B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  (=) Manipulated by the poodle people of the Dogworld, John Fuchas produced a movie “adaptation” of The True History of Planets in 2008 that abandoned the original book in favour of a story about the deposed poodle Princess Margaret. The eighth Doctor prevented this timeline from ever happening. [1167]

  Ed Gold was born in Australia in 2008, a time when his country was seriously lagging behind in the space race. [1168] Clyde Langer won First Place in a Park Vale drawing competition in 2008. [1169] Theo Lawson, a genius teenage hacker, caused a confidence crisis in the banking system that triggered a domino effect and led to a global recession. [1170]

  2008 (1st January) - The Girl Who Never Was [1171]

  Charley was deeply upset by the eighth Doctor’s dispassionate reaction to the death of C’rizz - their travelling companion - and demanded that he take her home. He set course for Singapore Harbour, New Year’s Eve, 1930, but a “temporal hump” diverted the TARDIS to the same location at the start of 2008.

  Charley wrote the Doctor a goodbye note at the Singapore Hilton, then agreed to join him for one last investigation when the long-lost SS Batavia mysteriously reappeared at sea. The Batavia was riddled with temporal corrosion - a known TARDIS-killer that engaged the Ship’s HADS and transported Charley back to 1942, stranding her there while the TARDIS returned to this time.

  The Doctor encountered an elderly Madeline Fairweather - who still thought her name was “Charlotte Pollard” - and her son, the smuggler Byron. To eliminate the Cybermen in the Batavia’s hold, the Doctor made the vessel to collide with an iceberg. Madeline was killed, and the Doctor, deducing the real Charley’s location, went back to 1942.

  The TARDIS finally returned to this time, with the unconscious Doctor inside, after a side trip to the year 500,002. The Doctor failed to realise that Charley had been left behind in 500,002 and went looking for her - only to find her goodbye note. He presumed that she’d left his company for good.

  c 2008 - TW: Combat [1172]

  Torchwood found that an unidentified group was kidnapping Weevils. Jack and company found the Weevils were being used by thrill-seeking businessmen in a “fight club” scenario and shut the operation down.

  2008 (20th January) - TW: Captain Jack Harkness [1173]

  A tip-off prompted Captain Jack and Tosh to investigate the deserted Ritz dance hall, but the Rift flared up and catapulted them back to the building as it was on 20th January, 1941. The Ritz caretaker, Bilis Manger, could travel through time and was attempting to manipulate Torchwood into fully opening the Rift. Owen was desperate to get Diane back, and used the group’s Rift Manipulator to open the Rift. This enabled Jack and Tosh to return home, but although the Rift seemed to close...

  2008 - TW: End of Days [1174]

  Opening the Rift had caused it to splinter, and it started depositing people from the past around the world. The Beatles were seen playing on the roof of Abbey Road Studios, a quarantine was established when someone arrived through time with the Black Death, and a Roman soldier murdered two people. UFOs were sighted over the Taj Mahal, and a samurai went on a rampage in the Tokyo subway system. Concurrent with these events, the Torchwood operatives saw visions of their dead or missing loved ones - each of them recommending that the Rift should be opened.

  Bilis Manger was an acolyte of the devil-like being Abaddon, and had arranged these events as a means of freeing his master. The Torchwood operatives rebelled against Jack and opened the Rift, which loosed Abaddon to tower over the city. Abaddon’s shadow killed anyone it touched, but Jack allowed Abaddon to feed off his immortal life energy. This overloaded Abaddon and killed him - Jack revived after spending some days in a coma.

  He then disappeared as the TARDIS arrived...

  2008 - Utopia [1175]

  The tenth Doctor and Martha landed in Cardiff to refuel the TARDIS at the Rift. Captain Jack hurried to meet them, and found himself hanging on as the TARDIS launched itself into the Vortex. The trio found themselves in the year 100,000,000,000,000. The Doctor reclaimed the severed hand he’d lost fighting the Sycorax leader, which Jack had in his possession.

  2008 - TW: Consequences: “Kaleidoscope” [1176]

  Gwen became the interim head of Torchwood Cardiff. Her team secured an alien device, a “Rehabilitator”, that could morph anyone seen through it into their “more ideal” selves.

  2008 (28th-29th February) - The Condemned [1177]

  The Shinx were an economically successful and generally low-key race from the planet Shinus. They had red, jelly-like skin, but could use DNA patches to look human. The Shinx government opened a covert embassy on Earth for benefit of any Shinx there.

  The sixth Doctor and Charley arrived in Manchester, 2008, and found the body of Kord, a Shinx embassy official. With help from DI Patricia Menzies, they thwarted a Shinx operating on Earth as a mobster named Slater. He’d hoped to perfect a device that emitted a peculiar form of radiation - one that dissolved a being’s physical form and placed their consciousness within a piece of architecture; a much more economic means of dominating a planet than outright invading it.

  (=) 2008 - The Haunting of Thomas Brewster [1178]

  In an alternate version of 2008 that was unlikely to come to pass, smoke-like beings controlled Earth. They reduced the planet to ash, ruin and charred bodies to gain the energy needed to send information back to the eighteenth century, and conveyed instructions on how to create a time corridor. The young Thomas Brewster, convinced he was seeing visions of his dead mother, cobbled together such a device.

  Brewster travelled to this timeline by hijacking the TARDIS, but the fifth Doctor and Nyssa followed in a later version of the Ship. The Doctor preprogrammed the earlier TARDIS to return to 1833, then left with Nyssa and Brewster. Owing to events in 1865, the smoke-beings’ history collapsed entirely.

  c 2008 - “Warkeeper’s Crown” [1179]

  Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart vanished from a passing out ceremony at Sandhurst, and materialised on an alien world where he quickly met up with the tenth Doctor - and discovered he had been named “warkeeper elect” of a world of dragons and ogres. The original Warkeeper’s influence was waning, and so he had brought the Doctor and Brigadier to the Slough of the Disunited Planets. The Brigadier asked for Mike Yates to help him, but the wrong Mike Yates - a xenophobic would-be MP - was summoned. As trolls started to overrun the Keep, the Doctor and Brigadier discovered the clone vats that kept the war supplied with troops. The whole planet was, in fact, an R&D facility for galactic arms dealers, and they shut down the operation.

  Back on Earth, Yates tried to use the demons to further his political career, but the Doctor and Brigadier arrived back with an army of cloned Brigadiers and stopped him.

  2008 (March) - The Eleventh Hour [1180]

  Earth was a Level Five planet with six billion people on it.

  The eleventh Doctor returned to Amelia Pond and Leadworth... twelve years after he promised he would. Amy had grown up, and was now working as a girl who delivered kissograms while dressed as a policewoman, a nurse or a nun. The Atraxi followed the Doctor’s time trail via a Crack in Time, and threatened to destroy Earth unless Prisoner Zero - a multi-form who had been hiding in Amy’s house for twelve years - was handed over to them.

  The Doctor met Amy’s “sort-of boyfriend” Rory Williams. To help the Atraxi locate Prisoner Zero, the Doctor arranged a video conference with NASA, Jodrell Bank, the Tokyo Space Centre and the Doctor’s friend, Sir Patrick Moore. They spread a computer virus that the Doctor prepared; it reset every digital number and clock in the world to read “0”. This directed the Atraxi’s attention to Leadworth, whereupon they captured Prisoner Zero and withdrew. The Doctor called the Atraxi back to warn them that Earth was under his protection.

  The Doctor made a short trip to the moon and back to recalibrate the TARDIS. He intended to return for Amy, but wouldn’t reappear for another two years...

  The Prisoner Zero crisis was passed off as a computer fault. [1181] The Rift t
ransported 15-year-old Jonah Bevan to an alien locale, where he looked into the heart of a dark star and went mad. After the Rift returned Jonah to Earth, he resided at Jack Harkness’ convalescent home for Rift abductees. [1182] Alan and Chrissie Jackson, Maria’s parents, split up when Chrissie ran off with her judo instructor. [1183]

  In May 2008, Torchwood recovered the Betamax recorder that fell through the Rift in 1982. [1184] Donna’s father, Geoff Noble, died. [1185]

  2008 (a Monday in June) - Smith and Jones [1186]

  The tenth Doctor investigated electrical anomalies at the Royal Hope Hospital in central London, and met medical student Martha Jones. At the same time, the Judoon - intergalactic policemen/enforcers who looked like humanoid rhinos - were looking for a fugitive Plasmavore who was charged with the murder of the Child Princess of Padrivole Regency Nine. The Judoon had no jurisdiction over Earth, and so transported the entire hospital - and the Plasmavore within - to the moon. The Plasmavore disguised her alien nature by drinking human blood, but thanks to the Doctor’s intervention, the Judoon registered her as an alien and killed her. The hospital was returned to Earth, and Martha joined the Doctor on his travels.

  (=) 2008 (June) - Turn Left [1187]

  In the timeline where Donna turned right, the Thames was closed following the Racnoss’ defeat. Mr Chowdry sacked Donna on the day that the Royal Hope Hospital vanished. Without the Doctor’s intervention, those inside the hospital had suffocated, including Martha Jones, Sarah Jane Smith, Luke, Clyde and Maria. Rose met Donna again, and warned her to stay out of London over Christmas.

  2008 (a Tuesday in June) - The Lazarus Experiment [1188]

  The tenth Doctor returned Martha home twelve hours after they left. The 76-year-old Richard Lazarus conducted an experiment: hypersonic sound waves created a state of resonance and rewrote his DNA, which rejuvenated him into the body of a young man. Martha’s sister Tish worked for Lazarus’ public relations department, and the family attended the first demonstration. Lazarus mutated into a cannibalistic monster, but the Doctor killed him in a showdown at Southwark Cathedral.

  Saxon had funded Lazarus’ experiments; his agents warned Martha’s mother to beware the Doctor.

  2008 - Made of Steel [1189]

  The tenth Doctor took Martha home, and they learned about a number of recent thefts of advanced electronics. Martha was captured by the culprits - a small group of Cybermen who had survived the Battle of Canary Wharf, and had set up camp in the Millennium Dome. The Cybermen wanted the Doctor to open a gateway into the Void to free their fellows, but instead he opened a time portal and released a Tyrannosaurus - which killed the last of the Cybermen.

  ? 2008 - The Family of Blood [1190]

  The tenth Doctor and Martha attended a World War II remembrance service and saw an elderly Tim Latimer.

  c 2008 - Wishing Well [1191]

  The tenth Doctor and Martha arrived in the English countryside near Creighton Mere. The brain of the Vurosis parasite living beneath the well there had become separated from its body, which emerged as a huge tentacled creature. The Vurosis tried to take over the Doctor, but he destroyed it, turning both its body and brain to ash.

  c 2008 - “Bus Stop!” [1192]

  The tenth Doctor arrived from the twenty-seventh century via a crude time machine, and tried to prevent mutant assassins from killing the Mayor of London. The Doctor concocted a thermos-full of soup that contained the Mayor’s DNA, making the mutants track him by mistake. Martha recalled the Doctor to the twenty-seventh century, and the mutants perished when the Doctor destroyed the time machine.

  c 2008 - “Death to the Doctor!” [1193]

  Research base Truro served as a meeting place for would-be conquerors and villains who had been defeated by the Doctor, and wanted to pool their resources against him. The eighth Doctor and Izzy had previously reclaimed the Crystal of Consciousness from Valis, High Arbiter of the Darkness; the fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 stopped Bolog and his Reptilios Invasion Fleet from invading Earth; the ninth Doctor and Rose defeated Zargath and his army within five minutes of their landing at the Powell Estate; the sixth Doctor and Frobisher bested Plink; and the first Doctor, Dodo and Steven overcame Questor in the living jungle of Tropicalus. The base’s wiring proved faulty, and villains became paranoid and trigger-happy about the Doctor. They eventually killed one another. The tenth Doctor and Martha found all the bodies at Truro moments later, and the Doctor lamented that had he arrived sooner, he might have saved the “poor unfortunates”.

  2008 - Blink [1194]

  The tenth Doctor and Martha, on their way to stop a dangerous migration/hatching, met Sally Sparrow for the first time… although she’d met them in her past, and was able to give them a dossier with details regarding their becoming trapped in 1969.

  Martha phoned her mother on Election Day. [1195] Saxon sent the Torchwood staff to the Himalayas to prevent them from helping Captain Jack and the Doctor. [1196]

  2008 (a Friday and Saturday in June) - The Sound of Drums [1197]

  The United Nations had provisions for removing the British Prime Minister from office.

  Harold Saxon, secretly the Master, won the election and convened a meeting of his Cabinet in the newly-rebuilt Downing Street. He killed everyone present, then announced to the world that he had made contact with the alien Toclafane and refused to keep it secret as past governments had. As President of America, Arthur Coleman Winters flew to Britain - both to warn Saxon to take his responsibilities carefully and to take control of the public revelation of the Toclafane.

  Meanwhile, the British authorities were looking for three “terrorists” - the tenth Doctor, Martha and Jack, who had returned to the twenty-first century from the far, far future. Onboard the flying aircraft carrier Valiant - a UNIT ship - a number of Toclafane materialised and killed President Winters. The Master revealled his plan…

  (=) and six billion Toclafane emerged from a space-time rift. They decimated the human population, and the Master took control of Earth. The Master incapacitated Jack and used Professor Lazarus’ technology to greatly age the Doctor, capturing both of them.

  (=) The Story of Martha [1198]

  Martha escaped London, dodging the Unified Containment Forces under the Master’s control. As she went, she told people stories of her adventures with the Doctor. Her travels took her through France, Turkey, Munich, Ljubljana and Belgrade. In Japan, she met the Drast: tall extra-terrestrials who had sought control of Earth’s economy, but owing to the Master’s domination sought to leave via a Relativistic Segue. This would have punched a hole in space-time, eradicating Earth. The Drast operation was exposed, and the Master ended their threat by eradicating Japan.

  2008 (a Saturday in June) - Last of the Time Lords [1199]

  The Valiant returned from a year in the future, to a point just before the Toclafane appeared. The Master’s devastation of Earth had been temporally reversed. Lucy Saxon shot her husband, but the Master refused to regenerate and died. The Doctor burnt his body on a funeral pyre. Martha declined to rejoin the Doctor on his travels. Jack returned to Torchwood.

  One of the Master’s acolytes, Miss Trefusis, retrieved his ring. [1200] Lucy Saxon was tried in secret and confined in Broadfell Prison. [1201]

  2008 - “The Widow’s Curse” [1202]

  A cadre of female Sycorax searched for the males of their clan: the group of Sycorax defeated by the Doctor at Christmas 2006. They were led by a head warrior, the Haxan Craw, and a chief strategist, the Gilfane Craw. Their rock spaceship landed in the Caribbean, was designated the island of Shadow Cay, and remodelled its exterior on parts of London using Adobe Magma-Sculpt Version 12.2. (Adobe Magma-Sculpt Version 13 could craft interiors as well.) It featured a version of Westminster Abbey in which Hawkmoor’s towers included such twentieth-century martyrs as Martin Luther King, Oscar Romero, Lucian Tapiedi and Wang Zhiming.

  The Sycorax women were enraged upon learning the fate of their men, and dispatched zombies carrying a virus to Lon
don - Earth would become a planet of the undead. The tenth Doctor and Donna terminated the zombies, and destroyed both the Sycorax and their spaceship.

  Thirty-five years after Jo worked for UNIT, she and her husband Cliff were based halfway up the Rio Negro at the Institute of Mycology. Cliff was now an MBE, a Nobel Prize winner and a veteran eco-warrior; Jo served as his manager. The two of them visited London for the first time in ages so Cliff - his slogan being “Make the Future Yourselves” - could appear on the chat-show circuit, attend the UN’s World Future Conference and harangue people there about the imminent collapse of the Amazon forest. [1203]

  While Cliff did so, Mike Yates took Jo out to dinner. Jo had found Diamond Jack’s playing card in her uncle’s attic a few weeks prior to this; her stolen memories had returned, and she gave the card to Mike - which he took to a UNIT office. At this time, Mike was single. [1204]

  By now, one of the old UNIT HQs had been turned into an embassy for a new east-European state. A window that the Doctor blew out at least three times was barred over, and had CC cameras. [1205] UNIT currently had offices at Tower Bridge. [1206]

  Torchwood Series 2 (2008-2009) [1207]

  2008 - TW: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

  Captain Jack returned to Torchwood and was approached by Captain John Hart - a former Time Agent and Jack’s ex-lover, someone with whom Jack had been trapped in a time loop for five years. Hart conned Torchwood into retrieving what he believed was an Arcadian diamond, but was actually an explosive device planted to kill him - an act of vengeance from one of Hart’s murder victims. Torchwood contained the explosion within the Rift, and Hart left town.