The Cycle happened again and Zeus has been overthrown by his children

Athena had an entire city-state in her name, and represented wisdom and forethought, a divergence from Greece's spiritual and superstitious traditions.

Apollo has sex with minotaurs for money

Ares and Hephaestus are the only sons of Zeus and Hera, aren't they? They're probably the only ones who have a legitimate claim, then. But Hephaestus doesn't seem like the kind who's want to rule.

Here's what I'm thinking.

ZEUS LOYALISTS
- Zeus himself, of course
- Hera stands by her man
- Demeter, who remains loyal to her brother
- Poseidon supports his brother
- Ares, since he wants the throne for himself.
- - Phobos and Deimos both support Ares, of course.
- - Enyo, sister and wife of Ares
- Hephaestus, who is browbeaten into supplying the weapons (and might betray Zeus if/when possible)
- Heracles, who is loyal to his father and is genuinely honorable and regrets the war
- Hebe, daughter of Zeus and Hera. Would greatly desire to leave, but is cowed by Zeus.

APOLLO REBELS
- Apollo himself, of course.
- Artemis most likely supports her brother.
- Athena, who seeks to see justice done since Apollo was wronged
- Hermes, as he is after all a god of transition
- - Iris, since Hermes is her boss
- Asclepius, who supports his boss Apollo (both are associated with medicine and healing)
- Eos, personification of the dawn, supports Apollo, her boss
- Eris, out of love for all the chaos this is causing
- Nemesis, since she's the goddess of retribution and revenge
- Triton, looking to overthrow Poseidon so he can rule the seas
- Nike, goddess of victory...which is immensely troubling to Zeus.

NEUTRAL
- Aphrodite, who has little interest in war.
- - Eros, who like his mother has little interest in the war
- Dionysus, who couldn't care less
- Hestia, who is more concerned with humans.
- Hades, who has his own shit to worry about
- - Persephone remains loyal to Hades
- Nyx She's busy
- Pan. Busy with humans
- Hecate, maybe. She might actually be on Apollos' side
- Ditto the Moirai (fates).

How would that make him a cunt?

>woman in charge of the whole pantheon

One thing is the patron deity of the hegemonic city (who just happens to be female) getting buffs and retcons that benefit her as the city gets more and more influential in politics and culture, but that's too much.

>Persephone
>Due to civil war, Hades doesn't let her go to visit her mother
>World is in perpetual winter time during the battles
Oh, shit, this civil war could turn Greece into a bunch of tundra islands

Considering that Hades' rule depends on the statu quo established by Zeus, I don't think he could stay neutral on the long term.

Which doesn't mean that he should side with Zeus or even take a side from the start, but he got his domain on the last rebellion and he's probably intelligent enough to know he could lose it in this one if he's not in the winner's side.

Hephaestus is not Zeus' son, he was born of Hera alone
And Hera has on MULTIPLE occasions been subtly or directly antagonistic to Zeus' aims.

I'm more thinking he stays neutral because while the Theomachy is going down, it's his job to make sure the Titans and Giants don't use the opportunity to break out of Tartaros - or, gods forbid, TYPHON breaks out.

Shit, that's a thing.

>woman in charge of the whole pantheon

Isn't that the biggest switch up there could be?
And if you're disregarding political effects on the mythos then there are A LOT of changes that need to be made to ALL the gods

>Hera
>Helping her man
>In a conflict spawned from him trying to cheat on her
>Implying she wouldn't want him just beaten into submission so he can have him all to herself for once

Myths are inconsistent. Hephaestus is also said to be Zeus' son. Sometimes.

I believe that bacho was the one profetized to win this...

>Hephaestus is not Zeus' son, he was born of Hera alone

Not according to the Illiad and the Odyssey. Hephaestus just being Hera's kid alone is found in Hesiod's work. The issue is that using Hesiod's version creates an inconsistency - the most common version of Athena's birth is that Hephaestus is the one who split Zeus' head open, making Hephaestus necessarily older, but in the parthenogenesis version Hera gave birth to Hephaestus in revenge for Zeus giving birth to Athena, which would make him necessarily younger.

Remember that time Apollo killed a guy for challenging him to a musical competition?

...

All I say is, if we're gonna discuss ancient greek mythology, we should keep it bearable to ancient greek sensibilities even if it's fanfiction. There's no need to completely disregard Athena being strong and overpowered, I'm just explaining why she is and why it wouldn't work to put her in charge of the Olympians.

For starters, I don't think it's in character for Athena to do something so anathema to greeks as ruling a family like a man.

Athens-fag detected

Well, the (by greek god standards) was important. Even Athena who is basically a perfect pure waifu and always on the side of the righteous had her moments of autistic fit.

Is there even a single story from Greek myth that casts Ares in a positive light?

He just comes across as an angry retard who embodies all the worst aspects of warfare. Who runs crying to his dad when a mortal actually hurts him a fight.

That's some sense I can groc to.
Would she fight at all? She assisted in the Trojan war, namely against Apollo and Ares, even allowing a mortal to harm Ares.

I know, just thought it was worth bringing up.

And you are right, she has clearly taken losing a beauty contest to the literal goddess of beauty pretty damn hard in the Iliad.

I don't think she would help the son of her husband and another godess either, tho.

My take on the matter is that, inside Zeus team, there's a third side leaded by Ares with Hera behind him.

She undeniably likes to participate in conflicts or at least thinks it's her duty, she is not the kind of goddess to stay passive. She would take the side of whoever she though to be the righteous one, which is Zeus in almost every situation except maybe (althought we could argue that it's Zeus right to go around raping women and he did nothing technically wrong).

Yeah, I can see that. Poseidon, too, is likely hoping to use the situation to his advantage.

Basically Apollo has generally weaker gods on his side, but they have a better unity of purpose. The only one with truly ulterior motives are Eris and Triton, but neither of their motives are incompatible with Apollo's...though Eris might switch sides on a whim. But she might switch back on a whim, too.

Zeus has the generally mightier gods on his side, but Hephaestus and Hebe would like to get the Heck out of dodge as soon as possible, Hera and Ares (and Phobos and Deimos and Enyo) are looking to spin things so that Ares ends up ruling instead (with Hera as the power behind the throne), while Poseidon is also looking for an opportunity to take over. Poseidon is, ironically, more overt and ineffectual about it, though. Ares would be, but Hera's guiding him, and Hera's far more crafty.

The only truly loyal people Zeus has on his side are Demeter and Heracles.

There's also like a million other deities that could fall on either end of the spectrum depending on what OP wants.

I'm liking this more every time.

When some fucker raped Alcippe, Ares' daughter, Ares straight up murdered him and barely got off when he was put on trial by the other gods.

Not exactly 'positive light' but better than Athena 'Wow medusa how dare you get raped by Poseidon in my temple have a curse'

Everyone assumed Ganymede would side with Zeus, seeing as the latter was made a god and Royal cup-bearer by the former. He remained on mount Olympus for much of the war, beside Hebe, but defected to Apollo's camp with her and Hera when Zeus got it in to his head to consume other gods late in the war, as a means or incapacitating immortals.

It's kind of iffy, but I always wondered if it was a misguided blessing, meant to prevent further rape. Or maybe it was a way to get back at Poseidon. Either way, goddess of justice my ass.

>different people can't have different ethics

The girl was to blame as much as Poseidon, if not more. Since she was a mortal and Poseidon was not, she was the only one being punished. That's justice in the context of the tale.

The "some fucker" was a son of Ares too. He managed to commit one of the worst crimes ever, killing your own son, even when doing something apparently sympathetic (both for us and greeks since Ares was forgiven).

Considering that he got the short end of the stick being turned into basically just an overglorified Jailer with some pretty scenery in certain parts, he probably would be Neutral. Whoever begins winning the battles near the end is the one that he'd back, but only at the end, because he wants to make sure everything's fine. He probably wouldn't fight certain gods though, since he's ultra-pussywhipped by Persephone.

Hades/Pluto/Orcus is best God and the eldest brother.

Well, that woud have been the case, were Zeus not a bit more savvy.
After the Titans, there were the Olympians and after them there should have been the Giants. Like Cronus did with Uranus and Zeus did with Cronus, the giants would have done with Zeus, but they were defeated and trapped by the Olympians.
This is one interpretation at least. Some sources vary on the Giants being the next step after the Olympians, but I like to think that.
It would make the failure to overthrow the lords of the world an invalid state for the world, an existential error. Very Dark Souls if you ask me.

>Theomachy
By the way what I think EVERY religion should have as end goal for humanity at large. Because every child will surpass it's father's station in the end.

But what kind of shitty ethics system blames the rape victim? Odds are she did everything to prevent it, ad rather than go after the perpetrator, Athena further punishes the victim?

Wouldn't humanity be the next rulers in that scenario though?
Aren't we the next gen, under the gods?

Now that I think about it, maybe it would be in Hades' best interests to actually back Apollo/Zeus in order to get a better realm. Maybe he could convince Apollo to give him the Sea since he's a much more powerful ally than Triton. Or Zeus if we take this as canon (which I would) and Poseidon gets too far with his defiance. Or even with Ares.

Hades is a pretty passive god in greek myth, but that's because we always see him doing this job he doesn't really like. Maybe he would be more active if he saw the opportunity of getting a better realm to rule and be comfy in.

>But what kind of shitty ethics system blames the rape victim?

Plenty around the world and ages. You know, the point of different ethics system is that they MUST be shitty and ilogic for you who come from another one.

It was Poseidons son.

Also Zeus is about as powerful as everybody else put together. So there is that to consider.

Not literally, as is the case with Chronos and Zeus.

In fact, we were created by a Titan and Zeus hates us so much he created women to punish us.

The only source where I can check it right now says it was Ares' son. Of course, it's you know what website and not very reliable.

Even countries that pretend to be sympathetic towards rape victims still ostracize them.

But Greeks considered the perpetrator to be at fault. Even if Athena didn't feel bad for the victim, straight up punishing her for being raped? And then not doing jack to the rapist?

This makes me think: Would mortals play a role in this war? Mortals are pretty important in greek mythology (although most of them are heroes so not exactly normal mortals).

I think that most mortals would side with Apollo or whoever is against Zeus, really. Zeus literally hated humans while Apollo was very, very popular.

But then, Apollo isn't really directly under Zeus either, as is the case with Titans and Gods.
Sure technically Zeus is king, but he still only technically has domain over the sky.

FUCK APOLLO

INVICTUS SUTCIVNI
INVICTUS SUTCIVNI
INVICTUS SUTCIVNI
INVICTUS SUTCIVNI

PRAISE THE SUN

The rapist would've been punished if he was a normal man. Atalanta and her partner were tranformed into lions as punishment for having sex in a temple. Normal consensual sex, mind you.

If you seduce (what medusa did counts as seducing) and fuck a dude in the temple, the goddess gets mad and punishes you period. In this case since only one of them can get punished, only the """victim""" gets transformed.

He's literally Apollo's father. Do you know how much authority this gives him in an ancient context?

It's just been the children overthrowing their fathers. Ouranos to Kronus to Zeus, and in this one it looks like Apollo.

All of these generations are gods, which humans decidedly are not.

Not much, if that one legend about the guy who killed his dad and fucked his mom is anything to go by.
But really, what makes a god all that special?
Usually, it seems to be the ability to mess with the laws of nature, which mortals like us are coming closer to doing everyday.
Hell, one of Zeus's most powerful weapons was lightning, and I'd argue that an atomic bomb could whoop lightning's ass.

They didn't call him SOL INVICTUS for nothing...
I believe we call him Solar Awesome today?

We're trying to talk about a Theomachy here. Get your HFY bullshit out of here.

And the guy who killed his dad and fucked his mom tore his own eyes out when he realized.

Yeah, sad thing is he realized that only after three children.

So am I. So what, I'm not allowed to argue the potential of humanity being the next candidate, rather than another god? It could make sense.

True, but how much is that because of him killing his father, rather than making 3 kids with his mom?

>Thinking that humanity could compete with the Gods
>When the Gods' "true forms" are basically walking nuclear explosions

That's like saying:
>Thinking the gods could compete with the Titans
>When just one of the titans is literally the incarnation of time itself

Weird, wikipedia says it was Halirrhothius who was Poseidons son.

He killed him and fucked her without knowing their identities and even with that excuse he's considered to have commited a big crime, beyond murder.

The difference is that the Gods and the Titans are all incarnations of concepts, while humans are just fleshy meat-sacks full of worthless anger in comparison.

Motherfucker, this ain't God of War.

Theomachy. Theo means god. It breaks down that simply. It's always been the children overthrowing the fathers, and this time is likely gonna be no different.

Alright, let's break this down, shall we? When a mortal sees a god's true form, they turn to ash. No Save. Gods are entirely immortal. Can't be killed. Yeah, Nukes are nice and all, but you're basically trashing their stuff. Poseidon alone can bring earthquakes and tsunami's down onto you, fucking up basically anything you have.

The very elements themselves are against you in this war. I hope you enjoy eternal winter, because that's what you're getting. Have fun feeding the masses.

This is just modern day humanity, as a note, while we're talking about greco-roman era still, who are even more fucked.

Humans being able to be next candidate goes directly against the theme of the setting, please stop. It's like trying to make the Looney Toons grimdark.

Maybe I did misread it. He's a kinda obscure guy.

>what makes a god all that special?
Unimaginable amounts of sheer power, far more than what any common mortal could conceive of having. That they are fated to live forever. That they will always be happy. Those are the things that characterize the greek gods.

The only humans with even the slightest hope of standing up to the Greek gods would be humans with 1/2 divine parentage themselves. Ordinary mundane humans wouldn't stand a chance.

Wouldn't atomic explosions fall under the domain of some god or another and therefore wouldn't work against him?

>It's always been the children overthrowing the fathers

Funny thing - how did humans come to exist, in Greek mythology? I don't remember any myth where one of the gods directly created them. It feels like humans were just always *there*, somehow.

Out of all the demigods in greek myth only Heracles has the power to stand against gods, and he achieved apotheosis after death so it doesn't really matter

>But really, what makes a god all that special?
Indestructible legendary enchantments that become creatures once you have enough devotion to their color combo

Helios, maybe? The sun is just a giant nuclear fusion reactor, after all.

You don't know much about greek mythology then.

Prometheus created men. The first woman, Pandora, was created by Zeus to punish Prometheus and his creations.

Prometheus created humans. Epimetheus created beasts and took all the good stuff like fangs and claws, screwing humans over, so Prometheus stole the gods' fire for us and is now suffering eternal punishment for it.

It's a really fun idea to think about what nee things would come under which Greek god's domain if we still worshipped them. Would Iris be the goddess of the internet? Is Zeus ok eith us flying through his sky in airplanes? What gods do astronauts pray to for safety?

Greek mythology literally has a prophecy where Athena is going to be the one to be the successor to Zeus, much as Zeus replaced Kronos and Kronos overthrew Ouranos, as said.

Zeus tried everything in his power to keep the child of Metis from being born, but when Athena came bursting out of his head as an essentially with a spear screaming bloody murder, Zeus thought "you know what, she isn't that bad" and started grooming her to be his successor. It helps that she was essentially a rule 63 version of Zeus and was a complete daddy's girl with no desire to overthrow her father like Zeus and Kronos did. Athena was always been the favorite of Zeus' children, with only Heracles coming close. The only difference is that the next time power is passed among the Olympians it might not be with a bloody revolt.

I've never even played God of War should I, people always talk about it, makes me think it might be a better game than the quicktime events and overdone gore/nudity I've seen in snippets has led me to believe

What makes that all to different from how a lot of humans specialize?
I was arguing future humanity though. As in what humans might potentially be capable of. Who's to say we couldn't figure out how to create earthquakes and tsunamis, and bring winter as well? As we are now though? I could see us annoying the hell out of the gods, and feel like as on whole, humanity is equal to about one of the fuckers right now. As in, were we to wage war on just one of the gods, right now, I feel like victory would be about a 50/50 thing. that's not including the other gods, mind you. So yeah, I was talking about humanity's potential.
How does it go against it? Hell, quite a bit of greek legend deals with (admittedly usually half god) doing crazy shit on a divine level, some mortals doing it to such an extent they themselves are made gods, or are remembered for literally millennia.
>Unimaginable amounts of sheer power, far more than what any common mortal could conceive of having.
Like being able to fuck with the laws of nature? We can do that to an extent, and find new and better ways to do it every day.
>That they are fated to live forever.
We come closer to immortality every day
>That they will always be happy.
lolwut?
Achilles, while not pure human, was not divine.
Whether or not Theseus is a demigod is ambiguous.
Odysseus
Jason
Orpheus
Chemical weaponry, or biological weaponry.
what?

Previous wars between generations of gods were caused by monstrous tyranny, a "conflict of interests" between dominating and big group of dominated who weren't ok with the status quo.

While rape on Artemis would certainly make Apollo hate the guts of Zeus, it wouldnt necessarily make any other Olympian pick the side of the young god.
He would simply get smashed.

>Chemical weaponry, or biological weaponry.

The gods can send plagues too. And they have healing balms that can cure all wounds.

Fuck off with this Salvation War bullshit. Humans < Gods. End of discussion.

This further supports my theory of humans being the next gen.
That's actually kind of a difficult thing. Planes are transportation, which falls under Hermes, but the sky is Zeus' domain.

>Hell, quite a bit of greek legend deals with (admittedly usually half god) doing crazy shit on a divine level, some mortals doing it to such an extent they themselves are made gods, or are remembered for literally millennia.

Individuals, not mankind. And, as you say, half gods backed by gods. If you're backed by the right god you can do whatever, even beat another god 1vs1. If not you're shit.

Achilles was bathed in the river Styx, wasn't he?
Theseus is Theseus
Odysseus is best friends with Athena
Jason died via rotten wood
Orpheus failed to do what he set out to

I enjoy the God of War games if only because it's a huge power trip and the idea of ascending to godlike status through sheer ability rather than favor of other gods is entertaining. If you like hack'n'slash, it might be decent to you.

Prometheus eventually got freed. Prometheus did Hercules a favor and in return Hercules killed the eagle and broke his chains. Zeus looked the other way because Hercules was his favorite son and in some tellings Zeus actually arranged for Prometheus being freed in exchange for Prometheus telling him some important information (which was don't stick your dick in Thetis, as any child born by her is destined to become greater than the parent).

Zeus was kind of a dick (which we all know). He actually tried to get the gods to hate humanity at first but eventually warmed up to us. When it was to be decided which portions of a butchered animal were to be sacrificed to the gods, Prometheus tried to make the good parts (the meat) look like shit and the bones and fat look delicious because he knew humanity needed something to eat. Zeus saw through it but took the bait anyway because he wanted to make the other gods pissed at humanity.

Human technology doesn't fucking matter when fate itself fundamentally puts the gods directly and several miles above humanity. As a mortal you can never, under any conditions, kill a god, takes its place, or anything even near that concept. EVERYTHING about the gods is hopelessly and absolutely superior. Not even the gods can kill other gods.

Stop trying to make greek mythology into a HFY power level wank, holy shit.

Well Poseidon seemed to be fine with us having boats. Just don't make Zeus angry and your plane will not fall.

Remember that time Ares was bested and could have been killed by a mortal man?

>to actually back Apollo/Zeus in order to get a better realm
In certain versions of the Myth Hades claimed he would have picked the Underworld had he been given first choice.

I really doubt Demeter's going to stand by the guy who sold her Daughter to Hades.

And there's no way Hera would pass up on a chance to get a little payback for all his philandering.

Orpheus is also ambiguous. Some sources have him as the son of Apollo.

Achilles is a weird case. It was prophecized that any child born by Thetis (Achilles' mother) would be greater than their parents. This was weird by Greek myth standards, where each subsequent generation, whether it was gods or humans, was supposed to be weaker than the last. And then on top of that, he was dipped in the Styx.

It doesn't since we're not sons of the current ruling generation. We're the creation of a somewhat second tier dude from the deposed generation. Also we're not immortal. Both titans and olympians were divinities even before ruling, since birth.

It also helps that most of the Olympians loved Achilles. Along the Iliad it is made clear that no matter who you are, if Zeus wants you to lose, you WILL lose.
That was because Athena was acting through Diomedes

Oh shit, I just remembered - the gods can turn invisible too, and shapeshift to perfectly mimic any human they please.

Oh, and they can fly from Mount Olympus to Troy, a distance of about 200 miles/330 kilometres, near-instantly.

Humans ain't got shit on that.

Well, Diomedes strikes Aphrodite and dismounts Ares. He even says he could have killed him, but being a human it's not his place to do so.

He had lots of help from Athena though.

Is that true? Every time I read about it, it looks like he got the short end of the stick. Why would he pick the worst realm being the oldest son?

It must have been funny being a general in the Trojan war

>What the fuck are you doing? Who told you to - oh I was impersonated by a god again, nevermind

Poseidon would NOT stand by his brother if enough of the Olympians decided to rebel. Poseidon once convinced the other Olympians to overthrow Zeus and nearly succeeded, if Thetis and one of the Hekatonkheires hadn't gotten involved. Poseidon is like the Starscream of Olympus.