Babylon


 * Babylon is also the name of a crew on the Cobalt Ocean.
 * Babylon is also the name of a crew on the Midnight Ocean.

Babylon is a reference to the established, stagnant forces that dominate an old ocean. Babylon is only known to exist on Midnight, although it is rumored that there may be as many as four others.

History
The term 'Babylon' was first coined during the Notorious Fandango Revolution of early 2005, to describe the stifling effects of the alliance web on the blockade game. When all island owning flags are allied in some fashion, and all committed to helping each other maintain island control, competitive blockades cease to exist and all blockade outcomes are predetermined by back-room deals within the alliance web. This perpetuates a 'glass ceiling' new players may not penetrate, replacing the entire war mechanic with junior-high politics. It also means that blockades cease to be entertaining, and become long, arduous, and ''no fun. '' It's this effect, and the players and flags that supported it, who were originally typecast as 'Babylon.'

Since that time, the term has been used interchangeably for many different things. It's used to refer to old flags, to flags with many formal alliances, and to flags who maintain their island holdings because of their friends instead of their own worth. It's also used to refer to merchants, especially shopkeepers who acquired their real estate during the initial ramp-up to Midnight colonization, who run their businesses at-cost, keeping the profits of their competitors marginal. It is often mis-applied to mean "all islandholding flags," although that was never its original intent. Like all terms widely spread and little understood, it will likely take on more meanings as the Midnight social paradigm evolves, or as similar forces propagate into other oceans.

The much less frequently used term of 'Zion,' means the 'promised land,' but in the context of YPP it is usually understood to mean "That which is Not Babylon," or a state of game play where friendly war is the norm and blockades are both frequent and competitive.

Both terms have their roots in Christian myth, although their ocean wide implementation was from a pseudo-Rastafarian perspective, due to the role-playing quirks of the pirates who coined it.