Doctor Who: Out of the Ordinary

Possible Futures

Infrared homing refers to a weapon guidance system which uses the emission of electromagnetic radiation to track and follow a target. Holograms, evidently, don't emit electromagnetic radiation. And, in the cool vacuum of space, the only source of heat and electricity would be the moon eco-craters and underground bases. Even though the missile was launched towards the Dalek ship - the Dalek ship isn't real. The only evidence of its existence is the fact that it can be seen. In their panic, the humans didn't think to check anything else. The recording of a Dalek voice yelling "EXTERMINATE" and a few other words along with it, was enough to make the humans shiver, and the hairs stand up on the back of their necks. Thus, dooming the planet they stand on.

=-=

The monitors inside the London UNIT Headquarters showed a timer and a radar. The timer was counting down until the missile would reach its plotted destination, and the radar showed two blips - a circle, and an arrow. The arrow moved towards the circle about half a centimetre on the screens every two seconds. Little did UNIT know, but the circle was plotted onto the radar about 30 seconds before a hand fell onto Clara's shoulder. Laura Davidson, the current leader of UNIT, and her advisor, Thomas Wheatley, were seemingly transfixed by the screens. Laura was still uncertain if launching a missile at an alien race hell-bent on ruling a universe only containing themselves was a good idea. Thomas, however, was certain that they would triumph today. The arrow blip continued to blip its way towards the circle blip. Every time the blip moved, it made a blipping noise.
Blip...
Blip...
Blip...
The blipping was steadily becoming the only noise audible in the room. Everyone had gone quiet, watching the screens. The missile was now only a centimetre away from its target. One woman made a quick prayer. No-one noticed.
Blip...
Laura closed her eyes.
Blip...
That was it. The last blip. She opened her eyes again, hopefully expecting both arrow and circle blips to be gone, and the room to erupt into cheers and shouts of victory. Instead however, she got something that made her heart drop.
Blip...
The arrow had passed through the circle. Whispers of concern filled the room. "What happened!" Laura shouted suddenly, making a couple of people visibly jump. "Report!"
Blip...
"Ma'am." A small man was standing next to her, a technician; his name escaped her. He was holding a tablet which he passed to her quickly. It was a series of still images taken by the infrared camera of the missile, which were playing through like a video. They showed the missile pass through the ship, which should've been lit up like a christmas tree on the infrared camera, and come out of the other side. Central to the screen now, was a circle of red light.
Blip...
"What's that?" She pointed to the circle.
"That's what worries me ma'am." He tapped a button on the side of the tablet in her hand and the camera changed to the normal view. The red circle turned white.
"Oh god.."
Blip...

=-=

The world had been watching, waiting to see its enemy's demise. But when that didn't happen, and the missile passed straight through the ship on national, international, every news channel on the planet - the world held its breath. The world was asking the same question - What happened?
Children asked this question to their parents,
"I Don't know."
The parents asked the news,
"We don't know."
The news asked the governments,
"We don't know."
The governments asked UNIT,
"We don't know."
UNIT asked Laura,
"I don't know."
The world was crying, begging, pleading for an explanation. It wouldn't get one.
Then, silently, the missile made contact. The arrow disappeared.

=-=

Out in space, cracks formed all over the surface of the Moon. The eco-craters themselves had exploded, the bases had exploded, the weapons stationed on the Moon had exploded. The missile had caused a chain reaction which was now breaking up the natural satellite.
With the fragments of the Moon too small to bond together with combined gravity, they began to spread out. First, a large number of them fell towards Earth, raining even more - but larger - molten rocks on the planet. Cities were destroyed and countries wiped off the map. Humanity's head was in its hands.
The remaining Moon rock entered an orbit around the world, forming a ring around the planet. But, unlike Saturn's ring, it didn't just stay there. Periodically, for the rest of Earth's life, meteorites broke from the ring and slammed into the surface. With the moon gone, the Earth was also now more vulnerable to space rocks.
One of the Moon's most noticeable effects was the tides. With the moon no longer there, the oceans of the world became much calmer. The Sun still had an effect on them (known as solar tides) but the oceans had largely become serene.
This had a dire effect of life on Earth. When life first formed on Earth in tidal pools, it was thanks to the gravitational pull of the Moon that primordial life was able to traverse between different pools and generally spread across the planet. While Humans were already established, life which is currently in the oceans is no longer able to move so easily. The churning of the oceans, and thus the circulation of nutrients, ceases. Water-based life struggles to survive and, eventually, thousands of species go extinct.
The Moon also accounted for one-eightieth of the Earth-Moon mass system. The loss of the Moon directly affected the Earth's orbit, rotation, and wobble. Without the moon to act as a stabiliser, the Earth began to wobble more and more, sending the seasons into turmoil and changing the planet's orbit around the Sun from slightly elliptical to massively elliptical. The Earth then swung around the Sun in a wild, unstable, fluctuating orbit.
If humanity survived the constant bombardment from the remains of the Moon and other space rocks, the eradication of most other species from the globe, and finally the potentially catastrophic seasonal changes, then it certainly wouldn't continue for much longer.
The Doctor had just watched this possible future unfold on the planet from the monitor above his TARDIS console. He knew that this should never of happened. The Zygon, now being watched by Clara, shouldn't be in this time. The Zygon is an anomaly of the space-time continuum. With these anomaly's come possible futures and pasts. All the Doctor had to do now, was correct the course of the human race.