B5: Severed Dreams

[Trinary]

A Republic can also refer to any government run by a representative body, like the Roman Senate, the UK parliament, or the United States legislature.
Hereditary monarchs are not impossible in such a system, but I don't think the role of Emperor was strictly hereditary for the Centauri, otherwise Londo and Vir would have never been able to take the role....
The less restrictive the criteria are to serve and vote are the less "Republic" the government becomes and moves toward Representative Democracy, and then to limited Democracy, and then full democracy. The more restrictive the criteria become it moves toward (I forget this one, I think many would say Aristocracy), then Oligarchy, then Monarchy/Dictatorship...Keep in mind all of this is a spectrum.

That's not really accurate. The Centauri state IS a hereditary monarchy, it's just that one royal family died out and was replaced by a member of another noble house. That's actually pretty common. It's rather rare that one family will rule a country continuously throughout its entire history without being supplanted or replaced by another family for one reason or another. That's why the history of Egypt or the Byzantine Empire is broken up by the various dynasties (plural) that ruled it. Some only have one or two members in charge before they're replaced by another noble family. So having House Mollari take over for House Whatever doesn't change the Centauri from an imperial-style monarchy to some other form of government.

I'm afraid your definition of a republic is a bit off. The existence of the British parliament in no way makes Britain, or its constituent parts, a republic. It's very name is the "United Kingdom." You can question the united bit, but the kingdom aspect is undeniable. Republic doesn't mean any state that's democratic. It's true there are democratic states with monarchs and democratic republics, but that doesn't make a parliamentary democracy equivalent to a republic.

These are the formal definitions you get when you google the terms:

Republic "a state in which supreme power is held by the people and their elected representatives, and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch."

Monarchy "a form of government with a monarch at the head."

The definition of monarchy isn't altered by whether it's an Absolutist Monarchy where the king/queen rules unimpeded by law, or whether it's a titular figurehead acting as formal head-of-state while the real decisions are made by Parliament and a prime minister. A monarchy is still a monarchy by virtue of the fact that it has a hereditary head of a state, regardless of its democratic or non-democratic nature. Whether it's Saudi Arabia, Japan, Thailand, Morocco, Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, Brunei, Sweden--none of these countries refer to themselves as a republic, and for good reason. They're all kingdoms of one sort or another.

Likewise, a republic is a republic by virtue of the lack of a hereditary head of state. There are plenty of republics that are horrible dictatorships, but that doesn't transform them into monarchies. Pinochet's Chile was a thorough-going dictatorship, but he never claimed to be starting a dynasty, so it wasn't a monarchy. A dictatorial republic does not automatically transform itself into a monarchy. That can happen, but it isn't a guaranteed process.

Bashar Assad of Syria is the son of the last dictator, Hafez Assad, but Syria still calls itself a republic. Assad's rule is legitimized not by the fact that he is the scion of a hereditary ruling family (though in practice that's what it boils down to) but they claim that he is the 'elected' head of state. That is where he draws his formal 'legitimacy' from.

You can be a republic or a monarchy, but not both. It's a fundamental, counterposed definition. One rules the other out. Again, that says nothing about the democratic nature of the state. You can argue that the terms don't mean as much as they once did, or that the Kingdom of Britain has more in common with the French Republic than Britain does with the Kingdom of Morocco or France does with the People's Republic of Bangladesh. You can very well be right.

But the name of the state is important, it says something about what values the state nominally stands for and how it structures itself. The name can be a total lie and it frequently is. But that doesn't alter the fact that countries just don't willy-nilly adopt names for themselves. There's a reason why they do that and it'd be a mistake to overlook it--or to observe when the name doesn't match the reality.

[Madner Kami]

And Augustus was merely the Princeps (First Citizen) of the Roman Republic, just like all his descendants. Look, you can bring all the textbook definition of everything you want here, but they do not necessarily apply to reality (or a fictional reality). What people choose to call themselves or are chosen to be called by others, are quite different things than textbook definitions.

[Trinary]

And Augustus was merely the Princeps (First Citizen) of the Roman Republic, just like all his descendants. Look, you can bring all the textbook definition of everything you want here, but they do not necessarily apply to reality (or a fictional reality). What people choose to call themselves or are chosen to be called by others, are quite different things than textbook definitions.

That's the point. The point that the REALITY of what these states in Babylon 5 (or in the real world) say they are is DIFFERENT from what they CLAIM to be. That doesn't mean that the name itself is unimportant. It goes to show the hypocrisy of those governments and gives us insight into what they nominally value, versus what they really care about in practice. To just say "it doesn't matter, it's all the same anyway" deprives the one of that insight. If it genuinely doesn't matter, why do people make remarks, as they did in this very thread, about the irony and hypocrisy of states that have very long, democratic sounding names but are in reality dicatorships. If the names don't matter, why even bring that up? Why don't countries rename themselves more often, have Britain call itself a republic or the U.S. call itself a kingdom? It's because there is a reality to those terms, whether you recognize it or not.

[MadAmosMalone]

That begs the question, if B5's independence were to be a permanent thing, what kind of government would it eventually develop?

[Trinary]

That begs the question, if B5's independence were to be a permanent thing, what kind of government would it eventually develop?

That's a good one. Sheridan's rank was Earth Force Captain and his job role on B5 was described as Military-Governor. How that works when he breaks away from the Earth military ... hmm.

[MadAmosMalone]

They seemed to keep running the place like a military outpost even after their revolution. I assumed this was only temporary until after both the Shadow War and the Earth Alliance situations were dealt with. Had Clark stayed in power on Earth, what would they have done? For that matter, even if Clark had gone away like he had but "they" decided B5 should remain independent (who would make that call ultimately? Sheridan?) would they have setup a formal, more permanent type of government there?

[SlackerinDeNile]

That begs the question, if B5's independence were to be a permanent thing, what kind of government would it eventually develop?

That's a good one. Sheridan's rank was Earth Force Captain and his job role on B5 was described as Military-Governor. How that works when he breaks away from the Earth military ... hmm.

Given that Babylon 5 is an independent city state with limited resources due to its nature and location it would likely have to form an authoritarian communist government with some democratic principles. Any officers and important alien officials would be given the power to vote on important issues that affect both the station and other worlds, much like in their 'U.N.' meetings. Civilians that stayed behind to help run the station would likely be given the power to vote on some issues that affect themselves and the station. Rationing would have to take place to keep the food, water and oxygen levels relatively optimal, although everyone who currently lives on the station would have to live in the same quarters they had prior to independence, with some who didn't share before having to share now due to other aliens or Earth Force personnel that have had to move to the station to help the resistance.

In the episodes after this one we saw that business was still done on Babylon 5, apparently it was still an ideal spot for traders or people conducting meetings. Down below was still full of homeless and criminals, we never saw much of that other than the 'King Arthur' episode, the one where Doctor Franklin got stabbed and the propaganda episode in season four, so I'm not quite sure what was happening there unless I've forgotten something.

They seemed to keep running the place like a military outpost even after their revolution. I assumed this was only temporary until after both the Shadow War and the Earth Alliance situations were dealt with. Had Clark stayed in power on Earth, what would they have done? For that matter, even if Clark had gone away like he had but "they" decided B5 should remain independent (who would make that call ultimately? Sheridan?) would they have setup a formal, more permanent type of government there?

I assume it was temporary as well seeing as both Clarke and the Shadow threat were dealt with in about a year or so.
I believe the entire 'B5 council' including Delenn would be the ones to make that call.

[Trinary]

B5 would have a lot of trouble operating as a real independent in the long term. It's a port of call, so people are always coming and going. So having democratic elections would be difficult, to say the least. Most of the people who stay on B5 long term are shopowners or merchants, the "lurkers," the military staff who run the place, and people attached to the various ambassadors. I gather that some other people live on Babylon 5 on a longer-term basis, but it's hard to tell for sure what the turnover rate is.

Even if the bulk of B5's population are there for the longterm, B5 requires a lot of technical know-how in order to operate. So would their be elections for chief engineer? For the judges? That doesn't seem terribly likely, especially given the variety of races on B5 and the conflicting legal systems they would all bring to the table.

I imagine if Clark wasn't overthrown, the station would continue to be run by Sheridan and other ex-Earth Force personnel, if only out of inertia, while becoming more and more reliant on other powers for supplies to keep the place running.

[Antiboyscout]

So it's a rogue Military Junta propped up by outside powers.

I am mostly ignorant about B5 so I'm wondering, does B5 have any self-sustaining functions? Does it have any greenhouses to produce food? Does it have any light industry? I imagine the merchants pay rent or are taxed (electricity isn't free), do they have docking fees or other taxes? Do they have ship repair facilities that they can charge services for? Do they run commercials on the news broadcasts? What fuels the generators? Do they require constant refueling? Can they produce solar power?

maybe it's time to get those homeless "lurkers" to work, clean up those lower decks, and set up some fabricators.

[SlackerinDeNile]

So it's a rogue Military Junta propped up by outside powers.

I am mostly ignorant about B5 so I'm wondering, does B5 have any self-sustaining functions? Does it have any greenhouses to produce food? Does it have any light industry? I imagine the merchants pay rent or are taxed (electricity isn't free), do they have docking fees or other taxes? Do they have ship repair facilities that they can charge services for? Do they run commercials on the news broadcasts? What fuels the generators? Do they require constant refueling? Can they produce solar power?

maybe it's time to get those homeless "lurkers" to work, clean up those lower decks, and set up some fabricators.

It does have greenhouses and artificial crop-fields, they aren't very well detailed due to the primitive CGI but you can see large patches of green on the internal cylindrical structure that they show every episode.
Merchants are presumably taxed and I would imagine the powers that have ambassadors there pay something towards the running of the station. The generators are futuristic fusion ones and the station does have solar power capabilities according to JMS.