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{{Infobox Story | {{Infobox Story SMW | ||
|image = Unnatural History.jpg | |image = Unnatural History.jpg | ||
| | |range = BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures | ||
|number = 23 | |number in range = #23 | ||
|doctor = Eighth Doctor | |number = 23 | ||
|companions = [[ | |doctor = Eighth Doctor | ||
|enemy = [[Griffin (Unnatural History)|Griffin]], [[Faction Paradox]], [[Kraken (Unnatural History)|Kraken]] | |companions = [[Sam Jones|Sam]], [[Fitz Kreiner|Fitz]] | ||
|setting = [[San Francisco]], [[2002]]; [[London]], [[2002]] | |enemy = [[Griffin (Unnatural History)|Griffin]], [[Faction Paradox]], [[Kraken (Unnatural History)|Kraken]] | ||
|writer = | |setting = [[San Francisco]], [[2002]]; [[London]], [[2002]] | ||
|publisher = BBC Books | |writer = Jonathan Blum, Kate Orman | ||
|cover=[[Black Sheep]] | |publisher = BBC Books | ||
|release date = | |cover = [[Black Sheep]] | ||
|format = Paperback Book; 30 Chapters, | |release date = 7 June 1999 | ||
|isbn = ISBN 0-563-55576-9 | |format = Paperback Book; 30 Chapters, 279 Pages | ||
|prev = Dominion (novel) | |isbn = ISBN 0-563-55576-9 | ||
|next = Autumn Mist (novel) | |series = [[BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures|BBC ''Eighth Doctor Adventures'']] | ||
|prev = Dominion (novel) | |||
'''''Unnatural History''''' was the twenty-third [[BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures]] | |next = Autumn Mist (novel) | ||
}} | |||
'''''Unnatural History''''' was the twenty-third novel in the [[BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures|BBC ''Eighth Doctor Adventures'']] series. It was written by [[Jonathan Blum]] and [[Kate Orman]], released [[7 June (releases)|7 June]] [[1999 (releases)|1999]]{{fact}} and featured the [[Eighth Doctor]], [[Sam Jones]] and [[Fitz Kreiner]]. | |||
This novel explained several issues concerning Sam Jones that were introduced in ''[[Alien Bodies (novel)|Alien Bodies]]''. | |||
== Publisher's summary == | == Publisher's summary == | ||
"They called it the Millennium Effect", said the Doctor. "But the millennium was only beginning." | "They called it the Millennium Effect", said [[Eighth Doctor|the Doctor]]. "But the millennium was only beginning." | ||
[[San Francisco]] has changed since the start of [[2000]]. The laws of physics keep having acid flashbacks. There are sightings of creatures from outside our dimensions, stranded [[alien]]s and surrealist street performers. The city has become a mecca for those who revel in impossible creatures — and those who want to see them pinned down and put away. | [[San Francisco]] has changed since the start of [[2000]]. The laws of physics keep having acid flashbacks. There are sightings of creatures from outside our dimensions, stranded [[alien]]s and surrealist street performers. The city has become a mecca for those who revel in impossible creatures — and those who want to see them pinned down and put away. | ||
Sam's past is catching up with her — a past she didn't know she had. The Doctor is in danger of becoming the ''pièce de résistance'' in a twisted collection of creatures. And beneath the waters of the Bay, something huge is waiting. | [[Sam Jones|Sam]]'s past is catching up with her — a past she didn't know she had. The Doctor is in danger of becoming the ''pièce de résistance'' in a twisted collection of creatures. And beneath the waters of the Bay, something huge is waiting. | ||
With time running out, the Doctor must choose which to sacrifice — a city of wonders, or the life of an old and dear friend. | With time running out, the Doctor must choose which to sacrifice — a city of wonders, or the life of an old and dear friend. | ||
== Chapter titles == | |||
Day Zero Minus Three | |||
# I Was a Teenage Paradox | |||
# If You Can Remember the Future, You Weren't Really There | |||
Day Zero Minus Two | |||
# Second String | |||
# Bird of Paradox | |||
# Licentious Moments | |||
Day Zero Minus One | |||
# The Unnaturalist | |||
# Kraken Up | |||
# The Memory Cheating Ain't What it Used to Be | |||
# Abducted by Aliens | |||
# Somewhere, Just Out of Sight, the Unicorn Are Being Gathered | |||
# Kyra | |||
Day Zero | |||
# Stuffed and Mounted | |||
# The Book of Lies | |||
# Hero in Use | |||
Night Zero | |||
# Anything Not Nailed Down is Mine | |||
# Anything I Can Pry Loose is Not Nailed Down | |||
# What Lies, Behind Us | |||
# Coming Unstrung | |||
Free-Frame | |||
# Buying Time | |||
# The City Killer | |||
The i Doctors | |||
# Impossible Creatures | |||
Day Zero Plus Seven | |||
Epilogue: The Other Woman | |||
== Plot == | == Plot == | ||
''to be | In [[2002]], the [[Eighth Doctor]] comes to the apartment of dark-haired Sam, an alternate [[Sam Jones]] who never travelled with him, attempting to tell her about her life as blonde Sam. Sam brushes him off and goes to work, where she receives a call from her mother insisting that she come home and listen to what the Doctor is telling them. After work, Sam’s parents show her postcards and letters they’ve been receiving from blonde Sam for the past five years. She agrees to talk to the Doctor, who explains more about blonde Sam, and how she had recently fallen into a “dimensional anomaly” in [[San Francisco]] and been replaced by dark-haired Sam. Sam initially does not believe him, insisting that this is a prank, but when she runs she is threatened by [[Boy (Unnatural History)|a child wielding a knife]]. The Doctor tries to talk him down, but the boy stabs him. Sam takes the Doctor back to her apartment, attempts to treat his wound, and agrees to go with him to San Francisco. | ||
Meanwhile, [[Fitz Kreiner]] is in San Francisco, investigating various supernatural phenomena in the area. [[Eldin Sanchez]], who publishes [[Interesting Times]] (a paranormal zine), gives Fitz a few leads, including a woman named [[Kyra Skye]], who has been tracking new ley lines around the city. | |||
Sam and the Doctor fly to San Francisco. Fitz and the Doctor discuss the ongoing crisis and whether they can get back “their” Sam. Fitz suggests calling in [[UNIT]]; the Doctor says he already called [[Adrienne Kramer]] and was not able to secure her or UNIT’s help. The three go to the scar in reality, which the Doctor reveals to be a byproduct of [[Doctor Who (TV story)|his adventures on New Year’s Eve 1999]]. He has placed the [[TARDIS]] around the scar as a stopgap measure, but the TARDIS will be destroyed by the scar if they don’t find another way to seal or contain it in the next three days. He asks Sam to get closer and investigate herself. As she gets closer, she has flashbacks of her other self’s similar experience when she first visited the scar. She accuses the Doctor of trying to get her to fall into the scar to get blonde Sam back and attempts to run. She is stopped by soldiers in grey uniforms. She, the Doctor, and Fitz successfully fight them off, but Sam hits her head and falls unconscious as she is carried away from the scene by the Doctor. | |||
While they regroup at the hotel, Sam, Fitz, and the Doctor realise that the boy who stabbed the Doctor is the same boy Fitz has been using as a source on supernatural phenomena. The Doctor, desperate, sends a [[hypercube]] to the Time Lords for aid. Sam asks Fitz if her other self and the Doctor are “shagging,” and Fitz says he isn’t sure. The three go and find the boy, who reveals himself as a member of [[Faction Paradox]]. | |||
Sam and the Doctor get dinner while Fitz goes to meet with Kyra. Kyra and Fitz perform a ritual at a ley line, which causes strong energy readings and weather patterns. The Doctor hallucinates purple objects floating in the air at dinner, which Sam is able to calm him down about. Sam makes multiple attempts to flirt with the Doctor, including giving him a back rub, but he ultimately rejects her. The Doctor suggests that he and his unstable [[biodata]] might have been the reason Sam changed, and that his subconscious longing for a companion is what made blonde Sam who she was. | |||
The Time Lords do not respond to the hypercube, leaving the Doctor, Fitz, and Sam scrambling. Fitz and Sam stake out the scar, watching the grey soldiers. The soldiers appear not to know exactly where the scar is, only the general location. Sam and Fitz lose track of the soldiers due to their ability to be as nondescript as possible. Sam offers Fitz a cigarette, which he declines, stating that with blonde Sam gone one of them must be the nice one. Sam then gets mugged by a unicorn. | |||
The Doctor finds professor [[Ulysses|Daniel Joyce]], a mysterious contact from his past who now works at Berkeley. Joyce and his colleagues have been studying the scar, and he agrees to help the Doctor. Joyce also gives the Doctor a key to his house and offers to let the Doctor stay with him and his wife if the TARDIS does leave him stranded, to which the Doctor politely declines. | |||
The unicorn who mugged Sam gets captured by [[Griffin (Unnatural History)|an unidentified man]]. | |||
The Doctor meets up with Eldin Sanchez to look for more information, but is spotted by one of the grey soldiers and runs, jumping onto a tourist boat in the bay. He is greeted there by another grey soldier, Bob, who acts casually, as neither of them have anywhere else they can go. The Doctor deduces that he and the other soldiers are [[Henches]], generic soldiers and servants who were supposed to be delivered to a warzone on Teso Peope and were stranded before they were given any command. They’ve “imprinted” on someone in San Francisco and are following their commands, but it is unclear who. The Doctor jumps off the boat. | |||
Sam and Fitz get a call from the Doctor asking them to meet him at the centre of the [[Golden Gate Bridge]]. The Doctor explains that the scar has attracted the attention of a Kraken, an extradimensional entity that will eat the scar (and the city along with it) in "about a day and a half." A pulse of energy runs through the city and towards the scar, which Sam perceives as a "[[Wild Hunt]]," though others perceive it differently. It effects Sam more than Fitz and the Doctor, destabilizing her biodata and rewriting her into another slightly different version of herself. Sam panics about this, and the Doctor talks her down by telling her that who she is now is more relevant than what the exact details of her past are. Fitz gets new information about where the Henches might be reporting to, and the three go to investigate. | |||
The information Fitz received was apparently a trap, and the three are kidnapped. All three are blindfolded while a mysterious figure with seemingly too many hands experiments on them, removing the Doctor's ability to see the color purple and adding tags to all three's nervous systems. They are released on the street, with no clue as to where they were taken. Fitz mentions the ley lines, to which the Doctor reacts with excitement. They go to the site of Kyra's ritual, where they find a strand of the Doctor's biodata visible in space, with more apparently spread all across the city. They use the strand of biodata to remove their tags. | |||
Griffin, the man who captured them, reads a children's alphabet book, admiring the simplicity of its "A is for Ant" categorizations. He is what the Doctor terms an "unnaturalist," a higher-dimensional being who studies and categorizes "lower" life forms by altering their biodata. He separates a chimera into a goat, lion, and dragon. | |||
The Doctor meets up with the pack of unicorns, who confirm that Griffin has been capturing the various supernatural creatures drawn to San Francisco by the scar. Fitz realises that Griffin is likely using the same network of contacts about supernatural phenomena that he is, and that he can no longer trust most of his sources. | |||
Fitz, Sam, and the Doctor go and talk to Kyra and confirm that she has talked to Griffin. They explain what he is doing, and she agrees to help them. She gives Griffin a fake location where she claims to have found more strands of the Doctor's biodata, and they agree to meet there the next day. Fitz and Sam talk about Fitz's [[Revolution Man (novel)|experiences in China]] and how blonde Sam would attempt to be more kind and understanding, which would irritate Fitz. | |||
The Doctor visits Joyce again, anxious for a solution to his impending problem. Joyce encourages the Doctor to accept the possibility that the TARDIS could be destroyed. | |||
The Doctor, Sam, Fitz, and Kyra prepare a higher-dimensional trap for Griffin at the agreed meeting place. Griffin only appears amused by this. He offers to "fix" the Doctor's biodata, giving him a single history. Kyra attempts to interfere, and Griffin immediately kills her and escapes, having never been confined by the trap in the first place. | |||
The Doctor drops Sam and Fitz back off at the hotel for their safety. Sam kisses Fitz, appreciative of him because he is human and understandable to her. They have sex, but the Wild Hunt runs through multiple times while they are together, changing the exact events of the encounter. Briefly, Sam becomes a version of herself with a much stronger heroin addiction who has not been allowed to leave the hotel room since arriving in San Francisco. | |||
The Doctor does a ritual to summon the Faction Paradox boy. He gives up an early memory in exchange for the location of Griffin's hideout. The boy further taunts the Doctor, relishing in the idea that all of his contradicting histories could be simultaneously true. The Doctor finds out that the boy had intercepted his hypercube. | |||
The Henches arrive at the hotel room and kidnap Fitz, but he manages to divert them and protect Sam. Griffin puts Fitz in one of his extradimensional cabinets. The Doctor and Sam meet back up and go to Griffin's hideout. The Doctor goes in first, almost immediately getting captured as well. Sam starts a fire outside, which the Doctor identifies as number five of his and blonde Sam's pre-arranged plans. Sam is captured, but only after giving the Doctor the tool he needs to free himself and talking to Griffin long enough to keep him distracted. Griffin takes DNA and Biodata samples from both. Sam and the Doctor leave, forced to leave Fitz behind. | |||
The Doctor and Sam gather a group of impossible creatures and encourage them to combine their strength against the Henches looking for them. They then go to Joyce's lab, who has not quite finished the tool they need yet. Sam discusses with Joyce and then with the Doctor whether the Doctor is capable of settling down somewhere. | |||
Joyce gives them the stabilizing device, and they return to the scar. The device does not work as hoped; it will only pull the TARDIS out of the scar, not heal it altogether. Griffin arrives at the scar threatening to stabilize both the Doctor and Sam's biodata with vials he synthesized from the samples he took. The Doctor threatens Griffin with the stabilizer, which has the ability to seriously harm him. Sam, believing her vial is what caused blonde Sam to be created, smashes the vial. | |||
They free Fitz shortly before the kraken arrives and put Griffin in his own cabinet. The boy reappears, offering information on where Sam's second set of biodata really came from and revealing that Griffin's vial had nothing to do with it. The Doctor, unable to cope with the loss of the TARDIS, pulls it out of the scar, leaving the city vulnerable. Sam goes to her TARDIS bedroom, finding remnants of her other self. She writes a postcard to blonde Sam. | |||
At the bay, the Doctor tries to use the TARDIS to hold back the kraken. They use Sam to ride the Wild Hunt back to the scar, where Griffin is waiting for them. The Doctor tells Sam to execute plan number eighteen, which she doesn't know. She runs into the scar, becoming blonde Sam again. She pushes Griffin and his cabinet into the scar, which contains and seals it. | |||
In an epilogue, Sam goes and settles what is left of dark-haired Sam's life. In the postcard she left for herself, she was told to leave with the Doctor, and so she does. She also was told that her other self loves Fitz, which she decides not to act on. The boy tells the Doctor that it was Faction Paradox that ensured Sam had two sets of biodata. San Francisco still has impossible creatures, and the Doctor and Sam remain strange and anomalous. | |||
== Characters == | == Characters == | ||
* [[Eighth Doctor]] | * [[Eighth Doctor]] | ||
* [[ | * [[Sam Jones]] (Dark haired Sam) | ||
* [[ | * [[Sam Jones]] (Blonde Sam) | ||
* [[Fitz Kreiner]] | * [[Fitz Kreiner]] | ||
* [[Eldin Sanchez]] | * [[Eldin Sanchez]] | ||
* [[Kyra Skye]] | * [[Kyra Skye]] | ||
* Professor [[Daniel Joyce]] | * Professor [[Daniel Joyce]] | ||
* [[Anne Joyce]] | |||
* [[Daniel Joyce's daughter]] | |||
* [[Griffin (Unnatural History)|Griffin]] the Unnaturalist | * [[Griffin (Unnatural History)|Griffin]] the Unnaturalist | ||
* [[Griffin's brother (Unnatural History)|Griffin's brother]] | |||
* [[Griffin's father (Unnatural History)|Griffin's father]] | |||
* [[Griffin's uncle (Unnatural History)|Griffin's uncle]] | |||
* [[Boy (Unnatural History)|Boy]] of [[Faction Paradox]] | * [[Boy (Unnatural History)|Boy]] of [[Faction Paradox]] | ||
* [[Mark (Unnatural History)|Mark]] | |||
* [[Marilyn (Unnatural History)|Marilyn]] | |||
* [[Rob (Unnatural History)|Rob]] | |||
* [[Dave (Unnatural History)|Dave]] | |||
* [[Walter Markowitz]] | |||
* [[Peter (Unnatural History)|Peter]] | |||
* [[Anya (Unnatural History)|Anya]] | |||
* [[Monster (Unnatural History)|Monster]] | |||
* [[Bob (Unnatural History)|Bob]] | |||
* [[Raven Moonstone]] | |||
* [[Venus O'Willendorf]] | |||
* [[Carl (Unnatural History)|Carl]] | |||
* [[Larna]] | |||
== | == Worldbuilding == | ||
=== Books === | === Books === | ||
* ''[[Introduction to Quantum Esotericism]]'' is by [[Edward Watkinson|Watkinson]]. | * ''[[Introduction to Quantum Esotericism]]'' is by [[Edward Watkinson|Watkinson]]. | ||
Line 60: | Line 162: | ||
* The Doctor might have got caught [[skinny-dipping]] with a pretty female cousin of his in one timeline. | * The Doctor might have got caught [[skinny-dipping]] with a pretty female cousin of his in one timeline. | ||
* The Doctor contacts [[UNIT]] through General [[Adrienne Kramer]] concerning what's going on in [[San Francisco]]. | * The Doctor contacts [[UNIT]] through General [[Adrienne Kramer]] concerning what's going on in [[San Francisco]]. | ||
* The Doctor summons | * The Doctor summons a [[Boy (Unnatural History)|boy]] of the [[Faction Paradox]] using a ritual and an extract of his [[biodata]]. | ||
* The Doctor and his father's names were banned in one potential origin when they left [[Gallifrey]]. | * The Doctor and his father's names were banned in one potential origin when they left [[Gallifrey]]. | ||
Line 76: | Line 178: | ||
=== Gallifrey === | === Gallifrey === | ||
* The Doctor is not sure who is President of Gallifrey at this point, [[Romana II]] | * The Doctor is not sure who is President of Gallifrey at this point, [[Romana II]], [[Flavia]] or someone else. | ||
=== Individuals === | === Individuals === | ||
Line 82: | Line 184: | ||
* Sam is originally dark-haired. This original version of her lives in a [[King's Cross]] bedsit. | * Sam is originally dark-haired. This original version of her lives in a [[King's Cross]] bedsit. | ||
* Sam has [[sex]] with Fitz. | * Sam has [[sex]] with Fitz. | ||
* Sam's parents have [[postcard]]s and [[letter]]s that | * Sam's parents have [[postcard]]s and [[letter]]s that Sam Jones had/will been sending to them from: | ||
:* San Franscico, [[1 August]], [[1997]] | :* San Franscico, [[1 August]], [[1997]] | ||
:* A letter from [[1894]], [[London]] | :* A letter from [[1894]], [[London]] | ||
Line 89: | Line 191: | ||
:* They began arriving around the [[Mars]], [[1997]] mission. | :* They began arriving around the [[Mars]], [[1997]] mission. | ||
* The Doctor tells Sam Jones (dark-haired Sam) that "his Sam" (blonde haired Sam): | * The Doctor tells Sam Jones (dark-haired Sam) that "his Sam" (blonde haired Sam): | ||
:* Stopped the smugglers of [[Nephelokokkugian]] and the [[Dalek]] invasion of [[ | :* Stopped the smugglers of [[Nephelokokkugian]] and the [[Dalek]] invasion of [[Tuvalu]]. | ||
:* Battled the tyrant queen of [[Hyspero]]. | :* Battled the tyrant queen of [[Hyspero]]. | ||
:* Returned a [[Triceratops]] infant to its mother. | :* Returned a [[Triceratops]] infant to its mother. | ||
* The Doctor phones Dr [[Grace Holloway]]. | * The Doctor phones Dr [[Grace Holloway]]. | ||
* [[Aaron Blinovitch|Blinovitch]] was a member of the Faction Paradox according to the | * [[Aaron Blinovitch|Blinovitch]] was a member of the Faction Paradox according to the boy. | ||
* The Doctor mentions [[Tubby Rowlands]]. | * The Doctor mentions [[Tubby Rowlands]]. | ||
* Professor [[Daniel Joyce]] has a tattoo on the cuff of his sleeve that he looks like he has tried to get rid of. He has a red headed assistant called [[Larna]]. | * Professor [[Daniel Joyce]] has a [[convict tattoo|tattoo]] on the cuff of his sleeve that he looks like he has tried to get rid of. He has a red-headed assistant called [[Larna]]. | ||
=== Languages === | === Languages === | ||
Line 101: | Line 203: | ||
=== Locations === | === Locations === | ||
* The location of the [[ | * The location of the [[temporal cicatrix]] is the alleyway where the Doctor was shot. | ||
* Fitz has meditated on top of [[Mount Tamalpais]]. | * Fitz has meditated on top of [[Mount Tamalpais]]. | ||
* [[Griffin (Unnatural History)|Griffin]] is from one of the [[higher dimensions]]. He's from somewhere near [[the Needle]]. | * [[Griffin (Unnatural History)|Griffin]] is from one of the [[higher dimensions]]. He's from somewhere near [[the Needle]]. | ||
Line 115: | Line 217: | ||
=== Individuals by profession === | === Individuals by profession === | ||
* Daniel Joyce does work for the [[Advanced Research Project]]s at [[Berkeley]]. | * Daniel Joyce does work for the [[Advanced Research Project]]s at [[University of California|Berkeley]]. | ||
=== Psychic powers === | === Psychic powers === | ||
Line 121: | Line 223: | ||
=== Species === | === Species === | ||
* A [[Kraken (Unnatural History)|Kraken]] comes from the [[higher dimensions]] and floats in the void, | * A [[Kraken (Unnatural History)|Kraken]] comes from the [[higher dimensions]] and floats in the void, almost twisting itself through incomprehensible space. It grazes on [[exotic matter]], plumes of raw [[cosmological power]], fountains of energy in the upper reaches that is undetectable in [[N-Space]]. It's big enough to flatten San Francisco. | ||
* The [[unicorn]]s can [[teleport]], but the | * The [[unicorn]]s can [[teleport]], but the scar prevents them from escaping San Francisco. | ||
* Griffin takes apart an artificial [[chimera]] making her simpler, so she is once again a dragon, a lion and goat. | * Griffin takes apart an artificial [[chimera]] making her simpler, so she is once again a dragon, a lion and goat. | ||
Line 133: | Line 235: | ||
=== Timeline === | === Timeline === | ||
* On [[31 December]] [[1999]] a [[singularity]] opened in [[San Francisco]] and the Earth was forced through an opening the size of a bath plug. | * On [[31 December]] [[1999]], a [[singularity]] opened in [[San Francisco]] and the Earth was forced through an opening the size of a bath plug. | ||
* The Faction Paradox agent takes an old memory of the Doctor's: | * The Faction Paradox agent takes an old memory of the Doctor's: | ||
:* The fruity scent of [[karmine pudding]]. | :* The fruity scent of [[karmine pudding]]. | ||
Line 140: | Line 242: | ||
:* He'd caught a [[cobblemouse]]. | :* He'd caught a [[cobblemouse]]. | ||
:* Mr [[Saldaamir]] is present. | :* Mr [[Saldaamir]] is present. | ||
* | * The boy comments on "the whole post-destination thing with the [[Vervoid]]s," and the way the Doctor "tricked the [[Dalek Empire]] into tangling their timeline so bad that their history collapsed under the weight of the paradoxes." | ||
=== Time travel === | === Time travel === | ||
* | * The boy uses a [[Blinovitch generator]] to create copies of himself and time travels using the energy built up from crossing his timestream. | ||
=== Theories and concepts === | === Theories and concepts === | ||
* The paradox agent takes the Doctor's Volkswagen Beetle as payment for information, intending to take it back in time and melt it down, ensuring that its own steel would be used in its construction: a [[temporal paradox|paradox]]. | * The paradox agent takes the Doctor's Volkswagen Beetle as payment for information, intending to take it back in time and melt it down, ensuring that its own steel would be used in its construction: a [[temporal paradox|paradox]]. | ||
* Kyra Skye is killed by Griffin by folding her through the [[higher | * Kyra Skye is killed by Griffin by folding her through the [[higher dimensions]]. | ||
* The [[Wild Hunt]] is part of the [[ | * The [[Wild Hunt]] is part of the [[temporal cicatrix|scar]]'s healing process, energy washing out in a reverse ripple. When it hits Sam she experiences alternate timelines and if the energy catches her up in it minutely alters her biodata (although it only transforms her if she in the same location as an alternate version of herself; as an example, while in her room she transforms into a drug addict in need of her next hit who has remained in the room since arriving in San Francisco, where other versions of her have left the room). | ||
* The Doctor initially speculates that blonde Sam could have been created when his unstable biodata after his last [[regeneration]] latched onto dark Sam and transformed her into his 'perfect' companion; Joyce dismisses this idea as the Doctor could never have had that kind of impact on someone he would never have met without that biodata manipulation taking place in the first place, but his words suggest that it could have happened if the Doctor was influencing the biodata of someone he was more familiar with. | |||
=== Vehicles === | === Vehicles === | ||
Line 154: | Line 257: | ||
== Notes == | == Notes == | ||
* Whilst writing ''Unnatural History'' both Kate Orman and Jon Blum didn't deliberately make it part of | * Whilst writing ''Unnatural History'' both Kate Orman and Jon Blum didn't deliberately make it part of [[War in Heaven|the War]] arc, though it did contain accidental foreshadowing for [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Ancestor Cell (novel)|The Ancestor Cell]]''. However, there were intentional references to the Earth arc, which was being planned at the time.<ref>[http://p102.ezboard.com/fthedoctorwhoforumfrm4.showMessageRange?topicID=7.topic&start=276&stop=300 Jonathan Blum on 'Ask Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum' - The Doctor Who Forum at Outpost Gallifrey (Page 12) (ezyboard membership required)]</ref> | ||
* There are | * There are references to various characters and events from [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Infinity Doctors (novel)|The Infinity Doctors]]''. Professor Joyce works at Berkeley — in ''The Infinity Doctors'' the Doctor thinks that his father might be a professor at Berkeley. Larna from ''The Infinity Doctors'' is implied to be Joyce's assistant. Parkin's later [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)|The Gallifrey Chronicles]]'' would show Larna beginning a partnership with [[Ulysses]] and [[Penelope Gate]], implied to be the Doctor's parents. | ||
* Following a deal with the Faction Paradox, their | * Following a deal with the Faction Paradox, their representative asks the Doctor some interesting questions about his past: | ||
:* "Is this the version where they banned all mention of his name, and yours, for consorting with aliens? Or the one where he got every record of himself deleted from the files?" | :* "Is this the version where they banned all mention of [[Ulysses|his]] name, and yours, for consorting with aliens? Or the one where he got every record of himself deleted from the files?" | ||
:* "Maybe you didn't use to have a father." | :* "Maybe you didn't use to have a father." In [[PROSE]]: ''[[Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible (novel)|Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible]]'' and [[PROSE]]: ''[[Lungbarrow (novel)|Lungbarrow]]'', the Doctor is stated to have been born from biologically but from a [[Loom]]. | ||
:* "Maybe you're living in the middle of a time war. Maybe there's an Enemy out there... who's rewriting you when you're not looking." | :* "Maybe you're living in the middle of [[War in Heaven|a time war]]. Maybe there's [[the enemy|an Enemy]] out there... who's rewriting you when you're not looking." This refers to the [[War in Heaven]] introduced in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Alien Bodies (novel)|Alien Bodies]]''. | ||
:* "Maybe you weren't always half-human." The Doctor's half-human status was first mentioned in [[TV]]: ''[[Doctor Who (TV story)|Doctor Who]]''. | |||
:* "Maybe you weren't always half-human." | :* "Maybe you weren't always a Time Lord." [[TV]]: ''[[Silver Nemesis (TV story)|Silver Nemesis]]'' suggests something of the sort; a scene cut from [[TV]]: ''[[Remembrance of the Daleks (TV story)|Remembrance of the Daleks]]'' suggests that the Doctor is "more than just another Time Lord". | ||
:* "Maybe you originally came from some planet in the [[49th century|forty-ninth century]]. Fleeing from [[the Enemy]] who'd overrun [[planet (An Unearthly Child)|your home]]." [[TV]]: "[[The Pilot Episode]]" mentions that the Doctor is from the 49th century. | |||
:* "Maybe you weren't always a Time Lord." | :* "Maybe there's no one left on Gallifrey..." This likely refers to the Time Lords' abandonment of Gallifrey seen in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Dead Romance (novel)|Dead Romance]]''. | ||
:* "Maybe they all left. Or maybe the whole planet's being destroyed, and undestroyed, and destroyed, and you just caught them at the wrong moment." [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Ancestor Cell (novel)|The Ancestor Cell]]'' and [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)|The Gallifrey Chronicles]]'' both explore this concept. | |||
* "Maybe you originally came from some planet in the forty-ninth century. Fleeing from the Enemy who'd overrun your home." | :* "Or maybe someone wanted us to handle it." An excerpt of the [[Book of Lies]] in ''Unnatural History'' shows [[Rassilon]] making a deal with Faction Paradox to erase the events of [[PROSE]]: ''[[Lungbarrow (novel)|Lungbarrow]]'' from [[Gallifreyan history]]. This explains the "small improvements to the pattern of history" that Rassilon used the Eighth Doctor to make in [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Eight Doctors (novel)|The Eight Doctors]]'', as well as clarifying why [[Flavia]] is President in that novel and why the Eighth Doctor is travelling with Sam rather than [[Grace Holloway]].<ref>[http://gallifreybase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4776508 Jonathan Blum on 'Is it possible to reconcile "The Eight Doctors" with "Lungbarrow"?'] and [http://gallifreybase.com/forum/showthread.php?p=6856416 'So, no one is annoyed about Moffat trying to make Alien Bodies non-cannon?'] - GallifreyBase (requires log-in)</ref> | ||
* [[Boy (Unnatural History)|The Boy]]'s mention of a "greyness" destined to fall over the universe is a reference to the end of the universe seen in [[Lance Parkin]]'s ''[[The Infinity Doctors (novel)|The Infinity Doctors]]''. Implications in Parkin's ''[[Father Time (novel)|Father Time]]'' and ''[[Miranda (comic story)|Miranda]]'' link this greyness to the [[post-War universe]]. [[Mark Clapham]]'s ''Analysis'', a short story published in ''Walking in Eternity'', shows the amnesic Eighth Doctor's premonitions of a lifeless grey "nothing." Clapham is the author of ''[[Hope (novel)|Hope]]'', which takes place in the same future seen in ''Father Time ''and ''Miranda.'' | |||
:* "Maybe there's no one left on Gallifrey..." | * Many fans speculated that Daniel Joyce is Professor [[Chronotis]], but Blum denied this on Usenet, saying Joyce was much more connected to the outside world than Chronotis, and the only connection between the two was that [[Robert deLaurentis]], whose character [[the Doctor's father|John Smith]] heavily influenced Joyce, was in turn inspired by ''[[Shada (TV story)|Shada]]''.<ref>[http://groups.google.co.uk/group/rec.arts.drwho/msg/c1d45b12d98e3bcd?hl=en& Jonathan Blum on 'Joyce and Savar! (SPOILERS)' - rec.arts.drwho]</ref> DeLaurentis was thanked in the notes of the book. | ||
* Many fans were upset with the portrayal of the Faction in the book, but Blum explained on Usenet that he actually collaborated with Lawrence Miles on this portrayal, agreeing that there were multiple different aims and attitudes within the group.<ref>[https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.drwho/c/uXZXl6WVpBI/m/c6KVEa5yrugJ Jonathan Blum comment rec.arts.drwho]</ref> | |||
:* "Maybe they all left. Or maybe the whole planet's being destroyed, and undestroyed, and destroyed, and you just caught them at the wrong moment." | |||
* [[ | |||
== Continuity == | == Continuity == | ||
* Sam's postcards are from San Francisco, ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Vampire Science]]'') 1894, ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Bodysnatchers]]'') and Kursaal. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Kursaal (novel)|Kursaal]]'') | * [[PROSE]]: ''[[Alien Bodies (novel)|Alien Bodies]]'' first introduced the concept of an alternate version of Sam Jones who smoked Benson & Hedges cigarettes and had dark hair. | ||
* The Doctor mentions himself and Sam (blonde) defeating the tyrant queen on Hyspero and meeting Iris Wildthyme, both during [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Scarlet Empress]]''. | * Sam's postcards are from San Francisco, ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Vampire Science (novel)|Vampire Science]]'') 1894, ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Bodysnatchers (novel)|The Bodysnatchers]]'') and Kursaal. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Kursaal (novel)|Kursaal]]'') | ||
* The Doctor mentions that he used to smoke. The only televised occasion of this was [[TV]]: ''[[An Unearthly Child]]''. | * The Doctor mentions himself and Sam (blonde) defeating the tyrant queen on Hyspero and meeting Iris Wildthyme, both during [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Scarlet Empress (novel)|The Scarlet Empress]]''. | ||
* The events of the Mars 1997 mission were covered in [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Dying Days]]''. | * The Doctor mentions that he used to smoke. The only televised occasion of this was [[TV]]: ''[[An Unearthly Child (TV story)|An Unearthly Child]]''. | ||
* The events of [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Eight Doctors]]'' occurred, only without Sam or the Doctor's involvement (the first time around). | * The events of the Mars 1997 mission were covered in [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Dying Days (novel)|The Dying Days]]''. | ||
* The events of [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Eight Doctors (novel)|The Eight Doctors]]'' occurred, only without Sam or the Doctor's involvement (the first time around). | |||
* Fitz talks about his time in communist China with Sam (dark haired). His hair is still growing back following the events of [[PROSE]]: ''[[Revolution Man (novel)|Revolution Man]]''. | * Fitz talks about his time in communist China with Sam (dark haired). His hair is still growing back following the events of [[PROSE]]: ''[[Revolution Man (novel)|Revolution Man]]''. | ||
* The planet [[Quinnis]] was mentioned (briefly) by the [[First Doctor]] and [[Susan Foreman|Susan]] in [[TV]]: ''[[The Edge of Destruction]]''. Their experiences there were documented in [[AUDIO]]: ''[[Quinnis (audio story)|Quinnis]]''. | * The planet [[Quinnis]] was mentioned (briefly) by the [[First Doctor]] and [[Susan Foreman|Susan]] in [[TV]]: ''[[The Edge of Destruction (TV story)|The Edge of Destruction]]''. Their experiences there were documented in [[AUDIO]]: ''[[Quinnis (audio story)|Quinnis]]''. | ||
* Youkali was mentioned in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Return of the Living Dad]]''. | * Youkali was mentioned in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Return of the Living Dad (novel)|Return of the Living Dad]]''. | ||
* Joyce states/accuses the Doctor of toppling governments on his spare weekends | * Joyce states/accuses the Doctor of toppling governments on his spare weekends, as seen in many stories including [[TV]]: ''[[The Happiness Patrol (TV story)|The Happiness Patrol]]'', [[AUDIO]]: ''[[LIVE 34 (audio story)|LIVE 34]]'', and [[TV]]: ''[[The Christmas Invasion (TV story)|The Christmas Invasion]]''. | ||
* When the | * The Doctor isn't sure if [[Romana II|Romana]] ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Goth Opera (novel)|Goth Opera]]'') or [[Flavia]] ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Eight Doctors (novel)|The Eight Doctors]]'') is [[Lord President]] of [[Gallifrey]]. | ||
* The Doctor last dropped acid in 1968 and nearly got transformed into an Aztec god in [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Left-Handed Hummingbird]]''. | * When the representative of the Faction tries to tell the Doctor of his future exploits he says, "No spoilers," a statement that would come back to him in [[TV]]: ''[[Silence in the Library (TV story)|Silence in the Library]]'', but also because he doesn't want to know about the future he first learned of in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Alien Bodies (novel)|Alien Bodies]]''. | ||
* The events of [[TV]]: ''[[Doctor Who ( | * The Doctor last dropped acid in 1968 and nearly got transformed into an Aztec god in [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Left-Handed Hummingbird (novel)|The Left-Handed Hummingbird]]''. | ||
* The Doctor was last in San Francisco in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Vampire Science]]''. | * The events of [[TV]]: ''[[Doctor Who (TV story)|Doctor Who]]'' began the anomalies throughout San Francisco. | ||
* [[PROSE]]: ''[[ | * The [[Book of Lies]] explains the "small improvements" Rassilon guided the Eighth Doctor to make in [[PROSE]]: ''[[The Eight Doctors (novel)|The Eight Doctors]]''. | ||
* Blinovitch (of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect) was first mentioned in [[TV]]: ''[[Day of the Daleks]]''. | * The Book of Lies predicts that a "greyness" will fall across the universe. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Infinity Doctors (novel)|The Infinity Doctors]]'') | ||
* The Doctor doesn't have a shadow after the events of this book. Reasons for this are revealed in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Interference - Book Two | * The Doctor was last in San Francisco in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Vampire Science (novel)|Vampire Science]]''. | ||
* The Doctor briefly thinks about [[Carolyn McConnell]] and [[James Court]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Vampire Science (novel)|Vampire Science]]'') | |||
* Blinovitch (of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect) was first mentioned in [[TV]]: ''[[Day of the Daleks (TV story)|Day of the Daleks]]''. | |||
* The Doctor doesn't have a shadow after the events of this book. Reasons for this are revealed in [[PROSE]]: ''[[Interference - Book Two (novel)|Interference]]''. | |||
* The Doctor also contacted [[Grace Holloway]] in [[COMIC]]: ''[[The Fallen (comic story)|The Fallen]]''. | * The Doctor also contacted [[Grace Holloway]] in [[COMIC]]: ''[[The Fallen (comic story)|The Fallen]]''. | ||
* The Boy follows the legend that all agents of Faction Paradox have lost their shadows. [[Lolita]] would later tell Cousin [[Justine McManus|Justine]] that the Faction had hundreds of agents without shadows, who "just don't mix" with the rest, in [[AUDIO]]: ''[[The Shadow Play (audio story)|The Shadow Play]]''. | |||
* Kyra played a [[Kathmandu (band)|Kathmandu]] album while Fitz was at her house. Fitz previously met the band in the 1960s, including [[Ed Hill]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Revolution Man (novel)|Revolution Man]]'') | |||
== External links == | == External links == | ||
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== Footnotes == | == Footnotes == | ||
{{reflist}} | {{reflist|2}} | ||
{{EDA}} | {{EDA}} | ||
{{TitleSort}} | {{TitleSort}} | ||
[[Category:EDA novels]] | [[Category:EDA novels]] | ||
[[Category:1999 novels]] | [[Category:1999 novels]] | ||
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[[Category:Stories set in San Francisco]] | [[Category:Stories set in San Francisco]] | ||
[[Category:Stories set in London]] | [[Category:Stories set in London]] | ||
[[Category:Stories set in the War]] |
Latest revision as of 20:29, 3 November 2024
Unnatural History was the twenty-third novel in the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman, released 7 June 1999[source needed] and featured the Eighth Doctor, Sam Jones and Fitz Kreiner.
This novel explained several issues concerning Sam Jones that were introduced in Alien Bodies.
Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
"They called it the Millennium Effect", said the Doctor. "But the millennium was only beginning."
San Francisco has changed since the start of 2000. The laws of physics keep having acid flashbacks. There are sightings of creatures from outside our dimensions, stranded aliens and surrealist street performers. The city has become a mecca for those who revel in impossible creatures — and those who want to see them pinned down and put away.
Sam's past is catching up with her — a past she didn't know she had. The Doctor is in danger of becoming the pièce de résistance in a twisted collection of creatures. And beneath the waters of the Bay, something huge is waiting.
With time running out, the Doctor must choose which to sacrifice — a city of wonders, or the life of an old and dear friend.
Chapter titles[[edit] | [edit source]]
Day Zero Minus Three
- I Was a Teenage Paradox
- If You Can Remember the Future, You Weren't Really There
Day Zero Minus Two
- Second String
- Bird of Paradox
- Licentious Moments
Day Zero Minus One
- The Unnaturalist
- Kraken Up
- The Memory Cheating Ain't What it Used to Be
- Abducted by Aliens
- Somewhere, Just Out of Sight, the Unicorn Are Being Gathered
- Kyra
Day Zero
- Stuffed and Mounted
- The Book of Lies
- Hero in Use
Night Zero
- Anything Not Nailed Down is Mine
- Anything I Can Pry Loose is Not Nailed Down
- What Lies, Behind Us
- Coming Unstrung
Free-Frame
- Buying Time
- The City Killer
The i Doctors
- Impossible Creatures
Day Zero Plus Seven
Epilogue: The Other Woman
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
In 2002, the Eighth Doctor comes to the apartment of dark-haired Sam, an alternate Sam Jones who never travelled with him, attempting to tell her about her life as blonde Sam. Sam brushes him off and goes to work, where she receives a call from her mother insisting that she come home and listen to what the Doctor is telling them. After work, Sam’s parents show her postcards and letters they’ve been receiving from blonde Sam for the past five years. She agrees to talk to the Doctor, who explains more about blonde Sam, and how she had recently fallen into a “dimensional anomaly” in San Francisco and been replaced by dark-haired Sam. Sam initially does not believe him, insisting that this is a prank, but when she runs she is threatened by a child wielding a knife. The Doctor tries to talk him down, but the boy stabs him. Sam takes the Doctor back to her apartment, attempts to treat his wound, and agrees to go with him to San Francisco.
Meanwhile, Fitz Kreiner is in San Francisco, investigating various supernatural phenomena in the area. Eldin Sanchez, who publishes Interesting Times (a paranormal zine), gives Fitz a few leads, including a woman named Kyra Skye, who has been tracking new ley lines around the city.
Sam and the Doctor fly to San Francisco. Fitz and the Doctor discuss the ongoing crisis and whether they can get back “their” Sam. Fitz suggests calling in UNIT; the Doctor says he already called Adrienne Kramer and was not able to secure her or UNIT’s help. The three go to the scar in reality, which the Doctor reveals to be a byproduct of his adventures on New Year’s Eve 1999. He has placed the TARDIS around the scar as a stopgap measure, but the TARDIS will be destroyed by the scar if they don’t find another way to seal or contain it in the next three days. He asks Sam to get closer and investigate herself. As she gets closer, she has flashbacks of her other self’s similar experience when she first visited the scar. She accuses the Doctor of trying to get her to fall into the scar to get blonde Sam back and attempts to run. She is stopped by soldiers in grey uniforms. She, the Doctor, and Fitz successfully fight them off, but Sam hits her head and falls unconscious as she is carried away from the scene by the Doctor.
While they regroup at the hotel, Sam, Fitz, and the Doctor realise that the boy who stabbed the Doctor is the same boy Fitz has been using as a source on supernatural phenomena. The Doctor, desperate, sends a hypercube to the Time Lords for aid. Sam asks Fitz if her other self and the Doctor are “shagging,” and Fitz says he isn’t sure. The three go and find the boy, who reveals himself as a member of Faction Paradox.
Sam and the Doctor get dinner while Fitz goes to meet with Kyra. Kyra and Fitz perform a ritual at a ley line, which causes strong energy readings and weather patterns. The Doctor hallucinates purple objects floating in the air at dinner, which Sam is able to calm him down about. Sam makes multiple attempts to flirt with the Doctor, including giving him a back rub, but he ultimately rejects her. The Doctor suggests that he and his unstable biodata might have been the reason Sam changed, and that his subconscious longing for a companion is what made blonde Sam who she was.
The Time Lords do not respond to the hypercube, leaving the Doctor, Fitz, and Sam scrambling. Fitz and Sam stake out the scar, watching the grey soldiers. The soldiers appear not to know exactly where the scar is, only the general location. Sam and Fitz lose track of the soldiers due to their ability to be as nondescript as possible. Sam offers Fitz a cigarette, which he declines, stating that with blonde Sam gone one of them must be the nice one. Sam then gets mugged by a unicorn.
The Doctor finds professor Daniel Joyce, a mysterious contact from his past who now works at Berkeley. Joyce and his colleagues have been studying the scar, and he agrees to help the Doctor. Joyce also gives the Doctor a key to his house and offers to let the Doctor stay with him and his wife if the TARDIS does leave him stranded, to which the Doctor politely declines.
The unicorn who mugged Sam gets captured by an unidentified man.
The Doctor meets up with Eldin Sanchez to look for more information, but is spotted by one of the grey soldiers and runs, jumping onto a tourist boat in the bay. He is greeted there by another grey soldier, Bob, who acts casually, as neither of them have anywhere else they can go. The Doctor deduces that he and the other soldiers are Henches, generic soldiers and servants who were supposed to be delivered to a warzone on Teso Peope and were stranded before they were given any command. They’ve “imprinted” on someone in San Francisco and are following their commands, but it is unclear who. The Doctor jumps off the boat.
Sam and Fitz get a call from the Doctor asking them to meet him at the centre of the Golden Gate Bridge. The Doctor explains that the scar has attracted the attention of a Kraken, an extradimensional entity that will eat the scar (and the city along with it) in "about a day and a half." A pulse of energy runs through the city and towards the scar, which Sam perceives as a "Wild Hunt," though others perceive it differently. It effects Sam more than Fitz and the Doctor, destabilizing her biodata and rewriting her into another slightly different version of herself. Sam panics about this, and the Doctor talks her down by telling her that who she is now is more relevant than what the exact details of her past are. Fitz gets new information about where the Henches might be reporting to, and the three go to investigate.
The information Fitz received was apparently a trap, and the three are kidnapped. All three are blindfolded while a mysterious figure with seemingly too many hands experiments on them, removing the Doctor's ability to see the color purple and adding tags to all three's nervous systems. They are released on the street, with no clue as to where they were taken. Fitz mentions the ley lines, to which the Doctor reacts with excitement. They go to the site of Kyra's ritual, where they find a strand of the Doctor's biodata visible in space, with more apparently spread all across the city. They use the strand of biodata to remove their tags.
Griffin, the man who captured them, reads a children's alphabet book, admiring the simplicity of its "A is for Ant" categorizations. He is what the Doctor terms an "unnaturalist," a higher-dimensional being who studies and categorizes "lower" life forms by altering their biodata. He separates a chimera into a goat, lion, and dragon.
The Doctor meets up with the pack of unicorns, who confirm that Griffin has been capturing the various supernatural creatures drawn to San Francisco by the scar. Fitz realises that Griffin is likely using the same network of contacts about supernatural phenomena that he is, and that he can no longer trust most of his sources.
Fitz, Sam, and the Doctor go and talk to Kyra and confirm that she has talked to Griffin. They explain what he is doing, and she agrees to help them. She gives Griffin a fake location where she claims to have found more strands of the Doctor's biodata, and they agree to meet there the next day. Fitz and Sam talk about Fitz's experiences in China and how blonde Sam would attempt to be more kind and understanding, which would irritate Fitz.
The Doctor visits Joyce again, anxious for a solution to his impending problem. Joyce encourages the Doctor to accept the possibility that the TARDIS could be destroyed.
The Doctor, Sam, Fitz, and Kyra prepare a higher-dimensional trap for Griffin at the agreed meeting place. Griffin only appears amused by this. He offers to "fix" the Doctor's biodata, giving him a single history. Kyra attempts to interfere, and Griffin immediately kills her and escapes, having never been confined by the trap in the first place.
The Doctor drops Sam and Fitz back off at the hotel for their safety. Sam kisses Fitz, appreciative of him because he is human and understandable to her. They have sex, but the Wild Hunt runs through multiple times while they are together, changing the exact events of the encounter. Briefly, Sam becomes a version of herself with a much stronger heroin addiction who has not been allowed to leave the hotel room since arriving in San Francisco.
The Doctor does a ritual to summon the Faction Paradox boy. He gives up an early memory in exchange for the location of Griffin's hideout. The boy further taunts the Doctor, relishing in the idea that all of his contradicting histories could be simultaneously true. The Doctor finds out that the boy had intercepted his hypercube.
The Henches arrive at the hotel room and kidnap Fitz, but he manages to divert them and protect Sam. Griffin puts Fitz in one of his extradimensional cabinets. The Doctor and Sam meet back up and go to Griffin's hideout. The Doctor goes in first, almost immediately getting captured as well. Sam starts a fire outside, which the Doctor identifies as number five of his and blonde Sam's pre-arranged plans. Sam is captured, but only after giving the Doctor the tool he needs to free himself and talking to Griffin long enough to keep him distracted. Griffin takes DNA and Biodata samples from both. Sam and the Doctor leave, forced to leave Fitz behind.
The Doctor and Sam gather a group of impossible creatures and encourage them to combine their strength against the Henches looking for them. They then go to Joyce's lab, who has not quite finished the tool they need yet. Sam discusses with Joyce and then with the Doctor whether the Doctor is capable of settling down somewhere.
Joyce gives them the stabilizing device, and they return to the scar. The device does not work as hoped; it will only pull the TARDIS out of the scar, not heal it altogether. Griffin arrives at the scar threatening to stabilize both the Doctor and Sam's biodata with vials he synthesized from the samples he took. The Doctor threatens Griffin with the stabilizer, which has the ability to seriously harm him. Sam, believing her vial is what caused blonde Sam to be created, smashes the vial.
They free Fitz shortly before the kraken arrives and put Griffin in his own cabinet. The boy reappears, offering information on where Sam's second set of biodata really came from and revealing that Griffin's vial had nothing to do with it. The Doctor, unable to cope with the loss of the TARDIS, pulls it out of the scar, leaving the city vulnerable. Sam goes to her TARDIS bedroom, finding remnants of her other self. She writes a postcard to blonde Sam.
At the bay, the Doctor tries to use the TARDIS to hold back the kraken. They use Sam to ride the Wild Hunt back to the scar, where Griffin is waiting for them. The Doctor tells Sam to execute plan number eighteen, which she doesn't know. She runs into the scar, becoming blonde Sam again. She pushes Griffin and his cabinet into the scar, which contains and seals it.
In an epilogue, Sam goes and settles what is left of dark-haired Sam's life. In the postcard she left for herself, she was told to leave with the Doctor, and so she does. She also was told that her other self loves Fitz, which she decides not to act on. The boy tells the Doctor that it was Faction Paradox that ensured Sam had two sets of biodata. San Francisco still has impossible creatures, and the Doctor and Sam remain strange and anomalous.
Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Eighth Doctor
- Sam Jones (Dark haired Sam)
- Sam Jones (Blonde Sam)
- Fitz Kreiner
- Eldin Sanchez
- Kyra Skye
- Professor Daniel Joyce
- Anne Joyce
- Daniel Joyce's daughter
- Griffin the Unnaturalist
- Griffin's brother
- Griffin's father
- Griffin's uncle
- Boy of Faction Paradox
- Mark
- Marilyn
- Rob
- Dave
- Walter Markowitz
- Peter
- Anya
- Monster
- Bob
- Raven Moonstone
- Venus O'Willendorf
- Carl
- Larna
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
Books[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Introduction to Quantum Esotericism is by Watkinson.
- Thripsted discusses the Book of Lies.
Biology[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Griffin manipulates the Doctor's biodata, removing his awareness of violet and all the UV ranges.
- Fitz states that there are several unconfirmed "cryptozoological sightings."
Culture[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor can't remember etiquette and gets confused between "twenty-first century America and the planet Quinnis in the fourth universe."
The Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor once again uses the alias "Doctor Bowman".
- The Doctor tells Sam (upon seeing her light up) that he gave up smoking "six or seven lifetimes ago".
- The Doctor might have got caught skinny-dipping with a pretty female cousin of his in one timeline.
- The Doctor contacts UNIT through General Adrienne Kramer concerning what's going on in San Francisco.
- The Doctor summons a boy of the Faction Paradox using a ritual and an extract of his biodata.
- The Doctor and his father's names were banned in one potential origin when they left Gallifrey.
Drugs and medicines[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Sam smokes Benson and Hedges cigarettes.
Fashion and clothing[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Fitz wears a fedora and a long black coat while gathering information from his "contacts". He also wears small round sunglasses like John Lennon.
- Fitz's hair is still growing back after his experiences with communist China.
Foods and beverages[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor pours out a bottle of beer in Kyra Skye's memory.
- Sam takes her coffee black; Fitz, white with two sugars.
- Daniel Joyce offers Sam some tea. She says she prefers coffee.
Gallifrey[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor is not sure who is President of Gallifrey at this point, Romana II, Flavia or someone else.
Individuals[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor tells Sam (dark haired) "about being President Elect of the High Council of Time Lords, keeper of the Legacy of Rassilon, Defender of the Laws of Time and Protector of Galloway. Or something."
- Sam is originally dark-haired. This original version of her lives in a King's Cross bedsit.
- Sam has sex with Fitz.
- Sam's parents have postcards and letters that Sam Jones had/will been sending to them from:
- The Doctor tells Sam Jones (dark-haired Sam) that "his Sam" (blonde haired Sam):
- Stopped the smugglers of Nephelokokkugian and the Dalek invasion of Tuvalu.
- Battled the tyrant queen of Hyspero.
- Returned a Triceratops infant to its mother.
- The Doctor phones Dr Grace Holloway.
- Blinovitch was a member of the Faction Paradox according to the boy.
- The Doctor mentions Tubby Rowlands.
- Professor Daniel Joyce has a tattoo on the cuff of his sleeve that he looks like he has tried to get rid of. He has a red-headed assistant called Larna.
Languages[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Despite Fitz' months in Mao's communist people's collective in China, he never learnt how to read much Chinese.
Locations[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The location of the temporal cicatrix is the alleyway where the Doctor was shot.
- Fitz has meditated on top of Mount Tamalpais.
- Griffin is from one of the higher dimensions. He's from somewhere near the Needle.
Media[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Eldin Sanchez writes for the Interesting Times.
Occult[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Kyra Skye says she is a witch.
Planets[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor cleared up the after effects of Daniel Joyce's visit to Youkali.
Individuals by profession[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Daniel Joyce does work for the Advanced Research Projects at Berkeley.
Psychic powers[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Kyra Skye can see/read the "ley lines" of San Francisco. She discusses psychokinesis and Snoopy when she first meets Fitz.
Species[[edit] | [edit source]]
- A Kraken comes from the higher dimensions and floats in the void, almost twisting itself through incomprehensible space. It grazes on exotic matter, plumes of raw cosmological power, fountains of energy in the upper reaches that is undetectable in N-Space. It's big enough to flatten San Francisco.
- The unicorns can teleport, but the scar prevents them from escaping San Francisco.
- Griffin takes apart an artificial chimera making her simpler, so she is once again a dragon, a lion and goat.
Technology[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor uses a "Time Lord message pod", which appears to be intercepted by Faction Paradox.
- He expected a reply "once the epistopic interfaces of the space-time continuum are properly aligned."
- Datagel is compact "but if you rupture the cell your computing power oozes out through the cracks."
- The Henches (the "men in grey") are from BioHazCorp and were supposed to be delivered to a warzone on Teso Peope.
- Daniel Joyce got a spare beryllium chip for Wagg following the Doctor's theft of his first one.
Timeline[[edit] | [edit source]]
- On 31 December 1999, a singularity opened in San Francisco and the Earth was forced through an opening the size of a bath plug.
- The Faction Paradox agent takes an old memory of the Doctor's:
- The fruity scent of karmine pudding.
- When the Doctor was barely a Loomling.
- When his father was present in a Great House.
- He'd caught a cobblemouse.
- Mr Saldaamir is present.
- The boy comments on "the whole post-destination thing with the Vervoids," and the way the Doctor "tricked the Dalek Empire into tangling their timeline so bad that their history collapsed under the weight of the paradoxes."
Time travel[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The boy uses a Blinovitch generator to create copies of himself and time travels using the energy built up from crossing his timestream.
Theories and concepts[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The paradox agent takes the Doctor's Volkswagen Beetle as payment for information, intending to take it back in time and melt it down, ensuring that its own steel would be used in its construction: a paradox.
- Kyra Skye is killed by Griffin by folding her through the higher dimensions.
- The Wild Hunt is part of the scar's healing process, energy washing out in a reverse ripple. When it hits Sam she experiences alternate timelines and if the energy catches her up in it minutely alters her biodata (although it only transforms her if she in the same location as an alternate version of herself; as an example, while in her room she transforms into a drug addict in need of her next hit who has remained in the room since arriving in San Francisco, where other versions of her have left the room).
- The Doctor initially speculates that blonde Sam could have been created when his unstable biodata after his last regeneration latched onto dark Sam and transformed her into his 'perfect' companion; Joyce dismisses this idea as the Doctor could never have had that kind of impact on someone he would never have met without that biodata manipulation taking place in the first place, but his words suggest that it could have happened if the Doctor was influencing the biodata of someone he was more familiar with.
Vehicles[[edit] | [edit source]]
- The Doctor's Volkswagen Beetle has a customised Y2K number plate.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Whilst writing Unnatural History both Kate Orman and Jon Blum didn't deliberately make it part of the War arc, though it did contain accidental foreshadowing for PROSE: The Ancestor Cell. However, there were intentional references to the Earth arc, which was being planned at the time.[1]
- There are references to various characters and events from PROSE: The Infinity Doctors. Professor Joyce works at Berkeley — in The Infinity Doctors the Doctor thinks that his father might be a professor at Berkeley. Larna from The Infinity Doctors is implied to be Joyce's assistant. Parkin's later PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles would show Larna beginning a partnership with Ulysses and Penelope Gate, implied to be the Doctor's parents.
- Following a deal with the Faction Paradox, their representative asks the Doctor some interesting questions about his past:
- "Is this the version where they banned all mention of his name, and yours, for consorting with aliens? Or the one where he got every record of himself deleted from the files?"
- "Maybe you didn't use to have a father." In PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible and PROSE: Lungbarrow, the Doctor is stated to have been born from biologically but from a Loom.
- "Maybe you're living in the middle of a time war. Maybe there's an Enemy out there... who's rewriting you when you're not looking." This refers to the War in Heaven introduced in PROSE: Alien Bodies.
- "Maybe you weren't always half-human." The Doctor's half-human status was first mentioned in TV: Doctor Who.
- "Maybe you weren't always a Time Lord." TV: Silver Nemesis suggests something of the sort; a scene cut from TV: Remembrance of the Daleks suggests that the Doctor is "more than just another Time Lord".
- "Maybe you originally came from some planet in the forty-ninth century. Fleeing from the Enemy who'd overrun your home." TV: "The Pilot Episode" mentions that the Doctor is from the 49th century.
- "Maybe there's no one left on Gallifrey..." This likely refers to the Time Lords' abandonment of Gallifrey seen in PROSE: Dead Romance.
- "Maybe they all left. Or maybe the whole planet's being destroyed, and undestroyed, and destroyed, and you just caught them at the wrong moment." PROSE: The Ancestor Cell and PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles both explore this concept.
- "Or maybe someone wanted us to handle it." An excerpt of the Book of Lies in Unnatural History shows Rassilon making a deal with Faction Paradox to erase the events of PROSE: Lungbarrow from Gallifreyan history. This explains the "small improvements to the pattern of history" that Rassilon used the Eighth Doctor to make in PROSE: The Eight Doctors, as well as clarifying why Flavia is President in that novel and why the Eighth Doctor is travelling with Sam rather than Grace Holloway.[2]
- The Boy's mention of a "greyness" destined to fall over the universe is a reference to the end of the universe seen in Lance Parkin's The Infinity Doctors. Implications in Parkin's Father Time and Miranda link this greyness to the post-War universe. Mark Clapham's Analysis, a short story published in Walking in Eternity, shows the amnesic Eighth Doctor's premonitions of a lifeless grey "nothing." Clapham is the author of Hope, which takes place in the same future seen in Father Time and Miranda.
- Many fans speculated that Daniel Joyce is Professor Chronotis, but Blum denied this on Usenet, saying Joyce was much more connected to the outside world than Chronotis, and the only connection between the two was that Robert deLaurentis, whose character John Smith heavily influenced Joyce, was in turn inspired by Shada.[3] DeLaurentis was thanked in the notes of the book.
- Many fans were upset with the portrayal of the Faction in the book, but Blum explained on Usenet that he actually collaborated with Lawrence Miles on this portrayal, agreeing that there were multiple different aims and attitudes within the group.[4]
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- PROSE: Alien Bodies first introduced the concept of an alternate version of Sam Jones who smoked Benson & Hedges cigarettes and had dark hair.
- Sam's postcards are from San Francisco, (PROSE: Vampire Science) 1894, (PROSE: The Bodysnatchers) and Kursaal. (PROSE: Kursaal)
- The Doctor mentions himself and Sam (blonde) defeating the tyrant queen on Hyspero and meeting Iris Wildthyme, both during PROSE: The Scarlet Empress.
- The Doctor mentions that he used to smoke. The only televised occasion of this was TV: An Unearthly Child.
- The events of the Mars 1997 mission were covered in PROSE: The Dying Days.
- The events of PROSE: The Eight Doctors occurred, only without Sam or the Doctor's involvement (the first time around).
- Fitz talks about his time in communist China with Sam (dark haired). His hair is still growing back following the events of PROSE: Revolution Man.
- The planet Quinnis was mentioned (briefly) by the First Doctor and Susan in TV: The Edge of Destruction. Their experiences there were documented in AUDIO: Quinnis.
- Youkali was mentioned in PROSE: Return of the Living Dad.
- Joyce states/accuses the Doctor of toppling governments on his spare weekends, as seen in many stories including TV: The Happiness Patrol, AUDIO: LIVE 34, and TV: The Christmas Invasion.
- The Doctor isn't sure if Romana (PROSE: Goth Opera) or Flavia (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) is Lord President of Gallifrey.
- When the representative of the Faction tries to tell the Doctor of his future exploits he says, "No spoilers," a statement that would come back to him in TV: Silence in the Library, but also because he doesn't want to know about the future he first learned of in PROSE: Alien Bodies.
- The Doctor last dropped acid in 1968 and nearly got transformed into an Aztec god in PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird.
- The events of TV: Doctor Who began the anomalies throughout San Francisco.
- The Book of Lies explains the "small improvements" Rassilon guided the Eighth Doctor to make in PROSE: The Eight Doctors.
- The Book of Lies predicts that a "greyness" will fall across the universe. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
- The Doctor was last in San Francisco in PROSE: Vampire Science.
- The Doctor briefly thinks about Carolyn McConnell and James Court. (PROSE: Vampire Science)
- Blinovitch (of the Blinovitch Limitation Effect) was first mentioned in TV: Day of the Daleks.
- The Doctor doesn't have a shadow after the events of this book. Reasons for this are revealed in PROSE: Interference.
- The Doctor also contacted Grace Holloway in COMIC: The Fallen.
- The Boy follows the legend that all agents of Faction Paradox have lost their shadows. Lolita would later tell Cousin Justine that the Faction had hundreds of agents without shadows, who "just don't mix" with the rest, in AUDIO: The Shadow Play.
- Kyra played a Kathmandu album while Fitz was at her house. Fitz previously met the band in the 1960s, including Ed Hill. (PROSE: Revolution Man)
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Unnatural History at the Faction Paradox wiki
- Unnatural History at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
- The Discontinuity Guide to: Unnatural History at The Whoniverse
- The Cloister Library: Unnatural History
Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- ↑ Jonathan Blum on 'Ask Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum' - The Doctor Who Forum at Outpost Gallifrey (Page 12) (ezyboard membership required)
- ↑ Jonathan Blum on 'Is it possible to reconcile "The Eight Doctors" with "Lungbarrow"?' and 'So, no one is annoyed about Moffat trying to make Alien Bodies non-cannon?' - GallifreyBase (requires log-in)
- ↑ Jonathan Blum on 'Joyce and Savar! (SPOILERS)' - rec.arts.drwho
- ↑ Jonathan Blum comment rec.arts.drwho