"Thy dormant power of Bel makes thee worthy of the throne, yet thou must control it. Face the powers of Bel once more, and make their power thine own..."
Babel, more commonly referred as the "Tower of Babel," is a tall tower that was built during the construction of the city of Babel, being meant to be used to connect Earth and Heaven. The purpose of the tower was for the people constructing Babel to be able to give honor to themselves in order to keep themselves from scattering across the earth, planning for the tower to reach the skies and pierce Heaven itself.
Several generations ago, humanity attempted to build a single, centralized location. Therefore, God came down to the Earth in order to confuse the languages and make it difficult to collaborate among themselves. After the disruption in language, humanity separated into individual groups scattering the Earth and setting up separate civilizations, leaving the city to be temporarily abandoned.
To this day, the tower remains but as a Biblical landmark. It is also believed that the tower houses the first ever known united language which has information on how to enter the realm of Heaven itself, however, it is impossible to be translated by even the most skilled linguist. A demon known as Pruflas is also said to reside within or around the vicinity of the tower like a flame, endlessly scouring the walls of the construct in order to find the proper information on how to raid the gates of Heaven until Judgement Day.
In the game, Babel is the opponent in a final series of battles (aside from some certain routes), its basic form being a huge cylindrical structure. During battle, four separate human faces can appear on the tower. On the map, a portion of the structure is visible protruding from the screen, indicating it is at least 5 meters in diameter and 20 meters in length. The name "Babel" is derived from the "Tower of Babel", a structure which is said to have been "built so high that it pierced the heavens" in the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament. It is said that man's intention for building the tower offended God, and so God took away their common knowledge, thus cutting off the solidarity of the people. Thus, as the god Bel, it is thought to symbolize the evil development of man."
—Kazuma Kaneko Works IX (translation courtesy of Bee Translations).
The face of this old man, who looks to have a wealth of knowledge and experience worthy of being called an "elder," is confronted in the Gin route. In the first place, Babel's three faces, representing each stage of life: child, middle-aged and old, reminds us of the Buddhist concept of the four sufferings, birth, aging, sickness, and death, as well as the Sphinx's riddle of "a creature that goes on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening". In fact, Babel's role is similar to that of the Sphinx, being the one who determines the path followed by the player and their growth in response to the "stages of human life," the solution to the riddle. Their values are not biblical monotheism, but rather paganism and polytheism, as the judgment itself is carried out without issue, even with the presence of ideological biases such as LAW and CHAOS."
—Kazuma Kaneko Works IX (translation courtesy of Bee Translations).
One of the four faces that appear during the fight with Babel. A wise child, though still young. You are confronted by this form in the Amane route. Babel itself is a mere device to determine whether the hero, who has defeated many Bel gods up to this moment, is worthy of being the "master" of the Bel gods, or in other words, the reigning king. Therefore, all four faces are, for the most part, expressionless. The face chosen most likely adapts to what is most effective on the people being judged (e.g. courage is tested when confronting Babel's stern male face). In other words, this face tests one's will to raise a hand against a child."
—Kazuma Kaneko Works IX (translation courtesy of Bee Translations).
This is the only feminine form of the faces that appear in Babel's first phase. They are encountered in the Kaido and Naoya routes. The face is expressionless, but there is a hint of sadness in it, which may be due to its effect on the people being judged. The Egyptian Sphinx, famous as an elusive beast, became a lion with the upper body of a female when it was adopted into Greek mythology. As far back as the Mesopotamian era, a statue of a half-man, half-beast with a human head was placed near a gate to guard the sanctuary behind it. The sanctuary being the Ziggurat, a stair-step temple from which the Tower of Babel was believed to be built. Incidentally, when this sacred beast was introduced to the East, it became a lion and a guardian dog."
—Kazuma Kaneko Works IX (translation courtesy of Bee Translations).
The face of a mature man confronted in the Atsuro route. His hair brushed back, chin up, and condescending gaze are intimidating, the shape of his eyebrows and eyes suggest a stern and domineering personality. Without confidence in yourself, just facing them may cause you to shy away. In the book of Ezekiel, the Angels of Wisdom (智天使, Cherubim) are described as having four different faces and four wings. The faces of the cherubim are different from Babel's: human, lion, ox, and eagle, but they are considered to be the vehicles of the gods, a fusion of man and beast, much like the Sphinx. Like the Sphinx, it also guards a sacred object, the Ark, or Ark of the Covenant. Also, the Angels of Wisdom are always depicted with a wheel, which can possibly be seen behind Babel."
—Kazuma Kaneko Works IX (translation courtesy of Bee Translations).
In the previous phase, Babel was an inorganic (manmade) tower with the appearance of a more modern building, but this most likely depicts its true form. With the entire outer shell peeled off, an unusual looking cylindrical body appears. It seems to be a living, moving organism, but it is somewhat difficult to perceive as a living being. When split in two, an endless abyss is revealed inside, much like outer space, from which the Bel Gods reappear (in-game). As the name of the "King's Gate" (王の門) skill from the first phase suggests, it is a "gate" that leads to another world. This quite possibly based on the common belief that the Sumerian word for "Gate of God" (神の門) was translated into Babylonian as "Bab-ilu" (バブ・イル), which in turn became Babylon (בבל, identical to the Hebrew word for Babel)."
—Kazuma Kaneko Works IX (translation courtesy of Bee Translations).
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Devil Survivor[]
Babel was the largest portion of the original King of Bel's power. Belberith attempted to summon it to become the new King of Bel, but the tower failed to react to him, only revealing its true form later to the protagonist.
Babel appears in several forms, each with a distinctive feature depending on the storyline the protagonist faces it in. In "Kingdom of Saints" with Amane, Babel's initial face when the protagonist summons it during a cutscene, is that of a small child. In Gin's/Haru's path, "Song of Hope," it appears as an old man with a long beard. In "King of Demons," with Naoya and Kaido, it appears as a grown woman with long hair. In "Silent Revolution," it's appearance is that of a middle-aged man with short hair.
Regardless, its abilities are the same. If the party were to succeed in defeating Babel's first form (If Babel is close to losing, its face will begin to make small twitches in and out of battle.), it will then reveal its true form, a tower-like demon with many eyes, and split itself in half, revealing the "King's Gate."
It is advised that, the party constantly remain in battle with Babel instead of stalling outside of it. Babel is shown to use Calamity of Babel, a Mystic attack which causes damage to every party on stage while also inflicting Mute on them. Often, when Babel casts Calamity of Babel, it also shifts its weakness (first to Force, then to Physical attacks) while covering its previous one.
Babel is the final Bel in the game, and the strongest boss (barring bonus boss Lucifer) in the storyline.
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Kingdom of Saints[]
In this route, after defeating Babel's Tower form, the party will need to fight their way through all the Bels again to reach Babel's second form.
In this route, after defeating Babel's Tower form, the party can immediately move to and attack Babel's second form. Babel now is capable of shifting its weaknesses too.
In this route, after defeating Babel's Tower form, the party can immediately move to and attack Babel's second form, albeit without any demons (including Black Frost). Babel now is capable of shifting its weaknesses too, though it has its power reduced and several abilities removed to compensate for the party's lack of demons.