Love that the first Sci-Fi story was called "A True Story". Extremely wacky. I love how when they finally go back to Earth instead of things returning to normal they instantly get eaten by a whale which has a world inside of it. The symbolism with the lamps was very clever of him.

That story was lit af.

Sounds like an ancient Roman acid trip.

In love how even in 100 they knew planets were round and we have to deal with flat earthers in the 21st century

Someone should make a live action adaptation of this story.

SciFi or satire, this needs to be made into a cinematic trilogy.

One day when you have a million plus subs I'll have the absolute pleasure of bragging in the comments how I was following this channel since 3K subs.

Great story for the first Sci-fi ever

In the Alexander Romance, I always liked the sci-fi element of Alexander the Great descending into the ocean in an early bathysphere made of glass to view the depths of the ocean. From what I've read, the most fleshed out version of this comes from the 12th century, though it's possible that some versions could have been written before Lucian's time! That said, I'm not sure if fully counts as science fiction when it was being sold to its readers as science fact. It did, however, inspire William Beebe to construct his very real bathysphere in the 1930s, and it's a hallmark of good science fiction when elements of the story go on to inspire scientists, engineers and inventors to improve the world (or at least enhance it). Just think of Jack Parsons' love of science fiction going on to help him pioneer much of rocket technology, or Motorola's Martin Cooper being inspired by Dick Tracy's wrist watch communicator, or Amazon's David Limp being inspired by Star Trek's "computer" to create Alexa's functionality. And regarding your own criteria for good science fiction, the Alexander Romance's use of a bathysphere was not merely conjecturing but was actually taking very real technology and pushing it into a more advanced and extreme direction. Because the Greeks did, according to Aristotle, use large cauldrons to trap air and help divers recover items from shipwrecks, and this was even something that Alexander made use of. So his descent into the ocean depths in a glass barrel was merely the logical extension of something that already had begun to be a thing, though the pressures of ocean water meant it would be another millennia or two before a fully functional bathyscape could be made a reality.

This is actually such an underrated channel you deserve way more views one day you'll make it big.

Currently just finished Book One. Somewhat difficult to follow the events of the story.

So why does this have only 600 views?!

I’ve gotta give credit to the ancient Romans for knowing that the Moon, Venus and other celestial bodies were worlds you could visit and walk upon. I know it doesn’t sound too extraordinary but if you think about it it’s a pretty incredible thing to know as an ancient person. What with the limitations of technology and all.

This sounds like something the history Channel would say actually happened.

I like how even back then. Spiders and bugs where associated with alien monsters.

This is fascinating. The line between fantastical travel narrative and satire and science fiction is one that repeats again with Gulliver's Travels book 3 centuries later. Modern science fiction has a lot of roots in fantastical travel narratives in general. This totally counts. The Japanese The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter is 10th century, so later, but has also been called 'proto-science fiction for moon people. But going back further, Hephaestus has essentially robot minions. There's space travel and flying ships and robots and weapons of mass destruction in ancient hindu poetry, says wikipedia.

What an amazing guy this Lucian character was being so ahead of his time with the lamp commentary on slaves in fiction that blew my mind he was doing that so early. And then writing science fiction before anyone else. What a style of his own

This ancient Science fiction, which was written before sci fi tropes existed, is an unbelievably unique trip! It's sooo out-there that despite the incredible narration, this would be almost impossible to follow without the animations. I can only imagine what it was like to come up with ideas for how to animate a story this crazy!

I hope you don't stop making videos!! This is right down my alley. Thank you :)

I hope you guys get lots of growth! Great channel!

Holy Roman Empire! This short and lovely acountant of an old and amazing tale I should have known about when I was a kid... well done and perfectly presented.

Great content as always, thanks

Your videos are fantastic! Seriously. Damn

Just Found Your Channel.. I Am Really Enjoying It ! Keep Up The Good Work!

Really great video. Fantastic editing and narration. You deserve more subs.

Great video. It’s crazy have few people have heard of this story

This is wholly unbelievable that this was made during Roman Antiquity!!!! (Samosata I believe is in Armenia) I am gobsmacked at your find, beautiful channel

I just found this channel and I love it. It makes real life events into cool movies ✨❤️✨

This channel is truly interesting and cool, and well-made

Wow!! I never heard about this but it was amazing! Great video! :D

I'm about to listen to this and it sounds very interesting. Make more of these kinds of videos

Thank you for this wonderful video!

I can't believe I havnt seen you before, your gonna make it big I can tell, really good content keep it up!

I've always liked it channel and it's in depth narrative on history to almost bring us an image of what life and war was like back then but this one is different and i really liked it

Your take on one of my favorite Sci fi stories is interesting. Very good.

Great video, once again!

And just to think... this was before LSD was invented.

This essay was fantastic, very cool insights into something I had never heard of before now. And great art too, that was fun.

What a neat video; I had never heard of this story. Thank you.

hehe I love the sound the lamp makes at 6:28

Perfect narration.

Super awesome. It’s like the Odyssey and Trojan War fused into a sci fi epic.

Just hook the history to my veins!

Love stumbling on these loki fucking lit history channels! Keep it up bro you'll be raking that YT moola in soon

Wow! This is seriously interesting! I want to read this story! I remember researching and learning how old sci fi was like. With cities in the sky. I thought it would be cool to write a modern story in this style. Like how retro futurism is based on the 50-70s view of the future. And not to mention how popular steam punk is.

Found the audiobook called trips to the moon. Thanks for sharing, I think I’m going to like this guy.

Underrated channel

this needs to be a movie

Interesting history and good video.

Love this

Your production quality is amazing

This is amazing 😮😮😮

Whoa This is Amazing

This needs to be made into a movie.

Really interesting video!

Although Syria and Assyria were used exchangeable in the age and life of Lucian, Lucian himself, in fact, in all his writings referred to himself as Syrian and to his culture and homeland as Syria and Syrian and he admitted that he was a foreigner to Greek, the language that he mastered and used in almost most of his writings. Some references, some scholars, in fact, referred that some of his writings, one or two only perhaps, were written in his own language which was Syriac/Aramaic the language that he mentioned to be his first language and his parents' mother-tongue. I wished you referred to these facts in your introductory lines about Lucian. Understanding his personal biography could help tremendously in any interpretations of his works especially this one "True Story."

Someone should make this into a film. Just because of what it is. I’m surprised that nobody in the 1960s tried to pull it off, and put that claymation technology to use. 😂

This should be a movie!

All this shit is excellent! Y'all have to keep making more of this stuff because I am addicted to it and will have watched all of them I can find soon.😥

I have one word of explanation for this! Lucien invented Acid trip !!

Amazing

This story is lit 🔥

Every video you guys make is fucking amazing

That story is trippy as only trippy gets.

this should be made into a movie

Good stuff

Really good

Oddly reminds me a bit of John Carter. (Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs)

So this guy is the first BRO... Probably one of the writers of the most sacred text "the bro code"

"True Story" does have many of the hallmarks of Science Fiction, but it's quite different from a lot of modern Science Fiction novels, and I don't think Lucian's book was ever really trying to be a Science Fiction. It was written as a Satire, and more resembles a Fantasy work in a lot of aspects. He wanted to make his story as absurd as possible, and didn't try to take anything he wrote seriously. Arguably, the first true Science Fiction would probably be "Somnium", written by Johannes Kepler in 1608. It also features fantastical elements, but does prominently feature some actual scientific concepts, particularly concerning astronomy. The first Hard Science Fiction (a work of Science Fiction that strives for scientific accuracy, features no supernatural elements, and tries to be grounded in reality) would probably be "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas", written by Jules Verne in 1869.

Is this the prequel to Sailor Moon?

Elder Scrolls lore is wild.

Nice animation

I want adapt this into a Cthulhu Invictus Adventure

The greatest sci-fi of all time

Damn, he took my story idea!

This would be quite an anime

This is literally movie material.

I would watch this movie.

I would watch that movie

This is wild... Denis Villeneuve should make a movie out of this

Dune is my favourite sci fi book

I wonder if Douglas Adams read this book before he wrote Hitchhiker books...

Can’t wait for Robert Eggers to make this a psychological horror film.

sounds like a cross between the origin story of scientology and madlibs.

When the Acacia bush be hittin.

When you described the city of lamps I imagined beings with innate lights within. Just like how robots were imagined in the golden age of science fiction -- sixties era. In this sense, the critique being that of the slavery in roman cities makes sense, because the root of the the word robot stems from that of the slavic word "robotnik", which means "slave". Does that mean something? Nope. But it is strangely uncanny.

Well this guy certainly had an active imagination.

I was here when he had less than 30k subs 28/07/2020

1953's War / Worlds is so great i prefer it over Spielberg's

This was better than the Riddick trilogy

Can we please make THIS into a show instead of the nonsense we have nowadays?

Spelljammer was invented quite some time ago it seems lol.

Cool that they found St Eric of Sweden on the moon.

The First Science Fiction Story Ever is actually "Icaromenippus or The Sky-Man", which Lucian wrote approximately a decade earlier than "A True Story".

This reminds me of the divine comedy

my man ate a special mushroom for sure

"A True Story", AKA "Space Balls"

Litnopolis? Lit

We actually studied a section of this story in ancient Greek class