Babylonians

The **Babylonians**, also known as the "**Children of Babylon**", are a species that appears in the *SKB's* *Sonic Pokémon* series created by Yuji Naka and Ken Sugimori. They were an ancient alien civilization who closely resemble mobian birds.

They were also the extraterrestrial ancestors of the Babylon Rogues who got stranded on Mobius over a millennium ago in the distant past, where their ship's malfunctioning wormhole generator threatened Mobius with a black hole.

To keep the ship from launching automatically, they removed the ship's ignition matrix and scattered its parts away. The Babylonians eventually settled down and colonized Mobius afterwards, even integrating with its population since.

One half of them embracing travel and independence while the other half adopted a strict militaristic lifestyle under another family, thus giving rise to many legends surrounding them, where they gained a repute as legendary thieves.

Extremely technologically advanced back in those time and in the present day, the Babylonians are most responsible for the many technological creations such as their ship, the Arks of the Cosmos and the earliest form of Extreme Gear.

The stories surrounding the Babylonians persisted, though their exact knowledge and history were lost in time, including to their descendants. But their legends and legacy form the basis of the storylines for the *Riders Unite* series.

"*Be careful what you ask for, ultimately you'll only get three true wishes!*"

—Storm, reminding Wave one of the teachings of the Babylonians.

## Description

### Anatomy and Design

The Babylonians were initially implied to be genies, although their alien ancestry might imply something else entirely. They were highly advanced in terms of technology, being ages ahead of the Mobius' time. Even in ancient times, their technology was more advanced than those in the present day. As a testament to their prowess, their creations have the potential to possibly dominate or even destroy the world.

### Characteristics and Culture

The ancient Babylonians used a unique writing system, utilizing symbols resembling foreign letters or syllables. While this type of writing has seemingly been abandoned over time, the descendants of the Babylonians and treasure hunters like Knuckles, and archeologists like Amy still understood them.

On Mobius, the Babylonians proved to be treasure hunters and robbers by nature and would fly around the world to search of treasure. Contributing to the fact that their crimes were great enough to incur the wrath of the Gods, it would suggest that the Babylonians were somewhat immoral and unethical. In addition to their thieving reputation, they were also known to be Extreme Gear specialists.

## History

### Past

#### Early History

##### Arrival and colonization

Much of the Babylonians' history is shrouded in mystery, and their original home world is unknown. A highly advanced civilization in terms of technology, the Babylonians traveled through space in an ancient spaceship known as Babylon Garden, which was powered by the Arks of the Cosmos, devices that harnessed the power of gravity.

When they passed by Mobius in the ancient past however, a malfunction caused by the Babylonians' inability to control the Arks of the Cosmos threatened to make their ship's engine core create a black hole―a "lightless black"―that would consume everything. Reaching a decision, the Babylonians condemned themselves by disconnecting the Arks of the Cosmos from their ship and sending them into earth's orbit while Babylon Garden crash-landed on Mobius.

There, the Babylonians could only wait for the Arks of the Cosmos to resurface as they had hoped so they could use them to return to their home planet. As such, whenever they saw a shooting star, they would wish to go back home in hopes that it was an Ark of the Cosmos landing on earth. As speculated by Amy, 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.

Starting a new life on earth, the Babylonians settled down on the still-floating Babylon Garden and built an island for themselves around its substructure, Astral Babylon. Over time, the Babylonians built up a reputation as a legendary band of great thieves and robbers known as the Babylon Rogues, who would roam the world, stealing treasure and loot alike.

According to stories, the Babylonians gave a boy an "Angel Wing" made from their advanced technology as a gift at one-point, which stories said allowed the boy to "gained supremacy of the world." During the time of Stolen, the thirteenth leader of the Babylon Rogues, the Babylonians completed their ultimate invention, the Magic Carpet (the prototype for the first Extreme Gear), which would let them travel all over the world to gather treasure without the effort needed to keep themselves flying.

Thanks to that invention, the Babylonians and their descendants would become specialists in the art of Extreme Gear. Eventually, the Magic Carpet was placed under the protection of the Babylon Guardian.

##### Reclaims and losses

Over time, Babylonians recovered two Arks of the Cosmos that fell from orbit. To keep them safe and their dangerous power out of reach, the Babylonians sealed one Ark of the Cosmos on Gigan Rocks and the other in the Crimson Crater until it was safe to re-launch Babylon Garden. According to legend though, the Babylonians eventually incurred the wrath of the Gods because of their crimes, and Babylon Garden was buried in the sands near Sand Ruins, while the Babylonians were supposedly scattered for all time.

While the Babylonians seemingly lived on by breeding with the inhabitants of earth, they and their history slowly faded and would become legends. In addition, their descendants would forget all about their alien origins and achievements, leaving nothing behind but misunderstood legends about Babylon Garden's treasures and their scattered relics. Those descendants that remembered or otherwise learned of their heritage believed their ancestors were genies, and not necessarily aliens.

Many of the technological achievements of the Babylonians were also forgotten, and the knowledge of the Arks of the Cosmos' ended up as stories spoken of in the legends of the Babylon clan, the only known family of Babylonians known to this day. This clan continued their thieving ways as the Babylon Rogues for generations to come, with the Key to Babylon Garden, a relic from the Ancient Babylonians' which could return Babylon Garden to the skies, being passed down along with them.

## Legacy

In the present day, the only known descendants of the Babylonians are Jet the Hawk, Wave the Swallow and Storm the Albatross. World-renowned scientist Dr. Eggman would also attempt twice to use the inventions and treasures of the Babylonians to achieve world domination. These attempts involved instigating the re-emergence of Babylon Garden in order to steal the Treasure of Babylon, and attempting to the procure the Arks of the Cosmos.

With Dr. Eggman's help, the present-day generation of Babylon Rogues uncovered Babylon Garden with the aid of the Key to Babylon Garden and the seven Chaos Emeralds. Thanks to the combined power of the key and the Emeralds, Babylon Garden was unearthed and returned to the skies. Eggman then tried to steal the Treasure of Babylon, hoping it was like the Angel Wing mentioned in the stories about the Babylonians, which let its wielder "rule the world."

However, Team Sonic and the Babylon Rogues got to the treasure first and discovered it was an ancient flying carpet, which Eggman saw no use for in his campaign to conquer the world. A few months later, the Babylonians' true nature as alien genies came to light following the series of events that started when the last Arks of the Cosmos landed on Mobius.

Upon discovering the Arks, Eggman tried to use them to take control of all the world's robots, but he was stopped by Sonic and Jet. In the aftermath, however, SCR-HD, under the influence of the Arks of the Cosmos's programming, stole all the Arks of the Cosmos and brought them to Babylon Garden, causing a black hole to be unleashed. Fortunately, this catastrophe was stopped by Team Sonic and the Babylon Rogues.

Afterwards, Team Babylon decided to stay on Mobius instead of going back to their ancestors' home planet.

## Etymology

* In the real world, the Babylonians were an ancient empire centered around the city of Babylon, located within present day Iraq. It lasted from around 1800 BC to 539 BC when it was subsumed into the Persian Empire.