Chaos was basically a soup of mist. Imagine the universe right after the Big Bang. The universe was purple, blue, and maybe a little green, and dotted with stars. That was basically Chaos. Fun fact: Chaos means Gap.

At some point, a bit of Chaos’s soup mist gathered and became the Earth. Like all things Chaos made, the Earth could live in the form of a human. Her name was Gaea. She liked to walk across the Earth, which was literally walking over herself, to admire the rocks, hills, and trees that were her body. At one point, Gaea got tired of admiring herself and asked Chaos for something else. Something to give her company, like a sky, which would form a living personality that she could fall in love with. Chaos happily obliged and made a dome around the Earth, just as Gaea had asked for. The sky gave itself a weird and ridiculous name. The name was Ouranos, which is another way to spell Uranus, which is just weird.

After creating the sky, Chaos got a little giddy. He decided to make something like the sky, but under the Earth. Apparently he thought that this was a perfect idea, so he made a dome like the sky, but under the earth. Its name was Tartarus. He was dark and murky and spent his time breeding monsters.

Then Chaos made one last thing, which was the sea. The sea called itself Pontus. Pontus spent his whole time napping in the sea, which again, is like napping inside himself. Eventually, Chaos got tired of making primordial gods by himself and decided to have a kid with Tartarus. The kid was called Nyx. Nyx was the embodiment of nightime.

All by herself, Nyx had a kid called Hemera, who was day. They didn’t get along very well, because they were just different.

Gaea was literally the Earth. But she could also take on a human form and walk around on the Earth. She liked to wander around on the sunlit meadows, feeling the heat on her skin and admiring the green hills.

One morning, Gaea got tired of doing the same thing over and over every day. So, she asked Chaos for something new. Like maybe a sky. And the sky would have a human form that she could fall in love with! Chaos did what Gaea asked for and made a protective dome around the Earth, called the sky. The sky was called Ouranos. Ouranos is another spelling for Uranus, so try not to laugh when you hear that name. It was a bad name. Anyways, in human form, Ouranos looked like a tall, handsome, and strong person with skin that was dark and glittering with stars during the night, and gentle light blue with clouds during the day. His appearance did not match his personality. You’ll see why soon.

In no time, Gaea and Ouranos had their first set of kids. They were the Titans. There were twelve Titans, and Gaea loved them all. But Ouranos hated his kids. He went back to the sky and left Gaea to raise them on her own. Gaea got angry at him and told him to come down and help with the kids, but Ouranos refused. The few times that he did visit, he would yell at the kids and hurt them and be the worst possible dad ever.

Gaea decided that she had to stop the fighting. She thought that maybe if they had more kids, Ouranos would feel guilty and stop being so horrible at his kids. Unfortunately, that never happened, because the next set of kids they had were UGLY. They were called the Elder Cyclopes. They looked human enough, except for the fact that they had one eye instead of two. But they smelled like they spent their free time swimming in dumpsters(if dumpsters had been invented yet), and they each looked like they had been rolled over gravel and thrown off a mountain. Or maybe both.

Gaea didn’t care. She loved them all. But naturally, when Ouranus saw them, he felt like he wanted to strangle each of them personally. He stormed off into the sky, snatched up chains made up of the night sky’s pure darkness, wrapped up the Elder Cyclopes, and dropped them into Tartarus. When Gaea complained, Ouranos claimed to be the king of the universe. Gaea screamed and wailed and cursed at Ouranos, but there was nothing that she could do.

The Titans, her first and only kids not in Tartarus, wanted to help. But they, just like Gaea, couldn't do anything about it. Gaea, once again thought that having just one more set of triplets would bring her relationship with Ouranos back together. And once again, she was wrong. These kids were called the Hundred-Handed Ones. They had a pyramid of fifty heads on their shoulders, and one hundred arms sticking out of thier chests, just like a sea urchin with their spines. Sadly, Ouranos hated them. He threw the Hundred-Handed Ones into Tartarus along with their siblings, the Elder Cyclopes.

At this point, Gaea had had enough. She summoned the hardest material that she could find in her domain, the Earth, shaped it with anger and attached it to a tree branch from a nearby tree.

“Behold, my instrument of revenge. I call it a Scythe.” She said to the Titans, “One of you needs to use the Scythe and kill Ouranus.”

All the girls made their excuses and went away - they were too smart to get involved in murdering. Oceanus also preferred being with Pontus so he made his excuse and went into the oceans. That left five Titans.

“I’ll do it.” Kronos said. He grabbed the Scythe. “Now I need you four to hold down Ouranos, while I kill him.”

Iapetus said “Well, I don’t –”

But then Hyperion elbowed him and said “Of course you do!”

Kronos said “Great. Gaea, I need you to pretend that you still like Ouranos and make a fake romantic dinner. Then, we can jump out and kill Ouranos.”

So that evening, Gaea invited Ouranos to a romantic dinner and set up a lot of fancy food and pretended to still like him. Ouranos felt sad now for angering Gaea because he suddenly remembered how beautiful Gaea looked when she wasn’t yelling up at his face.

“So you’re actually making up?” Ouranos said.

“Yeah, totally!” Gaea responded. Gaea patted the seat next to her, “Come here and sit with me.”

Ouranos grinned and walked over to Gaea. But before Ouranos could sit down, the four Titans - Hyperion, Iapetus, Koios and Krios - jumped out, each picked a limb and nailed Ouranos to the ground.

“What is this?!” Ouranos yelled.

Kronos raised his Scythe over Ouranos, “Hello, father.” He said.

“What is the meaning of this?” Ouranos said. “How dare you kill me! I’m the Lord of the Cosmos!”

“Not anymore!” Kronos said.

“Beware Kronos,” Ouranos said, “If you do this, someday your own children will overthrow you. Just like you are doing to me.” He issued a curse on Kronos.

“Let them try!” Kronos said. He lowered his scythe down on Ouranos’ heart and killed him.

After the murder, Kronos gave his four brothers - Hyperion, Iapetus, Krios and Koios - the four corners of the Earth. Kronos released the Elder Cyclopes and Hundred-handed Ones from Tartaraus and they built a palace for him

Gaea was glad for her kids and she thought she deserved a nap. After all, she’d been through a lot. So, she went into a short nap, which for immortals means a couple millenia.

After killing Ouranos, Kronos felt pretty content. He released the Hundred-Handed Ones and the Elder Cyclopes. They were gratified, so they built Kronos a palace. Kronos’s palace was made out of obsidian, studded with the rarest jewels.

Kronos spent his day sitting on his jewel and obsidian throne, looking down on the world and cackling “Mine! All mine!”. When he wasn’t on his throne, he was speeding up time for mortal forms, like trees, and watching them wither and die. He also liked to step on humans and laugh at their shrieks.

But that's when things fell apart. After Gaea went to nap. His brothers stopped visiting. The Elder Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handed Ones went to build their own items. Kronos got cranky. One morning, he couldn’t take it anymore. He woke to an Elder Cyclops hammering on a piece of bronze. Or steel. Kronos was too cranky to care. He rounded up some of his brothers and told them to get rid of these wasteful Elder Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones. So once again, they bound the poor guys in chains, and dumped them into Tartarus.

Eventually, though, Kronos got tired of doing the same thing. He wanted to marry someone and have some peace and quiet. The only problem though, was that before Ouranos died, he had issued a curse on him that someday, Kronos’s own kids would take over him. But Kronos was tired of not being able to marry. In fact, he had a crush on Rhea.

One day, Kronos couldn’t stand it. He invited Rhea to dinner, and proposed to her right there, right on the table. Rhea agreed to marry him. Soon, they had their first kid.

Kronos was nervous about the curse. What if the kid turned out to be a murderous monster and killed him right out of the womb? But no, the kid was perfect. Rhea named her Hestia and showed her to Kronos. Immediately, Kronos saw the problem. Hestia was completely perfect. Too perfect. Kronos knew that when this child grew up, she would be better at anything than any Titan. In fact, Hestia wasn’t a Titan. She was a goddess. In Kronos’s mind, if she grew up, the curse of Ouranos would come true.

So like a good father, he unhinged his jawline wider than he ever knew that he could, and swallowed the baby whole.

Rhea’s eyes bugged out. Her jaw unhinged wider than Kronos. And she let out the loudest scream ever. “AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH” she shrieked “You–you j–just ate her! How could you!” She screamed and ran around the throne room like crazy. Then, she ran away.

Then, two or three days later, Kronos convinced Rhea that they could have another kid. “This time, she’ll be perfect,” he promised.

The next kid was another girl called Demeter. She was another goddess. She was even better than Hestia. But once again, Kronos ate her. They had another kid. This time, the kid was a girl called Hera. Another goddess. And again, Kronos ate her. The next kid was a boy named Hades.This time, a god. Hades was swallowed, too. Then, they had a kid named Posiedon. Also a god. Kronos ate him, too.

Rhea was too good at being a mother. Each kid was better than the last. After Posiedon was swallowed, Rhea had had enough. She ran wailing into the nearest meadow and threw herself down on the grass

Even in her sleep, Gaea couldn’t stand hearing one of her daughters crying. “Next time you are going to give birth, go to Crete and have your child there.” Gaea whispered into Rhea’s mind. “You’ll find it.”

And so the next day, Rhea allowed herself to have another child with Kronos. When Rhea was pregnant, she told Kronos that she would give birth in Crete. Kronos’s stomach was too full of gods. And he constantly felt like he had just eaten a big meal and he needed a nap.

Kronos let Rhea go to Crete and give birth there. The nymphs and satyrs (formed from the blood of Ouranos) there had also heard Gaea’s voice. They took Rhea to a cave where she could have her kid. This kid was called Zeus. The instant that he was born, he started crying. Rhea had promised to bring the kid back immediately. And now Kronos knew that the kid had been born.

Suddenly, a rock came out of the ground. It was exactly the same weight and size as Zeus. Rhea knew that this was a gift from Gaea. She wrapped the rock in blankets and handed the real Zeus to the nymphs and satyrs. Gaea also created the Kouretes out of the blood of Ouranos to cover up the crying in case Zeus cried again and Kronos got suspicious.

Rhea went back to Kronos’s palace and handed the rock to Kronos. As Rhea had suspected, Kronos swallowed the rock without a second thought.

Back in Crete, the nymphs and satyrs took care of Zeus as he grew up. By the time he was an adult, Zeus was strong and healthy because of all his time in the forest.

Rhea had an idea to get Kronos to barf out the kids. She told Zeus to become a cupbearer for Kronos. As a cupbearer, Zeus introduced drinking contests to the Titans. They were very popular among satyrs and nymphs. The first one to drain the cup won. Kronos always won the drinking contest. He trusted Zeus to give him what went down smoothest, and that was Zeus’ plan.

One night, Kronos had invited all the Titans for a big feast. They ate and drank a lot. Toward the end of the feast, Zeus suggested they have a drinking contest. This time, Zeus used a mix of ketchup and mustard and put it inside Kronos’ nectar. For the other contestants, Zeus put a fall-asleep remedy.

He gave them the nectar and gave them no time to smell the brew before starting the drinking contest. Kronos immediately drained the cup but he felt weird. While the rest of the Titans were falling asleep, Kronos puked out everything he had eaten - including the Gods.

The five very confused Gods followed Zeus out of the Palace and back to Crete. Zeus knew that they could get weapons from the Elder Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handed Ones.

Hades had a knack for navigating caves. He took them to Tartarus to look for the Elder Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones. Down in Tartarus, the Elder Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones were guarded by a monster called Kampê.

Kampê had a dragon-like head with a venomous tail and around her waist there were faces of animals - each one getting worse than the last. Every time that an Elder Cyclops was close to building something, she would snatch it away and throw it into the lava. And every time the Hundred-Handed Ones had a good stack of blocks, she would knock it down. The Elder Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones got no breaks at all.

Zeus and the Gods hid behind a boulder. Zeus had a plan. He told the nearest Cyclops, Brontes, to build parts of a weapon and at the very last second, put it together and throw it at the Gods. In no time, the three Gods had weapons. But before the Elder Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones had time to make weapons for the three goddesses, Kampê noticed them.

She charged with her fiery whip. Zeus used his lightning bolt to blast her. The Gods freed the Elder Cyclopes and Hundred-Handed Ones and brought them to the surface. By then, Kronos and his troops had been looking for them. The Titan War had started.

It lasted 10 years until one day, the Gods formed a plan. Under cover of darkness, they scaled the nearest mountain to Mount Othrys, where Kronos’ palace was located. The mountain was called Mount Olympus.

From Mount Olympus, the Hundred-Handed Ones threw boulder after boulder at Kronos’ palace. The Gods used their weapons to destroy Mount Othrys. After the dust cleared, even the Gods were in awe of what they had done.

They had split Mount Othrys in half - from 10,000 feet to 5,000 feet tall. They chained up all the Titans, except Atlas and Kronos, and threw them into Tartarus.

Atlas’ punishment was that he had to hold up the Sky. Kronos’ punishment was Zeus used his own scythe to slice him up into pieces (and then he was thrown into Tartarus).