Sparky the Computer

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Sparky the Computer was an artificial intelligence program from the Babylon 5 science fiction universe. Sparky was featured in the episode Ceremonies of Light and Dark, just following the Babylon 5 station leaving the Earth Alliance. Sparky was portrayed by Harlan Ellison

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The Sparky the Computer personality was originally installed into the Babylon 5 computer as construction on the station was being finished and the station went on-line. Engineers decided to try having a computer with a personality run the station, but they quickly shut the program down after realizing that the artificial personality wasn't working correctly.

Since that time the personality had laid dormant in the Babylon 5 computer systems. Sparky the Computer was not removed from the system and was quickly forgotten. Sparky reemerged just after Babylon 5 declared independence from Earth while Michael Garibaldi and the command staff were working to replace all the system passcodes to keep Earth from locking them out of their own computers. When all the password changes had been implemented, the computer was shut down and rebooted. Once it came back up Spark's personality was on line, something Garibaldi quickly realized when the computer testily asked him what he wanted.

For the next several hours Sparky kept talking to Garibaldi, greatly annoying the security chief. Finally in frustration Garibaldi shot out one of the computer speakers just so he wouldn't have to listen to Sparky any more. The technicians were able to purge Sparky the Computer from the Babylon 5 computer systems shortly afterwards.