Ten years into the Transmat Wars, the eighth Doctor and Izzy followed an SOS in the Vortex. They were captured by Uber-Marshal Hsui Leng of Greel’s army, who believed they hailed from a structure named the Keep, and that they could help him secure the “treasure” within.
The Doctor and Izzy were transmatted inside the Keep by an android called Marquez. He served the greatest scientist of the age, the shrivelled Crivello, who had built an artificial sun - the Cauldron - to become the centrepiece of a new solar system for humanity in the Crab Nebula. The Cauldron was alive, and required a living conduit to achieve fusion and launch itself - only the Doctor, as a time traveller, was able to communicate with the Cauldron and survive. He did so, and the Cauldron headed out to the Crab Nebula, promising a new life for those that followed. After the Doctor departed, Marquez killed Crivello.
Marquez was actually a Dalek construct, and was trying to help his masters secure the Cauldron. The Daleks needed the artificial sun to fight spider-Daleks from a parallel universe. Work on the Cauldron had been secretly funded by the Threshold, as part of a plan to eliminate the Daleks’ war fleet. [1388]
Paper magazines still existed in the year 5013. For a time, it was fashionable to print them on edible, vitamin-rich paper that was flavoured with the saliva of the author.
Professor Henrietta Nwokolo and her team at Aberdeen University were honoured for their innovations, including the Super Infinite Cosmic Battery.
(=) Jane Blythe’s time commodity scheme in 2007 diminished Earth’s future and Nwokolo’s accomplishment, meaning that a professor at Tokyo University was given the Buffet Prize for inventing a less-effective cosmic-power battery. [1389]
5019 - Benny: The Vampire Curse: “Predating the Predators” [1390]
A salvage crew found the starship with the last of the vampiric Utlunta, Lilu, in orbit near Bathory’s Star. Lilu escaped into history by booking passage with Yesterways, Ltd., a time travel company embarking on a “The V is for Vampire” tour of different Earth eras.
The Super Lucky Romance Camera was invented on Earth in 5044, and was used on more than thirty planets. People could use such devices to extend their holidays by placing themselves in time bubbles. [1391] In the mid-fifty-first century, “Jonathan Smith”, a member of the Supreme Alliance, repaired the Zygma Beam and travelled to 1889 to try to prevent the death of Magnus Greel. [1392]
A young girl, Charlotte Abigail Lux, was dying - and so her family turned an entire planet into a library to keep her occupied. The planet’s core was the largest index computer and hard drive ever built, and Charlotte’s mind was deposited inside it. The world became known as simply The Library - it contained every book ever written, and had “whole continents of Jeffrey Archer, Bridget Jones, Monty Python’s Big Red Book” and more.
The books in the library were made from forests inhabited by the Vashta Nerada: microspores that lived in darkness, and fed off meat. They were on most inhabited worlds, and had endowed nearly every species with a fear of the dark. The Vashta Nerada in the Library books swarmed, and so the central computer teleported out the four thousand and twenty-two patrons in the Library. With nowhere to send the patrons, the computer digitally saved them on the planet’s hard drive. The last outgoing message from the Library read, “The lights are going out”, and then the planet was sealed. It took the Lux family three generations to find a way back in. [1393]
5087 - Borrowed Time [1394]
Amy and Rory enjoyed a brief holiday on Earth until the eleventh Doctor collected them. Earth’s cities had all been documented. New York had an Ascendancy Tower. Tourists could visit the beaches of Old Tokyo.
A dormant Weeping Angel was found in the ruins of Razbahan, and was kept in private hands. [1395]
Captain Jack Harkness
The man who would later become known as Captain Jack Harkness [1396] was a Time Agent in the fifty-first century. He lived on the Boshane Peninsula. [1397] The people of the fifty-first century, including Captain Jack, had pheromones far more potent than people from the twenty-first. [1398]
c 5084 - TW: Adam [1399]
An unnamed race of howling aliens routinely passed by Jack’s hometown - but one day, when he was an adolescent, they besieged it. Jack’s father, Franklin, was killed while searching for Jack’s mother. Jack lost his grip on his younger brother Gray in the chaos, and, unable to face his mother afterwards, ran away. He fruitlessly spent years searching for his missing brother.
As an adult, Jack still didn’t know his mother’s fate. [1400]
When Jack was young, he convinced a friend to go off with him to fight “the worst creatures imaginable”, but they were captured and tortured. His friend was killed for being the weaker of the two. [1401] Jack was the first person from the Boshane Peninsula to join the Time Agency. He became a poster boy for the organisation, and was known as “the Face of Boe”. [1402]
The Agency partnered Jack with Captain John Hart, as it was thought that Jack could “control” him. They were once trapped in a time bubble together for five years. Jack was dubbed “Rear of the Year, 5094”. [1403]
This era was the native time of Time Agents Kala, Jode and Fatboy; the eighth Doctor met them in Marpling in 1932. They could time travel using a temporal transduction beam. [1404]
Jack awoke one morning while still in the Time Agents’ employ and found two years of his memories were missing. He eventually acquired a Chula warship and took up trying to con his former colleagues. Jack came to own a sonic blaster/cannon/disruptor fitted with digital removal and rewind, and which was made at the weapons factories at Villengard. The Doctor visited the weapons factories, leading to an incident where the main reactor went critical. The summer groves of Villengard, which produced bananas, took to growing in the factories’ place.
By this point, humanity had spread out across half the galaxy, and had commenced “dancing” with many species. [1405]
The Time Agency was eventually shut down; John Hart later told Jack Harkness that there were “only seven of us left now”. [1406]
John Hart found Jack’s now-adult brother Gray surrounded by corpses, and chained to the ruins of a city in the Bedla Mountains. Gray was the only survivor, and had gone mad owing to the torture he’d received. He forced Hart to help him exact vengeance on Jack in the twenty-first century. [1407]
When Lorna Bucket was a child, she met the Doctor in the Heaven-neutral, normally uneventful Gamma Forests. He said “run” a lot, and they ran together. The event inspired her to join the military arm of the Church in the hope of meeting him again. To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word “doctor” came to mean “mighty warrior”. [1408]
River Song [1409]
5123 - Let’s Kill Hitler [1410]
The eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory took the newly regenerated River Song to the Sisters of the Infinite Schism, the “greatest hospital in the universe”, to recover from the events of 1938. The Doctor left River a TARDIS-patterned, blank diary in which she would record her adventures. River recovered after the TARDIS had departed, and enrolled in Luna University to study archaeology under Professor Candy. The profession enabled her to uncover clues about the Doctor.
The movement known as the Silence and Academy of the Question, allied with the military forces of the Church (the Clerics) and the Headless Monks, believed that on the fields of Trenzalor at the fall of the Eleventh, when any living creature present must answer truly, a question that should never, ever be answered would be asked... and that silence would fall. The Silence sought to prevent the Doctor from ever reaching Trenzalor and answering the question, and worked to craft a weapon against him... [1411]
Closing Time / The Wedding of River Song [1412]
The day River was awarded her doctorate, she read the account of children who saw the Doctor prior to his meeting his death at Lake Silencio in 2011. Madame Kovarian, the Silence and the Clerics overpowered River and placed her in an augmented NASA astronaut suit. They then took her back to Lake Silencio, to
kill the Doctor as history dictated. River returned to this era after she had married the Doctor.
River Song was imprisoned in the Stormcage Containment Facility for murder. [1413] The Daleks had records of River Song, and knew that she was not merciful. [1414] River dated a Nestene duplicate with a swappable head. [1415] She learned how to fly the TARDIS. [1416]
5145 - The Pandorica Opens [1417]
The TARDIS forwarded a call from Winston Churchill to River Song in Stormcage. He told her about the Vincent van Gogh painting The Pandorica Opens, and so she escaped and stole it from the Royal Collection aboard Starship UK. Liz X stopped River, but let her go when she understood that the Doctor was involved. River then travelled to a bar, the Maldovarium, and acquired a vortex manipulator “fresh from the wrist of a handsome Time Agent” from the bar owner, Dorium Maldovar. She used this to travel first to Planet One, then - based upon the date and map reference that Vincent included in the painting - Rome in 120 AD.
River returned to Stormcage after going to 2010 to spur Amy’s memory of the Doctor, which restored him to life after he had sealed the Cracks in Time. [1418]
The Silence learned that Amy Pond was pregnant, and determined that if she and Rory Williams conceived the child while travelling in the TARDIS, the child might have some Time Lord attributes - meaning it could be turned into a weapon. The pregnant Amy was kidnapped from another time zone, replaced with a Ganger duplicate and taken to an asteroid fortress: Demon’s Run. While Madame Kovarian kept watch over Amy’s gestation, Amy’s mind interacted with her Ganger duplicate - and remained unaware that she had been abducted. [1419]
The Rebel Flesh / A Good Man Goes to War [1420]
The eleventh Doctor severed the connection between Amy and her Ganger. Amy awoke at Demon’s Run and gave birth to a daughter, whom she named “Melody” after her best friend Mels. [1421]
“Demons run when a good man goes to war; Night will fall and drown the sun; When a good man goes to war; Friendship dies and true love lies; Night will fall and the dark will rise; When a good man goes to war; Demons run, but count the cost; The battle’s won, but the child is lost; When a good man goes to war.”
The eleventh Doctor and Rory narrowed down Amy’s location, and visited the Twelfth Cyber Legion because it monitored that quadrant of the galaxy. The Doctor destroyed part of the fleet, and the Cybermen revealled the location of Demon’s Run. To help save Amy, the Doctor and Rory recruited people who owed the Doctor a debt: Madame Vastra and Jenny, Commander Strax, the World War II pilot Danny Boy, the information broker Dorium Maldovar, pirate Captain Avery and Toby, as well as squads of Judoon and Silurians.
The Doctor provoked such in-fighting among his opponents that he swiftly took control of Demon’s Run and routed the Clerics. He and Rory rescued Amy and met the newborn Melody. The Headless Monks eluded detection and counter-attacked, decapitating Dorium and killing Strax and the Cleric named Lorna Bucket - who had come to warn the Doctor of the danger. Kovarian escaped with the infant Melody.
River Song appeared in the battle’s aftermath, and revealled to the Doctor, Amy and Rory that she was the adult Melody Pond. In the language of the people of the Gamma Forests - which had no ponds - “Melody Pond” translated as “River Song”. The Doctor departed with new confidence that he could defeat Kovarian, leaving River to return his allies home.
The Silence took Melody to Earth, the 1960s, so she could be raised in a human-norm environment. [1422]
The Wedding of River Song [1423]
The eleventh Doctor investigated the Silence, and found the Seventh Transept, where the Headless Monks were keeping the still-living head of Dorium Maldovar. He also tracked down a former envoy of the Silence, Father Gideon Vandaleur... who had died six months before, and was actually the justice-agent spaceship Teselecta in disguise. The Doctor believed that he could no longer avoid travelling to 2011 to die at Lake Silencio, and asked the justice agents to deliver messages so Amy, Rory, River Song, an older Canton Delaware and a younger version of the eleventh Doctor could meet him there.
He also asked the justice agents if they would disguise the Teselecta to resemble him - a means of his avoiding death and thwarting the fixed point in time at Lake Silencio.
The Doctor succeeded, lived... and married River Song. He later returned Dorium’s head to the transept, and Dorium pledged to keep the secret that the Doctor had cheated death.
A Good Man Goes to War [1424]
River voluntarily returned to Stormcage after the Doctor took her ice skating on the river Thames, 1814, for her birthday. Rory approached River to help find him and the Doctor rescue Amy, but she refused, knowing that these events would lead to the Battle of Demon’s Run, and that she could only appear at the “very end”.
River Song and the Doctor met Jim the Fish. They also visited Easter Island. [1425]
The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon [1426]
The Doctor sent River an invite to join him at Lake Silencio in Utah, the twenty-first century. She escaped Stormcage, and went there. The Doctor later brought her back to Stormcage and they kissed... it was the first time they had done so for the Doctor, meaning it was the last time for River.
The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone / The Big Bang [1427]
There were laws against marrying one’s self.
The Weeping Angel found on Razbahan caused the category-four starliner Byzantium to crash on Alfava Metraxis - all part of an attempt to rescue the Angels sleeping in a maze of the dead there. The Clerics released River Song from Stormcage into the custody of Father Octavian, and offered her a pardon if she helped contain the situation. She carved a message into the Byzantium’s flight recorder, its Home Box, that summoned the eleventh Doctor and Amy to this time. The Angels fed off the Byzantium’s power, and gained enough strength to stalk the Doctor’s party.
The eleventh Doctor’s future self momentarily visited the Byzantium while he was backtracking along his own timeline. He stressed to Amy the importance that she remember the words he spoke to her when she was seven.
A Crack in Time appeared, and the “current” Doctor fed the Angels into it - they constituted enough of a space-time event that the Crack was sealed as it destroyed them. The Doctor learned that River was imprisoned for killing “a very good man”, and that he would see her again when the Pandorica opened.
River Song was granted her pardon. [1428] She travelled to 2011 to tell Amy and Rory that the Doctor didn’t die at Lake Silencio. [1429] River Song became a professor. [1430] She had pictures of all the Doctor’s incarnations, but didn’t know their order. [1431]
The Doctor told River Song his real name; “there was only one time he could” do that. [1432]
The Doctor and River went to the end of the universe together. Their adventures included the Bone Meadows and a picnic at Asgard. When the Doctor knew that the time had come for River to visit the Library and meet her fate, he showed up on her doorstep with a new haircut and a suit. He took her to Darillium, where the towers sang - the Doctor cried, but didn’t tell River why. He gave her an advanced sonic screwdriver equipped with a neural relay. [1433]
Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead [1434]
Professor River Song joined an expedition sent by Felman Lux Corporation to their planet-sized Library, which had been sealed off for a hundred years, and sent a message that the Doctor should join her there. The message was received much too early in the Doctor’s timeline, and so the tenth Doctor arrived at the Library with Donna. He had not yet met River in his personal timestream.
The Vashta Nerada swarmed once more, and the Library’s self-destruct was activated. The Doctor and the Vashta Nerada agreed that they could have the Library if the Doctor was given one day to free the four thousand and twenty-two people saved on the Library’s hard drive. The Doctor intended to hook himself up the Library’s computer so his own memory space could be used to initiate the transfer - an act that would burn out his hearts, and kill him beyond all hope o
f regeneration. River incapacitated the Doctor and took his place. When he awoke, bound to the wall, she told him:
“It’s not over for you. You’ll see me again. You’ve got all of that to come. You and me, time and space. You watch us run.”
River’s body died as the patrons were restored to life and the Library’s self-destruct was terminated. The Doctor realised that River’s sonic screwdriver had a neural relay that contained the last vestiges of her mind, and transferred it into the Library’s hard drive. River’s mind took up residence in the hard drive’s simulation of reality, along with the minds of her slain archaeology team and Charlotte Abigail Lux. The Doctor and Donna continued their travels.
The principles of atmospheric flotation were discovered. [1435]
c 5200 - “Fire and Brimstone” [1436]
Ninety-seven “audited precessions” after the Breakout, the eighth Doctor and Izzy landed on the satelloid Icarus Falling - one of six satellites revolving around the artificial sun Crivello’s Cauldron. This was the New Earth system in the Crab Nebula, and held some of the remnants of humanity.
A Dalek fleet soon arrived and released self-replicating robot insects - the Contagium - to secure Icarus Falling. The Daleks sought to wipe out a race of spider-Daleks from a parallel dimension, and wanted to collapse the Cauldron and create a black hole - the means by which they could travel to the home territory of their rivals. The Daleks installed a synaptic conduit into the Doctor’s brain, believing he could navigate their fleet through the black hole.
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