#zeus udad

[fanartbyherd]

Me having silly head-cannon designs for the other Olympians form Ulysses dies at dawn by the Mechanisms.

As well as what their role in the city is outside of being crime bosses and mobsters. I’m not 100% certain with all these designs, but they are something.

Introducing from top to bottom, left to right.

Zeus - the biggest crime boss of the city. He practically owns the utilities, especially has a monopoly on most of the cities power grid. He controls a lot of the city by keeping it in the family and he has a big family. (he/him)

Poseidon- powerhouse in industry who’s main competitors are hestia and hepatitis, but they work in a shaky alliance as often as they work against eachother. He also has control of all the resources that come from what’s left of the oceans.(he/him)

Hera- the ultimate socialite. Anyone who is anyone wants to be invited to her shindigs. To be dropped from the invite list is to be declared socially dead. She controls large parts of the cities everyday burocratices and especially when it comes to marriage, funerals and organized festivals. Paperwork needs her seal of approval to be legal. She is known to be petty. (She/her)

Apollo- a huge influencer, dominates the social media and content viewed by the masses. Most of his power comes from his control of the medical sector, but he distracts the population from that fact by his contributions in the arts and music. Called the sun of Olympus. He is sometimes called the sun of the Olympians and is set to take over as head of comity if Zeus ever steps down (not happening) has a particular dislike of the Coptic gods, Hades in particular. (he/him)

Athena- she is a powerhouse in libraries, education, and the legal network. They know the laws as they wrote most of the laws. She is also a great sponsor of the arts. she runs the newspapers and has a web of information.(she/them)

Hermes- transportation, shipping and delivery, they also essentially run large portions or the cities information network. They are sometimes called the ghost of the internet along with their assistant Iris. (they/them)

Artemis- law enforcement and jails. She has her elite huntresses who deal with outlaws and criminals, renegades and thieves. She also preserves the little that remains of the cities “wild places” this is most of the time more of luxury gardens than anything that is actually wilderness. She is often considered one of the weakest of the Olympians, but as she has the backing of her brother no one bothers her, she is also a lot more powerful than people really give her credit for. After all the weakest Olympian is still more powerful than the strongest mortal king (she/her)

Demeter- the madam of food. The farms of the cities are hers and everyone relies on her food. She has adopted the mysterious ‘Persephone’ as her daughter (she/ her)

Hephaestus- the other powerhouse of industry, but focusing more on specialized goods and luxuries. Him, Aphrodite and Aries have a well known on-again-off-again situation going on. He is also know for creative (he/him)

Aphrodite- she defines beauty. Their head can be removed and swapped out as well as most of their other body parts. She controls cosmetic industries and clothing trends. He is the ultimate pimp. Running all the cities brothels and red lights districts even if doing so In the shadows. (she/them/him)

Note: Aphrodite was sort of inspired by princess langwidere from the wizard of oz. Because she is low key horrifying and I think it would fit.

Ares- the machines of war, the defenses of city districts, personal security, and criminal activities are all places where ares turns his attention. War is business and they make certain business stays booming. (they/them)

Hestia- she is that one essential oils lady, queen of home gadgets and MLMS. This Olympian has for centuries monopolized housing and construction. She is the largest landlord and head of the majority construction companies in the city. She is planning on retirement so she can focus more on her love of pyramid schemes. Though she has yet to name a successor. (she/her)

Note: this is all headcannon that I made for the fun of it. Perhaps it will be useful to someone, but for now it’s just silly headcannons.

[shitty-mechs-headcannons]

Heracles is really good at making hot chocolate or whatever the equivalent of hot chocolate is in the City

I don't know what your justification is but I'm here for it. I love Heracles people should write more fic about him

-mod andy

[schrijverr]

I strongly believe that everyone came to say hi to Ashes in UDAD when they realized they were Hades. So I can fully picture this fic where every chapter you follow one of the other mechs trying to get into Hades’s throne room, all in their own little way.

Like Brian gets in pretty easy as the Oracle of Delphi, just says he has a prophetic vision that has to do with Hades and claims he has to have an audience with them and gets escorted in. They have a bitch/gossip session, because Brian lies that it’s a private thing. Ashes uses it to annoy all the other Olympians by alluding to things just to cause shit.

Marius is counseling Zeus and the more he listens to this man complain about Hades, the more he starts to realize who Hades is. So, he starts to insist they should have a family therapy session with Hades. Ashes at first hates Zeus trying to convince them until they realize who is counseling him, then they agree and Ashes and Marius psychologically torture Zeus for an entire session.

Jonny tries to murder spree himself in, but gets stopped by Ashes’s traps. They know it’s him trying to get in, but think it’s funny and actively up their defenses to make him fail, waiting to see if he gives up. He doesn’t and at some point Ashes takes pity on him and lets him get carted off to the Acheron where they get him out off.

Tim has been getting himself a sugar baby role as Persephone and working his way into high society with the Olympians. He actually runs in the same circles as Ashes and complains how boring it is and he wants some violence, so Ashes whisks him off for a trip of fun, which gets wildly out of hand. But hey, at least they get to hang out regularly, right?

And I don’t have a plan for the others yet, but that will come (input is welcome and if someone has other ideas for the others, please do share)

[allthedoorsareopennow]

ALRIGHT. LET’S INVESTIGATE THE UDAD PHOTOS. MUCH INFORMATION BELOW. SO MUCH

ok top left. brian is the oracle of delphi, of course in greek mythology the most prominent oracle

bottom left. for some reason the goddess artemis’ name seems to have been misspelled as artimes? I have no idea why. artemis is the olympian that features in actea and lyssa.

bottom right. seems to suggest marius’ lecture will take place in the aristotle institute - aristotle is a famous greek philosopher (among other things, grouped loosely as a polymath)

top right. as you likely know, these are military dog tags, usually intended to allow for the identification of corpses. an enomotarch is the commander of an enotomy, a division of 25-36 soldiers, bound together by oath. this seems to be a term originating in Sparta.

middle right. tipple seems to be a term for alcohol, consistent with the bottle top the term appears on. the toy soldier seems to have made its own liquor brand while in the city. (perhaps DB stands for dionysus bacchus, the greek and roman names respectively for the god of alcohol?)

right. a coin is shown, on one side reading ‘to speed the/journey down’. this likely is about the belief that the ferryman (charon) who takes the dead souls across the river acheron and into the underworld must be paid. virgil’s aeneid claims that if the deceased cannot afford to pay the ferryman, they must wander the shores of the styx (another underworld river, in some stories providing the same function as the acheron) for one hundred years before they are allowed to cross into the underworld. thus having this coin to give the ferryman would literally speed the journey down into the underworld in greek mythology. also depicted on this side is the logo of the acheron. on the other side of the coin is featured a headshot of ashes, with the text ‘a penny’ above (the smallest british unit of currency). I cannot discern the text below.

background. the blueprint for the aegis, which in homer’s iliad is a device carried by athena pr zeus, interpreted as either an animal skin or a shield, sometimes featuring the head of a gorgon, that symbolises protection.

the text on the left appears to read as follows:

‘…[ti]tanium…n for the…ens district…[lig]htning rod

‘spikes - they look badass

‘Durable Ti core

‘Moderator’

Ti is the chemical symbol for titanium. also depicted is a uranium fission reaction. a moderator is something else that is needed in a fission reactor core, so this must be a design for a fission reactor. ‘enriched to 90%’ refers to the uranium - uranium-235 is the most fissile isotope, so the more U-235 you have, the more fission you can achieve. for context, reactors often use uranium enriched to 3.5-4.5% - 90% is overkill by a long way for energy generation purposes. my guess is that this reactor core is designed to provide huge amounts of energy to operate sone kind of lightning device, likely intended for zeus (the god of lightning). it is signed by athena and raphaella la cognizi.

BRING FORTH THE NEXT IMAGE!

another acheron coin is shown. I'm not really sure what’s happening in most of this one.

ANOTHER!

more acheron coins and a half-visible toy soldier’s tipple bottle cap. the focus of this picture is a torn and blood-splattered coaster for Calypso’s, the bar from which the suits kidnapped ulysses.

NEXT!

now this is more like it

a zeus coin is depicted, showing five credits - presumably the official currency of the city

there is a gambling chip bearing the name hermes, perhaps referencing his role as a trickster god

the guitar pick is stamped with the name apollo, the greek god of music and song.

there is a fragment of a newspaper cover - we will get more shots of this later.

the emblem of poseidon is shown to be a trident, a weapon poseidon is often depicted as wielding, representing his status as god of the sea.

wow I wonder what name is on that card it’s mostly blocked I wonder if the next will have the name..

BEHOLD!

so that’s presumably an ID card for a security guard, whose name we can now see is Anippe ?aiad. Anippe in greek mythology is the egyptian daughter of the river god nilus, and is thus a naiad, so the name on the card is Anippe Naiad. I can find little information about her, other than that heracles killed her son.

we also get a look at ulysses here, the the text ‘//ALL POINTS FUGITIVE ALERT//‘ above their mugshot.

NEXT!

the text on the ulysses info that seems to be on some kind of old tablet reads

…1) COUNT THEFT:

…[CYCLO]PS - POSEIDON PROPERTY

…OR CAPTURE: DR-25000

…E BOUNTY

…S:

SPONSORED BY POSEIDON INDUSTRIES

CLICK TO LEARN MORE

this seems to be putting a bounty of ‘DR-25000’ (presumably a currency?) on ulysses’ head for the theft of the eye of the cyclops.

more newspaper.. shall we take a closer look?

across four different images, here is the newspaper:

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME

LARGEST HOME CIRCULATION

LARGEST ADVERTISING VOLUME

DELPHI 2374

The City Oracle Telephone Number

THE CITY ORACLE

IN THREE PARTS - 46 1…

PART 1 - GENERAL NEWS…

ORACLE OFFICE

292 West Hector Stree[t]

VOL. LVIII KRONOU MORNING, GAMELION 5, 12390 DAILY, 5 DRACH[MA]

OEDIPUS IN INCEST MARRIAGE SCANDAL

SHOCKING NEW REVELATIONS OVER IDENTITY OF HERO DOCTOR'S WIFE AND MOTHER

MAN WHO CURED THE SPHINX TRIES TO PLEAD IGNORANCE - WILL SEEK TO FIND REFUGE OFF WORLD

(columns on right):

INSIDE

NARCISSUS DENIES PLASTIC SURGERY CLAIMS

HERMES TO UNVEIL NEW HI-SPEED MAGLINES

FORTY DEAD IN SUB-LEVEL 54D EXPLOSIONS: WHO IS “GUNPOWDER TIM?”

TWENTY YEARS FROM ILIUM: WILL THE SCARS EVER HEAL?

Oedipus Rex, the doctor hailed as a hero after successfully curing the disease ravaging the sublevel slums, has been revealed to have been married to his own mother for the last eight years, in what is being hailed as the social scandal of the decade.

Mr. Rex previously claimed to have grown up in one of the City's most troubled orphanages. However, a source within the Acheron has claimed that Teiresias, one of the network's most trusted interfaces, revealed his true origins yesterday.

“I didn’t know,” Oedipus told The Oracle, “I’d always believed my parents to be dead. I had no way of knowing they were even alive, let alone…”

Oedipus’ wife and mother, Jocasta Rex, has been unavailable for comment. She was last seen boarding a transport line to Outer Thebes, an area known for the number of suicides it attracts.

It is known she had been married once before to Laius, Mayor of one of the Thebian districts at the centre of the Sphinx epidemic. It was repoterd that he disappeared shortly before the announcement of the cure, under circumstances described by City PD as ‘suspicious’.

CONTINUED PG.5

HERACLES ACQUITTED ON MISTRIAL TECHNICALITY

The City High Court finally came to a ruling today in the case of Heracles, the notorious figure at the centre of the murder trial which has gripped the City for the last four weeks.

Heracles, who worked for the House of Zeus as head security for fifty years before resigning under unknown circumstances last Theozenios, was found not guilty of the brutal slaying and dismemberment of his wife and two children.

According to sources familiar with the case, he was found lying unconscious in his home, surrounded by the bodies of his family, holding in his hand what was at first thought to be the murder weapon. However, forensic evidence regarding the blade was judged to have been inadmissible, and his insistence he was defending his family from an attacker swayed the jury.

Heracles has been unable to identify the assailant against which he was struggling. This is not the first time Heracles has been involved in accusations of violence. Rumours persist that he may have been the infamous “Thunderbolt of Zeus” while working with the company, despite no connection ever being proven between the Olympian patriarch and the unknown hitman.

CONTINUED PG.9

TRANSCRIPT ENDS

Delphi and the oracle are referenced several times.

A drachma is a greek unit of currency, hence why I have guessed that as the unit of price for the newspaper.

Teiresias, the one referenced as revealing Oedipus’ parentage, is a blind prophet of Apollo from Thebes, known for clairvoyance and being transformed into a woman for several years. he is referenced as being one of the first brains volunteered into the acheron in the fiction, and holds and manages all the knowledge of the acheron.

Theoxenia seems to be a descriptor for greek mythology stories in which characters show benevolence and hospitality to strangers who turn out to be disguised deities capable of reward. These stories encourage people to treat anyone they meet as potential disguised divinity.

ONWARD!

another oracle of delphi ad, the corner of the newspaper, and part of hades’ file on oedipus..

TRANSCRIPT BEGINS (pencil markings in orange)

Name: Oedipus Rex not given surname

Occupation: Doctor (Retired) Disgraced

Age: 52 No records- abandoned at birth. Estimate Height: 5’10” Weight: 132l[b]

Hair: Chestnut Eyes: N/A self-blind[ed]

District: Thebes

Abandoned by wealthy but paranoid parents at birth. Olympians secret[ly] pulled strings, used him as poster [child] for failing orphanage scheme. Notab[le] for successfully researching the cause/[…] for the Sphinx - exceptional intel[ligence] shown. Worthy candidate for "Trial [by] Wits". Currently seeking to leave T[he] City after publicised patricide and maternal relations; will likely pla[…] ball given ample funding. EXPLOIT

END TRANSCRIPT

the tab at the side reads WITS. as well as oedipus’ fingerprints, there is a dirty handprint in the top right of the document. the newspaper appears to be stained with rings of tea or coffee.

at first I thought the photo of oedipus featured in hades’ document was this one, but it doesn’t quite match. it’s a good photo anyway.

NEXT

gunpowder tim’s dog tags from earlier are visible at the base of the photo again. A different part of Oedipus’ file is shown, showing a handprint and the start of a date on the photo of Oedipus, beginning 08/12. a map is shown too, with crosses through two locations and a circle around another. from what I can see the streets seem to mostly have fairly generic names.

sadly I have now reached image limit. when I have made the next post, I will link it here.

update I realised some of the stuff guessing cut off words and such that I did is pointless because the full documents for a bunch of them are in the goddamn cd book thing. and I kind of can’t be bothered to finish cause it feels like half the stuff I did was pointless. if you would be interested say so and maybe I will do more. but otherwise. nah

[hummingbirdspark]

Note: I am only qualifying characters that could not be argued to be Jonny himself and that have a singing part, so speaking as a character in a song (ex: Zeus in Favored Son) without singing does not count, neither does narration for a single song, or his role as himself in One Eyed Jack’s or Sleeping Beauty.

[regicidal-defenestration]

My favourite UDAD Fun Fact is that, for all his talk of family, Zeus' "welcome home, son" does not come in the first verse, where he and Heracles meet, but rather the one in which Heracles, killer of his own wife and children, is back in Zeus' debt

[phantomdecibel]

NO CAUSE LIKE . In UDAD, if we include Astyanax, who on earth killed the bab ? It couldn’t be Ulysses, because of their whole Trojan horse plan being completely different, right ?

So either Astyanax was killed by a member of their own court or…

…Ulysses was part of the people tasked with ensuring the complete fall of Illiam . Anyone still alive, no matter how broken by the violence they’d caused, was to be killed on sight .

It was eerily silent, bloodied walls surrounding them . They could get lost in it . For as much as they hated to admit it, the walls were impenetrable, an incredible system of mazes designed by some of the most skilled craftsmen among the Olympians. So many had tried to run through them . It was where they found the most people half dead .

Of course, anyone who was actually within the city was gone, no husks, barely anything more than splatters .

The castle was, at the very least, well defended enough . They’d had more leftovers there . They did their job unthinkingly .

They thought that if they were asked to do this kind of thing back then, they would’ve refused . Would’ve said something .

They put a bullet through the shell of a man, they don’t ask who he was .

And then, the silence is broken . Not by the moaning of someone half dead, not by the rest of their crew calling for them.

But by wailing .

A baby wailing .

And when they look into that cradle, seeing the son they could’ve had, had Penelope survived …..

……Of course, they do kill it . Zeus would allow nothing else, and they cannot afford a slip up around the Olympians if they wish to escape the clutches of the Acheron .

Of course they kill it . What other choice do they have ?

Of course they kill it . It is the will of the gods .

……They can never stop thinking about it .

It was surrounded by violence- everyone around it had been driven mad or dying but-

It looked healthy . He . Looked . Healthy .

Even in the midst of their madness, had the palace staff tried their best to take care of the bab? To stop violence from meeting his innocent eyes ?

……………..They don’t want to think about whether they would’ve had that strength .

They don’t want to think about who the people they killed were .

………They can’t stop thinking about that infant .

ASGDGDGFHDTGJYFDGFHSFFHGDGDFHGDFHDG HOOOOOOOOLY FUCK

GOD THEY CANT. THEY CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT THAT INFANT.

THEY CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT HOW THAT INFANT HAD STRETCHED HIS LITTLE, HEALTHY ARMS OUT TOWARDS THEM

NOT IN VIOLENCE. NO, THE CHILD HAD GRABBED HIS FINGER GENTLY, OH SO GENTLY

THEY CANT STOP THINKING

THEY CANT. STOP. THINKING. ABOUT THAT INFANT, WHO COOED AND LAUGHED AND GURGLED (WEAKLY, THE POOR THING WAS STARVED. HE WOULD HAVE DIED ANYWAYS. ODYSSEUS TRIES TO TELL THEMSELF THEY WERE DOING HIM A FAVOUR. IT DIESNT WORK) AS HE WAS PICKED UP

THEY CANT STOP THINKING ABOUT THE ABSOLUTE TRUST IN THE DEPTH OF THOSE DARK, SOULFUL EYES – THE ABSOLUTE TRUST, EVEN AS HE WAS DANGLED OVER THE CITY WALLS

SOMETIMES IN THEIR NIGHTMARES, THOSE EYES NEVER LEAVE THEIRS AS THE CHILD FALLS

THEY CANT

STOP

THINKING

ABOUT THAT CHILD, NOW NOTHING MORE THAN ANOTHER UNREMARKABLE BLOODSTAIN AGAINST THE STONE OF TROY

JUST LIKE THE REST OF HIS WORLD.

[bracketsoffear]

Yeah, Daedalus is in a weird place re: End because the Acheron isn't "true death," but the reality of being someone in The City is that if you die, you go to the Acheron. It has End vibes the same way Godwyn's whole "trapping people as undead instead of letting them reincarnate properly" thing has End vibes. It's similar to the Skin Book victims from canon in that they aren't gone, but they should be dead, yet their afterlife is eternal suffering. A lot of UDAD is about the fact that dying is so horrible for everyone in this world because their afterlife is so awful; yes, they are afraid of the pain, but I think the pain is so intrinsically tied up in UDAD's themes of death that it skews to End. For example, Heracles' Start of Darkness is becoming Zeus' hitman so he can live forever:

Death is at the center of The City's culture. The Helljumpers I mentioned in my previous post are described in the story titled "How Not To Die"--death, in this world, is "supposed" to be going to the Acheron. The short story described as "An introduction to the City" is "Death in the Metropolis," which discusses the brain collectors of the Acheron. The Entities can change based on culture, so by creating the Acheron and making it so important to the culture of and the lives of everyone in The City, Daedalus has inextricably linked death with always going the Acheron and thus perpetuated The End en masse by making everyone terrified of what they culturally perceive the inevitable end as.

.

[smalldistortion]

Thinking about how in UDAD Zeus isn’t the name of the dude...its Don...

Don Zeus.

Edit: Thank you to the person who informed me Don was a honorific  

[mintytrifecta]

Zeus: Going freelance, are you?

Hercules:

[thepromisedbride]

Don Zeus: ...and I feel like maybe this is where it all started? Like killing my father was inevitable but it sent me down this dark road where now no matter who is around to care for me, all I want to do is kill?

Marius, scribbling away in a folder labelled ‘Jonny’: Interesting. Tell me more.

[wolfsnake]

Zeus has been keeping heracles alive for a while. I think we're not using the fact that he is an old guy enough!!

Let him use old fashioned words and turns of phrase! Let him misuse memes!!

Maybe he's bad with technology not because he's dumb but because technology is evolving so fast that its completely different that when henwas younger!

[sounds-void-fishy]

booty shorts that say "the favoured son"

[spacetrashpile]

I am once again thinking about a UDAD project I really wanna make but that is wildly above my skill level and that I know I’d never have the motivation to finish

[shitty-mechs-headcannons]

Hello ya beautiful bastards I'm back and you have put some real atrocities in my inbox so I thank you kindly

Now to kick things off here's this

Zeus, at an Olympian event: *thinking he's the funniest guy in existence* ladies and gentlemen! Mothers and fuckers! Thank you for joining me here!

Oedipus: *smiling serenely as anything at his wife, not even paying attention*

[eziocauthon89]

This is what happened when they met, right?