Ceremonies of Light and Dark

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“Ceremonies of Light and Dark”

Babylon 5 episode

Episode no.

Season 3
Episode 11

Written by

J. Michael Straczynski

Directed by

John Flinn, III

Guest stars

William Forward (Lord Refa)
Don Stroud (Boggs)
Paul Perri (Sniper)
Harlan Ellison (Sparky the Computer)

Production no.

311

Original airdate

8 April 1996

Episode chronology
← Previous	Next →
"Severed Dreams"	"Sic Transit Vir"

List of Babylon 5 episodes

Ceremonies of Light and Dark is an episode from the third season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5.

1 Synopsis
- 1.1 Sparky the Computer
2 Arc significance
3 Production details
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

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Undercover members of the Nightwatch target Delenn. Delenn attempts to repeat the Rebirth Ceremony first seen in "The Parliament of Dreams". Londo Mollari tells Lord Refa to break his ties with the Shadows and reduce the number of border wars the Centauri are currently involved in. To ensure compliance, Londo slips Refa one half of a binary poison and explains to Refa that should he continue, he will be secretly given the second half of the poison.

[edit] Sparky the Computer

Sparky the Computer (portrayed by Harlan Ellison) is an artificial intelligence 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 pass codes 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 Sparky'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.

[edit] Arc significance

The station command crew adopts new uniforms, supplied by Delenn, to replace their EarthForce uniforms.
Franklin admits to Delenn that he has a problem with stims.
Sheridan expresses his love for Delenn for the first time.
Susan admits that she was in love with Talia Winters.
Lennier confesses to Marcus that he is in love with Delenn, even though he knows that she will never return that love.
Mollari persuades Refa to break off his relationship with Morden, by poisoning him.