The Rani (The Mark of the Rani): Difference between revisions

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{{Infobox Individual|
{{subpage tabs}}
individual name= The Rani |
{{ImageLink}}
alias= '''Ushas'''|
{{Infobox Individual
image=[[File:Rani.jpg|250px]] |
|image             = Rani KO.jpg
race= [[Gallifreyan]] ([[Time Lord|Time Lady]]) |
|alias            = [[Melanie Bush]], [[Cleopatra Selene]], Lania
home planet=[[Gallifrey]] |
|species          = Time Lord
home era= [[Rassilon Era]]|
|job              = Prison governor
appearances= [[DW]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani]]''<br>[[DW]]: ''[[Time and the Rani]]''<br>[[DW]]: ''[[Dimensions in Time]]''<br>[[DWA]]: ''[[Rescue]]''<br>[[MA]]: ''[[State of Change]]''<br>[[PDA]]: ''[[Divided Loyalties]]'' (flashback; cameo)<br>[[BBV]]: ''[[The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind]]''<br>[[Find Your Fate]]: ''[[Crisis in Space]]''|
|partner          = Magnus (Divided Loyalties){{!}}Magnus
actor= [[Kate O'Mara]]|
|origin            = [[Gallifrey]]
}}
|first cs          = The Mark of the Rani (TV story)
'''Ushas''', later known as '''The Rani''', was a renegade [[Time Lord|Time Lady]]. Knowing both of them in youth, she grew into a rival to [[the Master]] and opponent to [[the Doctor]].
|appearances      = {{appears}}
|main actor        = Kate O'Mara
|clip              = The Rani's plan - Doctor Who - Mark of the Rani - BBC
|clip2            = The Doctor wakes up in Rani's lab - Doctor Who Classic - Time & The Rani - BBC
|clip3            = Two Wrongs Don't Make a Left Turn! Time and the Rani - Doctor Who
}}{{Ranis}}{{Deca}}
One incarnation of '''Ushas''', better known as '''[[the Rani]]''' and known more formally as '''Ushas of Miasimia Goria''', was a [[renegade Time Lord|renegade Time Lady]]. A brilliant but cold [[neurochemist]], she knew [[the Doctor]] and [[the Master]] when all three were young, and became an enemy of the former and an unwilling ally of the latter.


=='''Profile'''==
== Biography ==
===Youth and Exile===
=== Origins ===
The Rani was the same age as the Doctor. ([[DW]]: ''[[Time and the Rani]]'') On the [[planet]] [[Gallifrey]], at [[Time Lord Academy|the Academy]], she belonged to a clique of ten young people who called themselves [[the Deca]]. Both [[First Doctor|the Doctor]] and her other future enemy [[Koschei]] (later the Master) belonged to this group. Her name was given as '''Ushas'''. ([[PDA]]: ''[[Divided Loyalties]]'')
{{Main|The Rani's early life}}
By one account, this incarnation was the Rani's first, as she was more cautious than other renegade Time Lords and careful not to be caught in deadly circumstances. Thus, she experienced all of [[the Rani's early life]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (novelisation)}})  


:''A past relationship between the Rani and the Doctor was hinted at, but never elaborated upon.''
Some accounts indicated that this was the second incarnation of the Rani. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Dark Secrets of the Time Lords (feature)}}, [[GAME]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (game)}}) The [[Fifth Doctor]]'s memories of his youth on Gallifrey indicated that Ushas was one of the first members of [[the Deca]] to become a [[junior Time Lord]] and regenerate. This second incarnation of Ushas in his memories could have been the same as the dark-haired incarnation faced by the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Divided Loyalties (novel)}})


Unlike the other members of The Deca, she did not choose to leave Gallifrey but was exiled from the planet after some of her lab [[mouse|mice]], as a result of an experiment, grew to enormous size and ate the [[Lord President|President]]'s pet [[cat]]. ([[DW]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani]]'')
[[The Rani's exile from Gallifrey]] occurred after an experiment led some of [[the Rani's mice]] to bite the [[Lord President (The Mark of the Rani)|Lord President]] and eat his [[Pandad IV's cat|pet cat]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani}}) While these events may have occurred to this incarnation of the Rani, ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (novelisation)}}) one account indicated that the Rani underwent an unknown amount of regenerations between her initial exile and her encounter with the Sixth Doctor. Nobody knew how many regenerations came before this incarnation, as the Rani had spent much of her life undercover. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Master (reference book)}})


===Life as Renegade===
By an account in which the [[Last Great Time War]] began to be fought in the background of [[the Doctor]]'s life after the [[Genesis Incident]], the Rani not actually a [[Renegade Time Lord]] but actually a deep cover [[High Council]] agent, with her exile being a cover story to allow her to conduct important experiments off-world. ([[GAME]]: {{Cs|The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)}}) However, the Rani of the Sixth Doctor's era betrayed the High Council and attempted to go to Gallifrey in the past to speak to her younger self to convince her to take a different path in life, possibly undoing this version of history. ([[GAME]]: {{Cs|The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)|namedep=Deniable Operations}})
====Presence in Earth History====
While the Rani certainly did not share the Doctor's fondness for [[Earth]] (she referred to it as a "miserable planet") it has been the focus of several of her research projects.


When the test subjects on [[Miasimia Goria]], a planet she had enslaved, became violently restless and uncontrollable as a side effect of her experiments on them, the Rani visited Earth at various points in its history to extract chemicals from the brains of select [[Human]] specimens. Because the chemicals in question enabled the human brain to sleep, and because the absence of these chemicals made her victims as violent and uncontrollable as those from her previous experiments, the Rani deliberately chose periods of social unrest to visit, using the violence to conceal her presence and its consequences. She visited the [[Trojan War]], the [[Dark Ages]], the [[American War of Independence]], and finally the [[Luddite]] riots in the village of [[Killingworth]] during the early [[19th century]].
=== Ruling Miasimia Goria ===
Shortly after leaving Gallifrey, the Rani took over [[Miasimia Goria]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Divided Loyalties (novel)}}) The Rani brought [[industry]] and a [[caste]] system to the planet and became its ruler, based in a [[palace]] decorated with [[statue]]s of herself. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Planet of the Rani (audio story)|Planet of the Rani}}) While ruling the planet, she frequently conducted experiments in other parts of time and space. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)}})


Prior to this arrival she had visited Earth in the late [[Cretaceous Period|Cretaceous]] and acquired several [[Tyrannosaur]] embryos. ([[DW]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani]]'')
The Rani frequently travelled to [[Earth]] for centuries of her life without being noticed by other [[Time Lord]]s. While the Rani certainly did not share [[the Doctor]]'s fondness for Earth, which she considered a "miserable planet". She was also disdainful of [[human]]s themselves and called them [[carnivore]]s because they ate [[animal]]s. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)}}) By one account, this incarnation of the Rani originated from some point within those centuries. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Master (reference book)}})


:''The Rani's comments concerning the unrealised full potential of the dinosaurs are curious given the existence of the [[Silurian]] civilisation on the planet at around the same time. She may have been obliquely alluding to averting the fall of the Silurians. Then again, as a biochemist she may simply not have been that familiar with social sciences such as history and just wasn't aware of the Silurians' existence. This seems unlikely, however, given her apparent visits to the Cretaceous to gather specimens.''
By one account, these centuries of experiments were in service of the [[High Council]] for the [[Last Great Time War]]. At one point, the Rani worked with [[the Borad]], who was also a Time Lord. The two agreed on making Time Lords more genetically diverse, but disagreed on methods. ([[GAME]]: {{Cs|The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)}})


[[The Master]] and, shortly after, [[Sixth Doctor|the Doctor]] interrupted her work. The Doctor sabotaged the navigational system of [[the Rani's TARDIS]], trapping the Master and the Rani inside as [[time spillage]] caused the Tyrannosaur embryos to grow at a dangerous rate. ([[DW]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani]]'').
One account suggested that the Rani visited [[India]] at one point, and took her title which meant "[[reign]]ing [[queen]]" from there. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Universal Databank (reference book)}})


====On Terra Nova====
At one point, the Rani created [[parasite (The Mark of the Rani)|worm parasite]]s which allowed her to [[mind control]] individuals. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani}})
Shortly afterwards, from the Doctor's subjective point of view, the Rani was also trapped along with [[Sixth Doctor|the Doctor]] on [[Terra Nova]], which the entity known as [[Iam]] had created. She had in the meantime tried and failed to manipulate the political situation existing between the three children of that reality's version of [[Cleopatra]] ([[MA]]: ''[[State of Change]]'')


====On Tetrapyriarbus and Lakertya====
The Rani's notoriety made her the second most wanted criminal in the galaxy, after [[the Master]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Requiem for the Rocket Men (audio story)|Requiem for the Rocket Men}})
On the planet [[Tetrapyriarbus]], made the acquaintance of, and decided to employ the [[Tetrap]]s, led by [[Urak]]. With them, she invaded the peaceful planet [[Lakertya]] and put into motion a complex plan. The Rani abducted eleven scientific geniuses from across time and space, including [[Albert Einstein]] of Earth. Finally, she decided to "collect" the Doctor and attacked [[The Doctor's TARDIS|his TARDIS]], causing the ship to go through turbulence and hit his head, triggering a [[regeneration]] into his [[Seventh Doctor|Seventh Incarnation]]. ([[DW]]: ''[[Time and the Rani]]'')


:''Conflicting account suggest the Doctor did not actually regenerate strictly because of the Rani's attack on [[The Doctor's TARDIS]].''
The Rani kept herself updated on the actions of other renegades, being aware of the [[Tremas Master]]'s apparent death while facing the [[Fifth Doctor]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani}})


The Rani channeled the intellects of the geniuses into a giant artificial brain which she believed could find the secret to manipulating [[strange matter]], the key to making the planet of Lakertya into a [[Time Manipulator]] in order to correct what she considered to be errors in the universal [[timeline]]. Her first target was to be Earth, where she would prevent the [[extinction]] of the [[dinosaur]]s, creatures whose full potential she felt had never been truly realised. She considered the death of the native [[Lakertyan]]s a small price to pay. The Doctor, though, defeated her and Urak betrayed her, leading the Tertraps against her, placing her under house arrest (in her TARDIS) on Tetrapyriarbus. ([[DW]]: ''[[Time and the Rani]]'').
At some point, she had visited Earth in the [[distant past]] and acquired several [[tyrannosaur]] [[embryo]]s. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani}}) During her dinosaur embryo experiments, she met a splinter faction of [[Clockwork Droid]]s from the ''[[SS Marie Antoinette]]'' and allied with them to create [[clockwork dinosaur]]s to survive the [[K-T extinction event]]. [[Adventurers (Player's Guide)|Time travellers]] stopped this plan from succeeding. ([[GAME]]: {{cs|Dinosaurs on a Clockwork Spaceship (game)}})


After these events occurred, the Tertraps faced a food shortage crisis, while Urak managed to have the Rani put on trial, with the death sentence.
=== Experiments in sleep chemistry ===
She would have to solve the food shortage other wise her sentence would commence.
The Rani began a [[Great Experiment]] ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Planet of the Rani (audio story)|Planet of the Rani}}) to heighten the awareness of the [[Miasimia Gorian]]s ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani}}) and make them into [[genius]]es. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|Planet of the Rani (audio story)|Planet of the Rani}}) However, the process made them unable to [[sleep]] and caused mayhem, leading the Rani to leave the planet to find a solution.
Two human and two alien prisoners were to be test subjects for the Rani's experiments in an attempt at solving the crisis. The Rani however teamed up with the four 'guinea pigs' and managed to escape the planet. Each then went their separate ways, the Rani departing in her TARDIS to an unknown fate. ([[BBV]]: ''[[The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind]]'')


==Ultimate Fate==
The Rani visited Earth at various points in its history to extract [[chemical]]s from the [[brain]]s of select human specimens. Because the chemicals in question enabled the human brain to [[sleep]], and because the absence of these chemicals made her victims as violent and uncontrollable as those from her previous experiments, the Rani deliberately chose periods of social unrest to visit, using the violence to conceal her presence and its consequences.([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani}}) By the account in which the Rani was a [[High Council]] agent, the experiments with human sleep were actually research in how to weaponise humanity for when the [[Last Great Time War]] came to Earth. ([[GAME]]: {{Cs|The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)}})
The whereabouts of The Rani in the revived series have never been confirmed onscreen or in-dialogue. However, given repeated references by The Doctor about the fate of the entire [[Time Lord]] race, it can be generally assumed that she died along with the rest of the Time Lords during the [[Last Great Time War]], though whether or not she fought in the war due to her being an exile is ambiguous. Since The Doctor and The Master both survived the War, with the latter returning to threaten The Doctor on several occasions, a return for the character is possible and often speculated among fans, especially in relation to the enigmatic [[River Song]], though there is a habit among fans of the revival to suggest that almost any prominent female guest star will turn out to be The Rani.


She visited the [[Trojan War]], the [[Dark Ages]], the [[American War of Independence|American Revolutionary War]], and finally the Luddite riots in the village of [[Killingworth]] during the early [[19th century]] where she used the local bath house as her base, posing as the old woman in charge of the premises. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani}}) Around this time, the Rani travelled to [[Shildon]], where she encountered [[Panda]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|From Wildthyme with Love (novel)|From Wildthyme with Love}})


[[Father Kreiner]] killed the Rani and a clone of the [[Master]] and kept their heads as trophies during the events of the [[Second War in Heaven]]. ([[EDA]]:'' [[Interference: Book One]]'') However, it is possible that the War takes place in another timeline due to the [[Eighth Doctor|doctors]] intervention, in which case the fate of the Rani is unknown. ([[EDA]]: ''[[The Ancestor Cell]]'')
{{Ainley|c}} and, shortly after, the [[Sixth Doctor]], interrupted her work. The Doctor sabotaged the navigational system of [[the Rani's TARDIS]], trapping the Master and the Rani inside as [[time spillage]] caused the tyrannosaur embryos to grow at a dangerous rate. The Rani's TARDIS was sent to the outer reaches of the universe, beyond the [[Milky Way]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani}})


==Possibly Apocryphal Adventures==
=== After Killingworth ===
One account claims that she saved a young man named [[Cyrian]] from [[Cybermen]] on the planet [[DV Acrol 8]]. ([[DWA]]: ''[[Rescue]]'') With Cyrian, she later captured the Doctor's [[First Doctor|first]] and [[Second Doctor|second]] incarnations. Despite [[Fourth Doctor|his fourth incarnation]] attempting to warn them of danger, the Rani managed to lure the Doctor's other selves (as well as his companions) into a temporal trap in order to include them in her menagerie of creatures. She hoped to shortly complete her collection of genetic samples and [[brain print]]s of every creature in the [[universe]].
Various accounts existed of the Rani's actions after her first encounter with the [[Sixth Doctor]].


According to another account, with the help of the Doctor's [[time brain]], she hoped to gain access to and control of every individual mind in the cosmos. ([[DW]]: ''[[Dimensions in Time]]'')
==== Alliance with the Master ====
By one account, the Rani continued to work with the [[Tremas Master]], with the two of them having used their combined talents to survive the tyrannosaurus embryo.  


==Personality==
Returning to Earth, the Rani created the [[Plague of Athens]] which devastated [[Athens]] during the [[Peloponnesian War]], attempting to cause the [[Spartan]]s to win so that she could use them as test subjects. However, the Master's attempt to lure the Sixth Doctor into a trap resulted in this scheme failing, with history not being changed.
An evil (''or, more likely, amoral'') scientific genius whose villainy comes not from the usual variety of lust for power and suchlike, but from a mindset that treats everything (including morality) as secondary to her research; she has been known to enslave entire worlds in order to have a ready supply of experimental subjects and a place to carry out her experiments uninterrupted. Her major interest is in tinkering with the biochemistry of other species. [[Fourth Doctor|The Doctor]] claimed that the Rani hates children and [[Christmas]]; it is not known if this was meant literally or if it was just a figure of speech. ([[DW]]: ''[[Dimensions in Time]]'')


While she did appear evil, she found the Master to be truly evil and therefore stupid. She simply does evil things because she feels it is necessary to her work. When [[Sixth Doctor|the Doctor]] tried to convince her not to experiment on [[human]]s, she called them carnivores and asked if they ever thought of the lesser species when they sunk their teeth into pork chops. This shows that the Rani may have a conscience of some kind, also shown when she was willing to destroy her test subjects because they would've killed the Doctor.([[DW]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani]]'')
The duo then went to [[Terranova]] in [[2046]], the first major interstellar [[human]] [[colony planet]]. The Rani used her talents to alter the local flora and fauna to make it more dangerous to humans. The Sixth Doctor interfered, causing the wildlife to grow beyond the Rani's control, necessitating withdrawl.


==Behind the scenes==
The Rani and the Master then went to the [[Middle East]] in the [[7th century]] to replenish the Rani's [[parasite (The Mark of the Rani)|parasite]]s. After they were discovered by [[Leora]], the Rani abandoned the Master and returned to her base on [[Miasimia Goria]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|The Master (reference book)}})
*[[Kate O'Mara]] has, to date, portrayed the Rani in all of her television appearances as well as her single (to date) audio appearance.
*Most fans do not consider the events of ''[[Dimensions in Time]]'' to have actually occurred in [[canon]].
*Many characters in the revived 2005 series have been theorised as in fact being the Rani in disguise, including [[Donna Noble]], [[Lucy Saxon]], [[Miss Foster]], [[River Song]], [[The Woman]], and many other characters have once been thought to have been her in disguise. However, these theories have never come true (unconfirmed in the case of The Woman and River Song). In some forums, it has become a running joke among fans that each new female character introduced will turn out to be the Rani in disguise.
*It has been confirmed that it will be impossible for the Rani to return in the revived series as the character's creators have not agreed to transfer their copyright of the character to any of the new producers, though it may happen one day where the copyright will be taken.{{fact}}


{{Time Lords}}
==== On Terra Nova ====
{{season 22 aliens}}
By another account, the dinosaur grew to such a size that it broke its [[neck]] on the ceiling, but the Rani had been left adrift in [[The Rani's TARDIS|her TARDIS]] when {{Ainley}} escaped from her by detaching the console room from the rest of her TARDIS. Shortly afterwards, from the Doctor's subjective point of view, the Rani was also trapped along with the [[Sixth Doctor]] on [[Terra Nova]], which the entity known as [[Iam]] had created. She had in the meantime tried and failed to manipulate the political situation existing between the three children of that reality's version of [[Cleopatra VII (State of Change)|Cleopatra VII]]. However, she did manage to escape Terra Nova, by using the entity to create a new TARDIS console room to replace the one the Master escaped in. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|State of Change (novel)|State of Change}})
{{Season 24 aliens}}
 
{{Wikipedia|Rani_(Doctor_Who)}}
==== On Koturia ====
[[Category:The Rani|Rani]]
By a third account, the Rani's next encounter with the Sixth Doctor and Peri was on [[Koturia]]. The Rani had been inspired by her experience with the tyrannosaur embryo to create new forms of [[dinosaur]] servants.
[[Category:Allies of the Master]]
 
On Koturia, the Rani went by the name of Lania. She was genetically modifying [[pterodactyl]]s in order to take blood and tissue samples of Koturians for the purpose of learning about [[Phasing]]. She believed that she could learn of a way to control the outcome of a [[regeneration]] by learning how Koturians control their appearance when they Phase. She immersed herself in Koturian culture and became engaged to [[Jonos]], an upper-class Koturian. However, their marriage ceremony was crashed by the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown, the former of whom was invited as an old friend of Jonos's father, [[Evris Makshi]]. Although they were too late to stop the physical ceremony, it failed to result in Jonos completing his Phase because both bride and groom have to be in love with one another for the [[Imori stone]] to work and the Rani was only pretending to be in love with Jonos. Although the Rani claimed to be immune to emotion, the Doctor believed she felt some kind of emotional attachment to her work, as she did beg him to not destroy her research by saying "please." ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Something Borrowed (short story)|Something Borrowed}})
 
=== Further encounters with the Sixth Doctor ===
[[File:Race Against Time 2.jpg|thumb|right|The Rani faces the [[Sixth Doctor]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Race Against Time (novel)}})]]
The Rani once attempted to revert [[20th century]] [[Earth]] to the [[Cretaceous]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Race Against Time (novel)}})
 
By an account in which the Rani had been a [[High Council]] agent in the [[Last Great Time War]], she betrayed the High Council and allied instead with [[Davros]]. She attempted to get the [[Sixth Doctor]] to take her to Gallifrey in the past to speak to her younger self to convince her to take a different path in life. Through this, she intended to deliver the Doctor to Davros. ([[GAME]]: {{Cs|The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)|namedep=Deniable Operations}})
 
The Rani once crashed in a branch in the [[Time Vortex]] where all of time split into two wildly different paths. The Sixth Doctor found [[the Rani's TARDIS]] near the point of its destruction, and entered it to save history. ([[GAME]]: {{Cs|The Mark of the Rani (game)|namedep=Fellow Travelers}})
 
The Sixth Doctor once encountered a mysterious plot by the Rani in which she existed as the three kind, honourable [[Ranier sisters]] in the early [[20th century]]. ([[GAME]]: {{Cs|The Mark of the Rani (game)|namedep=Lives of the Rani}})
 
=== Alliance with the Tetraps ===
[[File:Rani speaking into wrist communicator TandtheR.jpg|thumb|left|The Rani communicating with [[Urak]] from her base on Lakertya. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani}})]]
On the planet [[Tetrapyriarbus]], the Rani decided to employ the [[Tetrap]]s, led by [[Urak]]. With them, she invaded the peaceful planet [[Lakertya]] and put into motion a complex plan to abducted eleven scientific geniuses from across time and space, including [[Albert Einstein]] of Earth, to harness the [[strange matter]] needed to make Lakertya into a [[Time Manipulator]] in order to correct what she considered to be errors in the universal [[timeline]], with the death of the Tetraps and [[Lakertyan]]s being a small price to pay.
 
Finally she decided to "collect" the Doctor and attacked [[The Doctor's TARDIS|his TARDIS]], ([[TV]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani}}) with concentrated beams of a [[radiation]] lethal to Time Lords, ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Brink of Death (audio story)|The Brink of Death}}) wounding the Doctor enough to trigger [[Sixth Doctor's regeneration|his regeneration]] into his [[Seventh Doctor|seventh incarnation]]. Disguising herself as the Doctor's companion, [[Mel Bush]], the Rani used amnesia drugs to convince the Doctor that her project was actually his in order to better ensure his cooperation in completing her work. Once the Doctor had finished the calculation, the Rani confined him with the other geniuses and channelled their intellects into a giant artificial brain which she believed could find the answer as to how to create a lightweight substitute for strange matter, since strange matter was incredibly heavy and could only be destroyed by strange matter. When it was devised, she sent a missile containing the substance aimed at a strange matter asteroid. However, the Doctor, using his unstable mind as a virus, destroyed the brain and redirected the missile. Urak lead the Tetraps against the Rani when he learnt she planned to betray them, and they placed her under house arrest in her TARDIS on Tetrapyriarbus. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Time and the Rani (TV story)}}) Afterwards, the Doctor wrote in [[Seventh Doctor's diary|his diary]] about his regeneration and the Rani. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|First Day of the Doctor (short story)}})
 
When the Tetraps faced a food shortage crisis, Urak managed to have the Rani put on trial. When she was given the death sentence, Urak bargained with her to solve the food shortage or her sentence would commence, giving her two humans and two alien prisoners as test subjects for the experiments that would solving the crisis. The Rani, however, teamed up with her four "guinea pigs" and managed to escape the planet. Each then went their separate ways, with the Rani swearing to teach Urak a lesson and retrieve her timeship from him. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind (audio story)}})
 
=== Gathering her Menagerie ===
[[File:Rani and First Doctor.jpg|thumb|The Rani mocks the Doctor after capturing his [[First Doctor|first incarnation]]. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Dimensions in Time (TV story)|Dimensions in Time}})]]
Some time later, arrived on the [[planet]] [[DV Acrol 8]]. There, she rescued a young humanoid named [[Cyrian]] from a troop of [[Cybermen]] and took him on as her travelling [[companion]], though in effect he became her servant. During their travels, the Rani taught him enough about the workings of the TARDIS for him to operate the [[control console]]. ([[PROSE]]: {{cs|Rescue (short story)|Rescue}})
 
During their travels, the Rani hatched a plan to harness the power of a [[Space-time tunnel|time tunnel]] and gain control over galactic evolution. To do so, she collected a vast menagerie of all sentient-life forms from across [[space]] and [[time]] inside of her TARDIS. The last specimen she required was a [[human]] from [[Earth]]. Knowing that the Doctor would attempt to stop her, she set out to incapacitate him in all of his incarnations. After successfully capturing the [[First Doctor]] and the [[Second Doctor]], the Rani trapped the [[Seventh Doctor]] and the rest of his predecessors inside of a time loop in [[Albert Square]]. Fearing that he had figured out her plan, she released her a collection of her specimen into the Square. To finalise her menagerie, she captured [[Romana II]], mistaking her for one of the Doctor's [[human]] companions. Since Romana II was a Time Lady, however, the Rani's computer lacked a human specimen and instead had two "Time-brains". After Romana escaped, the Doctor took advantage of this error and forced her computer to overload, resulting in her TARDIS being sucked into the Time Tunnel. ([[TV]]: {{cs|Dimensions in Time (TV story)|Dimensions in Time}})
 
=== The Rani's hobby ===
[[File:Tenth Doctor Untitled Y3 12 The Rani.jpg|thumb|The Rani meets the [[Tenth Doctor]]. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Untitled (10DY3 12 comic story)}})]]
The Rani developed an affinity for [[Earth]]'s plant life and posed as a florist there to gather floral specimens. She experimented on them to make them stronger and thus able to survive on "her planet". A slight error in the fertiliser (as she put it) soon resulted in at least two of her test subjects mutating into gigantic, carnivorous "plant monsters".
 
Passing by, the [[Tenth Doctor]] and [[Rose Tyler]] saw the creatures escaping from the florist shop and made their way inside. The Doctor was stunned to come across the Rani once more, while she, for her part, readily recognised the Doctor and began to deride this latest regeneration of his, which she described as "a scrawny little thing". The Doctor retaliated by finding the fact that the Rani had essentially adopted gardening as a "hobby" utterly adorable.
 
While the Doctor formulated a plan and explained it to Rose, the Rani created an antidote for her overpowered fertiliser, curbing the plant monsters' aggressive tendencies and shrinking them to a small enough size to fit inside [[The Rani's TARDIS|her TARDIS]]. When the Doctor announced this exact same plan as his own idea, only to realise that the Rani had already done it, he was momentarily stunned, but also impressed. As the Rani left the timezone with the tamed plant monsters, the Doctor bid her a fond goodbye. His subsequent, outspoken admiration of the Rani's intelligence was shortly followed by an assurance that he "couldn't stand her" to a jealous Rose. ([[COMIC]]: {{cs|Untitled (10DY3 12 comic story)}})
 
=== Death ===
Through unknown circumstances, the Rani later regenerated into [[Second Rani|her next incarnation]]. ([[AUDIO]]: {{cs|The Rani Elite (audio story)|The Rani Elite}})
 
=== Undated events ===
* The Rani may have once been stranded with the [[Tremas Master]] in the [[Third Zone]]. The two of them took on the names [[Kartz]] and [[Reimer]], creating the [[Kartz-Reimer module]] to escape. ([[GAME]]: {{cs|The Two Doctors (game)}})
* The Rani conducted an experiment on early [[21st century]] [[Earth]] by introducing a [[x-gene|super gene]] injected into the [[X chromosome]] which caused humans to become [[mutant (Homo superior)|mutant]]s with various [[superpower (ability)|power]]s. She [[disguise]]d herself as a [[genetic scientist]] for the [[UN science counsel]], allowing her to experiment under the [[guise]] of "[[checking]] for mutant genes". ([[GAME]]: {{cs|The 'X' Factor (game)}})
 
== Other realities ==
=== Theta Stigma's universe ===
{{main|The Rani (Theta Stigma's universe)}}
[[File:The Doctor as Charlie Brown.jpg|thumb|left|A psychiatrist Rani. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[The Glorious Dead (comic story)|The Glorious Dead]]'')]]
In [[Theta Stigma's universe|one universe]], [[the Rani (Theta Stigma's universe)|the Rani]] was a psychiatrist who gave [[Theta Stigma]] advice for 5 cents. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[The Glorious Dead (comic story)|The Glorious Dead]]'')
 
=== Alternate timelines ===
In a [[alternative timeline]], the Rani cooperated alongside [[the Master]], [[the Monk]] and [[Drax]] to try to destroy the world using a DNA recombinator, turning the human race into a [[Hive mind|gestalt consciousness]] that could be used as a [[weapon]] to conquer the [[N-Space|universe]]. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[The Quantum Archangel (novel)|The Quantum Archangel]]'')
 
== Appearance ==
The Rani was slim, with tanned [[skin]], and big [[hair]] that was sometimes curled. She dressed lavishly, wearing knee-high [[boot]]s, tight leather trousers, and voluminous patterned tunics. With each outfit, she wore colour-coordinated nail varnish and eye shadow, and various rings and bracelets. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani]]'', ''[[Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani]]'')
 
When meeting the [[Tenth Doctor]], the Rani wore a long blue floral-patterned dress. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Untitled (10DY3 12 comic story)|Untitled]]'')
 
== Personality ==
[[File:Tenth Doctor Untitled Y3 12 The Rani 2-min.jpg|thumb|The Rani squabbles with [[Rose Tyler]]. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Untitled (10DY3 12 comic story)|Untitled]]'')]]
The Rani was a brilliant scientific genius whose villainy came not from the usual variety of lust for power and suchlike, but from a mindset that treated everything (including morality) as secondary to her research. She was highly intelligent but extremely arrogant, narcissistic, ruthless, powerful and intensely cruel. She was known to enslave entire worlds in order to have a ready supply of experimental subjects and a place to carry out her experiments uninterrupted. Her major interest was in altering the [[biochemistry]] of other species. She was also capable of linking a [[remote control]] to a [[TARDIS]], something that other [[Time Lord]]s had not been able to manage themselves.
 
While she did appear evil, she found [[the Master]] to be truly evil and therefore stupid. She also said that his plans were so overcomplicated that if he walked in a straight line he would get dizzy. She didn't have a good impression of either of her old classmates when she encountered the Master and the [[Sixth Doctor]]. What evil she did she felt was necessary to her work. When the Doctor tried to convince her not to experiment on [[human]]s, she called them carnivores and asked if they ever thought of the lesser species when they sunk their teeth into a lamb chop; she had a [[conscience]] of some kind, as she was later willing to destroy her test subjects intending to kill the Doctor. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Mark of the Rani (TV story)|The Mark of the Rani]]'')
 
According to the [[Seventh Doctor]], the Rani had nothing but contempt for all other Time Lords since her banishment from Gallifrey. However, after hearing this, the Rani bluntly stated that her contempt started long before her banishment. ([[TV]]: ''[[Time and the Rani (TV story)|Time and the Rani]]'')
 
== Behind the scenes ==
* The Rani was to have reappeared alongside the [[Tremas Master]] in the unproduced TV story ''[[Yellow Fever and How to Cure It (unproduced TV story)|Yellow Fever and How to Cure It]]''.
* [[Kate O'Mara]] portrayed the Rani in all of her television appearances including the 1993 special ''[[Dimensions in Time (TV story)|Dimensions in Time]]''. In this story, the Rani traps all seven of the Doctor's incarnations and fellow companions in the East End of London.
* It was never made clear on-screen as to whether Kate O'Mara was the first Rani or simply the first one covered by the series. However, [[Pip and Jane Baker]]'s novelisation of ''[[Time and the Rani (novelisation)|Time and the Rani]]'' confirms that the Rani is still in her first incarnation.
** Earlier, ''[[The Doctor Who Role Playing Game]]: [[The Master (reference book)|The Master]]'' indicated that the "current" O'Mara Rani was not in fact the first incarnation, stating only that the number of [[regeneration]]s used by the Rani was unknown due to her spending much of her life as an [[exile]] undercover.
* Plans were underway to bring back Kate O'Mara as the Rani for new [[Big Finish Productions]] audios, but O'Mara passed away a few weeks before recording. Upon being assured by O'Mara's agent that she'd wished them to continue the project without her, Big Finish cast [[Siobhan Redmond]] as a new incarnation of the Rani.<ref>http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/the-new-rani</ref>
* When [[BBV Productions]] was in negotiations with the estate of [[Pip and Jane Baker]] for the rights to [[the Rani]], it was planned that the ''[[The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind (novelisation)|Rani Reaps the Whirlwind]]'' novelisation would establish the story as the Kate O'Mara incarnation's final adventure, adding a special [[regeneration]] scene by [[James Hornby]] as an epilogue. However, by the time the novelisation was printed, the plans for [[The Rani (series)|further BBV Rani stories]] had fallen through and Hornby had decided to cease associating with BBV, leading to the regeneration scene being taken out of the book.<ref>{{cite web
|url = https://aristidetwain.tumblr.com/post/678262054451347456/eight-lost-bbv-projects
|title=Eight "Lost" BBV Projects
|author = [[Aristide Twain]]
|website name=Aristide Twain on Tumblr
|date of source = 9 March 2022
}}</ref>
 
== Footnotes ==
{{Reflist}}
{{Rani stories}}
{{The Master's assistants}}
{{NameSort}}
 
 
[[ro:The Rani]]
[[ru:Рани]]
[[Category:Aliases]]
[[Category:Articles that were originally Wikipedia forks]]
[[Category:College of Advanced Galactic Education]]
[[Category:The Deca]]
[[Category:Homeworlders in the War in Heaven]]
[[Category:Imposters]]
[[Category:Murderers]]
[[Category:Patrexes]]
[[Category:Prydonians]]
[[Category:Renegade Time Lords]]
[[Category:Residents of Gallifrey]]
[[Category:Students at the Time Lord Academy]]
[[Category:Time Lord scientists]]
[[Category:Time Lords who have been inside the Doctor's TARDIS]]
[[Category:Time Lords who have witnessed regeneration]]
[[Category:Tremas Master's assistants]]
[[Category:Incarnations of the Rani]]
[[Category:The Ones That Went Mad]]

Latest revision as of 02:13, 28 October 2024

The Rani
Gallery
Appearances

One incarnation of Ushas, better known as the Rani and known more formally as Ushas of Miasimia Goria, was a renegade Time Lady. A brilliant but cold neurochemist, she knew the Doctor and the Master when all three were young, and became an enemy of the former and an unwilling ally of the latter.

Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]

Origins[[edit] | [edit source]]

Main article: The Rani's early life

By one account, this incarnation was the Rani's first, as she was more cautious than other renegade Time Lords and careful not to be caught in deadly circumstances. Thus, she experienced all of the Rani's early life. (PROSE: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (novelisation)"])

Some accounts indicated that this was the second incarnation of the Rani. (PROSE: Dark Secrets of the Time Lords [+]Loading...["Dark Secrets of the Time Lords (feature)"], GAME: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (game)"]) The Fifth Doctor's memories of his youth on Gallifrey indicated that Ushas was one of the first members of the Deca to become a junior Time Lord and regenerate. This second incarnation of Ushas in his memories could have been the same as the dark-haired incarnation faced by the Sixth and Seventh Doctors. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties [+]Loading...["Divided Loyalties (novel)"])

The Rani's exile from Gallifrey occurred after an experiment led some of the Rani's mice to bite the Lord President and eat his pet cat. (TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)","The Mark of the Rani"]) While these events may have occurred to this incarnation of the Rani, (PROSE: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (novelisation)"]) one account indicated that the Rani underwent an unknown amount of regenerations between her initial exile and her encounter with the Sixth Doctor. Nobody knew how many regenerations came before this incarnation, as the Rani had spent much of her life undercover. (PROSE: The Master [+]Loading...["The Master (reference book)"])

By an account in which the Last Great Time War began to be fought in the background of the Doctor's life after the Genesis Incident, the Rani not actually a Renegade Time Lord but actually a deep cover High Council agent, with her exile being a cover story to allow her to conduct important experiments off-world. (GAME: The Sixth Doctor and the Time War [+]Loading...["The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)"]) However, the Rani of the Sixth Doctor's era betrayed the High Council and attempted to go to Gallifrey in the past to speak to her younger self to convince her to take a different path in life, possibly undoing this version of history. (GAME: "Deniable Operations" [+]Part of The Sixth Doctor and the Time War, Loading...{"namedep":"Deniable Operations","1":"The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)"})

Ruling Miasimia Goria[[edit] | [edit source]]

Shortly after leaving Gallifrey, the Rani took over Miasimia Goria. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties [+]Loading...["Divided Loyalties (novel)"]) The Rani brought industry and a caste system to the planet and became its ruler, based in a palace decorated with statues of herself. (AUDIO: Planet of the Rani [+]Loading...["Planet of the Rani (audio story)","Planet of the Rani"]) While ruling the planet, she frequently conducted experiments in other parts of time and space. (TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)"])

The Rani frequently travelled to Earth for centuries of her life without being noticed by other Time Lords. While the Rani certainly did not share the Doctor's fondness for Earth, which she considered a "miserable planet". She was also disdainful of humans themselves and called them carnivores because they ate animals. (TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)"]) By one account, this incarnation of the Rani originated from some point within those centuries. (PROSE: The Master [+]Loading...["The Master (reference book)"])

By one account, these centuries of experiments were in service of the High Council for the Last Great Time War. At one point, the Rani worked with the Borad, who was also a Time Lord. The two agreed on making Time Lords more genetically diverse, but disagreed on methods. (GAME: The Sixth Doctor and the Time War [+]Loading...["The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)"])

One account suggested that the Rani visited India at one point, and took her title which meant "reigning queen" from there. (PROSE: The Universal Databank [+]Loading...["The Universal Databank (reference book)"])

At one point, the Rani created worm parasites which allowed her to mind control individuals. (TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)","The Mark of the Rani"])

The Rani's notoriety made her the second most wanted criminal in the galaxy, after the Master. (AUDIO: Requiem for the Rocket Men [+]Loading...["Requiem for the Rocket Men (audio story)","Requiem for the Rocket Men"])

The Rani kept herself updated on the actions of other renegades, being aware of the Tremas Master's apparent death while facing the Fifth Doctor. (TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)","The Mark of the Rani"])

At some point, she had visited Earth in the distant past and acquired several tyrannosaur embryos. (TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)","The Mark of the Rani"]) During her dinosaur embryo experiments, she met a splinter faction of Clockwork Droids from the SS Marie Antoinette and allied with them to create clockwork dinosaurs to survive the K-T extinction event. Time travellers stopped this plan from succeeding. (GAME: Dinosaurs on a Clockwork Spaceship [+]Loading...["Dinosaurs on a Clockwork Spaceship (game)"])

Experiments in sleep chemistry[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Rani began a Great Experiment (AUDIO: Planet of the Rani [+]Loading...["Planet of the Rani (audio story)","Planet of the Rani"]) to heighten the awareness of the Miasimia Gorians (TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)","The Mark of the Rani"]) and make them into geniuses. (AUDIO: Planet of the Rani [+]Loading...["Planet of the Rani (audio story)","Planet of the Rani"]) However, the process made them unable to sleep and caused mayhem, leading the Rani to leave the planet to find a solution.

The Rani visited Earth at various points in its history to extract chemicals from the brains of select human specimens. Because the chemicals in question enabled the human brain to sleep, and because the absence of these chemicals made her victims as violent and uncontrollable as those from her previous experiments, the Rani deliberately chose periods of social unrest to visit, using the violence to conceal her presence and its consequences.(TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)","The Mark of the Rani"]) By the account in which the Rani was a High Council agent, the experiments with human sleep were actually research in how to weaponise humanity for when the Last Great Time War came to Earth. (GAME: The Sixth Doctor and the Time War [+]Loading...["The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)"])

She visited the Trojan War, the Dark Ages, the American Revolutionary War, and finally the Luddite riots in the village of Killingworth during the early 19th century where she used the local bath house as her base, posing as the old woman in charge of the premises. (TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)","The Mark of the Rani"]) Around this time, the Rani travelled to Shildon, where she encountered Panda. (PROSE: From Wildthyme with Love [+]Loading...["From Wildthyme with Love (novel)","From Wildthyme with Love"])

The Tremas Master and, shortly after, the Sixth Doctor, interrupted her work. The Doctor sabotaged the navigational system of the Rani's TARDIS, trapping the Master and the Rani inside as time spillage caused the tyrannosaur embryos to grow at a dangerous rate. The Rani's TARDIS was sent to the outer reaches of the universe, beyond the Milky Way. (TV: The Mark of the Rani [+]Loading...["The Mark of the Rani (TV story)","The Mark of the Rani"])

After Killingworth[[edit] | [edit source]]

Various accounts existed of the Rani's actions after her first encounter with the Sixth Doctor.

Alliance with the Master[[edit] | [edit source]]

By one account, the Rani continued to work with the Tremas Master, with the two of them having used their combined talents to survive the tyrannosaurus embryo.

Returning to Earth, the Rani created the Plague of Athens which devastated Athens during the Peloponnesian War, attempting to cause the Spartans to win so that she could use them as test subjects. However, the Master's attempt to lure the Sixth Doctor into a trap resulted in this scheme failing, with history not being changed.

The duo then went to Terranova in 2046, the first major interstellar human colony planet. The Rani used her talents to alter the local flora and fauna to make it more dangerous to humans. The Sixth Doctor interfered, causing the wildlife to grow beyond the Rani's control, necessitating withdrawl.

The Rani and the Master then went to the Middle East in the 7th century to replenish the Rani's parasites. After they were discovered by Leora, the Rani abandoned the Master and returned to her base on Miasimia Goria. (PROSE: The Master [+]Loading...["The Master (reference book)"])

On Terra Nova[[edit] | [edit source]]

By another account, the dinosaur grew to such a size that it broke its neck on the ceiling, but the Rani had been left adrift in her TARDIS when the Tremas Master escaped from her by detaching the console room from the rest of her TARDIS. Shortly afterwards, from the Doctor's subjective point of view, the Rani was also trapped along with the Sixth Doctor on Terra Nova, which the entity known as Iam had created. She had in the meantime tried and failed to manipulate the political situation existing between the three children of that reality's version of Cleopatra VII. However, she did manage to escape Terra Nova, by using the entity to create a new TARDIS console room to replace the one the Master escaped in. (PROSE: State of Change [+]Loading...["State of Change (novel)","State of Change"])

On Koturia[[edit] | [edit source]]

By a third account, the Rani's next encounter with the Sixth Doctor and Peri was on Koturia. The Rani had been inspired by her experience with the tyrannosaur embryo to create new forms of dinosaur servants.

On Koturia, the Rani went by the name of Lania. She was genetically modifying pterodactyls in order to take blood and tissue samples of Koturians for the purpose of learning about Phasing. She believed that she could learn of a way to control the outcome of a regeneration by learning how Koturians control their appearance when they Phase. She immersed herself in Koturian culture and became engaged to Jonos, an upper-class Koturian. However, their marriage ceremony was crashed by the Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown, the former of whom was invited as an old friend of Jonos's father, Evris Makshi. Although they were too late to stop the physical ceremony, it failed to result in Jonos completing his Phase because both bride and groom have to be in love with one another for the Imori stone to work and the Rani was only pretending to be in love with Jonos. Although the Rani claimed to be immune to emotion, the Doctor believed she felt some kind of emotional attachment to her work, as she did beg him to not destroy her research by saying "please." (PROSE: Something Borrowed [+]Loading...["Something Borrowed (short story)","Something Borrowed"])

Further encounters with the Sixth Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Rani faces the Sixth Doctor. (PROSE: Race Against Time [+]Loading...["Race Against Time (novel)"])

The Rani once attempted to revert 20th century Earth to the Cretaceous. (PROSE: Race Against Time [+]Loading...["Race Against Time (novel)"])

By an account in which the Rani had been a High Council agent in the Last Great Time War, she betrayed the High Council and allied instead with Davros. She attempted to get the Sixth Doctor to take her to Gallifrey in the past to speak to her younger self to convince her to take a different path in life. Through this, she intended to deliver the Doctor to Davros. (GAME: "Deniable Operations" [+]Part of The Sixth Doctor and the Time War, Loading...{"namedep":"Deniable Operations","1":"The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)"})

The Rani once crashed in a branch in the Time Vortex where all of time split into two wildly different paths. The Sixth Doctor found the Rani's TARDIS near the point of its destruction, and entered it to save history. (GAME: "Fellow Travelers" [+]Part of The Mark of the Rani, Loading...{"namedep":"Fellow Travelers","1":"The Mark of the Rani (game)"})

The Sixth Doctor once encountered a mysterious plot by the Rani in which she existed as the three kind, honourable Ranier sisters in the early 20th century. (GAME: "Lives of the Rani" [+]Part of The Mark of the Rani, Loading...{"namedep":"Lives of the Rani","1":"The Mark of the Rani (game)"})

Alliance with the Tetraps[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Rani communicating with Urak from her base on Lakertya. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)","Time and the Rani"])

On the planet Tetrapyriarbus, the Rani decided to employ the Tetraps, led by Urak. With them, she invaded the peaceful planet Lakertya and put into motion a complex plan to abducted eleven scientific geniuses from across time and space, including Albert Einstein of Earth, to harness the strange matter needed to make Lakertya into a Time Manipulator in order to correct what she considered to be errors in the universal timeline, with the death of the Tetraps and Lakertyans being a small price to pay.

Finally she decided to "collect" the Doctor and attacked his TARDIS, (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)","Time and the Rani"]) with concentrated beams of a radiation lethal to Time Lords, (AUDIO: The Brink of Death [+]Loading...["The Brink of Death (audio story)","The Brink of Death"]) wounding the Doctor enough to trigger his regeneration into his seventh incarnation. Disguising herself as the Doctor's companion, Mel Bush, the Rani used amnesia drugs to convince the Doctor that her project was actually his in order to better ensure his cooperation in completing her work. Once the Doctor had finished the calculation, the Rani confined him with the other geniuses and channelled their intellects into a giant artificial brain which she believed could find the answer as to how to create a lightweight substitute for strange matter, since strange matter was incredibly heavy and could only be destroyed by strange matter. When it was devised, she sent a missile containing the substance aimed at a strange matter asteroid. However, the Doctor, using his unstable mind as a virus, destroyed the brain and redirected the missile. Urak lead the Tetraps against the Rani when he learnt she planned to betray them, and they placed her under house arrest in her TARDIS on Tetrapyriarbus. (TV: Time and the Rani [+]Loading...["Time and the Rani (TV story)"]) Afterwards, the Doctor wrote in his diary about his regeneration and the Rani. (PROSE: First Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["First Day of the Doctor (short story)"])

When the Tetraps faced a food shortage crisis, Urak managed to have the Rani put on trial. When she was given the death sentence, Urak bargained with her to solve the food shortage or her sentence would commence, giving her two humans and two alien prisoners as test subjects for the experiments that would solving the crisis. The Rani, however, teamed up with her four "guinea pigs" and managed to escape the planet. Each then went their separate ways, with the Rani swearing to teach Urak a lesson and retrieve her timeship from him. (AUDIO: The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind [+]Loading...["The Rani Reaps the Whirlwind (audio story)"])

Gathering her Menagerie[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Rani mocks the Doctor after capturing his first incarnation. (TV: Dimensions in Time [+]Loading...["Dimensions in Time (TV story)","Dimensions in Time"])

Some time later, arrived on the planet DV Acrol 8. There, she rescued a young humanoid named Cyrian from a troop of Cybermen and took him on as her travelling companion, though in effect he became her servant. During their travels, the Rani taught him enough about the workings of the TARDIS for him to operate the control console. (PROSE: Rescue [+]Loading...["Rescue (short story)","Rescue"])

During their travels, the Rani hatched a plan to harness the power of a time tunnel and gain control over galactic evolution. To do so, she collected a vast menagerie of all sentient-life forms from across space and time inside of her TARDIS. The last specimen she required was a human from Earth. Knowing that the Doctor would attempt to stop her, she set out to incapacitate him in all of his incarnations. After successfully capturing the First Doctor and the Second Doctor, the Rani trapped the Seventh Doctor and the rest of his predecessors inside of a time loop in Albert Square. Fearing that he had figured out her plan, she released her a collection of her specimen into the Square. To finalise her menagerie, she captured Romana II, mistaking her for one of the Doctor's human companions. Since Romana II was a Time Lady, however, the Rani's computer lacked a human specimen and instead had two "Time-brains". After Romana escaped, the Doctor took advantage of this error and forced her computer to overload, resulting in her TARDIS being sucked into the Time Tunnel. (TV: Dimensions in Time [+]Loading...["Dimensions in Time (TV story)","Dimensions in Time"])

The Rani's hobby[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Rani meets the Tenth Doctor. (COMIC: Untitled [+]Loading...["Untitled (10DY3 12 comic story)"])

The Rani developed an affinity for Earth's plant life and posed as a florist there to gather floral specimens. She experimented on them to make them stronger and thus able to survive on "her planet". A slight error in the fertiliser (as she put it) soon resulted in at least two of her test subjects mutating into gigantic, carnivorous "plant monsters".

Passing by, the Tenth Doctor and Rose Tyler saw the creatures escaping from the florist shop and made their way inside. The Doctor was stunned to come across the Rani once more, while she, for her part, readily recognised the Doctor and began to deride this latest regeneration of his, which she described as "a scrawny little thing". The Doctor retaliated by finding the fact that the Rani had essentially adopted gardening as a "hobby" utterly adorable.

While the Doctor formulated a plan and explained it to Rose, the Rani created an antidote for her overpowered fertiliser, curbing the plant monsters' aggressive tendencies and shrinking them to a small enough size to fit inside her TARDIS. When the Doctor announced this exact same plan as his own idea, only to realise that the Rani had already done it, he was momentarily stunned, but also impressed. As the Rani left the timezone with the tamed plant monsters, the Doctor bid her a fond goodbye. His subsequent, outspoken admiration of the Rani's intelligence was shortly followed by an assurance that he "couldn't stand her" to a jealous Rose. (COMIC: Untitled [+]Loading...["Untitled (10DY3 12 comic story)"])

Death[[edit] | [edit source]]

Through unknown circumstances, the Rani later regenerated into her next incarnation. (AUDIO: The Rani Elite [+]Loading...["The Rani Elite (audio story)","The Rani Elite"])

Undated events[[edit] | [edit source]]

Other realities[[edit] | [edit source]]

Theta Stigma's universe[[edit] | [edit source]]

Main article: The Rani (Theta Stigma's universe)
A psychiatrist Rani. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)

In one universe, the Rani was a psychiatrist who gave Theta Stigma advice for 5 cents. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)

Alternate timelines[[edit] | [edit source]]

In a alternative timeline, the Rani cooperated alongside the Master, the Monk and Drax to try to destroy the world using a DNA recombinator, turning the human race into a gestalt consciousness that could be used as a weapon to conquer the universe. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)

Appearance[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Rani was slim, with tanned skin, and big hair that was sometimes curled. She dressed lavishly, wearing knee-high boots, tight leather trousers, and voluminous patterned tunics. With each outfit, she wore colour-coordinated nail varnish and eye shadow, and various rings and bracelets. (TV: The Mark of the Rani, Time and the Rani)

When meeting the Tenth Doctor, the Rani wore a long blue floral-patterned dress. (COMIC: Untitled)

Personality[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Rani squabbles with Rose Tyler. (COMIC: Untitled)

The Rani was a brilliant scientific genius whose villainy came not from the usual variety of lust for power and suchlike, but from a mindset that treated everything (including morality) as secondary to her research. She was highly intelligent but extremely arrogant, narcissistic, ruthless, powerful and intensely cruel. She was known to enslave entire worlds in order to have a ready supply of experimental subjects and a place to carry out her experiments uninterrupted. Her major interest was in altering the biochemistry of other species. She was also capable of linking a remote control to a TARDIS, something that other Time Lords had not been able to manage themselves.

While she did appear evil, she found the Master to be truly evil and therefore stupid. She also said that his plans were so overcomplicated that if he walked in a straight line he would get dizzy. She didn't have a good impression of either of her old classmates when she encountered the Master and the Sixth Doctor. What evil she did she felt was necessary to her work. When the Doctor tried to convince her not to experiment on humans, she called them carnivores and asked if they ever thought of the lesser species when they sunk their teeth into a lamb chop; she had a conscience of some kind, as she was later willing to destroy her test subjects intending to kill the Doctor. (TV: The Mark of the Rani)

According to the Seventh Doctor, the Rani had nothing but contempt for all other Time Lords since her banishment from Gallifrey. However, after hearing this, the Rani bluntly stated that her contempt started long before her banishment. (TV: Time and the Rani)

Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  • The Rani was to have reappeared alongside the Tremas Master in the unproduced TV story Yellow Fever and How to Cure It.
  • Kate O'Mara portrayed the Rani in all of her television appearances including the 1993 special Dimensions in Time. In this story, the Rani traps all seven of the Doctor's incarnations and fellow companions in the East End of London.
  • It was never made clear on-screen as to whether Kate O'Mara was the first Rani or simply the first one covered by the series. However, Pip and Jane Baker's novelisation of Time and the Rani confirms that the Rani is still in her first incarnation.
  • Plans were underway to bring back Kate O'Mara as the Rani for new Big Finish Productions audios, but O'Mara passed away a few weeks before recording. Upon being assured by O'Mara's agent that she'd wished them to continue the project without her, Big Finish cast Siobhan Redmond as a new incarnation of the Rani.[1]
  • When BBV Productions was in negotiations with the estate of Pip and Jane Baker for the rights to the Rani, it was planned that the Rani Reaps the Whirlwind novelisation would establish the story as the Kate O'Mara incarnation's final adventure, adding a special regeneration scene by James Hornby as an epilogue. However, by the time the novelisation was printed, the plans for further BBV Rani stories had fallen through and Hornby had decided to cease associating with BBV, leading to the regeneration scene being taken out of the book.[2]

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/the-new-rani
  2. ↑ Aristide Twain (9 March 2022). Eight "Lost" BBV Projects. Aristide Twain on Tumblr.
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From parallel universes
The Warrior's universe
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