Years later, the Doctor (now in his eighth incarnation) is playing a game of chess with General Tschike of UNISYC, when the general pulls a gun on him. Tschike tells the Doctor that the only reason the various Earth governments he has encountered down the years have never done this before is because they never really believed that the Doctor could be actually killed. Now they have received information from a source in what was once Borneo that suggests differently. Before Tschike can shoot however, the Doctor dives out the window into the TARDIS which has been hovering outside. The Doctor and Sam head to Borneo to investigate.
In Borneo (now referred to as East Indies Revit zone) two other UNISYC soldiers, Colonel Kortez and Lieutenant Bregman arrive at what appears to be the ruins of an ancient city, but it is really a block-transfer computational structure known as the Unthinkable City. The City is a venue for the auction for an artifact, known as the Relic. In addition to the two UNISYC soldiers, other bidders include a dead man named Trask, a conceptual entity referred to as The Shift, a Time Lord called Homunculette and two representatives from Faction Paradox, Cousin Justine and Brother Manjuele. The auction is organised by Mr. Qixotl, who is awaiting the arrival of one more party before the bidding can begin. When the TARDIS materialises at the City, the Doctor and Sam are attacked by leopards that are programmed to attack anyone whose biodata they do not recognise. However, the Doctor locates one of their control pads and adds his own and Sam's biodata to the guest list. Qixotl, horrified, recognises the Doctor and tries to hide his identity from the other quests.
Homunculette is a Time Lord from sometime in the Doctor's future where the Time Lords are entangled in a war with a mysterious "Enemy". The Time Lords want to possess the Relic because they think it will give them an advantage in the war and Homunculette has been pursuing it across history. At some point it fell into the hands of Earth governments and Homunculette attempted to retrieve it after the Dalek invasion, but Qixotl had already claimed it. His companion Marie is actually his TARDIS, disguised as a woman. In the City, Marie's weapons systems are suddenly turned against her and she explodes. Homunculette assumes that Faction Paradox are responsible, since they are natural enemies of Time Lords. Faction Paradox also once possessed the Relic, which they unearthed from the ruins on Dronid, where the first battle between the Time Lords and the Enemy was fought. Its discoverers didn't realise its significance and fired it off into the vortex as part of a ritual (where it eventually came to Earth).
Sam finds Bregman has gone into culture shock at the presence of so many alien beings and wonders why she has never felt such feelings. The pair is drawn into the Faction Paradox shrine, which resembles a TARDIS crossed with a voodoo shrine, where Brother Manjuele attacks them and takes a biodata sample from Bregman. Both Bregman and Sam begin hearing voices in their heads which appear to come from the Relic and follow them into the heart of the City. The Doctor confronts Qixotl and demands to known what the Relic is. Qixotl reveals the truth: the Relic is a coffin containing the Doctor's own future dead body.
Flashbacks reveal Qixotl was once on Dronid just prior to the battle. He was stranded there following the collapse of various criminal activities and learnt from local gossip that the Doctor was on his way to Dronid, but no-one is sure whether he has sided with his own people or the enemy. The current Doctor presses Qixotl for more information, but is appalled when he reveals that the Daleks are the last bidder to arrive. Outside a black spaceship descends, but instead of the Daleks, a Kroton, called E-Kobalt emerges, having killed the Dalek passengers and taken their ship. The Krotons are also aware of the future war from captured Time Lord prisoners and believe they can use the conflict to further their empire.
Sam and Bregman reach the Relic in a vault at the centre of the City, but suddenly the City's internal defenses are activated which use the intruders biodata to create a psychic attack unique to the individual. Bregman is filled with a sense of self-loathing and despair and Sam is attacked by giant babies that appear out of the walls, but the only result is to make her confused. Forced to ignore the auction, the Doctor rushes to shut off the system and rescue them. Finding Sam and the dead embryos, he realises that Sam has two sets of biodata: the Sam he knows and another dark-haired version. This confused the security system and it couldn't generate a proper attack. The Doctor concludes that someone has re-written Sam's biodata to make her the perfect travelling companion for him. His conclusion is confirmed by the dead body in the coffin. Despite being dead, a Timelords mind remains active to some degree and it has been calling out to Sam, Bergman and the current Doctor.
Back in the Faction shrine, Manjuele attempts to take over Bregman's mind while it is in a confused state. The Doctor realises what is happening and touches the dead mind inside the Relic to give himself enough energy to push Manjuele out. Repelled from Bergman, Manjuele realises the Doctor's identity and bursts into the auction to tell the others. The various groups assume they have been set up and turn on each other. As the Doctor intervenes, he suddenly recognises Qixotl from his past and is consumed with a desire for bloody revenge on the man who tried to profit from his death. As he is about to strangle him, he suddenly realises that they are all being manipulated by The Shift, that has got into all their minds and exploited their various insecurities to set them against each other. The Doctor deliberately falls into a catatonic state, trapping The Shift inside his mind. It reveals that it works for the Enemy. It was originally a Gabrielidean soldier who fought on the side of the Time Lords and encountered a future Doctor, before dying and being turned in a conceptual entity for the Enemy. When the Doctor wakes up, it can no longer influence the bidders, so retreats inside E-Kobalt to await another chance.
The chance arrives soon for E-Kobalt has summoned re-enforcements and the Doctor's actions have deactivated the security systems. Abandoning the auction the bidders attempt to flee. In the chaos, Qixotl is mortally wounded, only to be approached by Trask. Trask is an agent of the Celestis, a future version of the Celestial Intervention Agency who have removed themselves from existence and become beings of pure thought who observe the war from outside the universe. They maintain influence through their agents who bear their mark. They brought Trask back from the dead as such an agent and they can save Qixotl in the same way, if he gives them the Relic. The Doctor uses a piece of crystal discharged by the Krotons weaponry as a biodata sample, which he uses to activate the Faction shrine so the bidders can escape. Meanwhile, Marie has been slowly repairing herself and makes contact with the Doctor. He materialises the Shrine around the attacking Krotons, who accidentally destroy themselves attempting to blast their way out of the Shrine. The Doctor seizes the moment and traps The Shift in a mental prison inside his mind. Stepping out to reclaim his own body, he finds Qixotl has surrendered it to the Celestis, who have taken it to their extra-dimensional home, Mictlan.
The Doctor follows Trask and arrives in the castle at the centre of Mictlan where the Celestis watch the universe through a portal in the floor. In addition to the Celestis the world is also populated by their servants, who made deals with them across history and now live a terrible existence as slaves. Just before the battle on Dronid, a future (and possibly the final) Doctor made his own deal with the Celestis to stop them interfering on Dronid. Now they are going to take his body in payment of this debt. The current Doctor makes a counter offer: they can mark his current body and he will be their agent in return for releasing the Relic to him. They agree and place a mark on his hand, however the Doctor has tricked them and they have actually marked The Shift inside his mind.
Returning to the real world the bidders go their separate ways. Qixotl dismantles the City (glad the Doctor never learnt the truth about how he got his hands on the Relic), Marie and Homunculette return to the war, and The Shift is downloaded into the TARDIS memory. Bregman returns to UNISYC, taking comfort from the fact that although humanity is such as small part of the universe, the higher powers still need human beings to define their existence. The Doctor chooses not to tell Sam about the Relic or what he's learnt about her biodata. He takes the Relic to Quiescia and buries it next to the grave his third self dug. He then uses a bomb to destroy his own body forever.
Continuity
The character of Trask first appeared in the 1966 Second Doctor story The Highlanders. In the serial, Trask drowns after being thrown off of his ship, an event which he recalls in the novel.
The final Doctor appears briefly in Trask's flashback. Although we hear him speak, no physical description of him is given.
Cousin Justine returns as the main character in the Faction Paradox audio plays beginning with "The Eleven Day Empire", voiced by Suzanne Proctor and Wanda Opalinska. Homunculette (in a different incarnation) and Marie reappear in The Taking of Planet 5.
Dark Sam is introduced in this novel, and the first glimpse of the two Sams is given, where her timeline has been manipulated so that she would meet the Doctor. This story arc is referenced again in Seeing I and The Taint before it is explained in depth in Unnatural History and concludes for good in Interference: Book Two.
Gallifrey is a fictional planet in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is the original home world of the Time Lords, the civilisation to which the protagonist, the Doctor belongs. It is located in a binary star system 250 million light years from Earth.
The Master, or Missy, is a recurring character in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who and its associated spin-off works. They are a renegade alien Time Lord and the childhood friend and later archenemy of the title character, the Doctor. They were most recently portrayed by Sacha Dhawan.
The War Games is the seventh and final serial of the sixth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which originally aired in ten weekly parts from 19 April to 21 June 1969.
The Matrix, in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, is a massive computer system on the planet Gallifrey that acts as the repository of the combined knowledge of the Time Lords.
James Robert McCrimmon, usually simply called Jamie, is a fictional character played by Frazer Hines in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. A piper of the Clan MacLeod who lived in 18th-century Scotland, he was a companion of the Second Doctor and a regular in the programme from 1966 to 1969. The spelling of his surname varies from one script to another; it is alternately rendered as Macrimmon and McCrimmond. Jamie appeared in 20 stories.
The Genocide Machine is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It forms the first serial in the Dalek Empire arc, which continues in The Apocalypse Element and The Mutant Phase. It concludes in The Time of the Daleks.
The Brain of Morbius is the fifth serial of the 13th season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts on BBC1 from 3 to 24 January 1976. The screenwriter credit is given to Robin Bland, a pseudonym for writer and former script editor Terrance Dicks, whose original script had been heavily rewritten by his successor as script editor, Robert Holmes. It is the first serial to feature the Sisterhood of Karn.
The Eighth Doctor Adventures are a series of spin off novels based on the long running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and published under the BBC Books imprint. 73 books were published overall.
The Second Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by actor Patrick Troughton. While the Troughton era of Doctor Who is well-remembered by fans and in that era's Doctor Who literature, it is difficult to appraise in full; of his 119 episodes, 53 remain missing.
The Time War, more specifically called the Last Great Time War, is a conflict within the fictional universe of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The war occurs between the events of the 1996 film and the 2005 revived series, with the Time Lords fighting the Daleks until the apparent mutual destruction of both races. The war was frequently mentioned when the show returned, but was not directly seen until the show's 50th anniversary special.
Christopher Rodonanté Cwej, usually just known as Chris Cwej, is a fictional character from the Virgin New Adventures range of spin-offs based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. His surname is properly pronounced "Shvay", but he pronounces it "Kwedge" rather than keep correcting people.
Samantha Angeline "Sam" Jones is a fictional character in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels based upon the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The Eighth Doctor first met her in the novel The Eight Doctors by Terrance Dicks, and she went on to become one of his companions.
Terror Firma is a Big Finish Productions audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The story follows on directly from the previous Eighth Doctor audio drama The Next Life and flashes back to scenes that take place before the first Eighth Doctor audio story Storm Warning. Terror Firma was voted Doctor Who Magazine readers' favourite of the previous year's Doctor Who audio plays in the annual poll held in 2006.
The Ancestor Cell is a novel by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole, based on the science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Eighth Doctor, Fitz Kreiner, Compassion, and Romana III, as well as a brief appearance of the Third Doctor in a ghost-like state due to the Faction's manipulation of the Doctor's timeline, and features the last appearance of Faction Paradox in the Eighth Doctor Adventures.
Unnatural History is an original novel written by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Eighth Doctor, Sam, Fitz and Faction Paradox.
In the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, regeneration is a biological ability exhibited by the Time Lords, a race of fictional humanoids originating on the planet Gallifrey. This process allows a Time Lord to undergo a transformation into a new physical form and a somewhat different personality after instances which would normally result in death. Regeneration has been used multiple times throughout the history of the show as a device for introducing a new actor for the lead role of its main character, the Doctor. Other Time Lords and similar characters have also regenerated, usually for narrative reasons, rather than casting.
Prisoner of the Daleks is a BBC Books original novel written by Trevor Baxendale and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Tenth Doctor without a companion and was released on 2 April 2009, alongside Judgement of the Judoon and The Slitheen Excursion.
The Eighth Doctor is an incarnation of the Doctor, the fictional protagonist of the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. He is portrayed by Paul McGann.
Grandfather Paradox, usually referred to as the Grandfather, is a fictional character in the British science fiction franchise Doctor Who and its spin-off franchise Faction Paradox. In the BBC's Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, the Grandfather is a corrupt future version of the Eighth Doctor, while in Lawrence Miles's Faction Paradox series he is a seemingly incorporeal Time Lord of unknown identity. Both narratives portray him as the founder of Faction Paradox, a time-travelling voodoo cult.
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