Be careful what you ask for, ultimately you'll only get three true wishes! — One of the teachings of the Babylonians

The Babylonians, also known as the Children of Babylon, were an ancient and technologically advanced alien civilization, who were the ancestors of the present day generation of the Babylon Rogues. They had the characteristics of genies and presumably either resembled terrestrial, anthropomorphic birds or their descendants attained avian characteristics after breeding with anthropomorphic birds on Earth.

The Babylonians were the creators of Babylon Garden, their ancient spaceship, and the Arks of the Cosmos, units that can harness gravity, as well the earliest form of Extreme Gear. The legends surrounding the Babylonians and their legacy form the basic storyline for Sonic Riders and Sonic Riders: Zero Gravity.

In the ancient past, the Babylonians were stranded on Earth during one of their interstellar travels and became a legendary civilization renowned for their amazing treasures, which (unknowingly) were in the form of advanced technologies.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Arrival 1.2 Settling Down on Earth 1.3 Loses and Reclaims 1.4 Near Extinction 2 Characteristics and Culture 3 Archie Comics 4 Trivia

HistoryEdit

ArrivalEdit

Much of the Babylonians' history is shrouded in mystery and legends, and their original home world is unknown. In the ancient past, the Babylonians traveled through the vastness of space in an ancient spaceship known as Astral Babylon, which was powered by their own inventions, the Arks of the Cosmos, which could harness the forces of a black hole to power their warp engines. As they passed by Sonic's world, however, a malfunction made the Babylonians realize that they could not control the powers of the Arks of the Cosmos and that the Arks' energies made their engine core create a black hole.

To save themselves, their ship and possibly everything else, the Babylonians decided to disconnect the Arks of the Cosmos from their ship and send them into Earth's orbit, while they and Astral Babylon crash-landed on Earth. Now stranded on Earth without any means of leaving, the Babylonians could only wait for the Arks of the Cosmos to fall down to the surface from Earth's orbits so they could gather them up again and use them to power Astral Babylon once more and get back to their home planet.

Settling Down on EarthEdit

As time passed and the Arks of the Cosmos did not leave the orbits, the Babylonians began to settle down on the still-floating Astral Babylon, making it the new home for the Babylonians, and began to construct an outer shell around their spaceship, thus forming Babylon Garden. Whenever they saw a shooting star, the Babylonians would hope that it was one of the Arks of the Cosmos falling down to Earth.

Over time, and under unknown circumstances, the Babylonians became a society of great thieves in the ancient world and they became known as a legendary band of thieves called the Babylon Rogues, who would search the world for treasure and loot alike. Sometime in the far ancient past, the Babylonians gave a boy an "Angle Wing" as a gift made from the their advanced technology, which according to stories allowed the boy to "rule the world". At the time of the thirteenth leader of the Babylon Rogues, Stolen, the Babylonians completed their ultimate invention in the form of the Magic Carpet, the prototype for the first Extreme Gear, so that they did not have to "work so hard to keep themselves flying" when they were stealing treasure. To safeguard their important creation, the Babylon Guardian was created to protect it from any thieves.

Loses and ReclaimsEdit

Some time after the creation of the Magic Carpet, according to legend, the Babylonians lost Babylon Garden when they incurred the wrath of the Gods because of their crimes. How much of this legend is true remains unknown, though the outcome was that Babylon Garden was "cast into the depths of the earth", which resulted in it being buried in the sands near Sand Ruins and the Babylonians being scattered for all time.

At some point, either prior to or after the fall of Babylon Garden, two Arks of the Cosmos fell down from orbit during the Babylonians' time. The Babylonians managed to locate them and placed each one of them at the Gigan Rocks and the Crimson Crater respectively, to keep them safe until they could bring all five Arks of the Cosmos back together and re-energize Astral Babylon.

Over time, the original Babylonians died out, but their descendants lived on by breeding with the inhabitants of Earth. At some point they made, or was given from the original Babylonians, the Key to Babylon Garden that would bring Babylon Garden up from the ground when used in tandem with the seven Chaos Emeralds.

Near ExtinctionEdit

As time passed and no more Arks of the Cosmos showed up, however, the Babylonians and their descendants slowly began to fade away into history; over time, the descendants of the Babylonians began to forget all the knowledge and remains of their ancestors' advanced technology and even records of their own civilization's history and origin, eventually leaving nothing behind in their memory, but misunderstood legends about Babylon Garden's treasures and the Key to Babylon Garden. With their past nearly forgotten, the descendants of the Babylonians became an integrated part of Earth's population, and were eventually scattered into near-extinction. Eventually, the only remaining Babylonians were the remainder of the Babylon Rogues, who continued their thieving ways. The children of these Babylon Rogues would then come together as a new generation of Babylon Rogues, continuing the cycle for generations to come.

In the present day, the only known remaining, possible descendants of the Babylonians are Jet the Hawk, Wave the Swallow and Storm the Albatross.

Characteristics and CultureEdit

The Babylonians were a highly advanced people in terms of technology, being thousands of years ahead of the Earth's time, much like the Nocturnus Clan. Even in ancient times, their technology was more advanced than the technology in the present day and appeared to possess vast potential, ranging from possibly dominating the world to destroying it.

During their time on Earth, the Babylonians proved to be treasure hunters by nature and would fly across the world collecting (taking or stealing) various treasure. This might suggest that the Babylonians were a somewhat amoral and unethical people.

Archie ComicsEdit

The Babylonians also made an appearance in the Archie Comics, with their history and origin presented in the comics being very similar to that in the games. In this media, they are shown to closely resemble Mobian birds.

About a millennium ago, the alien race known as the Babylonians crash-landed on Mobius in their spaceship that became known as Babylon Garden. The reason for this was that they had discovered that their warp-drive, that allowed them to travel quickly thorugh space by creating wormholes, had begun to malfunction, and any attempt they would make to use the warp-drive on Mobius would create a black hole that would destroy the planet. The Baylon Garden's automated systems, however, detected the malfunction and attempted to follow its programing and travel back to the Babylonian's point of origin to be repaired.

Not wanting to be responsible for the destruction of Mobius, the Babylonians decided to remove Babylon Garden's ignition matrix to prevent their spaceship's system from being reactivated. To further prevent any future attempts to reactivate Babylon Garden, the Babylonians split the ignition matrix into the Gravity Ring and the Key to Babylon Garden. The Key to Babylon Garden was hidden away in the ruins beneath the Gigan Mountains, protected by a dangerous hologram named Angelus, while the Gravity Ring ended up being passed on to their possible descendants, the Battle Kukkus. The Babylonians then hid Babylon Garden itself away, burying it deep beneath where New Mobotropolis would be built.

Now stuck on Mobius, the Babylonians abandoned Babylon Garden and began to colonize Mobius, eventually becoming a part of the Mobian population, while their history and knowledge was eventually lost to time. The stories of the Babylonians and Babylon Garden persisted regardless, and as the Battle Bird Armada rose to power, they became fixated on locating Babylon Garden, as they believed their destiny was to conquer Mobius and everyone living under it's skies and that Babylon Garden could help them achieve that goal.

TriviaEdit

• In the universe of Sonic, Amy speculates that the tradition of "wishing upon a star" may have originated from the grounded Babylonians' yearning to return to space and get back to their home world.
• In Sonic Rush Adventure, where Sonic, Tails, Blaze and Marine are exploring the sea of the Sol Dimension, an reality parallel to Sonic's dimension, several hints to an ancient civilization much like the Babylonians can be found. The foremost proof of this is a lost floating city, named Sky Babylon, which was hidden underground due to it falling from the heavens.
• In the real world, Babylonians were an ancient empire centered around the city of Babylon, located within present day Iraq. It lasted from around 1800 BC until it was subsumed into the Persian Empire in 539 BC.