The Necessary Babylon

[Rabbit55821]

This is pretty cool! I can't wait to know more about the Fist of God!

 

[DavidMK]

I'm loving this AAR.

 

[Robert Cant]

Great story Sone!

 

[Sonereal]

Thanks for all the nice words, guys!

I decided I won't update today or tomorrow. I'm going to start building a backlog of updates so I can stick to a M-F schedule even if I'm sick or busy.

 

[Saithis]

What a fun and enjoyable start! I'm really enjoying how you've set up this alternate earth and how you've interpreted the unfolding of events. I look forward to seeing where it go. Subbed.

 

[Sonereal]

Wonders of the Unnamed Universe
I managed to partially translate the alien mural discovered on the fourth moon of the second planet in this system. The text contains a staggering amount of data, and the mural evidently serves as some sort of low-tech library. It describes, in broad terms, the collected technological knowledge of an alien civilization that dominated this region of the galaxy some 80 million years ago.
-Science Officer Caterina D'Antoni, Report on the Alien Mural Discovered Fairly Recently At the Time of Publication, 2204 AD
​

Excerpt from The Third Autobiography of Muhammad El-Farouk by Muhammad El-Farouk

Yamamoto waged a holy war against the Fist of God, a war they certainly weren't prepared for. In three star systems beyond Babylon's "borders", the Fist of God found themselves crushed beneath the weight of Babylonian naval tonnage. The invention of Gatyeni Shields, irritatingly, signaled a shift in military technology.

I have been alive eighty years now. Off the top of my head, nothing has been named after me except maybe a ship class and a few star systems. The Farouk-class corvettes don't even exist anymore! What a travesty against my self.

Excerpt from History Neverending by Yu Yang

We know where the key Void Cloud systems are nearby. the problem is reaching them. Some are close, albeit guarded by space amoeba which. Some are on another arm of the galaxy. Close enough that, on a galactic map, you could say it is spitting distance. The problem is that spitting distance it outside warp drive distance. Adeyemi has a plan though...

Excerpt from The Life of Gatyeni by Caterina D'Antoni

Zuberi Gatyeni had what you would call a "spark of genius". Our ships are littered with components named after him. Gatyeni Drives and Shields. Zuberi Sensors. Other, less momentous but no less interesting, components. I became good friends with the man and learned a lot about him. He shunned parties, favoring small gatherings of close friends. He owned an ancient diesel-powered wheeled automobile and loved tinkering with it. He refused to eat vegetables, believing that meat was the secret to immortality (it wasn't).

How did he feel about the Fist of God? I don't think he cared. All that mattered is that the Fist kept the R&D grants flooding in.

Exceprt from The Third Autobiography of Muhammad El-Farouk by Muhammad El-Farouk

If Gatyeni was alive today, I wonder what he would think about the fact the war against the Fist lasted decades. My memory is fuzzy at my age, and I don't remember if Adeyemi was still chairman or not at the time the war ended. Of course, by then, the Fist of God was a mere sideshow compared to our short-lived neighbors.

Except from View from Sol by Kimiko Hasegawa

The constant discoveries of new anomalies quickly became white noise. D'Antoni discovered an alien mural, Yang discovers something, D'Antoni something else. By then, people on Earth were just bored of the news and tuned out. I don't really blame them. It takes a lot to keep people excited these days, don't you think?

Except from Political Writings by Chuma Adeyemi

The successor of my successor of my successor of my successor of my successor will have the damnable exercise of finding new names for the last stars, but I'm just tired of the process myself.

Excerpt from History Neverending by Yu Yang

The divorce ended amicably. My husband, being Earthbound, was given custody of the children. I visited when I could. Some of you reading this are already forming criticisms of my choice. Why? My children are important to me, and what I'm doing helps them and our entire nation. Without the Science Officers, humanity would be crawling around on Earth still wondering what is out there. Well, if you're wondering, I can find the answer.

Excerpt from Commentaries by Augustus Ishmael Sonereal

The early-2200s fell into a familiar pattern. Very soon after the invention of Gatyeni Shields, attention would shift away, not toward, producing new ships. The Fist of God, being beyond our systems, fell beyond our attention. It would be decades before the source of the Fist of God's shipyard production is discovered, and years after that before the mighty giant that is the Babylonian Space Navy bothers to do something about it.

I don't want to say that our leadership is incompetent, but it is either that or they are corrupt. I'm leaning toward the former. After all, who on Earth in the 2200s could say they've ran an interstellar empire before?

Author Notes

The screenshots for this section were misplaced (read: lost). I mixed it up a little bit with the update because of it. Fortunately and unfortunately, this section didn't cover much that required screenshots.

At the time of writing, the Babylon campaign is finished! Just AAR from here on out.

Thanks to everybody who has left a comment on this AAR since it started. It has been a great motivator these last few days. Hope you all had a nice weekend, and enjoy the rest of this week.

 

[Dr.Livingstone]

Subbed!

 

[Das Wolfe]

Quite enjoyable so far.

 

[Eid3r]

Very interesting. I must say you are gifted. I adore the way you weave the events together from the perspective of various characters through books. We can really follow the development of your civilization.

Keep up the good work!

 

[Machiavellian]

This is an interesting idea and well executed read so far. I am looking forward to more.

 

[Sonereal]

Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates! I graduated from college a few weeks ago and I'm in a transitional phase in my life right now, and I burned through my (single) update backlog this week. I've been fairly busy with that and maintaining a social life.

(Love you guys though).

I'm still working on the AAR, but updates will come out slower. When I do manage to get free time, I like to spend at most a quarter of it writing, and I write more than just this AAR. As expected, another quarter goes to Stellaris, a quarter to Enter the Gungeon, and a quarter is a free-for-all.

When is the next installment? Soon(TM). I'm hoping within the next few days. Screenshots have been organized and I have a rough feel for the next update. Right now, I have the big picture for the series more or less done, so most of the planning now revolves around the small details of characters, what they do and want, what they think, how to translate game mechanics into a "real world".

Anyway, just wanted to give that heads up!

 

[Eid3r]

Take your time. Our hunger for more can wait, this is a game

 

[Nikolai]

Take the time you need.