Tachyons in fiction

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

Tachyon model.
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.

In popular culture

Comics

• 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 DC Universe, Tachyons are used by both Hourman II and III.

• In the graphic novel Watchmen, Dr. Manhattan's ability to see into the future is blocked by tachyons generated by Adrian Veidt.

Film

• In Land of the Lost (2009), Will Ferrell stars as Dr. Rick Marshall, who invented the "Tachyon Amplifier" that can supposedly boost a strong signal of Tachyon energy into a time warp that will lead to a universal lost and found, a virtual "Land of the Lost".

Literature

• 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."

• 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.

• In Terry Pratchett's "Johnny Maxwell" trilogy of children's books, the time-travelling bag-lady is called "Mrs. Tachyon."

• 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.

Television

• 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. 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. In the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation tachyons which were released cause a space-time fissure that threatens to destroy all life on Earth (along with the rest of the galaxy) in the distant past.

• 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 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.

• In the NBC series Journeyman, tachyons have been mentioned as a theory, possibly explaining the mysterious trips through time experienced by Dan Vasser.

Video Games

• In the MORPG Maplestory, a quest has the player collect tachyons in order to rebuild a barrier between demensions which was destroyed by a time and space distorting monster.
• In the PC Game Tachyon: The Fringe, humanity has learned to harness the particle to create gates that allow faster-than-light travel within and between solar systems.

• In Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction, the main antagonist is Emperor Percival Tachyon.

• In the PC Pinball Timeshock!, the game's main story focuses on finding pieces of Tachyonium through the time.

• In Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, certain technological advancements allows the construction of a Tachyon Field (perimiter defense) and Tachyon bolt (weapon).

Other

• 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.

See also

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