Dr. Tachyon
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Dr. Tachyon is a character from the Wild Cards series of books. He was created for the books by Melinda M. Snodgrass. Tachyon is a geneticist from the planet Takis, whose people created what human doctors called "Xenovirus Takis-A" -- the Wild Card virus. The virus (known to the Takisians as "the Enhancer"), was intended to boost their own psionic powers, allowing his House to conquer their rivals. To avoid the side-effects, it was decided to test the virus on an isolated population with the same DNA as Takisians - the humans of Earth (It's implied that the Earth is a lost colony of Takis, but this is not really pursued in the books). Tisianne protested this decision. He then tried to stop his partners from testing the virus on Earth, without success, since he had personally been responsible for achieving enough success in getting the virus to its present testable stage. When the virus was released, he worked among the "jokers", physically deformed and mutated victims of the virus, guilt-stricken over his responsibility for their suffering. Of course, Tachyon was not so anguished that he refrained from hobnobbing with celebrities, politicians, and many "aces", those rare humans successfully granted paranormal abilities by the Enhancer. His nickname came from the scientists who worked with him and is a reference to the tachyon particles used by his ship's faster than light drive - his own name was prohibitively long, and hard to pronounce.
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[edit] Deported
Soon after his arrival, Tachyon later became romantically involved with Blythe Van Renssaeler, the estranged wife of an anti-Wild Card senator. Under the codename Brain Trust, Blythe was a member of the short-lived Wild Card "team", the Four Aces. Rounded up during the Red Ace scare of the 1950s (analogue of the real-life Red Scare of the time period in American history), Tachyon, the Four Aces and their government sponsor were brought before the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC). When Brain Trust was put on the stand Tachyon telepathically mind-controlled his lover and accidentally drove Blythe insane in order to prevent her from revealing information she had absorbed from him with her ace power - information such as the names and powers of many aces he had treated over the years. Blythe was committed to an insane asylum where she eventually died. Due to his own failure to comply with HUAC, Tachyon was deported from the United States, winding up a drunken derelict wandering through Europe, psychologically unable to use his mind control abilities due to his shame over what he had done to Brain Trust. It was during his time in France that he fathered Giselle Baucort, the mother of Blaise Andrieux. It is unknown if Giselle inherited any of Tachyon's telepathic abilities, but his grandson Blaise possessed prodigious, though one-sided, mind control abilities, which would later be used against Tachyon to devastating effect.
[edit] Return to the U.S.
Years later, after a pardon from President John F. Kennedy, Tachyon returned to America, sobered up (somewhat), regained his powers, and started a clinic in Jokertown, all with the help of The Great and Powerful Turtle. He even applied for and was granted American citizenship. Closely tied to the joker/ace community, Tachyon has been at the center of many important events in Wild Card history. He developed the Trump virus, a potential, but unstable cure for the Wild Card that works only part of the time, and sometimes kills. He participated in the raid on the Egyptian Freemason headquarters and survived an attack on the Aces High restaurant by the Freemasons' leader, a deranged ace called the the Astronomer. With the help of Capt. Trips, Tachyon deflected an asteroid sent hurtling toward Earth by rogue Takisians led by his cousin Zabb. Assisted by the human vigilante Yeoman and the ace "sorceror" Fortunato, Tachyon helped drive off a race of sentient parasites known as the Swarm. His right hand was cut off by the psychotic ace Mackie Messer at the disastrous 1988 Democratic National Covention in Atlanta. Tachyon orchestrated the capture of Typhoid Croyd (an ace whose power created a brief, but wildly contagious outbreak of communicable Wild Card virus), which resulted in his being infected with a latent form of the virus. He patrolled the streets of Jokertown with a small private army of jokers during a protracted war between the Mafia and an alliance of Asian mobs and joker street gangs called the Shadow Fists. Finally, during the subsequent raids carried out on New York by the Shadow Fists' "jumpers", vicious teenagers with body-snatching powers, an unlikely series of events led to Tachyon's departure from Earth and ultimate return to Takis.
[edit] Lovers
Considered effeminate and thought by some, such as Fortunato, to be gay because of his flamboyant ways, Tachyon was actually a notorious womanizer with a long string of notches in his belt. Aside from numerous unnamed groupies and other one night stands Tachyon's list of conquests includes Brain Trust, Danelle Darcy, Roulette, and Fleur van Rensselaer (Brain Trust's daughter). Perhaps more significant is the list of women Tachyon has not bedded, either due to a brief bout with sexual impotence (Fantasy and Mistral) or bad timing (Water Lily and Peregrine). Two unrequited loves in particular were Angelface and Dr. Cody Havero. Angelface was a beautiful joker whose manifestation of the wild card made her bruise or bleed at the slightest touch. Tachyon pined after her during the booze-soaked period between his return to America and the establishment of the Jokertown Clinic. Cody Havero was a more recent love interest. Coming into Tachyon's life around the time of the jumper scare, Cody refused to sleep with the Takisian until he devoted himself to her exclusively. Later, following a jumper attack, Tachyon's new body and condition would prevent him from consummating his relationship with Cody before leaving the planet.
[edit] Motherhood
It was during the jumpers' reign of terror that the sociopathic nature of Tachyon's grandson became fully evident. After trying to rape Dr. Havero, and a failed murder attempt on Tachyon himself, Blaise ran away from home. The boy was only fifteen at the time. Recruited by the jumpers and initiated into their gang, Blaise quickly became their leader. Using his newfound body-swapping powers Blaise performed a bizarre triple-jump that left Tachyon trapped in the body of Kelly Jenkins, a sixteen year old girl, and vice versa. Now female, Tachyon was kept as her grandson's prisoner and virtual slave for several months. Worse, trapped in a nat body, Tachyon lacked any defense against Blaise's powerful mind control. After multiple rapes and beatings, Tachyon became impregnated with her own great-granddaughter - much to the amusement of Blaise and those jokers who resented Tachyon as the author of their misery. Using her psi-lord training to tap into the telepathic powers her unborn child had inherited from its father, Tachyon achieved low level telepathy. Captured while attempting to escape she used crude mental shields (similar to those she constructed for Brain Trust years ago) to rebuff one of Blaise's psychic attacks. Her grandson retaliated by assaulting her one last time. Somewhere in her second trimester, Tachyon escaped captivity, but not her current body or condition, with the help of ace vigilante Black Shadow and the joker revolutionary called Bloat.
Shortly after the first Battle of the Rox, Tachyon returned to the contested island with the help of the Great and Powerful Turtle. Bloat was unable to comply with her request that Blaise and her original body be returned to her. Amid the chaos of the National Guard attack Blaise escaped the Rox, taking Kelly with him. Bloat could only offer the mental image of a seashell (glimpsed when Blaise's mind shields briefly slipped during the attack) as a clue to her grandson's location. Bloat had interpreted a vision of Tachyon's spaceship as a seashell. Realizing Blaise meant to leave her permanently trapped not only upon earth, but in Kelly's pregnant teenage body, Tachyon and the Turtle immediately set off to stop him. Bloat would never see Tachyon again.
[edit] Return to Takis
Decades before, Dr. Tachyon had traveled from Takis to Earth in a living starship with its own mind... the mind of a child. He even named it "Baby", and its personality had grown somewhat addled after years of imprisonment in a government facility. Still absolutely dedicated to its master, Baby was eventually released back to Tachyon. By having Kelly Jenkins pose as Tachyon Blaise used that loyalty to hijack Baby. Fleeing to Takis, Blaise left Tachyon without any apparent means of pursuing him. Contacting a representative of the Network (a spacefaring culture reviled by the Takisians), Tachyon booked passage on a Network ship and returned to her homeworld, where Blaise was busily fomenting a catastrophic war between Houses. Accompanied by the aces Captain Trips and Popinjay, Tachyon's bid to reclaim the throne to which she was heir (a position traditionally reserved for the male members of her House) ended in disaster. Representing the genetic wealth of House Ilkazam, Takisian women of childbearing years were relegated to Raranna, (the traditional Takisian harem in which women are kept secluded from the public eye and enemy assassins). Though the telepathic Takisians knew her mind was male, it was determined that Tachyon's thoughts would be more concerned with the looming birth of her child than military strategy and poltiical machinations, and so she was placed in protective custody with the other breeding females. Tachyon eventually escaped Raranna, defeated Blaise and recovered her male body, though not before enduring childbirth, seeing the very foundations of Takisian society ripped apart in a bloody civil war, and fending off an attack by Network "carpetbaggers."
[edit] Current Status
Tachyon currently remains on Takis, raising his daughter/granddaughter, serving as leader of his House, and trying to rebuild Takisian society. Among his plans for the future are the dissolution of Raranna where he was confined while trapped in Kelly's pregnant body, and a program to interbreed the psychic and "mind-blind" segements of the populace, thus creating a truly telepathic race better capable of fending off the Network. What effect these plans will have on the already unstable state of Takisian world affairs remains to be seen.
Tachyon is very emotional, self-centered, prone to openly weeping, and a spoiled, womanizing aristocrat who indulges himself in every way. However, during the course of the Wild Cards series, he matures a great deal. Tachyon always dresses flamboyantly, in what are by Earthly standards, antiquated clothes of glaringly clashing colors (by Takisian standards, he's considered quite suave). After Messer's attack, his right hand is a prosthetic replacement, though he has considered having a new hand regrown while staying on Takis. Due to Blaise's political machinations while Kelly was occupying Tachyon's body he is technically married to Mona'ella, the royal princess of a rival House, though the legality/permanence of this arrangement is currently unknown.
