Tachyons in fiction

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The hypothetical particles tachyons have inspired many occurrences of tachyons in fiction.

Tachyon model. Animation
Tachyon model. Image:Tachyon6-200px.gif
Animation

In general, tachyons are a standby mechanism upon which many science fiction authors rely to establish faster-than-light communication, with or without reference to causality issues. For example, in the Babylon 5 television series, tachyons are used for real-time communication over long distances. Another instance is Gregory Benford's novel Timescape, winner of the Nebula Award, which involves the use of tachyons to transmit a message of salvation back in time. Likewise, John Carpenter's horror film Prince of Darkness uses tachyons to explain how future humans send messages backward through time to warn the characters of their impending doom. By contrast, Alan Moore's classic graphic novel Watchmen features a character who uses "a squall of tachyons" broadcasting from space to muddle the mind of the only person on Earth capable of seeing the future.

The word "tachyon" has become widely recognized to such an extent that it can impart a science-fictional "sound" even if the subject in question has no particular relation to superluminal travel (compare positronic brain). Classic Anime fans may associate tachyons with the energy source for the wave-motion gun and wave-motion engine in Space Battleship Yamato (Starblazers in the United States). Further examples include the "Tachion Tanks" of the PC game Dark Reign and the "tachyon beam" of the game Master of Orion. The space-combat sim Tachyon: The Fringe utilizes "tachyon gates" for superluminal travel but gives no exact explanation for the technology, and the MMORPG Eve Online features six types of "Large Tachyon Lasers", technically a contradiction since by definition, lasers emit light—photons, not any kind of hypothetical tachyon.

Other examples of the use of tachyons in fiction include:

  • In Dan Simmons' Hyperion universe, a faster-than-light communication medium, the 'fatline', is used for starships and planets to send high-priority messages to each other without suffering months or years' delay for normal radio transmission. The fatline messages can be intercepted and decoded by fatline receivers, and the message is described in Hyperion as a "burst of decaying tachyons."
  • Troy Denning's novel Star By Star, part of the "New Jedi Order" Star Wars series, has a method of following a ship's path through hyperspace by stripping tachyons from it and thereby leaving a superluminal "trail".
  • Robert J. Sawyer's novel Flashforward features the invention of a Tachyon-Tardyon Collider, allowing experiments which previously required large particle accelerators to be performed in a machine about the size of a microwave. Additionally, a space probe is launched with a tachyon transmitter, allowing it to send information to Earth at faster-than-light speeds.
  • Mario Puzo's novel The Fourth K uses tachyons as an argument for the establishment of new scientific procedures.
  • Kevin Spacey's character, 'prot', in the 2001 film K-Pax, explains that his race has harnessed the incredible energy in a ray of light and spoke of travelling at multiples of c, or "tachyon speeds." Dr. Mark Powell (played by Jeff Bridges), to gainsay prot, alludes to Einstein claiming that nothing can travel at the speed of light. Pröte counters by saying that he had "misread Einstein" who said that "nothing can accelerate to the speed of light or its mass would become infinite … Einstein said nothing about entities already travelling at that speed or greater."
  • In the Star Trek fictional universe, tachyons are among the fictitious or hypothetical particles frequently invoked in treknobabble, often as a deus ex machina used to maintain the plot. Tachyons are frequently invoked to explain some aspect of the Romulan cloaking device. Cloaked ships have been detected by watching them pass through a tachyon beam, essentially creating a faster-than-light burglar alarm. Ships using imperfect cloaking devices are also implied to produce residual tachyon emissions, such as in the film Star Trek Nemesis. In the film Star Trek: Insurrection, ships fire "tachyon pulses" at one another, disrupting the targets' "shield harmonics" and thereby allowing transport through the shields. Finally, in the third season Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Explorers", a tachyon stream was used as an (accidental) means to propel an ancient sailing ship to warp speed. Tachyons are also often mentioned throughout each series when a plot contains references to time travel or time manipulation.
  • The Stargate SG-1 television series(Season 4) has described tachyons as a means for ship propulsion for the Asgard. They use a series of three Tachyon particle accelerators to power the ship at faster than light speeds. (The Asgard ships are alternatively stated to use "four neutrino ion generators" with no mention of tachyons in reference to their propulsion system.)
  • The Tom Baker-era Doctor Who story "The Leisure Hive" features a race called the Argolins who utilise tachyons for a cloning-like procedure and for "illusions" as such. The Argolin Pangol explains, "Tachyons travel faster than light. A tachyon field can therefore be made to reach point B – that visidome, say – before its departure from point A, the Generator." Romana says that the Time Lords "abandoned tachyonics when we developed warp matrix engineering".
  • In Babylon 5 a tachyon field in normal space forms a rift in time, allowing the movement of large objects through time.
  • In the series pilot of Eureka scientist Walter Perkins creates a "tachyon accelerator", activates it, and as a result the laws of physics and the fabric of space-time itself begin to unravel. This is apparently due to a "tachyon collision" created by the machine. The effects are stopped by creating a second collision to counteract the first.
  • The X-Men character Silver Samurai has the power to generate a tachyon field which can cut through everything but adamantium by channeling his mutant energy into anything, usually his katana.
  • In the computer game Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, players can build a "tachyon field" which improves a base's defensive capabilities, and equip units with a "tachyon bolt" weapon.
  • In the computer game Wing Commander: Privateer, players can buy tachyon cannons which are the second most powerful, fastest firing, and highest velocity weapon in the game. The Plasma Gun is the most powerful weapon but has an extremely slow firing rate, velocity, and requires an immense amount of energy.
  • In the computer game MMORPG MapleStory, Tachyons are an item that must be collected to repair the Time Sphere, Ludibrium's power source.
  • Freeware real-time strategy computer game Battleships Forever utilises weapons called 'Tachyon Repeaters' and 'MegaTachyons'. Amazingly, projectiles from these weapons actually move slower than most other weapons in the game.
  • Some commercial promoters of crystals for personal wellness will refer to tachyons and zero-point energy within such crystals.
  • In Faerie Wars, Princess Blue tries selling a skin care treatment using tachyons to reverse time on the object it is applied to.
  • Tachyon is a character in the Lonelygirl15 related OpAphid alternate reality game. She is a spy working for a secret organisation in opposition to OpAphid's activities. The YouTube tagline about her location reads: 'By the time you know, I'll be gone'.
  • In the Andromeda (TV series) Tachyons are mentioned briefly in episode 2x18 when the crew of the starship meets a Vedran. Andromeda detects a "massive tachyon burst" from the planet the Vedran was on. The tachyon burst was a result of a massive tesseract used to cut the system of Ralm Parthia from the Slipstream.
  • In the Italian comic book series PKNA Tachyons are widely mentioned as the particles used to propel time machines (as the chronosail widely used, for example, by the Razziatore). During the series were also mentioned 'tachionic storms' which, although not noticed by 20th century people, could be used by chronauts to achieve particular results.
  • In the Wild Cards book series, the character Dr. Tachyon is so named because of the way in which his bioship flies faster than light, and because his own alien name is impractically long and difficult to pronounce.
  • In Kamen Rider Kabuto, tachyons figure prominently as the Rider's power source, especially in their finishing attacks.
  • In the NBC series Journeyman, tachyons have been mentioned as a theory, possibly explaining the mysterious trips through time experienced by Dan Vasser.
  • In the PC Game "Tachyon", humanity has learned to harness the particle to create gates that allow faster-than-light travel within and between solar systems.

[edit] See also

  • A chroniton is a fictional elementary particle with time-travel properties in some works of science fiction.