Beware! The Dalek Invasion of Earth! Here they come! Get yours today! Wait, what?
The Doctor is just visiting a hotel, he doesn't know what year it is, he doesn't know where he is. As he's going down in the elevator, he gets recognized by a General. This General apparently knows a lot about the Doctor. His name, the fact he's a time traveller and the fact he's travelling with Nyssa...
The Doctor tries to talk his way out of it, but he's feeling woozy; what was in that drink anyway? When he gets to he's captured. Again. The General, Tillington, has him released from his cuffs immediately. Turns out he's not that bad. He shows the Doctor around Global Warning, which is a global organization preparing for an Alien Invasion, using Time Travel based messages of... The Daleks. Wait, what's the year again? 2158? That's one year after Oh Crap, Oh Crap!
The General wants the Doctor on his side, but realizes that the Doctor may want to Set Right What Once Went Wrong (or Make Wrong What Once Went Right), seeing as the Doctor thinks of Better the Devil You Know, seeing as he knows the Dalek Invasion of Earth (No seriously, take a shot every time this is mentioned exactly the way it's phrased. You'll be sloshed by the end of it.) will end up with the Daleks defeated. In the meantime in the past Nyssa is testing out a new gadget she's created that can communicate across time. Convenient. She stumbles upon a knight, Sir Mulberry, who thinks she's a witch. In fact he'll be saying everything is witchcraft during this adventure. They manage to stumble off a cliff and through a Portal to the Future.
The Doctor, not wanting anything to do with erroneous timelines, makes a run for it. He stumbles upon Wilton, who's the cousin to General Tillington (Would that make him Wilton Tillington? Rubbish name.) and they go on the lam. Quickly they find the TARDIS where the Doctor left it. Wilton, despite the Doctor's protest, hitches a ride along with the Doctor. But he brought some toys. Of Daleks. Why? Nyssa and Sir Mulberry end up in yet another war. This time, The American Civil War where they meet Floyd who fights for the confederacy. Willingly. They're on the hill at Petersburg. Didn't that get blown up? The Doctor, with Floyd, travels back into the past and ends up in Petersburg, just in time!
It's the wrong Petersburg, in another state. The Doctor turns off the the Time Track Crossing Protection Protocol which stops the TARDIS from crossing its own timeline, and still manages to pick up Nyssa, Sir Mulberry and Floyd before the explosion hits.
—the whispers—
The Doctor realizes that the TARDIS is now in a set path straight for a fixed destination, because he he turned off the Time Track Crossing Protection Protocol. The TARDIS stops in The Vietnam War and they manage to pick up a military officer by the name of Alice. While the TARDIS slowly trucks along towards its destination, the three new passengers spend some time in the new Zero Room to heal their injuries and revitalize themselves. And they start talking about the whispers.
—the whispers—-
The TARDIS' passengers, no wait, not the humans, the Daleks!... Well, to be honest, the... er, toy Daleks start running away from the Doctor, Wilton and Nyssa, until the Doctor realizes there is one in the console room. This one was purposefully leading them away from the console room! Luckily, they try to take over the console but fail miserably.
—THE WHISPERS—
The TARDIS materializes in a barren world completely unlike Earth. Ever so bright, with a hundred suns. The Doctor heads out with Wilton and Nyssa, while the toy Daleks are inside with Alice, Floyd and Sir Mulberry. And they've upgraded their inoperative laser guns into actual Death Rays. As the away team comes back, the toy Daleks have taken over the TARDIS. And they soon get backup from actual Daleks.
The (full sized) Daleks escort the three away from the TARDIS, using the others as hostages, towards some massive structures. As they get closer, Wilton realizes what they are. Thousands, no, millions... Millions upon millions of Daleks stacked on top of each other. Fused to each other. Nyssa is afraid that they function together as a supercomputer, like on Logopolis. The Doctor encourages Wilton to sing "Three blind mice" with him. Luckily, the Double Meaning of the lyrics get through to the people in the TARDIS, and they set up a plan. Ah yes, the device Nyssa was working on! They manage to patch through with Tillington, who wants to see the Doctor! They get a feed on the Doctor's current events, though...
The Doctor and friends are welcomed by a being which names itself the Greylish. The Greylish proclaims itself the proprietor of the Pan-Temporal Ambience, which functions as a crossroads for all timelines crossing each other, a place where all time has happened, and will happen still. And he knows fully well who the Doctor is.
The Daleks have set up shop in this Pocket Dimension, and the Greylish tolerates them, for he is Truly Neutral and only cares for non-interference. He allows the Daleks to do what they do because in theory the Doctor has already interfered with their timeline once, which the Doctor admits is Metaphorically True.
—THE WHISPERS—
Then it hits the Doctor. The Daleks have doublebacked on themselves, and instead of invading 2157, they're going to invade 2158, warping the timeline into the current one. And they're broadcasting. All the time broadcasting subliminally. This is why the Daleks have toys, TV programmes, and this is why Alice, Floyd and Mulberry have been hearing whispers! They're all subliminal messages, and they're planning to unleash a batch of Nanomachines all over the various timelines, ensuring a bloodless victory where the Daleks only need to show up and they'll be practically welcomed to invade. All they need is a Time Machine. Ah yes, well unfortunately there's only one of those here, isn't there?
As the Doctor is forced to take crates of Nano-Tech aboard the TARDIS he's sussed out the plan. The Daleks need him to take the Nano-Tech to Earth? Yes. Otherwise, will the Daleks exterminate all of the Doctor's companions? Yes. So the Doctor has no choice but to take the crates into the TARDIS and then... And then what? Do nothing?
The Doctor's choice of doing nothing technically would save the Earth, but that's one hell of a slow path waiting forever. So the Doctor radios, for lack of better term, General Tillington and orders him to fire everything he's got at the TARDIS. The general appreciates the Doctor's Heroic Sacrifice, not knowing the TARDIS is almost indestructible.
As lasers go pew, the TARDIS's HADS activates and it backs up and flies back to the Daleks. The Doctor tries to open the TARDIS doors and eject the Nano-Tech. But they're stuck in that damn time corridor again, and everybody's hanging on for dear life.
Except Mulberry. He asks Nyssa if the crates are what causes everything, and if they were gone it would save the day. When Nyssa confirms, he pushes them outside of the TARDIS and ends up dissolving in the Time Vortex himself.
The TARDIS lands in the Pan-Temporal Ambience, and the Doctor establishes contact with the Greylish. He asks it one question.
- The Doctor: "Do you remember a time before the Daleks?"
The Greylish realizes what he is. A being created by the Daleks as a focal point to create the Ambience and keep it in place. Unwilling to live this life, it too blinks itself out of existence. The Daleks scarper and panic, but they have nowhere to go. They fade, as the dimension falls apart around them. In an instant, an entire Alternate Timeline vanishes, gone. Wilton, Tillington, like they have not existed.
The Daleks have been vanquished. The day is saved. The Doctor wonders though why every time he defeats the Daleks it costs so much innocence.
Well, he can't focus on that too much. He's still got some passengers to take home.
- The Alleged Car: The TARDIS acts up again in this episode.
- Alien Invasion: The Daleks are prepared to invade the Earth. Again. Well, they will again.
- Alien Sky: At one point the travellers see a skyline with hundreds of suns.
- Alternate Timeline: It's 2158, the year after the Daleks invaded. But there are ... no Daleks?
- Ambiguous Robots: Floyd sees the Daleks as metallic creatures.
- American Accents: General Tillington sports one, but the story takes place in London.
- Armor-Piercing Question: "Do you remember a time before the Daleks?"
- Artistic License – History: Wilton notes that the explosion of the Petersburg mine happened at 3:15 AM. It didn't. The plan was for the detonation to occur at around 3:30 to 3:45, but issues with the fuses prevented the detonation from happening until 4:44 AM.
- Artistic License – Military: There are no records of women flying combat helicopter missions during Vietnam. It seems highly unlikely that Alice would have been that chopper to be rescued by The Doctor in real life.
- Batman Gambit: Everything since Wilton came on board has been a Dalek one.
- Better the Devil You Know: The Doctor says this about the Dalek Invasion. He knows that they will be defeated, but the current timeline it may not happen.
- Call-Back:
- "We are the masters of Earth!"
- The TARDIS has a new Zero Room.
- The Hostile Action Displacement System saves the day.
- Not the first time the Daleks tried to get the Doctor to spread a weapon for them.
- Call-Forward: After everything, the Doctor always wonders why defeating the Daleks costs so much innocence.
- Chekhov's Gun: The device that Nyssa develops in the beginning of the story to communicate through different times, ends up being a part of the solution.
- Clarke's Third Law: Sir Mulberry has this of everything. But then again where he's from...
- Continuity Nod: Nyssa directly mentions Logopolis and it's central computing system.
- Distressed Dude: Five gets kidnapped fairly quickly into the story.
- Eldritch Location: The Pan-Temporal Ambience of all time, where all time has happened already and hasn't, and functions as a crossroads of all timelines which cross each other.
- Fish out of Temporal Water: Nyssa. And everybody Nyssa and the Doctor take along with them.
- Have We Met Yet?: The General knows everything about the Doctor.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Tillington thinks the Doctor is pulling one by having the millitary open fire on the nano-tech riddled TARDIS.
- Mulberry actually pushes the nano-tech out of the TARDIS in the middle of time travel, and winds up in the vortex.
- The Greylish undoes everything with a thought, after realizing he was a Tomato in the Mirror.
- Insistent Terminology:The Doctor: "You seem to have kidnapped me."General Tillington: "Relocated you."The Doctor: "Ah, well the Hand cuffs fooled me."
- Make Wrong What Once Went Right: General Tillington suspects the Doctor might Set Right What Once Went Wrong (for his sense) in regards to the Dalek invasion.
- Mood Whiplash: A grim description of how untrained soldiers are being shot down en masse gets interrupted by Mulberry whooping awkwardly.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Doctor turns off the The Time Track Crossing Protection Protocol in order to travel back 30 seconds from where is at one point, to save Nyssa. It leads them to Uncertain Doom.
- Not Now, Kiddo: The Doctor ignores Wilton in the TARDIS. Played for Drama.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Also Played for Drama.
- Officer and a Gentleman: Tillington really isn't that bad.
- Oh, Crap!:
- When the Doctor realizes the Daleks have manifested at the Pan-Temporal Ambience , and are staging a full scale invasion of all periods of time on Earth, and the plan of converting all humans into Dalek slaves on a nano-tech level.
- Another chain of moments happens when The Doctor tries to get to Petersburg, only for the TARDIS to go to the wrong one, then again when he learns that Nyssa's about to be caught in the explosive opening moments of the Battle of The Crater.
- Public Secret Message: The Doctor sings "Three Blind Mice" and makes a few very obvious comments, but like the Cybermen, the Daleks have no clue.
- Railroading: The TARDIS at one point gets stuck in something that is similar to a Time Corridor.
- Ret-Gone: An entire timeline, at the beginning of the story. The entire new timeline after the Greylish stops the Pan-Temporal Ambience, including Wilton.
- Show Within a Show: "The Dalek Invasion is coming! Watch out!"
- Stuff Blowing Up: Nyssa, Mulberry and Floyd nearly get blown up in the Siege of Petersburg
.
- Time Paradox: The story takes place in one taking place because the Daleks have travelled back in their own timeline in order to invade Earth a year later, so that their first invasion becomes null and void.
- Tomato in the Mirror: The Greylish is actually a seed for the Nano-Daleks, and a construct.
- War Is Hell: A very
Anvilicious one. The story starts off with military flexing their muscle on the Doctor. Then goes to The Crusades, The American Civil War, The Vietnam War...
