The collapse of the environment triggered political instability. New terrorist groups sprang up: the Earth For Earth groups, freedom fighters, environmentalists, anarchists, nationalists and separatists, the IFA, PPO and TCWC. In England, a whole new youth subculture evolved. Gangs with names like the Gameboys, the Witchkids and the Crows smashed machinery (except for their own gaming software) and committed atrocities. In the most notorious incident, the Witchkids petrol-bombed a McDonald’s restaurant on the M2 before ritually sacrificing the customers: men, women and children.
Every country on Earth saw warfare or widespread rioting. In the face of social disorder in America, President Norris’ right-wing government ended immigration and his infamous “Local Development” reforms restricted the unemployed’s rights to movement. The Connors Amendment to the Constitution also made it easier for the authorities to declare martial law and administer the death penalty. The underclass was confined to its slums, and heavily armed private police forces guarded the barriers between the inner cities and the suburbs.
Once-fashionable areas fell into deprivation. The popular culture reflected this discord: In Britain, this was a time when SlapRap blared from every teenager’s noisebox. There was a Kinky Gerlinki revival, its followers dressing in costumes described as “outrageous” or “obscene” depending on personal taste. The most popular television series was Naked Decay, a sitcom inspired by 45-year-old Mike Brack’s “Masks of Decay” exhibition which had featured lumps of wax hacked into caricatures of celebrities. The teledildonic suits at the “SaferSex emporiums” along London’s Pentonville Road became notorious. All faced the opprobrium of groups such as the Freedom Foundation and the Citadel of Morality. American children thrilled to the adventures of Jack Blood, a pumpkin-faced killer, and they collected the latest Cthulhu Gate horror VR modules and comics. Their elder brothers became Oi Boys: skinheads influenced by the fashions of Eastern Europe.
The early twenty-first century saw many scientific advances, usually in the field of computer science and communications. Elysium Technology introduced the Nanocom, a handheld dictation machine capable of translating speech into written text. Elysium also developed the first holographic camera. The 3D telephone was beyond the technology of the time, although most rich people now had videophones. In June 2005, “Der Speigel” gave away a personal organiser with every issue. The first robot cleaners were marketed at this time - they were small, simple devices and really little more than automated vacuum cleaners or floor polishers. Communications software and computer viruses were traded on the black market; indeed, they became almost substitute currency in countries like Turkey.
Surgeons could now perform eye transplants, and the super-rich were even able to cheat “death” (or rather the legal and medical definition of it) by an intensive programme of medication, transplants and implants. If even this failed, suspended animation was now possible - the rich could afford full cryogenic storage, the poor settled for a chemical substitute. Military technology was becoming smarter and more dangerous. The Indonesian conflict and the Mexican War in the first decade of the century were the test-bed for much new weaponry. Arms manufacturers were happy to supply the Australian and American forces with military hardware. The British company Vickers built a vision enhancement system capable of tremendous magnification and low-intensity light applications. The helmet could interface with most weapons, allowing dramatically improved targeting. If anything, the helmet was too efficient - one option, which allowed a soldier to target and fire his weapon merely by moving and blinking his eyes - proved too dangerous and was banned. A new generation of UN aircraft were introduced, including a remote controlled helicopter (the Odin), a jet fighter with batteries of Valkyrie air-to-air missiles (the Loki), Niffelheim bombs and Ragnarok tactical nuclear devices. The US military introduced a turbo-pulse laser gun developed for use against tanks. [1030]
Early in the twenty-first century, there were disasters, wars and nuclear terrorism. The first half of the century saw human civilisation close to collapse. [1031] Rising sea levels claimed Holland, and the Dutch became the wanderers of Europe. [1032] Christian fundamentalists campaigned for the extermination of homosexuals in the twenty-first century. [1033]
The most pressing threat was that of magnetic inversion. For some decades, scientists had known that Earth’s magnetic field periodically reversed. If this happened now, it would damage all electronic equipment and have serious environmental consequences. In 2005, spurred into action by such reports, the major governments of the world set up the FLIPback Project at the old Snowcap complex in the Antarctic. Shortly afterwards, a vehicle from the base - the hovercraft AXV9 - vanished in the Torus Antarctica with the loss of two men. [1034]
The Doctor saw the 2005 European Cup Final, in which Liverpool overcame formidable opposition from AC Milan and claimed the Cup for the fifth time in its history. [1035]
The tentacled alien Mister Quatnja established a drugs factory in Cardiff. Jack Harkness tolerated the operation, as Quatnja’s products calmed the rowdier elements of Earth’s extra-terrestrials. [1036] Patrick Jefferson received a matchbox containing huon particles, which could transport objects into a hell dimension and age them to death. Captain Jack later suspected that Torchwood London sent the matchbox to Jefferson to field test it as a weapon. Jefferson used the matchbox to kill people he deemed sinners. [1037]
Rupert Howarth, Ianto’s mentor and the head of Torchwood One’s biochemical research division, attempted to create a human-alien hybrid with special forces applications. Most of Howarth’s test subjects died, but he became fearful of a survivor - the fear-inducing Chimera - and faked his death to go underground. [1038]
Astrid Peth spent three years working at the Spaceport Diner before signing up as a waitress with Capricorn Cruiseliners. [1039]
c 2005 - TW: Trace Memory [1040]
Cardiff police officer Gwen Cooper met her new partner, Andy Davidson, and briefly encountered the time-travelling Michael Bellini.
2006 [1041]
Luke Rattigan established the Rattigan Academy, an advanced school for science students, in 2006. [1042] Phicorps, a pharmaceutical company controlled by the Three Families, began stockpiling drugs in preparation for the Miracle. [1043] Oswald Danes, a schoolteacher, was convicted in 2006 for the rape and murder of 12-year-old Susie Kabina. Concerning his victim, Danes infamously declared, “She should’ve run faster.” [1044]
In 2006, Lucie Miller relocated from the North of England to London, and planned to live with her friend Amanda from school. She met Karen Coltraine in the Tube - the pair of them had interviews with Hulbert Logistics. Todd Hulbert brainwashed them and sent them via a portal to his “Telford branch” on Lonsis. This worried the Time Lords, who feared that the history-revised Coltraine might become unstable if brought into proximity with the Telford branch’s quantum crystalliser. However, the Time Lords worked from faulty intelligence data, and mistook Lucie for Coltraine.
The Time Lords intercepted Lucie’s transport through space, causing her to arrive in the eighth Doctor’s console room. The Doctor was duped into thinking Lucie had been placed with him as part of the Time Lords’ witness protection programme. He tried to take Lucie home, but found that the Time Lords had established a temporal barrier around her era.
Lucie became the Doctor’s companion - on their first trip together, they encountered the Daleks on the human colony planet Red Rocket Rising. Hulbert was distressed to find Lucie missing - if for no other reason than he wanted to know which rival was poaching his employees. He hired a time-travelling Headhunter to bring her back. [1045]
Jack Harkness encountered the Perfection - aliens who were passing as two young men named Brendan and Jon. They claimed to be “very old gods” who habitually visited a planet for millennia, made it wonderful and moved on; Hallam’s World, the Province of Sovertial and the Min Barrier were examples of their work. After a night of “negotiating” with Brendan and Jon in bed, Jack accepted that they we
re a bit knackered of world-building, and sought nothing more than to improve Cardiff’s gay scene by running a nightclub. [1046]
The Raxas Alliance consisted of four planets: Raxacoricofallapatorius, Raxacoricovarlonpatorius, Clom and Clix. The Slitheen, a family from Raxacoricofallapatorius, were charged by the High Council of Raxas Prime with fraud, theft and treason - each of which carried a death sentence - and were forced out of the Alliance by the Judoon. In their absence, the Blathereen and Hostrozeen families wielded influence. A Grand Council and a Senate governed Raxacoricofallapatorius. The Raxacoricofallapatorians had an instinctive urge to hunt, as it was the only way to keep food safe when the Baaraddelshelliumfatrexius beasts (creatures akin to giant squirrels) roamed the plains. [1047]
Toshiko Sato’s mother died. [1048]
2006 - Human Resources [1049]
The planet Telos was unknown to the Cybermen based on the war-torn Lonsis.
The Headhunter captured Lucie and returned her to Lonsis, but the eighth Doctor followed them using a time ring. The Time Lords and the CIA had brokered a deal in which neither group would interfere on Lonsis directly. The Doctor found the CIA’s quantum crystalliser and expanded its range; the Cybermen were killed as probability went against them. Hulbert died amid the battle, and the Headhunter took Coltraine on as her assistant.
The Doctor ordered the Time Lords to destroy Hulbert’s machines and return the displaced humans home, then retrieved his TARDIS and continued travelling with Lucie.
c 2006 - Night Thoughts [1050]
The seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex arrived on Gravonax Island, just as Major Dickens and his colleagues transmitted a message (via the Bartholomew Transactor) to their previous selves in 1996, with aim of preventing the death of a young girl, Edie. The resultant paradox caused Edie’s corpse to revive in a zombified state. Edie took vengeance on those involved in her death - she murdered Bartholomew and Hartley, drove the Deacon to commit suicide and gouged out Dickens’ eyes. Her fate remained unclear, but her sister Ruth was reunited with their father, Dr. O’Neill.
The Doctor sent Bartholomew’s unpublished thesis to the editor of The New Scientist, helping it to reach the widest possible audience. In future centuries, it would speed development of a workable theory of time travel.
2006 (2nd February) - TW: Trace Memory [1051]
Following the 1967 Hamilton’s Sugar incident, Charles Arthur Cromwell had some preknowledge concerning the time-jumps of Michael Bellini. Cromwell arrived at Torchwood One, as he knew he was fated to do, prior to Bellini appearing there. Torchwood One was evacuated as the Vondrax attacked it to capture Bellini. The Vondrax killed Cromwell, then pursued Bellini through time. Ianto Jones’ boss, Bev Stanley, went missing during this incident.
c 2006 - Let’s Kill Hitler [1052]
Shortly after stealing a bus and driving it through a botanical garden, Mels Zucker caused Amy Pond to realise that Rory fancied her.
Amy’s favourite cat was named “Biggles”. One summer, Rory returned to school with a ludicrous haircut, claiming he’d been in a rock band, and consequently had to learn to play the guitar. He and Amy had their first kiss while dancing the Macarena. [1053]
Captain Jack recruited Owen Harper for Torchwood. On only his second week on the job, Owen woke up drunk. Toshiko went undercover as a medic in his place, and investigated the Slitheen’s infiltration of 10 Downing Street... [1054]
2006 (March) - Aliens of London / World War Three [1055]
The ninth Doctor accidentally returned Rose home twelve months after he first met her, instead of twelve hours. A spaceship soon crashed into the Thames, and a state of emergency was called in the UK. Worse, the Prime Minister had vanished. The Doctor investigated and realised that the crash had been faked... by genuine aliens who had infiltrated 10 Downing Street and murdered the Prime Minister. This was done to lure the world’s main experts on alien life into a lethal trap.
The perpetrators were the Slitheen, a notorious criminal family of Raxacoricofallapatorians, who were plotting to provoke humanity into launching nuclear missiles and destroying their own planet. This would enable the Slitheen to convert and sell Earth’s remains as radioactive fuel. The Doctor used his UNIT codes to launch a missile that destroyed 10 Downing Street and the Slitheen.
A backbench MP, Harriet Jones, had been instrumental in helping the Doctor - who told Rose that Jones was destined to become Prime Minister, serve three terms and usher in the British Golden Age. Harriet Jones became Prime Minister following a general election when her party won a landslide majority. [1056]
Margaret Slitheen escaped the destruction of Downing Street using a portable teleporter. She ended up in a skip in the Isle of Dogs, later making her way to Cardiff. [1057] After this time, Torchwood Cardiff were involved with Operation Goldenrod, which saw people’s bodies fused together. [1058]
2006 (24th May) - “F.A.Q.” [1059]
The tenth Doctor and Rose arrived in a London transformed into a surreal place of talking trees and Vikings with laser guns. It was a virtual reality created by Craig, an abused youngster who had erroneously received a Happytimez Intergalactical gamebox. The Doctor helped an alien technician, a Cyrelleod, to end the virtual reality.
(=) 2006 (24th June) - The Time Travellers [1060]
After colliding with a man falling through the Vortex, the TARDIS materialised in Canary Wharf. The first Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara discovered that Britain was at war with South Africa. The British were conducting time travel experiments using Dalek technology recovered from Coal Hill School in 1963, and different versions of history were beginning to intrude on this one. In this version of history, WOTAN succeeded in its bid for domination, and banned electronic communication in 1968. It was subsequently destroyed in 1969, and everyone under its hypnotic control was left brain-damaged. A World War broke out. The South Africans gained Cybertechnology at the South Pole, and used it to invade Europe.
The TARDIS’ presence disrupted the time experiments, allowing the various timelines to connect. By travelling back to 1972, then 1948, Ian restored history.
The Doctor travelled the Jubilee line in the London Underground on 24th June, 2006, and had some ice cream. [1061]
2006 - Winner Takes All [1062]
The ninth Doctor took Rose home, where the latest craze was the video game Death to Mantodeans. It had been supplied by the porcupine-like Quevvils of the planet Toop, and was a perfect simulation of their war. The Doctor got the high score and was teleported to the warzone - but he managed to disintegrate the Quevvil invasion force.
c 2006 (early September) - Circular Time: “Autumn” [1063]
The fifth Doctor and Nyssa lodged in Stockbridge for a number of weeks. While the Doctor played cricket, Nyssa wrote a novel - not intended for publication - and made the acquaintance of a waiter/graduate student named Andrew Whitaker. One day, Nyssa and Andrew travelled forty minutes away from Stockbridge to Traken Village.
On the final day of the cricket season, the Stockbridge team prevailed - but the team leader, Don, died of a heart attack while scoring the winning run. Nyssa and Andrew became lovers that afternoon, but she left with the Doctor afterwards, bequeathing her finished novel to Andrew.
2006 - “A Groatsworth of Wit” [1064]
The alien Shadeys brought Robert Greene from 1592 to the present day, where Greene was disgusted to find he was hardly-known but Shakespeare was world famous. The ninth Doctor and Rose arrived to see Greene lash out in anger in a bookshop, and begin a rampage that involved attacking the premiere of a movie version of The Taming of the Shrew. The Doctor realised that the Shadeys were feeding off his negative emotions - Greene returned to his native time, and the Doctor and Rose followed in the TARDIS.
2006 (September) - Boom Town [1065]
Margaret Slitheen, a.k.a. Margaret Blaine, became Lord Mayor of Cardiff and pushed through construction of the Blaidd Drwg Power Station, which she had designed to destroy Earth and facilitate her escape into space on
an Extrapolator surfboard. The ninth Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack landed in Cardiff to refuel the TARDIS and captured Margaret. Exposure to the heart of the TARDIS reverted Margaret to her original state as an egg. The Doctor returned Margaret to her home planet, Raxacoricofallapatorius, to start life anew.
Margaret’s scheme to destroy Earth to facilitate her escape had wracked Cardiff with an earthquake; officially, she was believed to have died during the event. [1066]
The TARDIS’ chameleon circuit welded its properties onto a very small area of the Rift, and created a perceptual blind spot. [1067]
2006 - The Deviant Strain [1068]
The ninth Doctor, Rose and Jack arrived at Novrosk Peninsula in Siberia, the site of an old Soviet base. There had recently been a series of mysterious deaths, which the Doctor determined was caused by the defence systems of a crashed ship from the Arcane Collegiate. The threat was dispelled when the Doctor destroyed the ship.
2006 - Only Human [1069]
The ninth Doctor, Rose and Jack arrived in Bromley to investigate temporal distortion caused by a “dirty rip” engine. They discovered a Neanderthal named Das at a local hospital. Das couldn’t return home because the dirty rip engine had weakened his structure, but the Doctor and Rose went to 29,185 BC to locate the source of the problem. With Jack’s help, Das quickly got a job in construction and married a girl called Anne-Marie.
Suzie Costello of Torchwood recovered an alien device that could open any lock. [1070]
2006 (22nd September) - The Gathering [1071]
Scarred by her brother’s misfortune, Katherine Chambers envisioned the removal of humanity’s weaknesses and emotions through widespread Cybertisation. She worked toward the creation of System, the ultimate medical computer. Aiding her was James Clarke, secretly an agent of the Forge.
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