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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)

What happened to Atlantis in this timeline again? I know in the Grayven timeline it was partially pulled into the dream but I don't remember what happened in the Paul timeline

I think they've been isolated from the world since the start of the Anti-Life Crisis? But I can't recall the exact details.
 
What happened to Atlantis in this timeline again? I know in the Grayven timeline it was partially pulled into the dream but I don't remember what happened in the Paul timeline
I think they've been isolated from the world since the start of the Anti-Life Crisis? But I can't recall the exact details.
That's correct. They sealed themselves off in response to the Anti-Life and have yet to open themselves up again.
 
Sinestro's Corps have the fear lodges, but that's not an advanced thing. That's their basic test of worthiness. Orange Lanterns don't have one yet, but it ends up being direct exposure to the Ophidian. If you don't go mad, you passed.
Does this mean Komander and Koriander have a head start?
 
.... I think this should be take physical hold
Missing a full stop after that word.
"learned"
"Illustres"
diabetic with access-> should be without
use to regular their-> should be regulate
Thank you, corrected.
an analogue manner-> maybe analogous
No, that was intentional.
 
What happened to Atlantis in this timeline again? I know in the Grayven timeline it was partially pulled into the dream but I don't remember what happened in the Paul timeline
Remember, they created city wide shields using OLs new magic base. They appear to be having difficulty actually turning them off now.
Whether these shields actually helped stave off the Anti Life is another question.
 
Question: If William Hand/Black Hand exists in this universe, did he or will he achieve Black Enlightenment? Actually, is there even such a thing as Black Enlightenment? I'm asking this because I went back and read about both Black Hand and what he did in Blackest Night, and he seems like a likely candidate for having achieved that state, if there is such a thing. Especially since he willingly allowed himself to bond with Nekron to become his tether/channeler, kind of like how Paul and Guy both willingly allowed themselves to bond with Ophidian and Ion respectively, and in turn give them physical shape.
 
Question: If William Hand/Black Hand exists in this universe, did he or will he achieve Black Enlightenment? Actually, is there even such a thing as Black Enlightenment? I'm asking this because I went back and read about both Black Hand and what he did in Blackest Night, and he seems like a likely candidate for having achieved that state, if there is such a thing. Especially since he willingly allowed himself to bond with Nekron to become his tether/channeler, kind of like how Paul and Guy both willingly allowed themselves to bond with Ophidian and Ion respectively, and in turn give them physical shape.
Darkseid, Akhlys, Hades and Hades' children seem to have black enlightenment, so yeah, there is such a thing.
 
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Darkseid, Akhlys, Hades and Hades' children seem to have black enlightenment, so yeah, there is such a thing.

Do you think gods and goddesses of love like Aphrodite have violet enlightenment? I mean, Hera is a goddess of marriage and she didn't have it, so they might not all be enlightened.
 
Do you think gods and goddesses of love like Aphrodite have violet enlightenment? I mean, Hera is a goddess of marriage and she didn't have it, so they might not all be enlightened.
To be fair, love is not strictly a requirement for marriage. Especially for older cultures. And given that this is Hera we're talking about, who was married to the ever unfaithful Zeus... Is it any wonder she's not Love enlightened?
 
To be fair, love is not strictly a requirement for marriage. Especially for older cultures. And given that this is Hera we're talking about, who was married to the ever unfaithful Zeus... Is it any wonder she's not Love enlightened?

Rather ironic, considering her yandere tendencies.
 
Do you think gods and goddesses of love like Aphrodite have violet enlightenment? I mean, Hera is a goddess of marriage and she didn't have it, so they might not all be enlightened.

Aphrodite doesn't have violet enlightenment.

Hephaestaean pulls his mechadendrites in. "Aphrodite."

"Dear husband. Is it true? Have you overthrown Zeus?"

In a lot of myths she seems to be more of a goddess of beauty and lust.
 
Hera had invisible heart symbols around her speech when talking to Paul and invoking her domain of the home and marriage. That may have been more magic then any sort of Enlightenment but they do have a certain presence when acting withing their domain.
 
When Justice Lord Superman killed his Darkseid in this story, did Darkseid did something to him that made him go all tyrannical dictator later down the line? Like did a piece of Darkseid got lodged inside Superman's soul?
 
When Justice Lord Superman killed his Darkseid in this story, did Darkseid did something to him that made him go all tyrannical dictator later down the line? Like did a piece of Darkseid got lodged inside Superman's soul?
Probably not.

I think it just showed that version of Clark that sometimes people will just support a horrible person and system even when they're given a chance not to, so he thought that if the people wouldn't get rid of the corruption, then he'd do it.
 
The Ancestor
Noumenia, Boedromiōn, about-

Of course I mean 'about', boy. At my age-.

Hah! I am, and I already promised that I would tell you the story. You don't need to-.

No, no. I know that your mother was born thirty seven years ago. I will never forget that. And I married Nomia two years before that. Nomia? My wife. Your grandmother. No, you wouldn't-. Yes, with the gods. She saw you born, but…

'In time all things shall pass away'.

That was one of the things he told me, but you wanted to know what year it was. I married Nomia thirty nine years ago, and I spoke to him slightly less than three years before that. Forty two years. The year King Menelaus of Sparta set sail for Troy, to reclaim his wife and prove he could still wield his spear.

No, I didn't. I could have done, but I didn't.

I had a strong arm in those days-. Huh? Raaaaagh! Hehehe! But no, not like this. These are the muscles of a farmer. A builder of walls and fences, speaker of laws and council, hewer of wheat and grass. In my youth-. No, younger than your father. Then I was a builder of ships and formations, speaker of battle cries and hewer of men.

Of course not. That was-.

No, I haven't. I made my choice, and I am content with it.

Menelaus sent me a message, asking me to bring my men to join the kings of Greece when they sailed. But we were not friends, and I am not of Sparta. He offered money, but I wanted… I wanted fame. Acclaim. I wanted my skill as a warrior to be legend! Spoken of all across Greece! A war like that… We would become legends or the women of Sparta would laugh at our memories for…

Years.

But Menelaus was not my friend. We had fought together before, and he insulted me. I could earn fame in other wars. I didn't know if I should go or stay. So I asked my mother for advice, and she made my decision even clearer. If I went, I would die, and my name would be spoken of as one of the greatest of the heroes of Greece for generations to come. And if I did not, my name would live on only in my children.

Had that been all, I would probably have gone. My foster-brother Patroclus wanted to, and him I relied upon more than all others. But a priest in my father's court saw my uncertainty, and bade me visit a wondering oracle who had recently come into the city.

Yes, that was him. And yes, you have heard that part. When I went to speak with him he was in a cave outside of the city. Yes, if your mother will let you. It should still be there, unless the rains have collapsed it. But it isn't a shrine or a grotto. He told me that he just wanted somewhere to sit where he would only be bothered by people who would make the effort to see him.

No, he didn't tell me not to go. It was… More thoughtful.

The clothes he wore were… Strange. Rather than a tunic, he covered his legs in tubes of cloth fastened together around his waist. I don't know. I would guess that his homeland is in the colder lands to the north and so he was accustomed to dressing for warmth. His chest was covered by a chiridota, and both had some sort of bronze fastener-.

I'm sorry. My mind wanders.

Glow? Yes, yes, they did. Not brightly, but I could make them out in the dark of the cave. He asked how he could help, and I explained my choice. Immortality in tale and song, or long life and comfort. And what he said struck me dumb.

'No man or god knows the future. No man or god can control how others remember him after his death, and the you that lives forever in tale and song is not you as you are. And that in time even tales die.'

I was shocked. To claim that gods do not know the future? And he just waved my concerns aside. He said that if Cronus had known how and why Zeus would kill him then surely he would not have acted as he did. Therefore, for all his insight and wisdom he must not have known. If Mighty Zeus knew everything, why did he need Metis to advise him? He claimed that instead of being all-knowing, they were merely so well informed and wise that to mortal men it seemed as if they were. And with a war like the war that would be waged in Troy, the gods would most likely involve themselves, either directly or indirectly. They might make a prophecy only to fulfil it themselves; tell oracles that a man will die and make sure to kill him themselves.

I realised that what he said was possible, and that even one as wise as my mother could have been misled in such a way. So I asked about his second statement. Surely a man's nature and deed determine how he is remembered?

He told me that the people of his homeland practice a religion where they worship a single god. Everywhere, from their greatest city to their smallest village, has at least a shrine to that god and his demigod son who taught them about him. And that even then, that because the people who wrote their holy texts spoke Greek and changed the names of its people to Greek names, no one alive knows what the demigod's true name was. They only know the Greek version. That would be like you or I calling Herakles 'Hercules' as the Romans do, and not knowing any better! And that was for their only god!

But I questioned him on why they had Greek scribes, and he admitted that his people were less learned than ours. We Greeks keep records of the deeds of great warriors and kings. Surely, then, our tales were more accurate?

He asked if I knew of Herakles, and of his meeting with Queen Hippolyta. I said that I did, that Herakles was sent to obtain her girdle and though she would have given it willingly Hera's intervention meant that the Amazons rose against him and he slew many to escape.

When he heard my words, he shook his head and said that was not what happened.

Ah… He said that Herakles caused the fight by behaving poorly. That the girdle was simply a token of victory and not the object of his journey. That despite our record keeping and my education, I did not know that he had fought Herakles at Themyscira, and that the only song left from that fight was the clicking his right arm made if he raised it above his shoulder.

I know that mine does too. I may not have sought out war, but it has sought me out upon occasion. My advice, grandson, is that you should avoid getting your shoulder broken if you can avoid it.

Did he actually fight Herakles? Perhaps. He was an old man, and Herakles was of my grandfather's generation. All versions of Herakles' story say that he fought many people, and some of them lived, so it is not impossible.

So I asked if he believed that I should not go. He told me that he could not answer that. That only I could know what I valued most in life, and in death. What I lived for was for me alone to determine, and that all he could do was make the facts related to that decision as clear as possible. He said that there was no immortality to be had in tale or song or indeed anywhere else. That whatever was said of me would distort to become less and less like me until it was forgotten entirely. That in time the land itself would be ground down to nothing and then consumed by the dying sun. That simple misfortune might take any children I sired as it did my six elder brothers. That no nobility of intent or will can shield completely against the vagaries of fate.

Yes, that was a sad thing to hear. All of life contains a little sadness.

It was then that he pointed to the rock points on the ceiling of the cave, and asked if I knew how they formed. I told him that I did not. He said to me that they are made by water seeping through tiny cracks in the rock. As the water moves, it takes tiny amounts of rock with it, and deposits it where it drips down. A small amount stays where it dripped from, and a small amount stays where it lands. Over hundreds of years, the succession of tiny drips leaves enough rock to make spikes on the top and bottom.

They are made not by a single act, but by a million tiny acts.

So I decided that I would not go, to serve a man and a cause I cared nothing for. Patroclus who cared for such things more than I took the Myrmidons to Troy. You know how that went: they defeated the force outside the walls before gaining entry by trickery. Prince Hector's counterattack gave the people of Troy time to flee, burning their food stores as they went. Proud King Menelaus had to eat his own boots and scabbard, and returned home little more than a skeleton and without his wife.

And while they were doing that, I renewed my studies. I had built a library and a public baths. I laid bricks and cut timbers myself, for I still sought a legacy, and I wanted it to be mine, and not the invention of a poet or bard or ignorant scholar. Even if the people of some far distant future know nothing else of me, they will know the names of the civic architecture I built. It is hard to get 'King Achilleus built this' wrong. And if I am fortunate, my being a good king will likewise work to building a nation that will outlast me, even if none know that it grew strong because of me.

Hm? Oh, no. He had already left by then. Where? I have no idea. Did I ask him-? Of course I did. What fool would pass on the opportunity to question any oracle, much less the Ancestor? He told me that so much of history gets forgotten that he considers himself responsible for remembering as much of it as possible, and I think that is a noble cause for a scholar. Is he really the first ever man made by the gods? He told me that at that time the rules of the universe were less fixed in the distant past, so that by some metrics he was first and that by others he was not.

No, I do not know what that means either, though I asked him to clarify. Something to do with time having no meaning in primordial chaos, perhaps? And the answers he gave were of little more help. But I was glad to have met him. And you should be too, for I doubt that you would be here if I did not.
 
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Then I was a building of

"builder"

That despite our record keeping and my education, I did not know that he had fought Herakles at Themyscira, and that the only song left from that fight was the clicking his right arm made if he raised it above his shoulder.

Hmm, either this version doesn't have that much combat experience, or Herakles was just that strong.

Or he did defeat Herakles, but the damage couldn't be fully healed since it was inflicted by someone with a lot of metaphysical might.

I can't help but imagine this version being something like a mentor to a future Diana.

Did he actually fight Herakles? Perhaps. He was an old man

Hmm, does he actually look like an old man.

If so, he either doesn't care about maintaining his youthful appearance, or thought people would listen to him more if they thought he was an old man.

It is hard to get 'King Achilleus built this' wrong

Holy shit.

This is Achilles.
 
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He asked if I knew of Herakles, and of his meeting with Queen Hippolyta. I said that I did, that Herakles was sent to obtain her girdle and though she would have given it willingly Hera's intervention meant that the Amazons rose against him and he slew many to escape.

When he heard my words, he shook his head and said that was not what happened.

Ah… He said that Herakles caused the fight by behaving poorly. That the girdle was simply a token of victory and not the object of his journey. That despite our record keeping and my education, I did not know that he had fought Herakles at Themyscira, and that the only song left from that fight was the clicking his right arm made if he raised it above his shoulder.
I'm interested in seeing what the Amazons think of the Ancestor. Would they see him as the Amazons of Earth 16 see Alan, a rare good man that they can trust? Or do they think of him as a demigod that they can negotiate with but can never truly trust?

So I decided that I would not go, to serve a man and a cause I cared nothing for. Patroclus who cared for such things more than I took the Myrmidons to Troy. You know how that went: they defeated the force outside the walls before gaining entry by trickery. Prince Hector's counterattack gave the people of Troy time to flee, burning their food stores as they went. Proud King Menelaus had to eat his own boots and scabbard, and returned home little more than a skeleton and without his wife.

And while they were doing that, I renewed my studies. I had built a library and a public baths. I laid bricks and cut timbers myself, for I still sought a legacy, and I wanted it to be mine, and not the invention of a poet or bard or ignorant scholar. Even if the people of some far distant future know nothing else of me, they will know the names of the civic architecture I built. It is hard to get 'King Achilleus built this' wrong. And if I am fortunate, my being a good king will likewise work to building a nation that will outlast me, even if none know that it grew strong because of me.
So this version of Earth won't have the sayings "Trojan Horse" and "Achilles Heel". I wonder what else the Ancestor has changed.

I can't help but imagine this version being something like a mentor to a future Diana.
I didn't think of that until you mentioned it. I now hope that Paul will one day visit this Earth so that we can see him react to Diana referring to him as her teacher.
 
I don't get what going on who is the Ancestor is this reference to something?
 
I don't get what going on who is the Ancestor is this reference to something?
This is a version of Paul who ended up on Earth during the time it was ruled by cats. He was the one who convinced humans to dream up a world where humanity is on top, and as a bonus had them dream him a lantern on a staff. He's basically a good version of Vandal Savage, especially as he prevented the meteor that would've created Vandal Savage from crashing onto the planet.
 
What fool would pass on the opportunity to question any oracle, much less the Ancestor?
Hm, my best guess is this is the version of Paul we never actually meet, I think this is the third time? He's come up, always as a story told to someone else, first it was an old man in Australia I think, and we heard a tale of the Cats, then I think I remember an episode of this Paul that briefly interacted in North America, but it's been a long time and I cant recall the details.

As I recall, the assumption at the time was this was a version of Paul who had been sent to the beginning of time, probably at the start his story, as if it had occurred later on then he would have star maps.
 
Hm, my best guess is this is the version of Paul we never actually meet, I think this is the third time? He's come up, always as a story told to someone else, first it was an old man in Australia I think, and we heard a tale of the Cats, then I think I remember an episode of this Paul that briefly interacted in North America, but it's been a long time and I cant recall the details.
That's correct. The second story about him revealed that he met a tribe of Native Americans and tasked them with protecting a giant robot that housed the souls of nonhumans who wish to possess human bodies to restart their civilization. Bat Lash and Scalphunter were hired by this tribe to help keep Ra's al Ghul's son from finding it.
 
Noumenia, Boedromiōn, about-

Of course I mean 'about', boy. At my age-.

Hah! I am, and I already promised that I would tell you the story. You don't need to-.
Ah, another tale of the Ancestor. So, who speaks this time, and what story is to be told, hmm? The date names sound Hellenic. So, then, sing, oh muses, through this man and let us hear of the eternal man who walks in dreams... x3

No, no. I know that your mother was born thirty seven years ago. I will never forget that. And I married Nomia two years before that. Nomia? My wife. Your grandmother. No, you wouldn't-. Yes, with the gods. She saw you born, but…

'In time all things shall pass away'.
Only two things are truly certain in life: Death... And Taxes. :p

That was one of the things he told me, but you wanted to know what year it was. I married Nomia thirty nine years ago, and I spoke to him slightly less than three years before that. Forty two years. The year King Menelaus of Sparta set sail for Troy, to reclaim his wife and prove he could still wield his spear.
Ah... Hellenic antiquity, a period known more through legend than history.

No, I didn't. I could have done, but I didn't.

I had a strong arm in those days-. Huh? Raaaaagh! Hehehe! But no, not like this. These are the muscles of a farmer. A builder of walls and fences, speaker of laws and council, hewer of wheat and grass. In my youth-. No, younger than your father. Then I was a building of ships and formations, speaker of battle cries and hewer of men.
Heh. Children, always interrupting with questions.

Of course not. That was-.

No, I haven't. I made my choice, and I am content with it.
Truly? Or do you hold regrets, deep in a place in your heart, as all men do?

Menelaus sent me a message, asking me to bring my men to join the kings of Greece when they sailed. But we were not friends, and I am not of Sparta. He offered money, but I wanted… I wanted fame. Acclaim. I wanted my skill as a warrior to be legend! Spoken of all across Greece! A war like that… We would become legends or the women of Sparta would laugh at our memories for…
Alas, only the greatest of names were to be remembered, and many of them only in lists of participants.

Years.

But Menelaus was not my friend. We had fought together before, and he insulted me. I could earn fame in other wars. I didn't know if I should go or stay. So I asked my mother for advice, and she made my decision even clearer. If I went, I would die, and my name would be spoken of as one of the greatest of the heroes of Greece for generations to come. And if I did not, my name would live on only in my children.
But of those, which is the greater fame, hmm? The brief glory of tale and song, or the line of sons and daughters who carry your blood into the future?

Had that been all, I would probably have gone. My foster-brother Patroclus wanted to, and him I relied upon more than all others. But a priest in my father's court saw my uncertainty, and bade my visit a wondering oracle who had recently come into the city.

Yes, that was him. And yes, you have heard that part. When I went to speak with him he was in a cave outside of the city. Yes, if your mother will let you. It should still be there, unless the rains have collapsed it. But it isn't a shrine or a grotto. He told me that he just wanted somewhere to sit where he would only be bothered by people who would make the effort to see him.
Oh, my! Could this be a venerable Achilles, who avoided his fated death in the Trojan War by simply not going?

No, he didn't tell me not to go. It was… More thoughtful.

The clothes he wore were… Strange. Rather than a tunic, he covered his legs in tubes of cloth fastened together around his waist. I don't know. I would guess that his homeland is in the colder lands to the north and so he is accustomed to dressing for warmth. His chest was covered by a chiridota, and both had some sort of bronze fastener-.
I would guess that's some sort of shirt, if this is anything to go by. Clothes that would mark him as an outsider, yet one that was accepted wherever he went? Peculiar.

I'm sorry. My mind wanders.

Glow? Yes, yes, they did. Not brightly, but I could make them out in the dark of the cave. He asked how he could help, and I explained my choice. Immortality in tale and song, or long life and comfort. And what he said struck me dumb.

'No man or god knows the future. No man or god can control how others remember him after his death, and the you that lives forever in tale and song is not you as you are. And that in time even tales die.'
Dropping truths on the lad who came to him. Another aspect of legacy. How will you be remembered? By who? And for what reasons?

I was shocked. To claim that gods do not know the future? And he just waved my concerns aside. He said that if Cronus had known how and why Zeus would kill him then surely he would not have acted as he did. Therefore, for all his insight and wisdom he must not have known. If Mighty Zeus knew everything, why did he need Metis to advise him? He claimed that instead of being all-knowing, they were merely so well informed and wise that to mortal men it seemed as if they were. And with a war like the war that would be waged in Troy, the gods would most likely involve themselves, either directly or indirectly. They might make a prophecy only to fulfil it themselves; tell oracles that a man will die and make sure to kill him themselves.
Which they did, if the tales we have of it are anything to go by. Even when the other Gods told them not to.

I realised that what he said was possible, and that even one as wise as my mother could have been misled in such a way. So I asked about his second statement. Surely a man's nature and deed determine how he is remembered?
A good question, even if he didn't fully understand it at the time. Young men rarely think about such things.

He told me that the people of his homeland practice a religion where they worship a single god. Everywhere, from their greatest city to their smallest village, has at least a shrine to that god and his demigod son who taught them about him. And that even then, that because the people who wrote their holy texts spoke Greek and changed the names of its people to Greek names, no one alive knows what the demigod's true name was. They only know the Greek version. That would be like you or I calling Herakles 'Hercules' as the Romans do, and not knowing any better! And that was for their only god!
...Bit odd that he mentions Romans, but that could be a translation of another people. Likely one of the Latin-speaking groups.

But I questioned him on why they had Greek scribes, and he admitted that his people were less learned than ours. We Greeks keep records of the deeds of great warriors and kings. Surely, then, our tales were more accurate?

He asked if I knew of Herakles, and of his meeting with Queen Hippolyta. I said that I did, that Herakles was sent to obtain her girdle and though she would have given it willingly Hera's intervention meant that the Amazons rose against him and he slew many to escape.
Not always how the tale goes, of course. Sometimes it's willing... Sometimes it's not.

When he heard my words, he shook his head and said that was not what happened.

Ah… He said that Herakles caused the fight by behaving poorly. That the girdle was simply a token of victory and not the object of his journey. That despite our record keeping and my education, I did not know that he had fought Herakles at Themyscira, and that the only song left from that fight was the clicking his right arm made if he raised it above his shoulder.
Because if anyone could pierce an environmental field, especially a weak one, then a demigod of Strength might manage it.

I know that mine does too. I may not have sought out war, but it has sought me out upon occasion. My advice, grandson, is that you should avoid getting your shoulder broken if you can avoid it.

Did he actually fight Herakles? Perhaps. He was an old man, and Herakles was of my grandfather's generation. All versions of Herakles' story say that he fought many people, and some of them lived, so it is not impossible.
Good rule of fighting in general: Don't get hit. Sadly, that's not always possible to keep to. Especially in the phalanx era.

So I asked if he believed that I should not go. He told me that he could not answer that. That only I could know what I valued most in life, and in death. What I lived for was for me alone to determine, and that all he could do was make the facts related to that decision as clear as possible. He said that there was no immortality to be had in tale or song or indeed anywhere else. That whatever was said of me would distort to become less and less like me until it was forgotten entirely. That in time the land itself would be ground down to nothing and then consumed by the dying sun. That simple misfortune might take any children I sired as it did my six elder brothers. That no nobility of intent or will can shield completely against the vagaries of fate.
And that is how a merely skilled warrior became 'invulnerable' in songs and stories. But even the mightiest warrior could be felled by a single lucky blow in a delicate place, as Achilles was.

Yes, that was a sad thing to hear. All of life contains a little sadness.

It was then that he pointed to the rock points on the ceiling of the cave, and asked if I knew how they formed. I told him that I did not. He said to me that they are made by water seeping through tiny cracks in the rock. As the water moves, it takes tiny amounts of rock with it, and deposits it where it drips down. A small amount stays where it dripped from, and a small amount stays where it lands. Over hundreds of years, the succession of tiny drips leaves enough rock to make spikes on the top and bottom.
And over an even longer time, they come together to form pillars. But that's not really the point of the example he's making, is it?

They are made not by a single act, but by a million tiny acts.
Yes, there's the point. History turns on a billion decisions by a million people. The details can vary from tale to tale, but in the end...

So I decided that I would not go, to serve a man and a cause I cared nothing for. Patroclus who cared for such things more than I took the Myrmidons to Troy. You know how that went: they defeated the force outside the walls before gaining entry by trickery. Prince Hector's counterattack gave the people of Troy time to flee, burning their food stores as they went. Proud King Menelaus had to eat his own boots and scabbard, and returned home little more than a skeleton and without his wife.
Well, that went poorly for them, didn't it? And it makes you wonder how different the Hellenic world would be with such a significant change. All the great men of Attica and Arcadia and the rest came together to fight a war over a stolen woman. Helen's name is why the people of that region were known as they were. But what happens when that united front collapses in failure?

And while they were doing that, I renewed my studies. I had built a library and a public baths. I laid bricks and cut timbers myself, for I still sought a legacy, and I wanted it to be mine, and not the invention of a poet or bard or ignorant scholar. Even if the people of some far distant future know nothing else of me, they will know the names of the civic architecture I built. It is hard to get 'King Achilleus built this' wrong. And if I am fortunate, my being a good king will likewise work to building a nation that will outlast me, even if none know that it grew strong because of me.
In our history, none can even agree on where the home city of the Myrmidons, Phthia, was really located. In this history... It may well be the greatest city of its region of Thessaly...

Hm? Oh, no. He had already left by then. Where? I have no idea. Did I ask him-? Of course I did. What fool would pass on the opportunity to question any oracle, much less the Ancestor? He told me that so much of history gets forgotten that he considers himself responsible for remembering as much of it as possible, and I think that is a noble cause for a scholar. Is he really the first ever man made by the gods? He told me that at that time the rules of the universe were less fixed in the distant past, so that by some metrics he was first and that by others he was not.
And further deepening the story of the Ancestor, the eternal man, the keeper of stories and tales of history.

No, I do not know what that means either, though I asked him to clarify. Something to do with time having no meaning in primordial chaos, perhaps? And the answers he gave were of little more help. But I was glad to have met him. And you should be too, for I doubt that you would be here if I did not.
Not that a young child would appreciate that idea as fully as they ought to.

Well, that's an interesting tale. A great warrior stays home instead of sailing to the greatest war of the era, and rather than being a tale that brings together a people, it becomes a story of failure and humiliation. At least for Menelaus. Perhaps the ancient folk of the region would have found a different unifying idea, or perhaps not...
 
Well, that's an interesting tale. A great warrior stays home instead of sailing to the greatest war of the era, and rather than being a tale that brings together a people, it becomes a story of failure and humiliation. At least for Menelaus. Perhaps the ancient folk of the region would have found a different unifying idea, or perhaps not
People can bond with each other over failure.
 

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