The Absurd 2nd Century Space Opera You'll Never Read
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cope
Love the vid. Someone needs to make this in to a Movie or TV show. It's KRAZY FUN!!!
i8 No man is an island, cope with the fact you exist by the grace of others, one way or another.
This should be a movie
Pleeease learn how to pronounce Samosata, it's painful to listen to the way you say it.
Not only did he write about space, he also ended on a cliffhanger and never made a sequel. He was truly way ahead of his time.
Netflix looking for ideas for 1-season series: "WRITE THAT DOWN! WRITE THAT DOWN!!"
If it’s made into a movie I’ll watch it.
@@Retrovorious Says about 1 billion people :) - the reason why people eat anything whats been fed to them today. Lucian living today would be the richest man alive, his movies would make hundreds of millions each, like every marvel and dc movie are making...
George RR Martin isn’t the innovator we thought he was then!
@@LegoGBlok Yes there are people who just consume everything without thinking but that’s not the same for everyone. Just because I watch everything doesn’t mean I’ll approve of everything. One needs to experience something before appraisal. Those who dismiss something without even looking at it are not the deepest thinkers.
"There are no women on the moon."
In Lucian's defense, this is still entirely correct.
wait for 2 years nasa's moon mission will prove lucian wrong
It's better there, men will learn to asexually reproduce given enough time on la Lune
@@kiwiwasoncehere3623 they'll die before they even become a pregnant femboy or something idk
And women still haven't been to the moon either...
@@kiwiwasoncehere3623 Maybe they have to reproduce with animals using special God-given sperm and then feel bad about themselves.
MF invented SciFi, satire, shitposting, mpreg and unresolved cliffhangers all in one book. Legend.
Mpreg was literally programmed into greek mythology centuries before this man even existed.
also you forgot vore
@@absolutebastardhours4404 😳
*and with Storyblocks you can be just like him without the awkward creativity part!
Well that is a title...
"I confidently pronounce that truthfully, I lie" That was cleaver
"cleaver" - he hatcheted the truth 😉😄
@@Vidchemy 😂
" The greatest lie of all "... He said at the start that it was all a lie.
It's amazing to know that sequel baiting has been a thing since ancient times.
i think we will have a sequel this year... i can feel it.
@ It's been centuries but I think you're right.
@@JuniperJadePR I mean, it'll probably come out before Half-life 3.
@@palmerharrison7660 Or the second season of Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt.
@@PrototypeSpaceMonkey or promised neverland season 2. NO THAT ONE DOESNT COUNT.
*"There are no women on the moon"* has to be a dig at other authors who inflated the world count by describing hot exotic women
Kirk would be crushed!
I interpreted that as the author being attracted to men and writing a little wish-fulfilment fantasy stuff, but I like your interpretation as well.
@@TheJohtunnBandit Sounds like you are self projecting
@@magicman3163 Based.
@@magicman3163 self projecting?
how does this particular form of projecting differ from just regular projecting?
Big fan of having an unimagineably large battle with millions dying only for the kings afterwards to decide "yknow we could also just be friends".
Kinda like when Darth Vader saved Luke from the Emperor and suddenly Vader is forgiven for murdering millions of people when he blew up that planet with the Death Star.
Monarchy moment
That's how it happens all the time.
That pretty much summed up the relationship between Monarch England and Monarch France, for a short while.
I'd imagine that was intended as a commentary on Classical Greek politics, where that did occur.
My man had me flabbergasted when instead of ending the story when the characters got back to earth from the moon he hit us with "and this is where they get swallowed by a whale!"
And the whale have more civilization inside that there is in outer space of our solar system!
Truly a BIG whale.
I mean if you going to go for crazy shenanigans, why not go all the way and throw a giant whale into the mix. Worked for Moby Dick and hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy.
So THIS is where the Jonah and the Whale story came from!
@@brianwhedon8442
Lucian was born around 125 years *after* the birth of Christ. I seriously doubt it.
@Brian Whedon Jona and whale story has its inspiration from Perseus, or other story relating to Jappa-Tartessus seafarers that has probably inspired both.
"he never wrote a sequel".
Damn. I didn't realize people were satirizing George RR Martin back in the 2nd century.
He was so slow to write the next book that even the 2nd Century made fun of him for it.
GRRM always takes inspiration from real world history when it comes to writing his books. Not finishing his books is no exception to this.
I saw an interview where GRR Martin butthurt, that he was saying "fans used to love stars wars, lotr, all these stories, and wanted more of them, now they hate them, I just can't understand why" can't believe he didn't realize, it's the content that is good and worth watching that fans loved, not just anything no matter how bad it is
I think he was mocking Virgil. Virgil died before he could finish the Aeneid LMAO.
"Plato was not there. It is said that he was living in an imaginary city under the constitution and laws that he himself wrote."
RIP my sides. Two thumbs up to Lucian the Great.
This has to be one of the greatest/earliest recorded burns, right up there with that clay tablet complaining about receiving inferior copper ore. "Did I not pay for good quality ore, and yet I received inferior quality ore?!?" Good stuff.
@@bondvagabond42 It would've been even better if it complained about receiving inferior clay.
!
"an imaginary city under the constitution and laws that he himself wrote." -- That would be Atlantis.
@@jasonhernandez619 or The Republic maybe
I love how it sounds like the scholar is so miffed. Like he was really into it and was upset about being left on a cliffhanger.
Being left orphan after the story ends is no joke.
Today the scholar would complain about the endless sequels
“Lucian finds his lamp and asks him how his family is doing back home.” Can’t believe he also mocked Dante 12 centuries in advance.
*Travels deep into the depths of Hell and comes across a man enduring the most gruesome of tortures imaginable*
"Hello sir, could you please enlighten me on the current sociopolitical status of Florence?"
@@Raphe9000 What is hell compared to the current political situation of Florence?
@@Raphe9000 See, you are in hell. Thus it proves that I am right 12 centuries later.
@@alexanderzippel8809 Dante writed The Divine Comedy as his travel through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven. How convenient is that his political enemies are in Hell, don't you think?
So Dante was a _plagiarist?_ I thought he was an original, but Lucius cleans his clock!
"I confidently pronounce that truthfully, I lie"
How ballsy to tell people everything you're about to say is false and then follow it up with "stay tuned for part 2". I love it.
this is an old old trope. in arabic oral tradition "there was, there was not a girl named..."
I know right!
Him: "I made it up"
Them: "OUTRAGEOUS!"
500th like!, I'm indifferent to this comment but it hurt seeing 499 likes and I just thought you should know
Well, he lied about that too, because he never wrote a "Part 2" :D
Now I know where Mel brooks history of the world stole their ending from🤣
Lucian of Samosata, the father of the legal rider: “This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.”
And that was his first lie...
😂
ironically saying amen to this
"Any similarity to persons or actual events is coincidental", rather in Lucian's case, it is fully intended.
Oh, that concept has existed since theater was first invented.
I unironically want a film of this
It's probably in the public domain, you can make a film of it
@@lankyfishy Its 2000 years old. Yeah it's public domain lol
@@TheRedHorseman1208 Not if disney has anything to say
Same
I see this more as a multi-seasoned series. Maybe done in the style of Babylon 5?
dang its been over a thousand years and this mans jokes are still landing. legend
Almost 2000 years ago. He apparently lived from 125 ce to 180 ce.
Sounds like Lucian would have loved hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
someone better go back in time and give him a copy
@@TommyBKWL Somebody already did that. A fan of A True Story came from the future gave a Lucian copy of a mysterious book from the future, and Lucian liked it so much it inspired him to write A True Story.
you mean hitchhikers guide to the galaxy is based on this loosely
Yooo. It’s so fucked. A man WAY ahead of his time. Trapped within time.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721 and of course the book was also in Greek, as is standard.
"This is Lucien's greatest lie of all". That scholar was so damn disappointed that he never wrote another book
The world's first cult fan.😉
I would be too man, it'd be like if LOTR ended at Two Towers.
What's worse is there would be... fanfic 😱
@@merseyviking haha :) maybe he purposely said he'd make a sequel and then didn't: it would force his fans to use their imagination and create fan fiction
@@poep85 I'd like to think that was true. I think the celestial city was a really cool version of heaven.
As someone that had to study ancient greek and latin literature we never actually got past mentioning Lucian and his 'A true story', but there is one bit that I read on my own that, again, as someone studying greek literature is still the funniest thing to me: Lucian meeting Homer (the writer on the Hiliad) and asking him why the book starts with the word 'Rage' and he is just 'Dunno, I just felt like it, y'know', 'cause like... Damn, has that detail been over analyzed to death.
How do i look this up
@@1klan you might try typing on Google some key words like 'Lucian A True Story Homer' and see if anything shows up for you!
@@lunadiggorytennant thanks man
Didn't Tolkien say he was befuddled at how everything he wrote managed to connect in the end and not seem random or something?
@@JonatasAdoM Well, not EVERYTHING... Mind our dearest Tom Bombadil.
That feeling when you go to the moon but they only speak greek.
Typical sci-fi, everyone always speaks the same language. Even Lucian couldn't be arsed trying to deal with translating alien languages whenever his crew went somewhere new.
@@Hawk_of_Battletbf, even writing cosmic horror rn where the ancient beings can speak their own language or any of ours, making a fake language is friggin HARD
@@Hawk_of_Battle Greek was lingua franca at the time, and according to the story, Endemion was from Earth originally.
Most of the storeys you can.t really tell what language they're speaking.
You're only reading the record of it after the fact.
@Anuclano Perhaps people would understand it if they weren't so used to English, which is quite ironic in this scenario.
The fact everyone speaks greek feels like the "you speak the universal language, english" joke before its time (aka isolated aliens from distant space that, even upon first meeting mankind, are nontheless already fluent in English for some reason).
Some pieces of fiction handle this well
In Dragon Ball, everyone speaks Japanese because it’s the language that the gods speak, and they created the planets
One example I can think of off the top of my head that doesn't follow that rule is Stargate the 1994 movie, the abydonians speak a version of ancient Egyptian (which Daniel is able to translate after finding the differences) however in the show follow up sg1 Daniel must have taught the whole galaxy English, because most of the time thats what everyone speaks, in my opinion it kinda ruins the magic a little bit, though I can see how it would be hard for only 1 team member to talk to the inhabitants of other worlds.
Conlangs are hard
babel fish, babel fish everywhere
@@commit7059 Yeah, they tried to stick with it for a couple episodes but realized that it kind of bogged down the adventure plot a lot. The in-universe justification for the retcon was, if I recall, that there were translator microbes in the Stargate that eventually allowed them to understand languages. But really it they were just trying to simplify the stories.
Space survival guide:
Step one: learn greek
Step two: go to space
Step three : don't kiss the tree
Step five: Don't count on the slingers from the milky way
Step six : If you are invited in a war, accept.
The fun part is that Lucian was Syrian and he worked in Egypt... so while he wrote all of his works in Greek, his own first language was Aramaic. So not only did he not live in Greece, he was not ethnically Greek. It's safe to say that's why he wanted to emphasise that even people in space spoke Greek, since the Greeks seemed to think everybody should.
His main audience were Greeks since he loved to travel in Greece, which he could do easily since Egypt and Greece were both part of the Roman Empire.
But I'm certain the language being taken for granted sometimes bothered him, especially since Latin had all but replaced other languages across the Mediterranean sea, all except the Greek language.
@@myfaceismyshield5963 In the last 6-7 decades, most human - looking aliens in movies and TV series speak English. What a coincidence...
I'm always a sucker for a serious, well-done shitpost. Never thought I'd see one from ancient Greek, but humans never change, I guess.
We’re not smarter than they were. We’re just laying on the shoulders of giants.
@@christopher6337 Judging by the state of affairs, I'd say we fell off the shoulders a while back
@@anameyoucantremember 😂
Samosata wasn't a part of the Ancient Greece. It's located in southeastern Turkey near Syria. Lucian wasn't Greek. He was a culturally Hellenized Assyrian.
Yeah we do. It's just that WE get older and wiser but our kids ALWAYS start over from Ground Zero.
(One reason there are SO many Catholics...)
Captured by Moon Guards, taken to their king, invited to join in a grand war... This feels like something from a pulp fiction story like Flash Gordon. It's interesting how people's minds can go to the same places, despite being centuries apart.
Flash AH-AHHH, Savior of the Universe!
Flash was caught by one side, his new girlfriend was taken to "marry" the emperor, against her will, and the scientist that got them there, so escaped, found others who disliked the emperor ( yes captured, invited to join the war ) just to get to get his friends back.
@@cUCH1337NPC But in Sailor Moon, not only do females exist but they are useful...
( the original moon people didn't have any women ( don't know how that works ) and, well, in flash they were ornamental )
I can't believe the first Sci-Fi in recorded history has puppycorns and moon femboys. Truly, the genre peaked before it ever really began
I don't know why but there's just something so funny about the phrase "moon femboys".
@@KingNedya I don't see what's so funny about it. It's pretty clear there are no women on the moon.
Lucian was a man ahead of his time
@@gaiusjuliuscaesar9296 based and blackpilled
@@ArcaneAnouki he took the Greco-Roman redpill, chewed it up, and spit it out, then made his own
Things I was not expecting in the first sci-fi story ever written:
1. mpreg
2. a city of sentient lamps
Crazy how the idea of AI was already basically fully formed.
Honestly, I was more enthralled by the lamps than I probably had any right to be.
@@elizabethfletcher1487 What is AI, if not anthropomorphization persevering?
You expected every other part?
You're passing this off way too lightly :D
This story is in the public domain due to pre-dating mega corporation. You could make a sequel, thus turning one of his lies into the truth. Denying this man in death his spiteful and smug satisfaction. And there's no force on Earth that could stop you.
No there's is one, but only one : the quality of your writing.
Because you can't compete with the man who have created the longest clef anger of history!
@@heraut Unless the writing were to be the critique of modernity - I would write it as a fun little romp for myself, but I genuinely want to see if we can get Neil Gaiman to do it, in collaboration with Stephen Fry?
The only problem is that I don't think modern man could easily recreate the world as an ancient greecian would imagine it. We already know North America exists. I think our understanding of reality would make writing a sequel difficult, because we would have to forget everything we know about the actual world, and it still might just end up seeming inspired by Gulliver's travels. Maybe Gulliver's travels is a sort of sequel to this.
He also specified "I shall tell you"
your are not the "I" in the context of the sentence, so even if you write a sequel "I shall tell you in the next book" will still be a lie because "I" didn't write the next book, you did
@@videogamesarecool9280 No, I did.
I was genuinely beaming all the way through the story. It was so unique and creative, and so fascinatingly clever. It was so fresh, despite being nearly 2000 years old. I loved it.
"there are no Women on the Moon."
I mean, he's not wrong, Even after the Moon landing, there hasn't been a single woman on the moon...
Hopefully that will soon be rectified, as long as Artemis doesn't suffer from from more major delays.
So John Landis was lying too?
@@haywoodjablomi7703 LEL
@@haywoodjablomi7703 what are you even talking about? It's covered in dust. Probably all dust if you really think about it, could just vacuum the whole thing right up.
@@soupdujour4086 moon dust is not just dust is actually dust of Doom some astronot say . There no movement so the dust still Sharp like pieces of small glass. And ITS static so ITS stuck to everything. Get in your lung you get cancer(not really. probably)
"publishing outright lies as facts in order to stay relevant" - I'm so glad that 2000 years later we are passed all that.
yes completely.
Indeed, so much truth this comment tread, not a single lie X)
Sarcasm alert !
the more things change the more they stay the same
WaPo? NYTimes? MSNBC? US Govt? Soooo many candidates to choose from...
Took ancient greek in HS and I tell you the utter confusion when in the second year quite randomly a translation exam was an excerpt from their encounter with the pumpkin pirates. We all tried to force it to make sense as we were used to "serious" classics (taught us that grammar and syntax are indeed sovreign). The whole (4 people) class was so confused it was hilarious. We ended up focusing on this book that year, translating a lot of it, and to this day that has been the most fun I ever had translating something. Thank you, Prof. Lolli, truly a core memory
Thousands of years later, Lucian reincarnated as Douglas Adams.
Plot twist: The whale is the same dude as the sperm whale
Wonder what "Don't Panic" is in ancient Greek..
They even used the same joke: Dog-headed aliens from Sirius.
The plant is a stand in for himself
And millennia later, people would once again complain about how slowly he wrote.
OH. MY. GOD. This is has Monty Python written all over it! How has it never been turned into a movie?! I guarantee 80% of the satire is still relevant nowadays!!
It has the same overly well written nonsense vibe
The Adventures of Baron Munchausen seems to be based off of this and there is a movie. It's pretty good. There also is an old Baron Munchausen cartoon movie.
@@ooooowwussthaataseloik2866 interesting
@@ooooowwussthaataseloik2866 I have one which is a combination of live-action and animation. It was made back in the 60's and depicts a cosmonaut landing on the moon and meeting Baron Munchausen along with other historical figures.
Also reminds me a bit of the early sci-fi like Barbarella and Flash Gordon.
i love this so much, he starts it out by saying “this is a bit, im doing a bit” and proceeds to write the weirdest story ever, and knowing the kind of shit people would spew about foreign lands way back then, it’s absolutely hilarious
and the fact that he ends it with a sequel hook he never followed up on? absolute gold, pure class mate
@@leftygurl the man knew how to make sure he stays relevant on peoples minds! 👌
Yo, I've been to India and they have plants that grow whole-ass SHEEP. I swear!
@@Twisted_Logic well if its on the internet its true
@@Twisted_Logic Can confirm. Your sequel should be on how to take care of them, though - I never really figured that part out.
He was taught in Greek highschools, at least since the 1880s! But I remember feeling elated, to say the least, when I got to teach (I'm a primary school teacher) an excerpt of "True Story". The kids loved it, we wrote our own sequels! Lucian's spirit would too be... elated! :)
Δυστυχώς εκεί γύρω στο 1998 το καταργήσανε και αυτό και τους Νεκρικούς Διαλόγους και τον Τίμωνα. Όπως παντα τα καλύτερα πράγματα κόβονται από την ύλη.
I'm Greek, and I remember reading an excerpt from the space battle between the Sun and the Moon in my Elementary School Greek Language book; the artwork was hauntingly detailed as well.
I would unironically love to see this modernized into a movie.
Same...
It has been... every B sci-fi movie originated from this book. Giant insects from space?
@@marcparella as literally as possible.
I know what the average sci-fi movie is, it's not like I would have really cared about this video if I didn't.
I said I wanted *this* story in a movie, not soklme watered down average sci-fi you would see on the CW.
I want to see it as surreal animation
You can watch the 1981 French-Japanese anime Ulysses 31, that loosely adapted the Odyssey into a space opera with a prog rock soundtrack.
I first heard the line "There are no women on the Moon", in Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged. I figured it was a reference to something, but I had no idea that it would be a 2000-year old sci-fi story.
@Account deleted on September 11th Did you watch this video? It's from the titular 2nd century sci-fi tale.
@Account deleted on September 11th ah ok, this was just a case of rounding to a larger number :D
Gotta respect people who did their research
do you know which episode it was?
this book along with lots of old mythology often finds itself being secretly referenced all the time
My class read this in ancient Greek for a language department project! It was so much fun.
Lucian is an absolute legend. The whole "go see it for yourself" bit gives me exactly the same vibe as a shitpost making fun of TPUSA. "Dear sceptics, you say I am lying yet you have never been to the moon yourselves. Curious. 🤔"
He seems kind of like an ancient version of Douglas Adams to me. I'm actually pretty curious what he'd think of the state of literature nowadays, like how the genre of fiction and science-fiction especially has evolved, and the prevalence of social commentary and the exploration of political or philosophical themes and ideas.
I was getting Terry Pratchett vibes
WDPOTIEETKTMORO30LA?
"Owlett son of Fairweather"
This has to be the absolute most dead meme ever.
It's a good name though
Lol let's bring it back give random animals in story's the most elaborate and pretentious name possible
I mean, it's what the translator came up with, since the original is in Ancient Greek. The owl was Athena's animal, but I assume whatever was in the original was a satirical dig at some political figure or fellow writer.
This is absolutely incredible. We need more stories of "whatever shit I could make up on the spot to make fun of my contemporaries" in pop culture.
Try Rick and Morty "dimensional cable" episodes.
Damn Huggbees, this must be a good watch then.
i feel like thats pretty common nowadays.
I read him years ago. Did not feel irrelevant. Especially criticism of cults.
A True Story by Lucian
An Actually True Story by Huggbees
Id like to point out that, as it is approximately 1.8 thousand years old, this story is in the public domain and anyone can make their own adaptation of it.
I'm sure Disney own it somehow.
@gat9800 They'll make an adaptation and somehow own any future iteration of it and scare away anyone trying to make an original adaptation of it.
@@Ceaseless_Watcher then they'll put in the most political stuff in it as fast as possible and blame a random person for being insensitive and a being mean jerk.
@CreeperkingHT This comment is about you and the way you perceive the world, not about Disney. Every piece of content is political because that is the nature of politics. You either question the status quo or go along with it. Going along with it is just as political an act as calling for change. Both are inherently political positions. What you are saying is the politics in them offends you. Normally when people say that, the politics they are offended by is the representation of people who traditionally went unrepresented in media and are different to them.
@@Ceaseless_Watcher Bro. IT was a joke. No source of fictional media offends me because I don't care about the politics in them, I'm just aware of it. Whoop de doo. It was a satirical comment on how companies put political perspectives into shows that aren't necessary, like Star Wars. Sure people get upset, that's fine, but me I don't care man. I know everything isnt about me and that's fine, even great ( I don't like the feeling of the world staring at me, too much stress.) My opinion is my opinion and people can care or not care, and that's whatever dude. Politics are boring. Don't take it so seriously, like how this story does, just for fun and goofiness and adventure. Disney may mess up sometimes and there's shame of making some humor out of it. They do what they do.:) P.S Congratulations you just wasted your time over a joke comment. :P
What a fantastic time he must have had writing this!!
Syrian hash was good...apparently.
The fact that I started laughing at "truthfully, I lie" means that his humor has lasted 2000 years. Well done.
"There, Lucian meets the heroes of the Trojan War, other mythical men and animals, as well as Homer and Pythagoras. They find sinners being punished, the worst of them being the ones who had written books with lies and fantasies, including Herodotus and Ctesias "
Dude had no chill 😂
144 likes, gross
@@pomtubes1205 correction: 435
@@victoralexandervinkenes9193 objection: time moves.
@@pomtubes1205 hypothesis: motion exists
@@pomtubes1205 you. I see what you did there.
Worry not, at least one person picked up what you put down.
I love this story! I'm Greek and in ancient Greek class we read a segment of this story in the original language and then had to draw the moon men it was the only ancient Greek lesson I ever liked
That 'glass platform over a well that lets you see anything happening on earth' is honestly so similar to modern computers that it's unnerving.
You mean satellites??
Obviously, a talescope. But since they hear Earth talks, it is more like a radio telescope.
Dunno, sounds more like a general decription of a crystal ball to me.
Fun fact, calf of the leg was an ancient euphemism for a man's family jewels (which itself is a euphemism), similar to how Zeus after accidentally un-existing Dyonisus' mom while she was pregnant with him, he grabbed fetus Dyo and let him finish developing by sewing him to the "calf of his leg"
"Accidentally unexisting" is my new favorite phrase
that explains a whole lot
OMG, that's the same in my mother tongue.
A lot of genital-focused body horror in Greek myth, between Zeus, his grandpa Uranos, and poor Cerberus
edit: Somehow I forgot abt Priapas, the worst of all
That's way worse than what I imagined lmao
"...on the eight day they arrived on the moon." Dude from the 2nd century almost nailed the time rockets take to reach the moon.
to be fair, they were better at astronomy during the 2nd century than all of the middle ages
@@lynxerax7011 *Central Asian Moslems have entered the chat*
@@lynxerax7011 A billion facepalms
@@zimriel You are right, but i was talking about in greece, where the story comes from
Actually no they doubled the time. The round trip takes about 8 days. Journey there on average 3 days.
I wish we brought this guy back to life and showed him what space things we had accomplished
And there are still no women on the moon.
Yes but we have discovered things billions of light years away from what the human eye can see, we have sent objects to other planets, we have discovered how the universe was created and how entire galaxies are formed, we have made advances in making space travel more affordable, we have joined countries together to build massive space stations and so so much more. Also I would just like to point out that this new Artemis program is going to put women on the moon…..
The earliest sci-fi story is the story of Daedalus and Icarus from Metamorphoses (8 CE). It's unique among ancient myths in that the extraordinary plot device (the wings) was not made using magic or divine power but through technical ingenuity. It's also the earliest cautionary tale about technology getting misused.
This
Technologynwasnt missused, its the human greed/hubris that fucked over icarus
@@moanguspickard249 Probably the same thing. His greed and hubris made him use the technology beyond its operational parameters. 😛
12:35 - That's one reference that _wasn't_ lost to time! Cloudcuckooland is from Aristophanes' satirical play _The Birds,_ in which the birds of the earth decide to build a city in the clouds and blockade the air so that the steam of humanity's sacrifices to the gods can't reach the heavens, starving the gods out and forcing them to negotiate a deal with the new kingdom of birds.
Wow. 🤣
Ahhh. So it's all a part of the Ancient Greece Cinematic Universe, eh?
And there is Cloud Cuckoo Land from the Lego Movie.
Also Banjo Tooie
@@austinmcconnell you can actually find 'Cloudcuckooland as a still-existing trope today!
"They thought space had wind back then, give them a break"
Well, it has Solar Wind so he was half right
Instantly what I thought too.
and once and infect sail to other planets, man was ahead of his time lol
True. You wouldn't be able to use regular sails, but solar sails for space are definitely a thing. They aren't being used yet tho, as far as I know.
I thought that straight away too
@@moondust2365 We have designs and loose plans to use them in the future (E.G. Space X's tiny drones they want to accelerate to 1/3 the speed of light using lasers), but I'm not aware of any currently in use either.
I didn't know this Lucian figure before, but now I'm a big fan of his. His 2000 years old sci-fi story was freaking amazing even by today's standards. 😂
I feel like, if you're trapped in a tempest for 79 days, it's an actual _miracle_ the boat you're using isn't nothing but splintered fragments at the bottom of the sea by the end of it.
I love the fact that he mocks other authors with the "Just go see it for yourself" like they fucking knew big majority of the readers would never be able to go see distant lands
And philosophers as well: "Plato was not there. It was said that he was living in an imaginary city under the constitution and laws that he himself wrote." 🤣
💀💀💀💀
Ancient couch potatoes
@@Barskor1 Not really couch potatoes. Traveling to distant lands back then for average people was like traveling to Mars. It was insanely expensive and took months if not years to do.
"let no man therefore in any case believe these words"
"I shall tell you in the next book"
He did warn them
I want to see an isekai anime about Lucian coming to modern day Japan and writing his own isekai series to satirize the popularity of the genre and how stagnant it’s become. Layers upon layers of meta-commentary. 😂
So spicy indeed! What a lad. Thank you for making this. He lives again with all of us if only for a time.
"if you think i am lying go there yourself" honestly funniest shit ever
literally telling people to go to the fucking moon is such a great example of satire its insane
People wanted to prove Lucien wrong so badly, the Space Race was invented. Armstrong was so disappointed.
@@Som_RandomGuy the whole thing lasted two millennia, but it was wirth it!
this feels like an entire season of star trek being crammed into one book and im here for it
Me too! I would totally watch this as a movie!
Yeah, when those two guys kiss the trees and got turned into trees themselves, right away I thought, "he even has redshirted ensigns." :-)
TOS Was wild.
I was thinking it had a Baron Munchausen-esque craziness to it, and would totally watch this as a film. :D
Star Trek but instead of Picard it's Pythagoras.
This man was way ahead of his time, he even placed a warning because he probably knew people would say
*_we can awake a religion about this_*
The opening disclaimer of the story was funny. And when I think about it... a man who lived 1900 years ago, whose words, appropriately translated, can still make people laugh.
Frikin Lucien out here pulling the old ‘end a season on a cliffhanger only to never have a next season’ before we even had radio
There weren't even books then, these would have been on scrolls and stone tablets.
Before the printing press.....
im still waiting for his sequel
"Man I've been waiting 10 years for NGNL S2"
'Try waiting 18 centuries for A Truer Story'
Probably got cancelled due to lack of listeners
I like how the asparagus spear joke still lands perfectly all these centuries later.
Someone should make a movie of this story. It sounds way more creative and fantastical than most movies these days.
it should be a tv show like star trek cos it seems like he had a lot of different parts to the story haha
this is simultaneously (to my knowledge) the original sci-fi and omegaverse story
"There are no women on the moon" is hands down my favorite random detail. 2,000 year old mpreg is hilarious to me somehow.
I'd guess that that detail was meant to satirize travelers who said they met no one but tribes of beautiful women, whose queen of course offered all of their hands--including her own--to the dashing Greek explorers.
I guess you haven’t seen Amazon Women on The Moon
@@iivin4233 I think that and the way in which he writes it as though it's similarly his own fantasy fulfillment fiction to those previous stories is the best part. (This is honestly one of the ancient works worth a read.)
Modern authors keep pulling out "odyssey/argonauts/illiad/aneaed but in space" like it's a new concept but it's actually gd functionally as old as the common era and I adore that
Edit: Like, in the correct translation, A True Story legit just feels like classic golden age sci fi.
I somehow forgot when commenting this that Journey to the West also has mpreg. Love it. 10/10 comedic and worldbuilding device.
this sentence is lethal
Lucian put himself in a crazy fiction where he goes in every part of the known universe and meets gods and very famous people in history before Dante did it in the Divine Comedy, what a mad lad.
Very well done point about Dante and comedy. Great story is remembered. But great satire is legendary!
@@anderty4088 Lucian was well-known in rennaisance Europe even more in Victorian times, inspired picaresque lit, pinocchio, decameron and many other classic books
To be fair Dante visited the lands of the dead which technically lie OUTSIDE the known universe.
@@CassandrashadowcassMorrison how can you tell this after "to be fair".
The whole time i was watching this video all i could think was "I wonder if Dante ever heard of this story?"
This needs to be a movie. It would feel like a fever dream
Literally a entire franchise of movies can be made from this
"He never wrote a sequel" That's the greatest way to end out your saga 😂
not when you end it on a cliffhanger
"History of the World, part 1"
I think he beat George R. R. Martin's record for time between sequels.
@@rcrawford42 i knew someone would comment this
@@rcrawford42 But George will do his best to catch up.
"They meet other seamen who were swallowed too"
Austin, I refuse to believe this phrasing was on accident.
added by the translator most likely
It had to be intentional
holy shit this is the most likes I've ever gotten on anything in my life lol
I'm pretty sure seamen and semen weren't homophones in ancient Greek
@@fkrkf wooosh
I HAD TO STUDY AND TRANSLATE THIS ONE!! I'm so glad people are making videos about Lucian.
I wanna see an adaptation of this so badly. A TV show or something. It would be so good!!
To be completely honest, I kinda want a show about this. It's absolutely crazy, and I really wanna see ancient Greeks in space.
I'd watch it. It's like ancient Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Watching any of the adaptations of Baron Munchausen's adventures would be the closest you can find of what you are asking for here.
It's basically the Dungeons & Dragons setting called Spelljammer which is inspired by a lot of this I imagine
You might like Ulysses 31
It's an old Japanese-French anime that's basically Ancient Greeks in Space
I'd like to see this adapted into a musical. The more shameless, the better.
I really love this Lucian dude. Absolutely giving no F's and calling out everyone else's bulls*** by outdoing them at their own game. Satire really hasn't changed.
I completely agree guy gave no fucks and just called out everyone I've never respected a dead guy more than I do now
He was the Bill Hicks of his time
I bet Phil Hendrie was a voice in his head, wow
Well if like Greeks that give no fucks boy do I have a philosopher for you.... Diogenes
the boys
That was awesome! I've had this video recommended to me for ages as I watch a lot of your content but I didn't think I'd find it interesting. Man I should have had a bit more faith. Loved it! Thanks for sharing it with us
Well, that was interesting. I read Keppler's "Somnium" (Keppler's Dream) some time ago. It has islands floating "fifty thousand German miles high up in the air." Another interesting read.
Ok, but that line about Plato living in his own imaginary kingdom made me laugh 😂
His own Republic
And how! That is one of the sickest burns I have ever heard.
Yeah, that joke aged perfectly. Lucian wrote his book for an audience of an intellectual in-crowd, and the fact that I get it makes me feel like I'm part of that crowd.
What did exactly the joke mean? 😗
@@mrpurple11 I think the more important question is, "What does that '😙' mean?"
Great hearing this story. I first became familiar with Lucian when I was in the 8th or 9th grade. When assigned a research report, I chose my own topic-the history of science fiction. I created a timeline and at the beginning of that list was Lucian. I was always curious about it and planned to seek it out (I enjoy classic literature), but to my own disappointment in myself, I never got around to it. In my 50s now, I need to amend that oversight. Thanks for the charming preview!
This is going to be the next Spelljammer D&D campaign I run now
Honestly, even lacking most of the cultural context of the times, this seemed pretty darn hilarious.
This story is wonderful and it just makes me angry that I'm missing out on half of it by not being ancient Greek.
yeah, just make it so all the satire is about modern day stuff
It's like a Discworld novel except it's sci-fi instead of fantasy
I think maybe modern day meme shitpost Internet culture is perhaps not very far removed from Ancient Greek satire humor. We as a society have done a complete 180 back to the ancient times
@@k4tgames212 I'd like to recommend Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series to you in case you haven't heard of it. It's every bit as absurdist and comedic as Discworld is, but like Lucian's story, it's sci-fi.
Plato deciding to make his own afterlife, just for himself, has got to be the best bit
And it was all imaginary. Brutal burn of Plato!
It also means that certainly there were lots of people that were kind of sick of Plato and his perfect utopian government
seems like you didnt get the point, Plato is living in an *imaginary* after life which he himself wrote which means Plato never existed and his book is nonsense
Oh. I thought that was about what the author thought about Platonic Ideals
It’s so fascinating how that throwaway comment alone could be interpreted in a multitude of ways
Now *this* is truly one of the tales of all time
What a great share! This story is truly amazing and Lucian's ability to write great stories is shown by the fact that 2000 years later he still had me crack up multiple times through that tale!
With context, a lot of the humor still holds up. Shows you that people haven't really changed all that much in 2000 years.
People haven’t really changed since we began much further back than 2000 years ago. Just different environments and technology (yes a wooden stick with a sculpted point is technology).
You can easily go back another 500 years and read Plato, or Aristophanes' "Clouds". You can't deny the modernistic humanity and humour of their characters.
Or listen to Irving Finkel talk about his beloved Sumerian culture going back 5000 years. He's got lots of vids up on this app.
I actually chuckled at the dig at Plato.
Its easily funnier than any Tik Tok meme out there
ye our brains havent changed much in the last 50,000 years
12:37 For those interested, "Cloud Cuckoo Land" is a reference to another Greek absurdist satire, "The Birds", by Aristophanes. Its about some guys who team up with a bunch of birds to build a rival heaven and try to out-compete the Olympian Gods, very 'in the style' of this work.
Interesting, I had no idea where the phrase "Cloud Cuckoo Land" came from - and it's definitely used here and there in German.
I heard the term "Cloud Cuckoo Land" in Lego Movie 1.
@@marxvargas7697 lol thats what i was thinking of too
Now that phrase makes sense
@@selene6.238 I remember it in Morgan Freeman's voice.
7:45 Is it just me, or does that name sound _way_ too English? Like, that's the name of an eccentric Victorian explorer, exploring the craziest psychedelic landscapes imaginable in his dinky airship
"To the great continent opposite the one which your people inhabit" a satirist predicted the American continent
Begins by stating that everything in the book is fiction and then says "I confidently Pronounce that truthfully, I lie". Ends the story on a cliff hanger with a promise to continue the story in the next book.
It's fascinating to find out that the oldest act of "trolling your audience" was done by the Ancient Greeks. They truly were minds far ahead of their time.
Oldest recorded. There may yet have been others that did not survive to the modern day.
He was not Ancient Greek. He was Syrian. Greek was his second language.
@@yllejord Exactly! He was a Syrian, hellenized and with roman citizenship, truly a good example of the 2nd century Roman Empire.
@@NaFran49 bless him and his works. i bet syrians will have a gasp when they found that out and praise him
All of this reminds me of a critique to "Star Wars: Episode VII" - The Force Awakens (2015). 🤣 What a train wreck!
I've had a copy of this all this years and now kicking myself for not getting to it. Also I really love how this feels like an ancient shitpost
Ya, it seemed that way when he got to the part where he was basically just going "and Homer was there and Pythagoras was there but Plato wasn't there cause his stuff sucked"
@@stateofflorida5082 The dunk on Plato is still hilarious thousands of years later.
@@MattMcIrvin I can't believe I'm laughing because some dude roasted another dude 2000 years ago
What is a $#!+post if not gen z-style satire?
@@ethanhinton4549 why exactly *did* you censor yourself? This isnt fuckin Roblox...
what a great video, thanks for all your work!
Finally a video about Lucian! This is precious!
Lucian was so sick of travelogues and nitpicky political debates cluttering his Ancient Greek bookstore equivalent he wrote an outlandish tongue-in-cheek tale. Meanwhile I recall the the travel blogs and lukewarm political takes cluttering up my TH-cam rec page. The more things change the more they stay the same. 😄
him talking about how people lie about travelogues is literally the state of vlog culture today lol
He was even parodying Christians (specifically the death of a martyr) when they were just one among many random religious movements. Truly ahead of his time.
I was just thinking, the only reason there aren't books like that now is because there are much better ways to distribute that sort of information
@@merrittanimation7721 the concept of the martyr was around long before Christ was.....Prometheus was a martyr, he was the demigod who gave humanity fire and was punished for defying the gods?? ugh
@@darthXreven Prometheus is no demigod, he is a Titan god, and he was the (co)creator of man kind
I dunno who says ancient humor isn't funny, this is hilarious. Sure, there's bound to be references to people and events most modern humans wouldn't be aware of but the sheer absurdity is enjoyable.
I'd laugh at a good Ea-Nasir reference.
Inside jokes be like
It usually is if worded differently so modern audiences get it.
Sure
Did you like Dune, 2001, The Martian Chronicals....
There you go...this story for a mid 20th century technology obsessed society.
16:21 they had marshmallows in the ancient word?!? I never even guessed, let alone knew.
Inspiration for Spelljammer setting in D&D it would seem
Not gonna lie, I unironically loved that. Adding Lucian to my list of "people, alive or dead, I'd like to have dinner with" immediately
Luckily, you speak Greek, as is the natural convention.
My favorite part (it's so hard to choose) comes right at the start with that "disclaimer."
"Any resemblance to persons living or dead is ENTIRELY INTENTIONAL, THAT'S RIGHT, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE"
It's cool, just pull a Dante and write a self-insert fanfic where you have dinner with the list. I'd totally read it
Diogenes was also a greek who is of a similar legend. Back then, it was common to just spit anywhere, so when he was invited into a rich man’s home the man urged him not to spit on his nice floor or his nice furniture or his nice drapes, so Diogenes just spit in his face lmao. When Alexander the Great proclaimed “if I were not myself, I would wish to be Diogenes” to which Diogenes responded “I agree. If I were not myself, I would wish to be Diogenes too.” Though the best story was upon hearing Plato say that man was a featherless biped, he took a chicken, plucked out all its feathers and went “Behold! A man!”
@@MrZer093 Diogenes also jacked off in public, pissed on people who insulted him, and flipped people off (technically, pointing your middle finger was considered insulting). So, he was the ancient greek equivalent of the stereotypical homeless guy.
Who's the other ones