Babel and the Sword Fleet guarding the island.
Babel is an artificial island featured in Thunder Force V. This gigantic Humanmade island in the heart of the South Pacific Ocean, Babel was constructed to house the Vasteel-enhanced creations of the supercomputer Guardian, along with Vasteel itself. Among the many areas contained with Babel's titanium-reinforced walls are weapon research and production facilities, gigantic storage bays for interstellar emigration starships, and a particle accelerator for time-space distortion experiments, unfortunately, the Guardian destroyed another research accelerator located in South America during the First Annihilation.
The construction of Babel was completed in 2139, and engineers lived on the island for another two years until Guardian was fully operational. From 2141 onward, Babel was self-sustaining and unpopulated, except for once-yearly visits from maintenance crews.
The island was the scene for the battle between the Thunder Force team and the Guardian's forces in the 4th stage of Thunder Force V called "Guardian's Guaridan".
Babel also played a vital role during the events of Thunder Force VI, when the Unified Earth Government receives strange readings from its analysis report of the underground chamber on the island, where the remaining Vasteel technology which was abandoned and sealed by the government shows a startling synchronization with Orn Faust's approach. In addition, the storage cells within Vasteel material contained four space coordinates leading to the homeworld of the Galaxy Federation.
Curiosities[]
- The island's name comes from the Old Testament Hebrew name for the city of Babylon.
- Babel comes from the Akkadian word Bab-il, which means "Gate of God".
- The tower on the center of the island is an obvious reference to the Tower of Babel, a Near Eastern etiological myth that is recorded in the Jewish Tanakh's first book (Book of Genesis); it is meant to explain the origin of different languages.
- The 2012 game Ginga Force features a location called Clay City where the AI Specia was installed and most of the weaponry development of planet Seven Tier takes place, mirroring Babel as the core of the Guardian and it's purpose as a Vasteel Technology R&D facility.