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{{Infobox Individual | {{Infobox Individual | ||
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|alias = The Scorpion King | |alias = The Scorpion King | ||
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'''Adric''' was a [[companion]] of the [[Fourth Doctor|Fourth]] and [[Fifth Doctor]]s. | '''Adric''' was a [[companion]] of the [[Fourth Doctor|Fourth]] and [[Fifth Doctor]]s. | ||
Revision as of 18:06, 15 August 2022
- You may be looking for Andric or Adric Traken.
Adric was a companion of the Fourth and Fifth Doctors.
An Alzarian resident of E-Space, Adric stowed away in the TARDIS after the Fourth Doctor, Romana II and K9 visited his planet. He joined them on their adventures and into N-Space, where the Doctor regenerated into his fifth incarnation and was joined by Tegan Jovanka and Nyssa. He died aboard a freighter after helping to defeat the Cybermen, trying to stop it from crashing into prehistoric Earth.
Using Block Transfer Computation, a bubble universe was created in which Adric survived and ruled a race of giant scorpions. This Adric tried to get revenge on the Doctor and marry Nyssa, but eventually changed his mind and died indefinitely after returning the TARDIS to them.
Biography
Early life
Adric was born on Alzarius to Morell and Talisa in the 32nd century. (AUDIO: The Invasion of E-Space, A Full Life) He had a brother, Varsh, (TV: Full Circle) who was about three and a half years older. (PROSE: Full Circle) According to most accounts, Morell and Talisa died in a forest fire when Adric was one, (PROSE: Full Circle; AUDIO: The Invasion of E-Space, A Full Life) after which he and Varsh were raised by friends of their parents. (PROSE: Full Circle)
According to one account, Adric's parents did not die in a forest fire. They quickly realised that Adric had a flair for pure mathematics and, at the age of about eight, he was put into the Terradonian starliner's accelerated learning programme. By the age of twelve, he was more intelligent than his parents and Varsh put together. Adric's parents then died in a farming accident. (PROSE: A Boy's Tale)
When Adric was seven, a Decider gave him a coin which appeared to be gold; in fact, it only had a molecule-thin coating which gave it the appearance of being made of gold. He always carried it around in his pocket. (PROSE: Doctor Who and Warriors' Gate)
Ranked as an Elite, Adric was awarded a Star for Mathematical Excellence. (TV: Full Circle) His only friends were Jiana, whom he grew up with, (PROSE: Divided Loyalties) and Zayn, whose family thought that he was strange. He once grew tired with everything that he interacted with being made of metal and wires and longed to have a dog, eventually going with Máire to her settlement where she let him hold one of her dogs. He visited several times in secret in order to play with them. (PROSE: A Boy's Tale)
Varsh left the starliner and formed the Outlers due to his frustration with the rules of Alzarian society, a frustration which Adric shared; (PROSE: Full Circle) Adric believed that his being so much more intelligent than Varsh might have been the reason that he left. (PROSE: A Boy's Tale) He wanted to join the Outlers and attempted to prove himself by stealing riverfruit, but he was unsuccessful. (TV: Full Circle) His interest in being a rebel scared Jiana, who ran away from him. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)
Travels in the TARDIS
Meeting the Fourth Doctor
Adric met the Fourth Doctor, Romana and K9 when he came across the TARDIS after determining that Mistfall was not fiction. He helped to uncover the truth of the Alzarians and found his brother's body after he was overwhelmed by Marshmen. Keara handed him Varsh's belt, which he wore. (TV: Full Circle) Hoping to see the universe as the Doctor's companion, he stowed away in the TARDIS. (TV: State of Decay)
Travelling with the Fourth Doctor
Exiting the TARDIS on the vampire planet, Adric was taken prisoner by the Three Who Rule and was reunited with the Doctor and Romana. He pretended to share the agenda of the vampires in order to save Romana from being sacrificed, but he failed. Ultimately, the pair were saved by the Doctor who, displeased with Adric having stowed away, told Adric that he was to be returned to Alzarius. (TV: State of Decay) However, he soon had no intention of taking him back. (AUDIO: The Invasion of E-Space, etc.)
The TARDIS crew spent nine days at the Structure, where Adric worried at how the two Time Lords' concept of time might mean they would spend any length of time in one place. (PROSE: O, Darkness) After two months of travelling, the Doctor was looking for a Charged Vacuum Emboitment to take them to N-Space. They found one near Ballustra but were forced to close it. (AUDIO: The Invasion of E-Space) On Veridis, the Doctor and Romana died and Adric grew old and married Asun, having two sons; Varsh and Neegat. Eventually, he built a time machine using crystals from the TARDIS and saved them, changing time. (AUDIO: A Full Life)
Although he grew close to K9 due to his love of dogs, (PROSE: A Boy's Tale) he felt that he was disruptive to the Doctor and Romana and temporarily left them on Purgatory 12 where he considered making a copy of Varsh. He rejoined the Doctor and Romana afterwards. (AUDIO: Purgatory 12) He became part of a gestalt entity for a brief time and liked it, feeling a part of something and being somewhere that he belonged. (AUDIO: Chase the Night)
At the Gateway, Adric prepared to leave his universe for E-Space and said goodbye to Romana and K9 when they chose to stay with the Tharils. (TV: Warriors' Gate) He and the Doctor answered the Keeper's call for them to visit Traken, where he met and befriended Nyssa and helped defeat the Decayed Master. (TV: The Keeper of Traken)
Adric missed Romana, (AUDIO: Psychodrome) but especially missed K9, to whom he wrote letters which he threw out into space in bottles. (PROSE: A Boy's Tale) For a time, Adric and the Doctor travelled with another K9 model, visiting Space Station Alpha, (PROSE: Inter-Galactic Cat) Möbian space, (PROSE: Conundrum) Elystria, (AUDIO: Planet of Paradise) Publius (COMIC: Plague World) and Xiter. (PROSE: Just a Small Problem) Eventually, the Doctor gave K9 to Sarah Jane Smith. (TV: A Girl's Best Friend)
Landing in Mauritz's monastery, Adric and the Doctor met multiple possible versions of themselves. (PROSE: Mauritz) On Bellascon, Adric was wiped from history after a spaceship carrying his ancestors was destroyed, but returned thanks to Narvin using time travel to prevent the explosion. (AUDIO: Erasure) The duo once again encountered the Master whilst attempting to repair the chameleon circuit. They were joined by Nyssa and Tegan Jovanka who helped them stop the Master and who joined the TARDIS crew after the Doctor regenerated into his fifth body. (TV: Logopolis)
Travelling with the Fifth Doctor
Immediately after the Doctor's regeneration, the Master kidnapped Adric and held him in the Hadron web, using his mathematical prowess to produce his own version of Block Transfer Computation to create Castrovalva as a trap for the Doctor. However, the Doctor saw through the trap and saved Adric, destroying the city and defeating the Master. (TV: Castrovalva)
The TARDIS next landed on the Psychodrome where Adric faced his fears of letting people down and facing a mathematical problem that he could not solve, all the while getting to know his new companions better. (AUDIO: Psychodrome) In 2592, Adric met the Seventh Doctor, Roz Forrester and the Doctor's wife (PROSE: Cold Fusion) and later helped to defeat giant termites on Isopterus, (COMIC: On the Planet Isopterus) was taken over by the mother program in 1950s England (PROSE: First Born) and served as squire to Sir Keeyoht of la Koura. (AUDIO: The Ingenious Gentleman Adric of Alzarius)
Attempting to get Tegan to Heathrow Airport, the TARDIS landed on a ship where Adric agreed with and joined Monarch before the Doctor managed to change his mind. (TV: Four to Doomsday) Upon leaving, they landed on Deva Loka where Adric used a Total Survival Suit to defend against the Mara-controlled Aris, (TV: Kinda) for which he was scolded by the Doctor. In 1666, he helped Nyssa build a sonic booster to destroy a Terileptil, android. (TV: The Visitation)
Determined to prove himself worthy of his place in the TARDIS, Adric chose to face the Celestial Toymaker's challenges, during which the Toymaker tried to turn him against the Doctor by showing him a hallucination of Jiana and his mother and father. The hallucination reminded Adric of some of the things he had faced because of the Doctor, but Adric did not give in. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties) In 1016, he introduced an Asian tribe to the longbow. The deaths that would result from this concerned the Doctor. (PROSE: The Immortals) He argued with Tegan whilst Nyssa was called by the Master's communication node. (AUDIO: The Toy)
Adric wanted to learn how to fly the TARDIS and ran a number of simulations, killing everyone aboard in each. To help, the Doctor took the crew to Gallius Ultima where Adric had something of a romance with Autumn Tace. He used his mathematical ability to calculate the trajectory to pilot a satellite to deflect a crashing spaceship. When Rovus tried to possess him, Adric used mathematical sequences, such a prime numbers and the Fibonacci sequence, to concentrate his mind to stop it. After Autumn died, the Doctor told Adric that he could not use time travel to undo established events. (AUDIO: The Star Men) Afterwards, when the TARDIS landed at the Contigency Club he was intrigued at what happened in there. Escaping with Marjorie Stonegood, they discovered an underground bathhouse on their way back to the surface. He helped the Doctor escape from the Red Queen but was captured himself. (AUDIO: The Contingency Club) He decided to start reading all the books on Vampires once he finished all the maths books. Tegan asked him to pilot the TARDIS back to Heathrow, but something went wrong and he disappeared from the console room. He landed on a ship and pretended to be Perrault to get information. He was was captured by Gevaudan but later escaped and told the Doctor that there was something wrong with the trajectory of the meteor. (AUDIO: Zaltys)
In 1920s England, Adric fought the Master once again and met Harry Houdini. (AUDIO: Smoke and Mirrors) Tegan confided in him that she had begun to enjoy travelling in the TARDIS. He pretended to be an assassin contracted to stop the Scorpion. (AUDIO: Kingdom of Lies) He searched through a set of catacombs with Nyssa where they were attacked by a mysterious force. After being flung into the future, he was trialled for stealing some bread and sentenced to death. The brotherhood of Sabaoth was interested with him. The Doctor and Nyssa saved him from being hanged. (AUDIO: Ghost Walk) He helped to solve a murder on Argentia, which he watched one of them happen. (AUDIO: Serpent in the Silver Mask) He was, like Nyssa and Tegan, kidnapped by Adam Mitchell after fighting Sontarans and Rutans, (COMIC: In Their Nature) later being rescued by multiple Doctors. (COMIC: Endgame)
Adric believed the girls were a hindrance to his relationship with the Doctor and had a clear preference for the Fourth Doctor. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties, TV: Earthshock) However, the two share solo adventures on Vaga (PROSE: The Key of Vaga) and Ixos-4. (PROSE: Planet of Fear) When the crew visited Cranleigh, Adric briefly met and flirted with Ace, who was looking for one of the segments of the Key to Time. She threatened to give him a permanent limp if he continued. (COMIC: Time & Time Again) At Cranleigh Hall, he dressed up as a pirate but refused to dance. (TV: Black Orchid)
On one occasion, Adric, the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan spent Christmas with the renegade Time Lady Iris Wildthyme, who was fond of him. (AUDIO: Excelis Dawns) On another occasion, Adric used Block Transfer Computation to make a cake for Christmas dinner. (PROSE: In the TARDIS: Christmas Day) The crew also celebrated Freedom Day on Lemuria. (PROSE: The Constant Doctor)
On Battlefield, Adric was stabbed in the chest but survived due to his heart being on the other side of his chest. (PROSE: The Darkening Day) He and Nyssa attempted to fly the TARDIS and landed on Fleming's Island where the crew faced the I Predator, with which Adric was able to find a way to communicate. (AUDIO: Iterations of I) After grumbling to Nyssa during a chess game, he wandered out onto a planet of statues where he started to become one of them. The Doctor saved him, much to his annoyance, and Nyssa made him promise that he would wait a few months before he asked to return. Adric agreed. (PROSE: Hearts of Stone)
Death
Feeling left out by the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan, Adric told the Doctor that he wanted to be taken to Terradon, a trip that the Doctor refused to make. Adric made the calculations (TV: Earthshock) and unintentionally created a program whereby the TARDIS would return to E-Space should it pass close to a CVE. (AUDIO: Mistfall) However, he admitted to the Doctor that he was just making a point and did not want to go back as there was nothing for him in his universe.
Adric was caught up in a failed plan of the Neomorph Cybermen to bombard Earth with Briggs's freighter in 2526 whilst the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan were stuck on the TARDIS with the Cyber-Leader, whom the Doctor killed using Adric's Star for Mathematical Excellence. Adric tried to change the freighter's course but the control system was damaged by a Cyberman. Clutching onto Varsh's sash, Adric resigned himself to his fate and died as the freighter crashed into prehistoric Earth. (TV: Earthshock)
After the crash, Adric found himself in the Nethersphere, where Seb tried to convince him to become a Cyberman. (PROSE: Seb) Missy recorded Adric's presence in the Nethersphere in her Masterplan Journal with particular delight. (PROSE: The Secret Diary of the Master)
The bubble universe
In the 19th century, the Fifth Doctor attempted to use Block Transfer Computation to redirect his TARDIS to him. He subconsciously appeared to Adric on the freighter as a ghost just before he died and fed him numbers for entry into the computer, creating a bubble universe in which Adric survived the freighter's descent to Earth.
Adric tamed the giant scorpions on prehistoric Earth and built and ruled a City of Excellence using Block Transfer. He extended his own life and lived for five hundred years, hoping to get revenge on the Doctor for not saving him as well as to take Nyssa as his wife. When the Doctor and Nyssa finally arrived, the scorpions turned against Adric to prevent him from leaving, and thus destroying, the bubble universe. Adric learnt his lesson and, after helping Thomas Brewster pilot the TARDIS back to the Doctor and Nyssa, finally died. (AUDIO: The Boy That Time Forgot)
Undated events
At some point, Adric was taken to the Black Archive by UNIT to have his record as a companion of the Doctor taken. His memories of the visit were subsequently erased and he was sent on his way. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Whilst he was regenerating, the Fifth Doctor psychically called out to his companions for help. Adric told him that he "mustn't die". (AUDIO: Winter; TV: The Caves of Androzani)
Legacy
Info from The Lost Resort needs to be added
Adric's death led the Doctor to swear that he would not allow any of his other companions to die during his fifth incarnation. (PROSE: Goth Opera) The Fifth Doctor did not forgive himself. He came to realise that he had mistreated Adric because the boy reminded him of his own younger self (AUDIO: Conversion) and, just before he regenerated, the last word he said was "Adric?" (TV: The Caves of Androzani)
An illusion of Adric appeared to Nyssa and Tegan to dissuade them from entering Kalid's inner sanctum, warning them to turn back or they would destroy him. The girls thought at first this was the real Adric, until they noticed that the illusion was wearing Adric's by-now-destroyed star-shaped badge. (TV: Time-Flight) Nyssa named her only son Adric in his honour. (AUDIO: Heroes of Sontar)
On Adeki, the Seventh Doctor found what appeared to be Adric, along with other former companions, alive again and desperate to leave in the TARDIS. He learned that these were actually Gwanzulums, a race of shapeshifters. (COMIC: Planet of the Dead)
While in a Hell-like world composed of the Seventh Doctor's mind, Ace met an eerie, ghost-like recreation of Adric along with other companions of his who had died because of him. (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation)
Whilst in the Divergent Universe, the Eighth Doctor was shown an illusory version of Adric by the Kro'ka. (AUDIO: The Last)
The Tenth Doctor watched Adric die again — this time as a manifestation of the TARDIS Matrix. (COMIC: The Forgotten) The Lost later mentioned Adric to the him as one of the many losses the Doctor had endured during his life. (AUDIO: The Lost) The Tenth Doctor was infuriated when the Advocate used Adric's death against him in order to estrange him from his companions. (COMIC: Tesseract)
Personality
Adric was a mathematical genius and was proud of his Elite status, which he believed made him better than other people. (TV: Full Circle) His greatest fears were a mathematical problem that he could not solve and not fitting in, (AUDIO: Psychodrome) with the latter manifesting when he wanted to be part of the Outlers (TV: Full Circle) and when he felt left out by the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan. (TV: Earthshock)
Aukon believed that Adric had the strength of spirit to survive becoming a vampire. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) He was stubborn and set in his beliefs, including sexist ones such as his insistence that women were "mindless, impatient and bossy". (TV: Four to Doomsday) Two days after she met him, Tegan told Nyssa that Adric "rubbed [her] up the wrong way" and accused him of being condescending and "a male chauvinist." (AUDIO: Psychodrome) However, she warmed to him and believed that he was not a boy but a developing young man who would "strike out" on his own and forge his own future. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties) The Fourth Doctor believed that Adric would "love it" on Gallifrey. (TV: Warriors' Gate)
Adric felt that the only person who understood him was Varsh, with whom he shared a dislike for the restrictions of Alzarian society. (PROSE: Full Circle) When Varsh died, Adric kept his marshreed belt, a symbol of Outler membership, (TV: Full Circle) and blamed himself for his death. (AUDIO: Purgatory 12) Although he generally did not think about his family after their deaths, he did begin to think of them more, especially his mother, after visiting Traken. He formed a strong attachment to K9 and missed him greatly when he stayed in E-Space. (PROSE: A Boy's Tale)
Adric watched recordings of Monty Python in the TARDIS's television lounge and often quoted from the series. (PROSE: Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life) He did not enjoy dancing (TV: Black Orchid) and had a big appetite. (TV: Four to Doomsday, Black Orchid) He never enjoyed music, far preferring the symphony of numbers. (AUDIO: The Contingency Club)
Appearance
Adric was a snub-nosed, round-faced boy (PROSE: Kinda) with dark hair (TV: Full Circle, etc.) and wicked, black button eyes. (PROSE: Castrovalva) His usual expression was one of cheerful impudence. (PROSE: Four to Doomsday)
He wore a dull-coloured shirt beneath a yellow tunic with his Star for Mathematical Excellence affixed to an orange breast-pocket and a pair of muddy-coloured trousers tucked into boots. (PROSE: Earthshock) Because of his outfit, Tegan nicknamed him Pyjama Boy. (AUDIO: The Contingency Club) He wore the same outfit for most of his travels in the TARDIS, with a costume for a party at Cranleigh Hall being a notable exception. (TV: Black Orchid) He often forgot to bathe, resulting in him smelling sweaty and unpleasant. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)
Alternative timelines
In an alternate timeline, Adric was stuck on Veridis with K9 and the dying TARDIS after the Fourth Doctor and Romana died to shut down Tivorg's machine. He became a doctor and married Asun, having two children named Varsh and Neegat. After their children grew up, the couple travelled Veridis and helped its inhabitants.
Following Asun's death, Adric grew close to Reebac and his grandson. He began to have dreams of the Master and his entropy wave destroying N-Space and knew that only the Doctor could stop it. Discovering that his Time Lord companions did not have to die to stop the machine, he constructed a time machine using crystals from the TARDIS and prevented their deaths. (AUDIO: A Full Life)
In another alternate timeline, the Doctor was able to save Adric. (PROSE: So Vile a Sin)
Behind the scenes
- Andrew Smith developed a backstory for Adric in order to understand the character, although it was not explored in Full Circle. In this backstory, Adric had discovered that Draith caused his parents' deaths in order to keep people from wanting to disembark the starliner.[1]
- His character was pitched as "The Artful Dodger in space".
- Matthew Waterhouse has said that the reason he thought the Doctor found Adric annoying was that he noticed some of himself in the boy. Waterhouse theorised that Adric had many qualities of the comparatively young and arrogant First Doctor, whom the Fifth Doctor, in particular, seemed to want to distance himself from. (DOC: The Doctors Revisited - The Fifth Doctor)
- According to FASA's The Master Sourcebook, which this wiki does not consider a valid source, Adric was saved from his death by the Celestial Intervention Agency, and became the Time Lady Lemora's companion.
- The character of Adric evolved from a young pacifistic female Marshchild who would have sacrificed herself keeping the Doctor and Romana safe.[1]
- He was killed off because it was decided that three companions was too many and that the character was unpopular. Matthew Waterhouse was uspet at this decision, but was mollified slightly by the fact that the Doctor could still visit Adric at any point in time.
- He was originally going to be killed off in an unmade story called The Enemy Within.
Footnotes
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