EARTH, humans' homeworld and the capital city EARTHDOME


The Earth Alliance is the Human SuperPower in the Galaxy. While centered on EarthDome, its jurisdiction is a bit vague. Theoretically it extends to all Earth colonies on Mars, Ganymede, Io, the Vega systems and the Orion Belt Alliance, but leaving them some leeway and liberties... but that's just the theory. Some of these colonies, Mars especially, resent the power that Earth has over them, and some independence movements have been crushed violently in the past to prevent seperation. President Clark also follows that line of politics, his reason, partly justified, being that Earth could not survive as a great power without the preferential trade with the colonies. The Earth itself is devided into giant consortiums: Indonesian Consortium, African Bloc, Russain Consortium and the North American Alliance. The constitution of the EA seems based on XXth century United States of America's constitution. The President is Commander-in-Chief of Earth Force, the EA military, and has executive powers. The Senate has the legislative powers. The President is elected for five years, but the actual president, Clark, is in fact the ex-vice president of Santiago. Santiago was killed when Earth Force One was destroyed in 2258. It was later dicovered by Ivanova and the Babylon 5 command staff that Clark had had the ship sabotaged.


Earth Alliance president CLARK

President Clark is an ambitious man, out for power. He had ties with the Shadows before their passing beyond the Veil, and is now grasping out for opportunities to re-assess his power.


Earth FORCE One exploding over Io

The discovery was leaked by Sheridan through General Hague to ISN in hope of bringing EarthGov down. Instead Clark violently repressed the uprising and tightened the reigns on liberties. The ensuing climate of impending dictature led some colonies to attempt to secess while several Earth Force ships under the leadership of Hague defected, creating an armed resistance. During that time Sheridan took the White Star into the Sol system to destroy a rogue shadow vessel unleashed by Earth scientists from Ganymede. The White star was spotted by the EAS Agamemnon, upon which Sheridan refused to fire, but still managed to escape. Shortly after Clak declared martial law and had the Senate surrounded by troops. Hague's fleet was apprehended and maimed, although Hague himself, commanding the EAS Alexander, escaped, along with a few others, and scattered around to evade detection. On the Babylon 5 station, Clark's NightWatch organization made a move to take control, but Zack Allan, of Garibaldi's security team and former NightWatch member himself, led them into a trap. The President decided to overtly reclaim the rebelling station and sent a small fleet of Omega-class Heavy destroyers which included the Roanoke. They were defeated by the combined forces on the Defense Grid, the Rebel EAS Alexander and EAS Churchill, and finally the arrival of four Minbari Cruisers led by Delenn. During the rest of the war the station was protected by a treaty uniting in a fragile alliance the Minbari, the Narn and most of the non-aligned worlds. Clark has not tried to attack directly again, focusing the military operation to to Mars, Vega III and Orion VII, where the secessionist movements have also declared independence. The EarthForce troops have already fired on civilian targets, killing women and children.


Heavy DESTROYERS arriving through Hyperspace


Since the end of the Shadow war by the year 2261, and with their departure, along with the Vorlons and the other First Ones, and disapearance beyond the veil, Clark is suddenly deprived of his powerful allies. Scared that Sheridan and his Army of Light might then move against him, he has begun a new kind of war. Instead of launching another miltary force against Babylon 5, which might ingnite a stream of sympathy and a rebellion on Earth itself, he has decided to launch a propaganda war. Accusing Sheridan of responsible for an Alien plot against Earth, he thinks that the citizens, still in fear of a new Minbari war, will support his actions. For that purpose, the Psi-Corps, the NightWatch and ISN have been assigned different, secret agendas designed to anger the public against Sheridan and his command staff.

The Earth Alliance is comprised of various branches and organizations:



EARTH FORCE:


President Clark is the Commander-in-Chief of the Earth Force. He has placed his most trusted followers in charge of the various branches and on the command decks of all the ships he could get. The Earth Force is a puppet of the totalitarian government as much as the Psi Corps or the Ministry of Peace. The ships of Earth Force are listed in the EA Technology section, accessible by clicking on the icon at the bottom of the page.

THE BABYLON PROJECT:



The Babylon Project was a joint Earth and Minbari realisation, conceived in the aftermath of the E/M War. It was a symbol that said "never again" to all, and as such it was to be an ambassadorial meeting place based on the model of XXth century United Nations. It was also a place of commerce, open to every known sentient race, in the middle of neutral space. But, as the first station was being built, it was sabotaged... as were Babylon 2 and Babylon 3. Then Babylon 4 was built on the remains of it's predecessors. But as it was to come on-line, having been spared the fate of the other stations, it vanished. Without a trace.
Later discovered by Commander Sinclair, first Commander of Babylon 5, the skeleton crew was saved. But Babylon 4 disappeared once again. To understand what happened to Babylon 4 select "Babylon 4 Time Rift" from the main menu page or clicking on the icon at the bottom of this page.

The fifth station was built from scratch, and had to be smaller due to failing funding, but it was still five miles long, one mile in diamater, weighed 2,500,000 tons and could shelter 250,000 people, humans as well as aliens. For more details on the station, select the Babylon Project icon from either the main menu page or the smaller menu at the bottom.

The two final realisation of the project, BABYLON 5 and 4


NIGHTWATCH:



To acertain his power, and probably because he suffers from paranoia, president Clark created a new government branch called the Ministry of Peace, known for its personnel as Minipax. If this name seems to come from 1984's author Orwell, it is because it is a very Orwellian organisation. In the year 1948 he had forseen an era of paranoia where everyone was spied on by everyone, and the slightest deviation from the norm was punished. The armed hand of the ministry is called the "NightWatch". Its recruiting method includes:
1/ Convincing that NightWatch is about insuring order, like a supplementary police force.
2/ Projecting the idea that wrong thinking is just about as bad, perhaps worse, than wrong doing.
3/ Suggesting that any form of critique against the government is an act of treason.
Attracted by the prospect of serving for the good of the country is sufficient to recruit a majority of people, but just to be sure a salary of a few extra credits is awarded for the new wardens of justice. Using fear to refrain the freedom of speech, the NightWatch opened a XXIIIrd century era of McCarthysm.
The NightWatch was eliminated from the official scene on Babylon Five with the help of Zack Allan. But in the underworld of Brown Sector a special breed of NightWatchers, fanatics, lunatics and psychos, from a terrorist side of the NightWatch. Their attempt at kidnapping a Minbari captain and Ambassador Delenn in hope of chasing the Minbari Cruisers away to allow for a second frontal assault failed, and they, too, were chased down and taken away, ending the tenuous grip of Clark on the station.

PSI-CORPS:



The Earth Alliance has a highly restrictive policy regarding people with psi abilities. At first it was to protect them from a population wary of anything that was "different", but it slowly became a secretive government organisation with severe rules of conduct. Any person suspected and found to have psi abilities is closely monitored, and their power graded on the "P" scale, P-10s and P-12s being the highest, P-5 just being average. A person with psi abilities that rufuses to join or leaves Psi-Corps is called a "blip", chased down... and terminated.
The Shadows and the Vorlons have both been involved in the Corps. the Vorlons have planted the seed for telepathic abilities, the Shadows having formed them into a drak force at their service to counteract the Vorlons. The shadows use people with telepathic powers to become the Core, or Central Processing Unit (CPU), of the Shadow cruisers. And to defend the said ships against other telepaths, they are altered, and their brain imprisonned in a bio-net surgically implanted by Zeners, some of the Shadows servants. The Psi-Corps is one of the agencies participating in the propaganda campaign against Babylon 5.

Psi-Cop BESTER

Within the Psi-Corps are the Psi-Cops, highly rated psis (Bester is P-12) who control the corps, and, for exemple, hunt down the "blips". Bester is cynical, slick, devious, and the best of them. But, by the time the last of the Babylon stations went into secession, Bester changed sides and is secretly allied, even if the alliance is shaky, to Sheridan. This happened when Bester learned that his wife had been taken to become a "core", and was implanted a bio-net. It is in hope of finding a way to liberate her that Bester is playing double agent. He is now the last contact between Earth and Babylon 5.

Aside from the governmental branches were civilian agncies, which are now under direct control of earthGov under the rule of martial law



INTERSTELLAR NEWS NETWORK:



I.S.N was an independent new station with a galactic-wide reach. It was the main means of information for Babylon 5 on the events back on Earth. The report update on Babylon 5 itself gave good insights on what was happening there to Earth. Their subjects went at first totally uncensored: they had the first footage introducing the Shadows to the public, unknowledgeable of the current alliance between Them and Clark, which was already dating back to their secret discovery in 2253. They even were able to show the GunCam datacrystal from Keffer's Starfury, which he was able to eject just before the fighter was hit by the beam weapon that will be the terrifying signature of the dark warships. They were also able to air a footage of the battle between the Aleaxander and the regular fleet after the defection of Hague. First and foremost, their airing of the communication intercepted by Ivanova in which Clark himself admits to having had Earth Force One sabotaged was the detonator for the crisis that led to the implementation of martial law ruling. That was the last draw for Clark. He had ISN's headquarters seized militarily, short battle during which was sent what would be the last of the Network's uncensored message: "We are under attack. There are things happening which you have never been told..." The message was interrupted when the troops burst into the studio and cut the power supply.

Later, ISN came back on air as but a pale shadow of what it had once been. New reporters and new anchors were placed in front of tightly controlled cameras, and everything was supervised and edited to fit the government's regulation. ISN was now the main tool of propaganda and desinformation of EarthGov. The fact was proven during the second report on Babylon 5, where each shot was carefully edited to give a deliberately wrong impression. It was the third phase of the propaganda war against Sheridan and the Army of Light.

First video footage of a SHADOW cruiser



INTERPLANETARY EXPEDITIONS:



I.P.X is a strange organisation, partly cover, partly real. IPX was the product of man's endless quest for archeological discoveries, on a galactical scale. But the selfless quest for pure knowledge was corrupted. The advertized goal of IPX is to "explore the past to build a better future". In other words, the prime objective of InterPlanetary eXpeditions is not purely the knowledge of the history of the civilizations,but instead it is to find artifacts of extinct or lost civilization that had a higher degree of technology, and to adapt the knowledge to improve Earth's own, primarily weapon's tech. It was an IPX ship, the Icarus, who carried Anna Sheridan, captain Sheridan's wife, to her fate on Za'Ha'Dum. It was at first suspected that they awoke the Shadows there and then.

the IPX scoutship ICARUS


But so was not the case. The Za'ha'Dum expedition was consecutive to the unearthing, or rather un-"marsing", of a strange artifact, not yet known as a Shadow Cruiser. As the excavation continued, a horrid accident happened: a scientist touched the ship with his bare hand... and died, his life drained away. It became obvious that the artifact was dangerous and powerful, and as such very interesting for IPX. But, contacted by their secret masters, the Psi-corps had the area evacuated. A couple of days afterwards another ship arrived under the eyes of the archaeologists kept in a bunker near the excavation site. These events happened during the year 2253, before anyone had ever heard of the Shadows.

Shadow cruiser found on MARS


In the year 2260 IPX discovered another ship in the Solar system, on the Ganymede moon of Jupiter. This time the Shadows were not alerted by the discovery, as EarthGov decided to learn more about it... and to use it. But there was a leak in one of the archaeologist from the first expedition. She warned Sheridan that Earth scientists, under the order of Clark, were playing apprentice sorcerers. Delenn advised the governor of Babylon 5 that if an unprepared "core" was inserted in the ship, it might go mad and destructive. Taking the White Star in what was almost a suicide mission, John Sheridan lured the destructive ship into Jupiter's gravity well where it was crushed, but not before the research facility had been hit.
Since then little has been heard of IPX, but one can only be weary about their agenda.

Mad Shadow cruiser escaping the GANYMEDE facility



TRANSPORT PILOTS ASSOCIATION:



Organisation with little political power, part worker's syndicate, part association of independent pilots, and part transport consortium, its influence in Babylon Five's docking and visiting policies is non-negilgeable. One exemple is their upheveal in 2260 when Sheridan passed a law prohibiting the possession of a PP Gun or any type of weapon on the station. After many shouts and protests, the security measure was approved.

Bulk FREIGHTER (typical)



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