Patricia Tannis

Patricia Tannis
The nexus of the crisis.
Gender	Female
Race	Human
Faction	NPC
Status	Alive
Location	Rust Commons West, Tartarus Station, Sanctuary
Game	Borderlands Borderlands 2
Voiced By	Colleen Clinkenbeard

Patricia Tannis is a main storyline character in Borderlands.

Background

Patricia Tannis is a researcher, scientist, and archaeologist once employed by the Dahl Corporation to unearth details about the mysterious Vault. Over the time of her research, the harshness of Pandora and the deaths of most of her colleagues led to her developing psychosis. She became completely numb to violence, and her loneliness caused her to impart personality onto the ECHO Recorder she uses to log her progress. When rebooting the ECHO network, the instructions she gives are described as being in the form of "an argument with either an invisible cell mate or a rat." From the first time Tannis is introduced, she expresses a sort of arrogance centered around her standing as a scientist, often implying that those who surround her are on a lesser intellectual level, her fellow researchers included.

When Dahl pulled out from Pandora, they removed their funding of Tannis' research. By then, she had become completely obsessed with finding the Vault, so she turned to bandits to aid her research. After several more discoveries, she was betrayed and abandoned by the bandits. It was at this time she realized that she could not leave her camp site because of an irrational phobia, so rather than directly conducting her search, she instead sent out a signal calling for Vault hunters to do the work. Eventually when a sleep walking incident left her outside her camp, she decided that there was little to fear and promptly proceeded to scatter the journal recordings around Pandora.

Involvement

Players are first introduced to Tannis during the the first Hidden Journal mission in the Arid Badlands. The Hidden Journal missions focus on recovering various data recorders hidden throughout the wilderness. The recorders contain journal entries from Tannis, most of which concern her research on the Vault and illustrate her rapidly diminishing sanity.

Players meet Tannis soon after passing through New Haven, when directed to her dig site in Rust Commons West. After showing her the Vault Key fragment that was found in Sledge's possession, she sends the Vault hunters out to find the rest of the fragments.

While the Vault hunters are busy dealing with Tannis' final key collecting errand, the Crimson Lance snatches both Tannis and the key fragments in her possession. The Lance commander Commandant Steele insinuates that Tannis has joined them and has handed in the key fragments willingly, which is never refuted by Tannis. Amidst the doubt over whether or not Tannis has betrayed the Vault hunters, she explains that the Crimson Lance came after her and took the vault keys, and says that Steele came up with the plan to send the adventurers to kill the bandits. Tannis says that she went along with that part because it seemed like something the Vault hunters might enjoy.

After the Vault is opened, the Vault hunters can return to Tannis (who has returned to her dig site) to turn in the key for a substantial reward of money and experience.

In The Zombie Island of Dr. Ned, she offers the mission to seek out the Pumpkinhead monster.

Tannis returns in the fourth downloadable content pack, Claptrap's New Robot Revolution. This time she has established a secluded workshop overlooking Tartarus Station. She explains that it is her secret workshop, and she is beginning some sort of project in which she could use some help. After collecting a number of components from rogue Claptraps, the project is revealed to be an android of herself, built so she wouldn't be lonely.

Between the events of Borderlands and Borderlands 2, Handsome Jack steals the Vault key from Tannis by torturing her "ceiling chairs", including one she had developed feelings for, intending to charge it with Eridium to open another Vault containing an ancient Warrior. Roland contacts Tannis, inviting her to move to Sanctuary. She accepts out of revenge for what Hyperion did to the chairs.

Personality

By the time you meet Tannis, she has gone completely insane. She often abruptly changes the subject of her conversations and appears to have developed emotional attachments to her ECHO device and to two chairs. In Borderlands 2, it is also revealed she has become extremely sociophobic, popping a blood vessel when someone says hello to her in the street. She also has a very strange set of morals, being okay with people experimenting on animals and killing people she dislikes yet being angry at mass murderers like Handsome Jack all the same; then again it is an opinion shared by characters more deranged than she is. She is the leading expert on Eridians and the Vault, and as such is a person often consulted in missions. Her knowledge is vast but is presented in an extremely whimsical way. Tannis also records much of her life into her ECHO device, then promptly hides the recordings, paying characters to retrieve them.

Tannis has also displayed rather autistic behavior, especially ones associated with Aspergers, and strangely on the nose described in one of her missions. Being dependent on repetition and a comfort zone, being socially dysfunctional, emotional problems, and difficulty expressing empathy yet still possessing it. Also her considerable skill in research and her devotion to her interests are also features of the condition. Tannis, however, suffered from multiple traumas and prolonged isolation on Pandora, as described in many of her echo logs, which likely violently agitated her condition, causing many of these factors to be violently exaggerated and more unstable.

Notes

• Tannis professes having a hatred of music, calling it "wasteful and stupid".
• Tannis can also be seen from the "fish" easter egg "Fun with barrels" in Treacher's Landing (near the "You're on a boat!" achievement).
• Tannis has given at least one set of her underwear to Crazy Earl.
• Dr Zed appears to have a certain amount of dislike for Tannis due to her having a medical degree while he does not.
• Tannis believes bacon is for "sycophants and products of incest."
• Tannis flirts during her first mission-related conversation in Borderlands 2, mentioning a "standing offer" to experience her bed.

Quotes

ECHO Recordings

Hidden Journal: The Arid Badlands

• Day 1: Patricia Tannis, Dahl scientific advisor, Day 1 on planet Pandora. I have been assigned to this sector by my superiors to find evidence of abandoned alien technology similar to that found by our competitor, the Atlas company, in the ruins on Prometheus; technology that many believe made them the superpower they are now, This kind of find seems astronomically improbable on a rock like this, but my benefactors believe in it enough to waste my considerable talents. I've only been here for three hours and I already believe this planet will be the death of me. Scientists do not chase myths and legends.
• Day 43: Day 43 on Pandora, at least I believe it to be the forty-third day I've been here. The moonlight cycles are difficult to get used to. The planet rotation day is over 90 hours long. The people that inhabit this salted dustball are as ignorant as I've seen in this galaxy. When I attach scientific inquiry to something like the Vault, I am greeted with silly nursery rhymes and slack-jawed soliloquy about a man who knew a man who knew a man. They drift off into a stupor, where I half imagine they're drunk or brain damaged and are unaware of my continued presence. If I believed in Hell, I would contemplate how it compared to Pandora. Ironically, such a belief would align me with these Neanderthals.
• Day 76: This is the 76th day. I was woken up hoping I was having a reoccurring nightmare. We spent more than 36 hours earlier today relocating our campsite closer to our dig site, only to be ambushed by local wildlife that's hungry coming out of hibernation. Half of my staff was eaten alive or killed by Skags. I survived by hiding under a colleague of mine who was being devoured on top of me. His name was Carl. My... emotions are deadened and I grieved for none of them. In point of fact, the only emotion I felt was that of joy. I felt joy because his chair was always more comfortable than mine! I took his chair. And then I noticed the emissive glow on the rocks at the dig site...
• Day 119: Day 119. I sat in the shower in tears for just under an hour. This is interesting considering we haven't had water for days. I equate my ever decreasing sanity with that of the population of my dig site. With the investigation of the symbols and glowing patterns at the site we have finally unearthed arguably certifiable proof of the existence of alien life having been here on Pandora. But, this celebration was lonely as I only have two colleagues left, and I'm not too fond of the fat girl, Chimay. I've been told that scientific discovery requires sacrifice, but I never understood what they meant until now.
• Day 172: Day 172. The fat girl, Chimay, was crushed under an alien ruin that collapsed today. She didn't... die right away and begged me to put her out of her misery as she choked on various fluids and bile. I hesitated because she was the last one alive that wasn't me. As she was choking, and coughing and dying, I tried to enjoy the interaction, I imagined it to be a conversation, as I knew it was the last I would have for a while. When I finally got around to smothering her so that I could continue my research, I could tell that she regretted the decision. The Skags had been waiting for this meal for a while; they will not go hungry tonight.

Hidden Journal: Rust Commons West

• Day 224: Patricia Tannis, Chief scientific advisor, Dahl Corporation, Day 224. The only conversations I have anymore are with this ECHO recorder. I've developed a relationship with it. Some cycles I sleep with it and others I make it stay outside of my tent! My waning ability to discern logic from insanity is becoming cumbersome. I've been translating Eridian writing in between arguing with the recorder. He went off for a few hours during my last sleep cycle - I heard you sneak out! If I were to pontificate, I would infer that the Eridian writings show a class based society that was quite capable of both leadership and of armed conflict.
• Day 321: 321st day. As I work, I spend the majority of the days having conversations with people that are not there. Two days ago, I explained to my mother how the translation program I was writing would greatly help me understand exactly what all this Eridian text I've attempted to decipher actually means. My mother has been dead for sixteen years, and she was never actually interested in the science to begin with. I am unsure if I am quite to the point of no return, but my stubbornness, which I got from her in the first place, will keep me here putting up with her until I find exactly where the Vault is, or until I drive myself so far off the edge I do not remember why I was doing this in the first place.
• Day 457: This is exciting. I think I might strip naked and run around to celebrate, but I'll do it during a dim cycle for fear of prying eyes. Before overloading and melting four of my computers' thirteen qubit operators, my program was able to decipher quite a bit more than I had been able to before. It will take a few days to fix, but I was able to find many repeated instances of an event that takes place every 200 years. It's repeated many times with... a symbol that looks not unlike a circle with an upside down 'V' it in (sic). It's possible that this is the Vault. And something about the Vault happens every 200 years. Tonight, for dinner? I will have eggs.
• Day 481: Day 481. It's true. It's all true. My program did it. Program. Program... I am now certain that the Vault is here, and that the symbol has something to do with opening it! I have checked and triple-checked my findings, and it all seems to make sense. It looks like there are extreme measures to keep the Vault secure, but that it can be opened every 200 years. The Vault's contents must be extremely valuable. Maybe better than the Atlas tech. But I cannot reveal this information to anyone just yet. If I'm wrong, I'm done. And if I'm right, the suits will claim it. I must find the vault myself. Find. Find... ("vault" is actually not capitalized in the subtitles though it should be)
• Day 493: Day 493. Dahl Corporation just shut down their mining operations here on Pandora. I think they are insane. Or, that is, whoever is making the decision is insane. Iridium mining on this planet has been hugely lucrative for Dahl and has funded my project! It's been especially profitable given how low their labor costs are. I wonder what Dahl will do with all the unpaid convicts they've been using to work for their mines. I wonder if any of them will be my friend... What? Why are you always so jealous of me getting new friends. I'm turning you off.

Hidden Journal: Rust Commons East

• Day 578: Day 578. I haven't slept in three days. I just ate... six bugs in alphabetical order starting with carabus auronitens and ending with a dessert of tetrix undulata. The information I've uncovered from my automated deciphering has me closing in on the location of this 'event' - an event I believe to the be the opening of the Vault. ECHO recorder and I are not together anymore. But I wish him the best and we remain friends so that I can keep recording these messages. He agreed, because we need to complete what we set out to do and document the intensive search for the mythic Vault. It's not a myth. It is real.
• Day 616: Day 616. Sometimes, I wish I had never been given this assignment, and never come to Pandora. Dahl has asked me to leave. The transmission said it's time to go. Everyone has left - except the criminals who they've let loose. They won't be my friends. So I had decided to return to leave as Dahl has ordered. But then... I found something. I think it is a key to the Vault! It proves the Vault is real and that it is here on Pandora, and that it can be mine! I also learned that, by my calculations, we are near the 200th anniversary of the last Vault opening - within half a year, approximately. If I leave now, I will never make it back in time. I will stay. Maybe one of the convicts will be my friend.
• Day 653: Day 653. Today is my birthday. I've been alone for an incalculable amount of time. A convict accidentally crossed over into my encampment this morning, and I allowed him to look about before I shot him in the back several times. I was immediately filled with regret upon doing this, because the human contact, no matter how awkward, would have been nice. I've decided his name was Lesli, and he had a troubled childhood where people would make fun of him for having a girl's name, and the torment eventually lead Lesli to a life of crime and debauchery. There was a tattoo on his bum that looked not unlike the name, 'Patricia'. I might have imagined the tattoo. The experience compelled me to move the Vault key fragment I found so that it can be safe. It's extremely important. So I've given it to the man known as Crazy Earl. He's not crazy. He doesn't like people. The Vault key will be safe with him... I also gave him my underwear.
• Day 684: Day 684. I seem to be unable to leave camp anymore. I've collected all of the information I need to be able to find the Vault, but I am overcome with terror and instantaneous paralyzation upon any attempt to leave my confines. I believe I have some kind of psychosis. Whatever it is, I am a prisoner of my own jail and I will not be able to find anything without help from an outside party. I will put out feelers to see if I can get someone on this rock to grant me assistance. Perhaps I can send an off-world message to attract some Vault hunters. Some company would be lovely.
• Day 718: Day Seven. One. Eight. I woke up outside the camp today. I don't know how I got outside, but I seem to have overcome my inability to leave. This will be my last recording before I scatter the ECHO recordings as far as I can. My ECHO recorder has clearly gone crazy, and if I am not careful, I too might go insane. I will come back and resume my research when I have rid myself of this two-timing recorder. This is Patricia Tannis, signing off.

ECHO Broadcasts

• Listen to this, mud dwellers. Skipping all the details that would confuse the lot of you, I have concluded that the Vault is more than likely genuine. In addition to that fact, which has probably burned a hole in your brain, the Vault can only be opened once every two centuries, and that time is about to arrive. - ECHO broadcast upon arriving in New Haven.
• I am talking. The lady with scars where her face should be believes that you and I are looking for the same thing. You should come to me now so I can see the artifact you have recovered.
• You killed the ugly one. I asked Pierce to give you Class A clearance and she declined, so I stole her robotic arm until she'd give it to you. You should have little trouble moving forward. Are we friends? I think I would enjoy that.
• My instrument readings suggest we may find another Vault key fragment at the Trash Coast. Unfortunately, in your way are the inhabitants of Jaynistown who smell of alcohol and ignorance. They like science as much as I like the idea of music. Music is wasteful and stupid.
• These dirty criminals control access to the Trash Coast. Dispose of what you will so you can investigate further.
• Have you managed to open access to the Trash Coast yet? If not, you are slow and should go faster. My instrument readings are fluctuating, and I get the feeling we're running out of time because you're slow and should go faster.
• Crimson Lance. They hired bandits to stop all road traffic, then killed them rather than pay up. As a business strategy, murdering their employees will see diminishing returns.
• If the Lance are taking an interest in what we're doing, then things just got a lot more dangerous-- for you not for me. I'm safe and sipping a nice chamomile. They know the legend of the Vault, too, and it is unlikely they will let you simply walk in unopposed and cheerful. Also, I have butter cookies.
• Flynt was an employee of mine but I fired him for gross incompetence. When he left, he stole a fragment from me and punched my dog, which was the fourth and final part of the key. The fragment is part of the key, not my dog.
• I regret not trusting you, but we've no time for 'who betrayed whom.' Steele has taken the Vault key and already gone on her way to the Vault. Hey, for me, take the bitch down.

Other Quotes

• Welcome to my camp, or what's left of it...
• What can you do for me?
• I need my Claptrap.
• I'm looking for the artifact.
• I hope you last longer than the last one I hired.
• Incredible! Using your brain, and all the hurdles that implies, you have correctly identified a piece of the Vault key.

Claptrap's New Robot Revolution

• Story quotes:
  • Atomic batteries to power... Turbines to speed...Ooo, I wonder what this does... - from cutscene
  • I'm going to need a nuclear reaction to generate the 1.21- Oh hey! Hello! Welcome to my secret lab. Secret lair? Terror pavilion! Yes, I like that one best. Hey, you look like you're into experimentation, maybe dabbled a bit in college. Head down to the Hyperion Dump to find parts for my totally legit, in no way morally reprehensible secret project. There should be plenty of scrapped claptraps ripe for the picking; sure are a lot more of the buggers puttering around. It'll be easier than stealing candy from a dead body! - Upon acquiring Are You From These Parts?
  • Fantastic! These parts should let me reroute the Omega 13 device to the Snooze Button without sacrificing the nuclear payload! If you find any more, send them my way. - Upon acquiring Fight For Your Right To Part-E
  • I need fresher claptrap parts. These are already going stale. I'll reward you. Rip them right out of the suckers if you have to. - Upon acquiring Parts Is Parts
  • (Singing) The anklebone's connected to the leg bone. The leg bone's connected to the plutonium. The plutonium's connected to this rubber duck. Man, I'm gonna need some more parts. - Upon acquiring We All Have Our Part To Play
  • Don't worry, the claptraps don't feel a thing. It's no worse than stealing a drifter's kidneys and leaving him in a tub of rice. What? Ice? Uh-oh... - Upon acquiring A Part Of Something Larger Than Yourself
• Upon approach:
  • Do these teeth make my gums look fat?
  • Do you need something?
  • Greetings.
  • I used to be a galaxy class scientist; but now I've been reduced to a babbling hang-on.
  • Hello there, good friend!
  • Hey! Over here! Yoohoo! Yes, you!
  • My talents were squandered on this rock.
  • Over here! I need your help with... something.
  • What do you need, an invitation? Come here!
  • You can be of service to my talent.
  • You're from off planet, you smell oddly.
• Upon leaving
  • Did you get lost already?
  • I can't finish the toaster setting without those parts! Go!
  • I guess you're leaving.
  • Keep at it, my friend!
  • Keep your eyes open.
  • Let's hope you're more useful than the last one I hired.
  • More parts! I must have more parts!
  • Shh! Act like you don't know me. There are spies everywhere!
  • We'll speak again.
  • We should talk again.
  • What part of secret lab don't you understand? Get out of here!

Borderlands 2

ECHO Recordings

Hidden Journals

• "I am going to die. Roland forcibly relocated me to Sanctuary for what he claimed was my safety. but the slackjaws who populate this city make my flesh scream. A young woman said 'hello' to me today. I stared back at her, my mind screeching as I looked for a way to escape this unwanted interaction. As my face grew red with nauseous stress, a blood vessel popped in my nose, and a jet of crimson shot out of my nostrils, splattering us both with blood. She screamed and ran away. As pleased as I was at the time, I fear causing fountains of blood to shoot from my face will mot be a viable long-term strategy for avoiding conversation."
• "The same questions occurred to me today, as I was pinning a disemboweled skag to my front door to dissuade others from approaching it. What does Jack want with the Vault Key? Was the Key simply charging the entire time I possessed it, before Jack crowbarred it from my bloody hands? Was it waiting to unleash is alien powers on Pandora, to make Eridium appear from the very ground? Was it preparing itself to unlock even more alien ruins? I will delve deeper into this question after I soundproof the walls of my home, that I may be spared the incessant laughter and joviality of Sanctuary's citizens."
• "I have uncovered legends of an ancient alien warrior. The legends tell of a magical key that can bring it back to life. If my hypotheses are correct - which they always are - the legends may be speaking of the Vault Key. Also, a young man told me I was pretty on my way back from the grocer's. My reaction was surprisingly tame - I only spent the next three hours dry-heaving into a bucket."
• "Yesterday, I had a conversation with another human being. Granted, it was only a conversation inasmuch as my grunts of social terror could be taken as human speech, but Roland did not seem to mind. He asked me why Jack hasn't revived the Warrior yet, if he has the key. I conveyed that the key needed to be charged with Eridium - hence Jack's mining operations. He nodded, and silently wiped the streams of my saliva off his face. I returned home, confused not only at his lack of disgust toward my behavior, but my lack of disgust toward him. For the first time, I actually felt as if I could live in Sanctuary. For the first time, I feel as if...I might be okay."

Torture Chairs

• "I've been relocated to Sanctuary against everyone's better judgement - not my own mind you, I never wanted to be here. I was perfectly content to live out my days in a non-standard living arrangement with two ceiling chairs I met at a bar fight. Oh, they're adorable - they barely speak any English - and if you have to ask what a ceiling chair is, I pity the life you've wasted."
• "I should discuss the scrollophant in the room. The reason for my relocation was an elongated and systematically unpleasant torture at the hands of Jack's cronies. Roland, and his well-defined pectoral muscles, were kind enough to entrust the Vault Key with me after the awakening of the Destroyer, not to be confused with the Warrior, seriously, they sound nothing alike."
• "Oh, right, torture! I asked nicely on several occasions to take proper precautions against bacteria on the instruments, but it fell upon idiotic ears. As they cut into my flesh over and over, I would fade in and out of consciousness and whisper to the ceiling chairs that it was going to be okay. Clork was afraid at first, his four legs trembled against the cold ceiling, but he knew he had to be strong for me. Then they went to work on his brother, Phillipe."
• "Phillipe - I, I just - Phillipe was so brave. He was so brave for me when the rotary saws began to ply the legs from his body. Clork cried out for his brother, even when one of the torturers inadvertently sat on him and muffled his cries. The last list Phillipe said before he passed on to the great wooden beyond was 'I love you, Patty. I love you.' And then he was gone."
• "It's lonely here in Sanctuary, cure Clork prattles around on the ceiling, but it's hardly the same. Jack has taken so much from me - Jack has taken the only happiness I've ever had in his asinine quest for the Warrior and more power. Revenge is as pointless as music, but on this occasion, I will allow myself the revenge, I will allow myself to aid in his downfall. Mark my words, Jack, you're going to die."

Trivia

• Her line, "Atomic batteries to power... Turbines to speed..." is a reference to a line spoken by Robin in the 1966 movie Batman when the Batmobile is powered up.