Bernhardt Mueller is a German mage, a member of the Sons of Ether who goes by "Dr. Comet." He predicted the existence of the comet Mirzaba, and its apocalyptic consequences for the Tellurian.
Overview[]
Born in 1937, Mueller's parents were members of the Nazi party, but as a young man he traveled extensively through Asia and developed a deep love of philosophy and natural history. Mueller was one of the few academics who defended the work of Immanuel Velikovsky. Mueller himself predicted in the 1990s that a hyperdimensional comet, which he called Mirzaba, was on a collision course with Earth, and calculated the date of impact to be December 22, 2012. This prediction, plus Technocratic propaganda about his parents' politics, lead to Mueller being discredited even among his fellow Etherites.[1]
In October 1999, after the Red Star had become visible even to Sleepers, Mueller met with Stanislaus Wojciehowicz, whose work in retroscopic archeology had revealed the existence of several advanced non-human civilizations in Earth's past. Together, they theorized that these civilizations had been wiped out by prior passes of Mirzaba — in fact, they may have sacrificed themselves to prevent the total destruction of Earth. They even speculated that Mirzaba was drawn to Earth when its dominant civilization reached a suitably high level of development.[2]
Mueller vanished from an Etherite New Years Eve party in the early hours of January 1, 2000, declaring his intention to launch himself into the future to meet Mirzaba's arrival. For several years afterwards, jokes about "Doctor Comet sightings" were common among the Tradition.[1] In one timeline, he arrived in China just in time to divert the comet, with the help of Yves Mercure, Nikki Yemana, and Ernesto Amanguale.[3] In a scenario presented in Ascension, Mueller re-emerges in time to assist Abner and Whitney Tripplethorpe warn the world of the comet Typhon, which may or may not be the same body as Mirzaba.[1]