h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The conclusion was set, the fuse has been lit and now the Grand Galactic Gallifreyan epic was going to close.

FALLS THE SHADOW

The Doctor's fate was left on an almost freeze-frame moment as now without a TARDIS he was surely going to follow? Alas no, like so many conventional cliff-hangers the Doctor is pulled from the danger by an alien.

This race I had always written for though trying to find a suitable place to feature them was sadly lacking until now as the Doctor finds himself no longer on Earth at the mercy of the Index but trapped, seemingly within a glass sphere?

A being of immeasured power over time, an all knowing Seer named Iphoadon had scooped free the Doctor from his fate, being a telepath and blessed with extraordinary powers the seers are charged with watching over time but are unable to act.

Thus by breaking a law, we are priviledged to a slight Doctor-like flaw in this wise figure whose explanations of what is happening is left to the Doctor to wonder.

Across time another being has been saved from the Index, arriving a world that was once destroyed. We are thus priviledged to view the world of Vrella and learn much about Phillips. His motivations and reasoning against Earth was well founded but to be able to spy how civilised, how peaceful his world was/is.

Phillips' choice of name is even explained as being an 'Earthism'of Phillanimous, he is a teacher and is surprised and overjoyed when we are also able to see his wife Xsaskana. Unlike any convential villain Phillips is capable of redemption, he knows that what it is to have committed these acts is wrong and feels guilty by what he has done yet his wife knows nothing of what has transpired.

It is so meaningful that a sudden chunk of Phillips' life is suddenly revealed and no longer could he be seen as a Master-wannabe but her his feelings and philosophy mean something. Though Vrella is only there because of Earth's corruption and destruction by the Index though Phillips is quite unaware of that.

As the scene changes to Gallifrey the Doctor is shown that his home has once more fallen under a Dalek rule once again but as the seer reminds him that it is not the end but instead the beginning. A paradox!

He wants to act to help his people but there is only one being to help him, Phillips.

This is really Phillips' story, though he was the instigator through all of this, his intervention throughout has been poignant, passing from strength to strength, even as the Time Lords and aliens have taken shelter in a presidential shield.
Something I saw as a vast glowing, golden semi-transparent tent with strangely enough, the Red Dalek on the inside, thus is manipulations start to play at the tension building within the group, allowing the reader to see how confident it is.

Artrem and Nicole are seemingly the only ones able to move about beneath the capital thus I was able to expand the ice caves to a place of meditation and have few passages into the eye of harmony chamber below.
I wasn't impressed by the chamber in Deadly Assassin and so I saw a vast stone covered circular chamber with a spiralling ramp to the upper levels where in a crater there would lie a vast stone eye.

Watching secretly from the shadows Artrem and Nicole spy a squad of silver Daleks{I kept to the standard Dalek caste system throughout} creating something, a 'control rig' like a vast hovering ring console surrounding the eye itself. As the two of them return to the surface, they are discovered and their secrecy is broken but Artrem makes short work of them.

Here I incorporated Artrem and Nicole into strong Who continuity, no longer being a side character in a universe but a steady, dependable figure in the proceedings. Immediately the actions starts to heat up.

With the Doctor dispatched by the seer to Vrella, there is a moment of extreme emotion made into Phillips making him no longer greyt but a fully rounded character, who feelings of guilt make him confess to the horrors of his past to his wife. Though she does not understand them, the appearance of the Index and the Doctor set out to drive Phillips into traumatic shock.

Here, he is parted once more from his wife, the only gifts he receives are her love for him as she buys him time and three of his world's precious Baneapple fruits. Phillips instead wants to die with his wife but the Doctor convinces him otherwise, phasing through time, together as the Index takes hold of Vrella and crushes it. Once more Phillips has lost everything, while below the vaults under the capital the Daleks's experiments with the eye are becoming ever more dangerous, a sign that things are getting worse every moment...

Artrem and Nicole join the fray as they manage to wrest free a hoverbout and make their way back to the capital, hoping that something can be done. While the Doctor and Phillips phase through time to arrive on Gallifrey. A paradox is confirmed.

I wanted to add something more to the story, not just have a huge action epic but add something that had never been truly made during the series itself, the paradox was the bonus to making the story that much more unique.

With the Daleks alerted of multiple events, the loss of contact with the scientific section at the Eye and the destruction of Dalek scout units the Black Dalek leaders that the rogue hover unit be destroyed on sight.

As things become harder to get into the capital the Doctor and Phillips are forced to take a sheltered way around, Phillips explains that his energy is low and cannot phase into the capital and bypass the patrols, of course this is a trick as his villainous side comes into play as he tricks the Doctor into surrendering while he escapes during an unnatural tremor caused by them tampering with the Eye.

As Katyen reveals that during this tremor that the shield will hold, the information is relayed via the Red Dalek to the Dalek ship, again the Daleks' cold manipulations are displayed here, although it is regarded as harmless it is still just as dangerous.
Though as it starts to fail a panicky Time Lord heeds the Red Dalek's provokes leading to his extermination as he leaves the shield.

Another control rig is dispatched to the Eye with another team and are informed to continue work despite the rate of temporal activity present, the Doctor is escorted onboard and forced to co-operate with the section or meet old Dalek options of extermination, he tries to desperately explain what damage could be wrought by their meddling but reluctantly agrees and is immediately deployed to the Eye of Harmony.

Phillips although up to this point is once more given a shade of guilt, wrestling with his doubts to a point where in a fit of rage he kills a Dalek guard by throwing it from the roof. And on spying two guards attempting to cut the relay system to the Time Lords' shield, he feigns surrender and attacks them both, dragging free a Dalek gun in the process.

As the Doctor is being escorted along another sharp tremor hits the capital and seizing his chance the Doctor tries to explain the situation and is aided in time by Phillips.

The courtyard breaks into a Dalek onslaught that could never be achieved ever, something in the style of a star wars battle with Phillips leading the fight.

While the Doctor investigates to discover the truth as to what the tremors are, what the origins of the Index are as a great tremor erupts from the Eye, almost like a great geyser erupting from the eye breaking free and wearing away the rock above.
Though at the sudden appearance of a mysterious figure that the Doctor takes to be a seer all the pieces slip into place.

The figure was not a seer but instead at the request or Martin 'Raspy' Penny an inclusion of his humanoid figure to bridge a link in continuity between our two story ranges. Though it is limited to a cameo, it is an important turning point to the story.

However as the Doctor arrives back to the battle the courtyard dissolves by the power of the temporal energy and forced to flee to the safety of their TARDISes the Time Lords leave but they and the Daleks are consumed by the wave after wave of time energy.

As the reaction retreats the Doctor urges Phillips to finish off the last survivor, in truth the heart of the paradox and the Index and while Phillips is off to dispatch it, the Doctor is confronted by his TARDIS- the Index.

The story is not saved by the Doctor, his part is almost a supporting moment buying time and being ever so clever his line is poignant as Phillips destroys the centre of the peril that crushed Vrella, Earth, Skaro,Scarlos, his wife- The Red Dalek itself!

Thus the paradox is broken, this might therefore be seen as the low point to the epic, did it happen or not? Phillips is a Vrellan, his race are more attuned to paradoxi so he remembers it though to all the other protagonists it never happened.

The ending, so silent and still is poignant to the story. Revelations to Phillips' character are especially poetic, a tragic figure and his end, his motive can still remain the same. He lost Vrella once and now again but it proves to him that it can work. That his world can be restored and all he has to do is find the way in...