Republica (novelisation)

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Republica was the first instalment in the Novelisations in Time & Space series. It was written by Micah K. Spurling, adapted from Mark Gatiss' script for the 1998 audio story. Unlike the original version, this story contained the licensed usage of Doctor X from Erimem.

Publisher's summary

The Professor and Ace arrive in present-day London to find the city strangely changed. England is a republic, ruled by an elderly Lord Protector more interested in a mysterious comet than the long-suppressed forces of revolution fomenting in his kingdom.

As political factions vie for power, the travellers become embroiled in the plans of King Charles XIV who stands poised to reclaim the throne. Can they discover who is behind the drastic alteration of history or will the Puritan cause triumph throughout eternity?

Plot

On Ithaca, an alien dissident named Maxwell (see Notes) is disintegrated for his crimes against the state but is successfully reformed and smuggled offworld. Falling through a wormhole to Oliver Cromwell's time of death, he convinces the man to appoint General John Lambert as successor rather than Richard Cromwell.

When the Professor and Ace arrive in late 1990s London, they find the world changed: technology is advanced, Puritans walk the street, Catholicism is oppressed, and a British Republic rules under a hereditary Lord Protector, its Commonwealth still containing the colony of North America. Elsewhere, the latest Lord Protector, Josiah Lambert, is worried about an approaching comet and seeks the advice of his long-time seer, the Other; and a royalist spy wing under LeCompte seeks information to aid the Franco-Spanish invasion that will 'restore' King Charles XIV to his throne.

The Professor and Ace are drawn into the machinations of LeCompte's network and the threat of the British war rocket Behemoth. They discover that the Other and Le Compte are the same man, and that he is trying to manipulate the Lord Protector into firing Behemoth at the comet - which won't near Earth, and Behemoth will instead hit a nearby astrological conjunction. The Other/LeCompte is revealed to be an escaped Ithacan prisoner who has been chief seer to the Lord Protectors since Cromwell's time, all to steer Earth to reach a technological point where he can attack his homeworld in revenge. (The Royalist revolt is merely a result of his boredom.)

Learning this, and realising that the wormhole to LeCompte's world goes back in time, the Professor allows Behemoth to launch: thus it will kill LeCompte in the past before he escapes, and time will reset. Ace is horrified but told this timeline isn't meant to exist, and the regular timeline is restored.

In another time and place, Ace visits an alien temple. After a discussion with the computer cleric, she is shown the events of the Republic's fall. She is unsettled by the discovery of events neither she nor the Professor remember, and wonders if this is related to an unspecified "him".

Characters

rest to be added

References

  • As with the original audio, it's implied the Professor and Ace are the Seventh Doctor and Ace. When talking to her, the cleric refers to her as a "myriad" and mentions four personas, including "Dorothy in the cyclone, Alice down the rabbit hole": Dorothy being Ace's real name, Alice being what The Time Travellers renamed Sophie Aldred's character as extra legal cover (with the Professor becoming the Dominie).
  • Ace mentions that Spice Girls member "the redhead" is wearing the wrong dress, and the Professor comments that she's carrying a harp, a reference to the British Republican flag.
  • Ace once went out in a suit jacket with her friend Misha, and was called "queer".
  • Doctor X once gave his female sidekick Madame X a larger role, in advance of a planned spinoff (a reference to the contemporary Jodie Whittaker years). Her foes include the Broonwins.
  • A history book called Tapestries: The History and Legacies of Britain is attributed to E. Smythe.
  • The Professor suggests going "back to the Cosmos," with the italics referencing the ship from Doctor Omega.

Notes

  • The Republica audio was itself originally intended to be a book (called Cromwell's Dust), as Mark Gatiss had pitched three Past Doctor Adventures at once when in need of quick cash and adapted this & another rejected pitch when BBV asked if he had any audio ideas.[1]
  • The novelisation has a framing story of Ace at an alien temple which is unique to it.
  • The prelude of Maxwell's botched execution greatly expands on the opening scene from the audio, naming the criminal, his comrades, and parts of their world. This section has a note "(Originally Printed in Time Travellers Monthly #265, May 1998)", implying this is a fictionalised account of the real events; the fugitive never actually uses the name "Maxwell". The presence of a prelude from a (fictional, in this case) magazine, references the Virgin New Adventures.
  • In-universe history book entries attributed to Dr. L. Conwyn flesh out the developing history of the Commonwealth and its world, which were not in the original audio. Minority protestant sects were legally tolerated in 1660, creating a more religiously-unified Britain. Their views on slavery were partially reponsible for the slave trade being abolished in 1705, with enslaved Protestants being made citizens, and enslaved Catholics exiled. Technology advanced to the point of space travel being attempted in the 1850s, but religious conflict remained strong: France remained a rival due to Catholicism, the Holy Land was conquered by the Commonwealth, and the medical advances made by the Commonwealth in the 1940s were due to testing on prisoners arrested for "religious offences".
  • When time is restored to normal, the book 'restarts' with Chapter One and Cromwell's original death (excerpting a book by E. Smythe rather than L. Conwyn).

Continuity

  1. ↑ Downtime: The Lost Years of Doctor Who Chapter 17 (Dylan Rees)
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