Believe it or not, the Babylon series was meant to be darker and grittier than its current incarnation.
Strange, I know, for a cyberpunk horror series that culminates in an apocalyptic campaign—which you can back on Kickstarter—but that’s how things panned out.
Darkness has to serve a purpose. Reality doesn’t have to make sense, but fiction does. The depiction of evil, suffering and madness must make sense within the setting and the story. Darkness for the sake of darkness just drags people into the muck for no reason. It turns people off. We’ve seen this in the backlash against Game of Thrones and other pointlessly grimdark stories.
The purpose of darkness in storytelling must be to allow the light to shine all the brighter. It gives the hero an opportunity to shine, and to allow the triumph of the good, the beautiful, and the true.
Moreover, this darkness has to be an aberration. It has to be something that all right-thinking people, both characters and readers, can readily identify as wrong. Everyone knows that you cannot build a civilisation on rape, theft, murder and betrayal. Evil cannot be the norm in a civilised setting, for the simple reason that evil cannot give rise to civilisation.
Thus, in a story, you cannot have evil for the sake of evil. It has to make sense. It has to serve a grander purpose. Without that purpose, all that is left is artifice. And the reader can sense that as easily as you.
My first brush with pointless darkness was in brainstorming the stories that would make up Book 1, what would be called Babylon Blues. The seed of one story was a phrase: House of Sorrows.
The House of Sorrows was a place where evil things happened. An STS team, the White Knights, would go rogue to put a stop to the horror. And Yuri Yamamoto and his team would be assigned to stop them. This culminates in a confrontation at the House of Sorrows.
Then I thought to myself: this doesn’t make sense.
The mission of the STS is to make war on the New Gods and the lesser horrors roaming Babylon. What the White Knights did was aligned with that mission. They may not necessarily adhere strictly to legal procedures, but they still served the overall mission. Even if the STS came to learn about this, why would they send another team to stop them? At most, the rogue team would face internal discipline.
How would such a team go rogue? Perhaps they hurt the innocent. But if they did, then they would have crossed a thick, black line. Yuri would not tolerate the existence of such a team. He would enact measures to shut them down long before it would come to this point. And there would be no confrontation or revelation at a place of true evil.
The only way an STS team would ‘go rogue’ in way that would jeopardise the mission of the STS is if they signed up with the New Gods. And the STS was already engineered from the ground up to prevent operators or the unit from being compromised in such a fashion. Plus, if they’d betrayed the STS, then why would they take down the House of Sorrows? Because they’re working for a rival god? Then it would mean outright war. It wouldn’t be limited to a small unit action.
There were far too many problems with this story. So I cut it up and parcelled out the key ideas. There is still a Team White Knights, but now they fully live up to their name. The House of Sorrows was renamed. And instead of the team going rogue, Yuri’s team does. For a very, very good reason, one explained in Babylon Blues.
There won’t be STS fighting STS, but there will be STS confronting the spec ops units of the New Gods. And that would be far more exciting and meaningful than a blue-on-blue civil war.
The second major change was the character of Kayla Fox. In the original concept, she was a mercenary sniper, carrying out wet work for the highest bidder. After Yuri’s exile from the STS, their paths would cross, and a romance would ignite.
Then I thought: Why would he do that?
Yuri is the distilled essence of paladin and samurai. He is driven by his mission. He doesn’t have time for such nonsense. Plus, fundamentally, he is Lawful Good. He would not truck with someone from the underworld. He is far more likely to simply keep her an arm’s length, so that he would not be corrupted by her.
In the end, I reworked Kayla Fox. She became the sharpshooter on Yuri’s team in the STS. Not a sniper, but close. After the end of the STS, she carries on the good fight during his self-imposed exile in Babylon Red. This establishes a partnership based on trust, respect, and mutual alignment. A partnership that could become… more.
I do admit, however, that I grabbed her original aesthetic, vamped it up to eleven, and gave it to the Angels of Babylon Red.
And, yes, it also makes sense in context.
The last major change was the story direction. I’d originally planned for Yuri Yamamoto to carry on his war by himself, alone in the dark, slowly gathering allies and resources over time. Then I noticed something:
Spec Ops are extremely resourceful. They would not do this alone. They have a network of fellow operators, with whom they share a bond deeper and truer than blood. From the get-go, he would be tapping into this network.
And, more to the point: this path does not have an ending.
A metropolis populated by false gods and cosmic horrors, where cops and kill teams and deranged monsters stalk the night, makes for a great cyberpunk horror setting. For a game. To be precise, a tabletop roleplaying game, where characters can evolve but the setting must ultimately remain static to allow for infinite adventures.
Babylon had to have an ending. That meant there had to be an event that would dramatically upset the balance of power between the New Gods. To find that ending, I came up with this idea:
The Singularity Network hired Yuri Yamamoto and his team to track down a cell of super-hackers. At the climax, after tearing through the cell, Yuri discovers a computer uploading a computer virus. A virus that would shatter the Singularity Network forever. He has a chance to stop it.
But he decides not to.
It is dramatic. It is shocking. It unleashes cybergeddon on the world. And it makes no sense.
The Singularity Network has its own commandos and contractors. Why hire Yuri? Especially since they are established as insular and inhuman—and Yuri is their archenemy. If they needed magical capabilities, there are other mercs they can hire.
In the end, I split up this story idea into two. You can read the final versions in the first story of Babylon Black—and the last.
Babylon White begins with a power vacuum in the wake of cybergeddon. Everyone would be scrambling to react—including the mortal authorities. And that means someone as skilled and resourceful as Yuri Yamamoto would be recalled to duty.
And with the power of the human military behind him, I could, at last, find an ending to Babylon.
Fortunately, not everything was doom and gloom. Early on in the planning stage, I had thought of a certain character. He was the avatar of a god of healing, a god so bright he casts no shadow. He heals everyone who enters his clinic, and refuses to get involved in the game of gods. He would become one of Yuri’s staunchest allies.
Try as I might, though, I couldn’t find a way to introduce him…
…Until Babylon White.
Babylon began as a cyberpunk horror concept, combining tactics, technology, firearms, cold steel, and monsters. It ends with a race to stop an eldritch apocalypse. I hadn’t anticipated all this 7 years ago, but I’m pleased with how it turned out. I think you will too.
Check out the Kickstarter here. In this campaign, you can pick up Babylon White as a single volume, or the entire series, both in print and digital formats. Backers will also have access to exclusive perks, including a musical cross-promotion with Jacob Calta of 365 Infantry. More details at the link.
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