Characters / Babylon Five Earth Alliance

This is a listing for characters associated with the Earth Alliance that appear in the Science Fiction series Babylon 5. Visit here for the main character index.

The Earth Alliance

Humans in general

Everywhere humans go, they create communities.

• The Determinator: The Human-Minbari War is filled with this. Despite the technological disadvantage and many Curb Stomp Battles, the human race fought tooth and nail against the Minbari. As Londo said when describing their efforts to others:
  Londo Mollari: The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones and then throw themselves without fear or hesitation at the very face of death itself. Never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage…their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope, that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes at the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage. But in the end…they ran out of time.
  • Do Not Go Gentle: During Londo's narration above we are shown examples of how hard they fought back, including a Starfury chasing and shooting down a Minbari fighter just as two or three other Minbari were shooting at it from behind, a Nova-class dreadnought ramming a Minbari warcruiser in spite of being shot by the same warcruiser at least three times before the contact, and a unarmed human fighting a knife-wielding Minbari warrior, punching it after being downed and still trying to stand up and fight after being knifed in the heart.
  • Also the reason Sinclair gives Delenn when she asks "Why Babylon 5?"
  Sinclair: Because when something we love is destroyed, we rebuild it. Again and again and again, until it stays.
• Deus ex Nukina: Lampshaded in one of the novels, where it is stated that while the humans lag behind in many other areas, their nuclear weapons are quite capable, provided they can get one close enough to an enemy they would otherwise be unable to defeat conventionally.
  • This is exactly how Sheridan was able to destroy the Black Star in Earth's only real victory in the Earth/Minbari War.
  • It's joked that while Narn and Centauri have their Cool Sword(s), and Minbari have their not-so-simple-staff, the human National Weapon is nuclear warheads.
• Fantastic Racism: Humanity has a number of issues here.
  • Paranoia about telepathy is so extreme that any human confirmed to have telepathic abilities is basically stripped of all their civil rights and given three choices: go to prison for the rest of their lives, receive regular injections of telepathy-suppressing drugs that cause Major Depression over the long term or join the Psi-Corps, which amounts to a form of slavery.
  • Humanity's penchant for "building communities" is something of an informed attribute. Babylon Five is a unique example of a multi-species community built by humans. Otherwise, aliens are not shown as having a significant presence on human colonies. Hostility towards the idea of "alien influences" corrupting humanity formed a large part of President Clark's public appeal despite his otherwise glaringly unconstitutional actions. It's more that humans are the only race where even a few bother to try.
• The Government: Earthgov proves to have surprisingly open-ended powers, largely because it has the backing of Earthforce and the Psi-Corps.
• Government Conspiracy: Too many over the course of the show to list.
  • Oh heck, even the staff of Babylon 5 is a heroic Government Conspiracy.
• Head-in-the-Sand Management: Pervasive in Earthforce, where many military commanders ignored the fact that Clark's actions (especially dissolving the Senate) were unconstitutional and simply carried on with following his orders. Since he was secretly in league with the Shadows, this meant not joining the rest of the Younger Races in the fight against them.
• Humans Advance Swiftly: Subverted: their advanced technology was almost completely obtained from alien sources, with the Human parts being either the way they use it or later improvement after they finally understand how it works.
• Humans Are Diplomats: The whole purpose of Babylon 5 is to solve interstellar disputes diplomatically. It failed.
• Humans Are Special
  • Debatable; while lots of awesomeness is done by individual humans, humans as a group come off poorly at times.
  • More like Humans Build Communities. Delenn even notes how any species could have made B5 but allowed only their own kind inside and maybe a few others, while humans would let anyone in and form bonds with them in one form or another. This is what makes President Clark's human supremacism so ironic; he rejected humanity's greatest virtue and, in forcing B5 to secede, cost the Earth Alliance representation on its greatest achievement.
  • Most cases of this trope are specifically from alien viewpoints; Delenn seems especially prone to this view. And Londo admired humans' Determinator tendencies even in the face of a Hopeless War.
• Imported Alien Phlebotinum: The majority of Human technology originally came from alien sources: jump technology and its support technologies, tachion relays, and energy weapons and high-powered spaceship thrusters were sold by the Centauri as a backfired attempt of their usual attempt at establishing a technological and economical stranglehold (Earth Alliance already had the latter two, but the Centauri provided more advanced ones); pulse weapons are an offshoot of captured Dilgar technology, and in-story current thrusters and armour come from the same source; during the Earth-Minbari War they bought weapons from the Narn Regime (who themselves reverse-engineered most of them from captured Centauri tech), and were given the heavy particle cannon technology by the Drazi (who were unable to help in person); later, the Minbari explained them how to make Artificial Gravity when Earth agreed to join the ISA, completing Earth's own attempts at reverse-engineering it from gravity generators scavenged during the Dilgar War, and Earth's use of neutron weapons in the Crusade era most likely comes from Minbari neutron weapons scavenged from the battlefield during the Earth-Minbari War (as the Minbari are the only ones to use them); even Earth's famed Interceptors, capable of shoot enemy fire from the sky and wipe out enemy fighters, comes from devices scavenged on an abandoned alien starship (mixed with Centauri-derived particle weapons and a similar but grossly inferior Human technology). Earthforce was absolutely obsessed with obtaining alien technology for study and reverse-engineering, even going so far as to muck around with Shadow tech probably best left alone. Interstellar Expeditions is a MegaCorp whose major business is exploring alien planets looking for technology that can be salvaged and studied. Most of the human race's rapid advancement is based on the fact that there are lots of races more advanced than them and from whom they can obtain technology that would normally take them centuries to develop on their own.
• I Reject Your Reality: Under Clark, the solution to problems like homelessness, crime, and poverty basically consists of blaming it on the mentally unstable and pretending those issues aren't issues at all.
  Matsune: You understand that sometimes before you can deal with a problem you have to redefine it.
  Sheridan: But you can't deal with the problems by pretending they don't exist.
  Matsune: There's no need to embarrass our leaders by pointing out the flaws in our society that they're aware of and dealing with in their own way.
• Most Viewers Are Human: The chief role of humans often seems to be to provide someone to identify with.
• Mutant Draft Board: Psi Corps.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Especially by Minbari. And yet some among the Minbari admire them.
• Point Defenseless: Averted: their Interceptors are capable of easily swatting down entire swarms of attacking fighters and casually shoot down enemy fire. Still, they can be overwhelmed by sheer weight of fire (like an attack from multiple warships or a single Centauri battlecruiser), and Minbari weapons pass through the gauntlet with ease.
• Secret Police / State Sec: Night Watch. Also elements of the Psi Cops.
• Space Navy: EarthForce Naval; most of the main characters are EFN (as opposed to the EarthForce Marine Corps seen in "GROPOS," and the likely EarthForce Corps of Engineers officers in "Babylon Squared").
• United Space of America: There are still individual nations and the Earth Government is based in Geneva, Switzerland.... yet most of the Earthers we see in the series are American.
  • More to the point, culture and political organization seem geared to be familiar to an American viewer—and of the core cast, only Sheridan and Franklin are reasonably clearly understood to be American, with Garibaldi being borderline. Ivanova is Russian (her American accent is handwaved by her having attended boarding school in the US) Sinclair and Garibaldi are Martian: Garibaldi is definitely of Italian-American ancestry (he appears to have been born in NYC and his grandma was a Boston cop), but he considers Mars his home, while Sinclair is ethnically British (his ancestors were pilots in the Battle of Britain) and was born on Mars. Marcus is of course from some mining colony and of English descent.
  • According to side material, Earth Alliance was originally an American idea, a post-World War III attempt to replace the United Nations with something more effective that could actually intervene with military force, even flat-out donating the US military as the initial core of what would become EarthForce. As a result of this, when Earth Alliance was finalized much of its political structure was influenced by the (former) United States of America.
• The War of Earthly Aggression: The coup by Clark and the rebellion that followed.
• You Shall Not Pass!: The Battle Of The Line, a Crowning Moment of Awesome, Heartwarming, and Sacrifice. Especially after this scene with the President's Final Speech.
  • Subverted, as well. The Minbari casually wiped out most of the defenders effortlessly, then proceeded to surrender without explanation. It had the effect of making many Earthers feel that The Line was a Senseless Sacrifice.

Babylon 5

John J. Sheridan

For justice, for peace, for the future... we have come home!

Played by: Bruce Boxleitner

Sinclair's replacement as Commander of Babylon 5. Sheridan is a war hero famous for being the only human to have destroyed a Minbari ship during the Earth-Minbari War. He's staunchly moral and a generally amicable man, albeit somewhat more militaristic than his predecessor and far more unwilling to tolerate dissent.

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• 2 + Torture = 5: Averted, thanks to a combo of Heroic Willpower and being Touched by Vorlons.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Typically a jovial guy who always has a smile on his face, but the times when he loses it are scary.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Downplayed. Sheridan is a genuinely nice guy, but his amiable personality belies a nasty ruthless streak and he's unwilling to tolerate the slightest bit of dissent. He's always willing to listen to his subordinates' suggestions, but he'll come down on you hard if he thinks his authority is being challenged.
• The Butcher: The Minbari call him "Starkiller," for his hand in the destruction of the Black Star, using what they considered underhanded tactics. In the third season finale, he earns that nickname twice over, destroying the White Star by loading it up with nukes and having it dive into the Shadows' capital city.
• Came Back Strong: After he returns from being missing in action, he is more enigmatic and no-nonsense.
• The Captain: Command of Babylon 5 is considered the equivalent of a deepspace starship command. In later seasons he's a literal captain as well, as he takes command of the White Star. He graduates to Four-Star Badass when he takes command of an entire fleet of White Star class ships.
• Catchphrase: "My father told me: Never start a fight. But always finish it."
• The Chessmaster: he's acknowledged in-universe to be one of the finest tactical minds of his generation, and it's no Informed Attribute. He's almost always one step ahead - if not more.
• The Chosen One: The One Who Will Be.
• Combat Pragmatist: He's not above using tactics that could be considered underhanded if it gives him an edge against an otherwise vastly superior enemy. Examples include mining asteroid belts with nukes (twice), using a distress signal to lure a ship onto aforementioned nukes, ordering the crew of a White Star to fall on their sword so that the enemy will not realise the intelligence they capture in the process is a plant, and using telepaths mutilated by the Shadows as living weapons to jam enemy warships' computer systems.
• Con Man: He has no compunctions about tricking his enemies into doing what he wants them to do. The Kansas City Shuffle seems to be his particular specialty, as he's seen pulling at least two: first to get rid of the Nightwatch, and later to trick the League of Non-Aligned Worlds.
• Contrasting Sequel Protagonist: To Sinclair. Sinclair was a reserved Shell-Shocked Veteran that was blatantly distrusted by his government for his capture and release by the Minbari, and by contrast was generally trusted by the Minbari. Sheridan is a decorated war hero who seems to have moved past his trauma and is despised by the Minbari for his actions during the war. Their approaches to the job also differed; Sinclair was more of a diplomat, whereas Sheridan was more militaristic.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: His destruction of the Black Star was the only real victory Earth ever had in the entire Earth-Minbari War.
• Deadpan Snarker: Though a far cry from Garibaldi, he has his moments. In one notable case, he's talking to Ivanova before attending to an unsavory task. When Ivanova asks if there's anything he needs, he responds "A glass of whiskey, a gun, and two bullets."
• Defensive Feint Trap: Once with the Black Star, and more then once later including the first kill of a Shadow vessel. Garibaldi actually states this as one of Sheridan's talents. "He can take an inferior defensive force and turn it into a superior offensive force."
• Deus ex Nukina: When All You Have Is a Hammer…... He uses nuclear warheads to deal with superior enemies on no fewer than four occasions. You'd think his enemies would have picked up on that by now... except that he never deploys his warheads using the same strategy twice.
  • First he mined an asteroid field and lured a more powerful opponent into the kill zone with a distress signal, which falls just short of a full-on case of Playing Possum due to the ship actually being damaged and in distress. The nuclear minefield attack wasn't even the objective either, it was a contingency in case the Minbari warship found them first.
    • This apparently makes him unpopular with said opponents after the war; never mind that destroying a presumably helpless enemy ship is just as (if not more) despicable an action, on top of the general practice of the Minbari showing no mercy or quarter to not just military but civilian targets during the war.
  • Later he fitted a small ship with a pair of warheads and programmed it to crash into an enemy city as an improvised cruise missile.
  • On the third occasion, he once again mined an asteroid field, but baited his enemies into the kill zone with false intel regarding a new major base (this one is actually quite a bit more complicated than that, as he had to lure two separate and mutually-hostile enemies into the mine field at the same time).
  • Finally he gave up all pretense of subtlety and took a nuke and a space suit and attached it to the target himself in the midst of a heated space battle. Even he had to admit that this last plan was a little nuts.
• Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: In the Into the Fire episode of Season 4, Sheridan tells both the Vorlons and the Shadows to "get the hell out of our galaxy". And they obeyed. Granted, Sheridan had Lorien on his side, but the Vorlons and the Shadows were under no obligation to obey him either.
• Dork Knight: A relatively cheerful, heroic Boy Scout...who will nuke your ass if you cross him and go right back to cracking dad jokes.
• The Fettered: He will do the right thing, even if it means going to war against his own people.
• The Good Captain
• Heroic Sacrifice: His trip to Z'ha'dum, which he knew was "almost certainly a trap", in a mistaken belief that this might avert some of the tragic events revealed to him when he became Unstuck in Time in the future in "War Without End". And then bringing the nukes down on the Shadow seat of power, and himself.
• Hero with Bad Publicity: Dan Randall, the pro-Clark journalist, portrayed Sheridan as negatively as he could in order for Clark to excuse military action against Babylon 5. Randall portrayed Sheridan's helping of aliens and humans as an attempt to conduct medical experiments to create hybrid aliens; being subject to alien influences; and arming an alien invasion fleet in order to "make them understand" (a prime example of quote mining from Randall).
  • 100 and 500 years later, Sheridan is once again subject to this.
• Hypocrite: In protest of Clark's declaration of martial law on Earth, he secedes and declares independence. However, he declines to form any sort of new governing body for the station and retains ultimate authority over every aspect of its government, making him essentially a military dictator. This is brought up to him a couple of times by people who don't like him. However, considering he was a Military Governor who was upholding the Constitution of the Earth Alliance and B5 is a military base, it is not hypocritical for him to maintain the original concept of the station intact. He is not giving the station over to the alien governments who use it. Once the reasons for the declaration were removed from power, it is likely he would have returned into the Earth Alliance, or then made changes to the governing body of the station. The colonies only made a new government once there was no hope in Earthdome agreeing to their demands. There always remained the chance for Clark to be removed from power.
  • It crops up again when he becomes President of the Alliance. The Rangers and White Star Fleet are loyal to him (or his wife) personally, rather than to the Alliance itself; in a way that Clark could only have dreamed of. Luckily he's a really nice guy and doesn't abuse this.
  • While Sheridan was happy to exploit the tactical advantages provided by telepaths, especially Lyta Alexander, he never showed a serious interest in helping them, or doing something about the corruption in Psi-Corps (still run by Shadow and Clark allies even after the Earth Civil War). This would eventually escalate to the Telepath War. Even though he had, via the ISA, the means to at least get human telepaths out of Earth-ruled space and to safer planets. In particular he treated Lyta as a tool, to be called upon when needed and then just as quickly dismissed, and did not give her any formal role in his new government nor help her personally despite the many times she helped save his life. This actually extended to pretty much all telepaths; despite the aid of countless volunteer telepaths in the Shadow War, he chooses to use dozens of Shadow-modified telepaths as suicide bombers to non-lethally neutralize a fleet of ships in the penultimate battle of the Earth Alliance Civil War - ships that had repeatedly bombed civilian targets, slaughtered fleeing refugees, and were enforcing a starvation blockade on Mars.
    • This actually ends up saving his ass during the final battle for Earth; Clark's final act before shooting himself in the head is to turn Earth's orbital defenses on the planet itself, and Sheridan begins a Suicide Attack to keep one from firing on Earth's most populated area... then one of the enemy ships he thus spared shows up Just in Time to destroy the satellite.
  • For a guy who leads a rebellion against a corrupt authority, he gets really petty when his own authority is questioned. He gives Garibaldi all kinds of crap for criticizing him after quitting his staff. When Lyta decides not to let Bester pick through Zha'Ha'Dum for tech to save his blip lover, he threatens to turn her over to Psi Corps. When a bunch of rogue telepaths challenge the Alliance's un-rewarded use of telepaths in the Shadow Wars, he actually does call the Psi Corps and give them free reign to hunt them down — and most of them die in the ensuing struggle. When Lyta puts her foot down and says she's not going to submit to continued second-class treatment, he puts a gun to her head. Sheridan will strap a nuke to his chest and carry out suicide bombings for his allies — but if you disrespect his authority he will make your life a living hell.
• In-Series Nickname:
  • "Swamp rat".
  • Among the Minbari, Sheridan is known as "Starkiller" for his famous defeat of their flagship, the Drala Fi ("Black Star" in English). The name becomes a Multiple Reference Pun after he also causes the destruction of The White Star.
• The Kirk: He will (usually) consider all sides of a problem before taking action, and generally bases his decisions on a mix of reason and emotion. On occasion, though, he throws all that out the airlock, and acts in ways that are shockingly direct and/or incredibly reckless.
• Lethal Chef: Delenn can't seem to add enough salt to Sheridan's flarn to make it edible.
  • Source material indicates that the Minbari have a poor sense of taste, and make their food very spicy as a result. Sheridan possibly made it to suit his personal taste, unaware it'd taste like cardboard to Delenn.
• Like Brother and Sister: With Ivanova. They'd walk through fire for each other, but their relationship is purely platonic.
• Messianic Archetype: Which gets him a What the Hell, Hero? from Garibaldi, who was brainwashed to have his paranoia and distrust of authority enhanced by Mr. Bester.
• Military Maverick: Subverted. His appointment to Babylon 5 was approved by Clark's government because all the available evidence indicated that he was not a Military Maverick, but rather a staunch loyalist. Unfortunately for them, he was staunchly loyal to the Earth Alliance Constitution, as opposed to being loyal to the government that was failing to follow that Constitution.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: This is part of Sheridan's Character Arc, letting go of his late wife, Anna, who died while on an archaeological expedition to a distant world, Z'Ha'Dum. It comes up several times over the series, but despite a growing relationship with Ambassador Delenn, he isn't able to fully let go if it until Anna comes back from Z'Ha'Dum, but not really, trying to get him to come to hear the Shadows' side. He takes her up on it, secretly bringing along a pair of thermonuclear devices, and uses them to destroy a Shadow city and Anna along with it. After that, he is finally able to truly let her go.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: He adheres to the second part of the quote: "if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."
• Nice Guy: While not entirely without his flaws and having a "my way or the high way" attitude, Sheridan is for the most part as nice as it gets. He's friendly, humble, cheerful, approachable, and generally a Reasonable Authority Figure.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Called out on this by several other characters, most notably Londo in a Bad Future. Sheridan has a really bad habit of letting new problems keep him from following up on existing ones.
  • While he did indeed liberate Earth from President Clark, many of Clark's political allies remained in positions of power throughout the Earth Alliance; they permit a fairly competent assassin to take a shot at him at his inauguration, do a lot of Bothering by the Book over their newly-freed colonies, and a couple hundred years later start a war that knocks Earth back to the "A Canticle for Leibowitz"-level of civilization.
  • Sheridan openly calls out Bester on his obvious plans to start a war between mundanes and telepaths. He does virtually nothing to prevent it however. Just the opposite in fact. Removal or restructuring of Psi Corps is not one of his post-civil war demands of Earthgov, which leaves evil Psi Cops like Bester in charge. At the same time, Sheridan seems determined to be a hindrance to the Telepath Resistance, offering them no support once he no longer needs them to help fight the Shadows. He likewise basically cuts Lyta loose, forcing her to make deals with Bester, Garibaldi and G'kar to both support herself and the resistance.
    • To be fair, after the end of the Earth Civil War, he wasn't exactly in a position to demand the dismantling of the Psi Corps.
  • The Drakh nearly kill Delenn, and there was strong evidence that they were behind both the sudden resurgence in Centauri aggression, as well as the "Keeper" that was used to control Captain Jack of the Mars Resistance. Sheridan himself actually witnessed them fleeing Za'ha'dum right before it self-destructed. But despite all of this he does not seem to make them a major priority, at least until they attempt a direct attack on Earth with a Shadow planet killer, and even then he had to be drawn into action by Galen.
• Noodle Incident: Two come up in the same episode. He refuses to explain how he got the nickname Swamp Rat, and the threat of an embarrassing story is enough to stop him from revealing one about another character.
• Nose Art: His personal Starfury has a full-wing Eagle paintjob. In the fourth season, he had the Babylon 5 emblem painted on the hull of his flagship during The Earth Alliance Civil War.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: In "Lines of Communication" Sheridan walks in on Ivanova in her nightgown and just starts talking, ignoring her dress. She even has to note she needs to get dressed before they leave and he reacts with as much interest as someone saying "Okay, just let me turn off this light." Ivanova is perturbed (and a bit insulted — what is she, chopped flarn?) by this.
  • When Babylon 5 gets a new (and very pretty) political officer, who tries to "help" Sheridan get used to her "position" "under him," his only comment is that it must be colder in his quarters than he thought.
• Pals with Jesus: To Kosh.
• The Plan
• Playing Possum
• The Power of Love: Allows him to defy death because he loves Delenn that much. Damn the Shadows, he's going to be with the woman he loves and nothing is going to stand in his way. Not even the entire universe.
• Psychic Dreams for Everyone
• Punctuated Pounding
• Rage Against the Mentor: He finally snaps at Kosh for forcing him into fighting a war against an inscrutable and horrifyingly powerful enemy, but refusing to provide any direct help in ignorance of the rules of engagement that existed between the Vorlon and the Shadows that prevented such confrontations. Eventually he manages to cajole the reluctant Kosh into providing a much-needed victory to consolidate the alliance they're trying to build again ignorant that the true cost of it would be Kosh's life, and the reason Kosh had been so resistant was he was afraid to die
• Red Baron: Sheridan was this to the Minbari, being the only Earthforce commander to destroy a Minbari capital ship.
• Screw Earthgov, I'm Doing Whats Right: Though, from his point of view, he was trying to enforce the rules of the EarthGov Constitution. President Clark broke the rules first.
• Relationship Upgrade: With Delenn. A relationship built on mutual respect, trust, and shared interests, that had its ups and downs but was a lifelong love match on both sides? What a novelty!
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Despite his many positive qualities, he can also be a touch petty at times. At one point, he is ordered to pay rent on his quarters or move out. He pulls money from the station's military readiness budget to pay the rent, claiming that the station's readiness depends on him getting a good night's sleep.
• See You in Hell
  • Which doubles as Screw You, Elves!.
• Stay with the Aliens
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To be fair, his similarity was in role rather than in personality. Sinclair was a very quiet, reserved, diplomatic type, whereas Sheridan is more of a soldier with a rather more extroverted personality. You can think of him as being the Kirk to Sinclair's Picard.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Orders Ivanova to put one out on the Voice of the Resistance as part of a gambit to get a number of alien worlds to accept patrols by the White Star Fleet in their territory. The denial was actually true, there really as nothing of note going on in the sector Ivanova mentions in her broadcast, but deliberately denying it makes the others think that somebody is trying to hide something from them
• Take a Third Option
• Take Five: Averted and Played Straight, depending on the circumstances.
• Taking You with Me: His plan to strike the Shadows a critical blow at Z'Ha'Dum involved crashing a White Star full of nukes on his own location.
• Talking the Monster to Death: How he and Delenn ultimately ends the Shadow War
  Sheridan: Good morning Gentlemen, it's time for your wakeup call!
• To Be Lawful or Good: Lawful. Always. It's why President Clark recommended him to command Babylon 5. However, Clark failed to notice that changing the laws before his eyes does not impress him. Sheridan's entire stance during the Earth Alliance Civil War is that Clark is the one breaking the law, and he hammers home the very accurate point that following an illegal order is itself illegal.
  • This starts to bite him in the ass afterwards, as he really doesn't see the Psi-Corps as "unlawful" - just corrupted. Thus, he and his new government drop the ball repeatedly over the next five years, only intervening on the side of the telepath resistance when the Corps makes a Card-Carrying Villain attempt to conquer the Earth Alliance.
• Touched by Vorlons: And by Lorien
• Trademark Favorite Food: Loves his fresh fruits and veggies, especially oranges. When he first arrived on B5, he was practically squeeing over the existence of the hydroponic gardens.
• Ultimate Authority Mayor: Justified, as he is the military governor of Babylon 5 and really does have absolute authority over the station^note While the station functions as a neutral meeting place between the major powers, as well as an interstellar commerce hub, it is still first and foremost an Earth Alliance space station operated by EarthForce, within the limits of his own orders. Also deconstructed, as we see that this leaves him with a lot more on his plate than he ever had to deal with as a starship commander, requiring him to adopt a more hands-off leadership style.
• Undercover Cop Reveal: Later revealed to have been planted on Babylon 5 to investigate the conspiracy around President Santiago's death.
• Unstuck in Time
• We Will All Be History Buffs in the Future
  • Lampshaded in the fifth season, where an assassin taunting Sheridan says that he understands Sheridan is "a bit of a history buff." His primary areas of interest seem to be The American Civil War and World War II.
    • Being interested in the Civil War makes sense, given that according to supplemental material, he's a descendant of Civil War General Phillip Sheridan.
• Working with the Ex: With Lochley in Season 5.
• Your Days Are Numbered: When Lorien brings him back from the dead after he goes to Z'ha'dum, there's a time limit of a couple of decades on how long he can likely live after that, meaning he's probably expected to live into his late fifties or early sixties at best. When that time comes he goes beyond the rim instead, though what literally happens next is up for debate.

Jeffrey David Sinclair

Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes... All of this... All of this... Was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.

Played by: Michael O'Hare

The original Commander of Babylon 5. A Military Brat and former fighter pilot who served in the Mibari War, Sinclair's career stalled after he was captured and mysteriously let go by the Minbari during the Battle of the Line shortly before the war ended. He suffers from memory loss preventing him from recalling what exactly happened during his capture and spends much of the first season searching for answers. He's eventually transferred to Minbar to serve as an ambassador and is replaced by Sheridan.

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• Ace Pilot: Though he doesn't get to show it very often, due to his job (Ivanova and Garibaldi are both far more likely to mix it up in dogfights) he is the latest in a long family tradition of fighter pilots. During the Battle of the Line, he was able to take down a Minbari fighter despite the signficiant technological and numerical advantage they had (in return for that one fighter, his entire squadron was wiped out).
• Alien Abduction: Was captured and held captive for 24 hours by the Minbari during the Battle of the Line, and the Minbari mysteriously surrendered shortly afterwards. The reason was that during their study of Sinclair they discovered that he had a "Minbari soul", and that, pondering how many other humans have this trait, the Minbari had been wantonly violating one of their most sacrosanct laws against killing their own kind. Already having grown weary of the war, the Minbari completely lost all will to continue fighting.
• All There in the Manual: The canon novel To Dream in the City of Sorrows ties up Sinclair's storyline (and his romance with Catherine Sakai) where the show simply didn't have room to.
• Badass Normal: Manged to defeat Neroon in hand-to-hand combat despite being jumped in a dark room. At the time it didn't seem too impressive but as the series went on and we saw how capable Neroon was, as well as how much stronger than humans Minbari are, it's become quite an impressive achievement.
• Bothering by the Book/Exact Words: Displayed an uncommon ability to use Earth gov's Exact Words to accomplish exactly the opposite of what they wanted him to.
• Brainwashed: But only enough to wipe out his memory of the missing 24 hours.
• The Captain: Technically a commander in rank, but follows the role.
• The Chosen One: The Minbari religion is formed around a set of three individuals: the One Who Was, the One Who Is, and the One Who Will Be. Sinclair becomes the One Who Was when he travels back in time to become Valen.
• Decoy Protagonist: An unintentional example. Sinclair was intended to serve as the protagonist and did for the first season, but Michael O'Hare's mental health problems led to Sinclair being Put on a Bus and replaced by Sheridan.
• Dull Surprise: Michael O'Hare is often accused of it; he was a stage actor who never quite got comfortable working in front of cameras, and it shows.
• He Knows Too Much: Delenn had orders to take appropriate action if he showed signs of remembering.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Travelling back in time to become Valen, basically leaving Humanity and all that was familiar to him for an alien society in a different age, with no reasonable hope of ever returning to it. Plus (Fridge Logic perhaps) he had to live the rest of his life very carefully following what history had laid out about Valen, lest he disrupt the Stable Time Loop.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Sinclair is played as a man suffering from severe mental issues, to the point that he sometimes doesn't know what's real and what isn't. Actor Michael O'Hare, who played Sinclair, left the show because he had developed a late-onset form of schizophrenia that affected his mind in much the same way as PTSD affected Sinclair. In other words, O'Hare was a mentally ill actor trying to keep himself together so he could play a mentally ill character.
• Heroic Spirit: When he becomes Ranger One in the novel To Dream in the City of Sorrows, the Warrior Caste, being jerks as usual, insist on him following the traditions of the investment ceremony no matter how uncomfortable, but Sinclair persists. This includes having to imbibe a liquid that's poisonous to humans, which lays him up in bed for several days.
• In Harm's Way: Puts himself in a lot of dangerous positions he really has no reason to. It's hinted it's his Survivor Guilt speaking, and Garibaldi eventually calls him out on it mid-season 1. In "A Voice in the Wilderness", Delenn doesn't loop him in about her going down to Epsilon 3 with Draal because she knows Sinclair would sacrifice himself by becoming the new caretaker of the Great Machine.
• I Shall Taunt You: A few times, he'll resort to taunting his opponent to keep them off balance.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: "There is a hole in your mind". His inability to account for a 24 hour block of time during and after the Battle of the Line effectively ended his career advancement, due to (unprovable) suspicions that he had cut a deal with the Minbari, or that he had been reprogrammed as a Manchurian Agent by them.
• Liberator From the Future: He goes back in time to become this for the Minbari.
• Love Transcends Spacetime: Implied to be what allows Catherine Sakai to find him in the past.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: He is Delenn's great-great-great-[great*n]-grandfather.
• The Masochism Tango: His relationship with Catherine Sakai consisted of years of on-again, off-again, have-sex-then-one-of-them-leaves frustration before they decided to have a go at things for real.
• Messianic Archetype: During his time on the station and on Minbar, Sinclair develops from a PTSD-wracked Shell-Shocked Veteran to a skilled, thoughtful, highly philosophical Warrior Monk. Having learned how to be a religious leader, he then goes back in time to become the Minbari Christ-figure "Valen."
• Military Brat: Fourth generation military. Knight #2 states it was smart money he'd make Admiral on his pedigree alone; but then along came The Line.
  • Sinclair proudly states at one point that his family has been fighter pilots since the Battle of Britain.
• Perpetual Frowner: Everything is seriousness business with Sinclair. It sets off alarm bells right away when a shapeshifter takes his form in "Gathering": he blows up the wide-angle lens with a toothy, creepy grin.
• Put on a Bus: An interstellar bus to Minbar.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: The character of Sinclair was Put on a Bus to Minbar because actor Michael O'Hare was suffering from severe mental illness and could not continue on the series.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Sinclair is always in command, but he never lets it go to his head. He always looks for a nonviolent solution before resorting to violence. And he always tries to do what's right, rather than what's easy or expedient.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Due to his (repeated) tendency to speak his mind when not appropriate, his back story contains this. A lot. His promotion to the head of Babylon 5 came as a surprise to pretty much everyone at Earthforce (including him, given the huge list of people who were ahead of him), but they accepted it because the Minbari were part contributors to the station and got a provision that they had say in who got in. So his assignment to Babylon 5 is a large aversion, though his history is not.
  • He states in one episode that after speaking frankly in an interview with a reporter, he got assigned a post so remote that "you couldn't find it with a hunting dog and a Ouija Board."
• Rules Lawyer: His primary tactic in dealing with interference from EarthGov and with problems generally. He frequently uses both human and alien laws and rituals to defuse conflicts/get what he wants.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Sinclair never quite breaks the letter of the rules, but he won't hesitate to violate their spirit in order to accomplish what he believes is right.
• The Seer: As Valen. Time travel helps at this.
• Shell-Shocked Veteran: His experience as a survivor of the Battle of the Line is one of his main character points.
• Stable Time Loop: As he is both the Human Sinclair and the Minbari Valen, he is the keystone of the loop that connects the Minbari present to their past.
• Survivor Guilt: His entire squadron was wiped out at the Battle of the Line except for him. To make things worse, he has no memory of how he survived.
• Take a Third Option: His default solution for practically everything.
• Teacher/Student Romance: The canon novel To Dream in the City of Sorrows reveals that he met Catherine Sakai when he was her flight instructor at Earthforce Academy.
• Time Travel: He travels back in time with Babylon Four to present it to the Minbari as a base of operations in their war against the Shadows.
• Ultimate Authority Mayor: Justified, for the same reasons as Sheridan.
• Warrior Poet: Has been an admirer of Tennyson since his Academy days, and is capable of ad-libbing some quite flowery prose of his own making.
• Worthy Opponent: To Delenn when they first met.
  • And to the Minbari in general. Neroon expresses admiration for him, and his special ability in the card game is to undo damages to the human-Minbari tension levels.

Susan Ivanova

Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova's recommendations. Ivanova is God. And if this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out!

Played by: Claudia Christian

The second-in-command of Babylon 5. She's sardonic, cheerful, and mischievous, but nevertheless a highly competent officer and widely respected (and feared) by her subordinates and superiors. She holds a special hatred for Psi Corps for forcing her telepathic mother to take drugs to suppress her powers that induced depression which ultimately drove her to suicide. However, her relationship with Talia Winters leads to her gradually softening her stance.

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• Ace Pilot: Practically begs for the chance to go on patrol several times in the first two seasons, and shows just what she's capable of by taking on an entire contingent of Raiders alone (after sending her wingman back to the station). Ivanova returns none the worse for wear after an offscreen battle (although her Starfury is pretty beat up).
• The Alcoholic: Highly functioning, but still. Possibly more of a problem drinker, but still her drinking has been a problem from time to time.
• All Love Is Unrequited: The Trope Namer.
• Badass Boast: Has a habit of these, from "Ivanova is God." to "God sent me."
  • Though after the former case, she looks up and apologizes, saying she was on a roll.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: With both Talia and Marcus.
• Blasphemous Boast: The "Ivanova is God" bit. Almost immediately afterwards, she glances upwards and apologizes for that bit.
• Cartwright Curse: People who she's romantically attracted to have an unfortunate tendency to turn out to be evil, or get killed, or both.
• Characterization Marches On: The first few episodes have her using overly formal speech patterns characteristic of someone for whom English is not their first language, which the show quickly relaxed on.
• Deadpan Snarker: Extremely sarcastic and mischievous. If something's going wrong on the station, you can bet Ivanova will snark at it.
• Defrosting Ice Queen: Towards Talia and Marcus. An ultimately tragic example, as each time she defrosts just in time for the other person to die.
• Determinator: Tends to approach any problem with dogged stubbornness. While Sinclair will outwit his opponents and Sheridan will lure them into a carefully laid trap, Ivanova has found that refusing to give her enemies an inch while attacking them unrelentingly works just fine.
• Glorious Mother Russia: Averted. While Ivanova's Russian origins are mentioned from time to time, and she mentions once that she owes her pessimism to being Russian, it is never heavy-handed, and she is overall a very well-rounded character.
• Got Volunteered: This is how she winds up as the Voice of the Resistance.
• Informed Judaism: Subverted. Susan is explicitly lapsed, and has no qualms about eating non-kosher foods or not celebrating the holidays. In her mind her religion is tied up with her very messy family history, and she has abandoned the trappings of Judaism as a way to distance herself from the trauma. A large part of her character arc in the first two seasons involves embracing her faith and reconnecting with her family. After this, she takes her faith a bit more seriously, though not enough that one would call her "observant".
• Knight in Sour Armour: She's cynical, if not to Garibaldi's level, but she'll always do the right thing in the end.
• Lady of War: Ivanova lacks the inspirational genius of Sheridan or the unconventional thinking of Sinclair, but she is a formidable officer in her own right due to her unrelenting tenacity.
• Large Ham: On occasion, though not nearly as large a ham as some of the other characters.
• Like Brother and Sister: She and Sheridan are very close, though their relationship is purely platonic, and they certainly bicker like siblings on a regular basis, but they're also True Companions who'd do anything for each other.
• Lost in Translation: Played hilariously when Ivanova bitterly curses, only to find out that "Ah, hell!" means "continuous fire" in her crew's language.
• Married to the Job: And the job is jealous.
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: With Marcus.
• Mean Boss: She's generally pretty friendly, but she does not tolerate screw-ups by her subordinates and Corwin is terrified of her for good reason.
• Mission from God: For her last Badass Boast, she declared that God had sent her to dispatch her foes. She is nearly killed at the end of the battle by a wayward piece of debris, but not before her force has dispatched the enemy fleet.
• Moving Beyond Bereavement: Ivanova's father dies in the first season, which leads to her rabbi visiting her in a subsequent episode to help her sit shiva for him and reconnect with her somewhat lapsed faith and strained family relations.
• My Hovercraft Is Full of Eels: When she shows off what she has learned from her studies of the Minbari language. Delenn discretely issues an order to the Minbari crewmembers of Ivanova's ship that anyone who is caught laughing at her heartfelt attempts will be severely punished. (Her Minbari is shown to have improved by a later episode.)
  Ivanova: Ah, hell...
  (The White Star starts firing at nothing in particular)
  Lorien: "Ahel" means "continuous fire" in Minbari.
• Nose Art: Her Starfury has a red star and a double-headed Russian Eagle.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Her father and brother both had very thick Russian accents in their appearances. Susan does not (not even close). This was justified with the explanation that her parents sent her to boarding schools abroad and moved her around frequently in order to keep her off Psi Corps' radar, since Susan was a latent telepath.
• Number Two: For the station, being the second line officer aboard for most of the series.
• One of the Boys: You would almost, but not quite, think that Gender Is No Object is at work here. That's how well Ivanova blends in.
• Opposites Attract: With Marcus. She's a no-nonsense officer Married to the Job, he's a unapologetic goofball.
  • Also applies to her relationship with Talia, a telepath and member of the Psi Corps, which is an organization Ivanova despises.
• Public Service Announcement: Particularly during the fourth season, Ivanova can be seen issuing these over the Babcom system, including updates about systems endangered by the ever-expanding Shadow War. Leads directly to Voice of the Resistance, below.
• Photographic Memory: Or rather, Eidetic memory. It's said to be one of her vital skills as a strategist. For example, in one epsiode she recalled a once-heard Minbari phrase perfectly, despite not speaking the language at the time she heard it. In another, she memorizes the long list of all EarthForce personnel killed in a battle in order to say that they were burying people and not statistics.
• Rank Up: She begins the series as a lieutenant commander, but Sheridan bumps her up to full commander the first week he's aboard. After rejoining EarthForce in the season four finale she's made a captain and Put on a Bus to command a Warlock-class destroyer. In the Distant Finale she's a General.
• Reality Subtext: Ivanova wears a single earring in memory of her older brother, killed during the Earth-Minbari War. Claudia Christian actually wore that earring in memory of her little brother, who was hit by a car when they were kids (the other earring was buried with him).
• Really Moves Around: Her parents sent her to several boarding schools at least around Earth in her childhood, to the point of her not developing a Russian accent, because otherwise the Psi Corps would have either taken her away or forced her to take telepathy-suppressing drugs.
• Red Herring: After the actress who played Sinclair's second-in-command in The Gathering wasn't able to return for the series, JMS had let slip online that he had planned on her being a traitor. As a result, many fans assumed Ivanova would take over that role, and he happily fed them subtle hints throughout the first season that she may be a traitor. Said fans were completely blindsided when the traitor turned out to be Garibaldi's second, who up until that point had been a minor background character.
• Russian Guy Suffers Most: And expects to. She considers pessimistic outlooks to be Russian by nature and commends people for them. Sheridan even calls developing a greater degree of pessimism "taking Ivanova lessons".
• The Spymaster: Sheridan dubs her The Official Babylon 5 Sneak-In-Residence after she figures out how to perpetuate Vir's plot to smuggle Narns out of Centauri-occupied territory after Vir gets found out. She prides herself on knowing about everything happening aboard the station. Including all of the relevant details on the Rangers' mission on B5, when Sheridan and Garibaldi were supposed to be the only EarthForce personnel who even knew of their existence on the station. Similarly, when Doctor Franklin tries to run an unauthorized free clinic in Downbelow, Ivanova finds out easily. When Ivanova doesn't know about something happening aboard B5, then you can worry.
• Team Mom: Played with; she's the first one to tell Franklin to stop pushing himself and get some rest before he puts his patients in jeopardy. While this is logically part of her command responsibilities, Ivanova is also the one to whom Delenn turns for advice on hair care and menstrual cramps (neither of which Minbari women typically have to deal with) and to whom Vir turns for advice on 'the facts of life' when his Arranged Marriage to Lyndisty crops up (given that he's probably too embarrassed to talk to Londo and there are no Centauri women of equivalent status on the station). She also lets Corwin down very easily when he confuses a personal interview intended to sound him out on his stance on the Clark regime for a date. For a proven hardass, she can be quite empathetic.
• Undying Loyalty: To Sheridan. She's made it clear on numerous occasions that she would rather die than betray Sheridan.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Marcus.
• Voice of the Resistance: In mid-season four she starts acting as the news anchor for The Voice of the Resistance, Sheridan's broadcast to counter Clark's anti-B5 propaganda. Sheridan picked her for the job because he was impressed with how she performed reading news bulletins when the Vorlons and Shadows started blowing up planets.
• Will They or Won't They?: With both Talia and Marcus.
• Written-In Infirmity: Claudia Christian broke her ankle in a skiing accident during Season Two, and this was explained as Ivanova being injured after being caught in a brawl between Green and Purple Drazi. (The fan rumour that she was injured during the filming of that scene is false.)
  • During the commentary track for that episode, Claudia Christian points out that the scream Ivanova gives when the Drazi lands on her (when the "injury" supposedly happened) as being quite real (as said actor landed right on her already-broken leg quite heavily.)
• You Are in Command Now:
  • At least four times in the space of three years, in fact, though it never happens in the heat of battle.
  • During the transmission from the alternate future in "Babylon Squared" Ivanova is in command, delivering an increasingly panicky distress call after Sheridan was killed offscreen and the Shadows are overrunning the station.

Michael Garibaldi

"Thin air." Why is it always "thin air"? Never fat air, chubby air, mostly-fit-could-stand-to-lose-a-few-pounds air.

Played by: Jerry Doyle

The Chief of Security of Babylon 5. Essentially serving as the chief of police, Garibaldi is cynical and ever-paranoid, which makes him uniquely fitted for his position. While a hard worker, he takes a rather laid-back attitude to his job and serves as the Plucky Comic Relief, though he's still, dangerously competent and not one to be underestimated.

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• Ace Pilot: Though out of the three heroes, he is the least likely to get into space battles, due to his primary job being to lead Station Security.
• The Alcoholic: He's portrayed as a recovering alcoholic who once used alcohol as an escape from his problems and now tries to remain absolutely tee-total on the grounds that once he starts drinking, he doesn't know when to stop. He does fall off the wagon on a number of occasions during the series. His status as a recovering alcoholic also informs his relationship with Stephen Franklin when he starts to descend into Stim addiction.
• The Atoner: For his role in getting Sheridan captured by Clarke's forces whilst under PsiCorp influence. Fortunately for him, Lyta is nearby and is powerful enough to read his mind even through the neural blocks PsiCorp had put in. Once she confirms his story, he joins the others in rescuing Sheridan.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: He learns everything he can about the crew, including his senior officers. As a result, he's very good at predicting their behavior on a day-to-day basis. Case in point: During season 1, every time Talia got in a lift, Garibaldi was already inside.
  • In "Deconstruction of Falling Stars" a holographic simulation of Garibaldi 500 years after the events of the main series retains his analytical skills and basic personality, resulting in holo-Garibaldi hacking Politdivision Central and revealing their plans to the opposition. Unfortunately his actions result in humanity nuking itself back into the Middle Ages with the ensuing conflict.
    • Fortunately, this is probably SLIGHTLY better then the alternative, which would be everyone except the Orwellian guys being nuked PAST the middle ages...
• Big Damn Heroes: On several occasions. It does help that all of the station's security personnel answer to him, allowing him to bring the cavalry with a single call.
• Black-and-White Insanity: Garibaldi sees the world very much in black and white, with people generally being either good or bad and rarely acknowledging the nuances in between.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Is the victim of a very subtle variation of this trope. Garibaldi is captured by Shadows and taken to a PsiCorp facility at the end of Season 3, where they had planned to implant a sleeper-personality like the one Talia had, but decided that he would be just as useful with only minor tweaks to his normal personality. They redirected his natural scepticism and paranoia against his former allies, and ultimately set him up to help eliminate a troublesome industrialist with an anti-telepath agenda, as well as setting Sheridan up to be captured.
• Character Tics: Garabaldi often places his hands in his pockets, very unusual for military personnel and marking him out as something of a closet rebel.
• Chef of Iron: He's got a few Italian dishes down, his signature dish is Bagna càuda, which he claims to have learned to make from his father.
• Cool Bike - His beloved, antique Ninja ZX-11 motorcycle. Which appears in only one episode and is never spoken of again.^note The Ninja was actually Product Placement—not for Kawasaki, but for a Las Vegas motorcycle dealership which paid to have the bike featured on the show. The show was filmed on such a tight budget that any form of sponsorship was gladly accepted. Supplemental material claims that Garibaldi later fined himself and Lennier for unsafe vehicle operation and impounded the bike.
• Cowboy Cop: Zig-Zagged. Out in the "real world" of Babylon 5, he'll play things fast and loose, but in his Chief of Security office, he plays things by the book. He knows he'll never be able to completely clean up Downbelow or prevent all crime everywhere on the station, but by keeping his ear to the ground and his options open he can deal with the really threatening stuff.
• Da Chief: Head of station security.
• Deadpan Snarker: It doesn't matter how high Your rank is or how threatening you are - Garibaldi has a snarky one-liner prepared for You.
• The Determinator: JMS in a commentary track compared Garibaldi to a pitbull, refusing to let go of a problem until he's solved it. Increased by Bester to make him sniff out an anti-Telepath conspiracy.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Garibaldi is a Type 1, particularly toward Talia.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Boy does he ever, going from a black-listed alcoholic cop on Mars to rescuing and marrying his true love and becoming one of the most powerful businessmen in the Earth Alliance.
• Face–Heel Turn (See Manchurian Agent)
  • Heel–Face Door-Slam
  • Heel–Face Turn
• Fan of the Past: He's a huge fan of old Looney Tunes cartoons, including having a Daffy Duck wall hanging and Nose Art on one of his Starfuries.
• Fantastic Racism: He doesn't typically trust Telepaths easily, though this is more an extension of his Properly Paranoid nature, and not helped at all by Bester repeatedly dropping in to make a mess of things.
• Inspector Javert: Becomes this to Bester's Val Jean in the novel Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester. Granting that Bester is guilty of the crimes he for which he is wanted, Garibaldi becomes so obsessed with finding him that he nearly becomes He Who Fights Monsters because he refuses to believe that Bester could settle-down and live a quiet life or reform. The irony is that Bester almost manages it, hiding in Paris and falling in love with a non-Teep woman after building a life for himself under an assumed identity and he only returns to his old ways after the manhunt Garibaldi is financing starts getting too close.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's cynical, paranoid, and takes a very black-and-white view towards his job, but he generally tries his best to do the right thing.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He's cynical, bitter, and paranoid to the extreme, but Garibaldi generally tries his best to do the right thing regardless.
• The Lancer: To Sinclair.
• Manchurian Agent (in Season 4)
• Meaningful Name: A subtle in-joke for history nerds. He's named after 19th century Italian freedom fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi, who led a rebel volunteer force called "The Red Shirts" during the Risorgimento. "Red Shirts" is also slang for the disposable soldiers in science-fiction shows, after the red-shirted crewmen in Star Trek who famously had a habit of getting killed off. As the head of station security, Garibaldi is the leader of B5's Red Shirts.
• Military Brat: His father was a Gropo, serving under Doctor Franklin's father. His mother was a cop on earth, making this trope play double-duty.
• Nose Art: In early seasons, his personal Starfury had a tiger painted on the center of the wing. In the fifth season, he is briefly seen piloting a Starfury with Daffy Duck painted on the side.
• Off the Wagon: Briefly in "Survivors", and for a longer period of time in season five.
• Out-of-Character Moment: During an episode where he's protecting Talia from a murderer he lets her enter a client's quarters without checking them first and simply waits outside, guess who was inside?
  • Also in Dividied Loyalties he instantly and completely trusts Lyta Alexender despite Lyta not being on the station long enough to establish trust during her previous visit and nobody has ever gained his trust instantly before or after. Not to mention his distrust of telepaths in general.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": His computer password is "Peekaboo", because he knows that nobody would assume that the infamously paranoid security chief would use something so laughably easy to guess.
• Plucky Comic Relief: Except for the fourth season. At least, until his Heel–Face Turn.
• Private Eye Monologue: Saigon...he can't believe he's still in Saigon. Or Chinatown, or Toontown, or Mars, for that matter. Garibaldi has a little 'private investigator' arc running in Season 4, which ends with his return to Mars.
• Properly Paranoid: Garibaldi's paranoia is an in-universe legend.
• Recovered Addict: At the start, and after he relapses in the last season he gets back on the wagon.
• Refuge in Audacity: One of his specialties. Tries to rescue Captain Sheridan from a secret prison on Mars by walking up in uniform and identifying himself by name. It almost works too, except that the guards are Too Dumb to Fool.
  • He's more successful when using audacity to rescue Ivanova from the Green Drazi. As a door-to-door salesman.
  • When an Earth Alliance official demands to know where Sheridan is, Garibaldi refuses to tell him, on grounds that it is so secret that Garibaldi can't even tell himself or else he'll have to arrest himself for revealing secret information to himself.
  Garibaldi: And what kind of chief of security would I be if I let someone like me know things I'm not supposed to know?
• Resign in Protest:
  • He briefly did this in the episode "In the Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum", when Sheridan was blatantly violating the law in holding and interrogating Morden.
  • Later he appears to do so again, citing Sheridan's increasingly authoritarian hold over the station after breaking away from Earth. This time, however, there turns out to be more to it, as Bester and Psi Corps have planted some suggestions in his brain to turn him into a Manchurian Agent.
• Supreme Chef: The man can cook, given proper ingredients. When Franklin tries Garibaldi's bagna càuda, he is impressed.
  • It's implied that this is also Addiction Displacement: he cooks and eats instead of drinking.
• Token Good Cop: Prior to coming to B5, he was in security on Europa. The way he describes it, half the force was on the take and the rest didn't give a damn. "Ever try to uphold the law when nobody cares?" Eventually, the stress and frustration begins leading him to drink heavily. He says he began to make progress, but the criminal elements targeted him specifically, leading to an incident where a good friend of his was killed and Garibaldi was pinned with the blame, leading to his dismissal, and crawling into the bottle for a long time.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Mars. That place nearly killed him three times already, and he swore he'd never give it another chance. "Humans have no business being there." Wade tries to relax him by remarking about how it was named for the God of War. (Doesn't work.)
• Willfully Weak: This is the secret that he reveals in "Ceremonies of Light and Dark": "No one knows, but I'm afraid all the time of what I might do if I ever let go." Later, the audience gets a taste of what he's capable of doing in "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" and "Objects in Motion" — and indeed, it's more than a little scary.
• Written-In Infirmity: Jerry Doyle suffered a broken wrist during the filming of the battle sequence in "Severed Dreams". The visible effects were then very naturally explained as the character suffering the same injury.

Stephen Franklin

People come to doctors because they want us to be gods. They want us to make it better - or make it not so. They want to be healed and they come to me when their prayers aren't enough. Well, if I have to take the responsibility, then I claim the authority too.

Played by: Richard Biggs

The second Chief of the Medlab, the station's infirmary, after Dr. Benjamin Kyle's departure. The son of a renowned general, Franklin is both profoundly arrogant and extremely compassionate towards his patients. The stresses of his position eventually lead to him developing a stim addiction.

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• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Despite having a full staff at his disposal, he will take on an insane patient load because he feels that responsible. This leads directly to his addiction problems.
• The Conscience: Franklin regards his medical oath as far more important than his oath to Earth Force and is quite willing to remind others of their duties to greater causes than their government.
• Determinator: After he is stabbed, then tormented by a hallucination of himself for all of his failures, he decides that he wants to live, mistakes and all.
• Dr. Jerk: For a while when he was abusing stims. And other times when he's being insufferable because he believes he's right.
• Dying Alone: Defied and averted. The Good Doctor does not want his terminal patients going out this way. He orders his staff to give the terminally ill and mortally wounded all the care, attention, and medication they would give the living until they no longer need it.
• Functional Addict: Has a lampshaded addiction to stims that runs for the better part of a season before it becomes a problem.
• Insufferable Genius: He's very arrogant and convinced he's in the right at all times, which often makes him downright insufferable to be around.
• The Medic: A Combat Medic, specifically. When trouble ensues, he usually ignores orders to stay out of danger, and can be found in the middle of the worst violence looking for people who need help. He has no problem beating people into the deckplate if he has to protect himself or his patients.
• Medlab Hottie: If his luck with the ladies is any indication. And if you ever saw Richard Biggs out of his Medlab smock or EarthForce uniform, you'd realize he was buff.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's a pompous blowhard, but he's insanely dedicated to helping his patients and probably the most altruistic member of the crew.
• Military Brat: His father is a General in the Earthforce Marines. He was inspired to become a doctor after his father's life was saved by a doctor on the opposing side (that doctor was killed by his own government for aiding the enemy).
• Not Quite the Right Thing: At least twice, his attempts to do good fail, in at least one case making things worse. After one such attempt backfires, he lampshades his tendency to do this.
• The Pornomancer: Despite being a bit of a pompous blowhard and not really putting any serious effort into it, he can charm the ladies out of their dresses like nobody's business.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Given by a hallucination of himself, as he's crawling through down-below with a knife wound. Doubles as a Rousing Speech by the very end.
• Restricted Rescue Operation: In "Confessions and Lamentations", a 100% contagious and 100% lethal disease was spreading through the Markab population. After racing against the clock, Franklin found a cure and prepared 500 doses. There were thousands of Markab on the station. Ultimately subverted, as all the Markab died before the cure was finished.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Franklin will do what he believes is right, and to hell with the consequences. A few examples:
  • During the Earth-Minbari War, he destroyed his files on Minbari anatomy, rather than turn them over to R&D to develop biological weapons, feeling his oath to save lives was more important than his oath to follow orders. He spent the rest of the war in jail as a result of this.
  • In "Believers," he performs a life-saving operation on a young alien, in defiance of direct orders from his commanding officer, and against the wishes of the patient's parents. The parents then kill the boy, believing that the boy's soul had left his body, leaving an empty shell behind.
  • A later episode shows that he's running a legally-questionable free clinic in Downbelow, to treat those who can't afford to receive regular medical treatment.
  • It's later revealed that the free clinic doubles as a false front for an Underground Railroad smuggling telepaths who've escaped the Psi-Corps.
• Trust Me, I'm an X

Elizabeth Lochley

My first CO once told me: "When someone asks you why you took on a job, the worst answer you can give is 'Because a friend asked me to.'" I should have listened. This place is one long exercise in frustration.

Played by: Tracy Scoggins

Ivanova's replacement as second-in-command in Season 5.

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• The Alcoholic: She uses her secret past as an alcohol and drug abuser to get Garibaldi back on the wagon.
• Amicably Divorced: She was married to Sheridan briefly. Their marriage burned out fast. Their friendship didn't.
• Dark and Troubled Past: It's revealed in "Day of the Dead" that as a teenager she ran away from home and became a drug-addicted hooker for a while.
• Foil: To Captain Leonard Anderson from 'A Call to Arms'. Like Lochley, he and his crew didn't joint Sheridan against Clark. Unlike Lockley, he and his crew deeply regretted that decision in hindsight of finding out just how evil Clark was and so were determined to make sure they were on the right side the second time around. While Lochley pushes right up to the edge of I was only following orders! to justify her refusal to back Sheridan during the civil war.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: A classic case of citing the first half and ignoring the second half (If right to be kept right, if wrong to be set right) of the famous quote. Refused to join Sheridan against Clark during the Earth Alliance Civil War, taking the position that it wasn't the place of military officers to decide what's best for the galaxy, though she implies she never was put into a position to be forced to really make a choice and may have taken a stand if that had been forced upon her. Her being chosen to command Babylon 5 was done as a fig-leaf gesture to the government back on Earth.
• Nose Art: Her Starfury features a Phoenix. Coincidentally, Tracy Scoggins had already had a long-standing interest in the phoenix myth.
• One-Steve Limit: Averted. Sheridan's sister is also named Elizabeth, which must have been awkward at family dinners during their brief marriage.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: As Byron admits, she tries to be fair to the rogue telepath colony while remaining within the rules.
• Rules Lawyer: Manages to temporarily prevent Mr. Bester from arresting a colony of rogue telepaths by citing an Earth Alliance health regulation. Commander Sinclair would have been proud. invoked
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: For Ivanova, who would have become station commander in Season 5 if Claudia Christian had remained on the show.
• Too Much Alike: What she attributes the implosion of her and Sheridan's marriage to, as well as her friction with Garibaldi.
• Word Of Bi: Neil Gaiman confirmed that the Les Yay in her scenes with Zoe in "Day of the Dead" was intentional. invoked
• Working with the Ex: After she becomes commander of Babylon 5, where Sheridan is located during Season 5 until the permanent ISA presidential facilities on Minbar are finished.

Zack Allen

Played by: Jeff Conaway

A security officer aboard the station and Garibaldi's second-in-command. He joins Nightwatch for the money, only to become increasingly uncomfortable with the organization's fascist leanings.

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• Allegiance Affirmation: He's asked by the Nightwatch to betray Captain Sheridan and the command staff. The crew confront him and arrest the Nightwatch for mutiny with his help.
• Ascended Extra: He was first created just because JMS was a big Taxi fan and wanted to help Conaway through a rough period. Then he just kept getting more to do.
• Big Brother Is Employing You / Signed Up for the Dental: He joins Nightwatch because he thinks it's just fifty credits per week for work he's already doing. He starts getting an inkling that this might have been a mistake as early as "The Fall of Night", when he witnesses the arrest of a shop owner for "sedition", and by the middle of season three, he has serious misgivings.
• Butt-Monkey: In season two, Zack's major function is to be the Earthforce security agent who gets knocked out by the alien. Notably, both G'Kar and Lennier take him out at different points.
• Career Resurrection: After his huge success in 'Grease' Jeff Conway enjoyed long running roles in popular comedy 'Taxi' and soap opera 'The Bold and the Beautiful'. However by the 90s his drug addiction problems had reduced him into starring in numerous direct to video B-pictures. As a fan of 'Babylon 5' he arranged a visit to the set and the writers created a short cameo for him. This improvised role eventually evolved into main character Zack Allen which he would play for 5 years, totalling 74 episodes plus 3 movies and significantly restoring his fortunes.
• Da Chief: After Garibaldi resigns.
• The Everyman: While he doesn't quite have the blank slate qualities usually associated with this trope, Zack is essentially an average guy way over his head, trying to do the right thing.
• The Generic Guy: Zack doesn't have the personality quirks of the rest of the crew; he's just an average blue-collar guy simply trying to make some extra money on the side and do the right thing.
• Greek Chorus: JMS stated that Zack was written to be this; see The Everyman above.
• Heel Realisation: Midway through season three, he realizes his mistake in joining Nightwatch.
• Hopeless Suitor: To Lyta Alexander. Given how she later develops, he was probably lucky.
• Number Two: To Garibaldi, after the last guy to hold the job shot Garibaldi in the back, up until Garibaldi resigns in Season 4.
• Promoted Fanboy: Jeff Conaway was a vocal advocate of the show even before he was cast in it.
• Sherlock Scan: A wannabe crime lord remarks that Zack was able to learn a lot just by casually examining a dead body found Downbelow.
• Took a Level in Badass: In the final two seasons, when he takes over as head of station security, he gets notably more serious and more competent.
• You Did the Right Thing: Both Night Watch and the command staff assure Zack of this when he's used as a double agent in one episode. He finds it less than comforting. Especially since he was a Double Agent at the time, and both sides were saying the same thing to him.

Warren Keffer

It was jet black, a shade of black so deep your eye just kind of slides off it. And it shimmered when you looked at it. A spider, big as death and twice as ugly. And when it flies past, it's like you hear a scream in your mind.

Played by: Robert Rusler

A cocky fighter pilot and a friend of Garibaldi and Ivanova. Keffer catches on to the existence of the shadows and begins actively trying to prove their existence.

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• Ace Pilot: Executive Meddling wanted a character of this type, adding him to the main cast during Season 2 although he was given as little to do as possible. invoked
• Book Ends: The season premiere and season finale both feature him taking part in the defense of the station from an alien warship. Also, his second episode and his final episode both feature a Starfury pilot being killed in Hyperspace (himself in the latter case).
• Curiosity Killed the Cast: Ignores Commander Ivanova's orders not to continue his obsessive search for the mysterious black ship that he encountered in hyperspace. Finding that ship is the last thing he ever does.
• Decoy Protagonist: Intentionally given little purpose, but a high-profile heroic job.
• Sacrificial Lion: The character looked to become a supporting regular. Then he was fed to the Shadows.
• Shoo Out the New Guy: Due to being created through Executive Meddling, and the actor apparently not getting on with the established cast. invoked
  • Was apparently a nice guy, though. JMS still felt REALLY guilty about killing him like that...still did it.
• We Hardly Knew Ye: Because Executive Meddling demanded a "hot shot ace pilot character," and JMS absolutely hates characters like that, he was killed off the very instant JMS realized the executives were no longer paying any attention to what he was doing. Not to mention, despite being featured in Season 2's opening credits, he actually only appeared in 6 of the season's 22 episodes. invoked
• You Are in Command Now: Ends up in command of Zeta Squadron due to the squadron commander being killed during a mission in hyperspace.

David Corwin

"Okay, activate defense grid. Launch all Starfuries, and if they move, shoot 'em. If they don't move, shoot twice; they're probably hiding something."

Played by: Joshua Cox

A shy technician and Ivanonva's protege. He's later promoted to Executive Officer in the final season.

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• The Apprentice: Tends to serve as Ivanova's right-hand man and unofficial protegé in later seasons.
• Character Development: Starts out in Season 1 as a generic Earthforce officer with no name and a dorky, wallflower personality, ends up in Season 5 as Babylon 5's XO and almost a male, Lighter and Softer (and, well, still dorkier) version of Ivanova (see above quote).
• Deadpan Snarker: He gets in a few zingers on Commander Ivanova, then quickly gets back to work before she can retort.
  Ivanova: If I get through this without going completely insane, it will be a miracle of Biblical proportions!
  Corwin: Well, there goes my faith in the Almighty.
• The Generic Guy: Tends to be written as representing the viewpoint of the average, ordinary Earthforce officer in comparison to the larger-than-life, destiny-laden main characters.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: When he is promoted to Lieutenant, Ivanova and Sheridan decide to get to know him better, to determine if they can bring him in on their little anti-Clark cabal. When asked if he would disobey an order if it wasn't in the best interests of Earth, he states that he doesn't feel it would be his place to decide that. When the command staff actually do decide to break off from Earth, however, and he's caught up in unfolding events, he sides with them against President Clark.
• Number Two: In season five to Captain Lochley.
• Ship Tease: In one episode he thinks that Ivanova is asking him out on a date, and while he's a little intimidated he's not opposed to the idea and buys her flowers she assumes are from Marcus (in reality, she just wants to talk with Corwin in private to get to know him better so she can gauge how safe it would be to include him in the counter-conspiracy). In the movie The River of Souls (and confirmed by DVD commentary for another episode), it's implied he has a crush on Lochley, whom he buys a therapeutic Love Bat for.

Lou Welch

Played by: David L Crowley

A trusted friend and subordinate of Garibaldi.

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• Back for the Dead: After being missing from the show since mid-season 2, his reappearance as a Private Detective in the post-series Centauri Prime novel trilogy ends in his murder at the behest of the Drahk.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He normally seems like a nice, rule-abiding guy, but he is practically begging Sheridan for permission to beat up (or possibly even kill) his treacherous colleague Jack after learning that Jack tried to kill Garibaldi.
• Properly Paranoid: He quickly sees through a seemingly friendly series of questions by a man trying to dig up dirt on Sinclair and advises Garibaldi to watch the guy, who does turn out to be a bitterly resentful and corruptible person.
• The Reliable One: He is one of Garibaldi's most independent, quick-thinking, and effective security officers.

Jack

Played by: Macaulay Bruton

Garibaldi's aide at the start of the show, he turns out to have some dark secrets.

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• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He may seem like a helpful and honest cop who isn't fond of violence, but he will help plot political assassinations or unrepentantly shoot a close friend in the back and doesn't even seem to do what he does out of any Knight Templar convictions, but merely gloats about how supporting Clark will ensure he's on the winning side.
• Detective Mole: He is guilty of involvement in multiple murders or attempted murders that he is assigned to investigate.
• Only One Name: His surname is never revealed.
• Put on a Bus: He is placed under arrest but disappears from custody after apparently being liberated by his boss and is never seen again.

Mack and Bo

Played by: Raymond O'Connor and Lawrence Le John

Two maintenance workers who appear in season 5 to provide a Lower-Deck Episode perspective to both the main cast and an alien assault on the station.

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• Badass Bystander: They have no combat training, but briefly help fight a wave of attackers (Mack with a dropped gun and Bo with his fists) after getting caught up in a battle by accident.
• The Everyman: They are blue collar workers who do various important jobs, even while admitting an inability to understand what all of them mean in the bigger picture, and like their bosses but have an incomplete perspective of the important things they do.
• Hero-Worshipper:
  • They both deeply respect and admire Sheridan, especially Mack.
  • Bo is in awe of the Starfury pilots and briefly becomes an Ascended Fanboy when Byron uses his telepathic abilities to project Bo's mind into the head of one of the pilots during a space battle so he can see it up close.
• Jack of All Trades: They are trained in a variety of jobs to help keep the station running, allowing them to travel around and meet a variety of important people during their normal work.
• Those Two Guys: They are a Big Guy, Little Guy (Mack is about a foot shorter than Bo) pair of chatty long-term friends and colleagues.

Babylon Five

Babylon 5

Our Last Best hope For Peace

• City of Spies: As a Truce Zone for many governments in varying states of hostility towards each other, this is a given.
• The City Narrows: Brown Sector, a.k.a. Downbelow is where those who came to the station for a better life but failed to make it tend to wind up when they lack the funds to return home or go elsewhere. It is also a favored hiding spot for various fugitives or covert operatives.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Each Babylon station was evidently painted in a different color scheme. The first Babylon station was red, Babylon 4 was green, and Babylon 5 was blue. (Babylons 2 and 3 were presumably orange and yellow respectively.)
  • Likewise, each section of the station was color-coded. Blue Sector is for administration, docking bays, and Medlabs. Red Sector was the main living area, with markets and housing. Green Sector contained the hydroponic gardens for food and oxygen, as well as recreation areas and the living areas for alien ambassadors. Grey Sector contained all the station's heavy machinery. Inside of Grey Sector is Yellow Sector, which contains the fusion power plant. Finally, there's Brown sector, which contains maintenance and reclamation, but is best known for Downbelow, where B5's transient population lives.
• Government in Exile: Not only served as a human government in exile, but harbored the Narn government in exile, and what was almost but not quite a Minbari government in exile.
  • More specifically, Delenn was using it as a base for the Rangers and as an aid to waging war against The Shadows with the Grey Council in abeyance.
• Home Base: When the crew isn't using the White Star, B5 is this.
• Space Station: A five mile long combination trading port, diplomatic center, and military base.
• The Runt at the End: The previous four stations were of a larger and more elaborate design, but after Babylon 4 disappeared there wasn't enough money to build another station on the same scale.
• Truce Zone: The whole point of the Babylon Project was to provide a place in neutral territory for all the major races and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds to hash out their differences peacefully, negotiate trade deals and conduct business and the like, ultimately with the goal of avoiding another potentially devastating war like the near-genocidal Earth/Mimbari war. This doesn't stop the station and the space around it being the scene for some rather major violent outbursts, however...

Babylon Four

The Fourth Babylon station completed in 2254 and then promptly vanished into thin air for over four years. Reappeared in 2258 where the B5 crew were able to board and evacuate the crew, they learned that the station had actually been stolen to be used as a base in a war but as soon as the crew was taken off the station vanished again leaving more questions than answers. Two years later it was discovered that it was the B5 crew themselves who did the stealing and not to fight a future war but one in the past, specifically the First Shadow war. Unable to return to the future Commander Sinclair took the station through time where he would become the legendary Minbari hero Valen and B4 served as the main combat base for the Minbari throughout the back half of that war.

Abandoned afterwards it was discovered in orbit over a planet in 2261 and briefly boarded before it crashed into the surface.

• But Thou Must!: B4 has to be stolen and go back in time to ensure the Shadows can't retain enough forces after the first war to easily win the second. If it isn't moved (and gets blown up instead) then B5 is still built but eight days after 'War without End part 1'takes place it's destroyed by the Shadows. Hence the theft must occur no matter any doubts the crew might have.
• Composite Character: Background material reveals that the station was built with some of the parts from the first three destroyed stations (either what hadn't been installed yet or even salvaged sections from the wreaks). This is a major reason B5 was built so much more simply and smaller as they didn't have these remains to draw from (due to the station up and vanishing this time)
• Exact Words: Like its younger sister its the "Last best hope for peace," just that came from fighting and winning a massive war rather than the original plan of talking about things.
• Flying Dutchman: Has facets of this, although it only mysteriously showed up twice.
• Insistent Terminology: Always called a space "station" but In Valen's name reveals its actually a massive ship with Ion engines that allowed it to move and use Jumpgates. This further contasts it to B5 which is rooted in one place.
• Hate Sink: Has become this for Garibaldi by the time of "In Valens Name," as it always causes trouble when it shows up. As the last time cost him his best friend its probably no surprise he isn't fond of the thing.
• Hope Bringer: For the Minbari, when it appeared they were at the end of their rope, defeated and unable to even return to Minbar for fear of bringing the Shadows down on their homeworld, then a heavily armed base appeared and the tide turned.
• Stable Timeloop: Averted as the crew can choose not to do what history says they do. It's just such a bad outcome they'll always choose to do the time travel. We get a brief glimpse of this timeline in 'War without end Part 1' and a rather longer one in 'The road home' and it ain't pretty.
• Super Prototype: Somewhat played with in that its actually a production model but B4 is still much more advanced and powerful than its replacement.

EarthGov

President William Morgan Clark

"I have wanted Santiago dead for so long. I wasn't sure we could really pull it off. You're sure it's done?"

Played by: Gary McGurk

The Vice President of the Earth Alliance at the start of the series, he takes over after President Luis Santiago dies in the explosion of EarthForce One in the season one finale. He soon begins curtailing civil rights and instituting progressively more fascist and anti-alien policies, culminating in season three's double Wham Episode "Point of No Return" and "Severed Dreams" with a declaration of martial law, ordering the Senate's dissolution, and the bombardment of civilian targets on Mars. This prompts Sheridan to declare Babylon 5's independence from the Earth Alliance.

After this, he mostly continues cementing control over Earth and the colonies that haven't managed to escape his iron fist, keeping the Earth Alliance out of the Shadow War since his rise to power was the result of a certain Mr. Morden's machinations. All the while, the Minbari's involvement in the Army of Light means he daren't send any more fleets to retake Babylon 5. This allows Babylon 5 to put him on the back burner until after the Shadows leave the galaxy with the rest of the First Ones, at which point he becomes more openly hostile to the breakaway outposts, Babylon 5 included, because he knows that his grip on power is hanging by a thread without the support of Mr. Morden and his "associates". This sends him on a spiral of increasing brutality that culminates in a catastrophic and despicable mistake: ordering a blockade of Proxima III where his stooges commit war crimes, prompting Sheridan to openly go after him the moment he gets wind of it.

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• Ambition Is Evil: His entire life and tenure, all he wanted was to put himself in charge, and saw nothing wrong with any method to get there.
• Big Bad: For most of season four, once the Shadows were taken care of. His dictatorship was already a major antagonist before that.
• Characterization Marches On: Clark has a scene in the first issue of the comic, in which he is actually quite gracious and accommodating to Sinclair and offers him help without any obvious benefit to himself.
• Despotism Justifies the Means: He had no real ambition beyond absolute power over all mankind, he just wanted the position for its own sake, consequences be damned.
• The Dreaded: The majority of humanity is terrorified of him. He has installed people loyal to him in key locations before he took power so he has the power to back up his cruel edicts.
• Driven to Suicide: He shoots himself in the head with a ppg rather than let himself be arrested.
• Evil Chancellor: Well, Evil Vice President to Santiago.
• Fat Bastard: Described as such by Susan Ivanova in "Midnight on the Firing Line", when she refers to his "several chins".
• Fantastic Racism: Little is known about Clark's values (such as they are), but the xenophobic hatred of aliens that he uses as his main selling point to his followers appears genuine. The irony was that, in reverse-engineering Shadow tech, he became a puppet for alien influence just like he accuses Sheridan of being.
• Faux Affably Evil: When he appears, he comes across more as an unassuming bureaucrat than anything else. It'd be easy to forget how much of a monster he really is if it weren't for his enormous body count.
• Hate Sink: Clark seems to have read his Machiavelli about choosing being feared over being loved but missed the part about avoiding being hated. Despite the best efforts of his propaganda ultimately his solution to every serious problem is to commit atrocities, causing just about everyone not already completely committed to his side to just be looking for an opportunity to bring him down.
• He Who Must Not Be Seen: Clark does have a handful of scenes, but they're short and after he becomes Big Bad full time he's only seen killing himself. Word of God is that he was supposed to be an idea more than a character. invoked
• If I Can't Have You…: "Two words: Scorched Earth"
• Invisible President: For the most part. For all his plot-importance he appears only four times across four seasons, three of them on Video Phone.
• Irony: Clark wanted Sheridan in charge of Babylon 5 because he saw him as a mindless jarhead who would be blindingly loyal to EarthGov. The same man eventually became his biggest enemy.
• Klingon Promotion: He arranged Santiago's assasination with the Shadows and the Psi Corps in order to become president himself.
• Madness Mantra: In his final moments he writes out the following lines and emphasizes the bolded parts himself.
  the aScension of the ordinary man
  the asCension of the ordinary man
  the ascensiOn of the ordinary man
  the ascension of the oRdinary man
  the asCension of the ordinary man
  tHe ascension of the ordinary man
  the ascEnsion of the ordinary man
  the ascension of the orDinary man
  thE ascension of the ordinary man
  the Ascension of the ordinary man
  the ascension of the oRdinary man
  The ascension of the ordinary man
  tHe ascension of the ordinary man
• A Nazi by Any Other Name: By the time he created the armband wearing State Sec he was barely trying to hide it any more.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Averted, actually. Though many of his policies and his death call Adolf Hitler to mind, Word of God is that he wasn't supposed to correspond to any one Real Life dictator. If there were any real dictator comparisons, Clark shares similarities with Ferdinand Marcos, the 10th Filipino president who also enforced a Secret Police-laden rule after declaring martial law across the country and shut down a television station, ABS-CBN, until he'd had time to staff it with cronies (though unlike the Ministry of Information, Roberto Benedicto rebranded the station as Banahaw Broadcasting Corporation and briefly city2 rather than pretending it was still ABS-CBN). invoked
• "Not Illegal" Justification: As Clark and his minions seize more and more authoritarian power and control on Earth, they use this reasoning frequently to justify things like expanded spying, crackdowns on human colonies with independence movements, takeover of the biggest human news network, etc. Eventually the increasingly fascistic government becomes openly despotic enough that a portion of the military and some of the previously mentioned colonies rebel against the government.
• Orcus on His Throne: He never leaves Earth after becoming president, as that is his strongest base of power and where his most loyal lieutenants are.
• President Evil: His presidency is marked by EarthGov becoming increasingly fascistic, and his administration is filled with corruption and racist and classist doctrine.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Naturally, considering the fact he's a dictator. Banning not considering you the greatest human who lived and will ever live is an absurd violation of free speech, and "illegal" doesn't even begin to describe executive orders suspending the Earth Alliance Constitution, unilaterally dissolving the legislature to avoid impeachment, and ordering military action against dissident colonies, but until La Résistance is breathing down his neck, he's too drunk with power to give a shit.
• Shout-Out: The scene in which he's sworn as President of the Earth Alliance was modeled after Lyndon B. Johnson being sworn aboard Air Force One after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
• Sore Loser: Rather than own up for what he's done, he shoots himself in the head with an energy weapon, after programming Earth's defensive satellites to rain particle-beam fire down on Earth itself.
• The Starscream: To President Santiago, who he murders so he can take over as president.
• Unwitting Pawn: To both the Shadows and Psi Corps, to varying degrees.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He certainly tries, and his propaganda machine is much spotlighted, but by the time all is said and done a good chunk of the population is set against him anyway. Also, there's a waiting line to oust/assassinate him. Psi Corps, the MegaCorp executives and assorted members of the Senate are all working on plots to get rid of him. They're all annoyed with Sheridan, mostly because he is jumping to the front of the line.

President Susanna Luchenko

"Well, Captain, you've caused quite a stir. Half of Earth Force wants to give you a kiss on the cheek and the Medal of Honour. The other half wants you taken out and shot. As a politician you learn how to compromise, which by all rights means I should give you the Medal of Honour, then have you shot."

Played by: Beata Pozniak

An Earth Alliance senator for the Russian Consortium, she is named acting president of Earth Alliance after Clark shoots himself, and remains in the job through season five and into Crusade's timeframe. Her new position puts her in the unenviable situation of trying to unite a planet whose military just toppled a dictator, and now she has to deal with one very divisive man.

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• Deadpan Snarker: See above.
• Good Is Not Soft: She makes it clear that having Sheridan shot for treason is still an option if it means maintaining the cohesion of the Earth Alliance. It's not plan A, but it's on the table.
• Internal Reformist: She remarks that Sheridan did the right thing, he just did it in the most inconvenient manner possible.
• Invisible President: After "Rising Star" she's mentioned a few times but never reappears.
• Iron Lady: After appearing cordial with Sherridan during their private conversation, she makes it clear why she is the one the Senate selected as the Pro Temp President of the Earth Alliance. With barely a change in her tone, she goes from acknowledging and thankful Sherridan saved them to him needing to be made an example because of how he went about saving them. How hard that punishment will be will depend solely on his choices right now.
  "Don't make the mistake of thinking this is a conversation. It isn't."
• Reality Is Unrealistic: A number of fans complained that the actress's Russian accent sounded fake. While Beata Pozniak is actually Polish, the Russian accent she uses is accurate.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Formerly a Senator from the Russian Consortium, she takes over as President of the Earth Alliance after Clark. However, she is still a politician, albeit one of the better sort.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Sheridan and basically intends to put him in place. Instead, all she does is eat humble pie when Sheridan becomes head of the Interstellar Alliance and basically governs a vast empire compared to her one planet.

Earthforce

Catherine Sakai

The dance goes something like this. We meet, renew acquaintances, talk about old times at the Academy, you ask about my aunt, I ask about your brother, we lie about not missing each other, and then we end up in bed together.

Played by: Julia Nickson

A former Earthforce pilot turned planetary surveyor. Sakai is Sinclair's ex-girlfriend, though the two obviously still carry a torch for each other and eventually rekindle their relationship.

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• All There in the Manual: The canon novel To Dream in the City of Sorrows ties up her story and Sinclair's in much more detail than was ever seen on the show proper, thanks to Sinclair being largely written out after the first season. It's established that she along with Marcus Cole was an early human recruit to the Rangers, and she fell into that infamous time rift in the space near Babylon 5 while they were carrying out a mission to destroy a Shadow device there.
• Love at First Sight: Admits that she fell in love with Jeffrey Sinclair at first sight.
• Love Transcends Spacetime: After she and Sinclair are reunited while he is the Ambassador to Minbar and she starts training as a Ranger, she gets pulled into a time rift. The comics miniseries In Valen's Name reveals that she and Sinclair do indeed find each other in the past, after he has become Valen.
• Love Will Lead You Back: No matter what happens, she and Sinclair always know they'll end up back together.
• Maligned Mixed Marriage: JMS has indicated that the Minbari of the time found Valen's choice of mate a bit scandalous.
• The Masochism Tango: Her quote essentially sums up their pattern for years before she and Sinclair finally decided to have a go at things for real. Unfortunately, the day he asked her to marry him, President Santiago was assassinated, Sinclair was recalled to Earth, and it wasn't until they found each other on Minbar a thousand years in the past that they were finally able to get married.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute:
  • For Carolyn Sykes in the pilot.
  • She in turn is replaced by Anna Sheridan. The original intent was for Carolyn/Catherine to go missing over Z'ha'dum and return as a Shadow puppet, except this no longer made sense once Sinclair ceased to be a regular. Note that all three characters had jobs that put them out on the Rim: Carolyn as a trader, Catherine as a mapper of unexplored star systems, and Anna as a xeno-archaeologist.
• Teacher/Student Romance: She fell in love with Sinclair while he was her flight instructor at Earthforce Academy. The feeling was mutual.

General Robert Lefcourt

Played by P Patrick Mc Cormack

One of Sheridan's academy instructors and Minbari-Earth war superiors, who serves on the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Clark.

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• Anti-Villain: He is a compassionate and polite boss, brave, a patriot, and seems to respect Sheridan's decision to go against Clark, but he's needlessly aggressive when encountering new species during the prelude to the Minbari War and is later willing to kill his pupil rather than sacrifice his Honor Before Reason mentality.
• Big Damn Heroes: Despite having been willing to kill Sheridan during the Battle of Earth, once Clark dies and the battle gives way to a scramble to stop Operation Scorched Earth, Lefcourt destroys the orbital platform about to fire on Earth just in time to keep Sheridan from having to sacrifice himself to stop the threat.
• Minor Major Character: He trained Sheridan, led the military for much of the series, and helped lead the fight for humanity's survival against the Minbari, but he only appears in one episode of the series and one movie.
• My Country, Right or Wrong: He vehemently and vocally despises President Clark, but makes it clear that he will still take his orders and kill friends on Clark's behalf due to believing that nothing can justify a soldier taking up arms against his own government.
• Old Soldier: He is already a white-haired veteran during the Earth-Minibari war and remains fit and competent for active duty sixteen years later, at the end of the Earth Alliance Civil War.
• Smug Snake: His genuine tactical leadership skills cause him to assume that he is in control during some moments where he really isn’t.
  • He is dismissive of the idea that the Minbari should be treated with respect during a First Contact meeting, tries to intimidate them with a show of force, and starts a war where humanity is badly outclassed.
  • At the end of the Earth Alliance Civil War, he is extremely confident that he has the necessary insight to beat Sheridan (although the thought gives him no pleasure), only to spend the rest of the episode up until his Big Damn Heroes moment being outflanked and humiliated by Sheridan's Outside The Box Tactics.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He plays a large role in starting the Earth-Minbari War by viewing the Minbari as being like the Dilgar (too ruthless to respect but not too strong to defeat), and ignoring Londo and Sheridan's warnings about how he is being too aggressive in making first contact with such a powerful species. His arrogance leads to a captain unfit for command, one infamous for being inept at making First Contact no less, leading an overly large task force into Minbari space, starting a war, and provoking deadly retaliation. To his credit, Lefcourt understands and openly acknowledges the scope of his error.

General William Hague

"We have to proceed very carefully back home. If we go too far, too fast, we'll be noticed. Babylon 5, on the other hand, has military intelligence and civilian resources. Since they think you're on their side, they won't pay as close attention."

Played by: Robert Foxworth

The chairman of Earthforce's joint Chiefs of Staff. He eventually turns on Clark and helps kick-start the rebellion against him.

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• Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: He is introduced as a terse and secretive subordinate of President Clark who refuses to answer questions about Sheridan being sent to Babylon 5, but he turns out to be a Rebel Leader out to stop Clark rather than help him.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Is killed off-screen, due in part to the actor being unavailable after being double-booked on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
• La Résistance: He is a high ranking member and leader in the forces to fight and take down Clark from within the military.
• Meaningful Name: He shares his name with The Hague which is the host city of the International Court of Justice.
• Perma-Stubble: He has a few weeks of growth of hair on his face, but there are noticeable patches of skin between the hairs.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • He presents himself as such to the public and those in his command. He shows a fair and understanding side, such as breaking some lesser protocols about the chain of command to personally tell Ivanova about Sinclair's permanent reassignment and who is the commander of Babylon 5.
  • When Clark goes full dictator and authoritarian, Hague openly rebels and tries to convince the other high ranking military personal that their duty to the Earth Constitution superceeds their loyalty to the President.
• Sacrificial Lion: Is killed early in the fighting once the Earth Alliance breaks out into civil war. Sheridan ends up eventually taking his place as the leader of the resistance forces.

Ellis Pierce

Played by: Ron Canada

The captain of the warship the Hyperion ordered to stake a claim on Epsilon III after the technology on it is discovered. Pierce is by no means a bad officer, but his militaristic approach leads to him butting heads with the more diplomatic Sinclair.

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• General Ripper: He's an unusually reasonable one, but he still tends to jump to going in guns-blazing-type solutions.
• Nominal Villain: He serves as an antagonist throughout "Voices in the Wilderness", but he's not really a bad guy and fairly reasonable. He's just been ordered to help claim the planet and is angered at Sinlair's blatant hostility.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: Downplayed. He gets into Jurisdiction Friction with Sinclair when he's ordered to take command of Babylon 5, but Pierce is a reasonable enough man who's merely angry at how confrontational Sinclair is being.

General Smits

"Our job is to follow orders from the commander in chief and respect the chain of command."

Played by: Lewis Arquette

One of Sheridan's superiors at the onset of the Earth Civil War.

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• Bothering by the Book: He lectures Sheridan about their duties to the civilian office of President when Sheridan expresses discontent with Clark, while subtly reminding Sheridan about the limits of that civilian office's power in a military setting.
• The Brigadier: He is a high-ranking headquarters soldier who has the visage of a likely combat veteran, gives orders to the high-ranking Sheridan, and makes those orders reasonable ones.
• Internal Reformist: He officially remains loyal to President Clark during the Earth Civil War and tells Sheridan to do the same, but he words his orders in a way designed to make Sheridan defy Clark, indicating that he is trying to undermine Clark from within.
• No Full Name Given: His first name is unknown.
• Old Soldier: He is an aging general who looks like he's probably been a professional soldier for about forty years.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He is never seen again after his first and only scene, where he gives Sheridan a pretext for disobeying President Clark, which partially leads to Babylon 5 later siding against Clark in the civil war.
• Spy Speak: He talks about obeying the chain of command while informing Sheridan that Nightwatch's orders to seize the station came from the Political Office, subtly telling Sheridan that the orders are illegal because President Clark sent them through the wrong channel.

Major Ed Ryan

"Hague introduced him to me last summer. He has a wife back home, three small children, an Abyssinian cat named Max. That's what makes this war different from anything we have ever gone through before. This time, we know everyone we kill. I'll try to find something to say to both of their wives; God knows what."

Played by: Bruce McGill

General Hague's adjutant.

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• Beware the Nice Ones: He may not like firing on fellow Earthforce ships, but if he has to take them out, he makes damn sure they go quickly.
• Majorly Awesome: He is a major who is first seen keeping a cool head during the middle of a space battle and giving orders that lead to his opponent's destruction.
• Martial Pacifist: At least toward fellow Earthforce soldiers on the other side, as he won't fire on them unless it's the only way to keep them from killing him and his allies.
• Nice Guy: He is polite to his allies and treats killing fellow Earthforce enemies as a sad affair.
• Put on a Bus: He departs Babylon Five to participate in other theaters of the war and is never seen again.
• You Are in Command Now: He takes over General Hague's resistance faction after Hague's death.

Captain Jack Maynard

Played by: Russ Tamblyn

An old friend of Sheridan's who commands the EAS Cortez, a survey and exploration vessel almost as big as Babylon 5 itself.

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• Bold Explorer: He commands an enormous ship that spends years at a time mapping the unknown regions of the galaxy.
• Hidden Depths: His goofy but dedicated career soldier visage can make it surprising that he once taught Sheridan an Egyptian blessing.
• Mildly Military: He's a soldier with a scruffy beard and is doubtful about whether people like he and Sheridan can ever enjoy desk jobs.
• Nerves of Steel: He manages to act more frustrated than frightened when his ship is adrift in hyperspace, a fate no one has ever survived in untold generations of space travel until Sheridan brings the Cortez and its crew out safely.
• Old Soldier: He is about sixty and is a former combat veteran who is still going strong in the service, leading dangerous exploration missions.

General Richard Franklin

Played by: Paul Winfield

Dr. Franklin's father. He is a famous military officer who makes a stopover at Babylon 5 during a campaign in season 2.

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• Four-Star Badass: He is an imposing flag officer who has seen a lot of combat and is introduced making stopovers before winning a vital and difficult campaign.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He is xenophobic and can be hard on his son for not serving in the military, but he is apologetic for how worrying about him has affected his son, is sad about the deaths of many of his troops (bringing this up when a reporter is glorifying his victory), and dethaws toward Stephen after hearing more about how respected he is at Babylon 5. ^note  He came close to potentially falling into Jerk with a Heart of Jerk territory, as JMS considered having him reappear serving President Clark, but he remains unmentioned during the Earth Civil War, and even if he did serve Clark, it may not have been eagerly.
• Living Legend: He has won many significant victories on both Earth and other planets and has several nicknames related to those campaigns, with soldiers speculating on what his presence means for a campaign.
• Military Brat: His father and grandfather were soldiers, and he happily followed their legacy and is disappointed that his son didn't follow him.
• No One Could Survive That!: When Stephen was younger, he watched a news video of the ship Richard was executive officer on being shot down and messily crashing. People told him no one could survive the crash, but (partially due to a kindhearted enemy doctor) Richard was one of the three crew members who did.
• Old Soldier: He is one of the oldest active combat soldiers shown in in the show.
  General Franklin: You know what they say about old soldiers, don't you? They still kick butt with the best of them.
• Stoic Spectacles: He wears dignified spectacles and has a strong air of composure and professionalism, even when he's angry or disappointed.

PFC Elizabeth "Dodger" Durman

Played by: Marie Marshall

Part of a unit of infantry shock troops, Dodger and her comrades are briefly quartered on Babylon 5 in season 2, during which time she develops a relationship with Garibaldi.

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• Action Girl: She is a fierce hand-to-hand combatant and dies offscreen in a ferocious firefight where she seems to have advanced a ways.
• Back from the Dead: Despite dying in her debut episode, she temporarily returns to life three seasons later during a mystical Brakiri ceremony.
• Bully Hunter: She is introduced defending Delenn from a group of racist fellow soldiers who she happily engages in a brawl with.
• But Now I Must Go: When her temporary resurrection is coming to an end, she says goodbye to Garibaldi and calmly walks out of the room so he doesn't have to see her fade away.
• Ethical Slut: She wants quick and physical relationships between brushes with death, but does care about her boyfriends’ feelings and is honest with them.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: She describes herself as agnostic even after coming back from the dead, although she's willing to discuss the matter in depth.
• Ms. Fanservice: She spends a lot of her second episode not wearing pants and also has a Sexy Silhouette scene while changing.
• The Lost Lenore: She and Garibaldi never consummate their relationship, but he seems to feel her loss deeply and is happy to see her spirit again years later.
• Smarter Than You Look: She seems like a gruff, career military ladette, but she is good at telling when her superiors are keeping things from her and enjoys replacing the lyrics from "The Yellow Rose of Texas" with lines from Emily Dickinson poems.

Major Lewis Krantz

Played by: Kent Broadhurst

The commander of Babylon 4 during the final stage of construction. He and his crew vanished along with the station, only to escape from it the first time it becomes Unstuck in Time.

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• Agent Scully: Even after learning that he has been sent four years into the future, he is skeptical about Zathras and his rants about a chosen one and the way time stabilizers work.
• Bald of Authority: He is a bald officer who manages to keep control of his crew even during difficult times.
• The Men First: When he learns that Babylon 4 is in danger in his first (chronological) appearance, he is deeply pained at the idea of abandoning that station after all the dedication he has devoted to building it, but he still agrees to do so after being reminded about his duty to his men, and he lets all of them evacuate the ship before he does, even while becoming more and more of a Nervous Wreck.
• Nervous Wreck: He gets more and more tired and frantic throughout his debut, being terrified of being sent through time again while also being worried that he will be blamed for whatever happened to the station.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Zathras is trapped under a pillar in the last minutes before Babylon 4 will become lost in time again, Krantz and his staff flee rather than help, although he makes it clear that he is unhappy about doing so.

Colonel Ari Ben Zayn

Played by: Gregory Martin

A veteran combat officer who was considered for command of Babylon 5 and is very much The Resenter about how Sinclair got the job instead.

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• Badass Israeli: He has a Jewish name, and some of his past victories took place in Israel and somewhere called New Jerusalem.
• Fatal Flaw: His envy toward Sinclair causes him to damage if not destroy his own promising career by pushing professional and ethical boundaries in trying to use threats and mind scans of the Babylon 5 staff to try to get dirt on Sinclair over nonexistent offenses.
• Large Ham: He tends to make statements with unnecessary intensity, although the charm usually associated with the trope is replaced by self-righteous abrasiveness in most scenes.
• Rugged Scar: He is a Colonel Badass with a long battle scar under one of his eyes.
• Sociopathic Soldier: He believes that he deserves all the recognition and power he wants due to having won every big battle he fought in (although the way he talks about how much death he had seen could hint at him being a Shell-Shocked Veteran).

Captain Sandra Hiroshi

Played by: Kim Myori

Captain of the EAS Churchill, and a supporter of Hague. During the chaos caused by the martial law decree, she rushes to Babylon 5 with terrible news...

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• Bearer of Bad News: She's the one who tells Sheridan and Ryan about the loyalist fleet heading to Babylon 5.
• Lady of War: She is a very graceful and reserved ship commander who subjects her opponents to devastating damage.
• Off Screen Moment Of Awesome: Despite probably being on their own, she and her ship survive long enough to regroup with other rebels during a period where almost every ship to immediately declare support for Hague is destroyed (with his flagship only surviving because it had two escorts).
• Taking You with Me: She rams her damaged ship into the enemy vessel that mortally wounded the Churchill (and blocked all of the routes to escape pods), killing herself and her opponent.

Captain Edward MacDougan

Played by: Richard Gant

Captain of the EAS Vesta, and one of Sheridan's academy instructors.

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• In-Series Nickname: Sheridan calls him Mackie.
• Nerves of Steel: Intense battles, moral debates with his former student, and being held at gunpoint by a disloyal first officer all fail to cause him much visible distress or concern.
• Old Soldier: He is a prominent and skilled ship commander who is old enough to have trained the forty-six-year-old Sheridan.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He is reluctant to oppose a lawful president (even a tyrant who got the job with a Klingon Promotion) in favor of a military-led rebellion, but he is also a longtime advocate against Just Following Orders and goes out of his way to avoid personally shooting at civilians who Clark wants dead. Being reminded that standing by while others kill civilians is still morally wrong makes him have a Heel–Face Turn.

Captain Michael Jankowski

"If we bring back a profile on a warship, they'll be handing out medals by the bucket."

Played by: Tim Colceri

The CO of the EAS Prometheus in the mid-2240s, not fully trusted by his men because he was a reckless idiot with an especially bad track record with First Contact situations. Despite his infamous reputation, General Lefcourt assigned him to survey the Minbari fleet, which proved to be a horrible mistake: he disobeyed orders to avoid contact, and Jankowski-types in the Minbari fleet approached with gun ports open without considering that the humans might misinterpret this tradition, leading to a misunderstanding that sparked the Earth-Minbari War.

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• Driven to Suicide: As described in the novelization, unable to bear the weight of causing a horrific genocidal war, he ends up shooting himself in the head with a PPG surrounded with video footage of the carnage his idiocy caused.
• Glory Hound: The Prometheus was ordered not to attempt First Contact with the Minbari if they could help it, but Jankowski goes in anyway because he thinks it'll earn him and his crew medals.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: In the novelization, Londo accuses him of having this:
  Londo: He was the sort of captain who was convinced that he knew all there was to know, and that suggestions from his officers were threats to his authority. A very sad state of mind, that. Only someone utterly lacking in confidence is so driven to try to prove that they possess it in abundance.
• Military Maverick: And not the good kind. He's infamous for Hot-Blooded behavior and overambition, to the point where Sheridan, himself quite the maverick, describes him as a loose cannon, and his mishandling of First Contact situations is implied to be overt aggression. He eventually ends up drummed out of Earthforce for a mistake that ends up nearly getting the human race exterminated.
• Noodle Incident: He was responsible for a particularly bad first contact known as the "Omega Incident". All that's known is that being cleared in a court martial didn't help him earn the trust of his men.
• Small Role, Big Impact: The entire reason the Babylon Project even happened, and thus Babylon 5 exists, is to avoid a scenario where someone else makes the mistakes he did. The war he caused also causes an uptick in speciesism that's still going strong by the time Babylon 5 is open for business, sowing the seeds of the Clark administration.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: His actions lead to the Earth-Minbari War, which nearly ends in the extinction of the human race.

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