B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (159 page)

Cultural movements emerged in response to the Miracle. People took to the streets as “the Soulless” - marchers wearing white masks with sad faces, and holding vigil candles, to denote that everlasting life had robbed mankind of its souls. Members of the suicide-minded 45 Club believed that jumping from the 45th floor or higher was the only guaranteed way to lose consciousness forever. Ellis Hartley Monroe, a darling of the Tea Party, started the Dead is Dead campaign, which advocated that the people who should have died should be treated as such. People in Egypt rioted against the “Western Miracle”.

The world governments began to deal more decisively with the growing numbers of undead. Europe and the United States established categories for the classification of life... Category 3 designated a healthy person, Category 2 was a functioning person who had a persistent injury or illness, and Category 1 denoted someone without brain function, but whose body remained alive owing to the Miracle.

The United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany and generally the whole of Europe established overflow camps for the undead. China declined to do so, but the Pan-African Summit opted in favour of it. Anyone designated Category 1 or 2 was taken to the camps - in the United States, this was sanctioned under the Emergency Miracle Law. The UK Prime Minister announced that the camps were part of a “new age of care and compassion”.

Incineration units were secretly established in the camps to turn the Category 1 cases into ash; in the United Kingdom, the Emergency Rulings for the Sake of Public Heath allowed for the burning of dead bodies en masse. Torchwood exposed the truth about the incineration units, triggering headlines such as “Horror of Death Camps in the 21st Century”, and also released a video showing the incineration of one of their associates, Dr. Vera Juarez. However, this merely paused the camps’ operation. The White House ordered an investigation into Juarez’s death, but made no apology for the Category 1 process. The footage of Juarez’s murder received more than five million views online, and memorial services were held for her.

The US Supreme Court agreed to hear a case involving adjustments to the life sentences of convicted criminals. The US Congress considered the creation of Category Zero: a designation for anyone - including Oswald Danes - who had earned death by incineration for moral reasons. Phicorps facilitated Danes having a media career in which he advocated compassion in these difficult times, in a manner that boosted corporate profits. Madison Weekly attained some fame as the “bisected bride” - a car accident had sheered off her lower half, but she got married a week later while propped up on a box. Angelo Colasanto, having extended his lifespan by limiting his calorie intake and lowering his body temperature, used the Null Field from the Hub to cancel out the Miracle in a very small area and end his life.

The stock market collapsed, and the global economy went into freefall. Banks closed, and the Euro’s weakness exacerbated the financial crisis. Greece and Ireland declared bankruptcy, and Spain’s economy destabilised, threatening to pull down the whole European Union. Pension funds began going bankrupt, creating a domino effect. A new Great Depression was instigated. At the first sign of the economic meltdown, China withdrew from the United Nations and sealed its borders.

Two months into the new Great Depression, the White House halted all immigration into America. The insurance industry had largely gone bust, “along with half the Western World”. The overflow camps built to dispose of Category 1 patients were in full operation - the Depression meant that the public was looking to its own welfare, and could offer little protest. Rationing was instituted. In the UK, the Emergency Powers Act allowed government agents to enter homes without a warrant in search of Category 1 patients. Violations of the Miracle Security Act were treated as treason. Some people in the US chose to classify themselves as Category 1, a means of assisted suicide.

Torchwood discovered how the Families had created the Miracle, and found the sites of the Blessing in Shanghai and Buenos Aires. Jack’s mortal blood was fed into the Blessing at both locations, restoring the Blessing to its previous state.

“In a pit in old Shanghai, I brought death back to the world. They said it was like a breath, the breath that went around the whole wide world. The last breath, and then no more.”
 [1458]

Everyone kept alive by the Miracle instantly died, including Gwen Cooper’s father Geraint. Esther Drummond was killed in the final confrontation with the Families. Oswald Danes, having coerced Jack and Gwen into letting him accompany them to Shanghai, died while detonating the Families’ facility there. The Three Families survived, still shrouded in secrecy, and judged the Miracle as a good trial run for their Plan B. UNIT sealed up the sites of the Blessing.

Rex Matheson found that - perhaps owing to his proximity to the Blessing when it recalibrated - he had become just as immortal as Captain Jack.

Miles Mokri recovered from his gunshot wounds. His sister Holly remained in possession of one last bag of Captain Jack’s blood - a safeguard against Miles’ injuries worsening and a resurgence of her cancer, which was in remission.
 [1459]

[
1
]
Ten Little Aliens

[
2
] Nyssa is “18” according to the Writers’ Guide for Season 18.

[
3
]
Who Killed Kennedy
(p70), working on information implied by
Remembrance of the Daleks.

[
4
]
TW: In the Shadows

[
5
]
Sometime Never

Is the Doctor Really a Crystal Skeleton Man from the Future, Now?

Sometime Never
ends with the multiverse being restored after being merged by the Council of Eight. “In just one of many universes”, a benevolent member of the Council, Soul, and Miranda’s daughter, Zezanne, arrive in a junkyard in Sabbath’s ship, the
Jonah
- which disguises itself as a police box. Soul has absorbed the essence of the Doctor, and as Miranda’s daughter, Zezanne is the Doctor’s granddaughter. Clearly, in their universe, they take on the roles of the Doctor and Susan.

The question is whether this represents a new origin story for
our
Doctor and Susan. The EDA range had destroyed Gallifrey, but it wasn’t specified whether the planet had simply blown up or been removed from the timeline so that it never existed. If Gallifrey had never existed, the existence of the Doctor and his TARDIS would have been a paradox... unless he wasn’t from Gallifrey. This explanation closed that loophole.

As of
The Gallifrey Chronicles
, the Doctor certainly thinks he’s a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, has met a Time Lord and seen evidence of Gallifrey’s former existence. Gallifrey therefore existed, and it seems fairly clear now that the Doctor isn’t Soul.

[
6
] In
An Unearthly Child
, Susan says that “the last five months have been the happiest in my life”. She and the Doctor were on Earth for “six months” according to
Matrix
(p31);
Time and Relative
suggests it was more like thirteen months. The Doctor returns for the Hand of Omega in
Remembrance of the Daleks
.

[
7
]
Interference

[
8
]
The Vampires of Venice
. The eleventh Doctor is seen carrying this card, although this type of photo ID would be unheard of in 1963. Either way, it’s the earliest known point in the Doctor’s timeline when he uses his “John Smith” alias.

[
9
] Dating
Time and Relative
(TEL #1) - Susan’s diary gives the date as “Wednesday, March 27th 1963” for the first entry (p9), “April 4th” for the last. They have
already
been on Earth “five months, I think”, according to Susan, who admits to some confusion on the point.

[
10
]
TW: Ghost Machine

[
11
] Dating “Lunar Lagoon” (
DWM
#76-77) - The Doctor declares “this is 1983”, but the Second World War is still being fought. The anomaly is explained in “4-Dimensional Vistas”, where Gus gives the date as “July 25th 1963” and it transpires it’s a parallel world where the War didn’t end. The Doctor says he never learned to swim. There’s no explanation for the title of the story, which has nothing to do with the moon, and doesn’t feature a lagoon.

[
12
] Dating “4-Dimensional Vistas” (
DWM
#78-83) - The Doctor learns the date is “July 25th 1963” from Gus.

[
13
] Dating “The Moderator” (
DWM
#84, #86-87) - The Doctor takes Gus back to “the same time, the same place that we first met”, which was in “Lunar Lagoon”.

[
14
] Dating
The Taint
(EDA #19) - It is 1963 (p10).

[
15
] Dating “Operation Proteus” (
DWM
#231-233) - It is “four months” since the Doctor and Susan arrived on Earth, so a month before
An Unearthly Child
. “Ground Zero” confirms this is “October 1963”.

[
16
] Dating
Ghost Ship
(TEL #4) - According to the blurb, the story is set in 1963.

[
17
] Dating
An Unearthly Child
(1.1) - The Doctor has left the Hand of Omega at the funeral parlour for “a month” before
Remembrance of the Daleks
, suggesting that the first episode is set in late October. The year “1963” is first confirmed in episode two. Ian’s blackboard reads “Homework - Tuesday”.

[
18
] Dating
Matrix
(PDA #16) - The date is given (p39).

[
19
] Dating
Remembrance of the Daleks
(25.1) - The story is set in late November 1963 according to the calendar on Ratcliffe’s wall, as well as a host of other incidental evidence. (Not least of which being the broadcast of an episode of the “new science fiction serial
Doct
—“.) The draft script was set in December. The novelisation places this story a week after Kennedy’s assassination, but page 57 erroneously says the killing occurred “last Saturday” (it actually occurred on a Friday).

Quatermass

A throwaway line in
Remembrance of the Daleks
mentions a “Bernard” who is working for “British Rocket Group”. This is a reference to the four Quatermass television serials:
The Quatermass Experiment
,
Quatermass II
,
Quatermass and the Pit
and simply
Quatermass
, in which British space scientist Bernard Quatermass battled alien horrors. Most fans agree that the first three serials heavily influenced a number of
Doctor Who
stories, although successive production teams rarely made the comparison, and often denied it.

In the New Adventures,
The Pit
(p169) makes reference to an incident at “Hob’s Lane” (
Quatermass and the Pit
, although it perhaps more correctly ought to be “Hobbs Lane”) and
Nightshade
first introduces the eponymous nineteen-fifties television series that bore many similarities to the
Quatermass
serials. “Bernard” makes a brief appearance in
The Dying Days.
While not mentioned in dialogue, the set dressing in
The Christmas Invasion
states that the Guinevere probe to Mars was launched by the British Rocket Group.

Do the
Quatermass
serials occur in the same fictional universe as
Doctor Who
? As might be expected, there are a number of discrepancies between the two programmes.
The Quatermass Experiment
contradicts
The Seeds of Death
(and
Thin Ice
) by claiming that Victor Carroon was the first man in space, and a race of Martians appears in
Quatermass and the Pit
. Broadly, though, the two series might co-exist, with the final serial
Quatermass
taking place around the time of the New Adventures
Iceberg
and
Cat’s Cradle: Warhead
. Indeed, the existence of Professor Quatermass might go some way to explaining the rosy state of the British space programme in the UNIT era (q.v. “The British Space Programme”).