B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (304 page)

The audio
Three’s a Crowd,
which roughly dates to this era, mentions a Federation and uses
Blake’s 7
teleport sound effects. In
Kaldor City,
the sound effect of Iago’s gun holster is very similar to that used in
Blake’s 7
Series 4, and mention is made of Herculaneum, the substance that comprises the
Liberator
’s hull.

[
1043
] Dating
Kaldor City
(Magic Bullet audio series;
KC: Occam’s Razor
, #1.1;
KC: Death’s Head
, #1.2;
KC: Hidden Persuaders, #
1.3;
KC: Taren Capel
, #1.4;
KC: Checkmate
, #1.5) - The
Kaldor City
mini-series follows on from
Corpse Marker
. Iago indicates in
KC: Checkmate
that the central five-part
Kaldor City
series happens over a ten month period. The most glaring dating clue with regards the year is that Carnell’s Voc says in episode four (
KC: Taren Capel
) that it was last upgraded on “09/01/90”, so the later
Kaldor City
installments either occur in a year ending with 90 or, presumably, not long thereafter.

It’s variously indicated that three or five months pass between episode two (
KC: Death’s Head
) and episode three, so it’s a toss-up as to whether episode two takes place in the same calendar year as episode one. Uvanov comments in episode three that Iago last took a holiday - a reference to events in episode one - “last year sometime”, so episodes one and three must occur in different years. Where the Fendahl is concerned, its core, Justina, says it grew stronger after being flung into a supernova (at the end of
Image of the Fendahl
).

[
1044
] The Kaldor City Finale

The ending to the core
Kaldor City
mini-series, as the summary to
KC: Checkmate
demonstrates, is something of a surreal experience. So much so, it caused some confusion upon release as to how the story actually ended. Different theories have been offered concerning this... one possibility is that Iago was mortally wounded in his shootout with Blayse, and everything he experiences concerning Carnell and the retroactive murder of Justina is a delusion of his dying brain. Another is that it’s all a metaphor, part of the political and sexual power plays that permeate the audio series.

The explanation that is increasingly hard to avoid, however, is that the Fendahl wins at the very end, and absorbs everyone in Kaldor City who wasn’t killed beforehand. The choice offered to Iago - to deface Justina’s painting, and to retroactively murder her - is part and parcel of the Fendahl’s seduction; Iago fully enables the Fendahl’s victory by agreeing to it. (Quite why the Fendahl
needs
to tempt Iago in such a fashion rather than just up and absorbing him isn’t said.)

Kaldor City
writer/producer Alan Stevens has stated - by way of confirming observations made independently online by Paul Dale Smith - that the last scene of
Checkmate
, plus the whole of the short story
KC:
“The Prisoner” (included on
The Actor Speaks
CD featuring Paul Darrow) and
KC: Storm Mine
(
KC
1.6) occur within the Fendahl gestalt (hence the refrain in the latter story that, “We’re all in this together”). “The Prisoner” evidently occurs from Landerchild’s perspective within the gestalt;
Storm Mine
occurs from Blayse’s point of view. The “Iago” that appears in both stories is just their respective memories of him, although Smith - tapped as a potential writer to continue the series - postulated that the Iago that appears in
Storm Mine
was the genuine article, trying to subvert the gestalt from within and cheat death.

If it’s possible to puzzle through how
Kaldor City
ends, however, the Big Finish audio
Robophobia
- which has to take place after both
The Robots of Death
and
Kaldor City -
seems to indicate that Kaldor City not only survives the Fendahl incident (albeit through events we’re never shown), but subsequently creates a booming robotics trade for itself. See the dating notes on that story.

[
1045
] Dating
Grimm Reality
(EDA #50) - The mining companies were active “a hundred or a hundred and ten years” ago, in the 2780s.

[
1046
] Dating
Ten Little Aliens
(PDA #54) - It is clearly the subjugation phase of the Earth Empire. An e-zine written somewhat prior to these events (p15), with biographies of Haunt’s troopers, is dated “23.5.90”, presumably meaning 23rd May, 2890.

[
1047
]
The Fall of Yquatine
(p30, p43).

[
1048
] “Thousands of years” before
The Krotons
.

[
1049
] Dating “Supernature” (
DWM
#421-423) - It’s the time of the Earth Empire. The forced use of an underclass to colonise worlds, and the Doctor’s choice of an Earth city as the colony world’s name, is somewhat akin to conditions described in
Ten Little Aliens
. The ongoing
DWM
storyline featuring Chiyoko starts in this story, continues in “The Screams of Death”, “The Golden Ones”, “Planet Bollywood” and “Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night”, and ends in “The Child of Time” (
DWM
).

[
1050
] “Apotheosis”

[
1051
]
The Fall of Yquatine
(p30, p43).

[
1052
] “Silver Scream”

[
1053
] Dating
Sontarans: Silent Warrior
(BBV audio #19) - The participants are cited as human, and mention of Grimwade’s Syndrome suggests this is the same era as
The Robots of Death
. Alex’s pedigree is unknown; he might be from Orion, but his vague talk of working for watchmen who “like to keep an eye on things” might imply that he’s of Time Lord manufacture.

[
1054
]
The Mutants

[
1055
]
Terror of the Vervoids

[
1056
]
Just War
(p143), although we see bears and wolves in
The Ice Warriors
, and hear of a variety of animal specimens in
The Ark in Space
. Pigs and dogs survive until at least the year 5000 AD (
The Talons of Weng-Chiang
,
The Invisible Enemy
), there are sheep and spiders on the colony ship sent to Metebelis III in
Planet of the Spiders
, Europa is well stocked with animal life in
Managra
, and the Ark (in
The Ark
) contains a thriving jungle environment complete with an elephant and tropical birds.

[
1057
]
Death and Diplomacy
(p16). The lack of wisdom teeth is also mentioned in
Benny: Dry Pilgrimage.

[
1058
]
Just War

[
1059
] “Fifty years” before Roz’s time.
The Also People
(p10).

[
1060
]
Illegal Alien
(p152).

The Thirtieth Century

While it’s highly likely that the Earth was not ravaged by solar flares at this time (see
The Beast Below
and
The Ark in Space
), the Doctor’s description of a “highly compartmentalised” Earth society of the thirtieth century in
The Ark in Space
matches similar descriptions of Earth in stories set at this time. Earth is “grey” in
The Mutants
and “highly organised” in
Terror of the Vervoids
episode four. We learn of food shortages in
Terror of the Vervoids
.

In terms of the New Adventures, this is Cwej and Forrester’s native time, and we meet them there in
Original Sin
- a story that ties in quite closely with
The Mutants
(Solos is even mentioned on p318). Roz returns and dies in her native time in
So Vile a Sin
.

We first learn of the decline of the Earth Empire and the Overcities in
The Mutants,
although in that story the Solos native Ky calls them “sky cities” and claims they were built because “the air is too poisonous”, not because of the wars.

[
1061
]
Original Sin
(p160-161).

[
1062
] Nerva Beacon has a “thirty year assignment” according to Stevenson in
Revenge of the Cybermen
, so it ought to be decommissioned around 2915. We see the Beacon again in
The Ark in Space
.

[
1063
] Dating
Robophobia
(BF #149) - No year is given, and it’s an unspecified amount of time after the Storm Mine Four killings (
The Robots of Death
). A continuity clash between this story and the
Kaldor City
mini-series is somewhat inevitable... the Fendahl seemed to destroy/ingest/otherwise dominate Kaldor City in
KC: Checkmate
, so placing
Robophobia
- in which Kaldor City is quite active - after that is rather tricky. However,
Robophobia
can’t easily go beforehand as it entails Kaldor City having a massive interstellar robot trade, whereas the
Kaldor City
audios establish that Kaldor City has no contact with other worlds. (In fact, the plot of the first
Kaldor City
story,
KC: Occam’s Razor
, is highly dependent on that notion.)
Robophobia
and
Kaldor City
agree that the truth about Taren Capel’s insurrection was never made public, but matters are further complicated in that everyone involved in
Robophobia
finds it unthinkable and unprecedented that robots might be capable of murder - even though the Fendahl’s victory was preceded (
KC: Taren Capel
) by a robot rebellion that almost certainly killed some thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people.

While it’s often undesirable to assume that there’s a missing story that reconciles matters, in this case it’s slightly easier to believe that the Fendahl was somehow defeated off screen - in such a way that everyone’s memories of Kaldor City’s robots becoming murderous en masse was somehow erased - than to make
Robophobia
, which occurs onboard a spaceship bearing one hundred fifty-seven thousand robots to another planet, take place simultaneous to a set of audios predicated on Kaldor City having no offworld trade. With that shaky solution in mind, sixty years have arbitrarily been chosen for Kaldor City to recover from the Fendahl incident, and to develop (as was a stated goal in
Occam’s Razor
) the commerce seen in
Robophobia
.

[
1064
]
The Mutants