Yes, Luchenko did say that, but coup or not, it didn't make Sheridan wrong. Clark assassinated his way into office (THAT was the coup) and then started killing innocents left and right. Sheridan worked to put a stop to it.
Revisiting Babylon 5...
- Thread starter Warped9
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Yes, Luchenko did say that, but coup or not, it didn't make Sheridan wrong. Clark assassinated his way into office (THAT was the coup) and then started killing innocents left and right. Sheridan worked to put a stop to it.
Rochenko's point was though, that waging open warfare against your own government wasn't the best way to do it. There may have been better ways.
And I'm not entirely certain she was wrong. I'm a soldier, and I would be VERY alarmed if some charismatic general had managed to emass forces and was waging war against my own nation, especially if I didn't have all the facts.
I might consider him the problem.
It's President Luchenko. As for those better ways, of course one could try to work within the system. But for Sheridan it was a matter of conscience and working within the system wasn't an option if he were to follow that conscience and be true to his responsibility toward the people on he Station.
If he hadn't seceeded from the Earth alliance he'd have had to let Nightwatch take over Security. What if they decided that dissention was a spacing offense? Could he stand by and allow that? Would that be part of a "better way"? No matter what, as a matter of conscience he'd have had to end up in opposition to Clark.
Also, keep in mind that the Minbari were only peripherally involved in the fight. Yes, Delenn's intervention protected the station but when it came to the actual battles, Sheridan kept them out of it until he needed help with Earth's planetary defense platforms. He tried to keep it a fair fight.
Were the captains who didn't join him wrong? No, probably not. For them it was still an option to attempt to fight within the system as long as they weren't ordered to commit any attrocities. Once they were, they'd have to make the decision to obey orders, to run away and hide until it was over or to fight Clark directly.
Jan
If he hadn't seceeded from the Earth alliance he'd have had to let Nightwatch take over Security. What if they decided that dissention was a spacing offense? Could he stand by and allow that? Would that be part of a "better way"? No matter what, as a matter of conscience he'd have had to end up in opposition to Clark.
Also, keep in mind that the Minbari were only peripherally involved in the fight. Yes, Delenn's intervention protected the station but when it came to the actual battles, Sheridan kept them out of it until he needed help with Earth's planetary defense platforms. He tried to keep it a fair fight.
Were the captains who didn't join him wrong? No, probably not. For them it was still an option to attempt to fight within the system as long as they weren't ordered to commit any attrocities. Once they were, they'd have to make the decision to obey orders, to run away and hide until it was over or to fight Clark directly.
Jan
It wasn't the succession that was the problem. It was the making war on Earth after that was. If Sheridan had limited himself to the succession...well, no telling how it would have turned out.
But there IS reason to question Sheridan and his actions. What he did was right, and noble in motive...but it wasn't without controversy or room for reasonable people to call it into question.
The intent wasn't to attack but to bend it to their purposes, hence abducting Garibaldi. If on the other hand they really did want it destroyed, I don't see Ulkesh's presence as a hindrance to that. They'd already killed Kosh without an escalation of retribution and the Vorlon's "pet human" had just nuked the Shadow capital and killed a bunch of their kind. Still if they were really that worried about provoking open conflict with the Vorlons I can think of a few ways to effectively destroy or cripple the station while giving Ulkesh plenty of time to get off unscathed. A single shot clear through the central core aught to do it. The station would be mostly intact but you'd get an explosive decompression in the exposed inner areas not sealed off and it'd probably loose rotation and go zero-gravity.
But having seceded, how could Sheridan sit by and watch as his former comrades and fellow officers slaughter tens of thousands of unarmed civilians as an example to others? The only moral response to that level of provocation, from someone who'd already broken away over much less is a direct confrontation. It's all very well for others like Susanna Luchenko to sit back and say it could have been done from inside, but the fact is they didn't.
Would Japan have surrendered without the yanks nuking two cities? Possibly...eventually, but those nukes were the best way to make sure it happened sooner rather than later. Could Sheridan have sat back and allowed things to continue and wait for some group of Earthdome senators to stage a coup? Sure he could, but one such attempt had already failed and Clark wasn't nearly as dug in then as he was later ad all the while Earthforce retaking Mars, Proxima and the other colonies.
If things had continued where they were headed Clark would probably have crippled the resistance and solidified his hold on Alliance territory within a year. In the end I'm sure he would have gone down, either through a coup or through Edgars' plan to enslave telepaths being a success but the cost would have been terrible and what sort of world would be left afterwards? Who's to say that the next person in office wouldn't be just as bad or worse, not that the infrastructure of a totalitarian empire is in place, what's to stop them expanding their territory to get back at those evil aliens that killed Clark, the late and noble martyr of humanity?
It's no coincidence that Delenn punctuated her offer to join the ISA with a flyby from 100 White Stars over Earthdome. A none to subtle warning for them to behave themselves.
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Midway through Season 5 and all I have to say at this point is that I love hating Bester I so freaking glad Byron is dead. He's just got on my nerves whenever he was onscreen.
Season 5 feels more like B5's early seasons with the stories feeling more episodic in nature while still connected.
Season 5 feels more like B5's early seasons with the stories feeling more episodic in nature while still connected.
The show is let down by some bargain basement actors unfortunately..I think it was TV Guide that said it had acting "out of car commercials". The guest stars were often no better.
RAMA
There's no telling. Sheridan took the actions he took...but the idea that there was "no questioning" them, that other avenues might have been better is a worthy discussion.
Open war against your own world, making war on your own comrades, many of them who are just (rightly) concerned about your own actions.
One of their own leading an alien armada against his own world.
It's not black and white.
BTW, in an unrelated note, I LOVED the "Long Night of Londo Molari". I enjoy metaphysical explorations and B5 usually does it quite well.
Kewl.
TV Guide also predicted that Babylon 5 wouldn't get a series order after the pilot movie.
The TV Guide critic who was most disparaging of B5, both the pilot and the possibility of renewal for a second season was named Jeff Jarvis. JMS caused the 'Jarvis toilets' to spew again' in "Points of Departure". In the script books, JMS mentions that that was the second shot he'd taken at Jarvis but I'm not recalling the first.I can, but I won't know what I'm talking about.
Jan
Of course not, nothing is. The point is you can question his methods all you like but you can't question his motivation. What it really comes down to is that he chose to act and the "alien armada" wasn't even his idea and didn't enter the war until after he was captured.
Now does that mean the he was right an everyone else was wrong? No, not really. The Captains of those ships that fired on civilian transports were wrong, Clark was wrong, those little bureaucrats that helped keep him in power were wrong.
On the other hand people like Lochley and Lefcourt who remained loyal to EarthGov and didn't get any direct orders that violated their conscience were not wrong. I think the show was pretty clear as to the ambiguity of it all.
Even that was only really true for the first two seasons or so and even then it was hardly universal. Don't get me wrong there were some pretty awful guest performances. The union leader in "By Any Means Necessary", the young latent teep in "Legacies" and that nutter Colonel in "Eyes" leap to mind.
When I clicked on that link I got an alert of a trojan from my virus software. Can you quote?
Jan
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