Short WW piece in some fan stuff I'm working on

[MrHashasheen]

Keeping it simple, it's a sort of monologue/voice over by Diana for a personal take I'm writing on a Wonder Woman film. Uses bits of IRL mythology as well looking to the incredible Gods & Mortals arc that was drawn on for the animated movie, and definitely doesn't cover the entire mythos or movie beyond what you might expect as an informative preview at the start of a film. It's a two-parter with part one below, covering the events preceding the Amazons charges and duties as defined by the Goddesses of Olympus.

Hopefully you like it.

It began with an apple, though there are those who say it had been written the moment the Sky Father usurped Cronus. An apple inscribed, words written upon it to entice only the most proud: To the fairest of them all.

A challenge, some might think. An insult, others might prefer. Certainly two of those who had claimed the apple that day had felt so, when even bribery did not win them a mortal's favour.
Prince Paris of Troy.

For the Beauty of Sparta he doomed his country. For Helen of Troy, he set into motion the final days of the Olympian Gods.

--

Gods.

Gods are not infallible, my mother took care to teach me.

Gods are not just, nor kind nor wise. They are as fallible as any of us, though they would not care to hear it so, and especially not from those meant to be most devoted.

The gods set into motion the Trojan War.

The war to end all wars, some thought. Ten years of blood and death, the gods themselves playing as large a part as any other.

Apollo, Aphrodite, Ares and Artemis...

Athena, Hephaesteus, Hera and Poseidon...

Them and more, nearly counting all the demigods and gods that had ever been sprung from the loins of Zeus and his siblings.

All for a want of an apple.

Ten years of blood and death at Troy, my own mother's sisters dead before it's walls.

Ten years, and even that was not enough for godly pride nor mortal greed.

Few were those who returned from Troy. Fewer still were those greeted kindly, the spent survivors of a war that never need have been fought.

Those few, those lucky few who had not seen the war that followed.

The War of the Gods.

Ares led those of like-mind, those who had favoured the Trojans and their allies, who had seen their beloved champions fall one and all by war's end. Against him stood his sister Athena, herself championing the cause of the Greeks and standing in opposition to the likes of Aphrodite.

Though diminished in number, each had their following among the gods, each had their followings among us mortals. Enough at least that rival the blood already shed, and perhaps more valuable than all the lives already lost.

Gods and men went to war, and as for we Amazons...?

We fought for my grandfather, fought for Ares the God of War.

We fought for him...

And we lost.

--

Perhaps it is unfair to say that we lost, but perhaps more accurate to say that none won. For all my grandfather's battle-prowess and for all the strength shown by my mother and her Amazons, we were matched in every virtue by those we called our enemies. Where our spears and swords were marched to battle, Poseidon would find those of like spirit to meet us. Atlanteans, heirs to the God of the Oceans as we Amazons were heirs to the God of War.

We lost as many battled as we won, buried as many sisters as they did brothers.

All for the pride of gods, who burned around them the world they ruled.

All until the day that the Sky fell.

All until the day that Zeus, King of the Gods and Master of Olympus died by his son's hand.

Died by my grandfather's hand.

He, Hades and Poseidon as well, the sons of Cronus slain by their own blood.

Few are those yet alive who were there that day, the day that Ares scaled Mount Olympus.

Fewer still are those who would speak of it, who would say anything but the vaguest of details, of how fearsome Ares had appeared and of how mighty his spear had seemed.

Whatever the details, that was the day that the sons of Cronus fell and the day that Ares proclaimed himself King of the Gods.

The day that reason prevailed, when the surviving Olympians made peace amongst themselves to instead fall upon my grandfather.

And did so with my mother's help, with the help of all us Amazons.

[Agent Z]

Sounds good. Great work and keep it up.

[MrHashasheen]

--

Looking back, I should not have been surprised as I was when I was first taught our people's history.

From an early age, we Amazons are taught the consequences of war, not only upon the guilty but also the innocent.

This was a lesson learned best by the oldest of us, those who had fought for my mother under Ares during his war or even earlier still under her sisters.

Penthesilea, Antiope, Orithiya, Melanippe...

My mother had been the youngest of five sisters, each and everyone of which had passed on before her.

The oldest, Antiope had been died at the hands of a fellow Amazon, during the mess of matters that had been her affair with Theseus.

Orithiya claimed rule over the Amazons after her, but only briefly before she died of wounds sustained in battle.

Penthesilea had been slain by Achilles, her remains desecrated by a Greek called Diomedes.

Menalippe would be the last, dying at Troy by Telamon's hand.

All these deaths and more, even before Ares raised his spear in defiance.

Little wonder my mother turned her Amazons against her father, when all the fruit he had had to give tasted so bitter.

Little wonder she had helped see him bound and chained beneath Themiscyra itself and so deep within the firmament that his jail seemed akin to those of Tartarus.

Ares was yet ascendant following his victory at Mount Olympus, the greatest victory in living history by all accounts and memories. Giants, gods, even Titans had never achieved nearly so great a victory over Zeus and his siblings. At that moment, it proved an indisputable fact that where all others had failed, Ares son of Zeus had succeeded in toppling the divine order.

Had he simply laid down his spear, called for a truce and made to bring together his disparate surviving kindred, then perhaps he might have yet won his desired kingship by acclaim alone.

As it was, victory-drunk as he was...

They came together, if only to defy him.

His own confederates in Apollo and Artemis defied him, leading the bulk of their worshipers away in their refusal to recognize him as king. Into the shadows they disappeared, the huntress and sun god both casting aside the whole affair. Aphrodite, fourth among Ares's confederates had shunned the God of War, electing instead to reach out to the surviving leadership on the opposing side in Athena and Hera.

Together the three goddesses convened, struggling among themselves for a united response even as Ares began his tyranny from atop Olympus. Though his days as king were few, the horrors that occurred were remarkable still. Atlantis was sunk beneath the waves, it's many tens of thousands of people feared lost, as dead as the many water spirits who Ares had felled during the campaign.

It was those horrors that finally hardened my mother's heart against her own father, had seen her reach out to those yet defiant and plot together for Ares's undoing. Aided by Hephaestus, a plot was schemed and sprung, using chains forged by the lamed god to bind his brother, to end the cycle of violence propogated at that fateful wedding.

My grandfather did not suspect, did not question my mother's absence. Only when it was too late did realization sink in, as he laid curses upon my mother and all the gods yet living.

Only then, when the new order of things had been decided.

--

Even had Apollo and Artemis had not struck off on their own, the devastation wrecked by years of war had left the gods and their kind rather diminished in number. Only those who had abstained from the fighting lacked the losses that defined it, and they were all too few indeed. Ash tree and river nymphs, the fates and furies both and less than a dozen of the Olympians themselves.

Aphrodite, Athena, Demeter, Hephesteus, Hera and Hermes were all that remained of those that once dwelled on Mount Olympus and they had been as scarred as any Amazon by what had transpired, left hollow by the deaths of loved ones and rivals.

And yet they had forced themselves forward, undertaken precautions that the dangers that had troubled them at the apex of their power would not trouble what they would leave behind after them. Diminished in numbers, they looked to the Amazons as their successors, a more caring and peaceful lot than those who had fallen out so miserably before them.

Though wearied of war, the Amazons understood the importance of the burden placed before them. While divine kindred such as the Giants or Titans yet remained bound deep within Tartarus, their imprisonments could not be assured of in the absence of Hades and Zeus, however much Athena praised her own might or Hephaestus defended his forged chains and gates.

"Typhon alone was a Father of Monsters," Hera had said, the Queen Mother of Olympus silencing all protests at mention of the Last Titan "And he was not alone of that folk. There yet remain not only in Tartarus but roaming free many a danger of our own making. Dangers that must be addressed, with or without us. Man's World cannot face alone that which will seem imperishable."

"They will not," your mother had said, a decision echoed by every living Amazon of that time "Not as long as we draw breath."

And so began the compact, the last ever forged between the Amazons of Themiscyra and the Gods of Olympus. Simply writ, the Amazons would see to the lingering dangers left by their Gods, and would do so armed in the glorious gifts of the Lamed God himself. The others would bless these warrior women, the last of their ancient Anatolian kingdom who would rebuild anew away from Man's World.

Gifted long life by the ambrosia and nectar of Mount Olympus, we have stood eternal against the dangers in the dark. We have ranged across the lands of Man's World in penance and with purpose, and have seen all they have gained and lost over the many centuries. We have stood apart, mindful of the tyranny the Gods once enjoyed, mindful that hating hearts cannot be forced to love. We have stood apart and will continue to do so, until Man's World sees the folly in war as we Amazons have, until they cast aside the anger in their hearts and embrace their fellows.

However long that takes.

However long they take.

Part 2, longer and not quite as strong I fear. Basically covers the events pre-Paradise Isle, setting up some teasers while establishing changes to the traditional origin story. Using the Trojan War as a launching point mean more than 3,000 years of gaping time that the Amazons have to fill. In my mind, isolation doesn't necessarily mean ignorance and a trope I'd want to use is that of adoption and conception from Man's World, taking in children from broken homes or orphaned without surviving kin. Boys to be raised by Hephesteus as Azarello did, but girls to be raised as Amazons. None of that sailor-killing crap, you know? My idea is that rather than do the demi-god thing across the board, I can have Hippolyta as the direct link to the old order of things, while using Diana and other younger Amazons to reflect diversity not only in ethnicity but also culture.

For example, if Amazons range beyond Themiscyra to protect Man's World, they'd by necessity recognize it's technology and languages and religious developments, taking in what they want while discarding the rest. There could be historical cases where Amazons abandoned Themiscyra for one reason or another (creating one-offs that Wonder Woman or other Amazons could explore regarding their fallen sisters bereft of ambrosia), or cases where Themiscyra adopted certain advances for their own benefit and then took it a step further (Purple Energy somehow, somewhere!). This lets me pinch something off of Morrison in how to depict Themiscyra as primarily Greek but also maintaining that good ol' feminine touch.

There's other thoughts, but that's all possibly for another time.