B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  The Colonies

  The second quarter of the twenty-third century became a time of great expansion of Earth’s colonial efforts. Around 2230, the Survey Corps vessel Icarus entered service. [479]

  The early-mid-twenty-third century was known as the First Great Breakout, a period of massive colonial expansion from Earth. Humanity reached the Uva Beta Uva system, which contained fourteen planets. Earth was becoming crowded and polluted, so there was no shortage of settlers for Uva Beta Uva Five. A couple of years later, a mining agent found belzite on Uva Beta Uva Three, and the settlers discovered that all of their legal rights were rescinded under the Intergalactic Mineral Exploitation Act of 2217. The mining companies moved in. [480]

  ? 2231 - “Spider-God” [481]

  A survey team from the Earth ship Excelsior landed on UX-4732 at the same time as the fourth Doctor. The Earthmen saw the peaceful natives apparently sacrifice themselves to giant spiders, and moved to eradicate the creatures. The Doctor deduced that the “people” were actually the larval stage of beautiful butterfly creatures, and relied upon the spiders to weave cocoons for them to emerge from.

  In 2234, the French artist Heironymous Basquait tried to wrap the Sphinx in holly-and-snowball giftwrap, then attempted to buy it. The world governments deliberated on whether to protect their great structures by spraying them with a layer of clear glassite. Over the next half century, this debate caused twelve economic fiascos, two minor wars and a pilot episode for All Our Yesterdays 2. [482]

  c 2237 - Memory Lane [483]

  Astronaut Kim Kronotska returned to Earth a total of two hundred twenty-seven years after her departure, and instantly became a celebrity. She found that spaceships in this era could travel the distance she’d previously covered in mere months, and tracked the missing Tom Braudy to the planet Lucentra. She became trapped in the Earth-simulation cell holding him. The eighth Doctor, Charley and C’rizz helped to free the astronauts from the entrepreneurs Lest and Argot. They also demonstrated use of video-playback, allowing Lest and Argot to sell the technology to their people.

  Portable sound-file players could now transmit sound directly into the user’s ear canals.

  In 2237, the artificial intelligence GRUMPY transferred his operating system into the computer of a fighter shuttle, and leapt out into interstellar space. DKC intercepted him at Sunyata, and shot him down over the temperate world of Yemaya, which was being surveyed for possible colonisation. To survive, GRUMPY seeded bits of its RNA into the colonists via their inoculations. [484]

  In the twenty-third century, Earth was cluttered and grey, although there were crystal spires in Paris. Cities now stretched fifty levels underground, individuals had about five square metres of space.

  The great entrepreneur Varley Gabriel scouted for planets to colonise. In 2241, the “top drawer” of the fittest and smartest people - along with twenty thousand crew to serve them - set off in the colony ship Mayflower on a planned one hundred year journey to a new world. It would go on to pass Aldebaran. At this time, humans used hovering service robots to maintain spaceships. [485]

  A rush ensued to establish gas mines on the moons of Jupiter, including Callisto and Ganymede. The domed city of Valhalla was established as Callisto’s capital, but when the mines ran dry, Earth declared the moon cities as independent and washed its hands of them. In the century to follow, conditions in the moon cities greatly deteriorated.

  Genetically engineered termites had been used to burrow into Callisto in search of new energy sources. As the region’s economic prosperity waned, the termites remained outside Valhalla’s gravity pan. Jupiter’s gravity fluxes affected them, and they grew to monstrous size within just three generations. The termites had been tasked with providing information to the Valhalla Registry computer, but the flow of information became two-way, which greatly enhanced their intelligence. [486]

  On Mars, the police used helicars. [487]

  Hindu settlers colonised the Unukalhai system. In 2247, the Colonial Office began to terraform Raghi, the sixth moon of Unukalhai IV (which the settlers named Indra), a process that took forty million people a quarter of a century to complete. Raghi was one of the few colonies funded by public donation rather than the corporations. The colonists traded airavata (creatures that lived in the clouds of Indra, and whose DNA contained a natural radiation decontaminant) with Spinward Corporation. [488]

  In 2250, the Argolin warrior Theron started a war with the Foamasi. The war lasted twenty minutes and two thousand interplanetary missiles reduced Argolis to a radioactive wasteland. Following this disaster, the Argolin became sterile and started tachyonics experiments in an effort to perpetuate their race. [489] The Foamasi homeworld of Liasici was destroyed in the war. [490]

  ? 2250 - The Game of Death [491]

  Horatio Hamilton did the Mars-Centauri Grand Prix in under six parsecs - which possibly entailed bending the rules, as parsecs were increments of space, not time.

  Destronic particles derailed the TARDIS from 1895 to an asteroid in the Silver Devastation. The tenth Doctor and Gisella found a habitation bubble that was the setting for The Game of Death: a murder mystery in which contestants vied for a hundred million galactic credits. Karl Zalenby, a member of the Galactic Police, realised that the Game was a front to enable some shapechanging predators, the Nocturns, to satiate their murderous tendencies by killing the Game-players. The Judoon helped Zalenby shut down the Game, and Zalenby crushed to death the Darksmith Agent pursuing the Doctor. The Doctor triangulated the location where the Darksmiths had met the clients who commissioned the Eternity Crystal - the planet Ursulonamex, a.k.a. Oblivion - and went there with Gisella.

  2257 - SLEEPY [492]

  Australia was now a wasteland, ruined through centuries of chemical and nuclear pollution, although some Australians had made a fortune from solar power.

  Yemaya 4 was ideal for colonisation - it had a large temperate zone, gentle seasons and biochemistry not too different to that of Earth. The four hundred colonists - mostly Botswanans, South Africans and Burandans from the United African Confederacy - started accelerated gardens around the habitat dome almost immediately, and were busily turning some of the surrounding meadows into farms. They were going to use several Yemayan native plants as crops, and planetfall had been timed to allow almost immediate planting of Terran seed stock. With the help of drone farmers and AI administrators, the colony thrived for two months.

  But then the first infections started. The seventh Doctor, Benny, Roz and Chris investigated why some colonists had developed psychic powers such as telekinesis, telepathy and pyrokinesis - the result of GRUMPY’s RNA having been stripped into the colonists’ inoculations. Chris also started to develop telepathy, but Benny and Roz made a trip in the TARDIS to DKC’s research lab in the past, and upon their return distributed an antidote to the outbreak.

  The core of GRUMPY resided in a crashed spaceship on Yemaya 4, but had become a blank slate re-named SLEEPY. DKC dispatched the warship Flame Warrior to Yemaya to safeguard its secrets, but SLEEPY sacrificed itself to destroy the warship. The colonists were able to partly assemble GRUMPY’s memories from the RNA in their systems, and learned enough to either blackmail or bring down DKC. The corporation left the colony alone.

  The Doctor won a bet with the personification of Death that he could prevent anyone from dying as a result of these events, but Death reminded the Doctor that he couldn’t be everywhere...

  Humans tasked two sentient terraforming machines - Pinky and Perky - with establishing the architecture, railways and roadways for a colony on Jaiwan. Pinky and Perky fell in love, swapped subroutines and built increasingly creative layouts for one another. The colonists, worried that the AIs had evolved beyond their original programming, deactivated them. [493]

  ? 2263 - The Daleks [494]

  For centuries, the few survivors of the Thal race had lived on a plateau on Skaro, eking out an existence. They relied on rainfall that came only every ten years. One decade, the
rain never came. After two years, the Thal Temmosus and his group left the plateau, hoping to find the city of the Daleks. This occurred five hundred years after the Neutronic War, and the Daleks had become affected by the reverse evolution on the planet, and had lost many of their technological secrets. Reconciliation between the Thals and the Daleks proved impossible.

  The first Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara arrived on Skaro. They explored the Dalek city, then sided with the Thals in wiping out the Daleks.

  The Doctor’s encounter with the Daleks was Last Contact, when the Time Lords first encountered the race that would ultimately destroy them. [495] At some point after this time, the Moroks acquired a Dalek from Skaro, and put it on exhibit in their Space Museum. [496] The planet Badblood became cut off from humanity’s other colonies owing to an outbreak of vampirism, as well as carbonised dust in the upper atmosphere scrambling communications. [497]

  The Computers and Cybernetic Systems Act was passed on Uva Beta Uva in 2265. [498]

  = The sixth Doctor visited the planet Huttan in the year 2267. [499]

  By 2270, the Argolin had called a moratorium of their Recreation Programme. Instead, they set up the Leisure Hive, which offered a range of holiday pursuits for intergalactic tourists while promoting peace and understanding between races. Argolis became the first leisure planet. Meanwhile, a central government took control of the Foamasi planet, breaking the power bases of the old Lodges. The new government sought restitution with Argolis. [500]

  Humanity had consolidated its position, and now possessed a large number of colony worlds. Both the Earth government and the corporations were quite capable of closing down the supply routes to uneconomic or uncooperative colonies, abandoning them entirely.

  Away from Earth, life was often still very harsh. The corporations or governing elites that controlled each colony discovered that as long as Earth was kept supplied with minerals and other resources, Earth Central would turn a blind eye to local human rights abuses. [501]

  Stanoff Osterling was regarded as one of the two greatest playwrights in human history. His work conformed to the stage conventions of his time, following the Greek tradition of reporting offstage action in elegant speeches rather than seeing it performed. The galaxy’s economy was damaged after the wars and the colonies could not afford anything more lavish, but this reliance on dialogue and plotting rather than technological innovation led to a flourishing of the theatre across the galaxy. Osterling was regarded as a genius in his own time for such plays as Death by Mirrors, The Captain’s Honour and The Mercenary. His greatest achievement, however, was felt to be his lost play The Good Soldiers (2273) that dealt with the aftermath of the battle at Limlough. The Doctor helped transcribe the play, as Osterling had restioparothis. [502]

  Vilus Krull, a human born on the colony planet Tranagus, came into contact with a potent but mindless force from the end of time, which didn’t obey conventional laws of physics. Krull thought the force was sentient and founded the Cult of the Dark Flame to facilitate its full manifestation; upon Krull’s death, his skull became a lodestone for the Dark Flame’s power. The cult infiltrated every star system in the galaxy for a time, but was eventually thought to have died out. [503]

  c 2275 - The Prisoner’s Dilemma [504]

  The seventh Doctor and Ace trailed Harmonious XIV Zinc and his wife IV Madga: two criminals from the Commune of the White Sun, who had stolen a time ring from the Trib Museum. Ace encountered them on the prison moon Erratoon, and also met Zara, a living tracer of the Key to Time. Zara found a Key segment disguised as an Erratoon lake. Harmonious XIV Zinc and Madga tried to kill everyone on Erratoon to acquire its mining rights; Ace prevented this, but in so doing destroyed Erratoon’s geodesic sphere. Emergency systems lifted the colony’s buildings into space without a single casualty. In future, Erratoon’s robot wardens would be withdrawn, and the moon would become home to a space dock and an artificial sky.

  The Knights of Jeneve emerged as a military power. Their founder, Vazlov Baygent, was assassinated in 2276, but the Knights eliminated Baygent’s killers and protected his son. [505] The terraforming of Raghi was completed. [506] The Mutant Rights Act was passed in 2278. Uva Beta Uva III was at the centre of a belzite rush unparalleled in human history around this time. [507]

  On Earth, the fallout of the “Sphinx-giftwrapping” incident reached its conclusion when war broke out. The Leaning Tower of Pisa was destroyed - along with Pisa itself - by a mis-aimed half-ton asteroid. The economy’s focus became weapons and transport, and the preservation of national monuments became less of a priority. [508]

  c 2285 - Vengeance on Varos [509]

  The Galatron Mining Corporation and the Amorb prospect fought over mineral rights on the planets of the galaxy, often with little concern for local populations. One such place was Varos, a former prison planet (pop. 1,620,783) in the constellation of Cetes. An officer elite ran Varos and lived in relative luxury, although everyone was confined to enclosed domes with artificial atmospheres. A majority of the people had the constitutional right to vote for the Governor’s execution. Until traces were detected on the asteroid Biosculptor, Varos was long thought to be the only source of zeiton-7 ore, a fuel for space/time vehicles.

  In the late twenty-third century, Galatron and the government of Varos entered negotiations for the zeiton-7 ore. Galatron had a stranglehold over Varos because it supplied the colony with food, and so kept the price of zeiton-7 down to seven credits a unit. Successive Governors had developed an entertainment industry, Comtech, that sold footage of the executions, tortures and escape attempts of prisoners to every civilised world. This acted as a deterrent for potential rebels, and kept the population entertained.

  Eventually, the sixth Doctor and Peri helped one Governor to negotiate the fair price of twenty credits a unit for Varos’ zeiton, besting the efforts of Galatron’s agent, Sil.

  c 2287 - Mission to Magnus [510]

  Humans had settled on the planet Magnus. The Seven Sisterhoods came to rule there when a virus killed off most of the male population; a few males were kept below the planet’s surface for progenitor harvesting. The Ice Warriors triggered a series of nuclear explosions that moved Magnus into a colder orbit, hoping to alter the climate to their liking.

  The Mentor Sil, trying to atone for his failure on Varos, was poised to reap a profit by selling warm garments and other goods to the Magnus inhabitants. Sil had previously met Anzor, a representative of the High Council on Gallifrey, on Thoros Beta. The sixth Doctor dealt with Anzor’s interference by sending him and his TARDIS on a slow trek into the distant past.

  (=) Rana Zandusia - the leader of the Sisterhoods - and Sil came into possession of the Doctor’s TARDIS, travelled a few hours into the future and saw that Magnus had been devastated.

  The Doctor and Peri reclaimed the TARDIS, and triggered a second series of explosions that moved Magnus back into a warmer orbit. The men of Salvak offered to become husbands to the Sisterhoods.

  2290 - The Leisure Hive [511]

  By 2290, it was clear that the Leisure Hive on Argolis was in trouble. Last year’s bookings had fallen dramatically, and advance bookings for 2291 were disastrous. Argolis now faced competition from other leisure planets such as Abydos and Limus 4. The West Lodge of the Foamasi offered to buy the planet, but the board refused and instead pinned their hopes on tachyon experiments conducted by the Earth scientist Hardin. The fourth Doctor and Romana were present when agents of the Foamasi government arrested two members of the West Lodge, who were attempting to establish a power base on Argolis, and it was discovered that the Tachyon Recreation Generator could rejuvenate the Argolin. The Argolin and Foamasi governments re-opened negotiations.

  Checkley’s World, “The Horror Planet”, was settled in 2290 and selected as the best location for a scientific research station. The laboratories were released from state control a decade after the planet was colonised, and the facilities were funded by a number of empires and corporations, includi
ng the Arcturans, Riftok and Masel. Earth Government remained the major partner. Weapon systems such as compression grenades, Freire’s gas and the Ethers - genetically engineered ghost-troops - were developed. [512]

  Human colonists discovered Selonart. [513] The residents of the planet Perfecton determined that their sun would go supernova. Unable to escape, they encoded their entire culture onto a missile that could recreate their civilisation with quantum fluctuations. Humanity didn’t know why the Perfectons had vanished, and quarantined Perfecton. [514] The leaders of the Slav and Russian colonists on the planet Vishpok advocated genetic purity - the “Visphoi Ideal”. A series of emperors and empresses ruled Vishpok until it fell under a military dictatorship. [515]

  2294 - The Stones of Venice [516]

  After overthrowing yet another reign of terror, the eighth Doctor and Charley arrived in Venice on the eve of its destruction. The gondoliers of Venice, now amphibians with webbed hands and toes, eagerly awaited the chance to claim the city once it sank beneath the waves.

  A series of tremors struck the city, but the Doctor discovered that the “late” Estella, now posing as a city resident named Eleanor Lavish, had once owned an alien device capable of altering reality. The device had kept Estella and Duke Orsino alive for a century by draining Venice’s life force, leading to its present decay. The Doctor recovered the device, and Orsino proposed that he and Estella end their lives for Venice’s sake. Estella agreed out of continued love for Orsino, and the device turned them into ash, saving the city. The high priest of the Cult of Estella made off with their ashes.