Space Station Zenobia
- You may be looking for the Time Lord space station used during the Last Great Time War or the queen of Palmyra.
The Station, (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) more colourfully called Space Station Zenobia, was a Time Lord space station operated by the Celestial Intervention Agency. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
It was massive and equipped with technology to create a time corridor, as well as to pull people and spacecraft through time and space to the station.
A courtroom was located on-board with a screen that allowed the court occupants to view and access the Matrix. The Seventh Door, a gateway to enter the Matrix, was directly outside the court. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
Location
The Station was normally hidden amidst a vast sea of wrecked spaceships. (PROSE: The Mysterious Planet, Legacy, The Infinity Doctors) These ships were in a mostly-lifeless sector of space, with a red supergiant star, at the edge of Kasterborous. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
History
The Three once secretly met up at the station to discuss Peladon. (PROSE: Legacy)
The Sixth Doctor was taken from Thoros Beta on 3 July 2379 and placed on trial on board the station. (TV: The Mysterious Planet, Mindwarp)
The space station was later brought into the orbit of Etarho when the Valeyard was put on trial. (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard)
It was later commissioned to be destroyed by Storin, (AUDIO: The Brink of Death) though by the time of the end of Romana II's presidency it was still in existence for Livia to send Gaal to have a trial there. (AUDIO: Enemy Lines)
Prior to Space Station Zenobia's demolition, it was displaced from time to serve as a strategic base in the Last Great Time War. (AUDIO: A Genius for War) It was considerably dilapidated. Cardinal Rasmus was stationed there, much to his displeasure, until the station picked up the General's transmissions relating to a Dalek ship from Zygor coming to Gallifrey, which inspired Rasmus to return to the War Room. (AUDIO: The Passenger) During his degeneration crisis, the Doctor was brought to the station by time scoop to be recruited by the General to retrieve Davros from Falkus. He and Veklin transported Davros back to the station however it was invaded by Daleks who retrieved Davros and then destroyed the station. (AUDIO: A Genius for War)
Space Station Zenobia II was also in use during the Time War, which Rasmus much preferred. (AUDIO: The Passenger) Late in the War, Cardinal Ollistra attempted to recruit the Great Vampires at station, much to the War Doctor's protestations. (COMIC: The Bidding War)
Behind the scenes
- Though the space station was first seen in The Mysterious Planet, it was not named until the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Eight Doctors.
- The model of the space station was six feet wide. The 45-second-long opening scene of it from The Mysterious Planet was the first use of a motion-control camera on Doctor Who, took a week to film, and cost over £8,000 making it the most expensive Doctor Who sequence to date. John Nathan-Turner justified the sequence's cost as it was the first new scene shown to viewers after the programme's hiatus, and by reusing parts of it as establishing shots for the rest of the Trial stories.[1]
- After use in The Trial of a Time Lord, the model of the space station was exhibited in the Longleat Doctor Who Exhibition from 1987 until it was lost in a fire in 1996.
