Genesis Of The Doctor - A Doctor Who Story

Synopsis

Synopsis of the story (Please skip to the next chapter if you want to avoid spoilers!)

"Genesis Of The Doctor - A Doctor Who Story" details both the formative years of the titular character and his changing relationship with The Master. In the manner of a 1970s Target Doctor Who book it is around 120 pages long and separated into 4 linked episodes. It could perhaps be the first of a series of new stories.

The Prologue introduces the 3rd episode's main antagonists through a chance encounter of a desolate man with a mysterious artefact.

Episode 1 opens with a teenage girl and boy escaping after a small-scale heist, part of a larger plan to escape their situation. It is deliberately ambiguous at this point who each of these characters will turn out to be. Each are in fear of a process called the "Rebirth" during which they will change from base human to super-human "Time Lords". This process is inevitable and will involve them becoming a new person, effectively killing the original personality - they don't wish to die!

We learn about their society and its focus on time travel and that time travel is not possible within their planet Gallifrey. The boy and girl are introduced as well-meaning malcontents.

During the Episode 1 it is made clear that an outsider is manipulating peripheral characters behind the scenes to aid the pair in their escape.

Using a small craft that they have built the boy and girl enact their escape plan, leaving chaos and destruction in their wake.

Episode 2 begins with the boy and girl crash landing into a Sussex hillside in the 1980s. They are badly burned, comatose and are placed in a military hospital in separate wards. We follow the boy as he recovers and comes to understand that he is incarcerated and is in danger.

With help the boy escapes hospital and is taken in by Peggy Duff, a middle-aged political activist who had witnessed his escape. [Peggy is loosely based upon a real historical character.] After recuperating the boy joins forces with Peggy and her like-minded friends. They infiltrate the hospital to attempt to free the girl, only to find that she has affected her own escape. She is furious with the boy at being left behind and deeply regrets their decision to leave their home.

At the start of the Episode 3 the boy and girl have been stranded on the Earth for 3 decades. They have integrated themselves into the culture and spent most of their time apart. They have each gained qualifications and travelled the world but in the last decade the boy has descended into hedonism. The girl is now "Milly Jansky" and the boy "John Smith". Milly is in a train travelling to meet Smith in Liverpool. She wears dark glasses and occasionally behaves oddly.

The pair meet in Smith's apartment atop the Radio City Tower. He is heavily bearded and is hosting a decadent party. On the roof Milly recounts a conspiracy about "The Myriad", alien mind parasites who are communicated via eye contact alone. Smith is sceptical but it quickly becomes apparent that Milly is herself affected by the parasite and is losing in her efforts to fight it off. Noises from below indicate people infected with the Myriad are attempting to get to Milly as her struggle to fight them fails. Just as Milly finally succumbs Smith escapes using a teleportation device that Milly has provided.

After some exposition surrounding the infiltration of the Myriad of society and its rapid expansion we revisit a character from the Prologue who was the first person to be infected and who has become influential. This character, "Mortimer Frisk" acts as a cipher for The Myriad.

We see the Myriad actively swelling their ranks on the streets of London through eye contact and also learn that the Myriad appear to be disposing of a small section of society that are immune.

Smith arrives in Somerset. The shock of what has happened to his friend gives him new purpose and after breaking into a house he smartens himself up and shaves. He leaves behind a large sum of money and a smiley face drawn in a cup of sugar.

Smith travels to London and disguises himself as a blind man to deliberately avoid locking eyes with those around him. He meets a man who appears to be doing the same thing. "Clive" is immune to the influence of the Myriad and is in hiding.

Clive and Smith kidnap someone infected with the Myriad to find out more and following this flee into London's tunnels. Clive has a condition called "Amusia" which limits his perception of music and Smith realises that this also gives him immunity to the Myriad. He formulates a plan that will involve getting to The Houses of Parliament.

A blinding light fills the sewer tunnels and the pair are knocked unconscious. Smith awakes to find himself paralysed and confronted by a cadaverous creature who reveals that his name is "The Master" [Episode 1's mysterious influencer]. He convinces Smith that he is his 'guardian angel' and will help him. Milly has been tasked with apprehending Smith. Smith is given a wand-like device that he can use it to summon his people. The Myriad are working towards a point called the "Threshold" when they will have infected sufficient numbers to come out into the open and actively take over.

Smith and Clive continue through the tunnels and surface into devastation - the Myriad are attacking those who are not infected. The pair drive an ambulance through the streets towards Parliament and are pursued by Milly. Ahead the Houses of Parliament are burning. Smith causes Milly to crash, knocking her unconscious. She has cut a message into her arm during the pursuit that Smith believes came from Milly herself rather than the Myriad. They head into and up the Elizabeth Tower.

At the top Smith reveals a plan to use the daily radio broadcast of the chimes of Big Ben to spread a sound wave. This will act like Amusia and will purge the Myriad. Smith enacts the plan just as Milly arrives with a gun. The Myriad are gone from everyone but Milly who, as an alien herself, serves as their last stronghold. She threatens Clive and to save him Smith pushes her through the clock face to fall to the ground below.

Smith has gambled both that Milly will survive the fall due to her robust physiognomy and that the wand he holds will summon the Time Lords. If Milly can be given the "Rebirth" it will let her continue to live, even if it will be with a different personality.

Time Lords arrive and prepare to take the Milly and Smith back home. Curiously they know nothing of the wand. Instead the Myriad were meant to subsume the human race and the fact that they did not has attracted the Time Lord's attention.

Episode 4 starts with Smith in a prison cell in Gallifrey. He takes the Rebirth and is transformed into "The Doctor". [Effectively he is now a much younger version of the Doctor Who character played by William Hartnell in the 1960s].

The Doctor encounters an explosion and then the dead body of his prison guard. Both have been caused by the Master who has used the white wand that the Doctor has inadvertently carried to Gallifrey as a means to break through to there from his own future. The Doctor quickly realises that the Master is not his guardian angel and flees only to literally bump into another young man.

The young man is initially furious and turns out to be Milly, transformed into a man after her Rebirth. The man reveals that his gender change has led him to choose the name "The Master". The Doctor chooses to conceal what this might mean.

The pair are pursued through Gallifrey by the older Master in a series of confrontations culminating in a stand-off atop a tower below the black hole that powers the planet. The older Master reveals that his plan was to use the white wand imbued with powers of the Myriad to put his own mind into that of his younger self, thereby giving him a new life and escape from his cadaverous body.

The Doctor frees his friend while simultaneously causing the older Master to be pulled up and away towards the black hole above.

The Doctor's actions destroy the tower and through the loss of power he also strands every Time Lord where they are throughout time and space. This action also prevents the Time Lords from reversing his changes to the time line meaning that the human race survives. Faced with these crimes the Doctor leaves his friend and steals an old time machine from a museum – leaving to start a new life of adventure.