B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (221 page)

Cheynor negotiated a settlement with the Phractons; Gadrell Major was slated to become a war memorial. Earth’s Colonial Office diverted funding to terraform an non-classed asteroid in the Magellani system. A breakaway faction of the Phractons sought retribution and killed Cheynor - this led to the Phractons achieving some vindication, and further negotiations would lead to peace.

? 2388 - The Happiness Patrol
 [599]

The Galactic Census Bureau at Galactic Centre surveyed every colonised planet every six local cycles and, where necessary, suggested measures to control the population size. On one such planet, Terra Alpha, the native Alphidae were driven underground by the settlers, who covered the planet in sugar fields and factories. Offworlders were restricted to the Tourist Zones. The planet was ruled by Helen A, who insisted that her citizens be happy. To this end, the planet was gaily painted, muzak poured from loudspeakers on every street corner and Helen A created the Happiness Patrol, which was composed of women authorised to murder the so-called “killjoys”. She also employed the services of the Kandy Man, an artificial being of pure sugar who created sweets that killed people.

Terrorists, protest groups and the Alphidae (now confined to the sugar-pipe network) all resisted, and Helen A authorised the “routine disappearance” of some 499,987 people, 17% of the population. The seventh Doctor and Ace brought down Helen A’s regime in one night. The Kandy Man’s candy centre melted.

The Protestant Church officially accepted all scientific disciplines, including genetic engineering, as valid. In response, Marunianism - founded by Marunia Lennox, a Scottish Protestant - declared that all science was evil.
 [600]

Near the end of the twenty-fourth century, the dictator Hugo Gamaliel ripped many colonies from Earth control so his corporation could avoid paying taxes. His campaigns against the Knights of Jeneve culminated in the Battle of Bocaro (a.k.a. Bosarno), where the Knights tricked Gamaliel into believing that he’d wiped them out. The Gamalian Dragon - an emblem of the Knights’ power - served as a symbol of Gamaliel’s victory, but a camera within it let the Knights spy on Gamaliel’s operations. It also contained a low-grade nuclear device, so the Knights could obliterate Gamaliel if needed.
 [601]

A plague halved the population of Sarah-361. The local prytaneium outlawed celibacy, made monogamy a social sin and instituted mandatory pornography.
 [602]

On Kasagrad, the radiation in Rablev’s tomb fell to safe levels.
 [603]

The Intergalactic Taskforce served the Inner Planets in the late twenty-fourth century. Throughout the latter half of the twenty-fourth century, the notorious criminal Sheldukher - a ruthless murderer, thief and extortionist - menaced the galaxy. He destroyed the entire Krondel constellation for no apparent reason other than that he could. In 2389, he planned his biggest coup yet, and set about recruiting accomplices.

Marjorie Postine had been an aggressive child, and her parents sold her to the military, a common practice in the commercially-minded twenty-fourth century. She became a mercenary, and Sheldukher secured her services by offering her a Moosehead Repeater, a rifle capable of blowing a hole in a neutron star. She was the veteran of seventeen front-line conflicts. Her right arm was a graft-job, performed by an unqualified surgeon in a trench on Regurel, and her bald head was scarred and lumpy.

A couple of years before, Rosheen and Klift had infiltrated McDrone Systems and embezzled a vast sum of money. The central markets collapsed, causing entire planetary economies in the fourth zone to collapse into starvation and war. Millions died. The planet Tayloe was flooded with imports. Rosheen and Klift fled to the luxury of the North Gate, where Sheldukher tracked them down. The locals gladly handed them over to him.

Sheldukher had converted a Kezzivot Class transport freighter, welding on a furnace engine, installing sleep suspension chambers stolen from the Dozing Decades company and fitting heavy weaponry such as the cellular disrupter and the spectronic destabiliser. His team raided Checkley’s World, stealing Project FXX Q84 - the Cell - an advanced telepathic, organic computer. Although this brought down the wrath of the Intergalactic Taskforce, it was only the beginning of Sheldukher’s scheme. He planned to locate the legendary planet Sakkrat, and the greatest prize in the galaxy: the Highest Science.

The mysterious Highest Science had preoccupied the galaxy’s population for generations. In 2421, the explorer Gustaf Urnst claimed to have discovered Sakkrat, the planet which housed its secrets. No-one took Urnst seriously, although his books remained in print even after his mysterious disappearance. Unknown to the public, a Fortean Flicker had transported him to the twentieth century.

For the next three hundred years, the F61 searched the galaxy for Sakkrat, travelling past the stellar conjunctions of Naiad, the crystal quasars of Menolot and the farthest reaches of Harma. Over the centuries many lesser criminals would imitate Sheldukher, but none matched him.
 [604]

Archaeologists of this period believed the stories of HP Lovecraft were historically accurate.
 [605]
Convergence
, a cargo ship, mysteriously disappeared over Dymok in 2396.
 [606]

? 2397 - “Planet Bollywood”
 [607]

A sentient construct, the Muse, was fashioned as an amusement for the elephantine Maharani of Baloch; it had the ability to make beings in her vicinity break into song and dance. The Maharani’s attendants spirited the Muse away to a low-tech world when the Shasarak, a war-mongering people, deduced that her powers could force people to kill. The Shasarak tracked the Muse, but the eleventh Doctor and Amy helped the Muse to recalibrate her systems, and she forced the Shasarak to sing and dance until the Maharani could take them into custody.

(=) The TARDIS absorbed one of the Shasarak.

Upon the dissolution of the time-child Chiyoko, the Shasarak found itself at a singles night instead of a meeting for the Shasarak Revolutionary Front.
 [608]

The Twenty-Fifth Century

On a visit to Birnam in the twenty-fifth century, the Doctor saw a Stigorax.
 [609]
The sixth Doctor took Peri shopping in a twenty-fifth century Wal-Mart.
 [610]
In the twenty-fifth century, a mishap at a plastics factory with a matter synthesizer and an advertisement in an antique issue of
Power Man and Iron Fist
created a huge proliferation of x-ray spectacles. The company prospered for a year, but went out of business when a horde of rampaging sea monkeys - something else that shouldn’t have existed - destroyed the factory.
 [611]
Alphonse Chardalot wanted to take Toby the Sapient Pig to a scientific conference on Gamantis.
 [612]

2400 - The Pit
 [613]

At the beginning of the twenty-fifth century, the space docks of Glasson Minor, a planet-sized ship-building station, bustled with activity and human colonisation continued to gather pace.

Bernice worried that the seventh Doctor was becoming too despondent, and tried to snap him out of it by having him investigate the destruction of the Seven Planets of the Althosian binary star system in 2400, an event that had never been explained. Colonisation at this time was still hazardous, and the Seven Planets were far from the normal trading routes, years away from the nearest other colony. A number of new religions sprang up on Nicea, the planet with the largest population, and these spread to the smaller worlds of Trieste and Byzantine. Most of these were based around the Form Manipulator, and adopted Judeo-Christian beliefs to the environment of the Seven Planets. The geographical and religious isolation made it easy for them to declare independence from the Corporation, but the corporations responded by cutting off all supplies and communications. Rioting broke out that the Archon and his armies were unable to contain.

The Time Lords’ ancient enemies, the Yssgaroth, were making efforts to invade our universe and had created a series of space-time tears. The Doctor fell through one such tear into the past, and returned to this era with William Blake. A former Gallifreyan general, Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu, had been among the Althosian system’s first settlers and was seeking to thwart the Yssgaroth - but was moved to save the Doctor and Blake. Fearing that the Yssgaroth would view his compassion as a weakness to be exploited, Kopyion destroyed the Althosian system purely to demonstrate his resolve, sealing the tears and killing millions. The Doctor and Benny took Blake home.

c 2400 (days 1 to 16, ninth month) - LIVE 34
 [614]

Elections on Colony 34 were now five years overdue. Jaeger’s administration continued its crackdown, but the Colony Central Commission (CCC) accepted a petition from his opposition - the Freedom and Democracy Party (FDP) - and ruled that elections must be held in sixteen days. The radio station LIVE 34 called Jaeger’s administration into question through such programmes as
Wareing’s World
and
Live With Charlotte Singh
, but the station’s independence was revoked, and the State Broadcast Monitoring Department assumed editorial control.

The FDP leader, Durinda Cauldwell, had reportedly been killed by members of her own party, and her predecessor had allegedly died in a transporter accident. The seventh Doctor - accompanied by Ace and Hex - accepted the FDP leadership, unwilling to risk anyone else’s life in the post. Ace organised resistance as “the Rebel Queen”, and her operatives blew up empty government buildings to obtain evidence of Jaeger’s corruption. Nobody was killed, but Jaeger’s forces blew up a vehicle manufacturing plant and a senior citizens’ home, gaining political favour by blaming the hundreds of resultant casualties on the Rebel Queen and the FDP.

The Doctor stood for election against Jaeger, who claimed to have won with 81.5% of the vote, a victory margin of 63%. The CCC declared the election void as the Doctor was believed dead during the voting, and the truth about the false Jaeger was revealled. Jaeger’s staff were arrested, political prisoners were freed and Charlotte Singh was designated the CCC’s representative. A mob fell upon the false Jaeger.

One version of Peri spent twenty-five years being married to Yrcanos, and became Queen of the Krontep and the Seven Systems. She governed seven worlds. “Gilliam, Queen of Krontep”, as she was known, disappeared in 2404 and returned to the twentieth century.
 [615]
Another version of Peri stayed on Krontep with her family.
 [616]

Humans colonised the Garazone system. The Garazone Space Patrol was formed to fight smugglers.
 [617]

? 2405 - Vanishing Point
 [618]

The geneticist Cauchemar worked to overthrow “the Creator” responsible for the reincarnation process on an alien colony planet. The Creator’s functions were disrupted to the point that deformed children named “mooncalves” were being born without the genetic “godswitch” needed to facilitate reincarnation. Cauchemar hoped to overload the Creator, triggering an energy release that would destroy the planet, yet facilitate his soul’s admittance to the afterlife. The eighth Doctor, Fitz and Anji foiled this scheme. The genetic experiments that had extended Cauchemar’s life, coupled with radiation exposure, failed and he died. One of the mooncalves became pregnant with Fitz’s child.

Years later, the Creator had rebalanced enough to include the mooncalves in its designs.

2408 - Divided Loyalties
 [619]

The fifth Doctor, Tegan, Nyssa and Adric arrived on space station
Little Boy II
to find communications with Dymok had been disrupted. The Doctor travelled to the planet and was captured by the Toymaker. An attack by the Toymaker made Dymok vanish completely, but the Doctor again defeated him. The Toymaker decided to base himself in Blackpool, the 1980s.

In 2414, Darzil Carlisle was born outside Olympus Mons on Mars. At age three, following an airlock accident that killed his parents, he was relocated to an orphanage in Finchley, North London. At age 17, he earned a scholarship to the Phobos Academy of Music, and studied there for three years.

The fifth Doctor, having encountered an older Carlisle circa 2484, secretly aided Lord Carlisle in becoming a renowned peacemaker, and in saving billions of lives by ending wars on at least thirty-six planets.
 [620]

Around 2415, the people of the Elysium system discovered the Artifact, a vast ammonite-like structure, on the edge of their territory.
 [621]
In 2416, on an unnamed colony world, IMC had set up a genetics engineering project named Project Mecrim. The Company built the ape-like Rocarbies, cheap labour developed from the native primate life; and the Mecrim, a race built for combat with a claw that could vibrate and cut through even the hardest materials. When a Mecrim gut microbe escaped, the colony was declared off limits. The survivors developed an immunity, but came to hate science and degenerated to a medieval level of technology.
 [622]