All Hands on Deck (audio story)

All Hands on Deck
Main character(s):	Susan Foreman
Featuring:	Eighth Doctor
Main setting:	Shoreditch, late October, circa 2213
Key crew
Publisher:	Big Finish Productions
Writer:	Eddie Robson
Director:	Lisa Bowerman
Music:	Howard Carter
Sound:	Daniel Burnett
Read by:	Carole Ann Ford
Cover by:	Tom Saunders
Release details
Release number:	7.10
Release date:	3 October 2017
Production code:	BFMSTDL34
ISBN:	978-1-78575-125-7
Audio clip
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Short Trips
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All Hands on Deck was the ninth story of the seventh season of Big Finish Productions' Short Trips series.

Publisher's summary

Everyone Susan Campbell cared about has gone. Most of them died in the second Dalek invasion, and her grandfather never visits. She's living in what used to be Coal Hill School, helping Earth rebuild again.

Then, one night, she's called away to help with an emergency. A piece of appropriated Dalek technology is malfunctioning, and everyone's afraid of what it might do...

This is just the first in a sequence of predicaments facing Susan — and the connection between them will shape the rest of her life.

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Eighth Doctor
• Susan Foreman

References

Susan

• Susan remembers reading King Lear almost 250 years ago, and telling the teacher it was nothing like what had really happened.
• She doesn't require as much sleep as humans, but tries to get four or five hours a night.
• She tries to act like her grandfather, and look like she knows what she's doing.
• She used to listen to the radio and read the pop magazines. She loved The Beatles' vitality and optimism, but would sometimes mention songs they hadn't written yet.
• Susan doesn't get hay fever.

Locations

• Coal Hill School was converted into flats over 100 years ago (before 2113), and survived the first and second Dalek invasions.
• The playground torn up and a garden planted. Someone planted an oak tree in memory of Ian and Barbara. The plaque doesn't say when they died.
• The airspace command centre is located in Greenwich.

The Doctor

• The Doctor programs the synthesiser to generate a yellow, viscous liquid: custard.
• He then makes an asteroid appear on collision course with Earth, then makes it vanish.
• He then creates partly mechanical, partly organic black and orange spiders bigger than a hand. They move fast and leap, but are harmless.
• He makes Susan a cup of tea.
• He has a tea chest with the number "76" on it.

Technology

• Earth has been using salvaged Dalek technology like power generators and chemical synthesisers, which are security equipped to prevent being used by anyone who's not a Dalek.
• The synthesiser Susan's working on is kept in a warehouse in King's Cross, suspended by virtual cable rooters. It glows purple when in operation.
• A "bubble" is sent to take Susan from her flat.
• Susan uses a binary feedback oscillator. It knocks out most things based on electronic circuits.
• Since the second invasion, many people still carry weapons.
• Susan uses the Doctor's sonic screwdriver to discover he's controlling the spiders.

The Time War

• Susan receives a white cube, a tesseract, from Gallifrey. The hay fever feeling is a way of saying the message is urgent, to avoid the recipient from delaying. It's her "call-up papers" — "Gallifrey needs you to fight the Daleks." The Doctor was creating the diversions so that he could remove the cubes from her flat, although the hay fever still remained.
• The Time Lords feel if they don't stop the Daleks, no one will.
• The Doctor claims the Time Lords asked him to join the Time War, saying they got "desperate."
• He says neutral territories have been annexed.
• Susan believes the Time Lords have contacted her now because she's done all she can on Earth.
• She puts her reply into the tesseract and sends it back. Moments later, a TARDIS comes for Susan, disguised as a wardrobe.

Notes

to be added

Continuity

• Susan notes that the Doctor hasn't regenerated since she last saw him. (AUDIO: To the Death)
• She also notes that his hair is shorter and his clothes look battered, as if he'd travelled a long way without a TARDIS. (TV: The Night of the Doctor)
• Susan used to listen to the radio. (TV: An Unearthly Child)
• Susan says that she has fought the Daleks off Earth twice in the past, referring to the first and second invasions. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, AUDIO: Lucie Miller, To the Death)
• The Doctor and Susan had not heard of the Daleks before they left Gallfirey. (TV: The Daleks)
• Susan realises that the Time War started in part due to an attempt by the Time Lords to stop the Daleks before they began. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
• Susan still uses "Susan Campell," but neither name belongs to her. Different accounts have given her birth name as Larn (PROSE: Birth of a Renegade) or Arkytior. (PROSE: Roses)
• The Doctor doesn't have a companion right now. (TV: The Night of the Doctor)
• Susan reminds the Doctor that he decided she would stay on Earth. (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)

External links

to be added