Saint Vidicon
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Saint Vidicon of Cathode is a fictional saint created by author Christopher Stasheff in his Warlock of Gramarye series of novels and features prominently in his novel Saint Vidicon to the Rescue (2005).
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[edit] Martyrdom
Father Vidicon was a Jesuit priest who worked as technician at the Vatican television station. He was martyred in 2020 during a vital broadcast by the Pope during a time of political unrest that threatened the very existence of the Catholic church. After multiple failures of a high power resistor during the broadcast, Vidicon notes that the electrical resistance of the component is nearly identical to that of a human body and grabs the leads, keeping the station on the air at the cost of his own electrocution. Vidicon is declared a martyr and becomes the patron saint of technicians and engineers.
[edit] Appearances in Stasheff's Work
The Order of Saint Vidicon appears in Stasheff's Warlock series, dedicated to preserving technology on planets that have fallen into barbarism (specifically, Gramarye). Father Vidicon himself (not yet beatified) appears as an actual character in Saint Vidicon to the Rescue as he journeys through purgatory, battling gremlins, The Imp of the Perverse and other spiritual hazards related to technology. Throughout Stasheff's works, it is traditional for engineers or technicians to raise a prayer to Saint Vidicon when dealing with a difficult or unexpected malfunction.
In Starship Troupers, the engineering-student-turned-theatre-technician Ramou Lazarian mentions that it's traditional for his fellow engineers to say a prayer to St. Vidicon when testing temperamental technology. This and other references (in Escape Velocity) indicate that series and the Warlock novels taking place in the same continuity.
[edit] Trivia
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- The character is named after a vidicon, a specific type of video camera tube.
- Saint Vidicon's symbol is a yellow screwdriver worn in the shirt pocket.
- Stasheff refers to a sister order to the Cathodeans, known as the Anodean Sisters. Little further detail is given in any of his Warlock books, though some of the Anodeans appear to have the same telekinetic abilities as the witches of Gramarye.
- Liturgies and praise songs to the saint have been written (see [1])
- There is an urban myth dating from the 1980s that when a medical light failed during delicate brain surgery in which the patient was conscious, either the patient or the surgeon muttered, "Saint Vidicon of Cathode, pray for us," and the light came back on. When examined after the surgery was completed, the filament of the light bulb was broken, yet the light still shone. The surgeon is said to have consulted a Catholic priest on the matter and been told it was probably handled by Saint Jude, if in fact it was a miracle at all.
