The Elite (audio story)

The Elite
Doctor:	Fifth Doctor
Companion(s):	Nyssa, Tegan
Main enemy:	Thane
Main setting:	Florana
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writers:	John Dorney, from a story by Barbara Clegg
Director:	Ken Bentley
Producer:	David Richardson
Music:	Fool Circle Productions
Sound:	Fool Circle Productions
Cover by:	Alex Mallinson
Release details
Number of parts:	4
Release number:	3.01
Release date:	14 October 2011
Format:	2 CDs Download
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84435-573-0 (physical) ISBN 978-1-78575-888-1 (digital)
Official trailer
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The Elite was the first story in the third series of The Lost Stories, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was adapted by John Dorney, from the original script by Barbara Clegg, and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa and Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka.

Publisher's summary

The Doctor offers Tegan and Nyssa a trip to the paradise world of Florana, but instead the TARDIS takes them to a domed city on a planet scarred by warfare. A world where everyone is young, and fighting for the glory of the Elite...

Hidden away in the Cathedral of Power, the High Priest is watching. It knows the Doctor, and his arrival changes everything...

Plot

Part one

Tegan is back on board the TARDIS and the Doctor, afraid that her presence will disturb the peaceful atmosphere that he and Nyssa have enjoyed in her absence, pilots the ship to Florana, but they are caught in the path of another timeship and land in a domed city. With the TARDIS instruments damaged, the Doctor goes to find out where they are and leaves Nyssa and Tegan with the ship, telling them not to wander off. After hearing an explosion, Nyssa suggests that she and Tegan go looking for the Doctor, but Tegan is determined to remain where they are to avoid what usually happens when they wander off. They are arrested and accused of terrorism.

The Doctor visits the Cathedral of Power in search of a star map and is pointed by Gasson towards the Academy, where Educator Stemp mistakes him as a representative of the High Priest of Power and gives him a tour. The children are partaking in war games on computers and performing advanced mathematics which continue to identify the weaker intellects to be "disposed of" by order of the High Priest. When Stemp is called away, the Doctor gives out chocolate to the students and is subsequently accused by Stemp of gross sedition and condemned to death.

In the Cathedral, Gasson is taken to the High Priest by Father Thane, unaware that he is to be punished for assisting the Doctor. Thane tortures and kills him at the High Priest's, after which the High Priest sends him away. The arrival of strangers on the planet changes everything for him.

Part two

Commander Alaric prevents the Doctor from being killed and takes him to General Aubron, who has used a mind probe on Nyssa and Tegan to confirm their claims; he sends Nyssa to be trained at the Academy on account of her higher intellect and Tegan to the factories. On the journey to the factories, rebels attack the train and Ella, who joins them, takes Tegan with them. Meanwhile, Nyssa is trained in obedience by Stemp.

The Doctor deduces that the war games are genuine assaults and learns from Aubron how the High Priest arrived from the heavens ten years ago and told them that the people of the city were superior. They have since been building a master race through the Academy and by culling the middle-aged. Thane demands that Alaric hand over the Doctor to the High Priest, but he considers it a military matter and refuses to do so. Thane and his men shoot Aubron in the arm and take the Doctor into their custody by force, after which the High Priest returns to his "throne": the casing of a Dalek.

Part three

The Doctor uses the central unit of Aubron's mind probe, which he purloined earlier, to incapacitate his captors and escape into the Academy to save Nyssa. However, she has been conditioned to serve the Church and leads him back to Thane, who brings him before the High Priest. The High Priest has been advancing the people to build a new timeship after his own was irreparably damaged in a war, but he now demands that the Doctor takes him away in his TARDIS. To stop the bloodshed, he agrees.

Tegan is taken to the resistance headquarters and meets their leader, Garthak. She suggests that they need the Doctor to defeat the Elite, so they sneak into the dome and get information on his whereabouts from Arroy, Ella's former lover and a member of the Elite Armed Forces. Tegan and Ella get into the inner sanctum and go with the Doctor to find Nyssa whilst the High Priest waits under Alaric's guard, but Thane, having listened to the High Priest's conversation with the Doctor, kills the guards and redirects the artron energy being siphoned from the TARDIS into the High Priest's casing to make a martyr of him. The rebels are to be exterminated.

Part four

Ella stuns Nyssa and Stemp and Aubron drives the three of them, the Doctor and Tegan back to military command as a battle is waged against the Elite Armed Forces by the Church and the public. Concerned that Thane will utilise the mysterious Cleansing Fire, Aubron takes Tegan hostage to ensure the Doctor's cooperation and makes a broadcast implicating Thane as the High Priest's killer. The Doctor and Ella learn from Stemp that she used an alpha wave pulse generator on Nyssa and go to the Academy to use it to restore Nyssa and neutralise the crowds. Once he has done so, the Doctor sends out a wave which knocks out everybody under forty in a five mile radius.

The Doctor accesses the schematics of the Cleansing Fire and finds that it is a transmitter, broadcasting to a Dalek fleet. He confronts Thane, who remains conscious due to the inner sanctum being out of the generator's range, and is contacted by Garthak; Garthak shot Aubron as he attempted to flee in an escape pod and is now flying the pod into the Cathedral to take out the transmitter. The Doctor escapes in the TARDIS after failing to get Thane to join him and the Cathedral is destroyed, killing Thane and Garthak and damaging the dome enough that the Doctor can analyse the stars. Aubron is to be put on trial and the resistance will, Ella promises, be sure not to become another dictatorship.

The Doctor realises from the roses that they have been on Florana all along and returns to the TARDIS with Nyssa and Tegan, the latter suggesting that they visit Brisbane. As the ship dematerialises, an announcement is made that the Department of Citizen Registration is now open and that the deprogrammed citizens must report there.

Cast

• The Doctor - Peter Davison
• Tegan Jovanka - Janet Fielding
• Nyssa - Sarah Sutton
• Aubron - Joe Coen
• Thane - Ryan Sampson
• Alaric - Derek Carlyle
• Stemp - Joannah Tincey
• High Priest - Arthur Wallis
• Garthak - John Banks
• Ella - Ellie Burrow

Crew

• Cover Art - Alex Mallinson
• Director - Ken Bentley
• Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
• Music and Sound Design - Kelly Ellis @ Fool Circle Productions
• Producer - David Richardson
• Script Editor - John Dorney
• Writer - Barbara Clegg, adapted by John Dorney
• Daleks created by Terry Nation

Worldbuilding

Botany

• Black roses grow on Florana.

Computers

• Computers are used to fly bombing runs.

Foods and beverages

• Nyssa has some chocolate that she got in Amsterdam. The Doctor confiscates it from her.
• The Doctor asks for tea with milk and no sugar.

Individuals

• Novice Wilcock is a member of the Church.

Locations

• Tegan compares the soullessness of the city to Birdsville.

Species

• The Dalek's voice changes depending on whether it is within its Dalek casing or not, or within the casing/Throne built by the inhabitants.

Technology

• The Doctor has seen a lot of mind probes.

Vehicles

• Trains are used to transport people to the factories.

Notes

• This is the first Lost Story to feature the Fifth Doctor.
• This story, had it been produced as a television story, would have been Nyssa and Tegan's first story with the Daleks. However, at this point, Nyssa has already encountered the Daleks several times during her time with the Doctor.
• This audio drama was recorded on 22 and 23 November 2010 at the Moat Studios.
• This story establishes that a lengthy amount of time has passed since Tegan left the Doctor and Nyssa.

Continuity

• Nyssa and Tegan spent several days on holiday in Amsterdam in January 1983 (TV: Arc of Infinity) while the Doctor was dealing with Omega in the Sector of Forgotten Souls. (AUDIO: Omega, The Waters of Amsterdam) In the interim, the Doctor visited Sharnax, a planet in the Drashani Empire (AUDIO: The Burning Prince) and fought Weeping Angels in Rome (AUDIO: Fallen Angels), and also travelled with Brooke and River Song (AUDIO: The Lady in the Lake, A Requiem for the Doctor, My Dinner with Andrew, The Furies), and encountered Jenny and the Nine (AUDIO: Relative Time), though he does not remember the latter experiences.
• Tegan complains that she'll have to wear the same clothes for weeks, and Nyssa asks what's wrong with that as she always wore her Trakenite outfit. (TV: The Keeper of Traken to Arc of Infinity) This may have prompted her to begin dressing differently. (TV: Snakedance)
• The Third Doctor had previously intended to take Sarah Jane Smith on a visit to Florana (TV: Invasion of the Dinosaurs) but his efforts were unsuccessful. (TV: Death to the Daleks)
• Tegan refers to her possession by the Mara and her subsequent attempt to kill the Doctor. (TV: Kinda)
• Nyssa previously encountered the Daleks in two alternate timelines (AUDIO: The Mutant Phase, Renaissance of the Daleks), in Stockbridge in the 45th century (AUDIO: Plague of the Daleks) and on Traxana (AUDIO: Alien Heart) whereas Tegan would encounter them again, first on a drilling rig on planet XB93, (AUDIO: Nightmare of the Daleks) then in London in 1984, the latter experience resulting in her departing the TARDIS. (TV: Resurrection of the Daleks)
• After dealing with the Elite, the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan spend several days on holiday in Brisbane, Australia in 1983. (AUDIO: Hexagora)
• The Doctor refers to his encounter with the Rosemariners on Earth Station 454 during his second incarnation. (AUDIO: The Rosemariners)

External links

• Official The Elite page at bigfinish.com