Doctor Thomas Light

"Sometimes, peace cannot be achieved unless those who spread war are destroyed."

- Dr. Light

Doctor Thomas Light (トーマス・ライト) is a character from Mega Man and Mega Man X series.

His counterpart from the MegaMan Battle Network series is called Tadashi Hikari, and he is the inventor of the PET and the grandfather of Lan Hikari and Hub Hikari.

Story
In the year 19XX (sometime in the 20th century), Thomas Light attended the Robot Institute of Technology where he met Albert W. Wily and became partners. The two graduated together with their doctorate degrees (PhDs), although Light always received more credit than Wily. The two were nominated for the Nobel Prize for physics, but only Dr. Light won. Some time after this, Dr. Wily was banished from the professional circuit for breaking scientific ethics, and Dr. Light didn't see him again until the events of the first game. Later, Dr. Light (with the assistance of Wily in the versions outside Japan) founded Light Labs, a company interested in furthering the development of computing and robotics technology for the benefit of mankind in the coming era.

In the year 200X (sometime in the first decade of the 21st century), Light built a series of household and civil service robots. Not long after that, he created a robot with a much more advanced A.I., Proto Man, the first "advanced robot." However, Proto Man had a strong sense of independence and went A.W.O.L. before his system testing was complete. Yet, Light would build on the successes and failures of the Proto Man project to build Rock (a lab assistant), Roll (a house cleaner), and a series of industrial robots (the Robot Masters).

When Dr. Wily grew jealous of Light's works receiving credit and his works not (in USA versions he's jealous because Light received all the credit for the team's work), he stole and reprogrammed the industrial robots, attempting to take over the world. Rock, having a strong sense of justice, volunteered to be converted into a "fighting robot" known as Mega Man.

Ever since that time, Dr. Light has been developing new inventions to help Mega Man counter the forces of his old ally (such as Rush the robo-dog, Tango the robo-cat, the Mega Buster, etc.).

In the year 20XX (later in the 21st century), Dr. Light began work on Mega Man X (the "X" standing for a factor of unknown potential). X would possess the ability to make his own decisions in life, unlike Rock who was bound by Asimov's "laws of robotics." However, Light knew that he would not live long enough to fully test X's potential, so he had X sealed in a capsule on September 18, 20XX, not to be awakened for thirty years. He is presumed to have passed away some time after.

An image of Dr. Light continued to provide support for X through the use of capsules during the Maverick Wars. This image of Dr. Light is shown to be able to keep up with current events and able to appear outside a capsule as well (although it only happened once to repair a fatally injured X).

Other appearances
Dr. Light made short appearances in Marvel vs. Capcom in Mega Man's and Roll's victory poses, and in Roll's ending from Tatsunoko vs. Capcom.

Mega Man and Bass CD data
The world's number one authority on robotics. "Hurry and rescue them, Megaman!" Good point: Good faith Bad point: Douchie Like: Internet Dislike: Violence

Japanese CD data:

Bad point: Naive Like: Internet Dislike: Violence



Other Media
Dr. Light appears in Mega Man cartoon series, Captain N: The Game Master, Mega Man: Upon a Star, Rockman Megamix, Rockman X manga and card 58 from Mega Mission 2.



Trivia

 * Dr. Light's first name, Thomas, is a reference to the inventor Thomas Edison.
 * "Dr. Wright," which is Dr. Light's name in the instruction manual for Mega Man, is a Western approximation of "Dr. Right."
 * In the cartoon series Captain N: The Game Master, Dr. Light is called Dr. Wright, which is his name from the first Mega Man instruction manual.
 * In Mega Man ZX Advent, there is a character named Master Thomas of the Sage Trinity, which is a reference to Dr. Light. Master Thomas, however, is nowhere near as benevolent as his namesake and intends to continue the work of fellow Sage Master Albert, who is named after Dr. Albert Wily.
 * Dr. Light is a known smoker and is seen with a smoking pipe on some occasions.
 * Dr. Light is often joked about as being Santa Claus due to how his beard looks.
 * In the US and European release of Mega Man 8, Dr. Light's voice sounds similar to Elmer Fudd's.
 * He is one of the few human characters from the classic series to have a Battle Network counterpart, Tadashi Hikari(Tadshi meaning right, and Hikari meaning light, both of the spellings of Dr. Light's surname). The others being Dr. Cossack and Dr. Wily.