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The tower of Babel.
Babel Tower is a massive ruined tower located on the central island of the Aquvy archipelago. Stretching miles and miles into the sky high above the clouds it has existed since the dawn of human history on the Xenogears planet.
History[]
In truth it is actually a part of the Eldridge, a massive colony vessel which crash landed on the planet 10,000 years ago.
In 9226, Shevat was founded with Babel Tower at its base.
The aerial nation of Shevat was once anchored at the top of the tower, which was the only way to access it from the ground without the aid of a flight-capable vehicle.
After the Shevat-Solaris War 500 years ago the flying nation Shevat detached from the top of the tower and became nomadic. It has wandered the skies ever since and occasionally returned to Babel Tower at certain points but never reintegrated with it.
Xenogears[]
In the time of Xenogears, no one has been inside the tower or has even been able to get close to it for over 500 years because the Ethos Society has sealed its entrance with a powerful barrier. The Ethos say it's a cursed place.
Fei Fong Wong and his allies eventually explore Babel Tower and climb to its peak. It is fairly obvious when seen from the inside that Babel Tower is not of the Xenogears world. In spite of its decrepit state, it is filled with equipment and technology thousands of years beyond anything the people living on the Xenogears planet could have created.
For some reason, a massive adjustable mirror existed on the tower and was used in conjunction with Ft. Jasper to destroy one of the Solaris Gates buried beneath the Ethos HQ. The destruction of the third and final gate caused Solaris to phase back into synch with the rest of the world again for the first time in 500 years.
Origin[]
Elly Meets Fei
Fei doesn't know what Elly is saying.
Fei doesn't know what Solarians are saying due to a language barrier, so any Solarian he speaks to results in a "!%#?&+!".
Babel Tower was based on the Tower of Babel story, an attempt by humans to build a ziggurat high enough to withstand another global flood and thus defy God. The account of Genesis states that the structure's construction failed when God intervened by confounding humanity's language. Humanity was divided into language families, preventing communication for a time, so the building's construction was ultimately halted.
Trivia[]
- The kanji on the Traffic Jam signs reads 警告 (けいこく keikoku) for "warning."