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Tanya Trask was the daughter of Dr. Bolivar Trask, the creator of the original Sentinels. Tanya and her younger brother Larry Trask were both mutants. Tanya's time travel powers caused her to "disappear" one day.

Order of the Witness[]

Tanya ended up over 3000 years in the future where Apocalypse had ascended to power a century prior and controlled much of the world. She was found by the Order of Witnesses, a group founded in the late 21st century by a mutant seeking redemption. They named her Sanctity and taught her of the Twelve.

Apocalypse sent his High Priestess Diamanda Nero to deal with the Order of Witnesses. Nero captured Diogenes and Squy'rr, torturing them for information and then wiped the the Order. Tanya and the other children protected by the Order were saved by the Clan Askani, a group of rebels led by Rachel Summers who opposed Apocalypse.[1]

Clan Askani[]

Tanya learned to control her telepathy and telekinesis directly from Rachel as a member of the Askani. The Askani beliefs taught Tanya such tenets as "what is, is", that fate must be embraced, and "thanks for today, please for tomorrow", a belief that the past brings hope. They preached that the "Sacred Timeline" should be preserved and nurtured through careful time travel. Believers deified the ancient X-Men: "the Xavier" became a father figure, the Bright Lady a mother goddess, and the prophesied "Dayspring" or "Askani'son" their messiah.

As a young woman, Sanctity defied her Askani teaching and tried to change the past so that her father's creations wouldn't destroy mutantkind. She returned to the modern era. Rachel followed her, trying to stop her. She approached her father, but Rachel erased that memory from his mind. Before Rachel returned her to the future, Sanctity uploaded the identities of the Twelve into Master Mold's core programming, hoping that by having the twelve destroyed, she would prevent the rise of Apocalypse. Larry Trask stumbled on evidence of Rachel and Sancity's psychic duel, convincing him that mutants walked among them. This pushed Dr. Trask to complete his project. Sanctity had set in motion the events she had travelled back in time to stop.[2]

Becoming Madame Sanctity, Tanya became an Askani high priestess and sent Ch'vayre to the past, to influence Cable into killing Apocalypse in hopes of changing their timeline, visiting him occasionally.[3]

Askani Sisterhood[]

Apocalypse had succeeded in wiping-out the Clan Askani and Sanctity fled to Ebonshire and created a small sect called the Askani Sisterhood, who only taught women. One of her disciples was Aliya. After the death of the Mother Askani (Rachel), Sanctity was the most powerful Askani left. However, Tanya's experiences had left her severely traumatized and her sanity was under strain.[4]

Tanya was responsible for sending Scott and Jean Grey-Summers to 1859 AD, only telling them to stop a great tragedy, but not specifying. Upon arriving in Victorian England, Scott and Jean found the biologist Dr. Nathaniel Essex and recognized him to become the evil geneticist Mr. Sinister. Sanctity actually had sent the couple to ensure that Dr. Essex became Sinister, as Mr. Sinister was necessary for the birth of Nathan Summers the Askani'son, and to stop En Sabah Nur from conquering England and creating a plague to destroy the weak of the world. After defeating Nur and the transformation of Mr. Sinister, Sanctity sent the couple back home.[5]

On one day, Madame Sanctity sent Aliya to recruit the Askani'son and, after she returned with him, he asked to learn the ways of the Askani. Even though Nathan Dayspring was a man, Sanctity ordered Aliya to instruct him, because he was the Askani'son. After the New Canaanites attacked, Madame Sanctity was seemingly killed, but was actually beamed aboard the New Canaanite's leader Stryfe's ship so she could tutor him. Sensing the similar psi-signature to Nathan, Sanctity agreed.[6]

Tanya was detained by Jacob Sutton, a chronologist of the Maximum Secret, a way-station between timelines, in order to get Cable to realize his true destiny as well as the fact that he couldn't change his future. Afterward, Sutton released them both.[7]

Attributes

Power Grid[9]
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Powers

Telepathy: She can read minds and project her thoughts into other minds within a vast, potentially limitless radius. Her notable powers include:

  • Telepathic Cloak: Can mask her presence from being detected by others. Her abilities can at times go undetected or be counteracted by other more powerful telepaths depending on their level of skill in using their own psi abilities. She can extend these defenses to others around her as well.
  • Mind Control: She has the ability to control the minds of others upon mere concentration.
  • Possession: She has the ability to possess the mind of another, and use that beings body as her own.
  • Mind Alteration: She has the ability to alter the minds of others by force of will, changing their personality partially or entirely.
  • Psionic Shield: She has the ability to erect a psychic shield for protection of herself and of others minds.
  • Illusions: She has the ability to create illusions to make herself seem to be invisible, look like someone else, or make others experience events that are not truly happening.
  • Paralysis: She has the ability to induce temporary mental or physical paralysis.
  • Mental Amnesia: Can erase any awareness of particular memories or cause total amnesia.
  • Psionic Blasts: She can project psionic force bolts which have no physical effects but which can affect a victim's mind so as to cause the victim pain or unconsciousness and turning someone brain-dead.
  • Astral Projection: She can project her astral form from her body onto astral planes or the physical planes. In the physical plane she can only travel in astral form over short distances. In the astral plane, she can mentally create psionic objects and manipulate the aspects of her environment.
  • Mind Transferal: She is able to transfer both her mind and powers into other host bodies should her own physical body be somehow killed.
  • Mental Detection: can sense the presence of another superhuman mutant within a small but as yet undefined radius of himself by perceiving the distinctive mental radiations emitted by such a being.

Telekinesis: Possesses telekinetic abilities enabling her to manipulate matter with the energy of her thoughts, create force fields and fire concussive psionic force blasts. By using her telekinesis to levitate herself, Sanctity can fly at incredible speeds. She can sustain shields that can withstand Jovian atmospheric pressures, and even repel nuclear weapon attacks.

Time Traveling: Possesses the psionic power to displace herself and others at almost any specific point in the timestream and then reemerging in the physical world from as much as a few minutes to years by generating chronal energies. She could apparently travel in astral form as well. She could also travel to points in the future.

Notes

  • Sanctity's fate is unknown, she was last seen agreeing to train the young Stryfe.
  • The origin of Sanctity poses a continuity issue caused by an error. Uncanny X-Men #-1 depicts her as Tanya Trask, Bolivar Trask's teenage daughter. However X-Men: Phoenix #3, written by John Francis Moore, shows a little girl named Sanctity under the care of the Order of Witnesses. This is not the only continuity issue caused by the Phoenix limited series. One possible explanation is that during her childhood, Tanya's powers activated and she travelled all the way to the Earth-4935 timeline and remained there for a short time. The other possibility is that the child Sanctity and Madame Sanctity are two separate characters.

See Also

Links and References

References

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