Jamie tries the virtual-reality gear that he’d created. He starts an Ancient Greece simulation, as he wanted to experience those times, but forgets to set the year and runs the timed simulation.
“Where’s the city”, he says. He expects to be surrounded by architecture, but all he could see were wastelands. He walks around, looking for indications of humanity and finds cavemen. “I forgot to input the year.”, he says, realizing that he cannot exit the simulation. His machine was in testing and couldn’t exit simulations until the timer ran out. He had access to teleportation but time-travel couldn’t be accessed until fire was created. He accesses a clock, which shows 30 minutes until he could time-travel. He teleports to Olympus, the gods' residence, to waste some time.
He stares in amazement as he looks at Olympus on Mount Olympus. It’s quite grand, protected by golden gates, guarded by three ladies, resembling the seasons' Summer, Spring and Autumn. He walked into Zeus’s palace and roams around rooms, like the discussion room, where the Gods sit on their thrones, and the bedroom. It was large, with fireplaces. He sees a large figure entering the bedroom. The figure picks up several pieces of wood and proceeds to leave when a goddess appears. She isn’t surprised when she sees him. “Prometheus, What are you doing?” “You know what I’m doing this to improve humanity, Hestia. Zeus won’t listen so I’ve taken matters onto my own hands.” “Zeus will punish you. However, I don’t know why I’m talking to air.” Taking the hint, Prometheus takes the wood and gets out of the bedroom and the mountain. Intrigued by what happened, Jamie teleports near Prometheus and sees him provide fire, and ways to create it, to humans. Witnessing the invention, Jamie time-travels to see Prometheus’s fate.
Jamie stands in the throne room with Prometheus in front of Zeus and the other gods.“Siblings, Prometheus stole fire and gave it to humans. For this, he’ll be punished at Caucasus mountains.” Zeus held Prometheus and vanishes. Jamie teleported to the mountains, interested in Prometheus’s fate. He saw Zeus chaining Prometheus to the mountains and leaving his insides exposed, leaving his liver exposed. “I thought you wouldn’t meddle with me as you were spared during the Titanomachy.” “Humans can improve through fire” “They can but they’ll harm the Earth. Now your punishment.” An eagle arrives and feasts upon the liver. Jamie goes to the future and sees the predictions come true.
He was in ancient Greece, surrounded by temples, made in honour of the gods such as Zeus, Athena and Ares, made of wood, limestone, bricks and marble, with metal and terracotta decorations. He sees that Prometheus’s prediction is accurate, with people looking better than before. He saw several bonfires, bellowing huge amounts of smoke, along the streets. Thinking about the future, Jamie realized that Zeus too was right, humans caused damage to the Earth. Jamie understood how humans got fire and its impact, just as the simulation ended.
Part 2:
This myth that has been created is a combination of the imaginative and the historical, like Riordan’s Percy Jackson series. The setting, which is Greece, in this case, and the time are purely thought out. In short, the story is about a person named Jamie who uses a sophisticated VR set to explore Ancient Greece, but goes way back in time. He then experiences the provision of fire and the resulted punishment which had been bestowed upon Prometheus, the Titan who had stolen fire in the first place.
The main topic that the myth is based on is the story of Prometheus stealing fire from the Gods. Even though he was punished for this act, the Gods decided to allow humans to use fire, which sparked a series of changes and has led to the modern world as it is. Nowadays we cannot live without sources of heat such as coal, petroleum and electricity, all of which are heavily used in our day-to-day lives for tasks such as charging phones, driving vehicles etc, which is a stark contrast from the lives of people several centuries ago. While we have come a long way from using fires and transforming ourselves from backward cave-people to what we are today, it has come at quite a cost, namely air pollution due to the emissions from said devices, which leads to global warming and the breaking of the ozone layer with holes in it. There are several reasons which lead to global warming, but for the sake of this class, I have written a Greek History version of it.
There are some true elements present inside the story, such as the description of Olympus and the Greek buildings and the description of the materials as well. It can be seen in the ancient texts such as. However for the most part, the crux of my myth is based on the idea of Prometheus stealing fire and giving it to humans, from the gods. Furthermore it also provided a highlight into the punishment that Prometheus had recieved due to directly disobeying a command
The short version of the myth is that Prometheus was one of the Titans who did not take part in the Titanomachy, and was subsequently allowed to be spared from being sent into Tartarus, who was deity and a place in the underworld. He had given the task of creating man from the earth and water, which he did, however in doing so, he started to grow fond of them and eventually saw the potential in them to be as independent as immortals such as Gods and Titans. However, Zeus was absolutely against this idea of providing men with any sort of unusual power. Motivated to help humans by providing fire, Prometheus, who was known for his intelligence and wisdom decided to steal some of the fire and providing it to humans(Hesiod, Theogony 565-566). He thought out an immediate plan. He decided to trick goddesses by throwing a golden pear/apple (this depends on the ancient text read.) into the courtyard of Olympus with the message: “For the most beautiful goddess of all.”
His plan seemed to work as a fight seemed to spark up among the goddesses, all of whom wanted to be considered as the most beautiful one, while the male gods were watching them fight, and left all of them to be distracted. This distraction allowed him to visit the workshop of Hephaestus, the Greek god of fire. He took some of the fire in a hollowed pumpkin or a hollowed reed, depending on the ancient text and took it down to Earth to give it to humans.
This act made Zeus quite angry with Prometheus. He decided to punish him by making Hephaestus chain Prometheus onto Mount Caucasus, where an eagle would eat his liver forever.(Lowell Thomas' book of the high mountains (p. 159). J. Messner.)
Soon, after time had passed Zeus decided to offer Prometheus freedom, in exchange of reverling a prophecy which stated that Zeus would be overthrown, which Prometheus had promptly refused. In the end, he was freed, after Zeus’s son, Hercules had come and killed the eagle set to feast on Prometheus’s liver, as part of the Twelve Labors he was set out to do.(Hesiod, Theogony 521-529)
There are several stark differences between my story and the ancient texts, I have stated that Prometheus stole a fire ember wood, directly from Zeus’s bedroom, while the rest of the gods were present in the palace, which contradicts the stories which mention the use of a reed or a hollowed out pumpkin, along with the fact that Promethus had arranged the trap in a garden, and entered Hephaestus’s workship, not Zeus’s room. I also mention that Hestia, the goddess of Hearth appears and warns him of the consequences of his actions if he continues down the same path, which has been derived and modified a bit from the Percy Jackson storyline and has not directly been mentioned anywhere in any Ancient Greek piece of work. Furthermore the description of Zeus’s palace is completly fictional
Thomas, L. (1964). Lowell Thomas' book of the high mountains. In Lowell Thomas' book of the high mountains (p. 159). New York: J. Messner.
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