B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  ? - Last Man Running [1592]

  Class warfare was brewing between the First Planet’s “firsters” and the Second Planet’s lowly “toodys”. An Out System Investigation Group (OIG) was sent to a forest plane to look for a toody weapons manufacturer. The OIG team, the fourth Doctor and Leela got caught in a Last Man Running complex, a simulated environment built by the Lentic race to find and clone the ultimate warrior. Leela destroyed the force field surrounding the complex, and the OIG bombed it.

  & 33,935 - Iris: Enter Wildthyme [1593]

  The Glass Men of Valcea had been ousted from their city, and killed in great numbers, by their “new gods”: Servo-furniture in the form of flying wardrobes, who had no memory of their origins. Iris Wildthyme, Panda, Simon, Jenny and Barbra the vending machine tried to stop Anthony Marville from using Valcea’s space-time corridors to reach the planet Hyspero. What remained of the Glass Men’s city was melted by a bomb, and its impending explosion prompted Marville, Jenny, the Scarlet Empress Euphemia, Barbra and all of the wardrobes to flee through the Dii h’anno Doors: a portal in the head wardrobe that led to Hyspero, millions of years in the future. Iris, Simon and Panda, thinking their friends dead, returned to the twenty-first century.

  Around the year 34,600, humans committed atrocities during the Platonic War and became despised by other races. The Lord Predator, Haralto Wong Bopz Wim-Waldon Arlene, had died twenty-two years previous, and a new Lord Predator ruled. Some members of the Slitheen family, still exiled from their homeworld, came into possession of time technology that included a Navarino time-jump and a Sundayan stabiliser. Navarino technicians assisted in the construction of a time machine until the Slitheen ate them. The Slitheen used their plundered technology to open a time-travel tourist service to ancient Greece, but their operations in this era were bankrupted when they were held accountable for the wrongful death of Cecrops of the Collective of Mulch. [1594]

  37,166 - Planet of Evil [1595]

  A Morestran survey team arrived on Zeta Minor, searching for an energy source as their home planet was facing disaster. Zeta Minor was a planet on the edge of the universe, beyond Cygnus A, as distant from the Artoro galaxy as that is from the Anterides.

  The Morestran team discovered that a black pool on Zeta Minor was connected to an incomprehensible universe of anti-matter. As a result, it was impossible to remove anything from the planet without incurring the wrath of powerful creatures native to the anti-matter universe. The fourth Doctor and Sarah helped the Morestrans to survive the experience and return home.

  The Doctor offhandedly suggested to Professor Sorenson that he explore the energy potential of the kinetic forces involved in planetary movement.

  c 39,164 - Zeta Major [1596]

  Morestra was abandoned, and the fleet set off on a search for a new home planet. A suitable home was located in the Beta system forty months later, and the city of Archetryx was founded there. The New Church Calendar began and the Sorenson Academy was established.

  A hundred years later, work commenced on the Torre del Oro, a structure that would extract energy from planetary motion, but which would take fifteen hundred years to build. The dematerialisation beam was invented after several more centuries. Great Technology Wars were fought as the Cult of Science schismed.

  A few years before the Torre del Oro was due to be completed, the Grand Council of Cardinals discovered errors in the equations - the Torre del Oro wouldn’t work. To cover up this failure, they dispatched an expedition to extract anti-matter from Zeta Minor, and the Zeta Project was established on the nearby Zeta Major. By that point, Morestran territory spanned eighty million light years and contained one thousand four hundred and twenty-seven inhabited star systems, but the energy crisis meant that eight hundred and ninety-two of them, the Outer Systems, were beyond the Empire’s reach.

  Students of the Sorenson Academy started vanishing, part of the cover up of the Torre del Oro debacle. The fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa discovered that the tower was full of anti-matter. Soon after, anti-matter creatures started a rampage. A State of Crisis was declared and old political and religious rivalries re-emerged. The Zeta Project was destroyed. The Doctor once again negotiated with the creatures of anti-matter and returned all the plundered material to its original universe.

  At this time, a new breed of Zamps should be ready to conquer the universe. [1597]

  The Terraphile Era [1598]

  Human Guide Sensors possessed the ability to plot courses through the cosmos and map the multiverse. They discovered the Second Aether, which was between everything: Matter and Anti-matter, Law and Chaos, Life and Death, Reason and Romance. It was where Famous Chaos Engineers performed morphing miracles that even Morphail’s wizard-scientists couldn’t explain. It was the home of the immeasurable entities Spammer Gain and the Original Insect. A legend held that the Doctor had named this region, although he denied this.

  An early Guide Sensor, Lord Renark of the Rim, led a huge percentage of the human race out of the original universe and into another. Renark disappeared, possibly into a greater structure than the known multiverse, which was not understood but was known as Renark’s Multiverse or Renark’s Dilemma.

  The Galactic Union now spanned millions of worlds, encompassing humanity as well as a vast diversity of other intelligent species made from “flesh, metal and petal”. The great rockets of the IGP and the interstellar mercantile vessels of the Terran Service crossed the whole Milky Way and the dwarf galaxies surrounding it, and spread into other space-time continua. Privateers preyed upon them. This was a time when galactic civilisation cycled between ages of prosperity and dark ages, and was peppered with intergalactic wars.

  Humanity was planet hungry, and the commercial worldbuilding companies terraformed countless worlds. EarthMakers, run by the Tarbutton family, was the largest terraforming company and built planets with ancient Roman, Mogal Indian, Buffalo, ancient Greek and Eireish themes, as well as literary worlds based on the works of Disney, Balzac, Austen, Meredith, James, Lansdale, Mieville, Pynchon, Sinclair, Calderon, Gygax and Moore. The second largest company, TerraForma, was run by the Banning-Cannon family and specialised in Medieval English Edwardian versions of Earth: the Peers™. The firm was run from Earth Regenerated, which orbited Barnard’s Star. Intergalactic Air supplied atmosphere plants to terraforming companies. Aqua Suppliers supplied water to inhabited worlds. Water was a valuable commodity on many worlds, and a frequent target for pirates.

  There was immense interest in Earth history, although mankind had a garbled understanding of it, as the only surviving texts - as recovered from a cave system in Arctic Skipton in Old Yorkshire - were some old cigarette cards, Robin Hood, Boys’ Friend, Thriller Picture Library, The Captain, British Boys’ Book of the Empire, Captain Justice and His Submarine Gunboat and Sexton Blake and the Terror of the Tongs. They avidly played what they believed to be games from Earth such as broadswording (with swords far wider than they were long), cracking a nut with a sledgehammer and Arrers - a combination of darts, archery and cricket. The ancient artists Rembrandt, Picasso, Emin and Coca Colon were revered.

  Earth itself was now known as Terra, Original Terra, Old Old Earth, Original Earth and Home Planet. It was in a thoroughly frozen state following a comet strike, massive earthquakes and a series of nuclear winters. It was to be found in the Greater Oort in Orion.

  Around 41,000, Algernon Pine was defrosted on Old Old Mars to help create the backstory for the Peers planets, although he wasn’t happy with the end result.

  Other planets at this time included the beautiful worlds of Calypso V - Venice, Ur XVII and New Venus, as well as the howling terraces of Arcturus-and-Arcturus.

  ? 41,000 - “The Child of Time” (DWM) [1599]

  A falling star on Earth heralded the start of a plague that all but wiped out the human empire. Such was the widespread death, it was feared humanity was doomed. Keltor Jacobs oversaw an effort to engineer a new form for humankind, one that could resist all disease
: the robotic Galateans. The original Galateans were kept in a station on the dark side of the moon. They resembled specific individuals, and contained duplicate copies of their memories. Jacobs activated the Galateans just three hours before Minerva Base reported finding a plague-cure.

  (=) The Galateans thought themselves a superior lifeform, and vowed to wipe out their creators. The time-child Chiyoko helped to ignite a war between humans and the Galateans. The conflict would last at least a hundred thousand years, and help to facilitate Chiyoko’s creation.

  The eleventh Doctor, Amy and a Galatean-made version of Alan Turing were sent to this era from the Museum of Lost Opportunities in the future, to avert the Galateans’ creation. They failed, and Chiyoko capriciously moved the trio ahead in time, to the day when the human-Galatean war destroyed Earth...

  Chiyoko was eventually persuaded to undo her existence and the harm it had caused. The eleventh Doctor, Amy, a fading Chiyoko and the Galatean-made Alan Turing arrived once again from the Museum. Turing uploaded his memories of the human-Galatean war into the newborn Galateans’ network, which persuaded them to work alongside humanity and rebuild the Earth. Chiyoko’s mind was uploaded into a Galatean body; both she and the Galatean-Turing decided to stay in this era.

  (=) & 42,000 - “Apotheosis” [1600]

  The human-Galatean war had now lasted a thousand years, and the planet Kepler IV was just one site of the conflict.

  A church-based militia squad, the Sisters of Purity, investigated a space station that had wandered into human space, and met the eleventh Doctor and Amy there. The station had a defective time engine, which created pockets of fast-time. The TARDIS was hit with temporal acceleration, and the beings it had absorbed in its recent travels (the young girls Cosette and Margaret, part of the world-eater Axos and a Shasarak) were detached into a separate being that further incorporated Sister Konami into itself.

  The Doctor tried to split the being into its separate components with a teleport, but they instead coalesced into a new individual: Chiyoko, a young girl with temporal abilities. She left to facilitate the events that led to her own creation, and the Doctor and Amy pursued her through time.

  Chiyoko’s temporal dissolution meant that Novice Konami’s request to join the evangelical regiment was declined, and she stayed at an abbey for another year. [1601]

  (=) & 42,000 - “The Child of Time” (DWM) [1602]

  The time-child Chiyoko was worshipped as a goddess by both sides in the human-Galatean war, and stoked conflict between them. Now she decided that the Galateans were the superior lifeform, and encouraged the remaining humans on Earth to deploy a network of fusion bombs under the Earth’s crust. The eleventh Doctor and Amy tried to stop the countdown, but the Earth was destroyed. They were timescooped at the last instant, and taken to the Museum of Lost Opportunities in the far future.

  The TerraForma company refused to sell Peers to the Lockesleys for seven thousand years. [1603] The Sussex and Surrey Bacon Street Regulators kept law in the two hundred billion star systems of the Sagittarius Arm of the galaxy after the collapse of law during the last Dark Age, which followed the fifth or sixth intergalactic war. [1604] O’Bean the Younger drew the human race from the last Dark Age by discovering the colour pool, a method of propelling starships that made nukers obsolete. [1605]

  In 47,507, the first Quarter Millennium Terraphile Renactment Tournament was held. [1606] Graveworld 909 was one of many cemetery planets established after the seventh galactic war. The robot guardian of Graveworld 909 malfunctioned and went dormant after establishing a respectful quantum null field that forced visitors to remain silent. [1607]

  Manakai invaders from the Arkwright Cluster were wiped out ages ago. Dructionjen clans had been exiled many generations before for worshipping the Daleks. [1608]

  c 50,000 - Heart of TARDIS [1609]

  The fourth Doctor and Romana found and rescued K9, who had become an exhibit at the Collectors’ Big Huge and Educational Collection of Old Galactic Stuff.

  The galaxy was at war in the year 50,000. The head of the Galactic Peace Commission, Zanthus Pia, was assassinated and K9 was framed for the killing. The real culprit was the renowned bounty hunter Ahab, who was working with the Jixen. K9 uncovered this plot and learned the Jixen were active in the mid-twenty-first century on Earth. He travelled there, but was heavily damaged and lost all his memories.

  Later, Ahab followed K9 and was forced to retreat to his own time - but ended up adrift in deep space. [1610]

  The twelfth intergalactic war was fought around 50,957, and by common consent it was fought in space, not on the surface of planets. [1611] The Doctor worked as a courier in the vast spaceport Desiree during his gap century, although he was fired because he kept getting lost. [1612] The Doctor joined the All Galaxy Legion of Terraphiles. [1613]

  51,007 - The Coming of the Terraphiles [1614]

  The clans who ran the terraforming companies were now fabulously wealthy. Lady Mars, owner of Intergalactic Air, could afford a hat that was a life-sized replica of the lost Martian moon Phobos. EarthMakers introduced Mystery Worlds, based on the Sherlock Holmes stories.

  The Galactic Union was democratic, although people could pay politicians to retire in General Ejections (seventy-eight members were up for Ejection in Nova Roma). It encompassed countless alien species, including the Judoon (who had taken up Arrers after abandoning their own lethal sport of Nukeball), Centaurs and the Pilparque dogmen of Chardine. The Banning-Cannons had recently lost money in a failed scheme to transform the Scullum Crux into a rose garden light years across. Planets in this era included Cygnus 34, New North Whales, Old Barsoom and Loondoon (home of many fashion houses). Vast spaceports serviced many different types of starships from small, old nuker ships to massive 110-deck G-class vessels such as the ISS Gargantua, which used colour engines. The advanced technology of this time included nanotech translation. Humans now comfortably lived to be two hundred years old, and could take identity pills that allowed them to become someone else. Gbot messengers acted as couriers, punching holes in space that would kill a human.

  The eleventh Doctor and Amy enjoyed a week on Peers, a terraformed world in the Moravian Cluster in the Medieval Edwardian style, and governed by the 507th Earl of Lockesley. The Doctor became aware of a threat to the whole of the multiverse. As it involved the black hole at the centre of the galaxy, he feared General Frank/Freddie Force and his Anti-matter Men were responsible. He joined a team of Terraphile Reenactors heading to Miggea, a Ghost World (i.e. a planet that orbits sideways between universes), where they were due to compete for the Arrow of Law. Captain Cornelius, an old rival and acquaintance of the Doctor, was also aware of the problem. His home was in the dwarf galaxy Canis, but he was most often seen in the Paine, the most perfect light-powered vessel ever built, with a crew from a hundred worlds and a dozen space-time continua. He had seen the dark tides rising and dragging galaxies across billions of light years, and knew that unless it was stopped, the universe would stop regenerating itself and the multiverse would collapse in just a few centuries. The Doctor and Cornelius secured the Arrow of Law - the fabled Roogalator, an artifact from the Realm of Law that could restore the cosmic balance.

  ? - “The Gift” [1615]

  The sixth Doctor went back to the point that a Zofton deep space load lugger had crashed on the moon of Zazz, and observed as - over the next fifty years - the surviving robot rebuilt and survived, eventually building self-replicating replacements for itself. Within twenty generations, they had a functioning civilisation.

  A natural disaster on the moon of Zazz wiped out the machine civilisation there. The few survivors would lie dormant for two thousand years. [1616]

  ? - “The Gift” [1617]

  By now, Zazz was a planet heavily-influenced by the Jazz Era of Earth, and the sixth Doctor, Peri and Frobisher accepted an invitation to the twenty-first birthday bash for the Lorduke of Zazz.

  The TARDIS first landed at the retreat of the Lorduke’s
brother, Professor Strut, who was a mad scientist exiled after crashing an experimental moon rocket on the city. They agreed to take a gift... which turned out to be a surviving self-replicating robot. Strut found the robot on the moon, but didn’t understand the danger. The robots began breeding, and collected raw materials to rebuild their civilisation on Zazz. The Doctor used the musicians of Zazz to duplicate the robot’s recall signal, luring them to Strut’s island. They boarded the moon rocket, and were blasted off into space.

  c 101,861 - Serpent Crest: Tsar Wars [1618]

  Human-made robots became so advanced in a certain sector of space that they finally took over and formed the Robotov Empire. The humans that served the Empire lived on outlying worlds, and supplied energy from a biomoon. Centuries passed, and the humans moved closer to rebellion. Father Gregory, who physically looked like the fourth Doctor owing to “the endless chaotic ramifications of universal chance”, allied himself with the rebels. The Tsarina conceived with Gregory a child cyborg, Alex, in the hope of cementing bonds between the humans and Robotovs.

  Gregory, however, was secretly allied with the Skishtari - a race of conquerors who were adept at manipulating wormholes. The Skishtari subjugated other races by hatching monstrous Skishtari Emperor serpents from eggs - one such egg was to be hidden inside Alex. Gregory’s agents brought the fourth Doctor and Mrs Wibbsey to this era via a Skishtari wormhole, but Alex’s heart was failing, and Gregory donated his own to save him.

  The Doctor tried to resolve matters by sending himself and Wibbsey - as well as a spaceship containing Alex, his guardian Boolin and the Skishtari egg - down a Skishtari wormhole to Nest Cottage in 2010. They all ended up in the right location, but the nineteenth century.