Julian St Stephen
Julian St. Stephen was a researcher who worked as a consultant to the Ministry of Defence in 1964. He was the boyfriend and eventual fiancé of Dr Allison Williams, as part of a plot by Army Intelligence. He was well versed in physics and psychology.
In university, Julian joined the Young Fabians but flirted with the idea of joining the Socialist Review Group. (AUDIO: Artificial Intelligence) He became more right wing after leaving. (AUDIO: State of Emergency) Because of his old associations, the MoD was initially somewhat reluctant to hire him as it was feared that he was a Trotskyite. (AUDIO: Artificial Intelligence) However, while the MoD continued to claim they were reluctant, Army Intelligence did recruit him as a spy. (AUDIO: State of Emergency)
He served several months in the Greek Islands as part of his national service. (AUDIO: Artificial Intelligence)
In 1961, he was asked to spy on the new Intrusion Countermeasures Group. As part of his cover, he dated Allison Willians, who wanted more from the relationship than he was willing to commit. (AUDIO: State of Emergency, Artificial Intelligence) In 1963, she wrote him a letter after the Shoreditch Incident. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks)
After Dr Archibald Hemmings committed suicide by jumping under a train in 1964, Julian assisted Allison and her Intrusion Countermeasures Group colleagues Group Captain Ian Gilmore and Professor Rachel Jensen in investigating the Sen-Gen Facility, where Hemmings had been working until his death. Due in part to his anti-military views, he did not have a particularly high opinion of Gilmore, remarking to Allison that the Group Captain was so buttoned up that he was surprised that he could fit his head through his collar. Similarly, Gilmore was not fond of Julian on either a personal or a professional level. He was contemptuous of the science of psychology, claiming that it involved nothing more than getting people to talk about their feelings and their mothers at length. He told Julian that he had several elderly aunts that spent most of their time doing the same thing.
He and Allison had started dating in 1961 but, after three years, she was becoming concerned as to what he wanted from their relationship. When the artificially intelligent Sentient Engine Generator 2 computer (Sen-Gen) had tapped into her mind and amplified her subconscious fears, Allison went to his flat and cut all of his clothes with the exception of his tennis outfit into shreds and wrote, "Why don't you love me enough?" in Pastel Pink lipstick across his wardrobe.
Under Sen-Gen's influence, she later threatened to shoot him. However, Julian told her that she could resist Sen-Gen as she was the strongest willed person that he knew. He explained that he did not take their relationship any further as he did not want to hold her back. In order to reaffirm his love for her, he proposed to her. She accepted and put the gun down. He was able to claim that he had no doubts because Sen-Gen was unable to effect him (AUDIO: Artificial Intelligence) but the reason he had no doubts was that he knew he was lying, in order to get Allison to put the gun down. (AUDIO: State of Emergency)
Impressed by his initiative during the Sen-Gen incident, Sir Toby Kinsella offered Julian the opportunity to be re-assigned to General Peters' staff in order to assist with a special project of the utmost secrecy. (AUDIO: Artificial Intelligence) This turned out to be a planned coup: Peters and his allies were sure the Labour Party were going to win the next election and feared Harold Wilson was a communist. Julian willingly joined up and worked on setting up a teleportation device to stage alien attacks.
Sir Toby was working against the coup and arranged for Allison to discover what Julian was doing. She initially believed he was being conned but he revealed that he was not only aware, he hadn't really loved her. In order to stop him killing the Prime Minister, Allison shot him dead. (AUDIO: State of Emergency)
Behind the scenes
- Julian was originally a throwaway mention in the novelisation of the television story Remembrance of the Daleks. In the "Behind the Scenes" feature for Counter-Measures, writer Matt Fitton said that he had found Julian in the novelisation and decided to use him for Artificial Intelligence: he saw the "letter" Allison wrote as showing her as “a little bit needy” and Julian "a little bit reticent." Justin Richards independently decided to use him in State of Emergency as part of the coup, and the two collaborated on joining it up.
- Julian's job is never stated beyond a research role with students, though he appears to be a psychiatric researcher in Artificial Intelligence and then becomes a scientist in State of Emergency.
