User blog:Gallibon the Destroyer/An Essay: Golden Dust Arc Retrospective

Greetings there WZRP, it is I Gallibon the Destroyer. Today we’ll be looking at a a certain topic that is somewhat controversial around here and that is the Golden Dust arc. It all started back in late 2017; shortly after the New Kowloon arc was done, Flare announced a new arc was in the works, and was set to reintroduce a much more powerful and well known villain. That villain being King Ghidorah, but with a twist. Will go more into that particular tidbit in a bit, but for a while this was all we knew, so there were many high hopes for this plot.

And when the first few RPs of it debuted (such as Hell Forged, them chasing out those annoying TV Skeletons and Gomora vs. Three Mutant Destoroyahs), it seemed to be very promising and engaging. Then Nightmare on Monster Island happened, which also introduced the arc's most famous (or infamous) villain Ghidestroyer. Long story short; a pretty cool fight occurred, only for Godzilla to then die on it, which derailed it swiftly. Not helping matters was Mother Kumonga coming in and being used to more or less immobilize Kong and Zilla Jr. for the sake of the plot and given major plot armor. Of course, this was not recieved well, so Godzilla was spared, however he would not be seen or heard of again until August of 2018. Personally I feel it should have been done earlier, but oh well.

And that's pretty much where the Golden Dust arc really started off on. While it had a really bumpy start there and sparked some controversy, people still had high hopes for the plot regardless. What followed afterwards were several things that made the plot very divisive. After the Nightmare on Monster Island RP, it was then followed with the Sou Vuaga plot, which got into some hot water when both Flare and Goldn skipped out on Krazar, despite him saying he would join them (it didn't help either that he ended up coming in two hours after they started the RP and the ended the RP just a mere few minutes when he did come in.) Other parts that got his RP some flack were Gaira and Manda's deaths, with also MekaGoji's leadership being criticized as it came off as he ignored Gomora's assistance and chose to go on without him (there was a previous RP done where Gomora offered to help MekaGoji and he did accept, but look where that ended up going), and ended up getting two kaiju killed, with the rest severely injured/nearly killed. Oh and apparently the reason Sou Vuaga was never visited by any other kaiju or anyone before was because of apple pies that were so good, that no one wanted to ruin them.....yes really. Flare later admitted that it was something of an asspull, as she needed to come up with something quick. It probably would have been easier just to say that it wasn't part of Monster Island and was just another island that existed. And if she really wanted to, she could have stated the reason as to why the island isn't visited anymore was due to volcanic activity or something.

While Manda's death was pretty much a meaningless shock death, Gaira's death at least had some impact and he sacrificed himself to save them all, so at least his made sense (plus he's gotten better now, though he is different.) Aaaaand then Ghidestroyer was then revived not a week later. However it wasn't pointless as they did manage to slow him down by lot. After this RP, the rest of the arc went then just sort of went crazy. Suddenly there were other plots tied into this, which seemed to have little to do with each other. One involved the Golden Dust being spread and downloaded online....which was honestly pretty dumb and ultimately went nowhere, so I won't comment on it any further. I do have to ask though as how could it be spread online given the Golden Dust was supposed to be a virus that infected those who came in contact with ala The Thing...how it even could be spread through online is anyone's guess. But as stated before, this plot went going nowhere.

Another plot that may or may not have anything to do with the Golden Dust was three elder gigantic Ghidorahs who escaped from Hell and were out to eat the planets....and never show up again. This one is especially disappointing, as they could have made excellent endgame opponents. Oh well. After this plot thread, then we get into two notable plotpoints that really became the turning point of the arc. The advent of King Ghidorah (or rather an cloned AI of him that was simply known as "KG") and the death of Mainframe. After having an online argument with what seemed to be a Mosuran AI, KG then went psycho and then began to take control over machinery and equipment. Trinity then comes back following Ghidestroyer's demise and takes some Angolmois and aquires it, that way he can use it power up the revived but now weakened Ghidestroyer. I should probably note that the Angolmois is the same life force used to power Unicron from Transformers. What is it doing here? Never explained. It's just here more or less to power up Ghidestroyer, which wouldn't be a bad idea in concept; the problem is that it's just there and never really explored upon, so it comes off as pretty random.

Anyways, back to the plot. Mainframe (who at this point had been the most devoted to stopping the Golden Dust and researching it) then decides to end it all there and then travels to the area Trinity is at, and then the two do battle while Ghidestroyer finishes progress with his enhancements. After a long and brutal battle, Mainframe manages to destroy Trinity via kamikaze style, having bombs strapped onto him to blow him up. This is pretty out of character for Mainframe, as he would normally use more strategic and witty way to combat against the foe. Here? This is literally life-threateningly dumb, as while it DID work, it ends up doing a lot more harm than good (you'll know why in a minute). So yeah, Mainframe blows himself up, which kills Trinity and leaves him in critical condition. The base is left in ruins and Ghidestroyer then flies off, roaring in anger at the demise of his fallen comrade Trinity and then heads out to kill all of the life on Earth. At this point, BirthGoji steps in and it's up to the new King of the Monsters to fight him off.

Meanwhile at RyuMask's base, RyuMask and Venus managed to rescue Mainframe, but they fear they might be losing him even with all of their advanced equipment. And unfortunately, the timing couldn't be any worse as then KG then appears, taking over the machinery and equipment keeping Mainframe alive before then making his way into Mainframe and then taking completely control over him. Mainframe is dead. KG then fuses himself, Mainframe and Trinity together to create/become "King Ulysses". King Ulysses then goes over to RyuMask and Venus, taunts them for a bit, before then summoning Ghidestroyer, getting ready to destroy Earth. However at that moment, BirthGoji then comes and roars at the abomination, charging up at the beast and then the two kaiju duke it out. Gomora joins in next, wanting to avenge Godzilla and all of the others that Ghidestroyer slain. To make an long but epic battle short, Ghidestroyer decimates the entire city and kills Gomora, but not without Gomora weakening him severely and allowing BirthGoji to finally charge up to his super strong point and delivers the most powerful atomic beam he had ever delivered at that point, blasting it straight at Ghidestroyer, killing him. BirthGoji then honors Gomora before then heading back to Monster Island, where he is greeted by everyone and hailed as a hero, then also becoming the official King of the Monsters there again, also having made his father proud. Gomora then goes up to Heaven and stays there for a while, up until he came back as a cyborg of course.

Overall, it wasn't perfect but at least it ended on high note, right? Sure there were some lose ends, but at least it all went out with a bang, right? Unfortunately no, that was not truly the end of the Golden Dust arc....sort of. You see, remember King Ulysses I mentioned there? He still appeared numerous times after Ghidestroyer's demise and was really hyped up; it's goal being to become the Ultimate Lifeform. After beating up Flamingo Squardon in one go (fortunately they were saved by SharkMask), causing mass murder and destruction wherever he went. He also "f***ed" San Antonio in his own words....why do I have a feeling he pissed on the Alamo? Anyways; King Ulysses and SquidMask soon duke it out for a long time, due to the two being evenly matched. Finally, SquidMask manages to defeat King Ulysses, forcing a heavily beaten King Ulysses to retreat....into the oceans, where he descended down and then began mutating and assimiliating some fish, intent on screwing with the Earth's oceans. At least, that's what was probably supposed to have happened.

But then the Golden Dust arc ended. As Flare recently stated, she believed it to have become "a mess" towards the end and basically ended it because of a variety of reasons, one of them being due to how long it had been going on now and how also she admitted she didn't know what she was doing anymore. During her hiatus blog, she also said that if she were to try the plot again, she would start from scratch, due to how all over the place it was. Her intended idea on how to end it, I gotta say, sounded pretty awesome too, it's a shame it didn't come to be.

And thus ends the Golden Dust arc. Overall; you wanna know what I think about it? Personally, I just found it to be okay. This may sound weird coming from me, giving I was very critical on it back in the day, but these days I've cooled down and began to analyze it some more. While it's not a great plot, is it truly horrible? I think not. But I think that's one of the big problems with it; it's just okay. Beings that this was going to be arc made by Flaredragon00, who at that point was well known for making some of the BEST arcs on WZRP, having the great Gildefrum arc and the New Kowloon arc for examples. Sure, there was something like HELLHOUND or Gumuzoo in there once and a while, but for the most part, Flare was golden. Having something like this come after the universally acclaimed New Kowloon arc also probably didn't help matters.

I'm just going to come out and say that probably the worst thing the New Kowloon arc did was make it a tough act to follow for future plots, chiefly the Golden Dust arc. Very few arcs have come close to reaching it's level of acclaim (2017 however in general was an amazing year for RP and plots though, IMO) and it's honestly one of my favorite RPs EVER. So needless to say, the Golden Dust arc had quite some big shoes to fill. As for the Golden Dust arc itself; it's a really mixed bag. I believe that when it was good, it was really good, but when it was bad, it was painful. Let's start with the bad stuff first here.

Ghidestroyer was definitely a "tryhard" villain and really didn't have much going for him, other than being a fusion of two of Godzilla's most fierce opponents (insert "Fusion is just a cheap tactic to make weaker Gems stronger" line here). What really didn't help was him constantly killing off kaiju such as Godzilla, Gaira, Manda and Gomora for shock value and little else (though as stated before, at least Gaira's and Gomora's deaths at least some impact to them), but as much flack he gets, at the very least I will admit he served a purpose. And that purpose being BirthGoji's ultimate test; facing his biggest fear; the one who killed his father and he himself at one point. Seeing BirthGoji take down Ghidestroyer was a sigh he had overcome those fears and also showed that he was worthy to come after Godzilla. He was also a pretty good rival towards Gomora if I may add. He wasn't that great, but at least he did well for the purpose he served, so I can't fault him for that.

The same cannot be said for King Ulysses however. King Ulysses is a terrible villain, IMO. He's supposed to be this ultimate lifeform supervillain that's also supposed to be a fusion of three powerful chars (one of which who was Mainframe...which I really didn't like), yet he's so over the top and out of place in the plot he comes off as pretty jarring. Probably the thing that threw me off about him was the mood whiplash with him was always constant. There'd be times where he was shown committing slaughter and causing some really graphic kills, all while making some weird one-liners; even breaking the fourth wall comically (such as how he mentioned he read our wiki articles during combat....yes seriously). Having a serious villain who can also be funny also can be done right, but it ended up just coming off as awkward as a result. In terms of power....yeaaaaaah, his powers are a mess here. Not only could he time freeze, but also could regenerate incredibly fast, so most attacks wouldn't do much harm here, was insanely strong, possessed some mutating flesh he could use against others, could fly, could adapt and also deliver some Spirit Bomb-esque finisher attack.

Another thing I didn't like also was how he seemingly kept winning at the end of every appearance at the end. I suppose it's to make him seem adapting or just being that good at getting back on track, but it instead comes off as a really contrived and convenient (I guess I should be glad though that he doesn't say that this was all according to plan.) Also despite being billed as such, King Ulysses really didn't seem to have much to do with King Ghidorah, other than ALL CAPS speak or the title "King". He didn't act much like his other two components either. He was just broken. Not irredeemably bad or horrible still, just very broken; almost like as if he was a largely unfinished idea that was put in too early into the plot. With all that said, I do think that he had potential and could be a good villain (and bare in mind, this is all my opinion here) someday, if he is to be utilized again. I won't lie either when I say that a fight (or team up I guess, lol) between him, Grand King Ghidorah and Robot FlamingoMask would be epic (having three of the most depraved RP villains together, who could resist?). Unfortunately, it looks that we may not see him for a while now.

And King Ulysses ended up not really contributing much to the plot at all (unless of course Flare decides to change that whenever she comes back from her hiatus and use him again and improve where she left off with him), so I often scratched my head at this guy. Personally, what I would have done was scrap King Ulysses entirely and replace him and Ghidestroyer with King Ghidorah. Or at the very least, have Ghidestroyer have been King Ghidorah. BAM! While not ideal, it would have at least gotten to King Ghidorah sooner and actually held true to it's title. Yeah I know he was actually the Golden Dust virus itself, but what if he was just spreading it instead? It wouldn't have hurt or really badly effect the plot much. As for the rest, the apple pies from Sou Vuaga I mentioned up above and the Golden Dust Online mini plot ended up being superfluous as well, so I would have cut that out also.

And finally we reach to the big complaint of the plot; the killings. Outside of the kaiju, Mother Kumonga, Trinity and Mainframe also died, but out of them all, Mainframe got it the worst. Mainframe had been a recurring major character and an ally of RyuMask and was easily my favorite member of RyuMask's group (with that said all of them were great too); he was very intelligent and savvy, as well as his interactions with RyuMask being major highlights of his RP. There was never a dull RP with him in and he was such an entertaining character.....I would go on longer on how much of a great char he was, but the point is; Mainframe's death was such a low blow here. It wouldn't have been so bad if he at least had just died sacrificing himself to destroy Trinity, but instead he gets dragged in and made to become a component of King Ulysses....and then that goes absolutely nowhere. It's a waste, imo.

That brings us another problem with the arc; it's too freaking dark. Now, I'm obviously not saying dark stories are bad, but here it comes off as so bleak I end up not caring what happens to anybody, as there so much gratuitous deaths, King Ulysses keeps achieving victory even through impossible means, the heroes keep losing and even when they do win, it's later made pointless or pyrrhic and ultimately it comes off as kind of....needlessly hopeless. There's nobody to root for here, except for BirthGoji, who otherwise didn't technically have a role into the arc until near the end (as he had his own arc going at the time, Ghidestroyer tied into that of course). Of course, I'm not saying every single character was unlikeable here, it's just that so many of their actions were later rendered moot by some reason or another, which got old fast. And all of this....for what?

But that's not to say the arc had no redeeming qualities; it did have quite a few. As I mentioned earlier, BirthGoji's role into the arc was nothing short of epic and it really tied in with his character well, Gaira's and Gomora's roles were very well done here and their deaths had meaning to this (their better now though), there are actually some good dramatic parts here, such as Mainframe's final moments before his dance of death with Trinity, the Nightmare on Monster Island RP was actually pretty epic with Godzilla, King Kong and Zilla Jr. all fighting together and working as a team (up until Mother Kumonga showed up and Godzilla died, but I digress), hell, the Sou Vuaga battle itself wasn't too bad either, even if it was rather flawed in itself, such as skipping out on Krazar and by extension Gomora, but I have forgiven. The ideas of Ghidestroyer and the Golden Dust virus themselves aren't too bad either, but could have been handeld better. I did even have Sou Vuaga and the Golden Dust virus show up in a arc of mine even with the TripGoji vs. the Martian Nazis from around March-April 2018.

Overall, the Golden Dust arc I find to be just be alright, but could have been so much better. I take back what I said about it during when it was first running that I hope it ended up being retconned and being so overly critical on it. While I still stand by what I believe was done wrong in it, I felt I should have analyzed it better and not have jumped to conclusion so quickly when I was so steamed right off the bat then. So do I want it to be retconned still, you might ask? Yes and no. I say "no" because I feel that while it didn't live up to the hype, it didn't deserve to be retconned out of spite and there ARE some good things about it. If you might be wondering then why I also said "yes", that is because that while I don't think it should be retconned per say, if to improve the Golden Dust arc is to start from scratch like Flare said, then so be it. If it's all to work on something fairly polarizing and make it better than it used to be, then I am all for it.

All in all, that's all of my thoughts on the Golden Dust arc and why I've learned to be more appreciative to it. This has been Gallibon the Destroyer, over and out.