The less habitable world of Babylon II, home to mining and scientific outposts in small domed cities
Babylon is a star system near the center of human-colonized space. Its main habitable planet of Babylon III is also commonly referred to as simply "Babylon", although there are mining or scientific outposts on two other planets or moons in the system. The main planet has three settled continents. The smallest and least populated, Marduk, is on the far side of the planet from the capital, and most notable for its large cattle ranches, which are served by a single spaceport located in the center of the continent. The middle-sized continent is named Tiamat, and is home to light industry, agriculture, and forestry settlements. The largest and most populated continent of Enkidu is home to the capital in Tower City, as well as the smaller outlying cities of Ur and Tigris.
Third Civil War[]
Babylon was initially part of the Grand Council Loyalist faction during the Third Civil War, but in mid-2243 it was invaded by the Tech Infantry Rebels. An initial landing near Tower City by Alistar Dimiye and his Dead Boys Brigade nearly fell into a trap when the local defenders booby-trapped the spaceport, but the resulting large explosion only took out one scout platoon. Loyalists counter-attacked through the hole the exploding spaceport was supposed to have blown in the Rebel lines, but instead met heavy resistance and were slaughtered by small arms fire and orbital bombardment. Subsequent poor decisions by Loyalist commanding general Edgar Curtis caused high casualty rates, leading to a mini-coup led by a General Huang, whose division had been nearly destroyed in the disastrous opening counter-attack, and who subsequently surrendered the system to the Rebels. Among the Loyalist soldiers captured during the battle was Malachi Spyder, whose arrest for treason was interrupted by the invasion, and who was thus willing to switch sides and join the Rebels, eventually becoming one of Alistar Dimiye's brigade commanders in the Dead Boys.
Operation Ziggurat was an attempt by the Grand Council Loyalists to relieve the beleaguered garrison, but it failed due to poor operational security. This led to future operations by the Federation military reverting to being given randomly-generated computer-assigned code names to make it harder for enemy agents to discern the object of an operation just from its code name. Operation Foliage Gear was the first such operation with a nonsense name. This well-known incident having occurred at their capital system of Babylon may be why the Terran Republic later continued the policy of random code words for such projects as Operation SEASCAPE.
Ascension War[]
At the Epsilon Conference which founded the Terran Republic, its leader Kazimir Vitek arranged to have the Republic's capital constituted on Babylon, as the system and world were his home and headquarters from his time in the Resistance.
In January, 2265, Babylon's capital, Tower City, and surroundings were attacked by Scyr in an attempt to kill Chairman Vitek, without regard for the lives of bystanders. Scyr induce a catastrophic fusion reactor failure in a small freighter, the Scum Sucker, as it entered the atmosphere above Vitek's suburban estate. This was followed up by a series of cee-fractional strikes against the surface, which had been arranged in advance by the Scum Sucker, and was further exacerbated by Scyr's sabotage of the planet's orbital defense grid. In addition to Vitek, the attack killed several dozen officials of the Republican government and over one million civilians.
When the Holy Terran Empire invaded of the Terran Republic a few months later, Babylon was thankfully spared any further fighting and destruction when the Imperial Navy's invasion fleet bypassed the Babylon system entirely in order to directly engage the Terran Navy in the Epsilon system. After the Terran Navy was defeated and destroyed in the Battle of Epsilon, the Terran Republic effectively fell.
Despite an initial short-lived resistance movement against Imperial occupation, Bablyon was eventually absorbed more or less peacefully into the Holy Terran Empire under House Velenkoshiv. As Babylon is currently one of the few Imperial systems to still have an operating hyperspace jumpgate, Babylon's economy has suffered less than other systems after the jumpgate network began being dismantled.
Behind the Scenes[]
The system is of course named in homage to the Babylon 5 television series, and its cities and continents are named for figures from Babylonian Mythology and other cities of the ancient mideast.