Adric

Adric
Main aliases:	The Scorpion King
Species:	Alzarian
Place of origin:	Alzarius (E-Space)
First appearance:	Full Circle
Appearances:	see list
Main actor:	Matthew Waterhouse
Main voice actor:	Andrew Sachs
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You may be looking for Andric or Adric Traken.

Adric was a companion to the Fourth and Fifth Doctors. He grew up in another Universe called E-Space. He died trying to stop Captain Briggs' space freighter from crashing into Earth. (TV: Earthshock)

Biography

Early life on Alzarius

Adric was an Alzarian born on the planet Alzarius in the parallel universe of E-Space in the 32nd century. He was ranked as an elite and was awarded a blue star-shaped badge with gilt edging for mathematical excellence. His brother Varsh belonged to a gang of teenage thieves. Adric wanted to join them, but was refused. Varsh asked him the embarkation question: "Where will you be when the starliner leaves Alzarius?" Adric replied he would be somewhere else entirely. This would prove to be true; he would be on board the TARDIS when it took off. To prove himself to the gang, he tried to steal some riverfruit, but failed. (TV: Full Circle)

E-Space adventures

Adric stowed away on the TARDIS and was discovered by the Fourth Doctor and Romana. He pretended to share the agenda of the Three Who Rule, a trio of vampires who ruled over a small community. He tried to save Romana from being sacrificed but failed; both were saved by the Doctor. (TV: State of Decay)

After Romana

In the wake of K9 Mark II's departure, the Fourth Doctor and Adric enjoy the company of a replacement. (PROSE: Conundrum)

After Romana left, Adric and the Doctor travelled together. They left E-Space and entered the Doctor's universe. (TV: Warriors' Gate) Soon after, they went to Traken and met Nyssa. They saved Traken from the Master and returned the Keepership to its rightful heir. (TV: The Keeper of Traken)

The Doctor assembled another version of K9, who joined them on their journeys. (PROSE: Inter-Galactic Cat, Conundrum, Planet of Paradise, Plague World, Just a Small Problem) At some point before the Fourth Doctor's attempt to fix the TARDIS' chameleon circuit, (TV: Logopolis), he sent this K9 to Sarah Jane Smith, care of her Aunt Lavinia. (TV: A Girl's Best Friend)

Adric and the Doctor encountered the Tremas Master again shortly after leaving Traken. The Doctor made plans to use the mathematical skills of the Logopolitans to repair the faulty TARDIS chameleon circuit. They met Nyssa again, as well as Earth stewardess Tegan Jovanka, both of whom joined them on their travels. Although they again defeated the Master, the Doctor was badly injured. All three companions watched him regenerate. (TV: Logopolis)

With the Fifth Doctor

Adric in the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS. (TV: Four to Doomsday)

Immediately after the Doctor's regeneration, the Master kidnapped Adric and held him in the Hadron web. The Master planned to use Adric's mathematical prowess to produce his own version of Block Transfer Computations. With this power, the Master made the town of Castrovalva as a trap for the Fifth Doctor. However, the Doctor saw through the Master's plan and rescued Adric. Without Adric in the web, the city began to collapse. The Doctor, Adric, Tegan and Nyssa escaped, while the Master seemed to be destroyed in the city. (TV: Castrovalva)

Adric's relationship with the Doctor deteriorated after the Fourth Doctor regenerated and Tegan and Nyssa began travelling in the TARDIS. (TV: Logopolis, Castrovalva) Adric believed the girls were a hindrance to his relationship with the Doctor. He also had a clear preference for the Fourth Doctor. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties, TV: Earthshock)

Adric dresses as a pirate for the Cranleigh Hall party. (TV: Black Orchid)

While visiting Cranleigh Hall in Buckinghamshire on 11 June 1925, Adric attended the fancy dress party thrown by Lady Madge Cranleigh and her son Charles Cranleigh, wearing a pirate costume. (TV: Black Orchid) During the party, he briefly met the Seventh Doctor's companion Ace, who was searching for one of the segments of the Key to Time, and began to flirt with her. However, Ace was not receptive to his advances and threatened to give him a permanent limp if he continued. (COMIC: Time & Time Again)

On one occasion, the Doctor, Adric, Nyssa and Tegan spent Christmas with the renegade Time Lady Iris Wildthyme aboard the TARDIS. Iris was fond of Adric and was devastated to hear of his untimely death. (AUDIO: Excelis Dawns)

Death

Adric, seconds before his death. (TV: Earthshock)

Adric was often fiercely competitive, yet frustrated by his clumsiness as he struggled to find a useful role in the TARDIS crew. He finally told the Doctor that he wanted to return to E-Space. After showing the Doctor his computations to engineer the return, Adric admitted he really wished to remain on the TARDIS. He was caught up in a failed plan of the Cybermen to bombard the Earth with Briggs' freighter in 2526, while the Doctor and his companions were stuck on the TARDIS with a Cyber-Leader that had forced its way onto the ship, who decided to kill them. The Doctor took Adric's star badge and broke it into pieces, which he jammed into the leader's chest unit to stop his breathing, but this caused the Cyber-Leader to convulse from asphyxiation. In a panic, it fired its gun wildly, blasting the TARDIS console with one of its wayward shots. The Doctor wrested the gun from the Cyberman and killed it, but the damage to the TARDIS console made it impossible to operate and go after Adric.

On his own, Adric attempted to steer the freighter away from the Earth, but a wounded Cyberman quietly limped into the control room and opened fire on him before it succumbed to its injuries. Adric ducked and the laser blast destroyed the freighter control system, leaving him doomed to go up with the ship. Adric resigned himself to his fate and clutched his fallen brother's sash. He died by remaining on board the crashing, time travelling ship. With Adric on board, it crashed into prehistoric Earth, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Nyssa and Tegan wept at his loss, while the Doctor was at a loss for words over his failure to save a close friend. (TV: Earthshock)

Legacy

An illusion of Adric appeared to Nyssa and Tegan to dissuade them from entering Kalid's inner sanctum, warning them to turn back or they would destroy him. The girls thought at first this was the real Adric, until they noticed the illusion was wearing Adric's by-now-destroyed star-shaped badge. (TV: Time-Flight)

Adric's death led the Doctor to swear that he would not allow any of his other companions to die during his fifth incarnation. (PROSE: Goth Opera)

Just before he regenerated, the last word the Fifth Doctor said was "Adric?" (TV: The Caves of Androzani) Adric's death haunted the Doctor for many years. His tenth incarnation watched Adric die again — this time as a manifestation of the TARDIS Matrix. (COMIC: The Forgotten)

Nyssa named her only son Adric in his honour. He had one older sister named Neeka. (AUDIO: Heroes of Sontar)

Adric's failure to prevent Briggs' freighter from crashing into the Earth (TV: Earthshock) arguably fulfilled a Silurians' prophesy of the Earth's devastation and the extinction of the dinosaurs (which the Moon had not fulfilled as originally interpreted). The result was the proliferation of mammals and their evolution, which ultimately led to the rise of humanity. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians, Cold Blood, Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)

While in the Divergent Universe, the Eighth Doctor was shown an illusory version of Adric by the Kro'ka. (AUDIO: The Last)

It infuriated the Tenth Doctor when the the Advocate used Adric's death against him in order to estrange him from his companions. (COMIC: Tesseract)

Alternate history

In an alternate version of these events^{[disputed statement]}, after the Fifth Doctor interfered to try to recover his TARDIS, his sub-consciousness helped Adric break the final logic code on the Cybermen's computer. This let Adric land - and survive - on Earth. Adric created a City of Excellence and ruled over a sentient race of scorpions which evolved in place of the dinosaurs. Adric created this world with Block Transfer Computations. Five hundred years later, Adric met the the Doctor and Nyssa. He accompanied them back to the Victorian era. Adric finally died after helping the Doctor recover his TARDIS from Thomas Brewster. (AUDIO: The Boy That Time Forgot)

Personality

Adric was a mathematical genius. He was very proud of his Elite status. He wished to be accepted by his brother Varsh's gang, the Outlers, and tried to steal fruit to prove himself, but failed. When his brother died, he kept his belt, a symbol of Outler membership. (TV: Full Circle) Otherwise, the belonging to that rebel party, as well as later attempts to provoke revolutionary riots (TV: State of Decay) denoted him as a young turk.

He pretended to go along with the plans of the vampires in a ploy to rescue Romana, with whom he got on well. (TV: State of Decay) Aukon sensed Adric had the strength of spirit to survive becoming a vampire. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

Adric was fiercely loyal to the Doctor and had a generally amicable relationship with the Time Lord, who acted as his mentor. His relationship with the other companions in the crowded TARDIS was often strained. Adric wanted desperately to be brave and accepted; he defied the Master (TV: The Keeper of Traken) and died trying to solve a math/computer problem, in order to prevent a freighter from crashing into the Earth. As he crashed to his death, unable to access the computer system to input his last mathematical calculation, he held his brother's belt and said almost wistfully, "Now I'll never know if I was right." (TV: Earthshock)

Other information

Adric watched recordings of Monty Python in the TARDIS' television lounge and often quoted from the series. (PROSE: Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life)

Alternative timeline

• In an alternative timeline, the Doctor was able to save Adric. (PROSE: So Vile a Sin)

Behind the scenes

• Matthew Waterhouse has said that the reason he thought the Doctor found Adric annoying was that he noticed some of himself in the boy. Waterhouse theorised that Adric had many qualities of the comparatively young and arrogant First Doctor, whom the Fifth Doctor in particular seemed to want to distance himself from. (DOC: The Doctors Revisited - The Fifth Doctor)