Garazone

Garazone was a star system located somewhere near the Orion star system. The system contained at least one habitable planet, and ion storms were fairly common in the surrounding space. The system also contained Garazone Central, one of humanity's first major space stations for interstellar commerce. (AUDIO: Sword of Orion) K5000 was one of its many moons. (AUDIO: The Human Factor)

History

26th century

By the 26th century, the Garazone system was treated as a "backwater" of the interstellar spacelanes. Garazone Central was well over a century old, and housed a bazaar used by dozens of species. Garazone was outside the direct control of the Earth military, but worked with the Merchant Space Corps to patrol the surrounding space. Enough junk had collected in the system from wars and accidents that there was a steady salvage business.

One such piece of salvage turned out to be a star destroyer left from the Cyber-Wars, which contained a regiment of Cybermen in hibernation, waiting for a chance to convert the local human populace into more Cybermen. Fifty years after the end of the Cyber-Wars, there was an attempt to salvage the ship for use in the Orion War, which failed when an ion storm destroyed the ship. (AUDIO: Sword of Orion)

Undated events

A few hundred years after the 36th century, Garazone was one of many human planets that came under subjugation by the Dalek Empire of the Seriphia Galaxy following their invasion of Mutter's Spiral. The Daleks had trouble with maintaining productivity of their human slave labour force, and scheduled a visit by the Angel of Mercy as a morale boost. While espousing hope to the populace, she also met with the local resistance forces to help plan a rebellion. Premature action by the rebels forced the Angel of Mercy to order their executions, causing her compatriot Kalendorf to question her ideals. (AUDIO: The Human Factor)

In the Garazone campaign, scientists cleverly synthesised the secretions of the schrellic gland, luring 50 squadrons of interplanetary Airborne Daleks into a trap. The potency of the schrellic substitute was such that the first 27 squadrons willingly flew into the Garazone sun. The Dalek Survival Guide counted this as the second greatest defeat of the Special Weapons Daleks. (PROSE: Dalek Survival Guide)

The Fifth Doctor, Peri Brown and Erimem visited a market in Garazone. The Doctor acquired some material from Thesanius to repair his TARDIS' telepathic circuits, while Peri and Erimem learned of the Nekromanteia system from a blind beggar. The system's currency was the Garazone credit. (AUDIO: Nekromanteia)

The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble also visited the Garazone market. During their visit, they had an adventure involving six-legged horses. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos)

Behind the scenes

• Garazone originated in Nicholas Briggs' Audio Visuals story Sword of Orion. He stated that he came up with the name Garazone after seeing a box of Parozone nearby during his writing. (BFX: Cyberman 2)
• The Dead Ringers sketch "Doctor Who vs the Cybermen" has the Cybermen show the Fourth Doctor (Jon Culshaw) a picture book of some "lovely" invasions of other planets, including Garazone.