The people who voted for Santiago and whoever passed the law that assassinating people is illegal.
At this point he had illegally dissolved the senate too. Any orders he issued after that were illegal orders.
Babylon 5
- Thread starter Kail
- Start date
The people who voted for Santiago and whoever passed the law that assassinating people is illegal.
At this point he had illegally dissolved the senate too. Any orders he issued after that were illegal orders.
How do we know it was illegal of him to dissolve the senate? I don't believe that's stated during the series.
Also, why do only the people who voted for Santiago get to make that decision?
I largely support what Sheridan did, but from a legal standpoint, there are a lot of holes in it.
Also, why do only the people who voted for Santiago get to make that decision?
I largely support what Sheridan did, but from a legal standpoint, there are a lot of holes in it.
This all makes sense, but I'll point out that the crews of the renegade Earth ships continued wearing unmodified EarthForce uniforms. Granted, a ship probably doesn't have the same ability to rustle up a bunch of matching civilian shirts and slacks as B5 does, but I've long thought that if I ever continued my B5 fan-remaster project, I'd do something with the renegade ships, if only a black bar over the EA insignia (I've also thought about doing Normandy-inspired invasion-stripes on all the ships that participate in the final push against Clark in "Endgame").
Now I'm wondering if the replacement uniforms for the security guards were also civilian clothes, camping gear or something. I assume the shredded pleather vest serves some kind of useful purpose.
I think the difference between the rebel ships' uniforms and B5's uniforms probably lie in the distinct legal justifications for their rebellions.
I would assume that if they're still wearing EarthForce uniforms, that those rebel crews do not consider themselves to have seceded from the Earth Alliance or to no longer be EarthForce officers. They would probably argue rather that those EarthForce crews who still obey Clarke are themselves acting illegally by supporting a criminal politician who had committed treason against the Earth Alliance with his unconstitutional seizure of power. So in their legal theory, they are loyal Earth Alliance citizens and loyal EarthForce officers engaging in lawful combat against an illegal regime that had usurped constitutional governance.
Whereas Sheridan's crew is operating on a different legal theory: They are not merely loyal EarthForce officers acting in lawful defiance of a criminal regime which has no right to hold power, but they have themselves seceded from the Earth Alliance to form a new, independent state that has no more legal relationship or obligation to the Earth Alliance than the Centauri Republic or the Drazi Freehold. In their legal theory, the State of Babylon 5 has the same distinct legal sovereignty that any other sovereign state has -- sort of the way we in the real world today attribute the same level of sovereignty to the Republic of Singapore as to Malaysia, even though the former is constituted by only a single city.
I think that would make sense. I imagine B5 forces would use whatever clothing they could that looked more or less uniform-ish and might not be too picky about where the clothes came from.
Sheridan was running out of options given what his mission to Babylon 5 was following the assassination. He was Santiago's choice, while Sinclair was the Minbari's pick.
From what I recall, the evidence of Clark's conclusion with the assassination from season one was delivered to the Senate. Clark suspended the Senate. There was a coup followed by rebellion on Mars (what else is new). The bombing of civilian targets on Mars drives a few colonies to seceded, with Babylon 5 standing with them.
Sounds about right.
If the President has the right to declare a dictatorship with himself in charge at any time and not break the law, why do we have laws?
We *do* have it explicitly stated in the series that the military has an obligation to uphold the Constitution. Unless the 23rd century Earth Constitution has a line "Unless the President decides he'd rather it not work that way".
Well, I'm not even sure how it works in the modern day with regards to the President (of the US, let's say) declaring martial law, much less how it might work when presented with a fictitious futuristic world government.
Clark's conspiracy to have Santiago eliminated was obviously illegal (though given events in the US over the past four years...nevermind...), but from a legal standpoint I am curious as to when his public actions explicitly crossed the line. If he has the legal right to declare martial law, does he also have the right to dissolve the senate? Does he have the right to order bombings of civilian targets? It does seem he was ordering people held without trial, which I imagine would be illegal, but maybe Earth law did allow for that...
The military may have a duty to uphold the constitution, but we don't know what the constitution looks like in that day and age either. It's probably not the US Constitution as it's not the American government.
Clark's conspiracy to have Santiago eliminated was obviously illegal (though given events in the US over the past four years...nevermind...), but from a legal standpoint I am curious as to when his public actions explicitly crossed the line. If he has the legal right to declare martial law, does he also have the right to dissolve the senate? Does he have the right to order bombings of civilian targets? It does seem he was ordering people held without trial, which I imagine would be illegal, but maybe Earth law did allow for that...
The military may have a duty to uphold the constitution, but we don't know what the constitution looks like in that day and age either. It's probably not the US Constitution as it's not the American government.
The Earth Alliance is basically space-90s-America with universal marriage rights (it even still has healthcare paid for by the recipient directly, judging by the need for Franklin to set up a free clinic supplied by stolen materials from MedLab; you'd expect the human lurkers, at least, to be entitled to free care as citizens of the EA, and the aliens probably would have some sort of treaty for it, just as nations with universal healthcare have with each other on Earth today to cover citizens who are traveling internationally). It's probably reasonable enough to use the U.S. Constitution as a proxy. My Constitutional Law is a little rusty, but at least as far as Habeas Corpus goes, "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." Whatever similar emergency powers the EA Constitution grants probably have a similar clause, since Clark was pushing conspiracy theories about impending invasions by the Shadows throughout the first half of 2260, painting a picture based on Keffer's gun-camera footage and then the disaster when they attempted to salvage the buried Shadow ship on Ganymede. And, after Clark declared Martial Law, there actually were rebellions on Mars, Proxima, Orion, and Babylon 5, so you've got a textbook Constitutional Crisis where each side says the other one did the illegal thing first and justified their not-actually-illegal acts.
In this case Martial Law was implemented, and the Senate was disbanded before the rebellions occurred. The evidence that President Santiago was assassinated, and did not die in an accident was about to be investigated by the Senate. This information was available to the general public, but then Clark also had the ISN offices in Geneva stormed by the military, at the same time they stormed the Senate, to eliminate the reporting of the free press and put the "Ministry of Information" in charge.
Also if the US Constitution is a template, the Executive Branch cannot suspend the Legislative Branch even in times of rebellion or invasion. That is what is known as a coup d’état.
Babylon 5 was under the control of Babylon 5 Senate Oversight and Appropriations Committee. Earth Force military assigned Sheridan to be military governor of Babylon 5, but Sheridan was answerable to the Senate Oversight and Appropriations Committee. That being disbanded, Sheridan was answerable to no one until the Senate Oversight and Appropriations Committee is restored.
Also if the US Constitution is a template, the Executive Branch cannot suspend the Legislative Branch even in times of rebellion or invasion. That is what is known as a coup d’état.
Babylon 5 was under the control of Babylon 5 Senate Oversight and Appropriations Committee. Earth Force military assigned Sheridan to be military governor of Babylon 5, but Sheridan was answerable to the Senate Oversight and Appropriations Committee. That being disbanded, Sheridan was answerable to no one until the Senate Oversight and Appropriations Committee is restored.
If Trump had tried to dissolve the senate and declare martial law, do you think the armed forces would have been legally obligated to follow him?
Cause if so, then we've had a military dictatorship all along, but a string of Presidents who have been kind enough not to enforce it.
Cause if so, then we've had a military dictatorship all along, but a string of Presidents who have been kind enough not to enforce it.
Do we actually have any evidence of that?
It certainly didn't seem as though EarthForce was going particularly out of its way to resist Clark's policies with the exception of Hague's small group.
Speak for yourself. As someone who served in the Navy, for all of its faults, I don't think there was any way it would've supported such an action if the previous guy tried that.
Last edited:
I don't know, someone at the Pentagon was clearly sitting on their hands for a few hours there back in January.
And as the show makes a point of demonstrating; you don't need the whole military being on board, or even the majority; just enough people in the right places in the chain of command to block certain orders, restrict information, and mostly make sure nobody sticks their nose in while the fanatics do "the work". To compound that, the higher up the ranks one goes the less willingness there is to rock the boat (no pun intended.) Standing up for what's right sounds nice and everything, but when the pension is on the line, most can at least half talk themselves into pretended there's nothing they could do to affect things, so why make a fuss? "It'll all sort itself out eventually anyway. And it's not like I've done anything illegal, right!?"
There were people who wanted power. People who were nationalistic (in terms of humanity first, kill the aliens). Then you have the Psi Corps involved. Place them in charge of the Nightwatch and other positions of power, and they could manage to take places. Yet you still have people who were in their normal positions who either did similar to what Sheridan did, or they have a watchdog from Nightwatch or the like to keep them "loyal" to Clark/Earth Gov of the day. Than you would have others who do not believe it is the military's place to act in the political realm, and tried to sit out the whole thing (avoiding the illegal orders, but not going against Earth Gov directly).
The operative word being 'stationary'...I find myself wondering if things would have been any different if B5 could move, like B4 could.
If Sheridan could have retreated to friendly (or at least less dangerous) territory, like a starship could, perhaps he might not have been forced to secede?
Actually it probably wouldn't have made a ton of difference. Even if B5 was moveable, I doubt it could move anywhere near as fast as a starship. And surely it wouldn't be able to jump?
(side note: did we ever, in all of B5's run, see anything larger than a single capital ship take a trip through a jumpgate?)
Similar threads
