Let's flesh out Babylon 5's EA government system

[Yukaphile]

So, this is, like most everything else in this section lately, for my "Star Chronicles"/"Foldspace(?)" fanfiction. I wanna flesh out the government structure to the Earth Alliance.

I have a few basic ideas. One is that the Senate is also known as the Congress of Earth. And there are three chambers or Houses in Earthdome, where it is based. They would be the House of Commons, where the average citizen who does not hold an elected office can vote for who goes to this chamber; the House of Lords, where nobility worldwide are allowed in as part of the chambers; and then there is also the House of Delegates, where government leaders appoint, rather than choosing, their delegates to send here. I'm also thinking the Vice-President's position is as Chancellor of the Senate.

I think Earthdome would be a structure that was already under construction, so that WWIII further destabilized the UN and then it was reorganized into the Earth Alliance, a stronger and more centralized UN, and all space agencies as well as many others were drafted into the EA as part of its founding charter.

I'm also thinking there would be "ministries" within the EA. Ministry of Defense (which would include older concepts from the former UN like a Security Council, as well as many more).

But I need your help. What would their roles be worldwide? How would they function?

[Kinky Vorlon]

I think you just need to look at how current governments function and extrapolate. You will have local, regional and national governments just as you do today. Just because there's a supranational government doesn't mean the need for local governance is diminished. Someone still needs to implement local policies (where to build a new school, what the speed limit should be, etc).

You still get to vote for your mayor, premier/governor, PM/President/Chancellor, etc only there's a level of authority above them, which would be earthdome. I Imagine the UN but with actual authority or the EU with more authority. the more important functions get uploaded to Earthdome: Finance, Defense, Diplomacy, etc.

[Steve]

IIRC there is canon data for this. The EA is a unicameral government. The Senate is the only legislative body. The Presidency is separate, although it appears to be direct democratic election. Individual parts of Earth still have local government, but it answers to the EA, and the EA has full power to, say, declare planet-wide martial law and compel local governments to obey. "Earthdome", a term used like one might refer to "Whitehall" or "the Kremlin", houses said government and attached agencies in Geneva.

[Beastro]

IIRC there is canon data for this. The EA is a unicameral government. The Senate is the only legislative body. The Presidency is separate, although it appears to be direct democratic election. Individual parts of Earth still have local government, but it answers to the EA, and the EA has full power to, say, declare planet-wide martial law and compel local governments to obey. "Earthdome", a term used like one might refer to "Whitehall" or "the Kremlin", houses said government and attached agencies in Geneva.

That and it was formed by the US, Britain, the Netherlands and other powers which teamed up and nuked France for singal handedly opposing them, which I always smile at reading.

so that WWIII further destabilized the UN and then it was reorganized into the Earth Alliance, a stronger and more centralized UN,

Ahhh nope, the UN failed with WWIII. The EA began as an alliance of effectively Anglopshere nations and their close allies which then brought in other major nations (interestingly Europe beyond France, Britain and the Netherlands largely remains unmentioned) and those which had begun to form into "consortiums" before WWIII.

"Earthdome", a term used like one might refer to "Whitehall" or "the Kremlin", houses said government and attached agencies in Geneva.

Yes, because it's a literal dome housing the heart of Earth's government:

I'm also thinking there would be "ministries" within the EA. Ministry of Defense (which would include older concepts from the former UN like a Security Council, as well as many more).

Older concepts like the Great Powers preserving their position over all other nations?

That's not a snide remark from me; that's one of the few sensible things about the UN~

[hammerofglass]

The Babylon 5 wiki has a lot on it. https://babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/Earthgov

[TGLS]

That and it was formed by the US, Britain, the Netherlands and other powers which teamed up and nuked France for singal handedly opposing them, which I always smile at reading.

Do you have a reference on that? All I found on the B5 wiki about France is that they tried to try Bester for War Crimes; nothing about getting nuked. WW3 (which apparently caused the formation of the Earth Alliance), was apparently a war between Indonesia and the United Islamic Nations (!?) and Australia and the South Asia Union (!?). In all honestly, it bears more resemblance to a game of Risk than actual geopolitics.

[Steve]

It's not always easy to prophesy future political events, the fluff-writers (and JMS if he helped) just sorta made stuff up as they went along.

[Beastro]

That and it was formed by the US, Britain, the Netherlands and other powers which teamed up and nuked France for singal handedly opposing them, which I always smile at reading.

Do you have a reference on that? All I found on the B5 wiki about France is that they tried to try Bester for War Crimes; nothing about getting nuked. WW3 (which apparently caused the formation of the Earth Alliance), was apparently a war between Indonesia and the United Islamic Nations (!?) and Australia and the South Asia Union (!?). In all honestly, it bears more resemblance to a game of Risk than actual geopolitics.

I tried double checking that as I made the post but I couldn't find it on any description of the Earth Alliance kicking about on the first page or so of searches.

It was around years ago when I last looked it up. What's weird to make is it seems that a lot of information about the EA has been culled on wiki's and used to have more of a background into Earth's history from right before WWIII to the Dilgar War. Could very well be it was made up by someone, but that information was around for a long while and was around in a few places, doesn't feel right to me.

As for how things go in the intermediate history of Earth, I think it's reflective of the fads of the 90s about the future where nations would follow the EU and blob up into aligned groups, then for dramatic reasons begin to fight.

Also within B5 is the idea that companies exert more power than nations with the latter being now largely a fiction in the control of the former.

It's not always easy to prophesy future political events, the fluff-writers (and JMS if he helped) just sorta made stuff up as they went along.

I like when a setting goes with a nearest point of departure and sticks with it rather than trying to continually shoe horn in later real history that is incongruous with the rest. Star Trek's divergence from real history began in the decade when it was made for the same reasons 1950s Sci-Fi set in the 70s and 80s looks nothing like those decades or anything beyond them. That is fine and should be embraced rather than worked around and shoe horned in.

It's a big reason why I dislike the "Future's End" episodes in Voyager for the absence of any sign of the Eugenics Wars. Yes, I know it's in an alternate timeline due to the time traveling and tech involved, but that ties into my point. They have episodes set in the 1990s that are very 90s, but manipulated the plot to create something more akin to our timeline side stepping one of the major events in Trek history.

To me, it would be like having another Trek series a few years from now go back to the early/mid 2020s and rewrite things to completely negate the era as shown in DS9s "Past Tense" episodes to make it more inline what 2024 really looks like. Now I don't like "Past Tense" all that much and find it a boring slog, but I appreciate the attempt to flesh out more of Trek's history the era between the Eugenics Wars and WWIII.

[TGLS]

It was around years ago when I last looked it up. What's weird to make is it seems that a lot of information about the EA has been culled on wiki's and used to have more of a background into Earth's history from right before WWIII to the Dilgar War. Could very well be it was made up by someone, but that information was around for a long while and was around in a few places, doesn't feel right to me.

On Wikipedia, the page on non-Euclidean Geometry once claimed that Professor Moriarty had a doctorate in non-Euclidean Geometry. This was totally unsourced, and it stayed up for some time, even finding it's way into books. I traced it back once to some abandoned fanfic. Somebody making it up and it ending up on a wiki, is plausible to me.

[Steve]

It's a big reason why I dislike the "Future's End" episodes in Voyager for the absence of any sign of the Eugenics Wars. Yes, I know it's in an alternate timeline due to the time traveling and tech involved, but that ties into my point. They have episodes set in the 1990s that are very 90s, but manipulated the plot to create something more akin to our timeline side stepping one of the major events in Trek history.

Heh. A novel duology was made out of this, actually, showing the Eugenics Wars as basically not a public war but a series of terrorist attacks and other actions between Khan and the other superhumans as they vie for power in the shadows, with Gary Seven and Roberta from "Assignment: Earth" as the protagonists trying to keep the conflict contained and stop Khan from conquering the world.