Resurrecting the Past (audio story)

Resurrecting the Past
Main character(s):	Benny
Featuring:	Braxiatel, Peter, Bev, Adrian, Robyn, Joseph, Hass
Main setting:	27th century
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Eddie Robson
Director:	John Ainsworth
Producer:	John Ainsworth
Music:	Thea Cochrane
Sound:	Thea Cochrane
Cover by:	Adrian Salmon
Release details
Story number:	49
Release number:	1
Release date:	13 September 2010
Format:	1 CD
Production code:	BFPCD49
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84435-526-6
Bernice Summerfield
← Previous	Dead and Buried
Next →	Escaping the Future

Resurrecting the Past was the forty-ninth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the first story of the eleventh season.

Publisher's summary

When a group of Irving Braxiatel's defensive mechanoids embarks on a kidnapping spree, Braxiatel denies all knowledge – but his former associates Bev Tarrant and Adrian Wall suspect something else is going on. They've been waiting for Braxiatel to show his hand for months and this looks like it.

The only problem is, Bernice Summerfield isn't around to help. She's vanished. Her son, Peter, and Adrian search for her on a craggy forgotten planet.

Meanwhile Robyn, an android from the future, is on a mission to find out why Braxiatel wants her creators wiped from the timelines for good. She and Bev team up to investigate the kidnappings. What is Braxiatel doing with all these people? And why has Bernice been so important to his plans for all these years?

Plot

Peter and Adrian search for Benny on Javarda and receive a message from Bev and Robyn, informing them that they are attempting to prevent the kidnap of transactions clerk Allen Ward, whom Robyn knows to be the next in a line of kidnappings thanks to her experiencing time in reverse, by a Braxiatel Protective Mechanoid. The two women manage to get him to safety by claiming amnesty in another territory and using the border robots to destroy the BPM, but Robyn is teleported away whilst inspecting the BPM. Peter and Adrian, meanwhile, revive Benny from the BPM in which Benny has been held in stasis for five days and receive a message from Bev asking them to join her in following a signal from Robyn to Earth's moon.

Braxiatel makes a public accouncement claiming that the BPMs who have been kidnapping people were stolen from the Braxiatel Collection and offers a reward for information on those who are currently utilising them. He purchases Maximediras cheaply, officially as a venue for public art displays, and goes there with Joseph and Hass to liaise with IMC client relations officer Lianna Martin and have those that have not voluntarily left the planet removed. In a public appearance recorded by Joseph, he gives them 48 hours to decide whether to accept his offer of relocation and to apply for employment in the visitors' centre on the larger moon, leading to unrest and giving Braxiatel cause to intervene with the BPMs. The BPMs contain and teleport the protestors away to a holding facility to be charged with public order offences and given restraining orders.

Concealed by a dampening field, Benny, Peter, Adrian and Bev reach a disused mine on Earth's moon and Bev sets off an alarm some distance away so that she can hack into the security system. They find mineral storage bays full of functioning computers and witness a man being teleported into a mining trolley and taken away by robots before the decoy alarm is switched off and they are detected. Whilst Peter and Adrian are captured by the robots and placed onto trolleys, Benny and Bev come across the kidnap victims and find that Ward is among them. He explains that they have all been processed by a machine which showed them the evolution of the Deindum from reptiles to beings of light before dying. A closing door separates Benny and Bev, with Bev running into Robyn and helping put her back together following an attack by a man. Robyn then steals her gun and shoots her in the leg, after which Bev deactivates the gun remotely.

Benny runs into Doggles and holds him at gunpoint to force him to shut down the robots and force fields. He reveals that he is under Braxiatel's control, that his role had been to drive a wedge between her and Jason and that his attempted rape of her was due to him "blowing a fuse" thanks to Braxiatel pushing him to keep Benny on the Collection. As a result of this and Braxiatel making him a genius incapable of a moment's peace, Doggles wants to be free of his master even if it means his own death. He explains that Braxiatel has given up on wiping the Deindum from history and instead intends to keep them from discovering time travel by finding the right person to send through the space-time fissure in Buenos Aires to Deindus, where their genetic code will play a role in the Deindum's development.

Adrian leaves Peter with the injured Bev, finds Benny and Doggles and fights Robyn to hold her off. Benny and Doggles meet with Bev, who explains that Peter saw the future when he went through the machine and has headed to Buenos Aires to throw himself through the fissure. Doggles transmats her there to stop him and then updates Braxiatel, insisting that he had to tell Benny the truth on account of Robyn's presence. Whilst Benny learns from Peter that the Deindum will delay the end of the universe by millions of years if he sacrifices himself, Hass threatens to kill Braxiatel on Maximediras for all the things he has done and forces him to admit that he is turning the planet into a home for his people and is relocating an energy field there to provide for them. Said energy field is currently located in the same area of space as the Collection, which he sited there for precisely that reason.

Robyn follows Benny and Peter to Lezama Park where Benny prepares to throw herself through the fissure as she knows that she is the person who is meant to fall through, hence why Braxiatel has been keeping her alive. When Robyn tries to throw her in sooner than she would like, Hass arrives and pushes Robyn in to save her, having been warned by Braxiatel that Benny was in danger. This closes the fissure but has no impact on the Deindum due to her being an android. On Maximediras, Lianna and the ships of people who left the planet return due to an attack by the Deindum, who arrive after them and proclaim that the planet is now part of their empire.

Cast

• Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
• Irving Braxiatel - Miles Richardson
• Adrian Wall - Harry Myers
• Bev Tarrant - Louise Faulkner
• Joseph - Steven Wickham
• Hass - Paul Wolfe
• Doggles - Sam Stevens
• Robyn - Donna Berlin
• Peter - Thomas Grant
• Lianna - Rachel Laurence
• Allen - Alex Mallinson

Worldbuilding

• Benny got a lead to Javarda from a Bandril trader on Javeenia.
• Hass has been trying to get rid of the linchflies.
• Braxiatel calls Hass "Capability Hass".
• Lianna Martin speaks Yesodi.
• Benny puts Pink Floyd on.
• Bev stole a dampening field device from Braxiatel.
• Braxiatel knows that his people are doomed and plans to make Maximediras their new homeworld.
• The fissure is in Lezama Park.

Notes

The combined full illustration

• This story was recorded on 19 April 2010.
• It was released on 13 September 2010.
• The webcast animated special Dead and Buried leads directly into this story. It explains the circumstances leading to Bernice's capture and disappearance.
• A download version of this story was released on 23 May 2022.
• This story's cover art is one half of a full illustration, with Escaping the Future completing the other half.

Continuity

• Braxiatel has bought the planet Maximediras, Benny has previously visited this planet. (AUDIO: Beyond the Sea)
• Peter mentions the Absence mission. (AUDIO: Absence)
• Benny previously encountered members of IMC. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising)
• Hass mentions Brax getting him to destroy the Mim. (AUDIO: Freedom of Information)
• Brax mentions that the Time Lords have fallen or are about to fall. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, Dead Romance, AUDIO: Panacea, Enemy Lines, TV: The End of Time ^[+]Loading...["The End of Time (TV story)"], The Day of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)"])
• Benny mentions Doggles' attempted rape of her. (AUDIO: The Wake)

External links

• Resurrecting the Past at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• Official Resurrecting the Past page at bigfinish.com