Author's note: This is a retelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh in the author's own words using a summary from Wikipedia, and in the voice of what he imagines to be an urban youth. The idea is to capture what sort of details anyone is going to remember about the Epic of Gilgamesh and then possibly work Allegories/Parodies of these tales into the books of Project Gilgamesh

Project Iliad

Agamemnon and Achilles

The first thing I'm realizing is that, unlike Gilgamesh, the Iliad is more of a pile of short stories holding hands. Rather than try to tell events in order, it would be better to have allegorical characters and provide episodes in the story that match the events in the Iliad.

Greeks are outside besieging the Trojans. The priest of Apollo in Troy is trying to ransom back his daughter Chryseis from the Greek king Agamemnon. Despite most of the Greek Army liking the terms, Agamemnon refuses. Chryseis prays to Apollo for help. Apollo sends a plague.

After 9 days of this plague, Achilles calls a meeting. Agamemnon (under pressure) agrees to return Chryseis to her father. But he swipes Achilles' captive, Briseis, in return. Achilles storms off with his men, vowing to never fight for Agamemnon again, and goes home.

Odysseus takes a ship and returns Chryseis to her father. Bada bing, plague over. But... new problems.

Achilles is pissed, and prays to his mother, Thetis, to ensure the Greeks have a really hard time with the Trojans. Just to reinforce how important Achilles and his forces were to their war effort. Thetis agrees, and gets Zues in on the plan. And... well you know Zues. Anything to fuck with the mortals.

The Greeks continue to lose until the Trojans are just about to burn their ships. Achilles partner/lieutenant, Patroclus, convinces Achilles that his forces need to get into the fight. Achilles gives Patroclus his armor, but tells him to stop at attacking Troy. Which, being Greek Mythology, of course Patroclus didn't listen and was slain by Hector (with some help by Apollo). Hector swipes Achilles armor.

The death of Patroclus (and the return of Briseis by Agamemnon) gets Achilles back into the fight. And Achilles mother manages to rush him a new set of armor and a new elaborate shield.

Side note: that shield was the influence for the Iliad-07 mission patch:

Achilles goes all on to get revenge on Hector. Despite the fact that if he kills Hector he is prophesied to die young in battle. When they meet, Hector bolts. Achilles chases him around the city before Hector finally stops to face him. And Achilless ends it quickly with a knife to the throat. But then Hector reminds him of the prophesy as he dies sputtering.

Achilles abuses the body for a bit, before the Ghost of Patroclus and the Gods intercede and coerce Achilles into giving it back to the Trojans to bury.

Zues for the Lulz

During Achilles emo period, Zues was having a little bit of fun with the Greeks.

Zues sends down some divinely inspired stupidity to attack Troy. And for whatever reason Agamemnon decides "how about I test my guys." And he tells is troops to go home. Which they all decide is an awesome idea, thank you very much. And it's only the intervention of Odysseus with some backing by Athena that keeps the entire army from packing up right then and there.

Fast forward, the Greeks get all lined up for their final assault. The Trojans head out to meet them. Paris offers to end the war by fighting a duel with Menelaus. Winner takes Helen (who this whole war is being fought about). Both sides swear a truce. Menelaus beats Paris, but Aphrodite rescues him before Menelaus can kill him.

Hera apparently hated Troy, and she put a bug in Zues' ear. Loving to fuck with the humans, he arranges for the Trojan Pandaros to wound Menelaus with an arrow and start the whole war off... again.

There's an epic battle. People die. Aphrodite tries to rescue a few Trojans. And somehow gets injured herself, by Diomedes. Apollo steps in lets it be know to Diomedes that warring with the Gods is a really, really dumb play. But at this point, all of the Gods are meddling with the battle, and Athena manages to get Diomedes to injure Ares and put him out of action.

Glaucus and Diomedes

Somewhere in all of this Glaucus and Diomedes meet in battle... and decide they had too much in common to fight. They swap armor as gifts.