Morgan Clark

In the Science Fiction series Babylon 5, Morgan William Clark was the president of the Earth Alliance. He was previously President Santiago's vice-president, and succeeded him after arranging the assassination of Santiago.

Partly because of the Earth-Minbari war, he believed Earth to be in danger of being overrun by alien races. His government was totalitarian, and was similar to fascism. Clark's government was receiving support from the Shadows. Either they or one of their agents planted the explosives that destroyed Earth Force One, killing President Santiago.

One of the things he did to protect against the perceived external threat, was to create Nightwatch, a paramilitary organization whose members were required to report any person they suspected to be alien infiltrators.

Shortly after John Sheridan took command of Babylon 5, General Hague came to him and asked for his help in working against President Clark. Over the next year, Sheridan and the Babylon 5 command staff covertly worked against Clark. In 2260, they finally found evidence that Clark had arranged the assassination of Santiago. Hague managed to get the evidence introduced in the Senate, which caused an uproar.

At about the same time, it was revealed that Clark's forces had found a Shadow vessel buried on Ganymede. Clark was having the ship studied in order to learn its secrets to either use against other races or even against humans. John Sheridan took the White Star back to Ganymede, and destroyed the vessel. Clark soon issued a decree of martial law.

At this point, Hague took the EAS Alexander, and along with five other ships began armed resistance against Clark's government. Only the Alexander survived, but Hague was killed in a firefight. The Alexander made its way to Babylon 5. Meanwhile, Mars rejected martial law, and Clark responded by bombing Mars. Clark dissolved the Senate, and nationalized the media outlets. Afterwards Proxima III, and Orion VII broke away from the Earth Alliance, and set themselves up as independent states.

Babylon 5 soon followed these two colonies by breaking away. The station's forces were able to turn away the first wave of assault forces sent by Clark. Just as the second wave arrived, three Minbari Sharlin Class Warcruisers and the White Star arrived at Babylon 5. Ambassador Delenn informed Clark's forces that Babylon 5 was now under Minbari protection. Realizing that resistance would be suicidal, the second wave left Babylon 5 space.

During the remainder of the Shadow War, Babylon 5 was focused on the Shadow threat. In the meantime, Clark had turned the Earth Alliance into a dictatorship. Clark consolidated his power, so that no one on Earth was really able to stand up to him. Interstellar Network News (ISN) was turned into his propaganda machine, so those outside the Earth Alliance had some difficulty knowing what was truly going on back on Earth. Because of Clark, the Earth Alliance did not take an active role in the closing days of the Shadow War.

Once the Shadows had left the galaxy, Clark lost one of his main bases of support. He decided that Sheridan and Babylon 5 were a threat that needed to be dealt with. Clark did this mainly through a propaganda war directed at Babylon 5, and Sheridan was a particular target of this war. Sheridan and Commander Ivanova responded by creating the Voice of the Resistance, which countered much of the propaganda put out by ISN.

In the fall of 2261, Clark put a policy in place of killing refugees trying to leave the colonies that he was taking military action against. When Sheridan learned that in one case 10,000 innocent civilians were killed by an Earth Alliance vessel, he realized that the time had come to remove Clark.

Sheridan defeated the Earth Force 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. 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 Earth Force personnel unless left with no chioce. Large numbers of Earth Force personnel defected. Eventually, Sheridan was lured to Mars when his father was 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.

Clark decided to trap Sheridan's forces with advanced model destroyers which had been fitted with Shadow technology. When Commander Ivanova learned of this, she took the White Star ships in the fleet, and engaged the destroyers. She managed to destroy all the vessels, but was seriously injured in the process.

Soon afterwards, the final battle began. Sheridan disabled a large part of the fleet that was waiting for him at Mars by the use of telepaths modified by the Shadows. The remaining ships were disabled when their engines and weapons were destroyed. Then Sheridan took the fleet directly to Earth, and sent a message saying that they had come home to fight against Clark's tyranny.

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. The weapons would have destroyed 40% of the planet's surface. Sheridan and his forces quickly moved to destroy the platforms. General Lefcourt, who had previously been loyal to Clark, arrived and destroyed the last platform before it could fire on the eastern United States.

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.