Rasmus (Dreadshade)
During the Last Great Time War, Rasmus was a Lord Cardinal member of the War Council.
Biography
Working with the Eighth Doctor
Rasmus regenerated on the battlefield, (AUDIO: Light The Flame) moments before the Daleks were erased from existence by the Valeyard. Rasmus helped the decommissioning of the war effort as the Time Lords struggled to understand their former enemy they could not remember. When the amnesiac Eighth Doctor and Bliss arrived on Gallifrey, Rasmus took them to the War Council to help their investigation. The Doctor sent him and Bliss to interview prisoners of war, who had been conscripted alien soldiers until the disappearance of their masters. Rasmus and Bliss returned to Gallifrey when she regained her memories, arriving in time for her to calm the Dreadshade that the Twelve had let loose in the Panopticon. (AUDIO: Dreadshade)
When the Daleks began to return to the universe at the Gulf of Ithon, Rasmus commanded the Time Lords' defence. He gave Bliss a device to contact him after she persuaded the Doctor to help the nearby planet Cosca rather than abandon the warzone entirely. Finding the Daleks had infinite reinforcements which were blunting the Time Lords' assault, Rasmus was contacted by Bliss about Davros being on Cosca and the Dalek Time Strategist draining dimensional energy from him, before leaving with the Doctor in a wormhole. After some delays due to the Dalek advance, Rasmus travelled to Cosca to take Davros into custody and Davros presented him with an offer by demonstrating the new form of cybernetic gestalt he had created from the natives of Cosca and offering to give this power to Time Lord military for use against the Daleks. Rasmus considered the offer, to Bliss' horror, however they were contacted by the Doctor who instructed them to abandon Davros to the advancing Daleks. Rasmus and Bliss complied, using Davros' equipment to turn the people of Cosca back to normal as they left. Afterwards, Rasmus and Bliss reunited with the Doctor, who had escaped and deprived the Strategist of the power of the Multiverse though it had succeeded in restoring the Dalek Empire. Rasmus promised to contact Ollistra about using the Ravolox Protocols to move Cosca to safety away from the Time War. (AUDIO: Restoration of the Daleks)
In the War Room
Rasmus was working on the derelict Space Station Zenobia when he learned of an experimental Dalek ship from Zygor approaching Gallifrey with a Time Lord pilot from the General's transmissions. Suspecting this might relate to the fate of the Cassandia, he travelled to the War Room where he clashed with the General and Ollistra who were willing to brand the pilot, Cato Kelgroth, a hero based on his initial interrogations. Rasmus' scepticism was proven right when Cato tricked Lady Vibax into detonating a bomb, killing a thousand Time Lords. In interrogation by Leela he revealed this was revenge for the true cause of the destruction of the Cassandia, as Rasmus had suspected he was aware of. After Rasmus revealed his suspicions, the General conceded his and Ollistra's order to destroy the ship had been made too hastily. Rasmus subsequently supported the General's proposal to make Cato human and exile him, as a trial risked exposing the true fate of the Cassandia. (AUDIO: The Passenger)
To his chagrin, Rasmus was instructed by Ollistra to investigate the reappearance of a planet from the Norvis galaxy that had just been erased from existence. Working with Leela and Veklin, they discovered the planet was actually the TARDIS dispatched to carry out the erasure, which had taken the galaxy into its own internal dimension in an act of conscience. The TARDIS wanted to merge with its brethren to perform the same act to preserve the entire universe from the Time War, however Rasmus believed this impossible. He pretended to go along with allowing it to merge with his TARDIS to stabilise its holding of the Norvis galaxy, but in truth simply took off with Leela and Veklin and used his TARDIS to direct the increasingly volatile TARDIS towards a Dalek fleet which its inevitable explosion would destroy. Leela was outraged at his betrayal, believing the plan should he pursued to try and achieve peace, forcing him to stun her. (AUDIO: Collateral Victim) He and Leela were still not on good terms sometime later, when he was in the War Room to discuss the Daleks' restoration of Phaidon. (AUDIO: The First Days of Phaidon)
Rasmus proposed an alliance with the planet Orrison to procure half of their bolt to enhance staser cannon. With Ollistra’s reluctant approval, he dispatched the General and Leela as a delegation there. (AUDIO: Collaborators) After it appeared Rasmus’ proposal might work, Ollistra attempted to outmanoeuvre him by sending an invasion to seize all the bolt by force, (AUDIO: Ambition’s Debt) though it met with failure and cost Gallifrey the alliance. (AUDIO: Collaborators)
After the General volunteered to investigate a distress signal to Alpha Cognosco Rasmus suspect a personal agenda and discovered the signal contained a message to the General personally for his help. He discreetly showed it to the General and learnt the person sending it was the General’s niece, Cresta. Gaining the General’s trust by revealing he sympathised as he had daughter, Rasmus accompanied the General and Veklin on the mission, saving Cresta and another survivor, Teblin, from a Berserker Dalek. Afterwards he told the General he would recruit Cresta as his aide, with the understanding that the General would support him in the Council. (AUDIO: Remnants)
Rasmus was horrified when Ollistra used the Matrix extractor on prospective defector Helico, leaving him in a vegetative state. (AUDIO: Transference) After a series of subsequent executions and discovery of a disastrous plan for an assault on Dalek-occupied Orrison, Rasmus took control of the War Room from Ollistra and organised a new plan. The plan relied on him and Leela infiltrating Orrison via a Matrix slice she’d been using to communicate with the Resistance and lowering a temporal barrier around it just in time for an assault of TARDISes. Veklin insisted on accompanying them and they discovered Orrison had become a production line of Berserker Daleks. They lowered the barrier as planned however were then informed by the General their timing was wrong and had caused the destruction of the TARDISes. Escaping Orrison before a wave of artron energy wiped out the planet, they found that Leela’s confidant had deliberately altered the timing of their arrival to cause this. With Veklin intending to inform Ollistra of the disaster, Rasmus hurried to the President to give his account first and then returned to the War Room. There Ollistra revealed she’d deliberately let him take control of the doomed operation and manipulated events to this end, and would use evidence she’d gathered of the Resistance’s involvement to expose the truth to the President if Rasmus opposed her again. (AUDIO: Ambition’s Debt)
Dealings with the War Doctor
After the Doctor regenerated on Karn, Rasmus travelled from the front to meet him accompanied by Commander Sanmar, taking pains to respect the Sisterhood of Karn’s traditions. He advised Sanmar on dealing with the Doctor’s TARDIS as they tried to repair it, but found the ship non-cooperative. The Doctor eventually came to meet him in his TARDIS and they learnt from Ohila that Sanmar had gone to Karn’s heart with Lithea, to Rasmus’ confusion as he was unaware of her orders. They discovered Sanmar had killed Lithea and was planning to use dimensional extractors to take Karn’s heart to the Capitol for which Rasmus threatened to arrest her. After Sanmar was killed by Karn’s forces, Rasmus was shocked when the Doctor threatened to use her equipment to destroy Karn to take out an enemy-controlled war front that was approaching the planet and was relieved when Sanmar’s superior, Commodore Tamasan, agreed to protect the planet in a time lock. Rasmus departed in his TARDIS, witnessing Karn disappearing before the time lock was in place due to the Sisterhood’s powers. With nothing to defend, he ordered Time Lord forces to disengage from the war front and was contacted by the Doctor who told him he'd fight but on his own terms. (AUDIO: Light the Flame)
Rasmus sent Tamasan to give instructions to a contact on Atherea as part of a plan to deal with the Daleks’ time eradicator which was changing the outcome of recent battles by assassinating Time Lords crucial to victories before the battles. After the War Doctor altered the timeline by erasing the time eradicator from history, undoing the assassinations, Rasmus was aware of this and sent Tamasan to Atherea to congratulate him. (AUDIO: The Shadow Squad)
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