yet any specific error metric (standard deviation, value-at-risk, correlation, R2, etc) is, in his mind, a fraud and useless because it relies on an assumption, one that is 'wrong'. He argues we reward those who imagine the impossible, but what does that mean in practice? That we encourage people to enumerate everything possible no matter how improbable?In my opinion, Falkenstein doesn’t understand what Taleb means by imagination. To Falkenstein uncertainty means risk, and once we step outside of that domain, one can do no better than throwing up one’s hands in despair. Who is to say what’s possible outside of statistical history???However, there’s quite an old tradition of considering genuine uncertainty, which by its nature cannot be described by a distribution, or even by a distribution of distributions. What are you to do when you cannot even know the structure of the problem - the range of possible outcomes - and where you don’t know what you don’t know?Frank Knight - who taught Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, George Stigler and James Buchanan at Chicago, and who was a major influence on Nobel laureate Ronald Coase - said that in such cases where you cannot have a formal model, it isn’t true that one can’t make a thoughtful decision. One must use judgement, and the nature of judgement is of course that it can’t be codified in a model (otherwise it wouldn’t be judgement).Risk, Uncertainty, and Economic OrganizationFalkenstein is a rationalist who doesn’t believe in such things. He’s not the only one - it’s not these days a highly eccentric position, whatever one may think of it. But I think it’s inappropriate of him to pretend that Taleb isn’t writing in a tradition that itself is highly respectable.It doesn’t require wild and crazy stabs in the dark to recognise that some statistically improbable scenarios are really quite possible, perhaps even likely. It was not a wild and crazy stab in the dark to suggest before 2007 that one ought to be concerned about the banks and what they are buying (as I did to the IMF Financial Stability Review representative in early 2005 when I met him at the request of the UK Debt Management Office). It was not a wild and crazy stab in the dark to suggest in early August 2008 that there was extreme downside risk to commodities and cyclicals/upside risk to the dollar, because US credit growth was likely to get crushed.It was not a wild and crazy stab in the dark to suggest in January 2009 that probably the world would not implode, and that inflation pricing and commodities would rally substantially.3 Jan 2009: a bottom in breakevens, commodities, and global yields?It was not a wild and crazy stab in the dark to suggest in mid 2011 that the dollar was going to rally a lot and that a Eurozone crisis would develop:Eurozone May 2011: Focus on slowing growth ahead not lagging inflationIs the US dollar bottoming?But I don’t think you can get to such understandings via a narrowly statistical approach, and the problem with Falkenstein is he does not recognise the validity of anything else.So to understand the nature of uncertainty and judgement (and by judgement, Knight means entrepreneurial judgement) you won’t find any answers in the statistical realm. One will need to read Frank Knight, GLS Shackle, Keynes, Ludwig Lachmann, Israel Kirzner, Viktor Vanberg, James Buchanan, Soros, and Flavia Cymbalista.Soros said that he failed as a philosopher, and the reason for that is because he was unable to explain his ideas about markets and how he invested through the medium of philosophy. That’s because he picked the wrong language for it. Flavia is the person who was able to explain his ideas and the process of arriving at his investment view, and Soros hat-tips her in his biography. He writes:“Flavia’s work provides valuable insights into the role of intuition in decision-making under uncertainty. It helps crystallize how theory and instinct work together.”- George SorosAnd the key paper is available for free for download. It’s not accessible to most readers because it’s both more embodied and more abstract than the kind of work people are used to reading:http://www.marketfocusing.com/downloads/soros.pdfExisting approaches try to make sense of market reality by delineating factors that are determinants of price and identifying indicators that can be used to predict the future course of prices. Different theories emphasize different factors, they differ with respect to the definition of factors that determine market events.But the different approaches share the assumption that market events are determined by factors that function like logical units. The unit-like factors function like the discrete terms in a logical calculus, remaining fixed, unchanged through the process of events. What is not covered by such factors is viewed as just indeterminate and unpredictable. But this traditional explanatory structure, based on deductive logic, cannot capture reflexive processes. The fluidity and particularity that characterizes the unfolding of events do not match the constancy of logico-mathematical patterns. In reflexive processes, we cannot assume discrete entities at the bottom: any factors we isolate might not survive the process of events in their original form.Consequently, Soros does not offer an alternative particular cut of market reality, a different set of already defined factors. Instead, he operates with that which eludes any particular cut of market reality: intrinsic uncertainty. Rather than assuming a static order, Soros embraces the lack of fixed references in his guiding principle, the belief in fallibility, meaning both the belief in his own fallibility and the belief that the misconceptions and misunderstandings that go into our decisions help shape the events in which we participate.Soros goes beyond the denial of a static order. He asserts that the concept of reflexivity allows him to structure situations and recognize profit opportunities. These are found when the participants’ biases lead prices to diverge from an underlying trend which is itself influenced by market prices – a process which is at first self-reinforcing, then self-defeating. However, Soros could not formulate the general theory of reflexivity he originally intended to put forth. Reflexivity remained mysterious, both at the theoretical and at the practical level: neither his conceptual framework nor the manner in which it gets translated into investment decisions is fully understandable.Soros did not find a way of speaking in positive terms about that which distinguishes his approach: a thinking without assuming fixed units at the bottom. As a result, he can only articulates his thoughts in the negative: “imperfect understanding”, “fallibility”, “uncertainty”. The reality of his concepts of underlying trend and prevailing bias can never be successfully captured by any given set of terms and definitions. But without having the alternative to a static epistemology necessary to explain himself, Soros needs to recur to the inevitable mismatch between two sets of discrete units. Soros tells us that reflexivity renders not only standard approaches to investment but also standard economic theory and the standard view of the scientific method inapplicable to the market situation. And leaves us without a clear formulation of what does apply. Further, when Soros tries to show us reflexivity at work, what his examples seem to reveal is that he is exploiting crass errors in conventional thinking. In retrospect, the fact that the underlying trend has no fixed referent – a main distinction from the standard notion of fundamental valuation that Soros derives from the concept of reflexivity – gets lost.As a result, Soros’ theory of reflexivity is often misrepresented as revolving around the - unremarkable - idea that in the financial sphere reality is affected by the beliefs of market participants and/or as boiling down to the platitude "Life is unpredictable". Family members' testimony that gut instinct and intuition are what inform Soros' decisions is usually drawn in as evidence that Soros' attribution of his financial success to the application of his theoretical framework is far from being the truth. The following widely quoted remark by his son Robert Soros is often used in support of dismissing the theory of reflexivity:"My father will sit down and give you theories to explain why he does this or that. But I remember seeing it as a kid and thinking, Jesus Christ, at least half of this is bullshit. I mean, you know the reason he changes his position on the market or whatever is because his back starts killing him. It has nothing to do with reason. He literally goes into a spasm, and it's this early warning sign."This paper resolves the apparent contradiction between Soros’ attribution of his success to his theoretical framework and the guidance that his bodily instincts provide him. Combining Gendlin’s process philosophy and more-than-logical epistemology with Cymbalista’s market theory, it places the theory of reflexivity on firm epistemological and economic theoretical foundations and shows the necessary relationship between Soros’ thinking without assuming fixed units at the bottom and the bodily knowledge expressed by his (in)famous backache. A practice derived from the broader reflexivity framework explains Soros’ operating principle, the belief in fallibility, as a positive methodology that can be taught and learned.Polanyi thought that the West had fallen to pieces because of the corrosive influence of Greek scepticism. Falkenstein is a complete sceptic - he doesn’t believe in things that you can’t demonstrate are objectively real. Taleb is a demi-sceptic. Many of the things he appears to describe as black swans weren’t black swans at all - that sometimes they weren’t easy to get right doesn’t mean that they couldn’t have been and weren’t anticipated. (For example, Brexit and Trump were surprises - they should not have been shocks). The rise of the personal computer wasn’t a black swan either.There’s no inconsistency between 1 and 2. Risky assets do tend to have more mass to the downside, and it’s right that puts should be bid. That’s entirely consistent with there being a risk premium on top of that for selling volatility on risky assets, because for most scenarios when you lose money on selling vol due to sharp gap moves in the underlying and vol going up, global net worth goes down, and it’s not pleasant to lose money when everything else is going down in value. (If you have money at the bottom of a panic, you can make a fortune by taking advantage of the opportunity but the reason assets become so depressed is that not so many people are liquid at that point).I don’t really have a view on whether vol was structurally too cheap at certain points - mechanical strategies are not so much my thing. To me, using call spreads and put spreads to gain exposure to statistically relatively-unlikely potential moves that you think for non-statistical-reasons are likely, not just possible is a much more interesting strategy.

What non-sequel movies exist in shared universes, besides MCU films?Ethan Jackson’s answer[1] has some good examples, but I think a lot of people have forgotten one of the earliest shared universes in film history, predating the MCU by over half a century. Let’s take a look at this one.In the closing hours of World War II, a Japanese submarine carrying a secret cargo from Germany reaches its final destination, Hiroshima. Minutes later, the city is obliterated by an Allied atomic bomb.Nine years later, a series of horrific accidents strikes fishing ships in the south Pacific. The final transmissions from several ships mention a huge and terrible fireball, and the few survivors who wash up on nearby Odo Island are horrifically burned. None of these “survivors” live for long.The Japanese government dispatches an investigative team to the island, including the renowned paleontologist, Dr. Yamane. An American radio correspondent named Stephen Martin also accompanies the party. Shortly after their arrival, a freak storm strikes Odo Island, destroying the team’s helicopter, as well as several houses. Many islanders are killed, and the wailing of the storm almost takes on the cry of a massive living thing.The next day the survey team examines the wreckage. Much of the rubble is determined to be radioactive, and Dr. Kyohei Yamane recovers a living trilobite, an ancient and believed extinct animal known only from fossils. Immediately after his discovery, the island’s alarm bells begin to toll. The villagers flee to the hills, only to come face to face with a new and unspeakable horror.The survey team and select villagers are flown back to Tokyo, where a hurriedly convened board of experts and defense personnel tries to come up with a response to this new animal, named Gojira after a legend on Odo Island, anglicized as Godzilla by Martin’s broadcasts. The Maritime Self Defense Force sends out a task force to drop depth charges on the monster, but they are unsuccessful. Furious, Godzilla follows the ships back to Japan and comes ashore in Tokyo, carving a bloody swath of fiery destruction through the city over the course of two nights.All weapons in the arsenal of the Japanese Self Defense Forces are useless against the monster, and people are forced to flee as Godzilla rampages through their capital, until the monster is finally satisfied and returns to the ocean.A young Japanese inventor, Dr. Serizawa, comes forward with a new and deadly compound he claims will be enough to stop the monster. Out of options, the Japanese take Serizawa by boat to Godzilla’s last location, where the scientist and a JMSDF ensign approach the monster’s lair to set off the device. Serizawa, however, fearing his “Oxygen Destroyer” would be used against other people, chooses to sacrifice his life, dying alongside the monster on the ocean floor.Whatever peace Japan enjoyed in the wake of Godzilla’s destruction was short lived. Less than seven months later, another Godzilla was discovered on a remote island in the north seas by pilots working for a Japanese fishing company. The pilots witnessed Godzilla doing battle with another monster, a strange quadruped with a spiky shell.Returning to their home base in Osaka, the two pilots meet Dr. Yamane the world’s foremost expert on Godzilla. He speculates that this new monster is another member of the same species, while its opponent belongs to another species known as Anguirus, peaceful monsters that lived millions of years ago, who waged war on the aggressive Godzilla. He further suggests the JASDF use flares to lure both Godzilla and Anguirus away from the mainland, speculating the monsters will identify the lights with memories of the hydrogen bomb tests which likely awoke them in the first place.The Japanese government enforces a strict blackout in all coastal cities, but a prison break leads to a massive explosion in a refinery outside Osaka, drawing both Godzilla and his rival, Anguirus, to the city, where the two monsters fight.After a fierce battle, Godzilla manages to kill Anguirus in the ruins of Osaka Castle, before returning to the sea. Planes belonging to the JASDF follow him, though, and when Godzilla takes shelter in his mountain lair, the planes bomb the slopes, triggering a rockslide and hopefully burying the monster for good.A year later, a series of horrific murders around a mine in rural Japan leads to the discovery a previously unknown cave system. Deep in the tunnels are remnants of a prehistorical world: giant, centipede-like larva known as Meganulon. The Meganulon run riot over the nearby villages, only to be consumed by two newly hatched pteranadons identified as Rodan, yet another species of extinct giant monsters.The Rodan leave their mountain home and ravage the countryside, eating an entire herd of cattle. The force of their flight is enough to destroy the city of Fukuoka, and the JASDF are once again unable to stop them. Soon the Rodan return to their lair atop Mount Aso, though, and, using a strategy similar to what had worked against the last Godzilla, the JSDF bombs the mountain slopes, causing a volcanic eruption and burying the two monsters alive.The next year, another giant monster, named Varan after a local legend, rises out of a salt lake, and rampages through the countryside. Varan is a tri-phibian monster, capable of moving on land, swimming, and short bursts of flight. This monster also rampages through Tokyo, but after three years of onslaughts by giant monsters, the JSDF are prepared, and manage to kill the beast by tricking it into eating explosives.Three relatively uneventful years pass without any giant monsters ravaging Japan. Then, unscrupulous businessman from the Soviet-bloc nation Rolisica kidnap a pair of supposed fairies from Infant Island in the south Pacific. They bring the twins to Japan, where they plan to exhibit the twin Shobijin for profit. The twin girls cry out to the god of their island, and a thousand miles away, something stirs.Soon a giant silk worm arrives in Tokyo, once again laying waste to the city as she looks for the twin girls. The monster, Mothra, is once again impervious to everything the JSDF throws at her, until she seemingly ends her rampage and cocoons herself around the remains of Tokyo Tower. The JGSDF attempt to employ a new thermal canon against the cocoon, only for it to open and reveal the adult Mothra, who has now metamorphosed into a giant butterfly.Mothra pursues the Shobijin to Rolisica, where their captors are killed by the police. With the help of another kaiju specialist, Dr. Shin'ichi Chujo, the girls are reunited with their guardian, who returns to Infant Island in peace.The next year, explorers on remote Faro Island discover a giant ape, named Kong by the island’s natives. The Pacific Pharmaceutical Company, eager to use the monster in a publicity stunt, funds an expedition to bring the monster to Japan. Meanwhile, an American submarine, the USS Kittyhawk, is lost with all hands in the north seas. Her last transmission contains only one word:Godzilla.The JMSDF intercept Kong’s ship and order it to return to Faro Island, just as news reaches them of Godzilla’s landfall in Hokkaido. Kong, who had been drugged most of his journey, suddenly wakes up and breaks free, swimming ashore and making a beeline for Godzilla. The two fight, but Godzilla’s atomic breath is too much for the King of the Apes, and Kong is forced to retreat.Using berries taken from Faro Island, the JSDF is able to drug Kong, then airdrop him on Godzilla, currently razing the forests around Mt. Fuji, in the hopes the monsters will kill each other, as all other attempts at stopping Godzilla have failed.Godzilla initially has the upper hand, but Kong is able to gain an edge, and after a second, desperate struggle, manages to kill the second Godzilla in the Pacific Ocean. The JSDF opt to let the other monster escape, recognizing that he’s no longer a threat.A brief war the following year breaks out with the US and Japan against the newly rediscovered underwater Mu Empire. Taking the fight to the enemy, the Japanese warship Atragon destroys the Mu capital, and does battle with another megalasaur, the dragon-like Manda, but the machine is able to drive the monster off and escape, with the war ending shortly thereafter.The next year, 1964, a strange egg washes ashore after a fierce hurricane. The real estate company Happy Enterprises buys the egg and constructs a giant incubator around it, hoping to hatch the egg. When the Shobijin arrive in Japan to claim the egg as Mothra’s, The CEO of Happy Enterprises tries to kidnap the girls instead, but they manage to escape.Meanwhile, another Godzilla rises out of the rubble. The JSDF and US Navy engage the monster, but are unable to halt his rampage, and Godzilla sacks Nagoya, making his way to the egg.Before he can consume it, though, Mothra arrives to defend her unborn child. The two fight, and Mothra appears to gain the upper hand, but Mothra is now old, and doesn’t have the strength to finish off Godzilla, who mortally wounds her.As Mothra dies, the egg hatches, revealing two larva. Although outmatched, the twins manage to outsmart the new Godzilla, cocooning it and dumping it in the ocean, where it suffocates. Their mother avenged, the two baby Mothra return to Infant Island with the Shobijin, pledging to continue to protect the world should Godzilla or any other monster threaten it again.Not all monsters are of terrestrial origin, though.A few months later, in August, a series of satellites are destroyed in orbit. The culprit soon reveals itself to be a giant, single-celled organism dubbed Dogora, which feeds on carbon. Dogora devastates the Japanese coal and diamond industries, before a weakness to wasp venom is discovered, which is used to drive the monster back into space.Another series of calamities strikes Japan in December of the same year, beginning with the apparent assassination of a visiting head of state. Shortly thereafter, a woman bearing a striking resemblance to the dead princess appears in Tokyo, claiming to be a fortune teller from Venus. She predicts the discovery of a new Rodan at Mt. Aso, and the discovery of another Godzilla in the Pacific. Most of Japanese society is skeptical, but the Shobijin believe her, and heed her warning about an even greater threat than the rampaging Godzilla and Rodan, a wandering space demon called Ghidorah, which destroyed Venusian civilization, and is on its way back to Earth.Soon this prediction too comes true, as Ghidorah emerges from a newly landed meteorite, and begins to ravage Japan as well. Mothra makes landfall and attempts to persuade Godzilla and Rodan to put aside their own squabbles and help her fight the space demon, but both refuse. Determined, but knowing she’s hopelessly outmatched, Mothra attacks Ghidorah alone, but is easily beaten. Before Ghidorah can kill her, though, Godzilla intevenes, and the three Earth monsters join forces against the invader.The battle is brutal, but eventually the Earth monsters are able to beat Ghidorah badly enough that it retreats back into space. The Earth monsters return to their homes, ready to act should Ghidorah return.Meanwhile, in Hiroshima, a strange homeless boy is encountered feeding on wild animals. Dr. James Bowen, an American kaiju specialist, begins to track the boy, eventually discovering him in a cave the next year. Bowen hypothesizes the boy was exposed to massive radiation during the American atomic bombing twenty years earlier. Much to their surprise, however, the American and his colleagues discover the boy is instead immune to radiation. Intrigued, they bring him back to Hiroshima to study him.Meanwhile, former Imperial Navy officer Kawai, who’d survived the destruction of his submarine at Hiroshima, is now working at an oil refinery. A freak earthquake strikes the facility, and while everyone else flees, Kawai catches a glimpse of a strange glowing light in the shifting earth. Later, he learns of the strange boy from Hiroshima, and connects his discovery with his last ship’s secret cargo: the disembodied heart of Frankenstein’s monster, given to Japan by the Nazis to keep it out of the hands of the Soviets. Kawai points Bowen at the research of the aged German scientist Riesendorf, who theorized Frankenstein’s monster had fantastic regenerative properties. One of Bowen’s aides wants to test this theory, but before he can amputate one of the rapidly growing monster’s limbs, the creature, now dubbed Frankenstein, escapes into the countryside.A serious of brutal murders in the countryside is quickly blamed on the monster, but Kawai speculates the culprit may be the same thing which had caused the earthquake at his refinery. The JGSDF are unimpressed though, and with the assistance of Bowen’s assistant, Kawaji, begin to hunt Frankenstein in the forest. Instead of their friendly monster, though, Bowen and Kawaji discover the true source of the murders: a subterranean megalasaur called Baragon. Baragon attacks the scientists, only to be interrupted by Frankenstein.Frankenstein and the fire-breathing Baragon fight, but before their battle can conclude, Baragon’s tunnels begin to collapse under their weight, burying both monsters, seemingly forever.The following year, a joint American/Japanese spaceflight is sent to explore a newly discovered planet, popularly dubbed Planet-X. On the planet’s surface, the astronauts meet the planet’s inhabitants, called Xiliens. Their leader, the Controller, explains how, following his defeat at the hands of Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan in 1964, Ghidorah has taken refuge on their planet, making the surface uninhabitable to them. In exchange for a cure for cancer, the Controller asks for the UN’s permission to borrow Godzilla and Rodan, who the Xiliens plan to pit against Ghidorah one final time.The UN agrees, and the Xiliens bring the two Earth monsters to Planet X, where they again force Ghidorah to retreat. When the astronauts return to Earth, however, they discover the supposed cure is actually a ransom note: the Xiliens were actually controlling Ghidorah, and threaten to return the space demon, along with Godzilla and Rodan (now also under their power) to Earth, to wreck human civilization. When their demands are not met, Ghidorah is set loose on the American Midwest, while Rodan and Godzilla return to their old stomping grounds of Japan.Human scientists are eventually able to jam the Xiliens’ communications, breaking Godzilla and Rodan free, who immediately turn on their former masters. The Xiliens recall Ghidorah, but Godzilla and Rodan defeat him a second time, before wiping out most of the Xilien invasion fleet, once again saving the planet.The following summer, a Japanese fishing boat is lost off the coast. Its sole survivor tells of how his vessel was attacked by a giant octopus, before another monster, this one in the form of a great wooly man he calls a Gargantua drove the monster off, before attacking the the ship himself, and eating his fellow crew members. The media focuses attention on another American expert, Dr. Paul Stewart, who had studied a similar creature which he named Sanda, but Dr. Stewart remains unconvinced this is the same monster, though he speculates both Gargantua may be related to the Frankenstein monster destroyed in Hiroshima two years earlier.Rumors of a massive “big foot” in the Japanese Alps draws the scientists there, where they discover evidence of something in the forests. Meanwhile, a green-furred monster dubbed Gaira attacks an airport, eating several people, before the overcast sky clears, and the monster retreats. The JGSDF, now long practiced in dealing with monsters, mobilizes, but their armored forces are unable to keep up with the sprinting Gargantua. However, a new type of weapon, the maser tank (developed based on prototypes employed against the Xiliens the previous year, and descendants of the thermal weapons used against the original Mothra) is proven to be effective, driving Gaira into a river. Before the Gargantua can be finished off, Sanda arrives and helps the other monster to safety, causing Dr. Stewart to realize the two monsters are siblings.Sanda loves his brother, but is disgusted by his habit of eating human beings, and the two fight. Gaira escapes and makes his way into Tokyo, the JGSDF and Sanda in pursuit. Stewart convinces the military to only use their maser tanks, as, just like their genetic forebear, the “sons” of Frankenstein can regenerate completely from severed tissue, and any other weapon risks creating an entire army of Gargantua. He also stresses that only Gaira is to blame for the recent murders, and the military, by now used to the concept of benign monsters (thanks first to Anguirus and Mothra, and now Godzilla and Rodan) agree to concentrate their fire on Gaira.The JGSDF are unable to finish off Gaira though, who flees into the ocean, Sanda close behind. Their battle causes an undersea thermal vent to open up, sucking both monsters into the mantle, where they suffer the presumed same fate as their “father.”The following years see a rapid uptick in new megolasaur discoveries.In 1966, Godzilla and Mothra destroy a terrorist cell known as the RED BAMBOO, who’d been using slave labor from Infant Island to create nuclear weapons. Mothra frees her people, while Godzilla battles the terrorists’ guardians, a giant condor, and a hideously mutated shrimp known as Ebirah.Godzilla kills the condor, Ookondoru, and and horribly maims Ebirah, before he and Mothra escape the island as its nuclear reactors detonate.In 1967, a juvenille Godzilla, dubbed Minilla is discovered on a remote Pacific island, along with a species of mutated praying mantises called Kamakura. Godzilla arrives to protect the baby, and does battle with the island’s alpha predator, a giant spider called Kumonga.In 1970, a strange pecies of space amoeba infects several megalasaurs living on a remote Pacific island, dubbed Kamoebas, Gezora, and Ganimes. The parasitically controlled monsters terrorize the inhabitants of Selgio Island, until the humans are able to confuse the amoebas and cause the monsters to attack each other.The parasites are destroyed when the island’s volcano erupts, but one strain of ameoba survived, making its way to the waters off the coast of Tokyo, were the heavily polluted waters caused it to further mutate. By the following year, the monster, now called Hedorah, began to destroy ships in Tokyo Bay and feed on their contents, poisoning the water in the process. Hedorah began to rapidly evolve, and soon it developed an intermediate stage, which allowed it to attack the city itself.Godzilla confronts Hedorah during its first nighttime raid, seemingly destroying the creature, but Hedorah is an aggregate of the rapidly reproducing amoeba, some of which retreat back into Tokyo Bay, where they begin to reform.Japanese authorities speculate Hedorah will only come ashore at night or during overcast days, only to have this supposition badly proven wrong when Hedorah attacks the city again in broad daylight, now with a saucer-like flying form, which spews noxious, corrosive fumes in its wake. Thousands take ill or die, and the JSDF are unable to formulate a plan to stop the monster, which ravages the Japanese coast at will. It soon becomes evident that, unless Hedorah is finally destroyed, it will be able to destroy all life on Earth.Hedorah evolves into a towering, final form, and makes its way inland, where it is confronted by Godzilla, who makes a last stand at Mt. Fuji against the monster. The JGSDF realizes the monster can only be killed by dehydration, and with the assistance of Godzilla, manage to dry the monster out, allowing Godzilla to destroy the creature’s body, and obliterate the now calcified amoebas within, finally putting an end to the space parasites.By now it has become apparent Earth has powerful monsters of its own to defend against invasion, and any successful strategy for taking over the planet will involve killing the human friendly megalasaurs, who have mostly migrated to the Ogasawara Islands in the Pacific. When the alien body snatchers of Space Nebula Hunter invade, their plan involves luring Godzilla into a trap, before destroying the newly formed Monster Island and any chance of humanity resisting.The Nebulans summon Ghidorah, who they’ve made their puppet, to Earth, alongside a monster of their own creation, the horrible cyborg Gigan. The Nebulans lure Godzilla and Anguirus, now the best of friends, to Tokyo, where the four monsters clash, the fate of their friends on Monster Island in the balance.With the assistance of human allies, who wipe out the Nebulans, the computers controlling the monsters are destroyed. Gigan abandons his ally, leaving Ghidorah to suffer another beating, this time at the hands of Godzilla and Anguirus, before he too flees into space.Despite having already seen the fate suffered by Mu when it declared war on humanity, the nearby underwater empire of Seatopia sets out to destroy the surface world as well, first by causing a series of earthquakes across the globe, which separate Godzilla and Anguirus. The next phase of their plane involves stealing a human machine, Jet Jaguar, which they use to guide their god-monster, the megalasaur Megalon to the surface. Once there, Megalon joins forces with Gigan, loaned to Seatopia by the Nebulans.The humans regain control of Jet Jaguar and use him to summon Godzilla, now back on Monster Island. A four way battle erupts, with Gigan once again abandoning his ally, who is then summarily dumped back down a Seatopian mine by the human monsters. Unbeknownst to anyone else, before Gigan could return home, he was hijacked by the invading Goroga, for use in their own conquest of Earth.The Goroga are opposed in their war by Zone Fighter, a refugee alien living on Earth. Zone battles dozens of so-called Terror-Beasts, including the Goroga’s most deadly creation, Ghidorah. Impressed by the alien’s fighting skills, Godzilla joins forces with Zone Fighter in his battle with the Garoga.Their combined might is enough to wipe out the Garoga and their monsters, including the stolen Gigan, who finally meets his end at the hands of Zone. With the Garoga menace finally ended, Zone retires, leaving Earth’s defense once again in the hands of the monsters.Having seen what happened to previous invaders, another group of alien refugees, the Simeons, launch their own plan of conquest in 1974, twenty years after the first Godzilla appeared. The Simeons, desperate for a new world as their home solar system was destroyed by a black hole, had arrived on Earth and studied its culture and nations for decades, going back to before the Second World War. With the appearance of Godzilla and other megalasaurs, they recognized they’d need a monster of their own, and since their planets didn’t have any native to them, the Simeons contrived to build one.A strange Godzilla with a high pitched shriek and red-tinted breath begins to rampage across the Japanese countryside, attracting the attention of Anguirus, who intervenes and attacks the other monster, only to be viciously maimed and forced to retreat.Enraged by the attack on his friend, Godzilla confronts his doppleganger at a refinery, but an explosion reveals the second monster for what it really is; a mechanical copy, called Mechagodzilla. Their ruse broken, the Simeons unleash Mechagodzilla on it biological double, seemingly killing the monster.The Japanese track Mechagodzilla back to a Simeon base on Okinawa. In a last ditch effort, they awaken an ancient Okinawan megalasaur, called King Caesar, to fight Mechagodzilla. Caesar tries his best, but is no match for the alien machine, until Godzilla rises out of the ocean.Godzilla and Caesar join forces, and furious at the machine’s hubris, Godzilla rips Mechagodzilla’s head off, before obliterating it with his atomic breath, scattering the wreckage in the ocean.The Japanese government spends the next year scouring the water around Okinawa collecting pieces of Mechagodzilla, especially the machine’s head, which they plan to reverse engineer. Suddenly, the submarine Akatsuki is attacked by a strange, previously unknown megalasaur, managing only a brief SOS before vanishing.INTERPOL, having taken over the search, begins to investigate a disgraced and deceased scientist, Dr. Shinji Mafune. Mafune had claimed to have discovered a new species of dinosaur, far larger than any other, which he dubbed Titanosaurus, shortly after World War II. At the time, Mafune faced nothing but ridicule, and he died bitter and resentful, some years before the first Godzilla attacked Tokyo and proved the existence of megalasaurs. INTERPOL interviews a student of Mafune’s work, Ichinose, who leads them to Katsura Mafune, the late doctor’s daughter, but she turns out to have been a dead end, claiming to have destroyed her father’s papers at his spiteful request.Unbeknownst to anyone else, Mafune is actually alive and well, an agent of the Simeons on Earth, in repayment for them resurrecting Katsura, who’d been killed during one of his experiments. Mafune had been pioneering work on mind control, similar to what the Xiliens had used in the 60s on Godzilla and Rodan, which attracted the Simeons’ attention and caused them to arrange Katsura’s accident. Having rebuilt Katsura as a cyborg, the Simeons put Mafune’s theory to the test: that the original Mechagodzilla’s failure was due to being controlled by a computer, rather than an organic brain. Mafune remains convinced a human-controlled monster would’ve been enough to kill Godzilla and Caesar the previous year, a belief not shared by Mugal, the Simeon leader.INTERPOL dispatches another submarine to search for Titanosaurus; they are successful, but only barely manage to escape when Ichinose discombobulates the monster with the sub’s sonar. Ichinose shares this with Katsura, who he has become infatuated with, not realizing she’s an agent of the Simeons, or the one controlling the normally docile Titanosaurus. Katsura takes the attack on her monster personally, and the Simeons dispatch her to sabotage INTERPOL’s new sonic canon. She succeeds, but is mortally wounded in the process. The Simeons recover her body, further turning her into a machine, and installing controls for the newly constructed Mechagodzilla as well.At her father’s urging, Katsura releases Titanosaurus on Yokosuka, drawing Godzilla to the city just as the Simeons had hoped. They deploy Mechagodzilla, and the two monsters are easily able to overpower Godzilla, while the Simeons capture Ichinose, who tries but fails to convince Katsura to stop her attack.INTERPOL attacks the Simeon facility, causing Mafune to turn on the Simeons, dying on the side of humanity. Katsura, realizing what she’s unleashed on the world, commits suicide to destroy the Simeon controls, and dies in Ichinose’s arms. Godzilla is then able to turn the tides on his foes, destroying Mechagodzilla for good, before finishing off Titanosaurus, dumping the first megalasaur into the ocean. His job done, Godzilla returns to Monster Island, where he’d remain for the next twenty years.By 1999, all of Earth’s monsters have been confined to Monster Island by the UN, which keeps the monsters under observation and prevents them from escaping. An attack by unknown assailants on the island leads to the monsters vanishing, only to begin reappearing all over the globe.Mothra attacks Bejing.Rodan destroys Moscow.Manda attacks London.Baragon and Gorosaurus destroy Paris.Godzilla is unleashed against New York.Finally, four monsters, Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and Manda, are released on Tokyo.The culprits behind this series of attacks reveals themselves to be yet another alien race, the Kilaaks, who’ve perfected mind control of both humans and monsters. The Kilaaks threaten to hold human civilization hostage with their monsters, but the UN fights back, and after several battles, manages to free Earth’s monsters, who converge on Mt. Fuji, the last Kilaak stronghold.In their desperation, the Kilaaks deploy their final weapon, Ghidorah, and the final battle begins.As powerful as Ghidorah is, he proves no match for the combined might of all Earth’s monsters, and finally succumbs, his thirty year reign of terror ended. Godzilla destroys the Kilaak base, then returns with his fellow monsters home, their days of fighting finally over.So, the original Toho monster series, usually called the Showa Era by fans, is probably one of the first, and most fleshed out, attempts at a shared universe in film history. While the later films of the 70s became increasingly Godzilla-focused, the earlier films weren’t afraid to have more than one monster share top billing, and some integral films don’t feature Godzilla at all, but are still obviously part of the same universe. Godzilla, Godzilla Raids Again, Rodan, Varan, and Mothra all take place within a few years of each other, but only the two Godzilla films are directly connected prior to Godzilla vs. Mothra and Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. Frankenstein Conquers the Earth introduces the Baragon species, and is also the setup film for War of the Gargantuas, which introduces the maser tanks the JGSDF would use throughout the rest of the franchise, including against Gigan in Godzilla vs Gigan. It wouldn’t be a stretch to suggest Dogora arrived on Earth because it was fleeing Ghidorah, or the Space Amoeba in Space Amoeba was the same one speculated to be behind Hedorah in Godzilla vs Hedorah. Not all these movies are directly linked, but all of them are connected in some way, a strategy the MCU has been using as well (even introducing a TV series drawing primarily on secondary characters, though Ghidorah and Godzilla are a lot bigger names than anyone who’s made appearances so far in the TVU).As you can see, there are definite parallels. Here’s hoping Godzilla’s proposed Japanese shared universe, set to kickoff after Godzilla vs Kong, is at least as successful.All images property of their respective owners.Footnotes[1] Ethan Jackson's answer to What non-sequel movies exist in shared universes, besides MCU films?