But OK, all that 'star-beings have a baby' stuff is a bit s t u p i d. Funny how we've never heard of such creatures before...though I suppose they might only have existed since Gallifrey ceased to.

This is also the book that canonises 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' as part of the Doctor Who universe...

What what WHAT!!!! Where??????????????????????

Well, the Doctor ruminates on the invisibility experiments of Hawley Griffin (from Wells' 'The Invisible Man', but with the implication that Griffin is real).

Wells, however, only named his Invisible Man as 'Griffin'. It's only in 'The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'* that he acquires the first name 'Hawley'. Therefore he's thinking of the League version...

* The comic version, not the 'whoops he's in copyright and a nice guy not a megalomaniac rapist at all' film version.

The Doctor was obviously sadly mistaken as to the non-fictional nature of this Hawley Griffin person. (Look, if the Master can believe the Clangers are real...)

It could just mean that the graphic novel TLoEG was published in the Whoniverse. Or that he was briefly in our universe during "The Last Resort" and read it.

Hmmm...while I was researching this, I came across an even better Who relation to the Invisible Man. There was a 1958 TV version of the Wells novel, about an invisible man named Peter Brady. Brady's sister-in law was played by Deborah (Victoria) Watling, and several scripts were written by Ian Stuart Black ("The Macra", "The Savages", "The War Machines").

Just thought I'd mention...

Actually Deborah Watling plays Brady's sister-in-law's young daughter (and it's not so much an adaptation of the novel as a crime series with an invisible hero, but I digress...) She grew up a lot in the intervening 8 years!

Does anyone else think it's odd that UNIT's successors don't know about the Doctor's ability to regenerate? Col. Crichton seemed unaware of it in "The Five Doctors", Brig. Bambera had to be told by an old-time UNIT member in "Battlefield", and the OGRON leader in this story seems clueless until he deduces it at the end. I would think that info about the Doctor would be extremely important to know, so that future UNIT brigades wouldn't get fooled by an imposter.

A couple more points (sorry, I'm slow today). Fitz gets his several of his fingers crushed by hammer blows, yet a few hours later he's fine.

Was anybody else confused by Aprhodite? I mean, is she the real goddess (a la the new PDA "Deadly Reunion"), or were her parents just being cute?

Why didn't Razum like the Doctor's idea of relocating him to another planet in order to be reunited with Dusha? Why should it have made any difference where there lived? And why did Angel getting fatally wounded change his mind?

I thought the whole "We've met before Doctor" subplot was a cheat with no pay off, unless that's going to be the new story arc. Please, please, PLEASE restore the Doctor's memories!!!

Why didn't Trix get sick from using the Time Belt? Even the Doctor got queasy from his jaunt.

I think this book holds the record for the number of time travel methods used: good old TARDIS, time belts, Aprhodite's time lake, and Garudin's mental time travel.

Maybe they thought that telling UNIT Commanders 'Oh, there's this bloke with no name, no fixed appearance or personality...if anyone turns up calling himself (or herself) the Doctor just trust them with the future of humanity, OK?' meant they were MORE likely to get fooled by an imposter. At least this way the Doctor has to prove his planet-saving credentials every time.

But yes, it is weird. The UNIT people in Interference (1996? '97?) knew all about regeneration, given the 'You're a woman this time?!' reaction when they saw Sam.

My god, I'd forgotten about Fitz and his poor fingers! Luckily, I'm not the author. Come to think of it, this book was a bit of a throwback to the early Fitz days of love n'torture.

Razum was a git, and like all despots didn't like being told what to do, even by the Doctor. Though yes, it's weird he didn't take up the offer, especially as his precious Dusha presumably wouldn't be over the moon with him if he wiped out the human race to which she'd become quite attached.

Aphrodite's the daughter of a star, I suppose that technically entitles her to be called a goddess. If not the same one as the Greek (or was it Roman?) goddess of that name.

Aphordite is Greek; the Roman version was Venus.

Hi

Never knew about this site until today - you know you can always hop over to OG and ask such questions there. Always happy to help:

1) Fitz is not fine a few hours after "getting hammered." When he rushes to greet the Doctor later he remembers that he will have to skip the handshake.

2) Trix does get ill from using the belt the first time. And she is only makes a time hop with the Zygma beam at a safe 200 year stretch.

3) Razum objects to the Doctor's proposal because it's basically not feasible, it's not been tested, and it's unknown whether the Zygma beam will stretch sufficiently across a spatial distance to reach a suitable uninhabited planet.

And there's an entire section from Razum's POV which illustrates the thought process that leads to his change of mind (heart) when Angel is mortally wounded.

It's all in there. And as for the why have we never heard of Magellans before... well, you may as well ask that about any alien race not encountered in the first few episodes of DW. Answer: cos they hadn't been written about yet.

SAF

SAF? That doesn't by any chance stand for "Silver Age Fogey", does it?

Oh, and welcome to Nitcentral no matter what! Hope you enjoy your stay here!

Thanks for stopping by, Simon. I think most of us know about OG's forum, but I hope most Nitcentral types like this quiet outpost as well.

And as for the why have we never heard of Magellans before... well, you may as well ask that about any alien race not encountered in the first few episodes of DW. Answer: cos they hadn't been written about yet.

No 'real life' excuses here, thank you! With most races/people there's no reason for the Doctor to have encountered them before - it's a big universe. But there are ones - like Faction Paradox or the Master - who are so important they DEFINITELY should have popped up earlier. Not that the Magellans fall into that category, but star-beings are interesting and powerful enough for the Doctor to have name-dropped them occasionally. Given that he didn't, and given that all this 'stars fall in love and have a baby' stuff is a bit...silly (no offence: actually I find humans falling in love and having babies pretty silly too) I was wondering if they hadn't existed in the pre-Ancestor Cell universe, i.e. when the Time Lords were around to prevent such irrationality.

Really, I don't go a bundle on this whole retconning nonsense. But if you really must, then it's simple: they resemble stars, they don't generally interfere with the rest of the universe, and they haven't come up in conversation. What more do you need to know. If we adhered to your principle, we'd be limited as to what we could introduce into the Who universe.

And nowhere in the book did "stars fall in love and have a baby." One being created a "child" out of its own energy, in the form of Aphrodite. That being was punished, divided into two and exiled to Earth in the form of two beings, Dusha and Razum. The separation and the yearning they felt to be rejoined was something very akin to love.

SAF

Really, I don't go a bundle on this whole retconning nonsense.

I sympathise, but...it's a bit difficult to avoid after that godawful Ancestor Cell blew a hole in the centre of the universe. An act like that OUGHT to have consequences, above and beyond a few babewyns.

If we adhered to your principle, we'd be limited as to what we could introduce into the Who universe.

It's not a principle! It's not even a proper complaint. It's just a passing thought on a site dedicated to nitpicking...

And nowhere in the book did "stars fall in love and have a baby."

Oops. It's, what, a year since this was published? My memory tends to get a bit hazy by this stage. I have a horrible feeling I was getting it confused with Quantum Archangel, which would be an unforgivable slur on your book.

"It's not a principle! It's not even a proper complaint. It's just a passing thought on a site dedicated to nitpicking... "

Ah, well fair enough, but you have to expect the nits to pick back from time to time ;)

SAF

Please, please, PLEASE restore the Doctor's memories!!!

Weird to think the EDAs DIED bofore being prepared to do THAT.

I think this book holds the record for the number of time travel methods used: good old TARDIS, time belts, Aprhodite's time lake, and Garudin's mental time travel.

Well, as long as there are no Time Trees...

So how does this fit in with the Fifth Doctor audio The Butcher of Brisbane?

I thought the whole "We've met before Doctor" subplot was a cheat with no pay off

Agreed. Once might have been a nice/frustrating nod to the fact we've barely scraped the surface of Our Hero's lives, but the OGRON guy AND the whole *shudders* star-family was just annoying and frankly unnecessary.

Maybe they thought that telling UNIT Commanders 'Oh, there's this bloke with no name, no fixed appearance or personality...if anyone turns up calling himself (or herself) the Doctor just trust them with the future of humanity, OK?' meant they were MORE likely to get fooled by an imposter. At least this way the Doctor has to prove his planet-saving credentials every time.

Yeah, Pertwee (perhaps surprisingly) didn't have much trouble persuading the Brig that he was the Genuine Article, whereas Benny was (admittedly temporarily) fooled by the Aubertide in Human Nature (novel version, obviously) precisely BECAUSE she knew the Doc could regenerate.

Fitz is not fine a few hours after "getting hammered." When he rushes to greet the Doctor later he remembers that he will have to skip the handshake.

Yeah, that but...that was it. Well, that and him...holding his hand carefully once. If I'd had SEVERAL FINGERS DELIBERATELY CRUSHED BY A HAMMER I wouldn't be thinking 'Oh better not shake hands today then'. There's no medical attention or even the desire for it, no worries that they'll have to be amputated (even when he spends weeks starving and freezing walking across the Russian winter where plenty of people loose HEALTHY fingers), no mention of any blessed relief from THE EXCRUCIATING AGONY when he slips into someone else's body...

Razum objects to the Doctor's proposal because it's basically not feasible, it's not been tested, and it's unknown whether the Zygma beam will stretch sufficiently across a spatial distance to reach a suitable uninhabited planet.

But a) the Doctor promised to test it first and b) Razum agreed to an equally-untested offer a few hours later...one which left him trapped in a stupid human body instead of, um, magically turning back into a sun like he WANTED and the Doc's first proposal OFFERED.

Well, as long as there are no Time Trees...

I actually think I prefer the godawful Time Trees to the Time Lake, I have a real problem with the lake dressing people in period costume. (I mean, even aside from the fact it's massively inconsistent about it, Trix thought she didn't get the gear cos she wasn't with the goddess, but Vorman did get the gear when he wasn't with the goddess but frankly I'm beyond caring cos the whole lake-dressing-you thing is one of those rare occasions when my suspension of disbelief goes on strike).

'Well, I'm a connoisseur of fine art myself' - since WHEN Doc! - 'my body clock is usually as accurate a timepiece as -' - since WHEN Doc!

'I tried warning [the Doctor] that curiosity killed the cat, but he just said, yes, but at least it saved the mice' - the Doc's NEVER had the correct attitude towards cats (even in Gridlock of Blessed Memory s/he stopped cuddling beribboned kittens and started REPROACHING Novice Hame, of all the cheek) but even S/HE would NEVER say such a thing! (Though kudos for making the inevitable Who-Novel Oochie-Hurting entirely theoretical. I suppose.)

This is set only a few years after Capaldi became President of Earth (twice) - it's weird that UNIT politely doesn't mention that. Whilst knowing a lot of OTHER stuff about Our Hero.

'A goddess rode through the Mediterranean woods' - NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (Sorry. Not actually Simon A Forward's fault - Deadly Reunion hadn't even been published - but NO GODS PLEASE GOD NO GODS...)

I'd regard myself as the exact opposite of patriotic, but...bloody OGRON. Still going after proper, BRITISH UNIT is DESTROYED (Resolution). NOT FAIR.

The Doctor waffles on about brownie points like a foreign-soldier-from-the-fifty-first-century would have a clue what he's talking about. Even more stupidly...one of 'em DOES.

Why does the Doctor rely on starting magic fires to escape? Why doesn't he even TRY to overcome the soldiers with some Venusian Aikido or something? (Sure, he's the amnesiac-loser-Doctor but Endgame proves he's still got the skills.)

'Plugged into their consoles via the thick cables running into their otherwise vacant eye sockets' - ah yes, the inevitable eye-gouging...

'The rank stench of soured wine offended the Doctor's connoisseur sensibilities' - I've endured A CENTURY of this guy being stuck on Earth without him showing any signs of doing anything as sensible as becoming a wine connoisseur.

So Fitz asks the mad gangster to stop torturing him, and...the mad gangster stops torturing him? And, um, sends his mind to 1812 Russia as a treat? As you do... And then Garudin just sits back and lets OGRON rescue Fitz in a raid of his HQ because, um, he thinks 'Kreiner will tell them whatever I wish'? WHY? You've just crushed his fingers, in case you (like Fitz and the author) have forgotten...

'"Ah yes," said the Doctor, as if he was suddenly remembering he had friends' - *wince* There must be SOME happy medium between this Old Who sort of casual disregard and the New Who sort of PUNCH A DIAMOND FOR FOUR AND A HALF BILLION YEARS EVERY TIME A STRAY UPSETS YOU.

Trix and Aphrodite were happy to leave Vorman alone with the magic locket?

'She ached to be with her mother, to console her, but her curse barred her from the attempt' - uh? She's just BEEN with Mummy.

To be continued...

'Who would not grow cold when distanced from Dusha's flame? Who would not scour the centuries for some memento of her light? Any man who had been her lover, he speculated, might well be driven mad with the desire for just one more caress of her hand' - get a GRIP Doc. (You and Fitz manage to survive JUST FINE for the rest of the EDAs never giving her a second thought, for starters.)

Has Fitz not explained the whole MIND-JUMPING thing to the Doctor? Who thinks it's 'ludicrously irrational' that someone planted the (frankly, ludicrously irrational) idea of travelling by TARDIS rather than lake for no readily-apparent reason? Not that it isn't a bit surprising that the Doctor of all people can be mind-controlled by a Russian thug...

Re Zygma beams - 'each trip will have a worse effect on the traveller. Which is why I must swear off that mode of transportation as of now and stick to the TARDIS' - hello! The stupid lake has nothing to do with Zygma beams!

'Never mind Trix for now' - that remembering-you-have-friends stuff didn't last long, did it Doctor. She's in the middle of a WORLD WAR FFS.

Dusha n'sisters didn't hear or see a thing when a patrol of French soldiers surrounded them and started 'hauling the servants, the driver and Sasha down from the wagon and carriage'?

'This is an image from the distant, distant past. All I have of my parent' - um, you do remember you were VISITING MUMMY for hugs and chats, like, YESTERDAY?

'"You spoke in their defence at their trial." She levelled the words at the Doctor like an accusation. "You defended me too."' - yup, the Doctor sucks at trials. Keys of Marinus, Stones of Blood...in The Ark even a dying Steven was considered a better bet as Defence Attorney...

'What about those rooms, those worlds - those people - you've lit up with those eyes, that mind, those thoughts of yours? How do you suppose they feel, when you're gone? When you've left them alone in darkness?' - Jeez, The Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair weren't the Doctor's FAULT, you know!

'Imprisoned in earthbound lives. At opposite ends of history' - a) why is it always Earth, Earth, bloody Earth, can't you aliens send your convicts elsewhere, we're not AUSTRALIA and b) they're only 3,000 years apart, that's hardly 'opposite ends of history' for a species that will endure till the end of the universe...

'But surely their reunion would trigger a rebirth of their original form, wouldn't it' - why would it? And how would amnesiac-loser know, anyway?

Would one planet really provide the necessary mass for the birth of a star?

'To Fitz, it sounded too much like, Meet me in St Louis' - Oh, don't tell me Fitz has finally started feeling GUILTY about ditching the Doc with that stupid message?

So one minute it's 'Your principal danger is Kinzhal. If he shows up, you're sunk' and the next it's 'He's a difficult man to deceive. If you can't pull off the lie, you'll never make it out of there' - so NOT necessarily sunk, then. Also weird that you've just randomly grabbed someone off the street for this vital mission.

'Talking hurt. Everything hurt. His cheeks stung like his face had been peeled, his eyes felt like they'd frosted over, and the blood had turned to lead in his veins' - aaaand yet still no mention of HIS MUTILATED FINGERS...

'If Fitz and Aphrodite hadn't been standing over the snowbound corpse, some might have pounced on the body to strip it of valuables, clothes, boots, buttons or meat' - so why DIDN'T they do so anyway, Fitz and Aphrodite were hardly much of a threat?

'Longevity aside, the Doctor didn't suppose the man would still be around much past the twenty-second or twenty-third century' - and, er, he reached that conclusion HOW, exactly? Which bit of HE KNOWS NOTHING THANKS TO AMNESIA does he keep, well, forgetting? (Leaving aside the fact such estimates are...unreliable. Just ask Ashildr.)

'"I think you might be an alien capable of changing his features and form." The idea demanded some serious consideration. "Yes, you know, I think I might be"' - Jeez, that's never OCCURRED to post-Ancestor-Cell-Eight before?

'"The Doctor will think of something," she said. And Fitz was reminded it was a faith they shared' - well that's a bit weird in view of Aphrodite's previous interaction with the Doc, which was something along the lines of 'Look, you amnesiac moron, you defended me and Mummy-Daddy at our trials and as a result we were found guilty-as-hell and got TOTALLY SCREWED.'

'Perhaps my temporal paratroopers are best developed into a unit for policing the past and preserving our future. We may even be able to track down the Butcher himself' - the invention of the Time Agency AFTER Greel fled hardly explains his fear of Time Agents.

It's not bad but is it just so...bitty. Leaping from one time-period to another, the modern-day one isn't that interesting (except getting a kick every time OGRON is mentioned), the fifty-first-century war one isn't that interesting (except getting a kick every time Magnus Greel is mentioned) and the 1812 period isn't that interesting (and I SO don't get a kick out of the Dusha-obsession. Guess I'm the only person IN THE UNIVERSE immune to her charms). It would be a bit pointless even if it all came together in a great climax instead of a blink-and-you-miss-it cop-out.

Would one planet really provide the necessary mass for the birth of a star?

Short answer, no.

Long answer, it could depend on the type of planet, and how it's being used for that objective I suppose, although even something of the size and type of Jupiter wouldn't suffice.

It's Earth. Because of course it is.

Then long and short answer, no.

Long answer, it could depend on the type of planet, and how it's being used for that objective I suppose, although even something of the size and type of Jupiter wouldn't suffice.

The movie (and novel) 2010, says hello.

up, the Doctor sucks at trials. Keys of Marinus, Stones of Blood...in The Ark even a dying Steven was considered a better bet as Defence Attorney...

Aaaaand we can add The Nightmare Realm to the list as Nardole has to plead Not Guilty for them after Capaldi pleads CONFUSED.

I thought the whole "We've met before Doctor" subplot was a cheat with no pay off

Tut tut, you totally failed to foresee the Lethbridge-Stewart novels wheeling out Bugayev as (practically) a recurring character. Alright, so he hasn't actually met THE DOCTOR yet for copyright reasons but it's only a matter of time - if not in the books, in the Third Doctor audios...