Young Writers Society

I'm a corny guy. That's a serious problem for a writer. So many times before I have thought about a great idea only to discard it later when I found out it had already been written. So now, whenever a new idea pops into my head I'm not sure if I should keep it or not. I'm hoping you can help me out with this new idea that I've been playing with. Mind you, it doesn't yet have much of a form, which means that it's a good time to shape into something original.

Anyway, it's a story set in a world similar to ours in the time of ancient Rome. The story tells about the life of a man, from childhood to adulthood, who lives in the greatest empire on Earth, and follows him while he joins the army and his ascent to greatness.
The idea is to start simple. The protagoinst is just a regular soldier, following orders, fighting in wars, killing without hesitating. Even when a civil war erupts, and he is ordered to kill his own brothers and sisters, he remains loyal to his commander. His loyalty and bravery in the war make him advance through the ranks.
After the civil war is won, he is sent to another war, this time on another continent, against a rival empire. again the war is won, but when he gets orders to raze the capital city to the ground, seeds of doubt appear in his mind.
On the way back, his armies ships are drowned by a storm and very few survive. He manages to return back, and is greeted as a great hero. The emperor, his former general, gives him command of some army in a far away province.
Slowly he gains popularity after fighting against barbaric tribes and conquering vast new lands for the empire, which of course causes some political ripples. When a new, young and paranoid emperor replaces the old one, He is tossed into the political game and is forced to participate with his life on the line. He manages to navigate his way away from danger and into the emperor's trust and gets promoted to the emperor's private bodyguard unit.
At some point he hears about a conspiracy to kill the emperor, who has slowly gone more and more insane along the years, and in the begining tries to investigate into it and expose the conspirators, but after the emperor kills his son in a fit of madness, he tries to join in, and succeeds.
In the end, the conspirators manage to kill the emperor, and with the support of the bodyguards and his army, he ascends to the throne and becomes the first pleb emperor.

The story goes through a transformation as it goes along. In the beginning all the politics are kept off-stage, and the protagonist is only fed by rumors and orders. He can only guess what his generals plan, and doesn't try to intervene. As the story progresses though, he gets more and more involved with the politics, untill eventually he is the one directing all the scheming.
I have also played with the idea of introducing a second point of view, possibly from the eyes of a prince from a rival empire. Not so sure how to handle it though.
I have learned a lot about the Roman Empire lately, and I think I can insert some really nice concepts from the period - Army formations, cultural references, political structure etc. The only reason I set it in a parallel world and not in our world is so I have the freedom of doing whatever I want with the emperors, and not being forced to follow history.

So, what do you think? is it cool enough? is it full of cliches? Nothing is set in stone and I'm open to any suggestion, so please enlighten me.

Welp, let's take a crack at this one.

I think it's a pretty neat premise, honestly. The general plot has been done a lot, but it's not usually about how often a plot's been done. What matters is how well you execute it. Also, the end makes for a nice twist on things.

A few tips:

1) Don't under-do worldbuilding. Judging from your post, you seem to be taking that portion of the work fairly seriously, so props to you

2) Make sure that you don't make your MC some uber-macho powerhouse who's just generally annoying and unrealistic. Round him out a little. Also, refrain from making any and all female characters who enter the work his little toys, because that's a) degrading and b) really overdone and c) cheap

3) If you wanna make it really awesome and wonderful, have your MC fail a few tasks or something. Don't make his ascent to greatness effortless, once he's turned his moral compass off.

And that's about all I have to say. Totally lame response, I apologize.

Underdogs make the best heroes.

I love this plot. It's got so much potential for twists and turns, and character development. If I saw something like this on the shelf I would definitely pick it up.

Make note of what Isha said about dropping him in the pig pen. Sometimes he needs to fail. If his whole sense of loyalty and morality is changing then hopefully he'll be doing something that he'll regret. That's what makes things more interesting.