The Evil Doctor: a rather different Whoniverse

[Catsmate]

A quick experiment with a new style of stat block.

Awareness 4

Coordination 4

Ingenuity 4

Presence 4

Resolve 4

Strength 4

Karen        A black girl in her late teens that he encountered in Britain, in a universe a little to the left of Whoniversee; she talked MortimusI into letting her join him. Clever, sporty and good at sneaking around

Athletics 3, Convince 2, Fighting 2, Knowledge  3, Marksman 1, Medicine 1, Science 1, Subterfuge 5, Survival 1, Technology 2

Attractive, Brave, Empathic, Insatiable Curiosity, Lucky, Resourceful Pockets, Run For Your Life

Gear: electrical contact stunner, lockpicks, multi-tools, advanced digital camera, flash/bang pellets

Bugger. Why don't the table borders show when it's posted? They're there in the preview.

Row 1 column 1	Row 1 column 2
Row 2 column 1	Row 2 column 2

[Catsmate]

And so we arrive at the last part of the Seventh ^eDoctor's adventures. This will, I'm afraid, mean less posts from now on as I have to actually write the next parts from my notes, rather than rewrite my original posts.

Part 31 - Seventh ^eDoctor – The Adventures, part seven.

<Revenge of Mortimus sequence>

42. The Highest Science
Dematerialising in 1915 Haiti something impinges on the TARDIS's engines. As over-strained systems fail and the TARDIS seems doomed the ^eDoctor decides to shut down the engines and let the force take them where it will. The TARDIS is dragged through the Vortex and popped out into a different universe; one where the newly regenerated Mortimus has tapped the power of that universe's Project SHADOWMIND to capture the ^eDoctor.

• Henceforth this universe will be referred to as the Whonivese^M
  

^eChris's link to the group-mind is their only hope to escape the virtual world they're trapped in. And Project SHADOWMIND isn't the only piece of advanced technology Mortimus has access to...

• In this universe Mortimus died in his second incarnation, not long after fleeing Gallifrey.

43. Strange England
Fleeing the revenge of Mortimus the ^eDoctor and minions take the damaged TARDIS on a blind trip through the vortex and land on Earth in 1968.

• Where else?
  

But a different Earth, one where the planet had been ravaged by two global wars, with a third in prospect. Landing in England the party are stopped by troops of a secret international agency, but one that's puzzlingly friendly ("What happened to your police box then Doctor? Re-spray her?").
Involved in an investigation with 'UNIT' the ^eDoctor attempts to maintain a bluff with the mustachioed Lethbridge-Stewart while repairing the TARDIS sufficiently to escape...
Unfortunately the 'real' Doctor returns, complete with TARDIS (blue!) and assistants. Hijacking that TARDIS the ^eDoctor flees, but not before ^eRoz is shot dead by 'Sergeant' Benton after she kills one Jo Grant.

• ^eAce provides an explosive diversion for their escape.

44. Dominion
Trying to fix his TARDIS with parts from his analogue's the ^eDoctor,^eAce and ^eChris hide out in the English countryside,sought by UNIT and that universe's Doctor. Using hypnosis they acquire a house in the picturesque village of Devil's End...
However the ^eDoctor isn't the only Time Lord in the village; who's side will this universe's Koschei analogue be on?


45. Warchild
Returning to the fourth millennium to confront Mortimus the ^eDoctor hatches a complicated plan to entice that universe's Tobias Vaughan into helping him. But he's pursued by not one but two other Time Lords; the Doctor and the Master have joined forces...


46. Device of Death
Darkheart. A piece of technology constructed by the Chronovores themselves,potentially capable of rewriting the structure of the universe, even destroying the Time Lords. And Mortimus is trying to control it.
Once before the ^eDoctor encountered this device. And it killed him.
The travellers encounter a type of paradox; in this universe Mortimus died while investigating Darkheart, but indirectly by the actions of his older self from the other universe. 
As four Time Lords vie for control of one of the most powerful devices in the universe reality itself is stretched thin and history rewritten around them.

<Revenge of Mortimus sequence ends>


47. Twilight
Finally back in their own universe the ^eDoctor and minions need a break from the non-stop conflict. Reasoning that previous attempted holidays have ended with trouble he lands the TARDIS on Titan in 3109, as she who would become the Final Empress of the Terran Empire maneuvers for power as the Terran Empire crumbles and civil war looms.


48. Endgame
Seeking revenge for the murder of Jo Grant the Doctor from the Whonivese^M navigates his TARDIS into the Whonivese^e searching for the ^eDoctor.But what is ^eJo also doing in San Francisco in 2015? What caused both the TARDISes to arrive here of all places?What do the local LoNIG team know? And why are they merely observing events?
Does this have something to do with the mystery behind the creation of San Francisco bay itself, and why Drake never found it? Are the old Costanoan legends of divine intervention true?

[Catsmate]

A quick start to the Eighth ^eDoctor era; still very much a work in progress.

Some points on the themes of this incarnation:  I've never been a fan of the 'Time War' concept so I've decided to drop it, replacing it with a 'Temporal Cold War' (as in the later seasons of ST-Enterprise) with multiple factions (including the Time Lords) involved. Far more opportunity for short lived alliances and betrayals...

There'll also be a short arc set in a parallel bubble universe (the Otherspere) that resembles the classic 'Hollow Earth' of science fiction with people living on the interior surface of a sphere with a sun analogue in the centre.
It's not a Dyson Shell (though one of them will also feature).


Part 32 - Eighth ^eDoctor – Overview, minions and gadgets.

Eighth ^eDoctor
Awareness 5        Coordination 4        Ingenuity 9        Presence 4        Resolve 5        Strength 4
Athletics 2, Convince 5, Craft 2, Fighting 3, Knowledge 6, Marksman 3, Medicine 4, Science 5, Subterfuge 5, Survival 3, Technology 4, Transport 2.
Adversary (numerous), Attractive, Boffin, Brave, Charming, FtTotU, Impulsive, Insatiable Curiosity, Lucky, Psychic, Run for Your Life!, Technically Adept, Time Lord (Experienced),Time Traveller, Vortex
    Gear: various weapons and tools.
Personality: physically more imposing than his previous incarnation, more inclined to personal violence; less manipulative and more chaotically inclined.

^eAce        as before
^eChris       as before

^eSam        A criminally inclined teenager with ambitions.       
Awareness 3        Coordination 5        Ingenuity 3        Presence 4        Resolve 4        Strength 2
Athletics 4, Convince 3, Craft 1, Fighting 2, Knowledge 2, Marksman 2, Medicine 1, Science 1, Subterfuge 3 (Sleight of Hand), Survival 1, Technology 1, Transport 2
Attractive, Brave, Impulsive, Insatiable Curiosity, Lucky, Phobia (mental illness and dementia), Run for Your Life.
    Gear:

^eGrace        A physician and surgeon with a drug problem
Awareness 4        Coordination 4        Ingenuity 4        Presence 4        Resolve 4        Strength 3
Athletics 2, Convince 2, Craft 1, Fighting 1, Knowledge 4, Marksman 1, Medicine 6, Science 3, Subterfuge 1, Survival 0, Technology 2, Transport 1
Attractive, Brave, Indomitable, Lucky, Run for Your Life, Phobia (heights)

^eMalenki     Dr. Elizabeth Malenki, a fascist scientist from an alternate timeline where Russia and Britain were allies during the Greater War.
Awareness 4        Coordination 3        Ingenuity 5        Presence 4        Resolve 5        Strength 3
Athletics 1, Convince 3, Craft 1, Fighting 1, Knowledge 4, Marksman 2, Medicine 4, Science 5, Subterfuge 2, Survival 1, Technology 3, Transport 1
    Attractive, Brave, Indomitable, Lucky, Obsession (Major:  restoring the "right" timeline), Ruthless, Voice of Authority, Vortex

[There will be more minions.]


Gadgets.
Biodisassembly gun
A pistol sized spray gun using wave shaping technology to fire a cloud of nanomachines like a coherent smoke ring, up to 20m. On contact the nanomachines paralyse the nervous system and rapidly replicate. Depending on their programming they can simply disassemble the target (leaving dust and vapour), liqueify tissue (leaving a residue of organic slime) or begin converting the victim's tissue into an explosive (reaching detonation mass takes 4-8 minutes, then an 8/16/24 explosion occurs) or incendiary (the victim literally bursts into flames after 4-8 minutes). Any setting causes a painful death, with the victim paralysed but aware, in 2-4 minutes.
The weapon hold sufficient combustible fuel and nanomachines for ten shots, if fed with basic minerals and organics it can produce its own ammunition (taking 30-90 minutes per shot).
This isn't a particularly powerful weapon, airtight protection is completely effective (though filtration systems such as common CBW suits aren't) and there's little danger of injuries as the nanomachines are programmed to require a critical mass to begin killing. It's an excellent terror weapon though.

Glop gun
Originally a less-than-lethal crowd control weapon the glop gun is a short-barrelled but bulky carbine, resembling the offspring of an assault shotgun and grenade launcher, that fires spherical blobs of sticky foam that expand on impact to envelop the target (or create an impassable glue patch on the ground).
The ^eDoctor has developed other payloads, sticky gels that incorporates acid, contact toxins or incendiary materials to mutilate or kill the victim.
The launcher hold a magazine of ten shots, projected by compressed gas to about 150m, though after 50m the weapon is inaccurate.

Hotfoot mine.
Inspired by weapons used by the Rani the ^eDoctor developed these simple booby-traps of his own.  The mines are simple flat plastic discs about 15cm in diameter and 2cm thick, weighing about half a kilogramme that can be buried up to half a metre under soil (or about 10cm under rock or concrete). The use various passive sensors (thermal, neuro-electric and mass detection) to wait for a target (the default being anything weighing more than 40kg and having significant neural activity passing within 2m); when triggered they emit a short duration pulse of plasma effecting a 2m radius, up to about half a metre in height. The plasma is configured to be relatively cool, leading to crippling injuries rather than death. The plasma is ineffective against targets in heavy, sealed, armour.
Mines can be programmed for different target parameters and a group of mines can be programmed to allow a group of targets to enter their blast zones before triggering.

Fracture wand.
An odd piece of Precursor race technology, the fracture wand generates self sustaining and free standing walls of energy. It's form is a 16cm long cylinder composed of merged spheres, each about 2cm in diameter. There's a trigger plate, a control knob and a readout about one third of the way along the wand.
When pointed at a surface within 60m and triggered the wand emits a beam of black light, shot with reddish tendrils. Where it contacts the surface a wall of energy springs into existence, opaque to vision and almost impenetrable (it can stop heavy weapon fire and deals 15/30/45 damage on contact). The wall extends as long as the user dragged the targeting beam, with a minimum width of 1.5m and a maximum extent  of 48m (at a height of 3m). The control knob determines the height of the wall, 1.5m, 3m (the default), 6m. The wall lasts 5-10 minutes (halved for 6m height, doubled for 1.5m height). After the wall dissipates it leaves a burnt residue on the surface.
Close contact with the wall is hazardous, delivering a small radiation dose.

[Catsmate]

Apologies for the delay in posting, I haven't been feeling too well lately and wasn't able to concentrate on this.


Part 33 - Eighth ^eDoctor – The Adventures, part one.

01.    New Beginnings
After being betrayed by ^eJo in San Francisco the ^eDoctor is forced to regenerate; taken to a local hospital he's pronounced dead, partially thanks to the bungling of a surgeon, Grace Holloway. Meanwhile ^eAce and ^eChris consider their own future after the ^eDoctor's apparently final death.
After his regeneration the ^eDoctor kills a security guard while escaping the hospital morgue, an act witnessed by Grace. Giving her a choice to help him or die, and seeing how willing he is to kill, she joins him temporarily, planning to scape the 'madman' later.. He also recruits a group of of minor gang members, using his hypnotic abilities, to use as cannon fodder against the Doctor.
Apocalyptic finale when LoNIT intervene.

• The ^eDoctor acquires a new companion, a drug addict surgeon and physician ^eGrace.
  

02.     Invaders
Escaping San Francisco and the time warp the ^eDoctor finds himself again in the United States, this time in New York in 1936 during the run up to the contentious election of that year.
Ravaged by the Oki 'flu, the Dust Bowl (which has devastated  more than a million square kilometres of agricultural land) and the Great Slump, the country faces a choice between the 'New Deal' promised by Franklin Roosevelt, the populist Huey Long and his Progressives, and the Republicans under Alf Landon.

• The "Oki 'flu" is a H1N1 strain that spread quickly and could kill more than twelve million people in North America  in the period 1936 to 1942.
  

Watching from the State Tower, the travellers see a 'black blizzard' hit New York, choking hundreds. However there's more than that going on; a radio adaption of Wells' "Invaders from Mars" is being broadcast from the tower, one that
will cause a minor panic as people believe it's true. Of course it's not actually real...
When the ^eDoctor, still somewhat unstable from his recent regeneration, impersonates a private detective he finds
himself embroiled in murky US politics as well as a real invasion. Just what is in the dust clouds threatening US cities?


03.     The Beast
Landing in Germany in 1861 the ^eDoctor and his minions become embroiled in the search for an animal attacking livestock. The ^eDoctor quickly realises from it's spoor that the creature is something alien to the period and investigates, hampered and assisted by the locals, some of whom think it's a werewolf. In fact it's a genemodded Nighthound, transported there from centuries in the future by an experimental time machine, whose operator didn't survive the trip.


04.     The Vengeance of Morbius
How difficult is it to kill a Time Lord? Very. Especially one with an android body.
The TARDIS is lured to Kelmad, a bleak planet in the same system as Sarn but further from the system's star. There Morbius is very much alive, and has established a base to create a new, organic, body for himself.
The project is going well but his new body lacks certain Time Lord capabilities and he needs a tissue donor, and who better than the person who'd betrayed him previously? And his human companions will be useful test subjects...

• The ^eDoctor loses a companion, ^eChris, who is killed by Morbius's minions while trying to escape, after being driven mad by having his latent psionic abilities augmented.
  
• ^eAce is luckier, she gains Time Lord imprinting and decides to depart, taking Morbius's Time Cube for herself.
• ^eGrace involuntarily ends her drug dependence, an experience she doesn't enjoy.
• Morbius's plan fails but he escapes.
  

05.     Way of the Flesh
Years previously, and in a prior incarnation, the ^eDoctor had become embroiled in a plan by a an industrialist and a mad scientist to change humanity using alien technology.

• That'd be 7/28 Evolution.
  

Of course he beat (and killed) them and destroyed their base. But the clean up had been left to a government investigator who'd been over-ruled by his superiors. The British Government recovered as much of the technology as it could, and established the Craven Institute to study the materials.
Decades later and the Great War has begun, and Britain is preparing to deploy the products of the Institute to the European battlefield, turning the tide of war and altering history.
But does the ^eDoctor care?


06.     Unspoiled Planet
The TARDIS lands in what should be the middle of the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, but outside is unspoiled wilderness, extending as far as can bee seen. No buildings, no civilisation, no humans at all. The planet is pristine and virgin, without intelligent life.
Except for the alien scout party a few kilometres away...
Aliens (the Prex) who believe the Earth is a sacred site and object to the presence of the ^eDoctor and ^eGrace. The travellers not only have to avoid the attentions of the Prex and escape, but also figure out what's going on with Earth's history...


Comments? Suggestions?

[jezmiller]

Good to have you back! Sorry to hear you've been under the weather.

eJo betrays the Doctor after all this time, and all their collaborations? I'd love to hear the backstory on that. On most of this, actually, each entry prompts a lot of questions. It's like reading the cover blurb and then having the novel snatched out of your hands

[Catsmate]

Dec 20, 2014 23:25:23 GMT jezmiller said:

Good to have you back! Sorry to hear you've been under the weather.

eJo betrays the Doctor after all this time, and all their collaborations? I'd love to hear the backstory on that. On most of this, actually, each entry prompts a lot of questions. It's like reading the cover blurb and then having the novel snatched out of your hands

Yeah my depression has been flaring up recently. Not good.

Anyway I don't plan to expand the adventure summaries much, that'd take far too much time. I may expand on the ^eJo situation later as her Network continues. In fact it'll be around for a very long time...

[Catsmate]

Yes it is indeed another update... I'm as surprised as you.

Part 34 - Eighth ^eDoctor – The Adventures, part two.

07.    Genocide
Hurriedly leaving the changed Earth, the TARDIS is 'bumped' in the vortex by another time-ship using rather crude technology. Dragged in it's wake the ^eDoctor and ^eGrace crash land in modern day central Africa, but again there is no trace of humanity to be found. What has happened? Is the other time-craft responsible?

• And ^eGrace is starting to experience problems of her own; the ^eDoctor's TARDIS isn't able to fully shield her from the effect of the non-existence of herself, and her species.
  

The travellers follow the trail of the other craft back to Ethiopia more than three millions year in the past, and must prevent the accidental destruction of humanity by time travellers from late in the Imperial era, desperate to avert the destruction of the Earth Empire.


08.     Vampire Science
After returning human history to it's original course the ^eDoctor is bored. Acting on an impulse, and a request from ^eGrace to return to San Francisco (to "pick up a few things") the ^eDoctor pilots the TARDIS to the city by the bay for a holiday.

• ^eGrace is considering giving the ^eDoctor the slip; of course he realises this. He's amused.
  

However there are still some odd events transpiring in the city, perhaps after-effects of the time warp the Doctor and ^eDoctor's TARDISes caused? Or is it related to the attempt by The Network to salvage the alien ship whose crash caused the formation of the bay in the seventeenth century...
Meanwhile the police have their hands full with a an outbreak of strange murders, and a rash of disappearing corpses.
But surely there's no such thing as vampires?


09.     Nightmare Games.
After helping, for his own reasons, negotiate a truce between the LoNIG and the more socially responsible vampires (their cloning technology will be very useful medically) and helping kill the others, the ^eDoctor turns his attention to the source of the problems.
Somewhere under San Francisco Bay there's a dimensional shifted alien spacecraft whose arrival in 1612 destroyed the the ridge that connected the peninsula with the Marin headlands, breaking the Coast Range and allowing the flooding of the valley and the formation of San Francisco Bay. Its presence is responsible for much of the weirdness of the Bay area.

Guided by Costanoan legends and the secret papers of the geologist Blake the travellers and a few allies seek the truth.
Of course not every member of the expedition has the same objective once the ship is found. And has The Network infiltrated the group?

• This whole background is inspired by the slightly lunatic beliefs of the novelist and historian Gertrude Atherton who believed that SF Bay was formed within the last 500 years by some catastrophic event. Probably between 1609 (when Sebastian Vizcaino failed to notice the Golden Gate) and 1769, when Gaspar dePorto did find it.
  

Meanwhile the city is plagued by an outbreak of weird dreams, of other versions of San Francisco and a sixteen year old schoolgirl meets herself. Twice...

• The ^eDoctor acquires a new companion, ^eSam. The teenage Samantha Jones was an intelligent and socially active girl whose contact with two duplicates of herself from different universes has caused a radical personality change.
  

If this were a TV series this would have been the backdoor pilot for the Torchwood-esque spinoff featuring a motley collection of misfits trying to save San Francisco; the by-the-book Republic military officer and her maverick, rules-bending deputy, the all-knowing spook boss, the aging hippy scientist, the sociopathic vampire, an SFPD detective, an agoraphobic tech-wiz, the military veteran with PTSD, the wrench wench, and a Rift stranded alien/extra-dimensional human or too. Funded by the recovered Drake treasure.
Think Torchwood meets NCIS-LA but with decent acting...

Feel free to use the idea; I've always liked San Francisco and it'd make an excellent US site for a Torchwood analogue.


10.     War of the Thaleks
It's finally happened. In the fifty first century the Thalek empire and race is split by civil war, between (mainly) two factions, over gene-modification, selection, castes and cybernetics. Many other races are happy and attempt to, discretely, stir things up.
Meanwhile the TARDIS materialises on a familiar icy rockball; why has the ^eDoctor brought his minions to Iceworld? Why is ^ePeri so welcoming? Why is Glitz so nervous? And what's going on in the recently excavated caverns that are off limits to everyone?
Has ^ePeri made a deal with the (blonde) devil? And what us the ^eDoctor planning?


11.     Vanderdecken's Children
In the heady early days of human space colonisation a generation ship, the Vanderdecken, was constructed from an asteroid and intended to colonise another solar system. The Martian War put paid to the project.
Later on, as technology improved after the Thousand Day War was over, it was refitted with an experimental hyperdrive and launched on a one-way colonisation mission into deep space.
It never arrived, becoming one of those mysteries from the early days of space. Centuries later it's considered a ghost ship, the stuff of barroom tales and songs.

There were numerous suggestions for the fate for the huge ship. An early casualty of Thalek scouts perhaps? Or maybe it's experimental systems simply failed disastrously. It might simply have encountered debris in hyperspace that it's shielding couldn't handle.

Of course the truth was a little stranger. The Vanderdecken is still travelling, but a rift in hyperspace sent it into the deeper levels, adjacent to the Vortex, where the passage of time itself is.....strange.
And when the TARDIS materialises on board, the ^eDoctor finds himself stuck, unable to leave until he saves the huge ship.
Assuming he can convince the inhabitants that they're on a spaceship before being executed for blasphemy.


12.     Revolution Man
The ^eDoctor unwillingly becomes involved in the events of the British Revolution of 1975 when he crosses his own timeline, and meets a couple of old acquaintances.
Meanwhile ^eSam discovers that failing to pay attention in history class can be bad for your health as she misses the significance of "Red Clydeside" and ^eGrace is arrested by the RSF. Will she talk under interrogation?
And will the ^eDoctor bother to rescue his minions? Or are his own problems too serious?.


As I've mentioned, this is new material (i.e. I'm making it up as a I go along) so suggestions are welcome. I have a general outline, several minions and characters I plan to include and a few detailed adventures and locations but I'm open to contributions.

[jezmiller]

I've got a few ideas that I'm putting together as a set of articles for the Diary. You're welcome to look them over and see if any of them strike you as interesting. Nick Seidler already accepted a few for publication, so in fairness to him I'd ask you to avoid posting any "spoilers" for those, but I'm still working on the second set, so you can use them however you like.

[Catsmate]

Dec 21, 2014 21:47:33 GMT jezmiller said:

I've got a few ideas that I'm putting together as a set of articles for the Diary. You're welcome to look them over and see if any of them strike you as interesting. Nick Seidler already accepted a few for publication, so in fairness to him I'd ask you to avoid posting any "spoilers" for those, but I'm still working on the second set, so you can use them however you like.

Thank you, I'd like that. I'll avoid spoilering.

[Catsmate]

For anyone interested, I've uploaded a rough story arc for the Eighth ^eDoctor to Dropbox (link). It's got some spoilers though not many at present. I'll upload updated versions occasionally to this folder.

A few other notes. All are subject to change and hidden for the spoiler-phobes, highlight to view..
1. The Thalek Civil War will continue to feature; it's spread through time this will be one of the factors behind the Temporal Cold War.
2. Iceworld (and ^ePeri and Glitz) will reappear.
3. The Network (the outgrowth of the Kamaradenwerk founded by ^eJo) will also appear again and continue into the future, mutating and changing. This will become more significant for the Ninth ^eDoctor. Dare I say Bad Wolf...
4. I already mentioned Otherspace, this will feature in a forthcoming update. This will be mostly exploration/escape when the TARDIS is stranded in a pocket universe with different physical laws, and involve the Feather Fall.
This is a vessel resembling a classic sci-fi rocketship but which is designed to fly down into a crevice in the seemingly solid exterior of the universe. Sort-of like a vertical submarine.
I've a fair amount of information on Otherspace, if there's interest I'll post it in advance.
5. The Rani will reappear.
6. No more San Francisco for a while.
7. An equivalent to The People (from The Also People) will appear.

[Catsmate]

An xmas update. A happy holiday to one and all.

Part 35 - Eighth ^eDoctor – The Adventures, part three.

13.     Legacy of the Thaleks
The Thalek Civil War continues, and becomes more complex as new, smaller, factions slough off. Further complications are provided by some factions employing time travel to gain an advantage, either tactically or strategically. Other civilisations are becoming concerned, especially the time active ones, and the Time Lords begin to intervene clandestinely to try and preserve the Web of Time and start recruiting allies.
None of this really interest the ^eDoctor, until the Thaleks attempt to seal his TARDIS and injure him. That annoys him and he seeks to obliterate the faction that attacked him.


14.     The Space Age
The ^eDoctor is decides to show his minions the first human steps away from their planet. Visiting Germany in 1953 they witness the the first manned spaceflight, as the VfR launches its rocket planes into orbit.

• The craft are roughly similar to the X-15 but larger and more capable, using ramjet/rocket propulsion; they're dropped from flying wing bombers at around 15km altitude and can reach ~200km. Two crew and a small payload.
• The VfR is split over using rocket planes or ballistic rockets to reach orbit, but in 1953 the former are the more mature technology. However the first satellite (lofted in 1951) was carried on a rocket.
  

But the time travellers become enmeshed in a complex tangle German and European politics, a military that considers that spaceflight is a distraction from the (now winding down) American Intervention, socialists who'd prefer the money be spent on decolonisation and several groups of spies.
When someone tries to kill the ^eDoctor he's actually surprised. Who could be responsible?

• Mortimus is also showing his companions the highlights of human history. And one of them remembers the ^eDoctor and nurses a grudge. She makes an unauthorised attempt to kill him. What will Mortimus do?
  

15.     Casualties of War
During the chaos of the Great War there are numerous opportunities for the unscrupulous, some going far beyond the usual profiteering. In the chaos of a medical aid station in western France two "Canadian" volunteers experiment with reanimating the dead, for fun and profit. But where did two humans like Howard East and Daniel Able acquire the capabilities that they're experimenting with? And why are they so deferential towards their chief nurse? And what's the source of the TARDIS signal that triggered the ^eDoctor's interesting in this benighted place and time?

• Another old enemy returns.
  

16.     Burning Bright

In what distant deeps or skies. 
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

Following up on their witnessing of the first orbital flight the time travellers witness another first. In 1971 the EFSA launched the Humbolt, the first human crewed mission to Mars. Fusion powered ion drives allowed the craft to make the journey from the space station Europa to Mars orbit in 31 days. The first lander touched down on the Martian surface on the 22nd of October; unfortunately a problem with the video relay meant that the watching millions lost contact after a few minutes.
Or rather mission control in Darmstadt killed the feed to avoid broadcasting certain...anomalies.
What's a British police box doing on Mars? What indeed...


17.     Museum Piece
Sometimes the oddest things end up in museums...
Returning to Xeros to "borrow" (loot) a few items from the Morok's collection of artefacts in their abandoned museum, the ^eDoctor finds one such device. Unfortunately while the Moroks didn't know what it was (other than being very, very old) the ^eDoctor recognises it immediately as a TemporoForm, an intelligent weapon left over from one of the wars the Time Lords fought when the universe was young.

It's creators now expunged from history the weapon follows its final programming: kill anything Gallifreyan and contaminated by contact with them.
The TARDIS's dematerialisation circuit jammed, a desperate running battle ensures as the travellers seek to avoid a messy death as the machine recovers strength and capability.


18.    Curse of the Curse

• With thanks to jezmiller for the idea and the use of the Alexandrian Society (Diary of DWRPG 21, p246).
  

According to many aficionados the low budget horror film The Curse was in fact, cursed. During it's production in 1996 two cast members died violently, it's co-star went mad and three more simply disappeared from the face of the Earth.
Of course that's nonsense; everyone knows there are no such things as curses.

Visiting London in 2008 ^eSam persuades the ^eDoctor and ^eGrace to visit a classic horror marathon. The ^eDoctor is bored until he sees The Curse and finds some of the background props appear to be actual Osiran artefacts. Intrigued he drags his Minions back to the nineties and infiltrates the production. Or tries to...

While ^eSam discovers that life an production assistant is utterly lacking in glamour (but not in attempted sexual assaults), ^eGrace is surprisingly infatuated by one of the male actors, and the ^eDoctor is confused; the Osiran artefacts appear to be dormant, but there are signs of advanced technology in the vicinity, including the echo of a temporal transit.
What's going on?

• This is the ^eDoctor's first encounter with the Alexandrian Society, a group of temporally active thieves. It won't be the last.
  

[Catsmate]

I hope everyone has a pleasant xmas. Heres's the next part of the Evil Doctor Chronicles; I've been experimenting with rather longer write-ups for the adventures.
Comments and ideas welcome.

Part 36 - Eighth ^eDoctor – The Adventures, part four.

• Again thanks are due to jezmiller for his input.

19.     Mallidax
After his encounter with the Alexandrian Society the ^eDoctor is, well, pissed off. First they try to steal the artefacts he was trying to steal, then they tried to killhim, and finally they attempt to hijack his TARDIS, using an infatuated ^eGrace as their tool. He's annoyed and plans vengeance, once he's figured out where they're based.

• He's also annoyed with ^eGrace who discovers that forced narcotic detoxification is not, after all, the worse pain possible.

Meanwhile there's the question of the source of that Osiran equipment. They visited Earth in it's distant past, and interacted with ancient Egypt, but even the Time Lords don't know much about those events due to their unwillingness to challenge the psionically powerful Osirans and risk loss of their own secrets.

• The Osirans were a late TL9 civilisation in DWAITAS terms, but didn't employ time-craft as such, preferring to generate corridors through space and or time using sophisticated mobile devices.

So the ^eDoctor decides to study the artefacts at a safe distance, by infiltrating one of the most famous archaeological expeditions, Howard Carter's opening of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1920. Travelling to London, they befriend Carter's patron Lord Carnarvon and the ^eDoctor assists in funding the project. When Carter telegraphs Carnarvon to join him in the opening of the tomb the ^eDoctor, ^eSam and ^eGrace join theparty, leaving the TARDIS in London.

While the tomb of Tutankhamun contains little in the way of useful Osiran material, though an encounter with a still operational Servicer robot enlivens proceedings...
Talking with Carter and his crew, the travellers learn of a planned expedition to Amarna, the site of the capital city Akhetaten founded by Tutankhamun's father the mysterious pharaoh Akhenaten. This expedition is ledby two Germans, Wilhelm Spiegelberg and Hermann Junker, is backed by the German government and is well funded by some mysterious backers who are accompanying the party.

• "Rather like you Doctor Smith, eh?"

Intrigued the ^eDoctor convinces Carter and Carnarvon to launch a rival expedition, while Carter is more interested in the tomb of Tutankhamun he agrees to assist, while remaining in the Valley of the Kings himself. The ^eDoctor provides funds and a team is created to beat the Germans, while Carnarvon useshis influence with the Egyptian authorities to obstruct the German expedition and recruit staff.


20.     The Riddle of the Sands
Arriving in Amarna the ^eDoctor and minions deploy a number of passive sensors, in anticipation of possible Alexandrian Society involvement with the German expedition, carry out a survey of the city using advanced sensors and then conceal their own high-tech equipment.
When the German group arrives they are surprised and annoyed by the Britishexpedition being in situ before them and sharp words are exchanged until Leonard Woolley (whom Carnarvon recruited to lead the expedition) and the German leaders, Spiegelberg and Junker, agree to cooperate. The German backer's representatives (Duncan Walsen and Erich Llecker) are opposed to this.

• The German plans are based on the work of the pre-war Deutsche Orientgesellschaft expedition, including several matters kept secret...

Meanwhile the ^eDoctor'ssensor net picks up signs of advanced technology, power sources, gravitic ripples that might be advanced communicators and active ground penetrating sensors in use. If not the Alexandrian Society, then someone not native to the period is working with the German team.

While the native labourers dig, including at several sites suggested by him,the eDoctor carries out his own explorations while ^eSam pretends to be a lady and spies on the Germans.

When the Alexandrian Society agents finally discover a major cache of Osiran artefacts, fighting erupts, with Servicer robots, time travellers and locals of several factions struggling for control of the site. Llecker releases nerve gas that kills many of the British party's labourers, and the Egyptian police,and a running battle ensues.
The ^eDoctor is able to figure out the control system for the Servicers and unleashes them, while using the remote control to summon his TARDIS. Walsen attacks ^eGrace and is stunned by her.
Alas, the tachyon and chronon release of it's arrival triggers some of theOsiran sarcophagi, which generate portals in space-time, to activate. These suck in several of the people around them, including ^eSam and Llecker, but also the TARDIS...

The ^eDoctor and ^eGrace are stranded in Egypt in 1920,with no TARDIS, a quantity of barely controlled Osiran technology, a large number of corpses to explain and the possibility of the imminent arrival of Alexandrian Society reinforcements....


21.     The Festival
Barely a hundred seconds after the loss of the TARDIS, salvation of a sort arrives in the form of an old "friend". ^eAdam's TimeCube materialises and he steps out with two other humanoids, all wearing advanced body armour and heavily armed, accompanied by a dozen robots, several of the malso visibly armed.
He looks at the ^eDoctor and says that he agrees to the proposed terms, handing him a letter bearing the crest of the Savoy hotel in London. The ^eDoctor reads the letter he's sent himself and also agrees.

One of ^eAdam's companions has been monitoring a portable sensor pack and she now informs him she's detecting a tachyon signature about 300m away,probably the arrival of a time craft. ^eAdam dispatches his other companion (^eSynthia) and four of the armed robots to "deal with it".

As the eDoctor deactivates the sarcophagi and other Osiran equipment, the other robots begin loading it all into the TimeCube, while ^eAdam and the ^eDoctor stare at each other.

• "I assume you know the terms that you proposed, the limitations of my assistance?". "I do and I assume that I believed them sufficient". "Good. Three trips it is."

Outside there is the noise of heavy energy weapons in use and several explosions.Seeing ^eGrace lookingbemused ^eAdam explains; "The Doctor will have sent a letter tome asking me to come here to help him. One of the tricks of time travel. By the way I'm Adam".

When the loading is completed, ^eSynthia and her 'bots returned, and the still unconscious Walsen also carried into the TimeCube, explosives are emplaced to destroy the cavern after they depart. Walsen is awakened in the TimeCube's medical/interrogation suite. It doesn't take long to extract everything he knows about the Alexandrian Society; origins, membership, bases, resources and objectives. After this there's not a lot of his brain left functioning.

The TimeCube materialises in a luxury suite in the Savoy hotel in London in2015, booked in the name of Doctors John Smith and Grave Holloway. ^eAdamtells them that the equipment the ^eDoctor requested is there and gives him a signalling device.
^eAdam and his companions then depart.

Amongst the material is money, weapons, identity papers, and tickets and details for the Festival of London. Including invitations to the opening of thenew Egyptian exhibition at the British Museum, featuring recently recovered artefacts looted by the Republic...

Two days later the ^eDoctor and ^eGrace attend the openingparty, and are the only people present to be unsurprised when one of the sarcophagi begins to glow and then erupts into a rainbow pattern. As figures emerge from the portal the travellers take cover and watch as the party-goers are rounded up by troops in RSF uniform armed with a mix of obsolete small arms and energy weapons. Anyone who resists is summarily killed, the rest are forced through the portal, while other soldiers collect some of the artefacts under the direction of a civilian.

Reasoning that the SSD must have acquired an Osiran sarcophagus at some time and founded a colony on some accessible planet, the ^eDoctor decides that this is where his TARDIS was dragged to by the tunnel in Egypt and impulsively decides to pass through. Dragging ^eGrace with him he sneaks up to the sarcophagus and they pass through while the SSD troops are distracted. On the other side they're added to the other captured party-goers by the troops and locked up.
Of course keeping the ^eDoctor locked up isn't easy, especially when he's better prepared than the SSD is expecting and he soon escapes. However there's nowhere to escape to and he's soon recaptured and brought before the leader of the colony of New Britain. Even he is surprised when he sees the woman sitting at the desk, a women he saw shot decades or centuries previously,depending on point of view. A woman who was executed in 1976.

Elizabeth Shaw.


22.     The Colony in Space
Dragged before Group Leader Shaw the ^eDoctor is more than a little  worried. And even more so when she greets him cordially and asks if he's the same "Doctor" who worked with the SSD during the 1970s. Reasoning that the SSD have the details of Gallifreyan physiology so there's no point in lying he tells her he is, wondering if she'll opt for immediate execution or something more prolonged....

Instead she's almost glad to see him and explains the origins of New Britain,. After the Special Services Directorate was founded to deal with "alien matters" it examined various archaeological records and odd devices they'd uncovered and found a records of the Amarna expedition and the strange events. So in the late 1950s a covert expedition was launched too loot the site of anything interesting. A cache of advanced devices were recovered and added to those "acquired" by other means (taken from museums and private collections, thefts and purchases). The SSD then began a programme to exploit the devices and managed to activate one of the sarcophagi which open a space-tunnel to a distant planet. Unfortunately the planet was desolate, with only primitive vegetation remaining.

• One of the casualties of the Osirans' Final War.
  

Over the years the SSD discovered that some of the sarcophagi had different functions, including one that could grow duplicates of humans. Group Leader Shaw is copy of the original Elizabeth Shaw, created before she meet the ^eDoctor.
The planet of New Britain was one of the few planets accessible via the sarcophagi that could support human life and was colonised as an emergency retreat for the Republic in the event of war. More than six thousand people were sent through before the link to Earth was lost when the research centre was destroyed during the Revolution of 1975.
But now they've managed to re-establish a link to one of the other sarcophagi on Earth and plan to return. Clandestinely at first, but eventually to take over.

The ^eDoctor really doesn't care about the Republic or it's descendants plans to return, he's interested in finding his TARDIS and leaving. Oh and finding ^eSam would be nice, she'd been coming along nicely as a Minion. He asks ^eShaw² about then, but unfortunately they're not here. Wherever the malfunctioning sarcophagus deposited them it wasn't here and now. But, in exchange for his help, ^eShaw² will provide a base of operations and assist him in finding them.
He agrees and sets to work on the Osiran portals, having ^eGrace assigned to help, while the other prisoners are interrogated for information about post-Revolution Britain.

Amongst the items provided by ^eAdam was a sensor scan of the energy signature of the portal that swallowed the TARDIS (and ^eSam) so he tries to duplicate this. Eventually he realises that controlled activation won't work; if he wants to find his TARDIS he'll have to trigger a malfunction in the portal and take his chances.

Persuading ^eShaw² to loan him some expendable troops for an experiment he activates his deliberately malfunctioning portal and they're sucked through...


        
23.    Back from the Future
One of the things about uncontrolled time travel is you never know when or where you'll end up. And the Osirans left a lot of junk scattered around the galaxies, especially given the abrupt end to their species, much of which has intrigued less sophisticated species for centuries. Why is this important? Well the ^eDoctor and his party emerge more than a thousand years in the future, in a former Earth Empire base now nominally controlled by the Galactic Federation, where experiments in exploiting Osiran technology had been carried out.
Unfortunately the transition in government isn't universally accepted; in fact there's a low level insurrection ongoing, which the Federation is attempting to control.

• This replaces the previous insurrection against the Imperial occupation of the planet, which was handled far less gently.
  

Even more unfortunate is that the party arrives are a group of Imperial Loyalists are raiding the facility, and they're embroiled in a small battle.
Evading both sets of combatants the ^eDoctor examines the Imperial records and finds that, yes, ^eSam did arrive here, three years previously. But of his beloved TARDIS there is no record. ^eSam was interrogated and eventually escaped to join the anti-Imperial rebels and is now part of the pro-Federation security forces.

Which is unfortunate, as the Federation forces in the research site have been wiped out, leaving the ^eDoctor, ^eGrace and a couple of surviving SSD troops  in the hand of the pro-Imperial forces. Ooops.
Taking the "run for your life" option the ^eDoctor escapes with ^eGrace and tries to contact ^eSam. The latter is somewhat glad to see him she's bored and would like to leave but the Federation isn't yet willing to let a living anachronism loose. She helps him return to the research centre and the ^eDoctor again activates the portal.

But in his haste to find his TARDIS, he makes a slight mistake in linking to the portal on New Britain. Instead he connects to the original sarcophagus on Earth, as used by the SSD to get to New Britain in the first place.
So the ^eDoctor, ^eSam and ^eGrace emerge from the portal in Republican Britain in 1972, in the middle of a highly secret and secure research base...


24.    Noontime.
Remembering the note he'd sent to himself the ^eDoctor uses the momentary confusion created by his arrival to activate the signalling device ^eAdam had given him and then greets the SSD staff "In the name of the New British Empire" and demands to see the base's commanding officer. Using the recognition codes he remembers from earlier in his life he manages to bluff his way to the base commander, who's rather less resistant to hypnosis than he should be...

Shortly afterwards a phone message is received, the base commander is to release the new arrivals to a senior officer of the SSD who'll arrive soon. And ^eAdam, in the uniform of an RSF Brigade Under-Leader, collects the ^eDoctor and his minions and instructs the base commander that no record of the incident be retained.

A few kilometres miles from the base ^eAdam has stashed his TimeCube and, subjectively at least, 2015 is mere minutes away.
Working with the data from the portals the ^eDoctor now knows the signature of the portal that swallowed his TARDIS and can follow it. Unfortunately he can't translate this into coordinates for the TimeCube, he'll have to use another Osiral portal. And the only one they know of in their current era is now under LoNIG study.

• "Third trip Doctor. Darmstadt here we come".
  

Breaking into a highly secure base is easier if you can simply appear inside it, so that's ^eAdam's plan. Gas grenades eliminate the opposition and the sarcophagus is soon under their control. As the ^eDoctor prepares ^eAdam and his minions trigger an evacuation alarm to ensure he's not disturbed (other than by the klaxons). It is the work of a few minutes to activate the portal and the three travellers pass through. Into utter darkness.

Darkness that ends abruptly as the trio are caught in intense light and a vaguely familiar voice welcomes them. Out of the gloom walks Erich Llecker, if that is his real name, now visibly bearing cybernetic implants. "I've been expecting you. For many years. Doctor". Nearby the ^eDoctor's TARDIS is visible.

Llecker and the TARDIS exited the Osiran portal in one of their old bases, constructed on a tidally locked planet that he calls 'Noontime' as the sun never sets. Also present was a crashed Cybership which he was forced to raid to survive, partially Cyber-converting himself. He was unable to re-activate the portal, and wasn't able to signal for help due to the still operational Osiran equipment's jamming effect. But now the ^eDoctor has arrived and will help him escape, one way or another.

In his madness, a bad case of cyber-psychosis, Llecker has underestimated the ^eDoctor and his minions, especially their ruthlessness. Equipped from ^eAdam's armoury they start firing, and Llecker and his small number of hybrid Cybermen are overcome, giving the travellers time to escape to the TARDIS and depart.


 Comments? Questions? Ideas?

[jezmiller]

The new longer format is a huge plus for the reader, even though it's a lot of extra work for you. There are some great plot ideas here.

I've started wondering what happened to the Pyramid of Mars in the eWhoniverse. Without Sara Jane Smith to sabotage all the Mars probes, was it discovered? And if not, who covered it up? And when, and what happened to the Osiran tech that was there?

[Catsmate]

Dec 28, 2014 21:32:14 GMT jezmiller said:

The new longer format is a huge plus for the reader, even though it's a lot of extra work for you. There are some great plot ideas here.

Thanks. It's not actually that much more effort, the basic idea and keeping track of continuity is actually most of the work.

In fact this update got a bit out of hand; too many ideas I wanted to integrate, hence it's six linked adventures (it was originally four).

I'm not completely satisfied with it. Too much Deus Ex Machina but then that's time travel for you. Also the storyline splits are a bit rough.

I plan for the Alexandrian Society to return; while they won't be major players even a small group with access to time travel is a significant threat and they're more difficult for the major powers to stop.

Dec 28, 2014 21:32:14 GMT jezmiller said:

I've started wondering what happened to the Pyramid of Mars in the eWhoniverse. Without Sara Jane Smith to sabotage all the Mars probes, was it discovered? And if not, who covered it up? And when, and what happened to the Osiran tech that was there?

Ahhh. . Yep it'll be discovered all right, or at least what remains of it. It may have self-destructed after its mission ended.

<Infodump>
Space travel in the ^eWhoniverse is rather more advanced than historically, both due to better tech and more interest, hence the Mars landing in 1971; though this seems to go for the baseline Whoniverse also, as there were crewed Mars missions in the UNIT era and Crayford's "deep space" mission.

And of course that's only what is publicly known. Some governments and the League have access to reverse engineered or just salvaged alien technology

	Historical	Whoniverse	eWhoniverse
Satellite	1957	1957 (?)	1951
Orbital flight	1961	1961 (?)	1953
Orbital base	1998	1970s	1958
Lunar landing	1969	1969 (?)	1960
Mars landing	?	1970s	1971

By 1970 the ^eWhoniverse had permanent orbital stations, both in Earth orbit and at L5, and a newly established Lunar base. Supported by surface-to-orbit spaceplanes (for humans and urgent cargo) and semi-reusable Big Dumb Boosters (similar to SeaDragon) for the heavy and routine stuff.
The latter burn LOx produced by nuclear powered electrolysis and are capable of putting kilotonne payloads into LEO. There are a few sites, generally as near the equator as possible, launching one or more of these weekly. By 1970 the cost of putting material in LEO is perhaps 1% of historical. There are also serious plans to deflect near-Earth asteroids to use for materials and shielding.

Events such as the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972 will still happen and will garner even more interest than historically, further supporting interest and investment in space.
</Infodump>

One of my planned Eighth ^eDoctor stories will take place in the next wave of space expansion. It's set in Jovian orbit on "The Gas Station", a base for mining ³He from Jupiter's atmosphere and shipping it back to Earth to fuel the fusion reactors that power much of the planet.

[starkllr]

I love the new, larger format!

Looking ahead at the future adventures you mapped out for the 8th eDoctor, I see that "Alien Bodies" isn't there. I know you're not doing the Time War, but I'd still be very curious to see how the eDoctor would deal with an auction of his future corpse...

[Catsmate]

Dec 29, 2014 15:35:10 GMT starkllr said:

I love the new, larger format!

Thanks.

Dec 29, 2014 15:35:10 GMT starkllr said:

Looking ahead at the future adventures you mapped out for the 8th eDoctor, I see that "Alien Bodies" isn't there. I know you're not doing the Time War, but I'd still be very curious to see how the eDoctor would deal with an auction of his future corpse...

I've actually updated that timeline (link), it's still very much a work in progress. As for Alien Bodies I'm not a fan of that novel and indeed the whole "Enemy" arc, however I might borrow the idea, it has potential.

[starkllr]

I loved the basic idea of a Time War, an unnamed and maybe unknowabe Enemy, and the Doctor dealing with the consequences of future events he can't allow himself to know about. Unfortunately, the execution was totally lacking. The less said about "The Ancestor Cell", the better.

[Catsmate]

Dec 29, 2014 19:13:10 GMT starkllr said:

I loved the basic idea of a Time War, an unnamed and maybe unknowabe Enemy, and the Doctor dealing with the consequences of future events he can't allow himself to know about. Unfortunately, the execution was totally lacking. The less said about "The Ancestor Cell", the better.

Indeed.

[Catsmate]

Not an update I'm afraid.
I was discussing this thread with a friend today and he suggested I clarify some of my ideas, assumptions and inspirations. So maybe this will be of interest. If not just ignore this, I'm not necessarily a fan of authorial exposition myself.

After thereviewer's original idea the format was (and I didn't notice this myself until very recently) influenced by Siskoid's Seasons of Who. Credit to him for that, I probably never would have started this little project without both of them.

Continuity. I'm a big fan of continuity and tying stories together into a structure. This is something canon Who is often terrible at which annoys me. Greatly. But then most series aren't much better. I've used bits fro the Expanded Universe which embraced this continuity, e.g. Ben Aaronovich's Transit which describes well the era between the Martian attacks and the Dalek invasion.

Dropping bits I don't like. There are a few aspects of canon Who I dislike, so I've just dropped them from the ^eWhoniverse. Some are irrational (e.g. I detest the term sonic screwdriver) and some maybe not, e.g. omitting the Zarbi. This is a purely personal thing, I know a fan who twitches when I use the term "Whoniverse". Likewise I've changed a few details (like the idea o the Cybermen having an army on a spaceship they plan to crash into Earth) that seemed annoyingly stupid.

Enhancing bits I like. I may be the only Who fan who liked the
Dominators. I thought they were a good idea and so I've used them
multiple times. This may be down to reading the novelisation many years
before seeing how terrible the TV story was, though the idea wasn't bad
and Zoe was cute.
Niklas Jansson's Doctor Who redesign project also influenced my re-use of them, and some of the background to the fourth millennium setting.

In the First ^eDoctor era I stuck with most of the canon stories in the same order, dropping a couple (like The Edge of Destruction that wouldn't have worked). Later on I've re-written more and more of them in later eras as I've become more confident. Some day I may redo the earlier incarnations completely.

Involving the ^eDoctor. It's sometimes tricky to plausibly motivate an "evil" character to act. Hence I've relied (possibly over relied) on annoying the ^eDoctor to cause him to intervene. Thus the stealing of his TARDIS, the time corridors he bumps into and attempts to kill him are somewhat frequent.

Which brings me to, those damn superscripts. They're annoying and fiddly
and I frequently miss them and have to edit but I started using them
and I'm too stubborn to drop them.

^ePeri. The ease with which I envisaged an evil version of Peri was actually slightly disturbing, especially the snippets of dialogue that popped into my head. While it's almost canon that she was sexually abused by her step-father (and a pretty common reaction to watching Planet of Fire) I decided to use this to warp her personality utterly.
In the end I became father fond of her and hence she survived her travels with the ^eDoctor.

^eAce wa somewhat similar. I wanted to twist her background a bit and warp her into what the TV version could have been had she had different experiences.

^eAdam, who was originally designed for a different RPG campaign, was somewhat similar to ^ePeri. He's how I envisage a cautious, sadistic, psychopath with access to time travel would turn out. While he's a psychopath he is definitely not similar to Lecter or Jack of All Trades; I find such characters to be utterly unrealistic ad rather irritating.
He survived in that game world because he was smart enough to make himself not worth the trouble of stopping, and also to create a moral dilemma for the players; tolerate, even help, someone whose hobby was sadistic murder for the greater good.

Interestingly I created a situation in the Second and Third ^eDoctor eras where the ^eDoctor had two female companions (Polly/Victoria, Victoria/Zoe, Liz/Jo) who were at odds with each other and having their own entourages. This wasn't really deliberate but seems to work well. I can imaging the Second ^eDoctor being amused by it, and even encouraging it to an extent, and the Third being somewhat irritated.
Any UST is in the mind of the reader...

You can blame ^eJo's Kameradenwerk equivalent on my watching of Secret Army and Kessler as a child, plus The Boys from Brazil and The Odessa File. I didn't realise this myself until jezmiller pointed it out. The organisation will morph over the centuries into a criminal/political organisation sort of like an anti-UNIT with element of Modesty Blaise's Network.

History and worldbuilding. I'm hugely in favour of proper, detailed, worldbuilding. I like David Weber's Infodumps. I prefer worlds, however alien and/or fantastic, to be plausible and reasonable. Likewise I like to see a proper historical background for science fiction set in the future. I've tried to do this with the ^eWhoniverse.

Secondary characters. Doctor Who created some marvellous secondary characters, Lytton, Jago and Litefoot, Unstoffe and Garron, and Glitz and Dibbler, that should have been more used. So I did.

Time travel. The ability to twist one's personal timeline, cheat by providing information, aid and resources to oneself and otherwise mess with causality via time travel fascinates me. It's not used that much in canon Who (Blink being an excellent exception), was used more in the EU and also by me. Of course it's rather dangerous.

Space travel. I am a big believer in human space travel, and that it is vital to the future of humanity. Hence the rapid growth of space exploration in the ^eWhoniverse, including the Mars mission in 1971. No apologies for this.
On a related note, in the Whoniverse the impact of knowing aliens were real, and dangerous, and having access to bits of advanced alien tech scavenged from various incidents should have kept humanity in space and moving outwards.
I believe the attempt to conflate the Whoniverse with the modern world was a mistake, it just doesn't fit.

One question I've been asked is why create an evil version of Britain in the ^eWhoniverse. There are a couple of reasons for this; I wanted a slightly alternate history and had some elements researched (the death of Churchill, the Trigonist invasion of the USA and a fascist Britain) for other projects so I decided to use them. However fundamentally it was a philosophical choice; Doctor Who is so linked to Britain that if one was evil, it seemed right that the other would also be so. Likewise if the Doctor is evil the Daleks or their analogue, should not be.

I wanted to avoid using the Infernoverse; while I'm a huge fan of David McIntee's work the world he descibed in The Face of the Enemy just didn't fit with what I wanted to create. That said I've deliberately kept a couple of elements as a homage, for example the execution of the Royal Family in 1942.
Inspirations were Images of Oceania and its reboot Let's All Go Down the Strand over at AH.com; both are alternate histories based on Orwell's 1984 where Britain descended into totalitarian dictatorship (as in the book) but the rest of the world didn't. Britain became a North Korea analogue with the populace fed an utterly false version of reality. The old (and unjustifiably obscure) TV series 1990 was also an influence on the setting.

As people may have noticed I've bit of an obsessive interest in time travel and alternate history, on which Doctor Who was an influence. I have hundreds of books on the subjects and have tried pretty much all the RPG on the subjects.
I've always been interested in physics an history, this may have contributed.

As you see I will cheerfully borrow/steal an idea from any source. Contributions and ideas are welcome.


OK expostulation over, blame it on an overdose of mince pies and custard creams. I'll stick to the ginger nuts from now on.

[jezmiller]

Dec 28, 2014 22:42:05 GMT Catsmate said:

I'm not completely satisfied with it. Too much Deus Ex Machina but then that's time travel for you. Also the storyline splits are a bit rough.

Personally I think it hangs together rather well. It's a bit wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey (a phrase for which someone should be authorized to use the Mind Probe on Moffat), but it's the kind of situation that might arise for any group of characters with access to controllable time travel.

Dec 28, 2014 22:42:05 GMT Catsmate said:

I plan for the Alexandrian Society to return; while they won't be major players even a small group with access to time travel is a significant threat and they're more difficult for the major powers to stop.

Especially as they operate a bit like a terrorist network, with a semi-autonomous "cell" structure. Each of the Representatives is a bit like a franchisee, running his or her own show, subject to Board approval and oversight, and each only knowing what his or her own operations are, not those of the other Representatives.

Dec 28, 2014 22:42:05 GMT Catsmate said:

<Infodump>
Space travel in the ^eWhoniverse is rather more advanced than historically, both due to better tech and more interest, hence the Mars landing in 1971; though this seems to go for the baseline Whoniverse also, as there were crewed Mars missions in the UNIT era and Crayford's "deep space" mission.

And of course that's only what is publicly known. Some governments and the League have access to reverse engineered or just salvaged alien technology

	Historical	Whoniverse	eWhoniverse
Satellite	1957	1957 (?)	1951
Orbital flight	1961	1961 (?)	1953
Orbital base	1998	1970s	1958
Lunar landing	1969	1969 (?)	1960
Mars landing	?	1970s	1971

By 1970 the ^eWhoniverse had permanent orbital stations, both in Earth orbit and at L5, and a newly established Lunar base. Supported by surface-to-orbit spaceplanes (for humans and urgent cargo) and semi-reusable Big Dumb Boosters (similar to SeaDragon) for the heavy and routine stuff.
The latter burn LOx produced by nuclear powered electrolysis and are capable of putting kilotonne payloads into LEO. There are a few sites, generally as near the equator as possible, launching one or more of these weekly. By 1970 the cost of putting material in LEO is perhaps 1% of historical. There are also serious plans to deflect near-Earth asteroids to use for materials and shielding.

Events such as the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972 will still happen and will garner even more interest than historically, further supporting interest and investment in space.
</Infodump>

One of my planned Eighth ^eDoctor stories will take place in the next wave of space expansion. It's set in Jovian orbit on "The Gas Station", a base for mining ³He from Jupiter's atmosphere and shipping it back to Earth to fuel the fusion reactors that power much of the planet.

If you've got access to alien tech, you can do more than advance your exploration programme. Reagan's Star Wars project failed because 1980s Earth technology couldn't do what he wanted. A satellite with reverse-engineered Bannerman targeting systems and energy weapons probably could, even if the reverse-engineered version were far inferior to the original. Missile delivery systems become redundant unless you also have alien stealth technologies, anti-satellite weapon systems, or just apply a bit of lateral thinking and send the bloody nuke by airmail. Or perhaps, mount massive stealth operations to plant "sleeper" WMDs in enemy cities. For that matter, alien laser technology mounted on a satellite would make a perfect assassination weapon - remember that Val Kilmer movie, "Real Genius"? Or the James Bond movie, "Moonraker"? The possibilities for the ^eDoctor to put the boot in are considerable.

The Jovian Gas Station idea caught my interest. I'll look forward to seeing what you do with that. Some kind of blackmail plot to cut off supplies?

[jezmiller]

Dec 29, 2014 22:04:08 GMT Catsmate said:

ILikewise I've changed a few details (like the idea o the Cybermen having an army on a spaceship they plan to crash into Earth) that seemed annoyingly stupid.

I always assumed (though it wasn't explicitly stated) that the original plan was to detonate the bomb in the caverns to wipe out a significant percentage of life on Earth. The freighter was then supposed to land on the devastated Earth afterwards, not crash, whereupon the army aboard would emerge to destroy or convert the survivors. Crashing the freighter into Earth was a contingency plan activated after the Doctor disarmed the bomb and Scott's troops destroyed the android guardians.

[Catsmate]

Dec 29, 2014 22:51:10 GMT jezmiller said:

Dec 28, 2014 22:42:05 GMT Catsmate said:

I'm not completely satisfied with it. Too much Deus Ex Machina but then that's time travel for you. Also the storyline splits are a bit rough.

Personally I think it hangs together rather well. It's a bit wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey (a phrase for which someone should be authorized to use the Mind Probe on Moffat), but it's the kind of situation that might arise for any group of characters with access to controllable time travel.

Yeah, it's the kind of thing the Seventh Doctor would do (especially in the EU) but doesn't generally happen in the Whoniverse. However I like it.

Dec 29, 2014 22:51:10 GMT jezmiller said:

Dec 28, 2014 22:42:05 GMT Catsmate said:

I plan for the Alexandrian Society to return; while they won't be major players even a small group with access to time travel is a significant threat and they're more difficult for the major powers to stop.

Especially as they operate a bit like a terrorist network, with a semi-autonomous "cell" structure. Each of the Representatives is a bit like a franchisee, running his or her own show, subject to Board approval and oversight, and each only knowing what his or her own operations are, not those of the other Representatives.

Absolutely. Very difficult to eliminate, without preventing their formation and creating a massive paradox. And probably ripe for some infighting too.

Dec 29, 2014 22:51:10 GMT jezmiller said:

Dec 28, 2014 22:42:05 GMT Catsmate said:

<Infodump>
Space travel in the ^eWhoniverse is rather more advanced than historically, both due to better tech and more interest, hence the Mars landing in 1971; though this seems to go for the baseline Whoniverse also, as there were crewed Mars missions in the UNIT era and Crayford's "deep space" mission.

And of course that's only what is publicly known. Some governments and the League have access to reverse engineered or just salvaged alien technology

	Historical	Whoniverse	eWhoniverse
Satellite	1957	1957 (?)	1951
Orbital flight	1961	1961 (?)	1953
Orbital base	1998	1970s	1958
Lunar landing	1969	1969 (?)	1960
Mars landing	?	1970s	1971

By 1970 the ^eWhoniverse had permanent orbital stations, both in Earth orbit and at L5, and a newly established Lunar base. Supported by surface-to-orbit spaceplanes (for humans and urgent cargo) and semi-reusable Big Dumb Boosters (similar to SeaDragon) for the heavy and routine stuff.
The latter burn LOx produced by nuclear powered electrolysis and are capable of putting kilotonne payloads into LEO. There are a few sites, generally as near the equator as possible, launching one or more of these weekly. By 1970 the cost of putting material in LEO is perhaps 1% of historical. There are also serious plans to deflect near-Earth asteroids to use for materials and shielding.

Events such as the Great Daylight Fireball of 1972 will still happen and will garner even more interest than historically, further supporting interest and investment in space.
</Infodump>

One of my planned Eighth ^eDoctor stories will take place in the next wave of space expansion. It's set in Jovian orbit on "The Gas Station", a base for mining ³He from Jupiter's atmosphere and shipping it back to Earth to fuel the fusion reactors that power much of the planet.

If you've got access to alien tech, you can do more than advance your exploration programme. Reagan's Star Wars project failed because 1980s Earth technology couldn't do what he wanted. A satellite with reverse-engineered Bannerman targeting systems and energy weapons probably could, even if the reverse-engineered version were far inferior to the original. Missile delivery systems become redundant unless you also have alien stealth technologies, anti-satellite weapon systems, or just apply a bit of lateral thinking and send the bloody nuke by airmail. Or perhaps, mount massive stealth operations to plant "sleeper" WMDs in enemy cities. For that matter, alien laser technology mounted on a satellite would make a perfect assassination weapon - remember that Val Kilmer movie, "Real Genius"? Or the James Bond movie, "Moonraker"? The possibilities for the ^eDoctor to put the boot in are considerable.

Oh yes. Once you've decent heavy lift capability and some usable directed energy weapons even aircraft will become obsolete and precision ground strikes practical for high value targets. If someone start serious asteroid mining then you need a military capability in space to protect yourself from a crippling first strike.
If you have useful orbital weapons it's likely that they'd be countered by stealthy, armoured, nuclear armed platforms in orbit, triggering an arms race.

Of course this will create an environment ripe for asymmetric warfare.

Dec 29, 2014 22:51:10 GMT jezmiller said:

The Jovian Gas Station idea caught my interest. I'll look forward to seeing what you do with that. Some kind of blackmail plot to cut off supplies?

Actually I'm still working on the plotline, the idea intrigued me and it should make an interesting location. A base on one of the inner Jovian moons (buried for radiation protection), fusion powered drones to scoop the atmosphere and extract ³He, and a mass driver to launch payloads back to Earth (or at least cis-Lunar space) for retrieval.
It'll probably be set around 2040 (before the Martian War and the gravity manipulation tech of The Moonbase), the base is operational and also acts as a centre for exploration of the Jovian system. I'm thinking about linking it to the Cybermen or Martians. Or even both.

It's a bit like The Power of Kroll but with fusion fuel rather than protein. And no swamp monsters.
Probably.



BTW, many thanks for your assistance and suggestions. They were a great inspiration to my last set of ^eDoctor adventures.

[Catsmate]

Dec 29, 2014 22:57:34 GMT jezmiller said:

Dec 29, 2014 22:04:08 GMT Catsmate said:

ILikewise I've changed a few details (like the idea o the Cybermen having an army on a spaceship they plan to crash into Earth) that seemed annoyingly stupid.

I always assumed (though it wasn't explicitly stated) that the original plan was to detonate the bomb in the caverns to wipe out a significant percentage of life on Earth. The freighter was then supposed to land on the devastated Earth afterwards, not crash, whereupon the army aboard would emerge to destroy or convert the survivors. Crashing the freighter into Earth was a contingency plan activated after the Doctor disarmed the bomb and Scott's troops destroyed the android guardians.

Yep that's plausible, but why risk losing such a significant assault force when you re-purpose the freighter? Why not a backup bomb?

Plus landing troops on a devastated Earth, without controlling the orbitals, would invite massive bombardment without Earth forces worrying about collateral damage,

[jezmiller]

Dec 29, 2014 23:21:11 GMT Catsmate said:

Absolutely. Very difficult to eliminate, without preventing their formation and creating a massive paradox. And probably ripe for some infighting too.

Oh yes. Kept in check in their own time by fear of the wrath of the Board, but the fact that they need to recruit local talent to serve as muscle when they operate in the past gives them a certain amount of plausible deniability.

Dec 29, 2014 23:21:11 GMT Catsmate said:

Of course this will create an environment ripe for asymmetric warfare.

Which is where the ^eDoctor has scope to operate. It's interesting that for all his scheming, he shares his counterpart's aversion for actually administering anything. He doesn't mind the idea of absolute power if he can get it from a Deus ex Machina artifact, like the Key to Time or the Darkheart, but building an army means organizing the catering and the wages bill, and he just doesn't have the patience for the paperwork. Probably why he prefers to operate with a small group of minions instead

Dec 29, 2014 23:21:11 GMT Catsmate said:

I'm thinking about linking it to the Cybermen or Martians. Or even both.

If Earth has orbital defenses in place, then the payloads from the Jovian mass driver could provide a Trojan Horse for an invasion fleet, perhaps? A way to sneak the ships close to Earth without them being detected as ships?

Dec 29, 2014 23:21:11 GMT Catsmate said:

BTW, many thanks for your assistance and suggestions. They were a great inspiration to my last set of ^eDoctor adventures.

Fair exchange, you've given me a lot of ideas and inspiration, and I've been thoroughly enjoying this series, so I'm glad to make a small contribution to it

[Catsmate]

Jan 1, 2015 0:38:33 GMT jezmiller said:

Dec 29, 2014 23:21:11 GMT Catsmate said:

Absolutely. Very difficult to eliminate, without preventing their formation and creating a massive paradox. And probably ripe for some infighting too.

Oh yes. Kept in check in their own time by fear of the wrath of the Board, but the fact that they need to recruit local talent to serve as muscle when they operate in the past gives them a certain amount of plausible deniability.

Yep. I just don't see the Time Lords, fro example, being well suited to deal with such a group.

Jan 1, 2015 0:38:33 GMT jezmiller said:

Dec 29, 2014 23:21:11 GMT Catsmate said:

Of course this will create an environment ripe for asymmetric warfare.

Which is where the ^eDoctor has scope to operate. It's interesting that for all his scheming, he shares his counterpart's aversion for actually administering anything. He doesn't mind the idea of absolute power if he can get it from a Deus ex Machina artifact, like the Key to Time or the Darkheart, but building an army means organizing the catering and the wages bill, and he just doesn't have the patience for the paperwork. Probably why he prefers to operate with a small group of minions instead

Exactly. Rather like the classic Master in that respect. He can cooperate with other, to a degree, to handle such matters but is averse to the burden of administration.

Jan 1, 2015 0:38:33 GMT jezmiller said:

Dec 29, 2014 23:21:11 GMT Catsmate said:

I'm thinking about linking it to the Cybermen or Martians. Or even both.

If Earth has orbital defenses in place, then the payloads from the Jovian mass driver could provide a Trojan Horse for an invasion fleet, perhaps? A way to sneak the ships close to Earth without them being detected as ships?

Or some other payloads, Cybermen infiltrators, Martian bio-weapons....

Jan 1, 2015 0:38:33 GMT jezmiller said:

Dec 29, 2014 23:21:11 GMT Catsmate said:

BTW, many thanks for your assistance and suggestions. They were a great inspiration to my last set of ^eDoctor adventures.

Fair exchange, you've given me a lot of ideas and inspiration, and I've been thoroughly enjoying this series, so I'm glad to make a small contribution to it

Thank you. I have another update almost ready, it was supposed to be ready last night but two crashes and some real life delayed things.

[Catsmate]

It's time for a new update. Hopefully this attempt won't crash. And no more introspective ramblings.
A happy 2015 to all.


Part 37 - Eighth ^eDoctor – The Adventures, part five.

25.    The Taint
Once before the ^eDoctor encountered vampires on Earth, in San Francisco in 2012. There, for his own reasons, he helped negotiate an agreement between them an humanity for mutual coexistence and tolerance. So what are they doing in Berlin in 2016?

When the TARDIS lands in Berlin, the capital of Germany and unofficial capital of the European Federation, the ^eDoctor insists on dragging his somewhat unwilling minions around the sights of the city. The even meet the Kaiser, Georg Friedrich.     

• Germany is still technically an Empire but the rise of constitutionalism and parliamentary democracy has eroded the role to a purely ceremonial Head of State.

While his minions are less interested in sightseeing, and more expecting of unpleasant encounters with aliens, the police, LoNIG agents or things from other dimensions, they actually find themselves enjoying doing the tourist thing.
In fact they decide to head out clubbing that night, to see the sights of the famed Schöneberg district, while the ^eDoctor walks the city streets alone.

^eGrace has such a good time that she brings man she's enamored with back to her suite in the Brandenburger Hof... The next morning he's gone, and she's rather light headed and irritable, even more so when the police arrive during breakfast. They're making enquiries about a women whose mutilated corpse was found stuffed into a storage closet on their floor. All three travellers (truthfully) deny knowing anything about it. ^eSam and ^eGrace wonder if the ^eDoctor provided documentation will stand up to police scrutiny, and this further worsens ^eGrace's mood. In fact she snaps at ^eSam and storms out...

Leaving together the ^eDoctor and ^eSam so some further sightseeing and message ^eGrace to meet for lunch. ^eSam decides to get some flowers for ^eGrace, too see if these will soothe her mood, and finds a small florists run by the son of a British refugee from the Republic, "Call me Fitz", who's decidedly chatty. Exchanging phone numbers they plan to meet that night.

Meanwhile ^eGrace is feeling better, and a bit ashamed, and meets them for lunch. That evening the women decline the ^eDoctor's invitation to the opening of a museum opening (^eGrace remembers the last one) and they head out to meet Fitz. At the museum the ^eDoctor is intrigued by a couple of the pieces, from recent digs in Mesopotamia, now open again to archaeologist as the League mandated peace has taken hold. Also present is an Indian, Anji, who is a representative of one of the financial services companies sponsoring the dig. Their chatting is interrupted however, when a small group smash several of the display cases and grab certain artefacts before fleeing, pursued by security guards. The police soon arrive and begin asking questions and studying video footage of the theft.

• "So herr Doktor Smith, we meet twice in one day. Trouble seems to be following you".
  

Realising that the thieves displayed superhuman strength, speed and toughness the ^eDoctor summons his minions to help him investigate. Reluctantly ditching the rather charming Fitz, they obey. But someone is nearby, listening to the ^eDoctor's call.
At the hotel he examines some blood traces left by the thieves and tells his minions that they contain traces of the alien virus that causes vampirism, though a different strain to the one in San Francisco. As part of the test he scans both his minions, to use as baselines, and discovers that ^eGrace has been infected by the virus, though it seems to be being controlled by her body's natural defenses.
Meanwhile outside the Brandenburger Hof three people are lurking, waiting for the travellers...

Telling the ^eDoctor about the encounter she had with Kurt helps calm ^eGrace's nerves, but will she turn into a vampire? The ^eDoctor reassures her "probably not". The party decide to try and find Kurt, and head to the club.
Unfortunately they find no sign of Kurt there, but the ^eDoctor's combination of intimidation and hypnosis reveal some facts; Kurt has several followers, who stick together when they're not hitting on visitors; several women who've made the acquaintance of Kurt or his friends seem to have changed personality, and others have disappeared; and a few of the club staff appear to have been already hypnotised. Monitoring one of them, ^eSam obtains the phone number she calls to report the enquiries and reports to the ^eDoctor, who cracks the local cellular phone network to trace the calls destination.

Meanwhile at a pavement café overlooking the club Fitz and Anji have both followed the time travellers and are waiting for the to emerge. When they do both follow them, joined, though they're unaware of it, by Kurt and one of the other club patrons, Janelle.
The ^eDoctor's scanner tracks the cellphone to a small estate outside Berlin. By this time Anji has been noticed by Kurt, Janelle and the ^eDoctor, Fitz by the ^eDoctor and Janelle, and Janelle (who displays surprising professionalism in tailing) only by the ^eDoctor.

When they arrive, and send the hypnotised taxi driver to wait for them, the travellers discuss how to approach the house. Anji's driver isn't willing to wait, so she dismisses him. She's getting worried, this seemed like and adventure when she decided to follow the mysterious "Doctor" earlier that evening. Meanwhile Fitz is wondering what the hell he's doing there, but eSam was just his time, and he stashes his motorbike. Janellle rather skillfully hides her bike, and makes a couple of phone calls. Kurt and his driver enter a side street, park, and wait.

Finally the ^eDoctor decides on a frontal approach, he knocks on the front door and when there's no answer opens it with his Technix. Despite being armed, ^eSam and ^eGrace are unhappy at the whole business and they're right. Once inside the party is surrounded by vampires and their minions and Kurt himself makes an appearance (having entered via a tunnel from a nearby garden). Kurt gloats but the ^eDoctor merely laughs and triggers a couple of photon flares, blinded and in pain from the UV pulses the vampires are incapacitated long enough for the time travellers to leave, with the ^eDoctor scattering a few plasma grenades behind. In the distance can be heard the noise of several approaching vertis.

• Non helicopter vertical take-off/landing transports, faster than conventional rotorcraft. Useful for a quick response force.
  

Outside he greets Janelle and tells her the vampires won't be leaving soon, and the matter will be over before LoNIG arrive. He wishes he a good night before walking off, leaving her nonplussed.

He gathers Fitx and Anji and asks them if they want to get involved in an official investigation? Neither is eagar so the take up his offer of a quick departure.
On the way back to the hotel he explains to his minions that Kurt
wrongly, believed that the artefacts they stole were linked to vampirism
and would assist them in enhancing their relatively feeble powers; in
fact the viral strain they carried was simply weak and the artefacts a red herring.

Thus the ^eDoctor acquires two new minions; Fitz Kreiner a seemingly mild mannered university dropout and florist, and Anji Kapoor a ruthless Indian financial consultant.
In fact both have secrets to hide; a forensic examination of the soil of Fitz's garden and glasshouses would interest (and possibly nauseate) the Berlin Homicide Unit, while Europol's Financial Crimes Unit would dearly like to peruse Anji's computers.


26.     Conjunction
Mithril is a distant human settlement in the Stranak system; created centuries ago by moving six asteroids, hollowing their interiors, installing artificial gravity and life support and constructing human friendly living spaces in the huge interior caverns. Connected by a mesh of nano-engineered cables, carrying heat, power, data and capsules between them, the six hollowed rocks spin constantly in space, with more than a hundred and forty million people, human, alien and AI, living inside or in domes on the surface.
Originally built to simplify settlement in a system that lacked true planets, but did have four womehole junctions connecting twenty points across the Milky Way galaxy and beyond and allowing instantanous travel. Mithril is a wealthy society, with advanced manufacturing, mineral extracting from the rich belts of asteroids and of course shipping.

But recently the wormhole network has been, well, problematic. Ships have experiences unusual stresses when entering or leaving, in a few cases being torn apart, or have entered the wormhole on the proper course but ended up in a different destination system. Something is wrong, and it may be related to the rare conjunction of the wormhole junctions, the first one in human experience.

The ^eDoctor's arrival, planned to show his new minions some of the sights of the universe, is rather bumpy; the effects of the turbulence in hyperspace is causing ripples in the Vortex. Curious he drags his group of minions with him.
^eFitz especially suffers badly from culture shock, especially nearly being arrested for attempting to light a cigarette.
Though ^eAnji fares little better, almost vomiting when told what the Terran Veal she was eating actually was, and having trouble coping with the sensation of being inside an asteroid. ^eSam and ^eGrace are a little more blasé.

After creating a cover identity for himself, and his minions, the ^eDoctor ingratiates himself into the team studying the wormhole changes. He soon discovers that, as the Astronometric Survey had long suspected, the wormholes are artifical, the product of an advanced Precursor civilisation. But he still cannot explain just what's happening, or why.

Joining a survey crew the party are taken into the maelstrom of gravitational energy that is the actual opening of the wormhole. There, with his advanced sensors, the ^eDoctor realises what is happening; whomever created the wormholes never finished the project, it was intended to create a stable portal into the Vortex, a giant corridor though time and space. Who started to construct it and why are unknown, but he can stabilise the effects. For a price.
A mere 10% of all revenues passing though the wormholes, in perpetuity. If the government doesn't want to pay they can wait a few months until the entire star system is destroyed.

They agree. While his minions go on a shopping spree the ^eDoctor makes some arrangements...


27.     Return to Iceworld
The ^eDoctor receives a message from an old minion, ^ePeri, now the Mistress of Iceworld and controller of most of the illicit activity in the area around the Disputed Zone. She says that she's got an opportunity that might interest him...
Arriving at Iceworld they're wined and dined and ^ePeri outlines her plan. Millions of years previously two of the Precursor races, the Valleyn and the Snor''kl, had vied for supremacy across the Milky Way galaxy, until their doomsday weapons had managed to eliminate each other and create the region known as the Blight in the south eastern spiral arm. ^ePeri has learned that before they were eliminated the Valleyn had constructed a device capable of opening stable portals into other parts of the universe, called the Tlop. ^ePeri has discovered a log from a independent survey ship who found it centuries before, before encountering a Draconian frigate and being destroyed. Only a couple of escape pods survived, one of which she "acquired" in part payment for a debt.

• Of course it's not that simple; the scavenger who found the pod actually found two such pods, one of which had two still surviving humans in it (Imperial tech was built to last, and regenerative preservation gel can keep someone alive for a long time). The Imperials were revived by a street-doc the scavenger hired but, before he could question them, ^ePeri's goons staff visited him and there was an unfortunately fatal disagreement over interest rates and payment terms. The two Imperials weren't found are are now hiding out, learning about the world they've woken up in and scheming to get back to the prize they found 650 years earlier.

However ^ePeri has discovered a number of problems with her idea, hence her calling on the ^eDoctor. The Disputed Zone is heavily monitored, even more so since the Thalek Civil War started, and she needs his assistence is fitting an advanced stealth device (a Veltrochni sensor cape) to her ship. She doesn't trust the local technicians.
Secondly she'll need help in activating the Tlop, if indeed it's still functional, from someone experienced with advanced technology. While she's recruited a pair of xeno-archaeologists, decent help is difficult to find.
Finally she needs to leave some of her minions behind, just in case of a coup attempt when she's away, and she's reasonably sure she can trust the ^eDoctor.

The ^eDoctor is intrigued; after his recent experiences at Mithril he wonders if the Tlop was related to the wormhole network there. And anyway the idea sounds like fun. The discussion is interrupted when ePeri is told of an attempt to break into the scavenger's dome, one of her guards was killed and some material stolen. She's concerned, does someone else know of the Tlop? And how did they find out? She sends a trusted minion, Glaad to investigate and asks the ^eDoctor to visit the dome in the morning. He agrees and the time travellers retire to their assigned accommodation to discuss the plan.

The following day ^eGrace accompanies the ^eDoctor to the small surface dome, while ^eSam and the others wander the tunnels of Iceworld. In the dome it's clear that whoever broke in did so carefully, only the presence of the guard interrupted their plan, and knew the layout of the dome well. The ^eDoctor also finds the remains of the second pod, and tells ^ePeri. She alerts her staff to try and locate the strangers, but in the maze that is Iceworld, and with a substantial criminal element, it'll be difficult to find them quickly. While ^ePeri worries about who they may sell the data to, which of her rivals, the ^eDoctor is more curious about how they survived that long; which Imperial equipment was good it wasn't likely to be fitted to a civilian survey ship.

Elsewhere the Imperials have communicated with elements of the underworld not beholden to ^ePeri and made a deal; pretending to be historians hired by her, they convince an agent of one of her rivals, a Trau Klenner (known to many as "The Clamp") that it's worth aiding their escape. Klenner himself is intrigued and pays a quiet visit to Iceworld to collect them in person. When Doonar, his agent, reports that ^ePeri has recently had a number of VIP visitors, Klenner orders one of them be kidnapped and interrogated, despite the risk of retaliation from ^ePeri.

Unfortunately for Doonar the attempt to grab ^eSam fails; while seemingly young and vulnerable one of her alternate personalities, a holdover from exposure to the time warp in San Francisco, takes control and his goons are slaughtered. However this was just a cover for Klenner's real plan, he has some knowledge of the ^eDoctor and steals his TARDIS.
Furious the ^eDoctor tracks down Doonar, just in time to save him from death at the hands of one of Klenner's assassins and brutally interrogates the man, learning much of Klenner's operation and some of his current plan.

The race to the Tlop is on.


28.    The Disputed Zone
After gathering and integrating all the data, equipping the scout ship Nostromo VI, and pausing to watch the ^eDoctor swear vengeance on whomever stole his TARDIS, ^ePeri and the party head off into contested space. With the Thalek Civil War still in progress, albeit currently at a low level, and several races monitoring the area the proceed cautiously to avoid attention. Near the neutron star FGC-N561 they activate the sensor cloak and, hopefully, disappear from the tracking capability of anyone who may be watching before heading to find the Tlop.

Of course it's not that easy, an encounter with a Thalek frigate nearly kills them and several times they have to change course to avoid skirmishes between Thalek factions. Klenner has alerted a number of groups to the potential intrusion, but hadn't known of the sensor cape so while their progress is slower than desirable it's reasonably unhampered.
Eventually they arrive at the unnamed planet in the system FGC-G67302 that holds the Tlop. Orbiting a dim white dwarf it has neither atmosphere nor magnetic field and is nearly a cold as deep space, not to mention being buffeted by x-ray bursts from the star interacting with its dust cloud.
The only significant feature is an octagonal pyramidal structure, almost three kilometres across, surrounded by a network of octagonal beams stretching kilometres into the sky.

Landing the Nostromo near the pyramid (transmats are problematic given the conditions) ^ePeri warns the ships crew to remain alert, and monitor the satellite net they deployed, while she, Glitz, various of her minions and the ^eDoctor's party travel to the pyramid in tracked crawlers and set up a camp there.

Entering the pyramid is surprisingly easy; despite being abandoned for what the ^eDoctor estimates is over two million years, the airlocks still operate, though requiring considerable effort until motors are rigged up. Inside is what ^eSam immediately thought of as a cathedral; a huge open space, with heavily decorated pillars and various rooms set around the edges, all focussed on a huge icosahedron floating in the centre.

The first priority of the explorers is to set up a pressurised work area (they can't fill the whole structure with breathable air, that'd need ten million tonnes) and then to explore.
Every surface seems to have been carved or embossed with bas reliefs, depicting scenes from the history of the Valleyn, mostly involving great slaughter. The whole impression is, well alien, and rather disconcerting.
After five days of examination even the ^eDoctor is no nearer solving the mystery of how the Tlop operates, and how it can be operated. ^eAnji notices that the "icosahedron" actually has twenty one faces, all of equal size, something that is utterly impossible and the ^eDoctor realises that the object is a bubble of multi-dimensional space somehow preserved in our universe.
His excitement is interrupted by the detecting of incoming ships. Company has arrived.

Three ships have been detected, two are Thalek corvettes and one is of human design, presumably Klenner's vessel; while the Nostromo is outnumbered it may have sufficient armament to fight them off, depending on the capacity of Klenner's ship. The ^eDoctor proposes a deal, let Klenner land but threaten to destroy the pyramid if he attacks. And demand his TARDIS be returned as a condition. ^ePeri is less enthusiastic, realising the ^eDoctor cares more about his TARDIS than anything else, but agrees.

Klenner accepts the deal and his ship lands on the opposite side of the pyramid from the Nostomo; the corvettes remain in orbit.
The next week is a mix of hostility, threats, a few minor fights and some actual cooperation. The Imperials realise that they're now surplus to Klenner's requirements sound out ^ePeri as a patron. She's cautious. Meanwhile the ^eDoctor makes some progress, activating the interior lights, and bringing the Tlop' power source online.
However on the thirteenth day after they first landed a new threat is discovered; a force of Dal ships are approaching fast. Who, if anyone, tipped them off is unknown but the energy signature of the Tlop will attract their attention.

Klenner makes his move, a series of betrayals and counter-betrayals happen, and the pyramid erupts into gunfire and violence as the _^eDoctor brings the Tlop online, interfacing his brain to it's controls. As the Dal force enters weapons range and obliterate the Thalek corvettes, he reaches out and squeezes. The ships are crushed.
But the controls were designed for Valleyn minds, not Gallifreyan, and the alien presence activates a security mechanism. The Tlop's power source begins to overload. As the survivors of ^ePeri's group head for the Nostromo the weakened ^eDoctor gathers his minions and opens the TARDIS.


29.    The Last Resort
Who builds a hotel inside a rock orbiting a black hole? The ^eDoctor is intrigued and suspicious. Is it some attempt to generate a wormhole? Or create a time machine? Or something more sinister...

Arriving at the transit point in the inner system the ^eDoctor, his minions and TARDIS, and their luggage are transferred to a specially modified shuttle for the trip to Vilt; the gravitational eddies, plasma bursts and ionising radiation make the trip hazardous, But that's part of the attraction after all.

Arriving at the Vilt, they're impressed. The asteroid itself is solid metal, the core remnant of some planet that was mostly consumed by it's companion many millennia before; a sphere polished nearly mirror smooth by the action of the centimetric black hole in elliptical orbit. A few centuries earlier something ploughed into Vilt and deflected it's orbit sufficiently to cause the black hole to penetrate inside it, and remain for a few days. The complex orbital mechanics, and random deviations in the rotation of Vilt, produced a network of mirror smooth tunnels and caverns, decorated with a variety of spirals, towers and crevasses. A truly spectacular sight.

The ^eDoctor's party aren't the only guests, Vilt is becoming a major tourist destination and has extensive communications facilities, using the gravity of the black hole to assist in tachyonic transmissions. Dispatching his minions to strike acquaintances with the other visitors the ^eDoctor begins to explore.

And he finds...Nothing. No signs of anything sinister being planned or carried out. No huge gravity generators, no chronon emissions, no fluctuations in space-time (other than those you'd expect from having a Terran mass singularity a few kilometres away).

Meanwhile his minions have found a rather odd group of visitors; from astrophysicists to artists, mathematicians to miners. All seemingly attracted by the mix of danger, the strange conditions, and the eerie beauty of the resort.
Suddenly the peace of the resort is shattered by a murder, but just who is the deceased? With the shuttle sabotaged and no assistance possible for several days due to the close approach of the black hole the toursist and staff are on their own. Meanwhile the ^eDoctor recognises two of his fellow guests, what are the confidence tricksters Unstoffe and Garron doing there? Who murdered the distinguished mathematician and artist Leno Devoy? Why? Are the followers of a mathematical religion she contemptuously dismissed as nonsense behind it?


30.    The Hole.
In 1963 scientists from the European Science Federation began one of the most ambitious drilling operations in history: an attempt to reach the Mohorovičić discontinuity, the boundary between the crust and mantle of the planet Earth, located about 35km below the surface. A site in northern Bavaria, near Windischeschenbach, was selected and for more than sixteen years drilling continued, eventually reaching 30km depth in 1970. Then, suddenly, the project was abandoned. Officially it was due to problems with operating at such depths, in sustained temperatures of 400°C. Operations were suspended and the site sealed off, amidst wild rumours. When the world failed to end most people forgot about the project.

Then, in 1972, the project was transferred to the newly formed League of Nations Investigatory Group and operations restarted.
Just what is going on in Bavaria? Is it related to rumors of a disaster at a similar deep bore in Britain? Who's the mysterious stranger LoNIG have advising them? Is there any truth in stories of an alien spaceship being found?

The ^eDoctor doesn't know, but he plans to find out.

[jezmiller]

Actually, I enjoyed the introspection. Quite a lot of it chimed with me, especially the part about consistent world-building. It jars with me that the history of the future in the Whoniverse is so patchy and inconsistent. I know some of it is unavoidable - in the 1960s, they never imagined that the 2010s would ever catch up with the show - but they could do more to straighten things out. Credit where it's due, the EU novels made a valiant stab at keeping the next thousand years or so fairly consistent, and I've tried to follow their lead in the material I've written for the Diary. I also try to reference Lance Parkin's History of the Universe whenever I can, just to have a framework to hang things onto.

Personally, I think Gary Seven's "servo" has a cooler ring to it than the Doctor's "sonic screwdriver". I have a feeling Moffat agrees, given the number of times he mocks the term, from Captain Jack's "Who looks at a screwdriver and says gee, that's not sonic enough?", to the War Doctor's "Again with the pointing! They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do, assemble some cabinets at them?"

As for the Dominators, I think they have under-used aspects. The technology to drain the radioactivity from an area is something that might motivate a benevolent PC group to try theft or hijacking - decontamination of a Chernobyl or Fukushima is a worthy enough goal, after all - and their reliance on robot troops controlled by a few organic personnel makes them a wider threat that's still ideal for a small group to take on. Added to which, Librarian-bot's redesign of the Quarks on his dA gallery makes them look like seriously threatening and highly distinctive pieces of military hardware, a far more credible threat than their rather clumsy screen incarnation.

If you like under-used secondary characters, you should check out Big Finish. They have entire series devoted to Jago and Litefoot and the Counter-Measures team.

As for this update, I think it's the best yet. You have the core of some full-scale scenario write-ups here. Well-crafted interlocking plots in varied settings, ideal for a campaign. Nicely done!

[Catsmate]

Jan 1, 2015 23:47:36 GMT jezmiller said:

Actually, I enjoyed the introspection. Quite a lot of it chimed with me, especially the part about consistent world-building.

Thanks.

Jan 1, 2015 23:47:36 GMT jezmiller said:

It jars with me that the history of the future in the Whoniverse is so patchy and inconsistent. I know some of it is unavoidable - in the 1960s, they never imagined that the 2010s would ever catch up with the show - but they could do more to straighten things out. Credit where it's due, the EU novels made a valiant stab at keeping the next thousand years or so fairly consistent, and I've tried to follow their lead in the material I've written for the Diary. I also try to reference Lance Parkin's History of the Universe whenever I can, just to have a framework to hang things onto.

Yeah, there have been many attempts at producing an integrated timeline for Doctor Who; Parkin did a good job and at least provides a framework for future-set adventures.
Of course you can blame some of the inconsistencies on minor changes to history.

Jan 1, 2015 23:47:36 GMT jezmiller said:

Personally, I think Gary Seven's "servo" has a cooler ring to it than the Doctor's "sonic screwdriver". I have a feeling Moffat agrees, given the number of times he mocks the term, from Captain Jack's "Who looks at a screwdriver and says gee, that's not sonic enough?", to the War Doctor's "Again with the pointing! They're screwdrivers! What are you going to do, assemble some cabinets at them?"

Bugger I should have used servo. Well if I ever redo the series I might use that rather than Technix.
I agree Moffat does seem to be playing with the sonics, even the Paternoster gang have them now.

Jan 1, 2015 23:47:36 GMT jezmiller said:

As for the Dominators, I think they have under-used aspects. The technology to drain the radioactivity from an area is something that might motivate a benevolent PC group to try theft or hijacking - decontamination of a Chernobyl or Fukushima is a worthy enough goal, after all - and their reliance on robot troops controlled by a few organic personnel makes them a wider threat that's still ideal for a small group to take on. Added to which, Librarian-bot's redesign of the Quarks on his dA gallery makes them look like seriously threatening and highly distinctive pieces of military hardware, a far more credible threat than their rather clumsy screen incarnation.

Yeah, they seem to me to be useful potential enemies, powerful but with exploitable weaknesses

Jan 1, 2015 23:47:36 GMT jezmiller said:

If you like under-used secondary characters, you should check out Big Finish. They have entire series devoted to Jago and Litefoot and the Counter-Measures team.

I've been meaning to listen to more of the audioplays, I've only tried a few so far.

Jan 1, 2015 23:47:36 GMT jezmiller said:

As for this update, I think it's the best yet. You have the core of some full-scale scenario write-ups here. Well-crafted interlocking plots in varied settings, ideal for a campaign. Nicely done!

I was aiming for Reference Guide style write-ups nut the last two were a bit truncated.
As for the locations I cheated a bit:

• Vilt is inspired by one of Colin Kapp's excellent Unorthodox Engineers short stories (The Black Hole of Negrav). If you can find them, they're a wonderful collection and very suitable as gaming locations; alien ruins, variable gravity planets and other challenges to explorers and engineers.
  
• Mithril I designed for a different game, where it was in L5 orbit in the
  near future, I moved it to a location based loosely on Manticore in
  David Weber's Honorverse.
• The Tlop is based on Foster's Krang, from The Tar-Aiym Krang one of the best "humans explore huge, weird, alien structure" novels, and one of the first, preceding Rendezvous with Rama.
• The Hole was inspired by the various deep bore projects (Project Mohole,
  the Kola Superdeep Borehole and the KTB borehole) which also inspired
  the TV story Inferno. I'd accumulated some notes I was going to write up as a scenario seed.
  
• Klenner "The Clamp" was a villain from another SF campaign I ran once; he has a minor psionic ability to enforce agreements, hence his nickname. He may reappear.
• The time displaced Imperials I borrowed from a Traveller scenario I wrote years ago; in that universe such events happen more often.
  

[Catsmate]

No update tonight, I just wanted to say that I've redone the outline for the Eighth ^eDoctor adventures (link).
I've split it into explicit seasons, corresponding to the updates. I hope to have the next part ready tomorrow, depending on circumstances. This'll include the Otherspace trilogy I mentioned before.
I'm also thinking about statting up ^eAdam and his minions.

[Catsmate]

It's time for that update. As always comments, queries, suggestions and ideas are welcome, either in thread or by PM if your prefer.


Part 38 - Eighth ^eDoctor – The Adventures, part six.


31.    Feather Fall.
After an extremely turbulent passage through the Vortex the ^eDoctor's TARDIS finally materialises. It's navigational systems indicate that they've exited their own universe and are now somewhere else. But where? Until they have some idea of their starting point. And soon the TARDIS power systems will start failing.
The exterior scanner shows only a dull greyish wall so, after a quick rock-paper-scissors contest to select the 'lucky' minion, ^eFitz is dispatched out to examine their surroundings. They're in a storeroom, with little free space, full of boxes and crates stowed to prevent movement. After he reports back, and the eDoctor confirms the environment is safe, the party exit and cautiously explore.

It soon becomes apparent that they're in a spacecraft of some sort, quite a small one, with decks about 15m across and circular in profile. But it's movement is smooth and it seems to possess anti- gravity, odd technology for a seemingly primitive craft. Further examination shows that the ship's hull is fitted with heavy duty cooling technology, unusual for a craft intended to operate in vacuum.

The inevitable happens, they encounter a crew member. Unfortunately ^eAnji is rather jumpy and takes a shot at her, missing, and she flees. Soon the ship is on alert, klaxons are wailing and doors are locked...
It doesn't take the vessel's crew long to locate the time travellers, the ship isn't that big. Surrounded, forced into a storeroom away from the TARDIS, and threatened with the evacuation of the air, the ^eDoctor arranges a truce and they talk with their captors. Who are surprisingly receptive to the idea of a craft materialising inside their own; "It happens all the time here. Ships get pulled from the other universe into this one". The crew explain the basics of the pocket universe, which they call Otherspace, to the startled travellers. The ^eDoctor pretends the TARDIS is just an escape pod.

Soon the ^eDoctor realises that unless they discover much more about Otherspace they'll be trapped there, just like the others. He offers his services to Captain Rakal Winsly and, after some negotiation, she accepts.
"OK, we've got some spare cabins" Glances are exchanged between some of the crew. "Welcome aboard the Feather Fall".
After getting acclimatised to their quarters, and moving some gear from the TARDIS, the party start talking with the crew and examining the new, if hopefully temporary, home.

Suddenly the ship is buffeted by turbulence and the ship's gravity lurches momentarily. Rushing to the observation deck (bottom) both crew and travellers see that the Feather Fall has come to a halt in a wide section of the shaft through which they were falling, there's perhaps 50m between the hull and the rock.
Using searchlights they can see that the walls are now polished smooth, unlike the irregularities in the upper portion. They can also make out protrusions, several metres long, extending from parts of the wall, surrounded by a bluish glow. Soon Captain Winsly joins then, accompanies by several officers. Something has brought the ship to a halt, negating the gravitational pull that was taking them to the bottom of the shaft. The ^eDoctor suggest the effect has to do with the glowing protrusions and suggests investigating. The Captain accepts his offer and not long afterwards he and his minions are donning pressure suits (from the TARDIS) and preparing to use the ship's landing legs to get close to the walls.

Spotting a ledge they decide to use this as a starting point and make their way over via ropes attached to the wall by adhesive pitons. Exploring the area the find a deep section cut from the rock above the ledge, about 1.2m high but hundreds, if not thousands, of metres deep. Deciding not to explore it the travellers concentrate on the glowing protrusions, and their effects on the ship.
Each rod is about 2.2m long an tapers conically from 45cm in diameter at the base to an infinitesimal point. The glow is in fact a series of rapid flickers, which the ^eDoctor identifies as Cherenkov radiation. He is unable to explain the effect, suggesting it's very advanced technology, but develops a method to alter the ship's gravity field to allow them to pass through the barrier.
As for the barrier he conjectures that it's part of the atmosphere maintenance system for the pocket universe. He lectures his minions at length on this as they return to the Feather Fall and the journey continues.


32.     The Deeps
The descent of the Feather Fall continues, interrupted only by further gravitational barriers. As the days pass the ^eDoctor studies the unusual environment, while his minions become rather bored.

•  ^eFitz has be be reminded not to pursue his hobby aboard the small vessel. His sulks are not improved by running out of cigarettes and the eDoctor refusing to unlock the TARDIS for him to get more.

The minions learn more about the world they chanced into.

• Otherspace is a compact, self contained, pocket universe. Perhaps created by one of the Elder Races, it's reminiscent of the "hollow Earth" trope from early science-fiction in that it's a hollow sphere approximately 25,000km in diameter with a dense atmosphere (slightly richer in oxygen and noble gases than Earth, but mainly nitrogen) about 150km thick. Apparent surface gravity is about 1.12G.
• At the centre of the sphere is a small star-like object, existing rather contrary to normal physical laws, that illuminates the interior surface constantly with a sunlight rather bluer than Terrestrial normal. That inner surface is large, almost four times the area of Earth, with an almost even mix of land and water, with islands, continents and other features. The water is warm and highly saline (rich in many dissolved salts beyond sodium chloride) without tides or Coriolis effects. The land is rather bland, there are few hills, no real mountains and only ridges break the monotony.
• The climate is also bland, warm (averaging 25°C) and humid, without seasonal variation. Vegetation is plentiful but mostly large expanses of tall grass analogues, with scattered trees. The shoreline is generally composes of pebbly beaches with little sand. Rain is rare, triggered by occasional oceanic events when dense saline water sinks and displaces colder less saline water to the surface.
• Digging exposes rock, followed by more rock as one gets deeper. The rock seems to act as a heat sink, absorbing the constant solar heating, and the rock gets colder as one digs deeper.
• Socially there are several groups of humans and aliens who've colonised parts of the surface over the centuries (the oldest confirmed arrival was >3,000 years previously but there are remnants of older groups). There are intermittent hostilities, mostly over resources, but serious warfare is rare.

The Feather Fall is an exploration craft, constructed by a group composed mainly of the crew of a stranded scout-ship that arrived in Otherspace a decade previously, to explore a narrow rift in the crust of the sphere. Measured to be multiple light-seconds deep and with a source of energetic signals at the bottom the explorers hope to find a way out of the pocket universe. About 200m 'long' and 15m in diameter it resembles a '50s rocket ship (minus fins) and is designed to plummet under control into the gap.
At a safe speed, to avoid overheating from atmospheric friction, the descent was planned to take about thirty Earth days.

Time passes....

Nineteen days after arriving on the Feather Fall RADAR pulses indicate the bottom of the shaft is a mere day away and excitement grows amongst the crew. Less than an hour before the expected touchdown the ship emerges from the relatively narrow shaft into huge irregular cavern, tens of kilometres high and hundreds wide, and is buffeted by powerful winds. In the darkness of the cavern navigation is tricky but the helmsman and captain manage to find a suitable touchdown spot in the shelter of a rock outcrop and land the ship safely.

The party exit the Feather Fall and begin examining the surroundings. In his researches the ^eDoctor has determined that the creators of the bubble universe use a form of advanced crystalline nano-technology as the basis for almost all their technology. In the cavern they find a control centre, a matrix of gem-like crystals of varied shapes, sizes and colours. After much experimentation (which, unknown to them has significant effects on the surface) the ^eDoctor manages to illuminate the cavern, reduce the effects of the turbulent wind-flow and access various records and information.

• The discover that the shaft they followed down was party a deliberate creation, part of the atmosphere management system, and partly an accident caused by the impact of a piece of space debris accidentally transported to Otherspace by a passing hyperdrive ship.

Several further days of exploration and fiddling with the systems unearths further data. The creators of the bubble universe did so as an experiment, now long abandoned; they were related to the Krotons, a form of morphic silcon life; and the weren't from the same universe as the ^eDoctor and his minions, the bubble can be accessed from several 'adjacent' universes.
Eventually the ^eDoctor discovers how to exit Otherspace, they'll need the TARDIS and one of the crashed sapcecraft which still has an operational byperdrive or warp-drive and they'll need to be in the correct place, at the correct time to escape.

Captain Winsly decides to terminate the mission, while they haven't determined how to control the systems they do have an escape route. She gives the order to pack up and prepare for the return trip.


33.     Otherspace.
Returning to the surface after a month long journey the crew of the Feather Fall find that things have changed in the absence. The ^eDoctor's meddling with the controls caused the central sun to dim noticeably several times and triggered a couple of earthquakes also. People are scared; the religiously inclined wonder if the world is going to end, the more scientific are split between wanting to ban all further such experiments and those who'd prefer to use them to reshape Otherspace.
War is looming.

Of course the crew of the Feather Fall don't learn about this until they're barely a day away from the surface and communication is possible again. They arrive back to a huge welcome, and many people wanting to see them dead.
Captain Winsly needs time if the plan to escape Otherspace is to be put into practice; time to re-equip their scoutship, stock it with supplies (they don't know where in the main universe they'll arrive), check and repair systems et cetera.
But time is in short supply. While her group was small, they relied on providing high technology services to larger but less advanced nations around them. Nations who are becoming anxious, and even hostile.

A race ensues, with diplomatic setting off of factions against each other to delay action, while the scout ship is readies, it's engines synchronised with the TARDIS and a course calculated.

Will they make it in time?


34.     Middle Passage.
The TARDIS, damaged by the strain of escaping from Otherspace, materialises on a small, battered interstellar transport operating on the fringes of what was once Imperial space in the late  thirty-second century.
Exiting the craft to examine their destination the ^eDoctor and minions find themselves on the small freighter Middle Passage and encounter the crew, who react with fear to their arrival.  After some tense moments both sides achieve a wary (and armed) truce. The crew are desperate, they're inside the atmosphere of a gas giant hiding from a trio of Grekan Alliance frigates who're chasing them. However their ship is in poor condition and the hull is starting to leak...

• The Grekan Alliance is one of the longer lived successor states to the Earth Empire. In a little over a century it'll be absorbed by the expanding Galactic Federation.

^eAnji asks what cargo they're carrying that triggered such a response, and after a pregnant pause, the crew tell her. The Middle Passage's 'cargo' is about three thousand people, all human, all desperate, crammed into the ship's converted holds. They've paid, and paid heavily, for passage away from their home plant of Kerfux which was hit badly by the fall of the Empire and the following economic disruption. Technically such trade is legal, the cargo have signed indentured labour contracts so it's not quite slavery, but close enough that some states object.
Their destination is Arbfal, a corporate owned agricultural world seeded with fast growing food stuffs a generation ago that needs human labour to supplement the somewhat unreliable machinery.

The ship is rocked by an explosion, it seems the frigates have some idea where they are and are firing explosive missiles to 'persuade' them to emerge from the atmosphere and surrender. ^eGrace quietly suggest they depart, why bother staying around? The ^eDocror points out that the TARDIS is still regenerating it's systems after the strain of existing Otherspace; they can't dematerialise just yet.

One of the crew suddenly points a weapon at the time travellers; she's detected a weak signal inside the ship, a beacon allowing the Grekans to home in on them. The ^eDoctor manages to reassure the now hostile crew and suggest they allow him to trace the signal. Discovering it's coming from one of the holds he suggests they jam it and then eliminate the infiltrator on board.
After a bout of maneuvers to throw off tracking some of the crew head to the holds, the ^eDoctor sends ^eSam and ^eFitz to accompany them with a sensor pack. Inside the converted cargo hold things are unpleasant. 1,500 bunks are stacked in tiers, the hold is dimly lit and heated to 25°C to induce a sense
of lethargy in passengers. There's are more-or-less permanent lines of people queuing for the galley and the toilets and the whole place smells.

The passengers are confused, angry and afraid; a bad combination. Three of the crew and ^eFitz go among them while the others cover them from the gantry. Eventually the homer is found stashed under a mattress by the hull, but no-one seems to know who owns it. The crew confront the 'goons' a group of about fifty passengers who maintain order in exchange for slightly better accommodation and tell them to find whoever installed the homer.

^eFitz drifts off and finds some of the goons smoking in their section of the hold and joins in. A female passenger approaches him and offers him a cigarette, and asks him what's going on. Interested he takes her to one side and flirts with her, until she taps his head with a neural stunner and takes his blaster. He falls unconscious.
The agent triggers a device that causes the lights to flicker, alerting her colleagues scattered in the hold. They quickly overpower the three crew members and shoot several of the goons, while she coolly picks off several of the crew on the gantries. The others flee, ^eSam among them, and alert the bridge.

The captain panics, this was obviously no accidental interception, and the frigates are hardly likely to break off their mission no matter how long it takes. Plus there's the risk of the agents getting loose.
Unfortunately he's a bit late in thinking this. Armed with their acquired weapons, and a few devices they were able to smuggle onboard despite the crew's security scans, four agents are attempting to gain entry to the ship's Engineering section.
As the crew panic the ^eDoctor summons his minions and they quietly slip out, the TARDIS has signalled his remote that it's ready and so it's time to leave. ^eGrace asks about ^eFitz but ^eSam assures her that he's dead.
She'd always been creeped out by him anyway, ever since Berlin.


35.    The Leftovers
During the disruption caused by the Thalek war and the invasion of Earth in the 22nd century many of the Earth colonies on the fringes of explored space were cut off from news, information and essential supplies. Some died out completely due to disease, natural disaster or attacks from outside. One of these was Martall V, a planet colonised only fifteen years earlier by religious groups seeking to leave the mostly humanist Earth behind and create a "perfect" society, according to their own rules of course.

With most military forces recalled to the core territories and Earth itself to try and beat the Thalek blockade, there's no-one to investigate or help when the limited traffic from Martall ceases. It didn't take the Cybermen long to conquer the planet, and use it as a base for creating replacements for their losses. Ten years after the Thaleks were defeated Earth forces finally get around to liberating Martall. The local authorities thank them, and ask them to leave to avoid "contaminating" their world.
The task group departs, filing a report that someone in the Earth Colonial Authority may read in a decade or so.

Ten years after that, in 2194, the ^eDoctor's TARDIS materialises in a plaza in the capital city of Remembrance and all hell breaks loose...

Believing that they've landed on a peaceful and quiet planet for a much needed break after their adventures the eDoctor and his minions exit the TARDIS and are immediately arrested by the local Inquisitors (being sufficiently outnumbered to make resistance unwise) and brought before the Council of Elders. This body demands to know their business and why they have intruded on the planet. While the ^eDoctor attempts to defend himself, they are uninterested until he mentions the ECA.
At this they are summarily sentenced to die at sundown... Despite the protests of some at "wasting" ^eSam, ^eAnji and ^eGrace, who could probably be trained to make good wives. Eventually.

Of course any sensible minion has amassed a variety of escape tools, and the ^eDoctor even more, and the four time travellers soon depart the rather primitive cells, leaving several guards dead. But with the TARDIS under heavy guard, and withstanding attempts to break in, they need somewhere to hide out, allies and a plan. The first two are surprisingly easy; they are, after all, in a prison filled with criminals and (hopefully) dissidents.

In the basement interrogation suites they find a number of rebels, some of whom are sufficiently intact to not slow down their escape. The also find the secret behind the perfect society. The Elders have been using Cyber-technology to maintain their grip on the populace; mind control implants, partial Cyber-conversion to turn dissidents into labourers and Cybernetic augmentation for their Inquisitors. A few of ^eSam's collection of grenades disrupt operations and, accompanied by the rebels, the travellers escape into the countryside.

Meeting up with the the rebel leadership the ^eDoctor offers aid in overthrowing the Elder, in exchange for recovery of his TARDIS. However an operation of that magnitude, the TARDIS having been moved to the Inquisitors' headquarters and security tightened, will take time and the rebels want proof the ^eDoctor can seriously assist them.
This he provides by cracking the Inquisitors secure communications net and assisting the rebels in ambushing groups with overwhelming force

After the rebels gather their forces, and aided by a series of faked communications to disrupt the Inquisitors forces, the attack is on. The ^eDoctor's use of a balloon mounted jammer to disrupt Cyber-technology causes serious problems and the rebels gain entry to the headquarters and fight their way to the TARDIS.

At which point the ^eDoctor, ^eAnji, ^eGrace and ^eSam enter it and dematerialise, leaving the rebels to their fate.


36.    The Silver Turk
While on Martall the ^eDoctor had picked up a few bits of Cyber-technology from the Inquisitors. While examining one o the devices, a communicator of some sort, he accidentally picks up a similar signal in the Vortex. Intrigued he tracks it and finds that it's coming from Earth in the late eighteenth century. Impulsively he decided to investigate, and informs his long suffering minions that they're taking a trip to the Austrian court.

Meanwhile on Earth an inventor is showing off his newest creation, a one armed silver automaton that can play chess, perform mathematical calculations, even speak, albeit in a toneless mechanical voice. But not rise from it's throne-like seat.
Empress Maria Theresa and her court are impressed by Herr Doktor Maslin’s creation. Never has the Schönbrunn Palace seen it's like! Even the Comte de Saint-Germain appears impressed, if slightly concerned.

A few days later the TARDIS materialises in Vienna and, by the use of bluff, gold and hypnosis, the ^eDoctor acquires a house and staff, saying he's a visiting scholar and alchemist and his entourage. However he can no longer detect the signal he tracked.

• Elsewhere in the city, in the quarters of a certain Comte, a small device starts to bleep...

Touring the city over the next few days the ^eDoctor and minions attempt to find the signal they'd tracked to no avail. They have more success picking up local gossip and news and learn of the recently unveiled automaton and it's supposed abilities. Instantly suspicious the ^eDoctor scouts the house rented by Herr Doktor Maslin and picks up energy signatures not native to the era. However his nocturnal lurkings are disturbed and he departs.

Two days later there's a public showing of the Silver Turk as the automaton is being called, due to it's stylised Eastern sculpture and silvery metallic finish, and the ^eDoctor and party join the throng watching it beat contender after contender at chess and backgammon. A surreptitious scan of the creature confirms the ^eDoctor's suspicions; it's a Cyberman, or part of one anyway. But where did it come from? And who is Herr Doktor Maslin?

• Lurking in one of the galleries another person is studying both the Turn and the ^eDoctor.
  

The ^eDoctor decides to act that night. He and his minions prepare and, after midnight, enter the small walled garden surrounding Maslin's house and stealthily break into the house, not noticing the micro-drone watching them.
Down in the cellar where Maslin has his workshop the truth is revealed. A year earlier a small, experimental, time-ship crashed in the woods of Bavaria and a local nobleman, and student of the Enlightenment, had the remains dragged to his estate for study. He hired Maslin to examine the objects to see what could be made of them.

Maslin found that one of the Cybermen had survived, but had been severely damaged. By following it's instructions he and his assistant had managed to create a system to keep it alive, albeit immobile. It's brain damaged it wasn't hard for Maslin to make use of it, and learning of its potential, he burned his erstwhile employer's home to cover his escape. Exhibiting it is his way to obtain patronage to continue his experiments.
The ^eDoctor is mildly impressed by Maslin's ingenuity and offers to take him with him, but Maslin merely smiles and gestures at the four "assistants", partially Cyber-converted and armed with Cyberweapons, that have surrounded him.

Suddenly the stand-off is disrupted by a low rumble, and electrical discharges from the equipment in the cellar. Maslin is dumbfounded and ^eSam takes the opportunity to shoot the assistants while they seem helpless. The ^eDoctor picks up a heavy piece of metal and advances on Maslin, who backs away. Saying "It's a very bad idea to threaten me" the ^eDoctor smashes Maslin's legs, drops the club and walks up the stairs, signalling his minions to follow. In the hall of the house he tosses a number of small incendiary grenades into various rooms and they leave to the sound of pyro-gel hissing.

• From his vantage point atop a wall, amongst some trees, a dark dressed figure fires number of shots from a grenade launcher into Maslin's house.