Villains Wiki

Hi. This is Thesecret1070. I am an admin of this site. Edit as much as you wish, but one little thing... If you are going to edit a lot, then make yourself a user and login. Other than that, enjoy Villains Wiki!!!

READ MORE

Villains Wiki
Advertisement

S...C...O...R...C...H...E...D...E...A...R...T...H...
~ Clark's last and vindictive message to the EarthAlliance.
"We need to create the world Luis Santiago would have wanted, for his children, my children and posterity. We will begin by focusing on the needs of our own people to sustain them through this difficult time and prepare them for the tasks ahead."
~ – EA President William Morgan Clark, January 1, 2259

William Morgan Clark, simply known as Morgan Clark, is the corrupted President of The Earth Alliance in the TV series Babylon 5. He appears as the secondary antagonist of the series from the first season's finale through the middle of the fourth season and was upgraded to main antagonist for the second half of the fourth season.

He was portrayed by Gary McGurk.

Biography[]

Early presidency[]

In the 2258 Earth Alliance Presidential election, Luis Santiago named Morgan Clark as his running mate. With Clark being on the ticket the Psi-Corps endorsed him as Vice President, violating their own charter by recommending a political candidate to members.

Working with Mr. Morden and the Shadows, Clark arranged for Santiago to be assassinated. Clark became president when Earthforce One, carrying President Santiago, was destroyed at the Io Transfer point on January 1, 2259. Clark believed Earth to be in danger of being overrun by extraterrestrial races, and so the Nightwatch, a fascist paramilitary organization, was created to find out people suspected to be alien infiltrators or sympathizers.

Earthforce's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General William Hague, suspected that Clark was involved in the assassination, and began a low-level counter-conspiracy that included Captain John Sheridan. In 2260, John Sheridan and General Hague 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. John Sheridan, realizing the implications of Clark having a Shadow vessel, took the White Star back to Ganymede to destroy the vessel and succeeded, but not before an inadequately prepared researcher bonding with it caused it to go berserk and destroy the research facility. Clark soon issued a decree of martial law using the Ganymede incident as an excuse.

Martial law[]

A rebellion by General Hague was dealt with, and Hague himself was killed in a firefight, forcing Major Ed Ryan to take command of the EAS Alexander. Many of the outer colonies and outposts, including Babylon 5, had to enact martial law, but Sheridan was able to stop enforcing it it when he realized Clark hadn't sent the order through the proper chain of command. Ryan in the Alexander and later Captain Sandra Hiroshi in the EAS Churchill sought refuge at Babylon 5, with Sheridan welcoming both despite knowing their presence put the station in danger. When Mars refused to ratify martial law, Clark responded by sending Starfuries to the planet for a bombing run.

Outraged at this mass murder of innocent civilians, Proxima III and Orion VII seceded from the Earth Alliance. In response, Clark shut down ISN and sent Earthforce fleets to Earth Alliance outposts to preempt any further secession, but this backfired in Babylon 5's case; shortly before the fleet being sent there arrived, Sheridan announced that he was joining the breakaway colonies in seceding from the Earth Alliance, both to protest President Clark's actions and to protect the station's civilians going forward. Babylon 5 repelled the first wave with the aid of the Alexander and Churchill, the latter being lost during the battle, and a second wave retreated when a Minbari fleet showed up to protect Babylon 5, securing Babylon 5's independence. ISN was later relaunched, but in name only as a propaganda machine staffed with Clark cronies; the real journalists had been imprisoned for sedition and disloyalty.

Clark mostly stayed quiet until the Shadows went beyond the Rim with the Vorlons, costing him a major source of support, from which point he steadily went crazier. He tried to blockade the station, which failed, and later sent a propagandist to produce an ISNINO pseudodocumentary misrepresenting life on Babylon 5. Realizing Clark may use lies to justify another attack on the station, Sheridan set up counterpropaganda stellarcast Voice of the Resistance to combat ISNINO's lies, partly using footage anonymously sent from Earthforce ships. This eventually led to VOR being sent a data crystal showing Earthforce ships blockading Proxima III on Clark's orders firing on civilian ships attempting to evacuate, prompting an enraged Sheridan to take the war to Clark directly.

Civil War[]

The civil war began in earnest when Sheridan brought a White Star fleet to Proxima III. The blockade ended when Sheridan defeated the Earthforce fleet, and he was able to convince them that the horrific and highly illegal orders they had received were not what they signed up for. Most ships defected to the Resistance, and the ships that didn't either remained neutral or stayed behind to protect Proxima III from reprisal. From that point on, the Resistance quickly gained ground, using tactics designed to force the enemy to surrender with as few casualties as possible and convince ships to defect. Desperate to not lose more ships, Clark told loyalist crews that the defecting crews had been murdered and replaced by Minbari, but Captain Edward MacDougan, a Proxima III defector, was able to disabuse at least one fleet of that notion.

Sheridan himself was eventually captured by his brainwashed former chief of security Michael Garibaldi. Sheridan was imprisoned and tortured, but was rescued by Garibaldi after Alfred Bester released Garibaldi from his programming. Following Sheridan's rescue he was returned to the fleet, which by this time had grown to include a large number of Earth Force ships fighting alongside him.

Additionally while Sheridan had been in captivity the League of Non-Aligned Worlds decided to give full support to Sheridan, and their member worlds sent a large number of their own vessels to join Sheridan's fleet as it approached the solar system.

Final Moments[]

Eventually, Sheridan took the fleet directly to Earth, and sent a message saying that they had come home to fight against Clark's tyranny. Finding out that the bulk of the fleet was now away from Earth and they now had reinforcements of their own a group of politicians and soldiers led by Senator Crosby proceeded to the President's office, and began trying to force the door open in order to place President Clark under arrest.

Seeing the door about to give way Clark realized that he would soon be captured, prosecuted and executed. Clark committed suicide with a PPG. In one last vindictive act, he turned the planetary defense grid back on to Earth under a "scorched earth" policy to bring Earth down with him. He left a note that had the line "The Ascension of the Ordinary Man" written on it over and over, with the letters making up "Scorched Earth" circled. Crosby was able to contact Sheridan and informed him that Clark was dead, but that he had turned the grid on to Earth. Crosby and her allies were unable to override the system. Sheridan and his forces, however, were able to destroy the defense platforms before they fired; Sheridan was prepared to ram the final platform (targeting North America's eastern seaboard) with his badly damaged ship, but the EAS Apollo (previously fighting against Sheridan) appeared to destroy the platform and save Sheridan's life.

In the absence of a trustworthy vice president, Senator Susanna Luchenko was appointed acting president, and under President Luchenko, a wide-reaching investigation was carried out into whether people who committed crimes on Clark's orders did so willingly or because of fear of reprisal. The imprisoned ISN journalists were released and the ISNINO Clark cronies dismissed from their jobs at best. In the immediate aftermath, Clark's corpse was simply draped over and had a placard reading "Traitor to Earth" hung round his neck. Sheridan resigned to protect the rest of the resistance from legal consequences and avoid normalizing the measures Clark forced him to resort to, but immediately after was given the role of President of the Interstellar Alliance, which Earth soon joined. Clark's ideology survived his reign of terror, but it's implied that the association with him was politically radioactive for at least a few decades.

Gallery[]

Advertisement