The Armageddon Chair (audio story)

The Armageddon Chair
Main character(s):	Benny
Featuring:	312, Altazar, Geren, Grizella, Pym, Starll
Main setting:	Eternity Club
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	James Goss
Director:	David O'Mahony
Producer:	James Goss
Music:	Rob Harvey
Sound:	Shane O'Byrne
Release details
Number of parts:	1
Release number:	8.1
Part of:	The Eternity Club 1
Release date:	11 September 2024
Format:	1 CD Download 1st of 2 stories
Production code:	BFPDWNABOX00801
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-80240-393-0 (physical); ISBN 978-1-80240-394-7 (digital)
Official trailer
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The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield
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The Armageddon Chair was the first story in The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield audio anthology The Eternity Club 1, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by James Goss and featured Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield.

Publisher's summary

Bernice Summerfield is still settling in at The Eternity Club. Secretary Pym sends her on a quest enlisting help from Draconians, Sontarans, Drahvins and the club's enigmatic Oldest member.

Plot

Benny has joined the Eternity Club on an asteroid circling the edge of the universe, but Secretary Pym informs her that her fees have not been paid despite her standing order and that she will have to pay her way through menial work until payment has been received. She offends the club members when she sits in the chair designated for amnesiac cyborg 312, despite him being unable to sit for 273 years, and upsets 312 further by repairing his knee, which she was unaware he had kept in disrepair since the Fall of Kreldor as a sign of honour.

Although Benny decides to leave because of the resulting complaints to Pym, she is unable to do so until she has paid and continues her work. She walks in on the nurse as she treats the Oldest, a figure in regenerative microweave who knows Benny's name, and agrees to locate the Ascension Pennant for 312 as it is the only proof of his accomplishments in the Scarlet Time. Following advice from the Suspension of Geren, Benny attempts to locate the planet Catafalque, whose king gave 312 the pennant, using the holographic observatory and finds only stellar debris, making her realise that the Scarlet Time was not a battle.

Benny deduces that 312, whom Starll knows to have been a solar engineer, had built a catafalque around a dying sun so that the system's inhabitants could escape its destruction and that the King of the Catafalque was his employer. She informs 312 of this, gets Grizella's help to track the system's survivors to New Catafalque to find the pennant and prepares to leave by shuttle, but Derek the Tree advises her to think rather than race off and she realises that the pennant is being used as a tablecloth in the dining room.

312 is delighted by the discovery, remembers his achievements and how he injured himself by staying too long as the system was destroyed and realises that he must have put the pennant in the laundry. He agrees to allow Benny to sit in his seat as thanks, but he soon forgets about this and again asks for the pennant to be put in the wash, frustrating Benny and leaving her with nowhere to sit. She again encounters the Oldest, who is healthier in the nurse's absence, and finds that, like her, she cannot remember how she arrived at the Eternity Club. When they do remember, the Oldest says, the Death will return.

Cast

• Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
• Secretary Pym - Nickolas Grace
• The Oldest - Niamh Cusack
• 312 - Simon Kane
• Starll - Dan Starkey
• Grizella - Naana Agyei-Ampadu
• Professor Altazar - Shai Matheson
• The Suspension of Geren - Victoria Gee
• Derek - Derek Elroy
• The Nurse - Dianne Pilkington
• Butlers - David O'Mahony

Worldbuilding

• The Eternity Club is based on a private asteroid which circles the edge of the universe.
• Benny likes Altraxian soup, which she claims she last had on a dig on Kalvor.
• Queen Grizella is a Drahvin.
• Altazar is a Draconian whom Benny is hoping will show her some Draconian song cylinders.
• Benny has been playing canasta with the Suspension of Geren.
• Derek the Tree has a new leaf mould.
• The Eternity Club has a dish droid and a clockwork butler.
• The Sontarans fought in the Battle of Zardle. 800,020 combatants died.
• The Draconians had armour woven from Ergon hide until they were hunted to extinction, according to Don Erasmus.
• The Suspension of Geren is a living gas.
• Sontaran armour is woven from their gene looms.
• Treekind do not have armour.
• Draconians do not visit former battlefields as they believe that it disturbs their honour.
• The Drahvins were once warriors and entered their golden age once they changed their ways.
• 312 has a designated chair that he is unable to sit in because of his knee, which was damaged in the Fall of Kreldor.
• Starll goes to check his thermic shower.
• Benny went on the crusade for the Ruby Blade with Emperor Jezerak, who failed to return and was afterwards known as the Lost Emperor. She was unaware of this, however.
• Regenerative microweave looks like cobwebs.
• The Ascension Pennant was a flag given to 312 by the King of the Catafalque in recognition of his triumph during the Scarlet Time.
• Starll and Grizella talk about the 12th Sontaran Death Legion.
• Starll observes the Magellan Cluster where two million Sontarans, namely the 19th Astrometric Brigade, supposedly sacrificed themselves to seal a breach torn by the Rutans, saving the galaxy from spatial damage.
• 312 was once a solar engineer.
• A red star is the last stage of a dying sun.
• A catafalque is a support structure built around a coffin.
• The Drahvin Empress fell and a republic was established which gave men equal rights, meaning they are no longer required to be shackled in the streets.
• Grizella believes that Virginia Woolf was a warrior queen in exile.

Notes

• This is the first The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield story following the passing of David Warner. Discussions were had with Lisa Bowerman about the future of the range, and it was decided that it should continue.
• This story continues the use of the Doctor Who theme arrangement by Blair Mowat introduced in The Unbound Universe, as according to Goss, "we just weren't ready to let it go".
• This story was recorded either on 3-4 or 9-10 October 2023 at the Soundhouse. Given the sequential recording of the other releases of The Eternity Club, it was presumably the first recorded, on 3-4 October 2023.
• Details for this story were revealed on 10 July 2024.

Continuity

to be added

External links

• Official The Armageddon Chair page at bigfinish.com