If you’ve seen “300,” based on Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire, you’re familiar with the Spartans. They’re the members of the legendary Greek city-state’s fighting force, and the men were groomed for their role as a soldier from a very young age.
There was a selection process at birth, where only the most robust were allowed to live. Then, at age 7, young Spartans were taken from their homes. From then on, they lived with a group of their peers. Together, they learned how to tough, lean, and resourceful.
No shoes and a single cloak to toughen the skin, daily exercise, and meager diets to keep their bodies trim and encouraged theft to teach them to live without support.
There was even a form of team sumo wrestling without rules. Each team’s goal was to get the other out of the circle by any means necessary.
Reading about their training reminded me of the beginning of “Wonder Woman.” In the beginning, the Amazons are on their hidden island, training Princess Diana. What if a story re-created this premise, but used the Spartans instead?
There would have to be technology/mystical artifact that accounts for the island’s being hidden. In theory, multiple Spartans leave the island behind and go out into the world, filling typical superheroes’ roles.
(Now that I’m thinking about it, Wakanda in “The Black Panther” is another excellent example of this.)
This could be a long-running series. Multiple Spartans on the team would make it easy to create specialties among the group. There could be romance sub-plots and Spartans who fall from grace and decide to double-cross the group.
The first book would have to introduce the world. It would be a fish out of water story, showing the Spartan or Spartans assimilating to the new reality.
It would be interesting if the Spartans came from another world, recently discovered, and were brought to the main world/center of the universe. Each book could take place in a new world, providing a unique background for their exploits.
Back to the first book’s plot, it would have to be a simple detective story, one with a pretty clean and straightforward conclusion. This would allow the massive amount of world-building to coincide with the cast of characters.
