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Hi guys, I have a paper due for greek mythology in two weeks. Here's our assignment.
The influence of classical myth on the modern world extends to the virtual world of the internet. Search-engine searches of classical names and figures will usually turn up thousands of hits. A Google search of “Hermes” returns 44 million hits! At the top of the list is Hermes designer handbags, the “Hermes Experiment” at the German particle physics laboratory DESY, the “Hermes Project” in computer science at University of Maryland, and the webpage of the multinational corporation Euler Hermes “the global leader in credit insurance.” Of course there are also many pages that discuss or present classical mythology, web pages on myth at schools and colleges, or blogs or other personal sites where individuals explore, discuss, or fantasize about classical myth (or, sometimes, very curiously digested versions of it).
In other words, classical myths—the gods, heroes, and heroines—have become common parlance in the global culture with its endless mirrorings on the web. Your assignment is to choose a figure, place, or other item from classical myth and study its presence on the internet and thus in the wider real world. Write a 2 page report about what you find that interests you. You may focus on between 1-2 things (e.g. websites) that you find, describing and discussing why you find them interesting. Ask yourself, why is this entity using the classical figure? How does their use fit, or not fit, the associations of the classical figure as you have learned them? Do you think their usage makes sense? If you are reviewing informative sites (like school webpages), how well are they using sources, and do they present accurate information as far as you can tell?
Okay, I was thinking of ideas and as many people have done it before, they have based their essays, presentations, projects on Starcraft. If possible, I want to make my essay based on Starcraft, but I need some ideas. If there are no ideas, I have a general idea on what I'm going to write about, but I want to write something that relates to SC!
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Is classical myth defined as Greek/Roman mythology here? If not, you can tie in the names of units in SC2 as a gateway to the lasting influence of Norse mythology in modern culture...even though people just used those names because it sounded cool or something.
A bit of a stretch, in a way, and rather weak given the topic, but the best I could come up with after an allnighter. Just two pages though, so I suppose this doesn't need to be particularly elaborate.
It'd be easier if you could start by trying to narrow down how exactly you want to write about it rather than just say that you want to write about SC though :p
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is awesome32282 Posts
Well the obvious thing to do is to star by saying people quote or mention mythological heroes and stuff because they represent feelings and certain acts in their purest form, so they make for great names or analogies.
What mythological creature to pick and analize, well don't know. Which one are you interested in?
For example, Cupid, the god of love will get lots of results in internet sites meant for people to know each other probably. So relate the myth of Cupid against this sites. What do these sites offer?, what image do they want to give? Does Cupid fullfil that?
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the only gamer I can think of who derived his screen name from greek mythology is zeus
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5673 Posts
Hi, as a former Greek and Roman Civilisations major, this really interests me. It's really rare to find someone studying the Classics on the web, let alone on a Starcraft site. 
Although linking this assignment with Starcraft is going to be a long shot, I'd give it a shot, though I'd definitely have a talk with the lecturer first. Now I'm no expert on Starcraft lore (never played the campaigns in full), but I'm almost sure you can find references to Greek mythology, and there too, if not directly, at least implicit ones.
You may want to do a little reading on the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss, and the structuralist approach to mythology. It's interesting, and kinda supports my hypothesis that elements from Greek mythology will be found in Starcraft lore as well. If you find some reading matter on structuralist theory, I'm sure you could use it to substantiate your argument, and strengthen ties between SC and ancient Greece.
Off the top of my head, all I can think of is the splitting of the Protoss, with the Templar, the Dark Templar etc, and the (somewhat loose) ties it has to the dividing of the world between Zeus, Hades, Poseidon. From a Post-Structuralist point of view, the binary opposition of the Templar / The Dark Templar could be equated (at least theoretically) to the relationship between Zeus/Hades. Of course, the Protoss were not divine beings, but to be fair, they did rule their part of the galaxy for thousands of years.
I will post more ideas if I get any, but good luck with the assignment! I hope you do well.
P.S - SC lore nerds, please correct me if I'm wrong re: anything. Thanks.
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Along with IntotheWow's comment, Nike is the goddess of winged victory and she(?) was Athena's sidekick. And there's a pretty big company out there that calls itself that I hear.
Definitely a reference to modern culture.
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Belgium9950 Posts
Only thing I know is that Protoss and Terran are both greek words. GL!
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Hungary11305 Posts
On October 16 2008 21:51 Maenander wrote:
the only gamer I can think of who derived his screen name from greek mythology is zeus
Hades too.
So just write about Zeus and ritual dances.
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5673 Posts
You know you're on the right track when Aesop himself replies.
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Pft, you know I was thinking of Zeus from OGN Sparkyz too? lmao!
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Haha sorry to bump, but no ideas? Because I'm currently thinking now since my paper is due in two days.
Please, if anything, I want to write something about SC. I want to write about something that I enjoy
Otherwise, I will have to stick with what I originally plan to write...but >_> I really don't want to haha.
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hahaha im looking at the character list and saw Midas
;O
Midas[gm] ftw...
ok that was random.
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EPT
