| Prehistory
Thousands of years ago, before they were worshipped by the people of Ancient Greece, the Olympians lorded their power of cavemen. The God of War that became known as Ares to the descendants of these cavepeople fathered a child by one of the cavewomen. This cavewoman grew up in much the same manner as her fellows and was taken as a mate by one of the caveman. She would eventually became pregnant, but she would never live to see the child. One day her mate returned from a hunt. In this outing, one of his hands had been bitten and torn to shreds by one of the many wild beasts that existed in this time period. In his rage at losing his hand, he beat his mate to death, thusly killing his child as well. This was the first time a woman was ever killed by a man, but it would not be the last.
The Goddesses Convene
Irritated at how the society of men that worshipped them were not completely following the rules they had set down, the goddesses Artemis, Athena, Hestia, Aphrodite, and Demeter met to vent their frustration and consider their options. Their fellow goddess, Hera, initially stayed out of this meeting because she did not wish to anger her husband, Zeus. The five goddesses decided that they should create champions that would further their causes on Earth and see to it that all peoples would unite under these virtues.
Using their powers to reach across time, the goddess took the soul of every woman that had ever been killed by a man in the past, present, and future. They took these souls and imbued them with various blessings: hunting skills from Artemis, warm homes from Hestia, plentiful harvests from Demeter, beauty (inside and out) from Aphrodite, wisdom and intelligence from Athena. The souls were then placed at the bottom of the Aegean Sea where they mixed and melded with the clay there.
Because of the divine blessings they had received, the souls were born anew. The first of these new women to break the surface of the Aegean was Hippolyta and she was followed by Antiope. These two sisters were each given a Golden Girdle of Gaea and named the leaders of the Amazons, with Hippolyta in command and Antiope her second. They founded the city of Themyscira and became known as a tribe of fierce warriors among the Ancient World.
The Jealousy of Ares
The God of War became jealous that these women were fiercer warriors than the men he had supported and favored through the centuries. He sent his half-brother, Herakles, invade the Amazon city and steal the Girdles of Gaea. Hippolyta rode out of the city to meet him to negotiate, but Herakles could not be swayed. He attacked her, attempting to use his superior strength to his advantage, but Hippolyta used her skills in battle, combined with the wisdom bestowed upon her by Athena to figure out how to best the demigod. Still wishing peace, Hippolyta extended an invitation to Herakles and his men: they could join the Amazons, in peace, in a great feast within the walls of Themyscira. Herakles accepted, hiding anger in his heart.
Inside the city, Herakles drugged the Amazons' wine. When they were drugged, he and his men took the girdles and enslaved the women. Hippolyta herself was raped by Herakles. The first to throw off the effect of the drugs, Hippolyta cried out for help from Athena; the goddess agreed to help but demanded the Amazons refrain from taking revenge. Hippolyta agreed, and Athena removed the drug from the Amazons' systems and removed their restraints. The problem was that not all of the Amazons agreed to do as Hippolyta had promised. They attacked the men, slaughtering them all, only to find their leaders had fled.
Angry that they broke the promise made by their leader, Athena demanded that the Amazons serve penance. Hippolyta and the Amazons that agreed with her line of thought decided to follow the goddess' wishes, while Antiope scoffed at the idea and denounced the Olympians. She gave Hippolyta the girdle they managed to retrieve and left. Hippolyta never learned what happened to her sister after that day.
Penance
Athena guided the Amazons under Hippolyta to the seashore, where she explained that as penance, the Amazons would watch over a portal to the Underworld known as Doom's Doorway. They were given immortality as the journey to the Doorway and the resulting watch over this doorway would both be long. Poseidon cleared a way across the seas for the women until they came to the island that housed the door. There they founded a new city and named it Themyscira after the one that Herakles and his men had sacked.
Once the Amazons were settled upon the island, Hippolyta held a contest to choose the most skilled of her sisters. The victor, Nu'Bia, was chosen to protect the doorway from within the Underworld, while the remaining Amazons would guard it from the outside. Here they remained for three thousand years, living life in peace, paying homage to the gods.
The First Visitor
One day the peaceful life of the Amazons was shattered not once, but twice. Overheard an airplane flown by Diana Rockwell Trevor was low on fuel and damaged in a dogfight against Nazi planes during a World War II battle. As the plane came to a crash in the forests on Themyscira, the search party that went looking for the downed plane heard a cry of alarm from Doom's Doorway. Rushing over there they found a creature from the Underworld had escaped and was in the middle of fighting Nu'Bia on the outside.
Leading the search party was Hippolyta, who immediately leaped into the fray to help her sister. Meanwhile, Diana Trevor had survived the crash and left the wreckage of her vehicle, following noises of battle to see what was going on. She arrived in time to see the creature knock the Amazons back and advance on an unarmed Hippolyta, who had lost her sword in the chaos. Thinking quickly, the pilot grabbed a sword and rushed the creature with a loud battle cry, fatally stabbing it when it turned to see who was screaming at it. In its death throws, it severely injured Diana Trevor.
The woman died in Hippolyta's arms, but not before she gave her name and her hometown. Thinking her family would want to have the woman's remains, Hippolyta donned ceremonially armor, sword, and shield which had been created for her by Hephaestus centuries prior, and headed back into man's world. She could have never expected what she would find.
Our World At War
Hippolyta emerged in a world in the throes of the Second World War. On the shores of North Africa, where she ended up, she found an Allied encampment that was dealing with constant assaults from a contingent of Nazi soldiers in the area. Though it took some time, Hippolyta's natural intelligence helped her learn the language the Allied troops were speaking -- English -- and she managed to communicate that she was attempting to locate the family of a pilot. While the officers assured the strangely-dressed woman that they would make sure the pilot's remains were sent back to her family, the encampment came under attack.
Unwilling to simply leave the encampment behind, for she had learned something of what the war was about, Hippolyta joined the fray. Using the bracers that she and her sisters had worn since they had become free of their enslavement, she deflected many bullets back at the German soldiers that fired them, saving the lives of more than a few Allied soldiers. With her sword and shield crafted by the god of smiths, Hippolyta helped the soldiers scatter the German soldiers and take the offensive in the area.
When superiors back in London asked how the troops had managed to gain enemy ground, the message relayed to them was that they had been helped by "a wonderous woman".
Wonder Woman
Hippolyta probably should have returned to Themyscira at this point. Her curiosity, however, had been fired and her wander lust kicked in. She wanted to see more of this world, strange as it was from the one she was used to, even if it was currently at war. The report to army officers in London reached the media, who began to call her 'Wonder Woman'. They were there to meet her and ask her all kinds of questions when it had been accidently leaked that she was coming to London. She accompanied the remains of Diana Trevor and refused to abandon the remains until her next of kin had been contacted. When she finally met the family, she explained that Diana had saved her life and she hadn't wanted the woman's remains to remain where she had crashed and her family remain unaware of her fate.
Only after this did she consent to meet with Allied commanders. She agreed to help them because they were fighting for things she believed in. Freedom, to name one. In her work for the Allies, she met others, labeled heroes by the media, that worked to end the reign of the Axis Powers in Europe and Asia. She became good friends with many of them, and though she did not tell them of the Amazons, she did tell them her name. Her life story was generalized, made easier for them to believe. She wasn't Hippolyta of Themyscira. She was Hippolyta Prince. Their reply was to nickname her 'Polly', but to the commanders, she was always Wonder Woman.
When the war was over, she realized she was no longer needed. The threat to the world -- both Man's World and her own world on Themyscira -- was over. The world no longer needed Wonder Woman, so Hippolyta returned to her home and her sisters.
The First Child
It was when she was back on the island that Hippolyta grew restless. She did not wish to travel beyond her island's shores. No, not again. What was stirring in her soul was that which she been denied in her previous life. She longed for a child. She prayed to her gods in secret and they told her to go to Themyscira's shores. They told her to shape the clay there into the form of an infant, which she promptly did. The goddesses united once more, along with Hermes this time (who had come to support the goddesses and Amazons) and breathed life into the clay infant, placing the soul of Hippolyta's daughter from a previous life into the clay. They turned her to flesh and blood and blessed her. In honor of the woman that had saved her life, Hippolyta called her new daughter Diana.
The island as a whole raised Diana. They taught her what it meant to be an Amazon. They taught her the arts of war, they taught her horseback riding, herbalism, art... everything they knew, they taught Diana. Hippolyta watched her daughter grow and learn. The Queen swelled with pride. The young Diana was safe everywhere on the island by Doom's Doorway; so attuned to nature was she that the animals would not harm her.
The Second Visitor
It happened once and it happened again. A jet dove out of the sky and crashed into the waters off the shore of Themyscira. The pilot, a man, was saved by Hippolyta's daughter. Unhappy with a man on the island, the Gods decreed that the Amazons had to hold a contest to choose a champion that would be sent to Man's World to spread the Amazon mission of peace. Although Hippolyta forbid her daughter to take part, Diana covered her head with a helmet, as all the other competitors did, so no one knew it was her. Diana ended up winning.
Although Hippolyta forbid her daughter to leave the island, Zeus himself decreed that Diana be the champion of her people. The Princess was then given many gifts, including the Golden Girdle which her mother still had. It was transformed by the gods into a lasso which she would use in her mission. With a heavy heart, Hippolyta bid her daughter goodbye and told her she would always be welcome on Themyscira and that if she ever needed her people, they would always be there for her.
The Island Nation of Themyscira
Through Diana's efforts on the mainland, the Amazon mission became known, though she was known more for her deeds as Wonder Woman that as an ambassador - the name came from a reporter who noted how Diana's abilities were similar to Hippolyta's, and not realizing they were mother and daughter, decided the "coincidence" was enough to warrant using the same name. Hippolyta made a choice, supported by the gods. Themyscira would join the rest of the world and no longer hide from Man's World's view. Diana, their champion, would be the ambassador of a people.
While Diana was thrust on the world stage as a heroine and ambassador, her mother was too, but as the leader of an island nation. She became recognized the world over as the Queen of Themyscira. Diana settled in New York City, deciding that this would be the best place for the Themysciran embassy.
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