So I'm in a bit of a pickle here. I mean, you've probably heard of me, Dareios, grandson of Arsames the Achaemenid, right? No? Well, okay, I mean, I'm a pretty big deal - I used to be the spear-bearer of King Cambyses, you know? Son of Cyrus, conqueror of Egypt, pretty cool guy. So uh, Cambyses had this rivalry thing with his brother, Bardiya, and well… Cambyses went to campaign in Egypt and kind of just… died, and Bardiya - well, you know, this guy claiming to be Bardiya - said he was king now. Well actually, you know, come to think of it, I'm pretty sure it was before Cambyses died.

And this whole thing just struck me as weird, you know? The king dies, and suddenly his brother is king just like that? Or before the king dies, whatever. And everyone just forgets about me, the king's, like, almost his third cousin or something! How come nobody asked me to be king? So I figured something weird was going on, and thought, I guess Cambyses probably killed the real Bardiya in secret and that this guy is an impostor - probably some Magian called Gaumata or whatever. I mean, that's really the only way to make sense of the situation, right? It's pretty obvious when you think about it. Everyone else was probably thinking it too, they were just too scared to say it.

So I gather some of my bros - Gobryas, Otanes, you know, the crew, and we go to talk to "Bardiya", but I kind of end up, you know, stabbing him to death. Oops! But since there's no king now, and I was, like, basically next in line, I just went ahead and said "hey, guess I'm the king now :/". I went ahead and sent out letters across the realm explaining the whole thing - I'm actually thinking of carving it into a cliffside and shearing off the rock beneath, just to keep the record straight.

And now while I'm trying to govern, for whatever reason, there's like a dozen pretty big-name guys being all like, "hey, I don't think you should be king, bro" and "actually, I'm the real Bardiya". I even married Cambyses' sisters - also his widows, funnily enough - and the real Bardiya's daughter too. I don't get it, it's like these weirdos don't understand how monarchy works? I've killed and mutilated one of them to make that point, but despite this people still seem to have some kind of personal issue with me. I talked it over with Gobryas and he was like, bro, let's just go down the list and keep killing them when they try this kind of nonsense, let's not waste our time making sense of these unreasonable people. Most people have to agree with me, right?

And I'm thinking Gobryas has a point, but I'm also like, is it possible I've done something wrong here? What do you think, AITA? :/