Bad Faith (audio story)

Bad Faith
Main character(s):	Vienna
Main enemy:	Bax Spendlove
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Nev Fountain
Director:	Ken Bentley
Producer:	Mark Wright
Music:	Howard Carter
Sound:	Howard Carter
Cover by:	Damien May
Release details
Number of parts:	1
Release number:	1.2
Part of:	Vienna: Series One
Release date:	5 February 2014
Format:	1 CDs Download
Production code:	BFVIENNA002
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-78178-267-5 (physical); ISBN 978-1-78178-633-8 (digital)
Vienna
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Next →	Deathworld

Bad Faith was the second story of Vienna: Series One, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Nev Fountain and featured Chase Masterson as Vienna Salvatori.

Publisher's summary

Vienna Salvatori has seen the light.

Time was, if you lost everything, at least you still had your faith – but not any more. Faith stealing is the latest commodity to light up the criminal underworld – extract somebody's faith and sell it to the highest bidder.

On the trail of a faith stealing ring, Vienna Salvatori comes into the orbit of the charismatic Bax Spendlove, spiritual leader of the Church of New Wonderment, a breakaway sect of the Church of Old Wonderment. Bax has an important mission for his latest convert – and Vienna is a willing disciple.

But when Bax’s followers start to be murdered, it seems Vienna isn’t the only killer keeping the faith…

Plot

Hunted by the soldiers serving the Kreyfin on Karnos Delta, Vienna kills most of the soldiers and poses as one herself by attaching a hypno leech to Sergeant Lane's neck. She joins in the pursuit, confirming her suspicions that her mission to infiltrate the Kreyfin compound was part of a trap for her, and kills Lane and cuts off his hand to gain entry to the compound when the leech starts to go flat. Inside, she discovers that the Kreyfin are stealing the faith of their prisoners to sell to those who want to add spiritual meaning to their lives and promises to return for the apathetic Mylo of the Society of Euphoric Happiness when the Kreyfin demand that she leaves; when she bursts into the Kreyfin's room, they explode.

Vienna learns from her spaceship that the Kreyfin died thanks to her unwittingly depressuring their sanctum and wonders why somebody has paid her to do a job which was practically done for her. She visits the New Church of Wonderment on Hieronymus VI and explains to Lili, a secretary, how she became filled with faith in the church's founder Arlo Goodfellow after leaving Karnos Delta, which her ship informed her was due to faith stealing. Disagreeing, she had her computer update its personality and journeyed to Hieronymus VI after receiving a hologram message from Bax Spendlove, the church's pastor, and receiving Arlo's stigmata. Spendlove personally requests her presence and shows the miracle to Kendra, his wife and a former member of the Old Church who wishes to heal the schism between the two sects.

Spendlove asks Vienna to join Kendra on her mission to meet with Parsival, head of the Old Church, in the Phantom Deserts of Ossuary and calls upon the inter-faith adviser Clancy to confirm that this would not be an issue, only for Lili to find that he has been killed by micro-drones released into his body by a grudge knife just as several other members of the church have. In his blood is written, "The Old Church will destroy all from within", a message which Spendlove believes implicates Parsival. Vienna deduces that Lili already knew that Clancy was dead given how little time she gave him to respond to the intercom and a memory scan reveals that she witnessed the murder whilst wearing forbidden faith-aiding miracle lenses which made it look like he had been killed by a demon.

Spendlove sends Lili to the confessional booth to expunge her memories, where she is later murdered, and tasks Vienna with assassinating Parsival for the sake of the New Church, giving her sunglasses which will allow him to monitor her progress. He edits Clancy's post-death confession to cover up the fact that the two of them sold faith to celebrities to raise the church's profile and goes with Vienna and Kendra, whom he informs of Lili's death, as far as Ossuary City. On the journey, he gives Kendra a hip flask full of wine. Vienna and Kendra ride Chidnos to the Sacred Tunnels, on the way to which Kendra recounts how he found herself with stigmata and faith in the New Church after meeting Spendlove for the first time. A robot at the tunnels' entrance sends to Parsival their request for a meeting and it is almost immediately granted, surprising Kendra as she expected it to take a week.

Vienna and Kendra are given robes of shame to wear as they are led to the fifty-foot tall Parsival, but Vienna is able to use a hypno leech on a monk to take her place so that she can slip away as she immediately recognises that Parsival is a hologram. She finds Percival Kendrick, Kendra's former lover whom she wishes to care for since he lost his faith and had to be replaced with a hologram. Kendra explodes into light, killing Percival as well, and Vienna is rendered unconscious until she wakes up on her ship with Spendlove. He admits to having put a thermal explosive in Kendra's wine and that he intends to destroy the entirety of the Old Church rather than just Percival. In turn, Vienna admits that she was never infected with faith and that her stigmata was fake and then gets Spendlove to listen to Kendra's post-death confession; in it, Kendra explains that she conspired with Percival to place his faith inside Spendlove to unify the churches.

Because of Kendra injecting him with Percival's faith for months, Spendlove has a split personality and was the one who killed Clancy and Lili. The two personalities argue until they hear the voice of Arlo, but Vienna reveals that she placed the miracle lenses in Spendlove's eyes and that the voice belongs to Kendra, from whom Vienna removed the thermal explosive long before they entered the tunnels. Vienna has used the sunglasses and the miracle lenses to deceive Spendlove. The Percival personality opens the airlock to kill himself and Spendlove due to their inability to exist together and they are killed, leaving Kendra to become pastor of both churches. Vienna suggests injecting the real Percival with a new faith to restore him to sanity, but Kendra refuses to use somebody else's faith to do so. As a compromise, Vienna synthesises a new religion for him: the Cult of St Viola Raven.

Percival recognises Vienna as St Viola and informs her that he worked with Crevo Finn in the Magisterial Kitchens on Kazbar. She declines his offer to help her find him and asks him to spread his religion, intending on sending Mylo and the other faitless to him, whilst she searches for Crevo. Despite her usual rule of killing anybody who learns her true name, Vienna allows Kendra to live and restores her ship's personality so that she never has to hear any of the churches' mantras again.

Cast

• Vienna Salvatori - Chase Masterson
• Bax Spendlove - Frazer Hines
• Kendra Spendlove - Rachel Atkins
• Parsival / Kreyfin - Mike Grady

Worldbuilding

Food and beverage

• Vienna, posing as a soldier, notes that the inside of her helmet smells like sushi.

People

• Kendra Spendlove is an inter-faith director for the New Church of Wonderment.
• Taz Becker is a holovid star.
• Winona Flack is a warpsled champion.

Religion

• Arlo Goodfellow, the founder of the New Church of Wonderment, nailed himself by his right hand to the steeple of the Church of Wonderment so that the soldiers could not reach him. He hung there for seven days and seven nights. Once the soldiers burnt down the church, Goodfellow died. The mark from his right hand, known as the stigmata, will only appear on the chosen. Vienna received such a mark.
• The New Church of Wonderment split from the Old Church of Wonderment roughly eight centuries ago due to differing interpretations.
• The Old Church pray for the departed from the faith and joined another religion.
• Vienna remarks on the lifelike wall carvings in one of the chambers of the Old Church. Kendra points out that they are real monks who have taken a vow of motionlessness to pray for Parsival. Only on death do any of them move.

Species

• The Kreyfin are referred to as the 'Lobster Mobsters'.
• Lane informs Vienna that it is against his religion to serve the Kreyfin.
• Vienna uses a hypno leech to make Lane believe her credentials as a soldier.
• Vienna states that Mylo is being milked like a Three Horned Quench.
• The Chidnos are a spiky, wild beast used for transportation. According to Kendra, the end that doesn't make the noise is the beast's head.

Technology

• The soldiers use Beta 3s to communicate with one-another.
• Kendra Spendlove has appeared in 'docuvertisements' and is known to Vienna.
• Mr. Clancy is murdered with a grudge knife.
• Lilitrick is wearing miracle lenses.

Notes

• This is the first story in which Vienna does not use an alias. In this context, this is due to her not having had time to fully prepare her identity before getting started on her mission.

Continuity

• Vienna states that her assignment crystal "got it all wrong". (AUDIO: The Memory Box et al)
• Vienna sticks to her main rule and is forced to shoot Lane dead when he learns her name. (AUDIO: The Memory Box et al)

• Unexpectedly, Vienna breaks this rule and makes an exception for Kendra, stating that she's already died once.

• When Lilitrick protests her innocence regarding the murder of Mr. Clancy, Vienna suggests that perhaps she should take a memory scan. (AUDIO: The Memory Box et al)
• Bax uses a thermal explosive to murder Kendra. Vienna threatened to do the same to Norvelle if he didn't do as he was told. It was also used by Vienna as part of her endgame strategy in the same adventure. (AUDIO: The Memory Box)

External links

• Official Bad Faith page at bigfinish.com