Axis Mundi
- For the ninth episode of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, see Axis Mundi (episode).
- Cate Randa: “So if we're in the realm of the Titans or whatever, why does it look so much like Earth?”
- Keiko Randa: “Because it is. Parts of it, anyway. Different pieces of home. Different pieces of their world. All put together like a patchwork quilt. I don't think this is the realm of the Titans at all. It's a place between places. I call it 'Axis Mundi'.”
- Cate Randa: “The pole between heaven and Earth.”
- ― Keiko Randa explaining her findings about Axis Mundi to Cate Randa ("Beyond Logic")
Axis Mundi (Latin for "world axis") is a region of Hollow Earth that appears in the 2023–26 Apple TV Monsterverse series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Unlike other portions of Hollow Earth seen in the Monsterverse, time is experienced slower in Axis Mundi than on Earth's surface. It is known to be connected to the surface world by at least nine[a] portals, christened rifts by Bill Randa, which are similar to the Vile Vortices that lead to other regions of Hollow Earth. These are located in an abandoned nuclear power plant in Kazakhstan, the U.S. states of Kansas and Alaska, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea,[b] Loch Ness in Scotland, Skull Island, Mount Osore in Japan,[c] and the Algerian Desert. The Skull Island rift (nicknamed "Billy's rift") is special, serving as a central hub which connects to all other rifts.
The first known human visitor to Axis Mundi was Monarch scientist Dr. Keiko Randa, who fell there against her will in 1959 and was presumed dead. Monarch subsequently launched Operation Hourglass in 1962, an expedition into Axis Mundi which went awry and left the exploration party stranded. Though the party was preyed upon by the Ion Dragon, one member, Major Lee Shaw, was eventually sucked up into a portal and emerged on the surface with his life—now in the year 1982. Decades later, in 2015, Shaw fell back into Axis Mundi along with May Olowe-Hewitt and Cate Randa, the lattermost finding Keiko, her grandmother, alive and still young. Together, they managed to fix up Lee's pod from Operation Hourglass and lured the Ion Dragon and Godzilla to stabilize the portal. Though Lee had to be left behind, Keiko, May and Cate returned to the surface and onto Skull Island in the year 2017.
History
- Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (TV 2024–2026) [episodes 1, 9–11, 15–17, 19–20; alluded to in 1; mentioned in 15–16, 19; stock footage in 20]
Monsterverse
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
In 1959, Monarch researchers Bill Randa, Keiko Randa, and Lee Shaw discovered a nest of Endoswarmers in an abandoned Kazakhstan nuclear power plant. After the creatures began hatching, Keiko and Shaw tried to escape, only for Keiko to be swarmed by the creatures and dragged into a portal, where she was presumed dead. "Aftermath"
In 1962, Monarch launched Operation Hourglass, a mission that would allow Shaw and a team to enter and explore the mysterious world beneath their feet. The mission was launched in Kansas where a new rift was discovered, and a capsule was positioned over the site of the vortex. As it was discovered that the portals were normally too unstable to enter unless a Titan passed through, a gamma ray simulator was activated to lure a Titan to the portal, temporarily stabilizing it. Once a Titan had been drawn, the signal was cut to ensure the Titan would turn around, allowing the capsule to follow it. The capsule was launched and plummeted into the hole, though things immediately went wrong as the capsule began malfunctioning while the rift became unstable on the surface. Shaw desperately tried to contact Bill as the capsule began to implode, with a flying shard of glass killing one of his crewmates. The capsule crash-landed in a forest in the underground realm where the team was unable to establish contact with the surface. While investigating their landing site and documenting their discoveries, the Titan they lured, the Ion Dragon, attacked the crew; though Shaw escaped with his life, another crewmate was killed in the attack. Yet another crew member was subsequently struck by lightning from the ground. "Axis Mundi" 6 days had passed since the attack and Shaw, now being the last survivor; is stuck inside Axis Mundi and digs up a hole to set up camp to try to survive the realm within, he tries contacting the surface world but with no luck and starts hunting for food. 15 days later, he loses his sanity as he starts hallucinating about one of the members of his crew's dead corpse on the hole and laid down on the ground right next to it, losing hope for a way out. A few minutes later, he hears conversation on the radio and manages to get into contact with someone, desperately asking for help. As the conversation goes on, he realizes that he's not talking to one of the operatives from the mission and finds out the real truth, he somehow managed to contact his future self instead thanks to the time dilation Axis Mundi has within its realm. With this realization, he decides to continue walking and talking to his future self. He would soon find himself in another forest and tried to touch the ground, but his future self told him to run and the ground suddenly dispatched electrical discharges everywhere. He ran around to avoid being hit and narrowly managed to escape. Soon after, Shaw encountered Keiko inside of the realm still alive after he saw her being taken down underground and presumed her dead. He tried to approach her but was told not to by his future self and had to make the hard decision to leave her behind trapped to avoid causing a time paradox. He would continue on until he was spotted by the Ion Dragon and started being chased by the flying Titan. He ran as far as he could to get away from it but would soon be confronted by an Endopede and was once again given chase. Just as when Shaw was about to be consumed, the Ion Dragon spat out his nacre to hold the Endopede in place and snatched it with his tail, taking it for food. He then came across a dormant Titan X inside a mountain and placed a tracker inside, Shaw then said goodbye to his future self. "String Theory" Eventually, the Ion Dragon flew into another portal, Shaw was sucked in after it. When he came too, he found himself in a forest in Japan at the site of another previously-undiscovered rift. Shaw was brought to a Monarch medical facility where he was devastated to learn that somehow 20 years had passed on the surface despite only being in the realm for a week. "Axis Mundi"
In 2014, while trying to prove the existence of the Hollow Earth theory championed by his parents, Hiroshi Randa discovered and entered a rift in Alaska. Though he was only in the realm for only a day or two from his perspective, he discovered that a year had passed by the time he emerged from a different rift in the Algerian Desert. "Requiem"
That same year, Shaw embarked on a campaign to seal the portals in a bid to keep humanity and Titans separate, viewing it as atonement for losing Keiko. He returned to the Kazakhstan plant to destroy the portal there, only to be intercepted by Monarch agents as well as Cate Randa, Kentaro Randa, and May Olowe-Hewitt, who he previously allied with. After Shaw started the countdown to destroy the portal, the Earth began to shake as a massive Endopede emerged, which was knocked back into the portal by debris just before May, Cate, and Shaw also fell into the rift. "Birthright" May and Shaw awoke first in a forest of dazzling lights, narrowly escaping a lightning field. Once they safely escaped the field, Shaw explained that when a rift closed, it left a residual electrical charge, which he learned about on his last mission to the Titans' realm decades prior. They explored the forest in search of Cate, calling for her as strange insects flew overhead as Shaw warned that they had deceptively little time to find Cate, leaving May confused. He proceeded to recount his previous stint in this place to May, detailing how a week in this realm was the equivalent of 20 years on the surface. Elsewhere, Cate awoke to find herself being stalked by the Brambleboar. Before it could kill her, the Brambleboar was suddenly shot in the eye by an arrow, sending it running away. Cate turned to see her savior and was astonished to see her grandmother, Keiko, alive and well, appearing to be the same age as she was in 1959 when she supposedly perished. "Axis Mundi"
Some time later, Cate reunited with May, though Shaw initially hid from Keiko and learned that she believed it was still 1959 and that only a few weeks had passed since she entered this realm. Shaw was forced to tearfully tell her that over half a century had passed on the surface and that her husband Bill had died decades prior. Keiko was able to determine the cause—gravitational distortion warping space-time—before the weight of it overwhelmed her. Cate revealed that Keiko's son Hiroshi was alive and well and that she was Keiko's granddaughter.
Keiko led Shaw, Cate, and May to her camp, revealing a beacon she recovered that she reconfigured to send out a signal to the surface world. Shaw asked Keiko if she could return the beacon to its original configuration, which would allow them to attract a Titan and return home. The quartet carried the beacon through the realm, which Keiko named Axis Mundi, to Shaw's original landing site and the capsule he left behind in 1962. After entering the capsule and activating the beacon, they witnessed the arrival of the Ion Dragon, which presented a major complication as it was already inside Axis Mundi, leaving the rift impassible. Fortunately, another monster, Godzilla, emerged from the rift soon after. After a short bout, Godzilla ripped off the Ion Dragon's wing and hurled it into the rift, turning it into a vortex that began sucking nearby objects into it, including the capsule. Shaw attempted to run after the capsule to join them and grabbed Keiko's hand, but ultimately let go as to not endanger the others. Once Keiko reentered the capsule, May sealed the hatch as they passed through the rift back to the surface. The trio ended up on Skull Island, passing through a rift opened there by Kentaro and Hiroshi, where they discovered that two years had passed and it was now 2017. "Beyond Logic"
Almost immediately after returning to the surface and being evacuated from the island, Keiko and Cate voiced their intent to return to Axis Mundi to rescue Shaw, though Deputy Director of Monarch, Natalia Verdugo, deemed it too dangerous, as the opening of the rift left the creatures of Skull Island–including the island's ruler Kong, who destroyed the facility built there–extremely agitated for reasons unknown. Nevertheless, Cate managed to convince her brother, her father, and May to help her return to the island and reopen the rift. Meanwhile, Shaw, stranded in Axis Mundi, began exploring the realm before encountering the Brambleboar, which he prepared to fight with a knife until it was startled by the reopening of the rift from the surface. Shaw witnessed the capsule fall out of the portal and land near a strange mountain that glowed blue and began rapidly crumbling. As Shaw ran to the capsule, numerous Scarabs rushed past him and tried to enter the capsule before he witnessed the emergence of the tentacled Titan X from the mountain. As the pod was sucked back towards the rift, Titan X also passed through and emerged on Skull Island, killing Verdugo before fleeing towards the ocean. The capsule containing Shaw emerged just before Kong arrived and destroyed the device generating the rift. Kong proceeded to chase after Titan X, who escaped into the ocean. "Cause and Effect"
Properties
Axis Mundi is connected to the surface through a vast network of rifts, which are unstable and require a Titan's radiation to stabilize them for safe travel. Due to their unstable nature, these portals can implode if disturbed, such as by the explosives Lee Shaw used to close two of them. When stabilized or during implosions, the rifts will begin to suck in nearby objects, although large Titans such as the Ion Dragon, Titan X, and Godzilla were not affected by this.
Temporal manipulation
Due to Axis Mundi's gravitational distortion, space-time is dramatically slowed compared to the surface and other areas of Hollow Earth. There does not appear to be any correlation between the time one remains in Axis Mundi and the time which passes on the surface of the Earth; Lee Shaw and Keiko Randa were trapped within Axis Mundi for a week and 57 days respectively, but on the surface 20 years had passed for the former and 56 had passed for the latter.
Inhabitants
- Ion Dragon
- Brambleboar
- Axis Mundi butterflies
- Titan X
- Scarabs
- Keiko Randa (temporarily)
- Lee Shaw (temporarily)
- Endopede
- Axis Mundi fish
Video games
- Godzilla x Kong: Titan Chasers (2024; added in 2026) – Android, iOS, PC [mentioned]
Comics
- Monarch: The Lost Adventures (2026) ["Keiko and the Brambleboar"]
Gallery
Concept art
Nick Keller
Video
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Trivia
- Romanian scholar Mircea Eliade introduced the term axis mundi to comparative mythology as a means to express the concept of connection between higher and lower realms across various religions and mythologies.
Notes
- ↑ While teaching a class in 1968 in "Ends of the Earth," Bill Randa circles eight rifts on a map. Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Japan, Skull Island, Alaska, and Kansas can be roughly accounted for, while New Guinea, Scotland, and Algeria are missing, and two rifts are added on the western coast of South America and off the southeastern coast of Greenland. The latter two have been omitted here, as they are not attested in the show otherwise and may be erroneous, but if included they would bring the total to 11 rifts.
- ↑ "Ends of the Earth" shows that Bill Randa sent a probe through a rift in 1968 which he identified as being located in "New Guinea." This name can refer either to the island of New Guinea, which is less specific and comprises multiple nations, or to the Territory of New Guinea, an Australian-administered territory that became part of the nation of Papua New Guinea in 1975. As Bill's other probes were marked with specific nations or bodies of water therein—Madagascar, Loch Ness, and Kazakhstan—it is assumed he intended the Territory of New Guinea.
- ↑ In "Axis Mundi," it is stated Lee Shaw emerged from a rift "in the woods outside of Higashiizumo," a town which once existed in Shimane Prefecture. However, in "Requiem," Shaw instead claims he came out at Mount Osore, which is located hundreds of miles away in Aomori Prefecture. Given this is a retcon, the existence of a rift in Higashiizumo is uncertain.
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