Earth Alliance Civil War

The Earth Alliance Civil War is an armed conflict in the "Babylon 5" series, in which President Clark dissolves the Earth senate and orders martial law throughout the Earth Alliance worlds. It formed a major element of the show in seasons 3 and 4.

The Conspiracy Comes to Light and the Declaration of Martial Law

EarthForce's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General William Hague, had suspected for a long time that Clark was involved in the assassination of former President Luis Santiago, and had begun a low-level counter-conspiracy that included Captain John Sheridan. Because of Sheridan's war record, Clark thought he would be an anti-alien warhawk that would support him. However, Clark failed to realize that Sheridan was by nature a truth-seeker and considered aliens to be potential allies. Sheridan eventually persuaded the Babylon 5 command staff officers to join the counter-conspiracy.

A year after ascending to the presidency, Clark's doctor gave testimony that Clark's claim that a case of the flu kept him off of Earth Force One was a lie, that he hadn't been sick at all. In danger of the truth of his assassination conspiracy coming to light, President Clark acted quickly: citing the destruction of an Earth Alliance base on Ganymede, which he falsely pinned on the then-unknown White Star (see "Messages from Earth"), President Clark declared martial law throughout the Earth Alliance. EarthForce troops stormed the Senate building to put a stop to any impeachment hearings, then stormed the office of the military Chiefs of Staff who weren't loyal to Clark. Military patrols were then put on the streets in every major Earth city. The Interstellar Network News revealed that they had been intimidated into keeping quiet about what they knew about what Clark was doing the last year as EarthForce troops descended on the ISN building and cut the transmission.

Hague's Coup and Colonial Secession

Before he could be captured, General Hague attempted an unsuccessful counter-insurgency. With only five Omega class destroyers Hague tried to escape the Solar System at the Io Jump Gate transfer point, but was intercepted by a Clark-loyal fleet. Only Hague's own flagship was able to escape, the EAS "Alexander".

The governor of Mars publicly stated that he would defy Clark's order and not implement martial law. In retaliation, President Clark ordered the full scale carpet bombing of civilian population centers on Mars. Other outer planets like Orion 7 and Proxima 3 had seceded from the Earth Alliance in protest, and set themselves up as independent states. EarthForce achieved space superiority over Orion 7 and Proxima 3, which were now cut off; Earthforce was now occupying Mars, and though there was fierce groundfighting the Martians were losing. Effectively, Babylon 5 was the only Earth Alliance planet or base that President Clark did not control.

The EAS "Alexander" stopped at Babylon 5 for repairs, as Captain Sheridan said they would render humanitarian aid in repairing them. Unfortunately, General Hague had died from wounds en-route. Then Captain Hiroshi's EAS "Churchill", another Hague-loyal Omega-class destroyer, arrived at B5. In a public transmission, Sheridan announced Babylon 5 had declared its independence of the Earth Alliance, seceding to "function as an independent state until President Clark is removed from office".

An EarthForce fleet including two Omega class destroyers, the "Agrippa" and "Roanoke", and many wings of Starfuries were headed for Babylon 5 to arrest the command staff and put it under jurisdiction of Nightwatch. In the resulting battle the EAS "Churchill" was critically damaged and rammed one of the Clark-loyal ships, the "Roanoke", destroying both. Babylon 5's defense grid fired the final volleys to destroy the other, as opposing Starfuries engaged in dogfights and Clark-loyal soldiers boarded the station, resulting in costly fighting against the Babylon 5 security forces and Narn supporters. Ultimately, the Minbari Delenn intervened, promising to destroy any Earthforce ships that tried to attack Babylon 5. The EarthForce Ships retreated. Babylon 5 would become the bastion of opposition against Clark.

Uneasy truce

With the exception of a brief attempt to take the station by remaining Nightwatch personnel the station and Earth remained in an undeclared truce, really more of a stalemate, for the rest of 2260. Shipping was unmolested and B5 made no real attempts to remove Clark, given their preoccupation with the upcoming Shadow War. Meanwhile, as Sheridan explained to Delenn, Clark was preoccupied with consolidating his hold on worlds he already controlled like Earth, Mars, and the other outer colonies instead of wasting resources trying to take B5 again. During this period B5 gathered intelligence and fought the Shadow war, given the Shadows superior technology and the alliance between them and Earth, Clark may reasonably have expected The Shadows to deal with B5 for him.

Opening moves

Soon after the Shadows departure from Known space in early 2261 a very worried President Clark set out to remove the problem of Babylon 5. A blockade was enacted and efforts made to discredit the station. These included sending Psi Corps Black Omega squadron to destroy an Earth fighter patrol and frame the station which was foiled when Bester warned B5, and a propaganda broadcast by ISN which did major damage to the station's image.

At the same time B5 stepped up its own efforts allying with the Mars resistance, and engaging in Black market deals to get needed equipment. Sheridan also arranged for the White Star Fleet to patrol the borders of alien powers gaining goodwill for the next phase of the operation.

It's unclear what Clark's aims were, some characters state they expect another offensive once the station is at its lowest point in the eyes of Earth. This is strange however since Earths actions do nothing to discredit it in the eyes of aliens (who with few exceptions owe the station a debt for the Shadow War), the station has a mutual defense treaty with most of these governments, and access to a powerful fleet. If an attack had been made on the station it is possible that Earth would have faced a war on many fronts with said alien powers.

Casus Belli

Sheridan had hoped to wait a while longer before going to war but at the end of August 2261 Clark ordered the massacre of ten thousand civilians trying to escape Proxima colony. Sheridan called a council session on September 2 2261. He declared his intention to oust Clark and declared Earth's defense treaties with them "null and void". The Narn and Minbari delegations supported this action. The fleet then prepared to jump to Proxima.

Proxima III and the Earth Alliance Civil War

Babylon 5 took only limited action against President Clark until midway through the next year, having taken a central role in an alliance of alien races in the fight against the Shadows. Shortly after the end of the Shadow War, Commander Susan Ivanova learned that Clark-loyal EarthForce ships had attacked and destroyed civilian passenger ships attempting to leave areas under Martial Law, leading Sheridan to lead an attack on the EarthForce blockade of Proxima III.

Sheridan defeated the EarthForce vessels blockading Proxima III. He managed to destroy one of Clark's ships, and another was seriously damaged. The remaining ships defected to Sheridan's side.

Though vastly superior in technology the White Star Fleet was massively outnumbered by the Earth forces and Sheridian made every effort to bring EA ships over to his side. By the end dozens of destroyers would side with him with many more (presumably) standing down and staying out of the fight. By the last battle Clark mustered thirty-five Omega class destroyers, the most human ships that had ever been gathered in one fleet since the Battle of the Line. Though this was a large number they were still outnumbered by the combined fleet and this is a tiny number compared to the Line where twenty thousand ships were involved (Though this counted fighters but even so it seems likely that the actual total even factoring these in was still a great deal less) indicating that support for Clark was falling away.

Over the next several weeks, Sheridan's forces began a systematic campaign against Clark's forces. Even though Sheridan was furious over the killing of innocent civilians, he took great care not to kill EarthForce personnel unless left with no choice. Large numbers of EarthForce personnel defected to Sheridan's cause. Eventually, Sheridan was lured to Mars when his father had been captured by Clark's forces. Sheridan himself was captured and tortured for over a week, but refused to be broken. Eventually Sheridan was rescued by Michael Garibaldi, Lyta Alexander and Dr. Stephen Franklin and returned to the fleet. In his absence, command of the fleet fell to his second-in-command, Commander Ivanova, despite her junior rank when compared to other officers in the rebel fleet.

Clark planned to trap Sheridan's forces with advanced model destroyers which had been fitted with Shadow technology, but the plans were revealed to Ivanova by defecting EarthForce officers. Commander Ivanova took the White Stars and proceeded to the ambush site to engage the destroyers. Although her own ship was destroyed and Ivanova severely wounded, her forces were victorious and the advanced EarthForce ships were destroyed.

Mars and Earth

With the majority of Earthforce either allied with Sheridan or otherwise destroyed or incapacitated (or unwilling to get involved), the rebels coordinated with the Martian resistance to defeat Clark's remaining forces in orbit over Mars with the liberated Sheridan resuming his role as Commander.

In the Battle of Mars, a fleet of 35 Omega-class destroyers, commanded by General Robert Lefcourt, was deployed as a last-ditch effort to fend off Sheridan. The Martian resistance smuggled many Shadow-altered telepaths onto their vessels, which when activated disabled 25 out of the 35 destroyers without firing a shot, with the remaining ships easily being overwhelmed and disabled by Sheridan's White Stars.

Finally, the resistance on Earth had the support they needed. Senator Crosby led a group of people to Clark's office with the intention of placing him under arrest. Realizing that he would soon be captured, Clark committed suicide with a PPG. In one last vindictive act, he turned the planetary defense grid back on to Earth, leaving a note with the words "Scorched Earth" as the only clue to his intentions. Apart from the particle and projectile weapons installed on each platform, the particle beam weapons alone on the platforms had the capability to destroy 40% of the planet's surface. Sheridan and his forces, now supported by a coalition fleet of alien ships lead by the Minbari Federation, Centauri Republic, and the Narn Regime, quickly moved to destroy the platforms. Her weapons disabled, EAS "Agamemnon" was about to ram the last platform when Lefcourt's flagship, the EAS "Apollo", arrived to engage and destroy the last platform.

Aftermath and Political Fallout

After Clark's suicide, Susanna Luchenko of the Russian Consortium was named President. Former ISN reporters were freed, and returned almost immediately to their jobs. ISN was no longer the new order's propaganda arm. President Luchenko announced that the justice department would prosecute those who had committed crimes during Clark's reign of terror. She forced Sheridan to resign, he agreed to do so after Luchenko offered amnesty to those who had followed Sheridan. Once Sheridan got her to agree to put the amnesty in writing, he resigned as an Earth Force officer, and was soon elected President of the newly formed Interstellar Alliance.

After the end of hostilities, in exchange for the Mars Resistance's aid, Sheridan secured Mars's independence. Earth did interfere with this however and even six years later it was hard for Mars born to find employment, while Earth tried to freeze out native Mars currency and documentation.

Sheridan was never very popular on Earth after this and six years later still found himself suffering from people "remembering the last time he bought a fleet to Earthspace". One hundred years later a group of researchers heavily criticized him and this may have been part of their issues with him. A few Clarkest officers escaped, one tried to murder Sheridian a few weeks later.

The question of what side officers were on and why they did it came up occasionally. Elizebeth Lockley remained loyal to the regime during the war (though it seems unlikely that she was involved in any atrocities given her later posting). Many officers felt that it was not the role of the military to dictate policy though many ships refused to obey illegal orders (only two ships fired on civilians at proxima). Six years later Captain Anderson and his crew would lament that they had a chance to join Sheridian and did not take it, this was part of the reason they helped Sheridian steal the victory class destroyers.

Though the shadow backed Psi Corps faction that had been aiding Clark fell, Sheridian expected Bester to go on moving his people into places of power, this led to the Telepath war a few years later.