An idea: What if Babylon is the First City? After all, you can’t get any younger than being created as Babylon fell.
It’s commonly accepted that that saying is transposed. Should be "Even Babylon was young when the First City fell." In other words, the First City fell a really, really long time ago.
edited by KestrelGirl on 3/1/2016
This confused me quite deeply as well, and I think that Kestrel’s interpretation is the most likely. Unfortunately, since we lack much information about the First City, it’s hard to pin down what, exactly, it was. Some theorists state that it is Jerusalem (I, personally, could agree with that, were it not for the fact that Jerusalem is, presumably, still intact when Fallen London is set). Other than that, there’s really not much we can go off.
I don’t think we can safely make any assumptions based on cities’ real-world status - after all, Karakorum and Akhetaten, while not strictly ‘intact’, still solidly exist on the surface in our timeline. It may well be that part of the Neath’s alternate history is that the Fallen Cities include some sites that would otherwise still be inhabited.
That said, I used to be in the Jerusalem camp, but I’ve been convinced that the First City is something in a more Sumerian vein - possibly Uruk. I don’t worry too much about the bit of doggerel about Babylon - "they" say a lot of things, and much of it’s nonsense.
[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]
I don’t think we can safely make any assumptions based on cities’ real-world status - after all, Karakorum and Akhetaten, while not strictly ‘intact’, still solidly exist on the surface in our timeline. It may well be that part of the Neath’s alternate history is that the Fallen Cities include some sites that would otherwise still be inhabited.
That said, I used to be in the Jerusalem camp, but I’ve been convinced that the First City is something in a more Sumerian vein - possibly Uruk. I don’t worry too much about the bit of doggerel about Babylon - "they" say a lot of things, and much of it’s nonsense.[/quote]
I don’t know, ‘they’ also say a lot of things about the Starveling Cat - and an alarming number of those are true. Regardless, if we’re going to consider any particular cities, wouldn’t looking for the same important theme (of love, considering the price for which the Fifth City was sold) be a good way to further narrow down a list of potential options?
In this case you’ll have to go through all Mesopotamian and Sumer legends and history research. It’s a good thing they were the first civilization to have written records of history and other stuff, ans First City Artifacts kind of hint that first city was somewhere around there.
The problem is, wiki suggests that around 3k b.c. there were around 15 city-states in that region, each with a monarch capable of doing The Thing. As Bazaar seems to prefer cities when they’re close to the peak of their splendor, you should be looking for a powerful city-state that is older than Babylon, doesn’t have many ruins left on the surface (probably none at all, given how old it should be and that a chunk of went to the Neath) and one whose territory was annexed by neighbouring states in a matter of several years, probably with some references to natural disasters, divine punishments related to its’ king’s misdeeds, legendary heroes and military chiefs in the records. I mean, hardly any monarch would want to know his descendants that he got all the land simply because the city and people that were their just disappeared one night.
Now we just need to find a person with expertise and access to all required sources. I wonder how hard could that be…
edited by Talkes on 3/2/2016
[quote=Talkes]you should be looking for a powerful city-state that is older than Babylon, doesn’t have many ruins left on the surface (probably none at all, given how old it should be and that a chunk of went to the Neath) and one whose territory was annexed by neighbouring states in a matter of several years, probably with some references to natural disasters, divine punishments related to its’ king’s misdeeds, legendary heroes and military chiefs in the records.[/quote]You’re assuming that the Fallen Cities happened in our real world’s history. But, as is evident by the very premise of Fallen London, the whole story is in a parallel earth (since our London obviously never disappeared in the 19th century).
Likewise, there’s no need to look for an ancient city which has disappeared in "our" world.
Be it so, the only thing I believe I need to revise in my previous statement to fit FL world would be the World Information Kiln Initiative (short - wiki) - a secretive group dedicated to sharing and preserving knowledge via a network of massive libraries and private telegraph lines - and the stated number of city-states, as it might have been considered different a hundred(ish) years ago.
Everything else seems to be just what an individual searching for the name of the First City would consider, unless we’re going completely off historical charts.
It would still be quite a feat if someone was actually willing and able to sift through all suggested data in "our" world and get a name.
edited by Talkes on 3/2/2016
I personally think it’s Uruk
[quote=Tyrone]I personally think it’s Uruk[/quote]Wasn’t Gilgamesh, the mythical king of Uruk, obsessed with living forever? He craved it after the death of Enkidu, his beloved compaion - a relationship sometimes seen as romantic, since the two were always so close. A mighty bromance of blood and love, surely of interest to the Bazaar.
According to Gilgamesh’ epic, Enkidu died of illness… But I think the air of the Neath would have proven miracolous for his health. Our Traitor Empress said the same thing about his consort, am I right? Surely it’s something about the air.
And in the Neath, nobody really dies anymore.
Oh, and do you know Gilgamesh later found a way to truly become immortal? The key was a magical plant found underneath the ocean, but a snake stole it. A story reminescent of the one about an apple in the Garden of Eden.
A golden one, maybe.
edited by Zeroebbasta on 3/3/2016
If you’ve read the Heart’s Desire Ambition, you’ll also know that
There’s a very strong parallel between the story of the manager of the Royal Beth (former First City king) and his former lover (Polythreme’s King of a Hundred Hearts), and that of Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
Years ago, before Google purchase-shanked the Aardvark IM Q&A company, I asked for the name of an ancient city that could be called “crossroads shaded by cedars,” probably one that ended in disaster.† Surprisingly, a bemused scholar answered and over the course of a conversation settled on Megiddo as a possibility. I’ve forgotten the details, but it’s very old, very apocalyptic (origin of “armageddon”), very temple-y, and — thank you nameless scholar — apparently quite crossroads-shaded-by-cedar-y.
†I no longer think that last part is necessary, but at the time everyone was into schedules and real world collapse dates. And I do think stories of apocalyptic falls were more likely to catch the writers’ attention when choosing cities.
I think with just a small amount of careful jigger-pokery, the saying; ‘even the First City was young when Babylon fell’ can actually become a potentially useful clue.
From what I’ve seen written before, for a large part this has been taken to refer to a sacking/abandonment of the city (of which there were many). A favourite being the Persian invasion in 539 BCE.
I think it’s important however to consider who is saying the saying. Which would appear to need to be the people of the Fifth City (or else how could the player hear it?) Most likely Fallen London’s scholars and academics.
With the understanding that much of Victorian thinking on near-Eastern Archaeology/Assyriology etc. was influenced by a often literal understanding of Biblical narrative, I think this is where we might find a solution. (How this might have been reinforced or not by the Fall, and the appearance of Devils is really open to interpretation.)
So putting it more concisely, Babylon (Greek name) = Babel (from the Hebrew), so the fall in question might well be referring to the city’s famous tower. (Genesis 11: 4-9 incidentally)
Biblical tradition (in large part thanks to Flavius Josephus) makes Nimrod the king who ordered the building of the Tower of Babel.
Gen 10:10 tells us Nimrod’s kingdom consisted of (usually this is interpreted as he founded), Babel (Babylon), Erech (Uruk), Akkad and Calneh (still unknown) .
From what I can figure out Literalist chronology places those events less than 100 (ish) years apart. So according to that reading, Uruk, Akkad or Calneh were young (and some of the few cities about after the Flood) when Babylon fell.
With all the other evidence to be found pointing to Uruk, I know which of those three I would pick :)
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edited by Charlotte_de_Witte on 3/3/2016
Whatever the First City was, we know they had silver coins with cedars on them and a non-Latin alphabet. I’m thinking Uruk is an extremely likely candidate.
They didn’t have silver coins, actually- the “First City Coins” we find were actually minted far more recently. Most are less than twenty years old, according to the Numismatrix.
Which make sense, because most reasonable guesses for the First City pre-date the concept of coinage.
When the King with a hundred hearts gives you one, he says “It’s a later casting, I’m afraid, but so few of the originals are left.” I assume that by “originals”, he meant ones from before the fall.
Thinking of these coins, I suddenly find it interesting that the first city seems to have a silver tree associated with it. It’s probably a coincidence, though, since the actual trees weren’t silver, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
The reference on cedars made me wonder if it’s a city closer to the Mediterranean than Sumer; maybe in Syria (Ebla?) who was, after all, occupied by Sumerians.
If we follow the vulgata in identifying the second city as Amarna in Egypt, the first city should predate Amarna’s “fall” around 1350BC.
The Phoenicians date to the right time period, are on the cedar-famous lands in question, and come from the area where Bahrain is now, from “Tylos and Tyre” according to some greek historian who I forget (as my archaeology and history courses are decades old), we have many silver coins from them, and they used cuneiform writing.
Tylos is, if memory serves, another name for Dilmun, an island mentioned in the saga of Gilgamesh and Enkidu where an immortal sage resides.
Might I suggest that the First City is likely part of that story, therefore putting myself solidly in the same camp as Charlotte_de_Witte and Zero.
Tyre was where Lebanon is now, I believe, along with Sidon? I had been wondering about Tyre as a candidate because the cedars of Lebanon were proverbial back when the Song of Solomon was written.
However, it doesn’t fit some of the timelines I see theorized; Tyre was besieged unsuccessfully by Babylon around 5xx BCE and was finally destroyed by Alexander the Great in 332 BCE.
I noticed a small number of people talking about the hearts desire story significance, but i’d like to posit that it is in relation to the second city the king with a hundred hearts mentions how on the surface he used to be the high priest in a temple village, which would suggest Egypt taking place after Babylon furthermore an while it doesn’t exclude the king with a hundred hearts as the ruler of the first city i find it highly unlikely