The Doctor realises that Molly has perfect control over the TARDIS, which is of course downright impossible. He uses his touch telepathy to probe her mind, and traces her memories back to the time she was kidnapped as an infant. When they arrive there to see the events for themselves, they see that baby Molly was taken into a TARDIS... but by someone who, to the Doctor, definitely does not feel like a Time Lord.
Still trying to escape from the Daleks that follow them throughout time and space, Eight and Molly eventually find themselves cornered by the Daleks in a deep cave. The Doctor is a bit surprised when the Daleks try to rescue him and, when he insists on staying inside the cave, offer him sustenance. Before he can react, all his Lucie feelings kick in with a high-pitched screech, and he blacks out.
When he wakes up, he's on Skaro, which is filled with happily playing children and beautiful birds and flowers. Molly had enough of his apparent xenophobia and decided to simply cooperate with the Daleks. While Eight tries to explain that Daleks will always be evil, his caretaker reveals that Skaro is now populated by reformed Daleks, the only ones left after the great war that wiped out all Time Lords and almost all Daleks. They're slowly but steadily re-engineering themselves back into Kaleds. Eight is wary of the idea, but he can't deny that it sounds like his greatest hope. Not surprisingly, he's rather disappointed when he works out that the whole thing is a Lotus-Eater Machine. He wakes up in a cell with a bunch of neural implants coming out of his skull, and realises that he's been captured by the Mezcoranis, a set of robots who believe that the Doctor is basically suffering from a range of mental disorders. Straxus materialises his own TARDIS around the Doctor and Molly, saving them just in time and taking them back to the Doctor's own TARDIS. Back at the cells, Kotris reveals that his goal is the destruction of all Time Lords.
Meanwhile, Straxus' TARDIS is attacked by Daleks, who are working together with Kotris. He makes it back to Gallifrey, where the Lord President is extremely unhappy with how things are going.
Tropes:
- Continuity Nod: The Doctor's fingertips-to-forehead telepathy makes its first appearance in the audios.
- Dramatic Irony: The fake Daleks of the Lotus-Eater Machine tell Eight that long ago, a great war broke out that killed the Time Lords and destroyed almost all Daleks. Eight calls the idea "preposterous", but he's genuinely frightened by the prospect. The new TV series established in "The Night of the Doctor" that at the end of his life, Eight spent an indeterminate amount of time fleeing the Last Great Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks before regenerating into the incarnation who'll join the war to wipe out both races.
- Also counts as
Trolling Creator, as Nicholas Briggs deliberately dangles the proverbial carrot of the Last Great Time War in front of the audience before yanking it away again. At the time of release it counted as Enforced Trope, as neither the BBC (who hadn't granted Big Finish a new-series license yet) nor Russell T Davies nor Briggs himself
(who both thought at the time that the Time War was best left off as a mythical mystery to the ages) seemed keen on Big Finish actually delving into the Last Great Time War. That would eventually change, of course.
- Also counts as
- Even Evil Has Standards: Kotris feels it was unnecessary for the Daleks to wipe out their accomplices. Then, of course, the Daleks, being the genocidal maniacs they are, flip it on its head by being themselves and promptly not giving a monkey's backside about it.
- Falsely Reformed Villain: The Doctor is presented with a scenario where the Daleks have become peaceful after the destruction of the Time Lords, but it's only an illusion created by a Lotus-Eater Machine.
- Gaslighting: The Mezcoranis are basically doing this to the Doctor, but unlike most cases they appear to have been unaware that the threat the Doctor 'imagined' the Daleks to be were actually real, as they appear legitimately shocked when the Daleks appear in reality.
- Heel–Race Turn: The Daleks in the vision claim to have gone through this and become a peaceful race. The Doctor isn't fooled.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Straxus tries to pull one by time-ramming his TARDIS with a Dalek Time Vehicle, saying the failing life signs will make it look like the Doctor and Molly died.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: The Mezcoranis apparently believed that the Daleks were just an example of the Doctor's delusion rather than recognising that they were real.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: The Mezcoranis trap the Doctor in one, which appears to present him with a scenario where the Daleks will become peaceful and start to reverse-engineer themselves back to their original Kaled forms if they defeat the Time Lords in a devastating war.
- Medical Horror
