B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (203 page)

There was political tension between Europe and the Pan-US Core. The European Council had recovered an expeditionary force of Cybermen that crashed in the Pyrenees. The Cybermen brokered a deal with the European government, offering Cyber-technology to create astronauts cyber-augmented for space. In return, the Cybermen asked for operations to make them organic beings again.

By October 2021, the “Recarnative Program” was secretly in operation at St Gart’s Brookside, a London hospital managed by the Euro Combine Health Administration. The duplicitous Cybermen intended to turn the facility into a ready-made Cyber-conversion centre, facilitating a planetary takeover. The seventh Doctor and Ace learned of the plot and triggered a termination protocol that shut down the Cybermen. The Doctor also erased the Program’s data, preventing the Euro government from exploiting it. Thomas Hector “Hex” Schofield, a staff nurse at St Gart’s, joined the Doctor and Ace on their travels.

An AI system was in use at St Gart’s, and the Wheel space stations were in operation.

2022 - Benny: The Grel Escape
 [68]

With the time-travelling Grel in hot pursuit, Benny, Jason and Peter stopped at the Festival of Piranha, a disused funfair (and the home to flesh-eating Evatra Wraiths).

During the 2020s, the Silurians entombed at Wenley Moor were scheduled to revive. If they did so, they remained hidden from humanity.
 [69]
The UN banned beryllium laser weapons in the mid-2020s.
 [70]
The phased plasma rifle was developed in 2024.
 [71]

2024 - Emotional Chemistry
 [72]

The eighth Doctor, Fitz and Trix infiltrated the Kremlin Museum to retrieve a diamond locket that formerly belonged to the Russian noblewoman Dusha. Colonel Grigoriy Bugayev, working for the Russian division of UNIT, knew the Doctor of old and aided the time travellers.

The disgraced physicist Harald Skoglund had retro-engineered a lost time belt into the Misl Vremnya, a device that enabled its user to see down the timeline of various objects, and to witness events through the eyes of anyone in contact with them. With further exertion, the device allowed its operator to dominate the wills of such people. Bugayev destroyed the device.

By now, the Moscow waste management system had organic microfilters to reprocess sewage. Robot drones were used for reconnaissance.

The novel
The Unformed Heart
by Emily Hutchings was published, and the Doctor acquired a copy. The word “cruk” was very rude by 2025.
 [73]
Demeter Glauss, the future author of
Cybercrime: An Analysis of Hacking,
was born. The book was the seminal work on breaking and entering computer systems, including the Paradigm operating system. Mel would use the text to hack into Ashley Chapel Logistics in 1999.
 [74]

c 2025 - The Feast of Axos
 [75]

Earth continued to experience an energy crunch - fossil fuel supplies were dwindling, renewable energy sources couldn’t meet demand and security concerns had slowed growth in the nuclear industry. A large portion of Oklahoma was now desert. The Eurozone Space Agency operated the space shuttle
Jules Verne
. A global lottery was now in operation.

Ironside Industries offered space-tourism flights for the cost of a luxury cruise. The CEO of Ironside, Campbell Irons, had the shuttle
Windermere
fitted with an alien displacement device capable of penetrating the time loop surrounding Axos, and sent a crew to negotiate with it. Irons wanted Axos to supply Earth with carbon-free energy. The sixth Doctor, Evelyn and Thomas Brewster were present as Axos used the
Windermere
’s microwave transmitter to exterminate the Ironside mission control station at Devesham. The Doctor strengthened the time loop as the mini-nuclear reactor aboard the
Windermere
was detonated, trapping Axos in a cycle of being exploded over and over again.

c 2025 - The Ring of Steel
 [76]

The eleventh Doctor and Amy stopped a Caskelliak - a weapon of war crafted by a dead race, and which had been tasked with polluting and destroying entire worlds - from using Astragen, a utilities company in the Orkney islands, Scotland, to complete an energy circuit that would have poisoned the Earth.

2026 (18th-22nd April) - Project: Destiny / A Death in the Family
 [77]

The public accepted that aliens were real, as too much evidence was available in the information age to deny it. Nimrod, a.k.a. Sir William Abberton, had spent years rebuilding the Forge into Department C4 - a governmental agency that served as the public face of extra-terrestrial investigation. C4 bungled a harvest of alien xenotech, causing a widespread infection of DNA from insectoid aliens named the Contaminants. These creatures’ life cycle entailed mutating residents of a target world into hybrids, then breeding to produce more pure offspring. London was evacuated and quarantined as fifteen thousand people were infected. The hybrids consumed those too old or infirm to survive the transformation. Outbreaks were reported in Chelsea, Hammersmith, Camden and Wandsworth.

Two months after the evacuation, the Home Secretary assured Parliament - which was currently in session in Harrogate - that the quarantine zone around the M-25 was secure. The Contaminant hybrids all swarmed to C4’s main facility - the Crichton Building, which overlooked the Thames - in a mating frenzy. Captain Lysandra Aristedes usurped control of C4 and destroyed the Crichton Building and all the Contaminants with an air strike of dystronic missiles. Nimrod perished in the blast, and his death effectively ended the Forge.

Afterward, the seventh Doctor and Ace located a Gallifreyan sarcophagus in the Forge archives - and found within an older version of the seventh Doctor, who had become the Storyspeaker for the Handivale of Pelican. The Word Lord had been trapped within the Handivale, but was now freed. The Handivale transferred into Captain John Stillwell of UNIT, who became comatose.

The Word Lord made a soldier intone “Nobody can stop the Doctor regenerating” and “No One has the power of life and death over the Doctor” - and thereby gained those very attributes. The younger seventh Doctor re-bottled the Word Lord within a conflicting narrative spun from the trans-galactic Internet, but this burned out the Doctor’s cerebral cortex, killing him. The older seventh Doctor, now only a potential future, took Hex to the distant past on Pelican, then had the TARDIS deliver Ace to 2027.

S.J. Wordly was now Prime Minister.

2027 (24th June) to 2028 (Tuesday, 24th May) - A Death in the Family
 [78]

The British government, UNIT, the remnants of the Forge and a secret cabal of the Doctor’s former companions covered up his death in 2026, fearing the consequence of extra-terrestrials learning that Earth no longer had his protection. The Doctor’s corpse was interred in York Minster, in a secret chamber reserved for Earth’s fallen, clandestine heroes.

The TARDIS, per the older seventh Doctor’s instructions, arrived in 2027 with Ace aboard. In the months to follow, she entered into a relationship with Henry Louis Noone. In May 2028, Ace had Henry write about what she would be like as his wife of ten years, then sent the document to Hex in the distant past using a Vaspen space-time stamp. This created a linguistic version of Ace - Professor Dorothy Noone - whose name enabled her (per the phrase, “No One has the power of life and death over the Doctor”) to tap the Word Lord’s reality altering CORDIS and bring the Doctor back to life. The Word Lord was liberated from the Doctor’s narrative and killed Professor Noone, but was then uploaded, along with his CORDIS, into the Handivale within Captain Stillwell. Ace and the restored Doctor took Stillwell back in time to Pelican.

A number of future Mars colonists were born around this time: Andrew Stone on a commune in Iowa in 2025; Tarak Ital in 2026 in Karachi; and Margaret Cain in Sheffield in December 2028. After intensive training, Adelaide Brooke became the first non-US citizen to fly shuttles for NASA. Ed Gold earned a BA in mechanical engineering in 2030.
 [79]

By 2030, the issue of thargon differentials in the orange spectrum of upper atmospheric problems was solved. This enabled the creation of stable energy fields on satellites.
 [80]
Gorillas were extinct on Earth by 2030.
 [81]
The seventh Doctor, Ace and Bernice visited UNIT HQ in Geneva in 2030, and picked up a note left by Cristian Alvarez thirty-seven years before.
 [82]
The eleventh Doctor claimed that the World Cup final held at Wembley Stadium in 2030 was the greatest football match in history. The score was Scotland three, England nil.
 [83]

2030 (early autumn) - Warchild
 [84]

Computer technology enabled cars to practically drive themselves and computers that understood straightforward voice commands. Instead of passports, people had implants on the back of their necks. Three-dimensional television now existed. Passenger airliners were still in use. A cure had been found for Alzheimer’s disease, and few people smoked thanks to health-awareness campaigns.

Vincent Wheaton had secretly inserted himself into the life of his son, Ricky McIlveen, in the guise of a history teacher. Vincent suspected that Ricky possessed immense mind-control abilities... enough to make Ricky president of America, with Vincent pulling his strings. Ricky was potentially the greatest alpha male who ever lived, and so Vincent experimented with the concept of pack behaviour. The dog Vincent owned, which contained the mind of a human, Jack, accordingly became the White King - an old dog that caused packs of dogs to display remarkable intelligence and murder people. The seventh Doctor, travelling with Benny, Roz and Chris, reunited Jack’s mind with his human body.

Creed McIlveen now worked for a secretive crimefighting force, the Agency, but started an affair with his associate Amy Cowan - who was secretly in Vincent’s employ. Vincent wanted revenge on Creed and Justine, and invaded their home. In the resulting confrontation, Amy had a change of heart and killed Vincent to save Justine. Creed and Justine’s marriage ended. The Doctor and his friends pledged to help Ricky learn control of his abilities.

c 2032 (Tuesday, 30th November) - Singularity
 [85]

Houses were now equipped with computer attendants that responded to voice recognition; phones also recognised voice command.

In Russia, the Somnus Foundation had been created to study sleep disorders and neuro-science, but some descendents of humanity - originating from near the end of the universe - usurped the organisation. The descendents hoped to modify the brain chemistry and “wave forms” of several humans, inducing telepathy and achieving a group consciousness. If successful, the effect would cascade through Earth’s electro-magnetic signature and turn the whole of humanity into a single entity. The resultant Singularity would allow the descendants to bring their fellows through en masse from the future, and let them exact vengeance against the Time Lords.

On 30th November, Moscow witnessed its worst storm in fifty years. The fifth Doctor arrived to investigate matters at a Somnus clinic, but the Somnus test subjects started an electrical fire, hoping to end their suffering. The clinic burned down as the Doctor escaped.

In 2032, Yuri Kerenski began work for the Russia Federal Space Agency. He would end up specialising in treating long-term cosmonauts after they returned home. In the same year, Mia Bennett was born in Houston. Her mother was killed in a car accident, and her father relinquished a career in space exploration to raise her.
 [86]
Earth picked up an Arcturan signal that included enough information to build a transmat device.
 [87]
Iris owned a martini glass signed by actor Leonard Rossiter, which was said to contain the soul of TV presenter Noel Edmonds.
 [88]

Lethbridge-Stewart returned to Earth in 2032, having spent twenty years in the realm of Avalon.
 [89]
By 2034, a young man called Craig would either be a drunk living under Hammersmith Bridge
or
a successful carpenter with children - depending on the choices he made in 2006.
 [90]

Ed Gold earned his doctorate in 2034 - the same year Roman Groom, a future child genius, was born.
 [91]
Starkey, Jorjie Turner and Darius Pike - future friends of K9 - were born in the mid-2030s.
 [92]
The Experts, featuring lead singer Alex Marlow, became the biggest band in the world. Marlow eventually abandoned performing in favour of being a charity worker and environmental activist, working to save endangered animals.
 [93]