The fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 arrived on Ribos looking for the first segment of the Key to Time. They meet Garron, a con-man from Hackney Wick, who was forced to leave Earth after his attempt to sell Sydney Opera House to the Arabs backfired. Garron’s exploits included a successful scheme to sell the planet Mirabilis Minor to three different clients.
Aware of the Graff Vynda-K’s thirst for revenge and need for a powerbase, Garron proposed to sell him the planet Ribos for the sum of ten million Opeks. Garron boosted the Graff’s interest by forging a survey suggesting that the planet was rich in Jethryk. Garron’s lump of genuine Jethryk, used to con the Graff, was the first segment of the Key.
The Doctor defeated the Graff - leading to the Graff’s demise - and outsmarted Garron to obtain the segment.
? 3087 - “Spider’s Shadow” [1133]
A pan-dimensional being extruded bits of itself into an unnamed planet. Soldiers under the command of two princesses - Alison and Louisa Keldafrian, who had fought fifty campaigns across the outer reaches - viewed the extrusions as giant spiders and hacked at them. The being protected itself by weaving a “dimensional cocoon”, locking the Princesses in a time loop. The seventh Doctor ended the time loop, and curtailed the being’s hostility by aging it to death.
In the late thirty-first century, people from the Overcities began to recolonise the surface of the Earth. One group, later known as the Concocters, created Europa: a bizarre and eclectic fusion of historical periods built on the site of Europe. There were three Switzias, four Rhines, six Danubes and dozens of black forests. Each Dominion represented a different period between the fourteenth and early twentieth-century history. For example, there were five Britannias: Gloriana, Regency, Victoriana, Edwardiana and Perfidia.
The undead - the descendants of the vampires Jake and Madeline - dwelt in Transylvania. Fictional and historical characters, named Reprises, were cloned. This let the people from the Overcities to jostle with the likes of Byron, Casanova, Crowley, Emily Bronte and the Four Musketeers. The Vatican, a vast floating city equipped with psychotronic technology, was built to impose order on Europa (as the true papal seat had moved to Betelgeuse by this time).
The entire Concoction was masterminded by the Persona, a being formed from the merging of the Jacobean dramatist Pearson and the ancient Mimic. [1134]
c 3094 - Superior Beings [1135]
The fifth Doctor arrived on a garden planet, anticipating the arrival of the Valethske with Peri as their captive. Mindless giant beetles - the remaining physical forms of the Khorlthochloi - dominated the planet. The Doctor rescued Peri and the Valethske discovered the beetles were the last remains of their former gods. The Valethske ship bombarded the planet from orbit, wiping out the Khorlthochoi. Veek, the Valethske leader, realised the futility of his mission and departed for home with his crew.
The fifth Doctor and Peri visited the planet Gargarod in the thirty-first century. [1136] The Bureau, a group from the thirty-second century, used time corridor technology to send retired people to the English village of Nutchurch in the 1930s. [1137]
The thirty-second century was an era that produced organic digital transfer, a means of directly moving information between machines and the human brain. Scandroids were robotic servitors that assisted humans and facilitated such information transfers, and most people were fitted with data transfer ports. Companies such as the Lonway Clinic specialised in altering people’s personalities according to their wishes, and anyone who could afford such services “had some work done”. One planet became a dumping ground for computer equipment - it was intended as part of a recycling programme, but became a scavenging ground for data pirates.
Zachary Kindell was deemed a pioneer of personality surgery, but his unethical experiments tarnished his reputation. Kindell sought to craft a programme capable of “auto-surgery” - one that would reshape a person’s DNA to match their mental alterations - but his experiments brought his test subjects’ aggression and hate to the surface, turning them into mutants. Kindell felt hampered by the threat of prosecution, and although he eventually died, he scattered copies of his memories and personality in various locales. [1138]
? 3100 - Warmonger [1139]
The planet Karn had gained a reputation as a place of healing, presumably due to the presence of the Sisterhood’s Elixir of Life, and a medical association constructed a neutral facility there named the Hospice. The scientist Mehendri Solon served as the facility’s Surgeon-General. The fifth Doctor arrived one day with a severely wounded Peri - who had been injured by a flying predator - to procure Solon’s surgical skills. Solon adeptly healed her.
The deposed Gallifreyan President Morbius pooled mercenaries and space pirates from many worlds to assault Karn, hoping to gain the Sisterhood’s Elixir. The Sisterhood repelled the attack, but Morbius’ forces conquered many planets. The Time Lords manipulated events to form an Alliance, led by the Supremo, to counter Morbius’ ambitions. The Alliance defeated most of Morbius’ forces, and he suffered a final defeat on Karn when troops from Fangoria interceded.
Morbius was sentenced to execution, but Solon, his disciple, removed Morbius’ brain before his body was atomised. The Hospice was disbanded and Karn was left to the Sisterhood. Solon remained on Karn with Morbius’ brain.
The seeds of the Galactic Federation were sown as the space powers of the Milky Way began forging links and alliances with one another. Virtually the entire civilised galaxy was involved to some degree or another. [1140]
In the thirty-second century, Earth made contact with the descendants of Utnapishtim’s people. [1141]
? 3120 - The Brain of Morbius [1142]
Karn was a graveyard of spaceships, with Mutt, Dravidian and Birastrop vessels all coming to grief. Solon built a hybrid creature from the victims of these crashes and installed Morbius’ brain into it, but the Time Lords sent the fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane to prevent Morbius from escaping. A mindbending contest with the Doctor drove Morbius mad, and the Sisterhood killed his physical form.
3123 - Vanderdeken’s Children [1143]
The eighth Doctor and Sam arrived at a derelict structure floating in space - the product of a closed time loop - which was claimed by the warring Emindians and Nimosians. A hyperspace tunnel led to twenty years in the future, when the two planets had wiped each other out. The Doctor was unable to prevent the war, but he saved one of the ships and sent it a thousand years into the future, where it recolonised Emindar.
c 3150 - I.D. [1144]
The planet that served as a dumping ground for computer equipment was believed to hold four billion data storage devices, with another sixty thousand being discarded there on a daily basis. An estimated 80% of the equipment was useless, but that still left a massive amount for data pirates to harvest. Agents of the Lonway Clinic also scavenged the planet, looking for back-up copies of people’s brains that were carelessly thrown out along with their computers. Such information became raw material for the Clinic’s personality surgeries.
A Scandroid happened upon a copy of Zachary Kindell’s personality and memories, and other Scandroids found a copy of his faulty auto-surgery programme. Kindell’s mind was uploaded into a Lonway Clinic accountant, Ms Tevez. One of the Lonway employees, Dr Marriott, became infected with the auto-surgery programme and mutated into an abomination - as did Kindell-Tevez.
The sixth Doctor revised Kindell’s auto-surgery programme, and uploaded Tevez’s brain-print into both creatures, physically and mentally turning them into copies of her. One of the women died, but Tevez was restored as a person in the second - yet remained unsure if she had physically been Marriott. The Doctor neutralised the Scandroids and deleted all copies of Kindell’s programme that he could find.
Liquid hardware was available in this era.
In 3158, the Rensec IX catastrophe took place when the planet’s inhabited underground caverns were destroyed due to seismic activity caused by Puerto Lumina, the planetary satellite. The survivors were shipp
ed, en masse, to the decommissioned, dormant staging-post facilities of Puerto Lumina. A combination of faulty life support and a ham-fisted attempt to chemically sterilise the survivors there left a hundred thousand civilians dead. [1145]
c 3170 - The Beautiful People [1146]
The Vita Novus Health Spa catered to clients who earned “half a planet”, including humans, Morestrans, Sheltanaks, Lamuellans and Sirians. The fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 came to Vita Novus in search of doughnuts, and found that the proprietor, Karna, had developed a revolutionary tissue-reduction process. Subjects’ body mass was broken down in “slimming booths”, then reborn in revitalised forms. The excised fat was reconstituted as beauty products. Karna was brainwashing her clients, and sought to leverage contacts in the major galactic governments to set up slimming centres on every planet. Entire populations would be processed; those who refused would be killed.
The spa’s computers were damaged, and Karna was slimmed to death. A client, Sebella Bing, took charge and reorganised the spa as a relaxation centre with fatty food, ice cream and champagne. The Doctor got a bag of sugary doughnuts.
Tythonians were known in this era.
3174 - Burning Heart [1147]
The population of Earth was rebuilding following the destruction of the Overcities. Trade, culture and civil liberties suffered across the galaxy as humanity retrenched. On Dramos, a satellite of the gas giant Titania, the Church of Adjudication was becoming ever more draconian. Millions joined the extremist Human First group, which advocated the genocide of all aliens. White Fire was the group’s inner core.
The sixth Doctor and Peri visited Dramos as conflict broke out between the Adjudicators and White Fire’s forces. The Node of Titania, an area similar to Jupiter’s Red Spot, was alive and had been increasing hostilities in its attempts to communicate. The sentience of the Node merged with OBERON, the Adjudicators’ central computer. The conflict and xenophobia diminished, and the Adjudicators recruited more non-humans into their ranks.
The Sontarans and Cybermen had both recently tried to introduce more individuality into their species. The Sontaran attempt created disunity, and some of their ranks were banished.
As Earth went through its Empire and Federation phases, the fortunes of the Guild of Adjudicators waxed and waned. Eventually, they became unnecessary. A thousand forms of local justice had sprung up. Every planet had its own laws and police. The universe had passed the Guild by, leaving it nothing to adjudicate. The Guild degenerated into a reclusive order of assassins known as the Knights of the Grand Order of Oberon, dreaming of past glories and crusades for truth. The organisation was based on the moon of Uranus. [1148]
Gholos attacked the pastoral planet Angvia, beginning a conflict that would last thirty generations. Both sides violated the Tenebros IV peace treaty. [1149]
c 3210 - Death Riders [1150]
The Interplanetary Mining Corporation found deposits of trisilicate and duralinium on the asteroid of Stanalan in the Torajii system, and established a frontier town there. “Fluripsent crystals” were embedded in rock walls as a means of illumination. The last Drexxon at liberty, just a child, came to Stanalan with the travelling Galactic Fair (which featured a Death Ride roller coaster). The eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory stopped the Drexxon from freeing its murderous fellows from the Perpetuity Chamber imprisoning them.
The sixth Doctor visited the planet C’h’zzz in 3263. [1151]
3278 - Managra [1152]
For centuries, the Nicodemus Principle had prevented a Reprise from becoming the Pope of Europa. But in 3278, Cardinal Richelieu, a Reprise, assassinated Pope Lucian and attempted to succeed him. He faced opposition from the Dominoes, a secret organisation stretching across the Dominions. The fourth Doctor and Sarah were present as the Persona - a combination of the Mimic and the failed playwright Francis Pearson - attempted to seize control of Europa. The Doctor trapped Persona inside Europa’s Globe, which was actually a TARDIS, and crushed both of them to death in the Vortex. Richelieu become Pope Designate.
3286 - Real Time [1153]
Three survey teams went missing on the desert planet Chronos. The sixth Doctor and Evelyn accompanied a follow-up group there, and found that an absent alien race had equipped a temple of sorts with a time machine. The time traveller Goddard, hailing from 1951, warned the Doctor that events in this era would precipitate the Cybermen conquering Earth in the twentieth century. The Cybermen of the future reverse-engineered a techno-virus that Goddard carried, and created a virus that turned living beings into cybernetic ones. The Cyber-controller of the future infected Evelyn with this virus. The Doctor triggered a temporal wave that aged the Cybermen of the future to death, whereupon he and Evelyn departed, unsuspectingly, for 1927...
? 3297 - The Beast Below [1154]
The eleventh Doctor and Amy found that Starship UK had become a virtual police state; it was monitored by human cyborgs (the Winders) and robot guardians (the Smilers). The Doctor learned that the ship’s drive was a fake, and met Liz X - the British monarch Elizabeth X, who was similarly investigating the truth behind Starship UK. The Doctor discovered that Liz X wasn’t fifty years old as she claimed, she was nearer three hundred, and her own memories had been erased. He, Amy and Liz X learned that Starship UK was powered by the last of the star whales, which was being tortured to drive it forward. Amy released the whale from its torment, and it continued helping Starship UK of its own volition.
Starship UK had candyburgers, clockwork-powered technology and air-balanced porcelain. While on Starship UK, Amy saw a banner for Magpie Electricals. [1155]
Various environmental disasters, including radiation storms, rendered Pavonis IV uninhabitable. A handful of the populace escaped in ships carrying cloning facilities. They had also engineered a means of creating AI humanoids with fungal brains. The surviving Pavonians primarily sought to find their hero, the Doctor, thinking he could help restore their planet. [1156]
A gravity quake destroyed the planets orbiting the star Gloriana XVI and created the Gloriana Scattering, one of the most beautiful asteroid fields in the universe. [1157] The First Empire of Eternal Victory, a conquering regime from outside the Milky Way, fell when the Synthetic Emperor took the throne. The Emperor retasked the armies of robots the First Empire had created, spurring a new, robot-based Empire. [1158]
The Doctor rescued the Rembrandt painting The Night Watch from the Reichmuseum in Amsterdam shortly before the facility burned down. [1159] Mechanoids landed on Hesperus, and prepared it for habitation. [1160]
c 3312 - “Interstellar Overdrive” [1161]
Pakafroon Wabster had become the greatest rock band in recorded history - it was on its sixty-third line-up, around the two hundred album mark. The band’s founder, Wabster, had died fifty years ago in a rollerblading accident, but had been exhumed and animatronically reanimated. The tenth Doctor and Rose met the group aboard a starship that was causing weird time dilations, and realised the group’s manager was trying to eliminate them to cement their reputations. Wabster killed the manager, and the Doctor got the band to lifepods, then destroyed their ship.
Magellan-class starcruisers now used warp induction thrusters.
Officials on Manussa outlawed “snakedancing”, a mental purification dance to resist the Mara’s return. [1162]
c 3340 - The Dalek Factor [1163]
Thal Search-Destroy squads continued to hunt down the Daleks, but it had been two generations since any significant contact had been made. On an unnamed planet, the Daleks worked to implant the Dalek Factor (or “Dalek-heart”) into all other lifeforms. The Dalek-hearted life on the test planet considered itself superior to the original Daleks, forcing them to quarantine it. The Daleks successfully imprisoned an unidentified incarnation of the Doctor on this planet.
3380 - Forty-Five: “Order of Simplicity” [1164]
Dr Verryman, a foremost expert in the field of bioengineering, had helped to found the Sphere of Influence: a world almost completely devoted
to the advancement of knowledge. He developed an inductor: a scalpel-less means of performing surgery with energy pulses and gravity manipulation. The Order of Simplicity, a group devoted to destroying technology, acquired an intelligence-destroying virus. The seventh Doctor, Ace and Hex prevented an agent of the Order from manipulating Verryman into broadcasting the virus - an act that would have reduced billions of humans down to an IQ of 45.
The Galactic Federation
Nearly three hundred years after the first steps towards confederation, the Headquarters of the Galactic Federation on Io were officially opened and the Federation (or Galactic) Charter was signed. Founding members included Earth, Alpha Centauri, Draconia, New Mars and Arcturus. Earth was now regarded as “remote and unattractive”. It was ruled by an aristocracy, “in a democratic sort of way”. The Federation prevented armed conflicts, and even the Martians renounced violence (except in self-defence). Under the terms of the Galactic Articles of Peace (paragraph 59, subsection 2), the Federation couldn’t override local laws or interfere in local affairs except in exceptional circumstances, and was hampered by a need for unanimity between members when taking action. [1165]
c 3400 - “Cold-Blooded War!” [1166]
The galaxy had now enjoyed three centuries of galactic harmony. Draconia had recently joined the Federation, but the coronation of Lady Adjit Kwan as empress of the royal house of Adjit Assan - and by extension the whole Draconian Empire - led Draconia to the brink of civil war. The President of Earth sent Adjudicators Hall and Spane to Draconia with ancient records showing that the Draconian females had only lost their rights following the planet’s industrial revolution, and the Federation denied it had requested intervention from the Shadow Proclamation. Some observers, though, believed that Judoon troops would soon be sent to occupy Draconia’s major cities. The Adjudicators’ ship was destroyed en route, and the tenth Doctor and Donna were subsequently mistaken for that delegation. On Draconia, they worked alongside Martian monitors led by Commander Ixzyptir. Fusek Kljuco, the former head of the Draconian armed forces, accidentally killed his daughter during a botched attempt to assassinate the Empress. It was thought that the royal houses would respond to the tragedy by ratifying the Empress’ ascendance, and put Kljuco on trial for crimes against the Empire.
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