Just watched Sic Transit Vir.
Did racist wife stay wife or did that get changed after his ending?
Did racist wife stay wife or did that get changed after his ending?
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
- Start date
^ We never saw nor heard from her again after that.
Probably only one thing larger than B5 went through the jumpgate, but it was towed and they moved the jumpgate struts wider to allow passage.
The monolith in THIRDSPACE.
I imagine Babylon 4 could be moved through hyperspace. Especially if they planned to reposition it at some point (it was a bit off the jump gate track). Though that might have been so they could build it someplace safe and than move it into planetary orbit (where Babylon 5 eventually was). Though Babylon 4 might have needed to retract its solar arrays while moving.
I imagine the Minbari moved the station during the last great Shadow War a thousand years ago. They might not have moved it much, but I image they repositioned at least once after getting the thing handed to them by Valen and the Vorlons.
The Cortez an Explorer class ship almost as large as B-5, was the single largest ship in the series that I saw, go through the jump gate by itself.
Very true. If I remember right, it could build jumpgates, too.
"Legitimacy" isn't really a legal concept as much as it is a political concept. It's the shared view of a majority of people subject to a government's rule that that government has a moral right to govern in the first place. A government can lose its legitimacy in the eyes of the people it governs without ever doing anything illegal under its own laws. The American Revolution is a prime example -- the Kingdom of Great Brtain acted lawfully at every step of the way, but it clearly lost legitimacy in the eyes of its colonial subjects. (Well, at least in the eyes of enough of them, and enough of them in the colonial dominant class, at any rate.)
Well, it's not stated outright because the series expects you to understand basic constitutional governance among modern liberal democracies: There are no provisions in modern liberal democracies under which any executive may disband the legislature.
The closest thing to what Clarke did in modern democracies are two processes that exist in Westminster-style parliamentary democracies. The first is called "dissolving Parliament," but in this context "dissolution" means only that particular session of Parliament; once the, say, 17th Parliament is dissolved, a writ of election is signed, an election is held for the next Parliament, and then the new Parliament takes office. The second is called "proroguing" Parliament; this is basically parliament-ese for "technical difficulties; please stand by." Parliament can be "prorogued" under specific circumstances but then must be allowed to meet again at a later date. Both dissolving Parliament and proroguing Parliament can only happen under very specific circumstances -- the the Monarch or Governor General can only act on the advice of the Prime Minister, and the advice is only legal under certain conditions, and both decisions are subject to judicial review.
In U.S.-style presidential systems, there is no provisions whatsoever for the president to dissolve or disband the legislature. At all. Period. Congress in the U.S. system is a completely co-equal branch whose elections and terms of office are independent of the presidency, and there are no circumstances under which the president may dissolve them.
Babylon 5 almost always uses U.S.-style politics -- there's a President and Vice President of the Earth Alliance; the President of the Earth Alliance flies in a military vessel called EarthForce One; there's a Supreme Court with judicial review; etc. The only real departure from U.S.-style coding in its depiction of the Earth Alliance government is in the use of the word "Ministry" to describe some executive branch agencies, and in its use of a unicameral Senate instead of a bicameral Congress.
So, yeah, Babylon 5 basically expects its audience to understand that when President Clarke issued a decree disbanding the Senate, that that was coup d'etat.
I mean, they were beyond the issue of "law" by that point. The rule of law no longer existed. You had an unelected president who got into office by assassinating his predecessor, issuing unconstitutional decrees to disband the Senate, issuing an illegal State of Emergency designed solely to suppress an investigation into his assassination, issuing illegal orders to EarthForce to suppress freedom of speech, and issuing illegal orders to engage in collective punishment by bombing and killing thousands of his own civilians in retaliation for local governments refusing to implement illegal States of Emergency.
To talk about whether or not Sheridan's declaration of independence is "legal" in such a context is meaningless. Clarke had ended the rule of law already. There was no law -- there was only the exercise of power for just causes, or the exercise of power for tyrannical causes. Sheridan exercised his power, with the consent of a majority of residents of Babylon 5, for just causes.
To be very clear once again: There are no circumstances whatsoever where the President of the United States has the lawful authority to disband Congress. None. Even in the midst of a dire emergency, Congress has a lawful right to sit and to pass binding laws which the president must enforce.
He did not have that right. Declarations of States of Emergency can only occur in response to particular circumstances and are subject to judicial review. The "circumstance" Clarke cited was an alleged conspiracy on the part of aliens and alien sympathizers to seize power in a coup d'etat. This conspiracy did not exist. Ergo, his declaration of a State of Emergency was illegal from the start.
Again, there is no modern democracy in which the executive possesses that right. The closest would be the Westminster parliamentary system, in which parliament may be prorogued temporarily (and in which that prorogation is subject to judicial review).
The writers expected audience members to understand that disbanding the Senate was inherently illegal.
Whether or not any president has the right to order military attacks on their own territories that are likely to result in civilian casualties is probably a legally gray area that would depend on circumstances. If a territory is engaged in genuine insurrection, maybe he does.
But Mars was not engaged in sedition or insurrection. The Martian government, which Earth itself had installed, was refusing to enforce an a priori illegal State of Emergency; in other words, the Martian government was acting lawfully while the Clarke administration was acting unlawfully. Ergo, his bombing of Mars was an inherently illegal act, irrelevant of whether or not he might have had the right to bomb civilian targets under other circumstances.
If Earth Alliance law is anything like United States law, that is supposed to be illegal except under temporary emergency circumstances. (In fairness, the United States has been violating that law for many years now, especially vis a vis the alleged terrorists rotting away in Guantanamo.)
Again, B5 basically codes the Earth Alliance as the United States In Space. It's pretty safe to say that Clarke had no right to dissolve the Senate.
The Cortez an Explorer class ship almost as large as B-5, was the single largest ship in the series that I saw, go through the jump gate by itself.
Still upset they named that ship after one of the most vile tyrants in history. Personally, I like to imagine that ship's full name was the EAS Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
I agree with your entire post but I don't have anything to add except to respond to this last bit. I'm all for this reimagining!Still upset they named that ship after one of the most vile tyrants in history. Personally, I like to imagine that ship's full name was the EAS Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
"Legitimacy" isn't really a legal concept as much as it is a political concept. It's the shared view of a majority of people subject to a government's rule that that government has a moral right to govern in the first place. A government can lose its legitimacy in the eyes of the people it governs without ever doing anything illegal under its own laws. The American Revolution is a prime example -- the Kingdom of Great Brtain acted lawfully at every step of the way, but it clearly lost legitimacy in the eyes of its colonial subjects. (Well, at least in the eyes of enough of them, and enough of them in the colonial dominant class, at any rate.)
Well, it's not stated outright because the series expects you to understand basic constitutional governance among modern liberal democracies: There are no provisions in modern liberal democracies under which any executive may disband the legislature.
The closest thing to what Clarke did in modern democracies are two processes that exist in Westminster-style parliamentary democracies. The first is called "dissolving Parliament," but in this context "dissolution" means only that particular session of Parliament; once the, say, 17th Parliament is dissolved, a writ of election is signed, an election is held for the next Parliament, and then the new Parliament takes office. The second is called "proroguing" Parliament; this is basically parliament-ese for "technical difficulties; please stand by." Parliament can be "prorogued" under specific circumstances but then must be allowed to meet again at a later date. Both dissolving Parliament and proroguing Parliament can only happen under very specific circumstances -- the the Monarch or Governor General can only act on the advice of the Prime Minister, and the advice is only legal under certain conditions, and both decisions are subject to judicial review.
In U.S.-style presidential systems, there is no provisions whatsoever for the president to dissolve or disband the legislature. At all. Period. Congress in the U.S. system is a completely co-equal branch whose elections and terms of office are independent of the presidency, and there are no circumstances under which the president may dissolve them.
Babylon 5 almost always uses U.S.-style politics -- there's a President and Vice President of the Earth Alliance; the President of the Earth Alliance flies in a military vessel called EarthForce One; there's a Supreme Court with judicial review; etc. The only real departure from U.S.-style coding in its depiction of the Earth Alliance government is in the use of the word "Ministry" to describe some executive branch agencies, and in its use of a unicameral Senate instead of a bicameral Congress.
So, yeah, Babylon 5 basically expects its audience to understand that when President Clarke issued a decree disbanding the Senate, that that was coup d'etat.
I mean, they were beyond the issue of "law" by that point. The rule of law no longer existed. You had an unelected president who got into office by assassinating his predecessor, issuing unconstitutional decrees to disband the Senate, issuing an illegal State of Emergency designed solely to suppress an investigation into his assassination, issuing illegal orders to EarthForce to suppress freedom of speech, and issuing illegal orders to engage in collective punishment by bombing and killing thousands of his own civilians in retaliation for local governments refusing to implement illegal States of Emergency.
To talk about whether or not Sheridan's declaration of independence is "legal" in such a context is meaningless. Clarke had ended the rule of law already. There was no law -- there was only the exercise of power for just causes, or the exercise of power for tyrannical causes. Sheridan exercised his power, with the consent of a majority of residents of Babylon 5, for just causes.
To be very clear once again: There are no circumstances whatsoever where the President of the United States has the lawful authority to disband Congress. None. Even in the midst of a dire emergency, Congress has a lawful right to sit and to pass binding laws which the president must enforce.
He did not have that right. Declarations of States of Emergency can only occur in response to particular circumstances and are subject to judicial review. The "circumstance" Clarke cited was an alleged conspiracy on the part of aliens and alien sympathizers to seize power in a coup d'etat. This conspiracy did not exist. Ergo, his declaration of a State of Emergency was illegal from the start.
Again, there is no modern democracy in which the executive possesses that right. The closest would be the Westminster parliamentary system, in which parliament may be prorogued temporarily (and in which that prorogation is subject to judicial review).
The writers expected audience members to understand that disbanding the Senate was inherently illegal.
Whether or not any president has the right to order military attacks on their own territories that are likely to result in civilian casualties is probably a legally gray area that would depend on circumstances. If a territory is engaged in genuine insurrection, maybe he does.
But Mars was not engaged in sedition or insurrection. The Martian government, which Earth itself had installed, was refusing to enforce an a priori illegal State of Emergency; in other words, the Martian government was acting lawfully while the Clarke administration was acting unlawfully. Ergo, his bombing of Mars was an inherently illegal act, irrelevant of whether or not he might have had the right to bomb civilian targets under other circumstances.
If Earth Alliance law is anything like United States law, that is supposed to be illegal except under temporary emergency circumstances. (In fairness, the United States has been violating that law for many years now, especially vis a vis the alleged terrorists rotting away in Guantanamo.)
Again, B5 basically codes the Earth Alliance as the United States In Space. It's pretty safe to say that Clarke had no right to dissolve the Senate.
Still upset they named that ship after one of the most vile tyrants in history. Personally, I like to imagine that ship's full name was the EAS Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Thank you for this very astute analysis!
So, beyond his actions vis a vis Santiago, you believe Clark's first bright-line illegal act (since as you noted, there's some gray areas even in the US these days) was declaring Martial Law, or is there something prior to that?
What if he did have evidence of an alien conspiracy, real or fabricated? Heck, he wasn't exactly wrong that there was a conspiracy against him, he just lied regarding the nature of it and then took action faster than anyone could react. In other words, if the Martial Law declaration was legal and he didn't try to dissolve the Senate, where would the bright-line legal violation be? Interfering in the media, perhaps? Hopefully the bombing of civilian targets (but as you note, that's a legally gray area)?
TL;DR I suppose I'm wondering how far he might have been able to go without clearly veering into illegality.
As mentioned, the Thirdspace thingy is probably the biggest thing we saw travel through a jump gate, though the struts had to be moved out to accommodate it. The Vorlon Planet Killer is probably the biggest thing we know traveled through a self-generated jump point, but we never actually saw it in the act. As far as what was explicitly show, that honor goes to the Drakh Mothership in Crusade.
The title "Ministry' in the executive branch were a creation of President Clark. When I heard the term it reminded me of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four or something out of Nazi Germany.
For me Clark's first illegal act was Assassinating President Santiago in order to replace him as President.
The Shadows are the ones who did the dirty work for Clark, When Mr. Morden went around B5 asking "What do you want?" He never asked anyone in Earth Force. He probably already got the answer he was looking for from then "Vice-President" Clark, just like he did from Londo. There was an alien conspiracy, and it involved the Shadows and taking out President Santiago and replacing him with Clark. Every accusation by Clark, is a confession.
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I did say beyond that set of actions...
For me Clark's first illegal act was Assassinating President Santiago in order to replace him as President.
the Shadows are the ones who did the dirty work for him, When Mr. Morden went around B5 asking "What do you want?" He never asked anyone in Earth Force. He probably already got the answer he was looking for from then "Vice-President" Clark, just like he did from Londo. There were alien
The conspiracy to perform the assassination with the parties listed in my spoiler.
Without that first set of actions, there is no President Clark to do the other things, legal or not.
As the rebels state though, the people on Earth welcomed the Martial Law at first...dropped the crime rate to nearly zero overnight. "Peace of the Gun" as Sheridan called it.
Declaring Martial Law however was considered an illegal act as it did not follow the chain of command for Earth Force. The Nightwatch and Ministry of Peace being everywhere as part of the problem. It is possible that problem was addressed, but by that point the Senate was dissolved, The coup started, and Mars was being bombed. Colonies were breaking away. ISN's final report was the last straw for Babylon 5.
The Ministry of Peace, who was rewriting the dictionary, was a major red flag that things were going horridly wrong on Earth. "Voices of Authority" provides that evidence of what the Ministry and Clark are doing behind the scenes to human culture (a straight up fascist government setup), followed by Babylon 5 getting the evidence on Clark's conclusion with the Shadows to murder Santiago.
As the rebels state though, the people on Earth welcomed the Martial Law at first...dropped the crime rate to nearly zero overnight. "Peace of the Gun" as Sheridan called it.
Declaring Martial Law however was considered an illegal act as it did not follow the chain of command for Earth Force. The Nightwatch and Ministry of Peace being everywhere as part of the problem. It is possible that problem was addressed, but by that point the Senate was dissolved, The coup started, and Mars was being bombed. Colonies were breaking away. ISN's final report was the last straw for Babylon 5.
The Ministry of Peace, who was rewriting the dictionary, was a major red flag that things were going horridly wrong on Earth. "Voices of Authority" provides that evidence of what the Ministry and Clark are doing behind the scenes to human culture (a straight up fascist government setup), followed by Babylon 5 getting the evidence on Clark's conclusion with the Shadows to murder Santiago.
For me the scariest thing about Psi Corps's involvement is that there was at least two major factions within the corps, and they were BOTH bent on world domination. Indeed, it's a fair bet that said schism is why it took so long for one to make a move; they were always cancelling each other out and couldn't do anything until the other side was neutralised. Plus of course The Corp being The Corps, nobody is sure which side they're on, and the people that are, are probable wrong and/or have sleeper personalities watching and waiting.
Kinda/sorta but not really. If you look at the effect when they jump in and out from a POV already within hyperspace (like when Keffer got an eyefull) you can see there's definitely a vortex that opens and closes. So it's probably less that they phase and more that their vortex is invisible, or at least doesn't emit much EM into real space, which would account for the shimmering effect as the light bouncing off the ship is scattered and obscured as said ship crosses the event horizon.
I've long held the suspicion that the Vorlons are the one who built the original jumpgates, as all the First Ones each seem to have a distinct and unique looking way of opening getting in and out of hyperspace, and their's is the only one that looks like the way the younger races do.
I'm not sure whether they deliberately left the gates lying around for the other races to find and reverse engineer, or whether they're just leftovers from their days of exploration (or more likely second, third or sixth generation copies from younger but now extinct races that found the "original" gates) though I suppose it hardly matters either way.
Pretty sure the Shadow Cloud has the Drakh Mothership beat.
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I think what Keffer saw in "A Distant Star" can be chalked up to early installment weirdness (it was only the second time we saw what hyperspace looked like at all, and the vortex the Shadow ship flies into was otherwise seen, not just later in the series but elsewhere in the same episode, as normal feature of hyperspace). Indeed, what the ship was doing in "A Distant Star" doesn't really make sense at all. Was it the same ship somehow looping back to the same starting point repeatedly, or a parade of ships jumping into hyperspace, traveling for a few seconds, then jumping out again? The unique effect could be rationalized as being a part of the ship's (or ships') odd behavior.
Didn't use a jump point, though. In "A Call to Arms," it just fades into view, even as the Drakh ships escorting it use jump points.
Thank you. No problem.
Yeah, I would say Clarke's decree declaring martial law on the basis of false allegations is the illegal act upon which all subsequent illegal acts were built (though really I would say even that act was built on the crime of assassinating Santiago).
Clarke's declaration of martial law was his Reichstag Fire Decree/1933 Enabling Act.
A real conspiracy would not legalize disbanding the Senate. Again, there are no such provisions in modern constitutional governance; unless the Earth Alliance Constitution was written by people very sympathetic to King Charles I, it is unrealistic to imagine it contains a provision enabling the executive to disband the legislature. There might be a legal basis for declaring a milder State of Emergency in Switzerland in order to secure EarthGov facilities and elected officials and secure EarthForce facilities, but the declaration of martial law throughout the entire Earth Alliance is illegal on its face.
Fabricated evidence would just be another lie, and thus the decree would be no more valid than one that merely perpetuated the lie without evidence.
Hague's conspiracy was not a criminal enterprise. It was a conspiracy to obtain evidence of Clarke's criminality and then to bring that evidence to the public whereupon the Senate could lawfully impeach Clarke. Clarke's agents were deliberately conspiring to obstruct justice, as we saw from the episode where they were hunting down the former presidential doctor who knew Clarke was lying about being ill when he left EarthForce One.
If there had been a genuine alien conspiracy to overthrow the Earth Alliance government (other than the one he had been involved in when he contracted the services of the Shadows to assassinated Clarke), the immediate violation would be declaring martial law over all of Earth Alliance territory. (There is no way he could legally bomb civilian targets, as it was clear on its face that there was no insurrectionist army engaging in armed rebellion on the streets.)
Here's an example of a response that is more proportional to such a hypothetical conspiracy: When Canada faced the possibility of an armed insurrectionist conspiracy operating in its territory in October 1970, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau (father of current Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) instituted a very sweeping response that may well have been unjustified authoritarian, but it didn't go nearly as far as Clarke's decree. Trudeau and the Cabinet advised the Governor General to invoke the War Measures Act on the request of the Premier of Quebec. Per Wikipedia:
The October Crisis said:
Again, the invocation of the War Measure Act and its associated measures were arguably unconstitutional and illegal themselves -- but they were also considerably short of Clarke's declaration of martial law. The Parliament of Canada and the Supreme Court of Canada continued to function; the Canadian Forces regiments only operated in supporting roles to the democratically-elected provincial governments of Ontario and Québec and to the democratically-elected government of Canada; the other provinces and territories were untouched; the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and other media outlets continued to operate as normal; provincial courts continued to function and were not supplanted by courts-martial; the Parti Québécois, the Québec-based political party that supports the peaceful and democratic transition to independence for Québec, was still allowed to operate even though the radical organization Trudeau was fighting was also a Québécois nationalist organization; and even the unlawful detentions of innocent people were limited in time, scope, and severity.
So, for instance, had Clarke declared a State of Emergency only in Switzerland or only in the Canton of Geneva only, placed EarthForce troops only in Geneva and only immediately outside EarthForce and EarthGov buildings, refrained from supplanting the courts, not disbanded the Senate, not interfered with INS, not bombed anyone, and restricted his scope and severity of pre-emptive detentions, he probably could have gotten away with it and had it declared a lawful act the way Trudeau did.
Side-note: This video of a CBC journalist interviewing/debating Pierre Trudeau after the start of the crisis in the days just before the invocation of the War Measures Act is really something. When he's asked how far he'll go, he replies, "Just watch me." It's pretty chilling, IMO.
Ah, good catch -- I wasn't sure if the use of the word "ministry" was a pre-Clarke thing or not.
Good point! "Every accusation by Clarke is a confession."
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