The Taking of Planet 5 (novel)

The Taking of Planet 5
Doctor:	Eighth Doctor
Companion(s):	Fitz, Compassion
Main enemy:	Celestis
Main setting:	Planet 5, 12 million BC, Antarctica, 1999
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writers:	Simon Bucher-Jones, Mark Clapham
Release details
Release number:	28
Release date:	4 October 1999
Format:	Paperback Book; 25 Chapters, 288 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-563-55585-8
BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures
← Previous	The Blue Angel
Next →	Frontier Worlds

The Taking of Planet 5 was the twenty-eighth novel in the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Simon Bucher-Jones and Mark Clapham, released 4 October 1999 and featured the Eighth Doctor, Fitz Kreiner and Compassion.

Publisher's summary

Twelve million years ago, a war touched the Earth briefly. Now, in Antarctica, an archaeological team has discovered the detritus of the conflict. And it's alive.

Twelve million years ago, a creature evolved that was capable of consuming all life in the universe. Now someone, or something, is desperate enough to want to revive it.

Outside the ordered universe, things move. They're hungry. And something has given them the scent of our space/time.

In the far future, the Doctor has learnt of the war and feels he must intervene -- but it's more than just a local conflict of interest. One of the groups of combatants is from his own future, and the other has never, ever, existed.

Plot

A young child living in Mictlan learns about the "Invisible Ocean" and meets a hermit (an outcast from Celestis society) who teaches him about the mysteries of existence, such as the Swimmers and "universes in a bowl of gruel".

Chapter One

A platoon of investigators from the United Nations scout the ruins a million-year old alien base in the South Pole. As they descend into their base, one of their member (a man named Thomas Jessup with psychic/empathic powers that are quite negatively attuned to the environment of the ruins) gets dragged by another member named McCarthy towards an alien being that has been found within the ruins.

Ostensibly as a brief "pit stop", the Doctor visits the Second Wallachian Exhibition - though it soon becomes clear that he has one exhibit in mind - Professor Mildeo Twisknadine's Wandering Museum of the Verifiyably Phantas-magoric (a museum of things that don't exist) in the hopes that he can use it to find more evidence of the Observe and eventually return to it. After being invited in by Professor Mildeo, the Doctor is sidetracked after he discovers that Mildeo has made a model of Planet 5 (which definetly exists). He soon discovers a rather shocking revelation, that someone verified the existence of the "Antarctic Elder Things".

A soldier named Xenaria prepares for battle in a polar base through biological morphing alongside her platoon.

rest to be added

Characters

• The Eighth Doctor
• Fitz Kreiner
• Compassion
• Professor Nathaniel Hume/Homunculette
• Marie

Gallifreyans

• The hermit
• Xenaria
• Allopta
• Holsred
• Neinthe
• Erasfol
• Machtien
• Urtshi
• Ventak
• Tachon
• Vuilp
• Lord President
• Ostrev

Celestis

• Lord of the Smoked Mirror
• Duke of Knives
• Lord of the Red Moon
• One
• Two

Humans

• Professor Mary Schneider
• Thomas Jessup
• McCarthy
• Nurse McGovern
• Frances Muerte
• Capitano Julian Esparza

Worldbuilding

• Parallel cannons were weapons developed by the Time Lords.
• Xenaria uses an ur-box.
• One mentions pin galaxies.
• Fitz thinks of himself as "James Bond in space".
• The Doctor corresponded with H. P. Lovecraft and thought about offering him a quick trip in the TARDIS.
• The Doctor recalls horror stories of Time Lords regenerating in a vacuum and exhausting their lives as their bodies try to become something that can cope in such an environment.
• H.P. Lovecraft wrote about the Old One, a.k.a. Elder Thing in At the Mountains of Madness, first published in Astounding Stories, in February–April 1936. The Old One was "regarded as real by 25th century fringe archaeologists, particularly Bendecker, Vildson and Urnst".
• Karfelon circuitry is like tinsel.
• One of Ostrev's earliest memories is of reading and sharing Doctor ? in an Exciting Adventure With the Enemy.

Notes

• This story is a sequel to the television story Image of the Fendahl.
• Mildeo Twisknadine's mention of fungi yeti is a reference to Lovecraft's Mi-go, known elsewhere in Doctor Who as the Darklings.

Continuity

• The novel begins with an extract from Captain Cook's (TV: The Greatest Show in the Galaxy) "Letters from Golobus", which mentions the Androgums (TV: The Two Doctors) and Marinus (TV: The Keys of Marinus).
• Vorg the Magnificent (TV: Carnival of Monsters) is mentioned by the Doctor whilst at the Museum of Things That Don't Exist.
  • Inside of Mildeo Twisknadine's museum are exhibits for "robotic yetis" (TV: The Abominable Snowmen), Vulcan (TV: The Power of the Daleks), and Atlantis (TV: The Underwater Menace, The Time Monster).
• The Doctor mentions the "Vega Incident" to Compassion (PROSE: Demontage)
• A temporal anomaly disgorges the Borad (TV: Timelash) and is dealt with by temporal investigators.
• Alien Bodies, Unnatural History, Interference - Book One, Interference - Book Two and The Shadows of Avalon are all points where when the Doctor (and companions) have encountered elements of the Time Lord's Future War with the Enemy and/or the Faction Paradox.
• The Doctor recalls his adventure in the Obverse. (PROSE: The Blue Angel)
• When speculating on the nature of the Enemy, the Doctor muses that after all he's heard, the Enemy may simply turn out to be "Yartek, leader of the alien Voord, armed with a big stick". (TV: The Keys of Marinus)
• Reflecting back on old ideas that the Doctor may have built the TARDIS, the Doctor reveals that he substantially modified/rebuilt it after leaving Gallifrey to achieve control of the TARDIS without using a direct mental link, allowing him to bypass the feature on most TARDISes which sent a tracking signal to the Time Lords.
• The Doctor realises that the time fissure made by the damaged TARDIS is the one that Fendelman used to enhance a time scanner in the 1970s. While falling through the fissure, the Doctor sees Fendelman, Maximillian Stael, Adam Colby, Thea Ransome, and fire. (TV: Image of the Fendahl)
• Compassion notes that the Doctor has burnt out the TARDIS's tractor beam at some point, speculating that he must have been doing something stupid like trying to lasso a star. (TV: The Creature from the Pit)
• Compassion jokes about the Doctor being a Great Old One on his mother's side. (PROSE: All-Consuming Fire et al.; TV: Doctor Who)
• Smoked Mirror takes the forms of Urmungstandra and Tehke. (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods)
• The War King is Lord President. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
• The Lord President mentions Sontar's visit to the Capitol. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
• Rumour had it that, beyond the nine, there were further copies of Gallifrey hidden in pocket universes. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
• At the Lord President's behest, several renegades were reintegrated into Gallifreyan society for the War effort. Holsred was tutored by a former renegade Time Lady with "engineered creatures" who he found to be creepy. (TV: The Mark of the Rani) Allopta was trained in the Death Zone by an ancient, "plummy-voiced" Time Lord in scarlet robes. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
• The Memeovore consumes the languages of the Delphons (TV: Spearhead from Space) and the Tersurons, forcing them to develop new ways to communicate. (TV: The Curse of Fatal Death)
• The Time Lord mission to free the Fifth Planet, and its obvious failure, would later be called the Fifth Planet Gambit. (PROSE: We Are the Enemy)

External links

• The Taking of Planet 5 at the Faction Paradox wiki
• The Taking of Planet 5 at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: The Taking of Planet 5 at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: The Taking of Planet 5
• Throwback Interview: Mark Clapham (2002)