A two parter story, starring the Sixth Doctor, part released online via SoundCloud.
I.D.
''It's the 32nd Century.Mankind has completely gone digital, implants are used to interact with robots and computers.In a corner of the universe, where old data goes to die (sounds like a romantic place.)A lonely Scandroid stumbles upon some important data. Why is the data so important? The data has been classified important. It has to go and return this, to base.''
The Doctor lands on top of a scrapheap, just outside a Space Station, and he promptly finds himself at the bottom of the scrapheap. And in custody of the Stillingers, a mother and son duo of scrappers and legally ambiguous team of procuring equipment... And people.Ah. That would be the Doctor.
The Doctor being the Doctor, must obviously belong to the Clinic. So they send along Claudia Bridge who doesn't know who the Doctor is, and doesn't have the finances to free a civilian not part of the Clinic, and thus can't save him.
Upset, Denise Sillinger releases the Doctor anyway. If she's not getting paid he's not worth any effort. And aside from that, they have some of his gadgets he kept in his coat, that will bring them a pretty penny at one point, right?
The Doctor chases after Claudia, a bit miffed at the fact she was just going to let him die and wonders where all the manners have gone to in the 32nd century. But more importantly, why would she respond to a hostage situation unless someone was missing? Turns out someone is missing. But don't fret! The TARDIS can surely be the solution! Now where did he park it? It seems to have been moved. Ah.
The lonely Scandroid encounters another Scandroid. Important data to share. The two connect. The other one now has important data to share as well. The two go seperate ways, both back to their own base.
The Doctor and Claudia stumble upon her colleague. Ex-colleague. No pulse, no marks, how did he die?They scout around a bit more, and find more bodies. Only one of them has had violence applied to him, so they must have been Data Pirates, illegally trying to access whatever the Scandroid was carrying.They double back to the clinic not knowing that one of the Scandroids has just entered the Stillinger residence. It connects with Denise, and the data promptly fries her brain. It then stomps towards Gabe and tries to repeat the process. But ... fails? Looks like Gabe Sillinger has an Analogue Brain, not being able to process digital connections, and the Data? His brain can't read it. Which is what saved his life just now.
The Doctor and Claudia reach the Clinic. Where they promptly get shouted at by Doctor Marriot, who doesn't believe their story about killer Scandroids, because Scandroids aren't programmed to kill. Despite their protests, he wanders off. What a pleasant fellow. The Doctor runs after him to try and talk some sense into the man, when he's beset upon by a Scandroid. It grabs him, and starts the datatransfer...
Wait, the Doctor doesn't have any implants either, so he's 100% analogue. So the Scandroid doesn't do anything to him. But in the meantime, several have amassed at the Clinic's front door, and they are slowly but steadily racking up a kill count. The staff can't close the doors because the Scandroids have higher authority.
Marriot sees this (thankfully) and uses his authorisation codes to put the Clinic on lockdown. The Scandroids will not be able to get through the doors, because he outranks them.
And then they get a call. It's Gabe. The Scandroid he told to shut up and shut down has... Well, shut up and shut down. And he wants to sell it back to the Clinic. The Doctor asks him how he did it, and figures out a way to shut down the Scandroids!He has to go and interact with them, one by one. Oh well, saving the day can't always be Stuff Blowing Up can it? As he sets out on his plan of action with Claudia and Ms. Tevez, one of the Clinic's employees, Doctor Marriot has other plans and still wants that Corrupted Data that the Scandroids have. And the one Gabe has sounds harmless now...
In fact, as soon as Gabe gets brought over by Doctor Marriot, he starts mucking around with the info digitally. It was encrypted by it's maker, Omnidisciplinary Scientist Doctor Zachary Kindell. But now it should be perfectly fine! As the Scandroid wanders off, now having "Different Data" Doctor Marriot starts looking at the programme and ... Aah!Pain! But, it's Aaargh, it's resetting his bones, it's turning him into something else completely different!
As Ms. Tevez, is observing everything through Magical Security Cam system, she suddenly notices one of the Scandroids behind her. What, did it have its legs on silent!? She receives the Corrupted Data ... but is still alive? Her voice and demeanour have changed a bit as well, and she starts questioning the Scandroid about things she should already know.
Suddenly, the Doctor can't interact with the Scandroids any more. As the remaining survivors start grouping together, they realize that Marriot, or the thing that Marriot has now become, is still in control of the robots and the facility different genetic make up be damned. And he also knows that Ms. Tevez isn't Ms. Tevez any more, but guesses it's Doctor Kindell. And he's right. Kindell wanted to preserve his mind because he wished to continue his research after he had died, and overwrote Ms. Tevez' brain. His current project was a form of a Super Soldier Serum which would turn the recipient into, well, what Marriot is at the moment.
The Doctor asks if there's anything they could do and Kindell suggests if they manage to get hold of a Scandroid and use the same Brain Uploading technique to make a Robot Me of him, it could now stop the current destructive tendencies.
The plan works, but there still is the matter of Marriot, and the countless of other Scandroids out there that aren't directly a threat to the protagonists in the Clinic, but in the rest of Obsoletion valley. Kindell suggests creating another Mutant. When presented with another of their kind they would always first attack the other Mutant, ignoring the humans. Gabe sees the idea coming, and promptly jacks up Kindell-in-Ms-Tevez body with the Mutant data. The Doctor is appalled but Gabe retorts Kindell more than likely would have done the same to him, plus he effectively killed Ms. Tevez.
The heroes run out of the Clinic, which starts falling apart, and the Doctor manages to reach a master computer, by merely glossing over the data, he sees what Kindell was working on and because the Doctor is as clever as he is, manages to hit a big old Reset Button for the physical mutations Kindell and Marriot were going through.
Unfortunately, both Kindell and Marriot turn into physical copies of Ms. Tevez. Ms. Tevez's brain was backed up, but Marriot's was unable to be restored on account of one of the two still brawling Ms. Tevezs expiring, too much physical damage having been done to her body.
As Claudia, Ms. Tevez, Gabe and the Doctor make way to the TARDIS, Ms. Tevez questions whether or not she was Marriot before she became how she is now, and laments that Marriot couldn't be rescued. The Doctor commends her for this, and encourages her to "just be yourself". Gabe doesn't know what he's going to do. He doesn't know any other way of life. And Claudia? She's going to stick around and keep looking for more of Kindell's research.
The Doctor, fearing the worst, asks her why.
To destroy every bit of Corrupted Data she can find. Nobody should die, and nobody should know the Mutant formula.
This pleases the Doctor, who steps into his TARDIS, and vwoarps away.
Tropes in ID
- Asshole Victim: Denise.
- Later Marriot.
- Bat Deduction: By one sentence the Doctor can find out when he is.
- Beeping Computers: The Scandroids sound like old timey wimey modems when the upload information.
- Body Horror: Marriot undergoes a traumatic transformation later Kindell undergoes the same, but intentional.
- Brain Uploading: Ms. Tevez is on the receiving end of one, being overwritten by Kindell
- Call-Back: The Doctor whips out a telescope from his coat pockets.
- Corrupted Data
- The Corruption: The Scandroids have been infected with Corrupted Data and when they interact with each other they too become corrupt. Marriot programmed the Scandroids to bring critical data to the nearest occupant and download it into them, and to spread that data to other Scandroids to ensure it got to someone important should one fail, which overrode all other functions and command. The data, meanwhile, wasn't meant to be spread out as it was, and was designed to make the user stop breathing, which prevented the download from being successful. Both Kindell and Marriot comment on their respective oversights into the situation.
- Cyborg: Humans in the 32nd century use data implants to communicate with robots and computers.
- Distinction Without a Difference:
- The Doctor: This looks like a junkyard.Claudia: Obsoletion valley. Where all machines come to die.The Doctor: So. A junkyard.
- Evilutionary Biologist: Kindell is this, though more for making the perfect bio weapon.
- For Science!: Zachary Kindell has this as his entire motivation.
- Gadgeteer Genius: The Doctor has several devices in his pockets, and later cobbles together a random device out of spare parts.
- Grand Theft Me: Ms. Tevez gets taken over by Dr. Zachary Kindell.
- Gray-and-Gray Morality: The Clinic is scouring for data leftover in various computers left in a junkyard in order to sell various personality aspects to buyers. This is as innocuous and legal as adding an aspect into someone's head to outright giving someone a person's entire backed-up mind. One of the Clinic's workers, Claudia, deliberately had her conscience removed, as it made her feel guilty too often to be effective. The Doctor doesn't approve of any of this.
- Hostage Situation: The Doctor gets used as one early in the story.
- Immune to Bullets: The Scandroids are big hunking metal robots, so they're this, obviously.
- Killer Robot: The Scandroids kill inadvertently at first, until they're taken over by Mutant!Marriot.
- The Klutz: The Doctor's initial appearance in the story.
- My Skull Runneth Over: The effect of the Corrupted Data; specifically, it was designed to target the part of the user's mind that made them breath and delete it.
- Non-Malicious Monster / Just Following Orders: The Scandroids just do what they're programmed to do, they don't intentionally kill.
- Not That Kind of Doctor
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Zachary Kindell is an Evilutionary Biologist, a master programmer, built the Scandroids, and created a process that allowed the body to be transformed in extreme ways by the mind alone.
- Robot Me: Kindell's personality gets implanted in a Scandroid later on, creating two of him at the same time; Scandroid!Kindell then spreads this personality over to the others, freeing them from Marriot's control and eliminating the copies of his work that they had.
- Smart People Build Robots: Kindell created the Scandroids.
-
Technology Marches On: Touch screen technology is considered outdated. - Turned Against Their Masters: The Scandroids infected with Kindell's work, and the Mutants that Kindell's work created.
- Your Mind Makes It Real: Kindell's process was designed to allow the user's brain to redesign the body, allowing them to shape themselves as they wished. Suffice to say, he didn't get it quite right.
Urgent Calls
A woman comes home from work and tries to ring her mother, but gets the Doctor on the line. The Doctor, who randomly picked up a phone ringing in a phone box, so he says, and in a Suspiciously Specific Denial deduces what the she's contracted when she mentions bleeding fingernails. He tells her to go visit the nearest hospital immediately, insist on having a physical examination, and not let any one deter her from it.
At work, her being a telephone operator, rings a customer and ... gets the Doctor again. She tells him her story, telling him she had that physical examination, which took a really, really strange turn, and now she is being afraid of not being believed by anybody. Turns out, she was carrying a small silver, metallic snake that had attached to her spine. It is removed by a small Doctor in a white coat and Lauren is made to sign the Official Secrets Act about this.
The Doctor realizes she hasn't given her name yet, and she says it's Lauren. They get in touch again and the Doctor explains that a technological virus has been crossing the lines, probably for military purposes, and doesn't know whether or not it is for malicious purposes or just an accident.
He employs Lauren by having her give him all the wrong numbers that dialed her, and this helps him. Though, he does get jailed, it works out because Lauren inadvertedly wins the a prize draw at a radio station, and uses part of her winnings to get him legal aid.
The Doctor once again, explains he's about to find out what happened, and shows he's been listening to her and not just brushing her off. They hang up ... and ...
Time Skip to some time later, probably after the won holiday. Lauren and the Doctor never spoke again. She thinks this is a good thing because it meant he must have prevented aliens giving us WiFi, she just felt bad she Never Got to Say Goodbye. Her life now seems dull and boring, so she's writing him a letter. No address. Just his name.She thinks it'll arrive.
Check it out here: https://soundcloud.com/big-finish/doctor-who-urgent-calls
Tropes in Urgent Calls
-
Bile Fascination: Lauren develops one due to her brush with death. - Body Horror: What nearly happens to Lauren.
- Bonus Episode
- Cassandra Truth: Lauren is afraid this is her case.
- The Confidant: The Doctor is this to Lauren.
- Contrived Coincidence: The lady who keeps ringing other numbers keeps getting the Doctor on the line... This turns out to actually be an important plot point.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: The entire episode of Urgent Calls consists out of phone calls between a lady called Lauren and the Doctor, and we never completely find out what was going on.
- Go-to Alias: The Doctor gets jailed while using his pseudonym of John Smith.
- Government Conspiracy
- Impossibly Tacky Clothes: When Lauren mentions being seen by a millitary doctor, the Doctor asks if she was seen by a tall chap, with white hair and a very flamboyant coat. She instead describes a small, bald man with a white coat on.
- Insufferable Genius: A "what are the chances" has the Doctor start calculating the actual odds.
- Jumped at the Call: Lauren jumps at the chance at helping the Doctor, finding the concept of aliens very interesting.
- Also; Pun!
- Never Got to Say Goodbye: Lauren laments this of the Doctor, though tries to think this is a good thing as it could mean he stopped the virus.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Though, he still helps a medical case.
- One Phone Call: The Doctor uses it to ask Lauren to pay for a solicitor.
- Shout-Out to Shakespeare: "Discretion is the better part of valour", a misquote from Henry V.
- The World Is Not Ready: The Doctor says he makes this his business, saying the virus is one of these even if it has helped Lauren. He points out how devastating the virus could be if reverse engineered, possibly utilized to assassinate someone by just calling them up. He also brings up how boring and unsatisfying things would be if things kept falling into one's lap, or how one would feel seeing someone else getting so much luck, if the virus were to remain a positive force.
- Weirdness Censor: Lauren complains to the Doctor that the average person in society doesn't pick up on the weirdness.
