Bernice Summerfield
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Bernice Surprise "Benny" Summerfield - legally known as Bernice Kane following her marriage with Jason Kane (PROSE: Happy Endings, AUDIO: Brand Management) - was a noted archaeologist who originated from the mid-26th century. She was a close associate of the Doctor, having encountered many of their incarnations.[1]
Benny travelled with the Seventh Doctor for a considerable amount of time, becoming one of the Doctor's longest serving companions. (PROSE: Human Nature) For some portions of their travels, Bernice and the Doctor were joined by Ace, (PROSE: Deceit et al.) Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester. (PROSE: Original Sin et al.) Benny left the Doctor to marry Jason Kane. (PROSE: Happy Endings)
Bernice's history following her marriage with Jason was heavily manipulated by Irving Braxiatel, (AUDIO: The End of the World) who tried to keep Benny close to him due to her potential destiny as an integral person in the creation of the Deindum. (AUDIO: Escaping the Future)
After she divorced Jason, (PROSE: Eternity Weeps) Bernice met the Eighth Doctor and settled into a job at St Oscar's University on Dellah in the 2590s. (PROSE: The Dying Days et al.) After Dellah was devastated by the Ferutu, Bernice spent a few years working for the University of Vremnya. (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods)
In 2599, Bernice left Vremnya to work at the Braxiatel Collection, (PROSE: The Dead Men Diaries) where she would stay for almost a decade. (AUDIO: The Wake, PROSE: Nursery Politics) During this time, Bernice gave birth to her son, Peter Summerfield. (PROSE: The Glass Prison) After leaving the Collection with Peter, Bernice became involved in the Deindum War. (PROSE: Present Danger et al.)
After being displaced in time at the end of the war, Bernice met Ruth and Jack McSpringheel on Zordin. (AUDIO: Judgement Day et al.) Benny stayed friends with Ruth and Jack and was reunited with Irving Braxiatel and Peter on Legion. (AUDIO: Paradise Frost) After a series of adventures - largely in the early 27th century - with new and old friends, (AUDIO: Vesuvius Falling, The Revolution, PROSE: Adorable Illusion, Big Bang Generation et al.) Benny was pulled into a parallel universe by that universe's Doctor, where she became stuck. (AUDIO: The Library in the Body et al.) After spending some time there, she returned to her own universe. (AUDIO: The True Saviour of the Universe)
Biography
Early life
Dating Bernice's early life is difficult. Some dates given for her birth would place it a century too early for her to have lived through her formative events (PROSE: Falls the Shadow) and others would mean that she was only three years old when she was depicted as being seven. (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad) These discrepancies were due to Irving Braxiatel meddling with her timeline. (AUDIO: The Wake, et al.)
Birth and childhood
Bernice Surprise Summerfield, the only child of Claire and Isaac Summerfield, was born on the Earth colony Beta Caprisis on 21 June 2540. (AUDIO: Just War)
A child of the Second Dalek War (PROSE: Love and War), Benny moved from school to school too often to settle in anywhere. It was at a boarding school on Mal Oreille that she had her first recorded adventure; she discovered the Matron was a giant toad feeding on the pupils. She was duly expelled. (PROSE: Biology Lesson on Mal Oreille)
By the time she was seven, (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad) Bernice and her parents were living in the town of Vandor Prime on the planet Beta Caprisis. Despite her father's time-consuming job as an admiral in Spacefleet in wartime, she saw him regularly. He filled her head with pearls of military wisdom, (PROSE: The Evacuation of Bernice Summerfield Considered as a Short Film by Terry Gilliam) took her fishing and read her fairy stories. (PROSE: The Pit) Bernice had already begun to keep a diary — she continued to keep diaries her entire life. She evinced some interest in archaeology by this point: she sent off for a badge that read "I Dig Archaeology". (PROSE: Oh No It Isn't!)
Bernice later recalled waving goodbye to her father's battleship, (PROSE: Shadowmind) the Tisiphone, as it departed to fight the Daleks near Bellatrix. (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad) The ship went missing and Bernice's father was thought dead. (PROSE: Love and War) Worse, the reports of the Tisiphone's final minutes made it appear it had fled the battle. Admiral Summerfield was deemed a deserter. Benny never gave up hope she would discover what had become of her father; the search for him was one reason for her early wanderings around the galaxy.
Within six months of Admiral Summerfield's disappearance (PROSE: The Evacuation of Bernice Summerfield Considered as a Short Film by Terry Gilliam) and some time after Benny's eighth birthday, (AUDIO: The Extinction Event) the Daleks attacked Beta Caprisis. In the havoc of the attack, Claire got Bernice to the safety of a shelter — but was exterminated by a Dalek ray while trying to retrieve her daughter's favourite doll. (PROSE: Love and War, Return of the Living Dad) This was how Bernice recalled it. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising)
During her evacuation she didn't eat. She met an entertainment troupe who wanted to put on a show for her. She didn't like it when Pandemonium Jack called her an Orphan. With the other survivors, Bernice was evacuated to a space station aboard the Star of Lucknow and, now an orphan, to foster care. (PROSE: The Evacuation of Bernice Summerfield Considered as a Short Film by Terry Gilliam)
Teenage life and young adulthood
She declined the hospitality of her foster parents by running away; (PROSE: Parasite) by thirteen (PROSE: The Tunnels to Heaven) she found herself in a Spacefleet military academy. (PROSE: Love and War) She showed aptitude for soldiering, but treated the whole ethos with disdain. She was considered for Section Leader among the cadets, but her disciplinary record prohibited this. (PROSE: The Tunnels to Heaven) She was involved with extracurriculars in her time at the Academy; she was one of its better tennis players, (PROSE: Thirty Love) and she sang in its production of Carousel. (PROSE: No Future)
During her time at the Academy, Bernice was sent on an exercise to the planet Goethe in an exo-suit. After Bernice ridiculed her lecturer, Officer Zhang, for owning 22nd century model submarines, she was punished by having to use an exo-suit that had received a paint job, making it look like a pink bunny. On the surface of the planet, this had unexpected ramifications. One of the long-dead psychic inhabitants of the planet mistook her exo-suit for a pink toy bunny she had intended to buy her child. The manifestation shut down Bernice's suit and followed her across the planet. Bernice found a museum, which housed many artifacts excavated from below the surface. There Bernice found a toy bunny, and gave it to the manifestation, allowing her to regain the functions of her suit and return to the Academy. (PROSE: The Bunny's Curse)
By sixteen, Bernice had run away from the Academy and was living in the nearby woods. She had become a guru to the girls who came to her for advice. (PROSE: Love and War) It was they who first gave her the nickname "Professor". (PROSE: Blood Harvest) Benny was not alone in the woods; fellow student runaway Simon Kyle had built a shelter for his illicitly reconstituted Galapagos tortoises. He became her first lover, but betrayed her to the Academy when they were discovered by a patrol. (PROSE: Love and War, Return of the Living Dad) During her time in the forest she met a future version of herself and was suspicious. She learnt from one of her fellow students that the principal was escalating the searches in the camp. One night she was nearly caught by a search party when they released a gas, but was saved by her future self. The two then had a philosophical debate. The younger Benny found something buried in the academy grounds. She helped to defend the grounds when the enemy attacked. She betrayed her future self to the Academy Principal and then dug up what was in the grounds. She saved the academy when an entire space-fleet came and fixed the shields using parts of the crashed ship. She then discovered that she had been in the presence of a future Benny. (AUDIO: Ever After Happy)
At some point after, possibly immediately afterwards, as she later recalled being the youngest private in the corps, (PROSE: Dry Pilgrimage) Benny left the Academy and was conscripted into Spacefleet. There was, at this point, a draft. (PROSE: Oh No It Isn't!) She deserted in an escape pod from a troop ship en route to the planet Capella.
Not quite twenty-two, Bernice faked her archaeological qualifications and bluffed her way onto digs. She doctored her passport with the notation TMF (Too Mad to Fight) to avoid the draft. (PROSE: Beyond the Sun, PROSE: Genius Loci) She was exposed as a fraud by the leader of a dig on the planet Jaiwan, but was offered genuine academic credentials (an MA in archaeology) in exchange for her help on the dig. (PROSE: Genius Loci) On one dig in her early career, she learned there was only a subtle difference between a knife used for cutting and a spear or hunting knife. (PROSE: Just War)
By twenty-three, Benny had woken up in prison several times. (PROSE: Charged)
At around age twenty-four, two years after her escape from Spacefleet, Benny spent some time wandering the galaxy with her friend Louise. (PROSE: Benny and Louise)
Still aged twenty-four, presumably, not long after parting ways with Louise, Benny excavated a Martian site, Mare Sirenum. This dig established her reputation as an archaeologist and formed the basis for her bestselling book Down Among the Dead Men. (PROSE: The Dead Men Diaries)
Travelling with the Doctor
First adventures
Benny celebrated her thirtieth birthday on the planet Heaven. While there, she worked with a team of archaeologists unearthing a Heavenite arch.
Benny met Ace, who Benny learnt could travel in time. Beneath the arch, Benny's student, Clive Aubrey, discovered a passageway leading to a door. With the help of the Seventh Doctor, with whom Ace travelled in time and space, Benny opened the way, discovering a Heavenite observatory that could detect Hoothi spheres. By making psychic contact with Benny's mind, the Doctor tricked the Hoothi into assuming they had infected Benny when they hadn't, saving her life. Ace's new love, Jan Rydd, sacrificed himself by igniting the sphere that was over Heaven with his pyrokinesis, saving the people on Heaven and billions of others.
Ace was upset with the Doctor for allowing Jan to die and left in disgust. Benny agreed to travel in time and space with the Doctor — but only after he had promised not to play games with her life. (PROSE: Love and War, AUDIO: Love and War)
Leaving Ace on Heaven, the Doctor took Bernice to the Solar system in 2109, her past. They met Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart, a descendant of the Doctor's long-time associate the Brigadier, and stopped the destruction of the Sol Transit System by "Fred", the ruler of another dimension. (PROSE: Transit)
The Doctor tried to track down a space-time anomaly known as a Fortean Flicker, leading the pair to Hogsumm in 2680. They encountered the war-like Chelonians, a train car full of humans from 1993 and a group of 22nd century teenagers on their way to a concert, all having been transported there by the Flicker. Sheldukher, the most wanted criminal in the galaxy during Benny's time, also came to the planet believing it to be the mythical Sakkrat. Bernice nearly had her brain melted by the teenagers' Bubbleshake, a highly addictive soft drink. (PROSE: The Highest Science, AUDIO: The Highest Science)
In the Althosian system, the Doctor and Benny prevented the Yssgaroth from breaking through into our universe. (PROSE: The Pit)
Ace rejoins
Benny and the Doctor returned to the 26th century, arriving three years after they left, and reunited with Ace, who had become battle-hardened fighting with Spacefleet in the Second Dalek War. After putting a stop to the Spinward Corporation's experiments on their colony Arcadia with the help of a clone of Abslom Daak, Ace rejoined the TARDIS crew. (PROSE: Deceit)
The three travellers visited Project Eden in the Lucifer system in 2157. After the death of Paula Engado, the Adjudicator Bishop arrived to investigate. Before the culprit was found, two more people were killed as well. The Doctor figured out the killer was Piper O'Rourke, who was acting as a spy for the Interplanetary Mining Corporation. IMC tried to take over the system to mine Lucifer, but the Angels who inhabited the gas giant closed off the system. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising)
In 1915 Haiti, the Doctor, Benny and Ace stopped Gilles Lemaitre from unleashing one of the Great Old Ones. (PROSE: White Darkness)
After this, the Doctor wanted to take Ace somewhere special for her birthday, and they arrived in New Byzantium in 2673. They defeated Umbra, which had been trying to take over the human colonies Arden and Tairngaire. (PROSE: Shadowmind)
While the Doctor fought the Cybermen in 2006 with Ruby Duvall, (PROSE: Iceberg) Bernice and Ace were stranded in 1909 and 22000 respectively. Benny befriended Mikhail Popov and Margaret Waterfield and prevented the Charrl from using the Time Vector Generator to breach the Great Divide and conquer Earth. (PROSE: Birthright)
Alternate universes
After entering an alternate universe in which the Third Doctor had died and the Silurians had taken over Earth, the Doctor's TARDIS was lost in a tar pit. Bernice stowed away aboard a nuclear submarine to try to prevent the humans from wiping out the Silurians. In the end, the Doctor destroyed the alternate universe because it was draining energy from the main universe, and the three continued travelling in his alternate self's TARDIS. (PROSE: Blood Heat)
While Ace and the Doctor confronted the Garvond on Space Station Q4 in 2381, Benny befriended Professor James Rafferty and faced "the President", a renegade Time Lord, and his android assassin Amanda in Oxford, 1993. (PROSE: The Dimension Riders)
On holiday in Switzerland in 2030, the trio received a message from Cristián Alvarez. They encountered him out-of-order in Mexico City 1994 and London in 1968 and 1980 while fighting the Aztec god Huitzilin. (PROSE: The Left-Handed Hummingbird)
Benny, Ace, and the Doctor next landed in the idyllic village of Arandale, but they eventually realised that it was in fact the Land of Fiction, now being run by a teenage boy named Jason. (PROSE: Conundrum)
To figure out once and for all who had been messing with time, the Doctor took his companions to London 1976, where Bernice joined the punk band Plasticine to find out more about Danny Pain. The Doctor uncovered a plot by Mortimus to take over the Earth using a Chronovore name Artemis and the Vardans. (PROSE: No Future)
In Empire City on the planet Olleril, the three time travellers arrived during the Tragedy Day celebrations, and discovered that the society was being controlled by the cult of Luminus, led by a young boy named Crispin. (PROSE: Tragedy Day)
Next, they visited Peladon in 3985, fifty years after the Doctor's last visit in his third incarnation. Benny decided to take a break from the TARDIS, joining an archaeological expedition to Phaester Osiris with the Martian Rhukk. (PROSE: Legacy) Bernice spent three months in that time period. After Osiris, she visited for the first time the Braxiatel Collection, where she met Irving Braxiatel. She joined another expedition, this time to the ruins of the Pentillanian Theatre on Menaxus. There, she met up again with the Doctor and Ace. Benny figured out that all of the ruins had been planted by Braxiatel as part of an elaborate plan to protect the collection. (PROSE: Theatre of War)
Whilst the Doctor started an investigation in London in 1887, she was left in Bombay to participate in the investigation. When the Doctor arrived in Bombay, she gave him some of the information that she had obtained about Baron Maupertuis and where he was going in India. They followed the path but the Doctor was kidnapped. Arriving at Tir Ram's palace with two gentlemen, she discovered that the Doctor was in the caves beneath. She then went with him through the portal to Ry'leh and helped to stop Azathoth from invading the Earth. Afterwards, Benny received a book detailing the adventure, called All-Consuming Fire and written by Arthur Conan Doyle. The names of the two men had been changed to "Sherlock Holmes" and "John Watson". She found the book to be in many ways inaccurate. (PROSE: All-Consuming Fire)
The Doctor, Benny and Ace visited the Pinehill Crest Hotel in 2003. As part of this she investigated Annie Carpenter and her channelling Ohm. She saw her transform into a Scourge. Benny went inside the Doctor's mind and saw his past incarnations. She tried to help him fight the Scourge in his mind. After the Doctor, Benny and Ace regrouped and changed the matter of the dimension, she used her memories of sleeping with the people she loved and tea and scones to defeat the Scourge. (AUDIO: The Shadow of the Scourge) Some time afterwards Benny decided to stay on Orbos to take part in an archaeological dig and wanted to see her old friend Victor Farrison as he wanted to see her. As Victor didn't arrive she spent her time collecting trash. She later saw black fire which she later realised was related to the Cult of the Dark Flame. Slyde pushed Benny into the waste disposal unit. The disposal unit placed on Marran Alpha where she met Victor and saw Slyde use Remnex's body to resurrect Vilus Krull. She was later touched by the Dark Flame and became possessed by it. Vilus later wanted to inhabit Benny' body. She was forced to start the black light explosion and her hand was aged. After Ace and the Doctor stopped the explosion her hand was rejuvenated and she left with them. (AUDIO: The Dark Flame)
After Ace had left again, The Doctor and Benny visited the planet Shanquis where she attended an archaeology conference whilst the Doctor was organising a piece treaty. At the conference she was told about an old forbidden language that had been given occult status because it could cause magic like situations. On investigating she discovered that it was a crime for anyone to have knowledge of or artefacts containing this forbidden language. After the Doctor was kidnapped she started looking for him and discovered that the language was English and the magic came from a terraforming machine which would react to any command it heard. (AUDIO: Bernice Summerfield and the Criminal Code)
Travelling with Roz and Chris
Information from Sky Pirates to Sleepy needs to be added.
After hearing from Homeless Forsaken that something was going to happen on Earth, she told the Doctor and they went there. They landed in the Overcity and wanted to find a Hith to find more information. After the TARDIS was taken, they travelled to Purgatory to find more information. After getting there, she was sentenced to death. Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej arrived and took her back to Earth where they were trapped by Tobias Vaughn. She then managed to get to the Hith Ship in order to stop it from being used. (PROSE: Original Sin)
Marriage and divorce
Towards the end of Benny's travels with the Doctor, she met her future husband, Jason Kane. The two sparred and their relationship continued to be antagonistic until Shug, a mutual acquaintance, pointed out they had fallen in love. According to Shug, Jason's bad childhood made him equate love with violence; he sought only sexual encounters with no emotional involvement. Benny, on the other hand, had given her absent father god-like attributes to which no one could measure up; she manoeuvred men into betraying her, re-enacting her father's perceived betrayal. They fell in love because they were both trying to sabotage their relationship. (PROSE: Death and Diplomacy)
Benny married Jason in the village of Cheldon Bonniface, England, on 24 April 2010. The wedding was attended by a host of guests from all space and time. (PROSE: Happy Endings)
Not long after, Benny finally found her father, who had been pulled backwards through time. He was running a bookshop/coffee shop/safe house for aliens and the temporally stranded, in Little Caldwell, England, in 1983. (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad) She believed herself about thirty-five at this time. Shortly after the adventure with her father — which interrupted her research for her dissertation — she completed her doctorate in archaeology.
A rift soon developed between Benny and Jason and they divorced. (PROSE: Eternity Weeps)
The St Oscar's years
Shortly after her divorce, Bernice received an invitation to take up the Edward Watkinson Chair of Archaeology at St Oscar's University on the planet Dellah at a time some years in her own future (2593). She accepted, and was taken to Dellah by the Eighth Doctor. He also gave her Wolsey. By this point, the Doctor stated she was his longest-serving companion. (PROSE: The Dying Days)
Benny lived in the Garland College of Residence and was the Rector of Garland College. She went on a dig to the planet of Perfecton to find out what wiped out the Perfectons. Whilst leaving the planet, the expedition was attacked by the Grel. At the same time, a missile from the planet collided with the ship. She woke up in a strange land where Wolsey was a person and she supposedly wanted to be lord mayor. She thought that she was dead and in the afterlife. She eventually realised that she was in a storybook land. At the king's ball, Benny decided to try and stop the world by marrying all of the eligible bachelors. After meeting the Fairy Godfather, she realised that the Perfectons were watching her. To find out more, she hypnotised Wolsey and found out that this world came from the thesis that she was reading. She worked out that the lamp from the Aladdin play was important, but the Grel used it to release a Genie, which was the Perfectons' guidance computer. She managed to get the lamp back to stop the ship from being blown up by the exploding sun. (PROSE: Oh No It Isn't!)
Whilst at St Oscar's, she met Irving Braxiatel, who was then head of St Oscar's theatre department. This meeting was their first from Braxiatel's perspective, but subsequent to their earlier encounters from Bernice's. Upon being thrown out of a pub on Dellah, she found Newark Rappare bleeding out in an ally. The next day, she was asked to go on a dig, funded by Romolo Nusek, on Stanturus Three to investigate an ancient civilisation. She used this as an advantage to investigate Rappare's death as the dragon in his studio was the same as the one in Nusek's archives. She was attacked on the dig. Because she was recovering, she escaped an explosion at the second dig site. She was then tasked with proving the veracity of the third dragon. She exposed Gamaliel and the dragon by showing it had a camera in it. (PROSE: Dragons' Wrath)
She was interviewed by Keri about her expedition to Aggravar to find its lost fields for one of her shows. Using the Law of Consonantal Shift, she realised that Aggravar had mutated in caravan and went to the holiday planet of Shangri-La. Whilst walking around, she explained the myth of how the planet became a muddy field. Walking through the fields, they fell through into a cavern. Exploring the cavern, they found a set of carts which confirmed the myth as being true. (AUDIO: Making Myths)
During a dig on Apollox 4 to allow Tameka Vito and Emile Mars-Smith to complete their mandatory field trips, she was visited by Jason Kane, who showed her a mysterious artefact. She then wanted to leave the planet after Jason went missing. On her way back to Dellah, she got the ship to do a sweep of Ursu and the ship was shot down. She then went to see Dr Kitzinger to find out more about the artefact and the Blooms. She thought that it was ridiculous that the artefact would give power beyond the sun. Discovering that Miranda was on the planet, she tried to find more information about the whereabouts of Jason and why the Sunless were on the planet. Her friends Leon and Scott where taken by the Sunless in order to get the artefact from Benny. Taken to their homeworld, she found Jason in their prison cell. She tried to stop Miranda but was blackmailed by her. She realised that there was a mistranslation and the visionary wasn't the artefact but was instead Miranda, as the machine was to give the sun power beyond its natural life. (PROSE: Beyond the Sun)
Several months later Benny, was visited by WiRgo!xu. She became irate when she learnt that he was one of the People. Shortly afterwards, she realised that Jason had stolen her Time Ring and went after him. She discovered that he had gone to ancient Babylon. Arriving at the same time as Jason, she encountered a fellow time traveller, John Lafayette, and explained her situation. With the help of Ninan-ashtammu, she located the People. She was kidnapped by the People so that they could learn more about the time path. She was rescued and tried to work out a way to stop the People from sending a bomb down the time path. She went back through it to explain that !Ci!ci-tel was staying behind and stop the bomb. (AUDIO: Walking to Babylon)
Due to the presence of the People's bomb in the time corridor, she exited the corridor in 1909 instead of 2593. She then met Mikhail Popov again but neither of them remembered their previous encounter. She learnt about the death of his daughter in a manner resembling a vivisection. She then investigated the murders. She discovered where Lafayette had stored her device. She planned to go back and get it but she was captured and threatened with being sent to prison because she had hidden her time ring. After meeting Jared Khan, she worked out that he was allowing the Charrl to get to Earth and invade it. She was infected by the Charrl. She managed to stop them but Khan jumped into the tunnel and her calculation went wrong. (AUDIO: Birthright)
She ended up landing in Guernsey in 1941, which was occupied by the Nazis. She spent her time cleaning at the local hotel. Three months into her stay, she went walking with Gerhard Flur and witnessed a plane crash. On investigating the crash, she killed Gerhard. She thought that she should have been one of the people who was killed because of her actions. Joachim Wolff arrested her and tortured her. She admitted to them that she came from the future but they didn't believe it. She managed to escape by stealing Rosa Kitzel's uniform and locking her in the morgue. She made her way to the airfield but was stopped by Oskar Steinmann and taken to Jason. She helped him to escape and work out what destroyed the German plane and destroyed its twin. They then returned to the 26th century. (AUDIO: Just War)
Benny was angry at Jason as when they were together she was very nice. She was tricked by Jason to go back to Paris 1890. She wanted to go home but they landed off course and lost the time rings. She discovered that they were in 2164. Upon exploring she was captured by the Grel whilst escaping more Grel. She created a plan to outwit the Grel. She managed to open a fact lock. She found it funny that the Grel was creating a mobile library. She planed to use their fact erasing gas but Jason tried to convice her out of it. (AUDIO: The Grel Invasion of Earth)
She was asked by a peace keeping force to be an impartial observer when they documented what was discovered. She discovered a villa owned by a ruthless dictator. Outside the villa, she saw a mass grave which had been covered with concrete but she could still see some of the bodies. Inside the villa, she saw a group of women who had been repeatedly raped, some of them now pregnant. Exploring the house more, she found more people who were involved in genetic experiments, and people who had been tortured. Seeing all of the devastation that had been caused, she decided to use the time rings to go back and avert the war. She went back to the day that Isabella, the dictator's mother, was murdered and told her the story, and that she had a choice to make, to kill the baby, Isabella or the murderer. In the end, she wounded the murderer and left to see the new future that she had made. (AUDIO: Closure)
Following the evacuation of Dellah during its occupation by the All-High Gods in 2595, Bernice learned she was dying of an incurable condition. (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle) She was, however, cured (PROSE: Return to the Fractured Planet) and played a major role in the destruction of the gods. (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods)
The Braxiatel Collection years
Following Dellah's destruction/removal from normal space, Irving Braxiatel asked for her to come to the Braxiatel Collection. (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods) She became the newly formed Collection's staff archaeologist; she took up her post as the year 2600 dawned, when she was still in her thirties (she had regressed in age at one point in her travels). It was as part of her duties on the Collection, during an expedition to locate the Doomsday Manuscript, she first encountered the Fifth Axis. (PROSE: The Doomsday Manuscript) She then decided to go on holiday on Chosen whilst there was a civil war. Her yacht was destroyed by one of the sides but she was rescued by Damien Colley. Here she discovered a plan to use a Sheen as a bomb by Hannah Brennan to destroy her opponents continent. She discovered the Sheen became a human bomb in order to destroy Callabraxia. (AUDIO: The Secret of Cassandra) Her next mission was to discover a temple on the planet Venedel, as it contained an item which would allow her to find Jason. (PROSE: The Gods of the Underworld)
Motherhood
Travelling to Hera, she explored a cave which contained the mind of Avril Fenman. Avril stole Benny's body and began to abuse it. Avril then seduced Killoran Adrian Wall, an act which resulted in Benny falling pregnant. (PROSE: The Squire's Crystal) This event caused some friction between Adrian and Benny when they had to go to Rhinvil to discover what had happened to his crew on the planet. She discovered that Bratheen Traloor had an obsession with Benny and programmed his house with her memories. The House became jealous when Benny came to the house and tried to kill her. (AUDIO: The Stone's Lament)
Irving Braxiatel took her to Palastrid in order for her to validate the authenticity of a Halstad Harp. Through her investigation, she helped to uncover the truth behind the destruction of Halstad by the Gulfrarg. She encountered Hulver who told her about life on Halstad (AUDIO: The Extinction Event) She travelled to Station Control after being asked to find out what had happened to Rupert Alouicious Barnstable Gilhooly ship. There she found Jason Kane and brought him back to her universe. She also discovered that she was pregnant. (PROSE: The Infernal Nexus)
Five months into her pregnancy, she went to Karthos to help her to investigate a mysterious ruin on the planet, which shouldn't exist according to Caitlin Peters. When she travelled to the planet, she discovered that Caitlin had disappeared and she went to the ruin to discover that the ruins were created by an ancient civilisation to protect the planet. (AUDIO: The Skymines of Karthos)
Nearing the end of her pregnancy, she went on a trip but her ship was attacked. She crashed on the planet Deirbhile and was imprisoned by the Fifth Axis. She became of the focus of a cult in the prison because of the unusual circumstances of the conception. She eventually gave birth whilst in prison, to a boy named Peter Summerfield, who was half-human and half-Killoran. He was born via c-section, since he was too large to be delivered normally. (PROSE: The Glass Prison)
She once decided to go on an dig because it was on the Gigamarket parking lot. She wanted to go and buy loads of shoes and stole Adrian's credit chip do to so. Inside the shop she met with Keelor who showed her the shoe canyon and a book display of down among the Dead men. She experienced time shifts and then went shopping because it reset the credit chip without a limit. The shifts meant that the Borvali escaped to their section of the Gigamarket and started hunting the humans. She encountered Tarband who was a soldier from 100 years ago and helped him fight his way through the shop. When there she discovered that the Gigamarket was selling humans to the Borvali. The shifts almost destroyed the shop as they set off a self destruct routine in the security regime. She decided to stop the bomb by hitting the controls with her shoes. (AUDIO: The Greatest Shop in the Galaxy)
Benny was adamant that she raise her son by herself as a single mother, despite Jason and Adrian each wanting to play a role. She was initially told by Adrian that the males of his species didn't rear the child but this didn't sit well with her. She let them look after him when she went to Goronos after Ashantra asked her to come as an expert to look over some artifacts they had. She realised it was a scam to get Peter away from her. (AUDIO: The Green-Eyed Monsters) She later softened her stance, though, and both men were involved in Peter's upbringing.
Benny once landed on Artaris to avoid a space fleet, she left the collection to avoid Peter's screaming. She met Iris Wildthyme there. Benny thought that Iris might have been a Fifth Axis agent, but got drunk with her. She was noticed as being an outsider and was to be trailed as such. She helped Iris to find out the truth behind the plague that haunted Excelis. (AUDIO: The Plague Herds of Excelis)
Iris smuggled Benny on board the space liner the Empress while Iris continued on her own, telling Benny to act like she owned the place and she'd get home. The partner-in-crime of the thief, Karter, hacked into the Empress' systems to put Karter on the staff. The partner intended to set off a small explosion to damage just one floor and quickly steal from them, but mistimed the explosives and damaged the entire hull. While trying to steal the jewels of two dead Kolgarian delegates, Asnarbi and Musjarna, the jewels shattered and emitted a gas that brought the memories and emotions of Asnarbi and Musjarna into Benny and the Ice Warrior Grand Marshall Sstac of New Mars.
While trying to save themselves from the collapsing ship, the memories of the dead Kolgarians and their quarrelling surfaced in Benny and Sstac. Meanwhile, General Azzar, deciding that the explosion was the result of Queen Bastrovan's retaliation against the Empress, set the ship on a collision course for Ronos Minor, faking a distress call so that armies could start a war against her. Azzar electrocuted herself on the flight controls, while Karter, after being discovered, escaped in the last shuttle. With little oxygen left, the last traces of Asnarbi and Musjarna left Benny and Sstac's minds while they clung to life. A group of Ice Warriors, answering Azzar's distress call, rescued the survivors on the ship. Benny wrote to Sstac that she would visit the delgates' next of kin on Kolgar and invited him to come along. (AUDIO: The Dance of the Dead)
She travelled with Jason, Adrian and Brax through the mirror that was in the Braxiatel collection. She wanted to explore the base to find Brax and Adrian when they went missing. She found Carnivel in the base, she said she knew Benny. She discovered that the mirror projected the dark side of the looker. She discovered that there was a creature in the mirror, a creature that wanted to be born after it saw the memories of Peter's birth. The creature then wanted Benny to give birth to it. Adrian's love for her managed to break through the creatures hold on her and she managed to escape. (AUDIO: The Mirror Effect)
She was asked by Braxiatel to help Patrick Quilby track the source of higher technology on Bellotron. On her way to the planet she was attacked by a Rutan Host and was copied. (AUDIO: The Bellotron Incident) She was then invited to Draconia by Lord Paranash. She was asked because of her adventure with the Doctor on Marran Alpha, because it led to her becoming in contact with Vilus Krull and the Cult of the Dark Flame. She had her skull drilled into in order to release the essence of Vilus' mind, and then to assassinate Emperor Shenn. (AUDIO: The Draconian Rage)
The Earth Reptile Council asked Benny to look for a terrorist wanting to disrupt the Sea Devil colony on Chosan. She met her old friend Nedda and discovered that there was a greater problem than terrorism: the water contained a protein that changed the minds of the Sea Devils making them become more violent. Whilst she was offworld, the Collection was invaded by the Fifth Axis. (AUDIO: The Poison Seas)
She was part of the resistance against the Fifth Axis (PROSE: Life During Wartime) On one resistance task, she found out that the Fifth Axis was using her father as a tactician. She discovered that her father was based on Heaven, and planned an archaeological dig there to find him. She discovered that the Daleks were on Heaven and behind the Fifth Axis. Arriving back at the collection in time for the liberation, she made the ultimate decision to destroy the Fifth Axis for all the terrible crimes they had committed. (AUDIO: Death and the Daleks)
She found it weird that Braxiatel had found a fiancée. She was suspicious of Veronica Bland and hired Reep Saluja to investigate. She was in charge of taking an inventory of the artefacts after the Axis invasion. She warned Veronica to not trust Brax. She was annoyed when Veronica would allow her access to the east wing. Brax got her slightly drunk to find out why she didn't like Veronica. She thought that Brax was marrying Veronica as she was rare, exactly what he liked in his collection. She was banished by Brax for this view. She came back to the collection on the quiet. She told Veronica that Reep was attacked by a plant. She found out that Crofton's books had been taken from the library and that Veronica's species was a plant in his greenhouse. She discovered that Veronica was a plant and used some weedkiller on it. She hoped that this would make Veronica die back. She officiated at the wedding. (AUDIO: Braxiatel in Love)
She was asked by Lynton Jellis to explore some ruins found at a prospective mine on Tysir IV, because if it showed signs of recent indigenous life the colony would be declared illegal. She was tricked into entering the site which was a Cyberman base, so that Lynton could get a plague for a group of separatists. She had to work with a Cyberman in order to get out of the base before it was destroyed. (AUDIO: Silver Lining)
On one occasion when Jason was looking after Peter, she noticed that Pete had gotten hold of the time rings. He activated them and took her first to the Festival of Piranha where she rode the ghost train. Learning that there were flesh eating wraiths she asked Peter to escape them. They then travelled to Ancient Egypt. She was delighted when they landed near the Sphinx and showed Peter one of the pyramids. When the Grel shot her, she had a dream where she went into the pyramid but was questioned by the God Anubis who judged her, and Amyt, the devourer of souls, about actually wanting Peter. They then travelled to a jungle when Peter wanted to go to a zoo. This was when the time rings started to get hot. The Grel made a copy of Benny to tempt Jason to give them Peter. She became annoyed at how they had made it. They quickly visited Australia, a football match and then Paris. When the time rings overloaded, they gave Benny a glimpse of Peter's violent future. (AUDIO: The Grel Escape)
She was sent by the Perloran government to obtain the Wishing Bone of Perlor in return for Galyari weapons they obtained during a civil war. When she visited The Clutch, she met with the star gypsy Mordecan to find out what he did with the bone. She discovered that they had used the bone to create Greeko, but in encountering him his conditioning failed due to her latent psychic abilities, and he became reckless. She failed to get the bone back and it was destroyed when Greeko was killed. (AUDIO: The Bone of Contention)
Benny was shot down by Elise Kalwell when she travelled to Jegg-Sau to find some valuable artefacts for Brax. Whilst there she found an obsolete Robot K103, which was one of the treasures. She found it weird that Elise and Ethan Kalwell wouldn't eat fresh meat and thought they were mad. She discovered that the Robot had created duplicates of the real Elise and Ethan which were then removed their reasons for them to leave the planet. She found out that he based the duplicates mind settings on a porn simulation. (AUDIO: The Relics of Jegg-Sau)
She had became trapped in the Spinster's Prison. She helped the Spinster to discover a murderer at the Queen of Spring. She later met the Player and thought him to be annoying as he insulted her. She later became the Queen of Spring. To escape the play she had have a verbal sparing match which unsettled the play structure. This was all an effect of virus located on an artefact Benny had found. (AUDIO: The Masquerade of Death)
One Christmas she was sent to Marlowe's World to discover why a Pulsar was heading towards the Braxiatel Collection as she was the closest one to the planet. The Pulsar was beaming the coordinates of Marlowe's world in Morse code. Whilst there she was constantly being shot at in different circumstances, or seeing people in that state, such as Topsy Turvé almost being crushed by a piano. She was then chased around the city. She discovered that she was being manipulated by the Eternals Barron and Raymond Hardy in order for one of them to win Enlightenment. (AUDIO: The Heart's Desire)
She was investigating Halyvon artefacts when she heard 26's voice in her head. She then travelled to find her. Arriving on the planet she soon discovered the 26's masters, the Monoids. The Monoids believed Benny to be one of their slaves and planned to remove her tongue as she had eyes, ears and speech, she managed to fool them into believing she was deaf. One of the artefacts she found allowed her to telepathically speak with other people who wore the necklace. She was disturbed that when the Halyvon regained their telepathic abilities they removed the Monoids' power of speech. (AUDIO: The Kingdom of the Blind)
Markwood invited her and Jason to search through the damage of the Trib Museum during the civil war. She had help from Enil though she wasn't too helpful as Jason's translator wasn't working properly. She discovered a torture chamber in the museum used by the military to conduct experiments on the locals. When a local stole Benny's note she ran after him in just a bath towel. She lost her arm when a building fell on her. After the war was over she was happy people were handing things back to the museum. (AUDIO: The Lost Museum) She had to chase after Clarissa Jones when she decided to kidnap Peter. (PROSE: Parallel Lives)
Parasiel asked Benny to tell him about the recent circumstances with Clarissa and Braxiatel. She decided to tell him about her recent visit to Etheria to discover the lost tomb of Aldébrath with her friend Keri. The tomb was said to be there by a bunch of monks and one of them helped on her expedition. The ship she was on crashed and she was told by Keri that it was going to explode. She discovered that Keri was lying to her to get good ratings by putting Benny in danger. On entering a crashed ship, she discovered it to be the lost tomb and that Aldébrath was a woman. Returning to the monk she realised that the monks weren't worshipping a god, but were supposed to be worshipping the Goddess of Love and Peace, the same one whose name she took in vain. (AUDIO: The Goddess Quandary)
Jason told Benny that he and Brax were going to see the Galyari production of Macbeth on Berkoff IV, she didn't believe them and followed into the ship. She discovered that they were going to Cantus on the tip-off of Thesanius. When they explored Cantus they discovered a Cyberman tomb. On entering a conversion chamber she became disgusted when she found out that infants were converted into Cybermats, and ran all the way back to the Collection. She returned to Cantus just after Jason was converted into a partial Cyberman with the power of the Gallifreyan Crystal byt Benny managed to stop it fully taken hold. She used the crystal to overload the Cyberman logic circuits and defeated them. (AUDIO: The Crystal of Cantus)
She went missing after an archaeological dig, and the CroSSScape had information on her. She was taken to be tortured by placing her in a reality where she experienced old memories. The CroSSScape wanted to convert her to be like him, in order for her to be more useful for their plans. NI/cian 137 helped her to escape from her imprisonment, but she was informed that Jason was there and he would be used instead of her. She was eventually converted so that their god could be placed in her mind, and they could learn from it. She managed to undo the conversion and return back to the collection. (AUDIO: The Tartarus Gate)
Benny then went to the Labyrinth of Kerykeion in order to buy some books, as it was the largest repository of human books outside Earth, on behalf of Bev Tarrant. On her journey there she met Samuel Wolfe and his daughter Jean, whom she found out that had bought the Labyrinth. On staying there, she discovered that there was a murdering robot in the building who killed Samuel. She also found out that the Labyrinth was awash with time loops and paradoxes, which she utilised to save Jean. She realised eventually that the reason that the librarian was so useful as she was Jean all grown up. (AUDIO: Timeless Passages)
Jason asked her to investigate a murder on the Drome which was caused by a fake highwayman. She managed to get an all-access pass around the Drome which made Jane Peters. On one set she saw how the Drome was making things seem real like making an unplugged cable live. She proposed that something like cabin fever was happening on the station. The computer was imposing control on the humans, and Benny asked the computer to start treating the humans like things and not plot devices. When this didn't work, she decided that only singing a happy song would overthrow the malicious conditioning. (AUDIO: The Worst Thing in the World)
She got slightly annoyed at Jason's promiscuity after Doggles tried to have sex with her. Even though Doggles had a slight crush on her, this happened because there was a sex epidemic on the collection and students, academics and staff were constantly having sex. Managing to stop herself from joining in, she tasked herself with finding the root cause of the epidemic. With Hass's help they discovered that it was the plant he had recently sowed in order to strengthen the planetoid. She got agitated at Bev's lack of interest in what was happening on the collection, due to the diplomatic talk. During one of the talks, Bev passionately kissed Benny. She eventually joined in with the orgies as Jason was off world. (AUDIO: Summer of Love)
Bev sent her to find the Oracle of Delphi in order to find out about the future of the collection. She met Socrates and was delighted to see him. She found out that Megaira had found a stone which gave her the power of prophecy and how she used that to empower Jason to do her dirty work. She forewarned Socrates about the upcoming plague which was caused by Megaira and found out the reason why he survived it. (AUDIO: The Oracle of Delphi)
Finding out the stone was called the stone of barter, she knew where it was in her own time and went to the Empire State to find it. It was a ruin but when she got there she found herself in a bustling metropolis, and that she had gained the power to fix things. She discovered that she gained her powers from the stone who stole them from Maggie Matsumoto. After Maggie gave up trying to stop Rand she worked that in resurrecting the people and fixing the building that she had made the idealised version of the planet. She discovered that the stone contained Braxiatel. (AUDIO: The Empire State)
With the Braxiatel Collection under a Mim blockade, Benny and Maggie had to run it in the pretence of bringing Braxiatel to be buried on the collection. She tried to stop herself from telling Maggie about the things Braxiatel did. She also knew of the Deselby Matango Effect and what it did to the humans. She was annoyed when Maggie became the anchorite for the ship. (AUDIO: The Tub Full of Cats)
She wasn't comfortable when Bev invited Kothar the Draconian ambassador to the collection. She later helped to find a way to remove a Draconian Gauntlet from Bev's left hand. Unfortunately, she had to use Braxiatel's help which stopped him building the defences, allowing the Draconians to invade. (AUDIO: The Judas Gift)
During the Draconian occupation, she hid in the bowels of the Collection and taught Draconians archaeology. Kothar started to hear her voice when searching for her. This was due to the virus which was implanted in the scotch he drank. She wanted to hide as she thought it was the best thing to do, and became angry when Jason told Kothar where she was. (AUDIO: Freedom of Information)
Bernice was invited to Earth by Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart in order to help her discover what was wrong on Earth. There she discovered a clone of herself which was created to play her in a show about the Braxiatel Collection, which retold her life. She worked out that the President of Earth Fiona Dickens was replaced by a clone. This clone was created as part of a plot to take over the Earth government, as their creator Clarissa Jone's father, wanted to wipe out aliens. Benny's clone was sent to kill her, but thanks to Bernice herself and Kadiatu, the clone was able to overcome her programming and gain independence. The clone told her that their creator died in the Draconian-Mim War and that was what set off the plan and was eventually elected President of Earth. (AUDIO: The Final Amendment)
She was agitated after the death of Jason, and suspected that Braxiatel was involved in manipulating Peter to kill him. She started to teach the students again, and during one of her classes there was a fake invasion. Doggles took her out to dinner and then attempted to rape her. Hass told her that he was behind the Mim's destruction. With Adrian and Bev's help, she escaped the Collection with Peter. (AUDIO: The Wake)
Going freelance
After Jason's death and the revelation that Braxiatel had manipulated events towards that end, Benny left the Braxiatel Collection permanently. (AUDIO: The Wake)
With Peter in tow, who, though still a child, was already stronger than all but the most augmented humans, Benny roamed the galaxy, chasing freelance jobs and searching for a place to settle down. (AUDIO: Beyond the Sea et al.)
This period of Benny's life lasted about three years. (PROSE: Six Impossible Things)
She was unaware that Braxiatel was spying on her. (AUDIO: Escaping the Future)
After they saw her old documentary Our Martians, Ourselves, Kerry Lyle and Rick Hertz hired Benny to promote their planet, Maximediras, for tourists. Lyle and Hertz believed that Maximediras - a planet covered almost entirely in water - had practically no interesting archaelogical history and hoped that Benny would make things up to add intrigue. However, while Benny was on the planet, she discovered a civilisation of sentient microscopic cells. She helped deal with a rogue faction of Maximedirans that wanted the humans to leave and tried to scare everyone by taking over the bodies of dead tourists. (AUDIO: Beyond the Sea)
After leaving Peter on Fomalhaut XI, Benny led an expedition to the Blood Citadel of Alukah for the Fomalhaut Museum of Forerunner Artefacts. During the trip, they accidentally awoke a vampire, Olena. Olena killed the rest of archaelogists and hypnotised Benny, keeping her under her thrall for four months. In June 2609, Olena took Benny to a conference on vampirology at Murigen. With the help of Imogen Tantry, Lloyd Doihara, Emanuel Valeriani, and Antonio Finlay, Bernice overcame Olena's influence and foiled a plot to use Murigen's experimental quantum gateways to spread vampires across the universe. (PROSE: Predating the Predators)
She was worried when Peter travelled through time. When she caught up with him, she told him about what was happening to the planet. (AUDIO: The Adolescence of Time)
On her way back to her own time, she was diverted to the London Zoo in 1893 by Straxus. She met up with Mycroft Holmes and investigated a set of murders which involved the number seven. In the course of their investigations she discovered that the murder was a Cwej named Septimus. (AUDIO: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel)
Using works of John Watson to get their attention, Bernice applied for a job at the Depository. She discovered book worms, who ate and absorbed the books. To hide her involvement, Myrtle Bunnage decided to kill the book worms and Bernice got caught in the pesticide gas. Realising that the worms were a unique species, she pledged to save them. (AUDIO: The Diet of Worms)
She was asked by Bev and Adrian to help raid Vingus Bank. Upon entering the bank, she became distressed, as it was staffed with clones of Braxiatel. She was tasked with climbing the maintenance shafts, whilst a clone of her stayed with Adrian. In the shaft, she was chased by a maintenance robot. She was caught in the manager's office, which was part of the plan. She revealed that what they had actually done was to destroy the utility companies that served the bank to allow them access to the vault which contained her painting of Braxiatel. (AUDIO: Glory Days)
On their way to Venus, she landed on Absence to refuel but had no money. She hoped to be employed on an expedition to the centre of the planet but Peter got employed instead, because of her gaps in employment. She got stuck serving burgers instead. She was extremely concerned about his well being and started to despair about her situation. Whilst waiting around, she became friendly with Aaron Keep. She found out that Keep had a radio connection with Peter's mission and became worried when the Technocult invaded. She found out that Lamarque Aslinedes had left Peter to die and became distraught. Cindy saved Peter and took him back to her. (AUDIO: Absence)
They got to Earth and left Peter with Adrian. She visited a publisher to obtain the royalties for Jason Kane's erotic novels. She then went to Eros as his bank account was under the control of Megali Scoblow, an old acquaintance to Benny. She was glad that this happened quickly. Unfortunately, all banking transfers were suspended due to increasing violence on the planet. When one of Scoblow's employees joined the riots, she had to go on a date with N'Jok Barnes and it ended with her having gone to his room intending to have sex with him and nearly got caught in the lift. She used the fact that she looked like the President of Earth to her advantage and stopped a potential war. Adrian informed her that Peter had been kidnapped. (AUDIO: Venus Mantrap)
She went to Buenos Aires to find Peter and was contacted by Robyn. Robyn informed her about Frost and went after him. On the way, she got an amulet which stopped his plans and killed him by accident. She then fell ill. Robyn managed to save her life and started to remind her about the other times that she and Frost encountered Benny. The first was when an alien being started eating people's thoughts which Frost wanted to take to Earth. The second was when they visited a vast tomb which helped Frost gain something he wanted. She temporarily died, but Robyn resuscitated her. The first time she met Frost was in 1937, when they were being chased by Nazis to find something in a mountain. She realised it was something related to Braxiatel. She discovered that Brax created Frost in order to destroy Buenos Aires. These were artificially created in order to help Robyn's plans. She thwarted Braxiatel's plot to prevent the creation of a new alien species. She then realised it was time to go back to the Collection. (AUDIO: Secret Origins)
Bernice delayed her return to the Braxiatel Collection after she was invited to a short-term job uncovering artwork in the ruins of a church on Jovellia. She discovered skulls made of a a black material with psychic properties left over from Jovellia's civil war. The skulls reached out to Benny's mind and she told them stories from her past relating to her previous encounters with the black material the skulls were made of. (PROSE: Secret Histories framing sequence) Before leaving Jovellia, Benny received a tip-off from a Bandril trader directing her to Javarda. (AUDIO: Resurrecting the Past)
On Javarda, Benny discovered what she thought was a lost civilisation. However, it was actually a trap arranged by Irving Braxiatel. A Braxiatel Protective Mechanoid was waiting to capture Benny and teleport her to a location which would be beneficial to Braxiatel's plans. Benny fought the mechanoid and succeeded in damaging its teleport system, but was nonetheless captured and put into stasis. (WC: Dead and Buried)
The Deindum War
The identity of this species and the entire reason Irving Braxiatel had been so interested in Bernice in the first place was revealed when she stumbled upon Doggles' research facility on the moon. A new alien species with the potential to replace the Time Lords were to be created and Bernice's DNA would be instrumental to these efforts. However, in a cock up, Hass prevented Bernice sacrificing herself, resulting in the formation of a more aggressive time-travelling species. (AUDIO: Resurrecting the Past)
When the Deindum declared war, Bernice joined the fight against the future aggressors. (PROSE: Present Danger) Peter and she travelled through time to discover a weakness in the Deindum and concluded she would require Braxiatel's help to defeat them. She finally confronted him on the death of Jason Kane. Although she was not satisfied by his reasons, she agreed to fight the Deindum together. They waged their own personal time war against the Deindum and in their victory she was lost in a dissipating nexus of causality, separated from her own time. (AUDIO: Escaping the Future)
The Epoch
Benny found herself on a planet with no history beyond the last fifty years, where anything predating the date Year Zero was forbidden. She started investigating the history of the planet through digs. Her status as an archaeologist had her arrested and nearly executed. She found it peculiar that people were being forced to forget. One of her interrogators told her about her work, and got her to do some deductive reasoning about her cultures. She worked out some of their culture about Year Zero from a can of fizzy drink because of the six languages on it and one of them came from a different city. (AUDIO: Year Zero)
In captivity, she discovered this was one of a small cluster of planets, all governed by the same entity, existing with the same rules, and that beyond them space was empty. She escaped, and after an encounter with "nothingness" (which threatened to destroy what little of space was left) she crossed space to the home planet of the system where she hoped to find out what happened in Year Zero. (AUDIO: Dead Man's Switch)
Upon arrival, however, the planet renamed itself Atlantis, and the moment Bernice stepped out of the spaceport, she was caught up in the world re-writing itself and stranded in what appeared to be the lost, ancient city of Atlantis. She discovered that a lot of Atlantis' myths and legends were being made true, such as a Kraken attacking the city. After confronting the Queen about her actions her only friend was rewritten into forgetting her. (AUDIO: The Kraken's Lament)
Benny later encountered Leonidas and Ruth who took her on an archaeological dig. She was surprised that there were no strata in the soil. To find the answer, she went to the layer of the Great Leader who teased them with questions, though after this she managed to destroy it. (AUDIO: The Temple of Questions) Soon after this, the world started to rewrite itself and many people started to become hierophants, as well as things from her time starting to appear. It was in a trading company building that was supposed to be the temple of Hermes, she started to see what was happening, as well as Jack's message. She believed that the Epoch was scared of her because she knew of the universe before Year Zero. (AUDIO: Private Enemy No. 1)
The Epoch split her and Ruth into three versions placed one in Victorian London, another in Jurassic Earth and one on their ship and made her choose which was the real version. She watched the demise of herself before Ruth shut the reality down. Her Victorian version met with Jack and discovered what he was doing. She chose to shutdown the version of reality with the Epoch spaceship to stop their manipulation, as they believed her to be a threat. After confronting the Epoch, she sealed herself in a stasis capsule in the hope of being reunited with her friends back in her own time. (AUDIO: Judgement Day)
Legion
Bernice was released from the capsule to find a message left for her by Irving Braxiatel, claiming he was not the same man whom she knew and that he had her son and they were both on Legion. (AUDIO: Judgement Day)
She travelled to Lyndyaz in order to join in a dig to find out more information about Legion. On the, planet she encountered Ruth, who had escaped the Epoch but still had no memory of her past life, as she was the assistant of the financier of the dig Harry Burtenshaw. Benny discovered that the local deity was based on her and helped to expose Gabriella and Federico Dominicci as manipulating the religions of the planet. Following this, the two set out for Legion. (AUDIO: Brand Management)
As part of her trip, she went to Agora to find information of the location of Legion. In order to be allowed on the planet she had to pose as a nun and join a choir. There was a dig on the planet which contained the artefact which had the coordinates of Legion and she posed as an the dendrochronologist Professor Hare to gain access to the dig. With the help of Melville Trout and Mother Aurelia, she discovered that a secret order in the religion wanted to stop the dig on the planet to keep the artefacts hidden and that Sister Marianne was involved. She stole one of the relics that contained information on Legion and went off world on a medical ship. (AUDIO: Bad Habits)
Benny and Ruth took a space taxi to Legion after they were thrown off the medical ship. On their way, they crashed on Kaff Zarnak, when Doctor Carol Bauer and Yukon 9 forced them to land so they could get off the planet. She got to an old holiday resort which was under the attack of Sand Roaches. She helped them to get to the secret landing pad and escape capsule. On their way up they were hunted my the Roaches. Benny discovered that Doctor Jared Jones had accidentally released a virus that turned people into Sand Roaches. Benny and Ruth managed to escape from the resort. Upon arriving on Legion, she was reunited with Peter, Irving (who claimed he had never met her before) and also Jack. Bernice was heartbroken to discover Peter was now fully grown and was making a living as a thug, and that he wanted nothing to do with her. Bernice found employment on Legion and set about putting her life back in order. (AUDIO: Paradise Frost)
Peter resented his mother being on Legion, though from time to time he used her expertise. She got drunk and told the drinkers at the Bar embarrassing stories from his youth. Benny investigated the ship Vesuvius when it fell towards Legion, in order to stop it destroying Legion. Upon arriving, she discovered that Sheira Rynn had been murdered. She performed an autopsy on her body. Whilst doing this, she discovered that all of the footage and journals were corrupted. She managed to uncover the truth about an on board murder which occurred 5000 years earlier, by realising that the body had been changed. She worked out that Sheira and Mortan Hardak were spies and that Rickard Karne had been killed, not Sheira. (AUDIO: Vesuvius Falling)
She was hired to find a picture on Legion. At Triptic House she experienced visions of Dorian Gray's life when Jack performed a psychic experiment. Dorian then turned up to collect his picture. (AUDIO: Shades of Gray)
After a karaoke night in the White Rabbit, Benny slept for two days and still had a hangover. Irving brought her to an Ikerian settlement to buy stuff for the bar. She found it rude that one of the Ikerians thought that she was Irving's concubine. Irving also brought her to a base of operations on Legion. She confronted Irving about how Galot knew him, and how he was different to the Brax she knew. She got angry at the way Galot treated her. She stayed at the base to check over it and see what needed to be done to the place. When talking to the base's computer, she found out that it had an extensive file on Braxiatel. She wasn't told that the plumbers were coming and she panicked. She almost died when the faulty plumbing caused the base to flood with hot water. Soon afterwards, she was visited by Julezand who was coming to decorate the base. (AUDIO: Everybody Loves Irving)
Benny was employed to find out what was causing a set of disappearances at a museum. Here she saw the events of her life depicted as holograms. The first was from one of her digs when she was a Professor of Archaeology at St Oscar's University on Dellah. This was when she had dug up the Quantum and the mystery behind it. The Vice Chancellor of the university started to question her qualifications, and told her to give up on finding out the Origins of the Quantum.
Her former porter Joseph was part of the Collection. She was reminded of an incident on the Braxiatel Collection where a set of assassins were sent to kill her and she found one dead in her bed another dead on her kitchen floor and a final one in her wardrobe who she killed. She was then shown a projection of Jason from a letter they had found, but that turned out to be from the original timeline before Braxiatel's manipulations. She was then shown a projection of when Peter, Adrian and Benny were in a teach simulation when Peter was locked up after killing Jason.
On mentioning Braxiatel, she was shown a time when they went to Ancient Blackpool where he had stolen a Doomsday Book and tried to recruit her. Bev Tarrant was in the next hologram where they were under Buenos Aires trying to get a black box of Braxiatel's which recorded the original time lines it was. When the Curator tried to hurry her along, he showed her a projection of when she and Iris were going to a ball and a shapeshifter tried to kill both of them. She was then reminded of a time on Zordin where Leonidas and Ruth were talking about how they could suddenly be changed at whim.
She told them that even if she forgot that she was an archaeologist, she would still be a mother. A couple of weeks before coming to the museum, Jack and Benny went to a casino on Legion, where they were trying to cheat. Jack told Benny a story about his friend Lara and how she died. This was to make Benny cry so they could discover the true cheater. The museum showed her a possible future where she had escaped her nursing home to go on a dig. The museum brought all of her enemies which wanted to kill her. With help from Joseph, they wiped a virus from the systems and stopped the disappearances. (AUDIO: Many Happy Returns)
After being a very expensive courier, she landed on the deserted Nemeqit. This was because she had received a distress call asking for an archaeologist. On the planet, she discovered two individuals Bel and Lud who wanted to tell her of their ancient religion. She started to explore to find more information about the planet. In a cave, she found some glowing diamonds which depicted the states of life, and realised that they worshipped the planet as a conscious being. She found Vonna Byzantium annoying. She later realised that two new planets that had appeared were Lud and Bel. (AUDIO: A Handful of Dust)
Peter then asked her to help him discover why ships were going missing. They ended up landing on Mortis Dock which they found deserted. She was intrigued when she saw the HMS Surprise in the harbour. Jack showed her a mobile news droid and found out when the people disappeared. She detected another lifeform about and went to the lighthouse to find it. Inside the building, she discovered Lucas Catch chained up. She learnt about the zombies which were the former colonists. She noticed that there was a heartbeat on the ship and found a healer was inhabiting the ship. She talked to it and it wanted to be released. She tried to offer her own body to let it escape. (AUDIO: HMS Surprise)
She then celebrated Advent Day with her family though she had to relocate to the surface of Legion. She met Peter's boyfriend, Antonio Tulloch, whom everyone else thought didn't exist. She became flustered when this happened. She learnt from Peter what happened to him after the Deindum War. It turned out that Avril Fenman was manipulating them, and wanted Peter back. After Fenman was killed by Peter, she consoled Peter as he mourned the loss of Antonio. She helped him to bury his body. (AUDIO: The Curse of Fenman)
The Epoch returns
Bernice finally managed to fulfil a childhood dream by appearing on Big Dig. She went to Saravas with Jack and Ruth where she hoped to uncover more information about the lost civilisation. According to her, it was one of the great impossible digs due to the climatic conditions on the planet. She found it exciting to be on actual dig and found an ancient statue in the ground. She got annoyed when Shepton Rothwell wore the helmet of the Rock Bot she had uncovered, and damaged it. When it repaired itself, she was amazed. She worked out that the people who were wearing the suits died in the shade and starved to death. She thought Ruth's claims Shepton said that Jack and Benny was enamoured. She thought that something was being planted there just for them. She realised that someone was controlling the Suns and making the archaeologists behave strangely. She did this by running into the light that was supposed to kill them. She discovered a secret base, which had writing on the wall which was simultaneously in English, Greek and Kadeptian. She worked out that someone was controlling them all through Rothwell and using truths. She discovered that the planet was created by the Epoch. She managed to defeat them, but forgot who Jack and Ruth were. (AUDIO: Big Dig)
Peter then asked her to accompany him on a job to Moros Prime. She attended one of Willem van der Heever's party and questioned why he tolerated a free press. She wanted to know more about the Kai. She told Peter that she didn't trust Willem. She found one of the Kai attractive and alerted Peter to this fact as well. She was caught creeping about Willem's house and was impressed when he knew of an obscure paper of hers. She was concerned about the amount of security cameras in the estate and the lack of footage relating to the recent murder. She asked Krige if she knew anything about a potential attack. At the masquerade ball, she tried unsuccessfully to stop someone from dying. There she discovered the truth behind van der Heever and his physician Krige. After a gas attack by Nexo, she forgot that she had a son. (AUDIO: The Revenant's Carnival)
When Cazador came to look for the Brimstone Kid, she was in the White Rabbit pub. She found it funny when she learnt one of the new customers, Miss Hannigan, came to become a teacher. She had to take Cazador around the pub to find the Brimstone Kid. When Cazador came she was tasked with taking him round the pub. She went with Braxiatel to a Diamond Mine in the back of Crazy Hank's Land Crow. In the mine, she discovered that the Kid was actually a bounty hunter named Pike Thornton who was after Braxiatel. She left Legion using one of the mine's escape pods. Whilst escaping, she lost Brax, thinking that he had apparently crashed into a meteor. (AUDIO: The Brimstone Kid)
She landed on a planet where she saw a depiction of her apparent previous visit to the planet. This was at first a statue saying she was the woman who killed the world. On her previous visit, she had fallen from the sky and was called the Sky Witch. She was taken to King Theon, where Meriol wanted her burned. The populace thought that she would bring the end of the world. She was worried about the plague that apparently was ravaging through the city, and the locals thought she was the cause of it. She learnt from a Yokel Child that there was something in the forbidden woods. Theon asked her to marry him. She found the source of the plague which was the radiation leaking from a timeship. She found a source of medication and some weapons. When Merriol used the weapons to kill a neighbouring tribe, she was appalled. Benny was then imprisoned in a tall tower where she watched the city grow using the technology from the crashed ship, which included increase the radiation. She witnessed all of the planet's inhabitants die from that tower. Because her tower was lead-lined, she didn't get sick. Eventually Theon let her out when he finally decided to switch off the radiation. When this didn't work, he switched on the engine and sent her through time and space. When the Benny who had crashed on the planet discovered this, she thought that she was being shown this so that she could change the future. She was then captured by the Epoch. (AUDIO: The Winning Side)
The Epoch was removing Benny's friends from time as they believed that there were time disturbances around her. They finally decided to erase her from the continuity by thinking that she was an actor named Lisa Bowerman, who was playing Benny and a character called Emma Dunmop. However, this conditioning eventually failed. Together with two alternate versions of herself, one from the Victorian England, and the other a male version, Bernard Springmore, who was in control of the Epoch, they fell into the Time Vortex and the Epoch's plans collapsed. She then planned to use the Epoch's technology to find her friends. (AUDIO: In Living Memory)
She later travelled back in time by accident to her time in the academy and accidentally let slip to Simon Kyle that he betrayed her. She posed as a gardener in the grounds. She saved her younger self and talked to her about why she rebelled. She later helped her younger self when the enemy attacked. She found out that it was the principal who had sabotaged the academy shields, and she admitted that she came from the Braxiatel Collection. She had travelled back with Peter but he had been caught in the explosion of the time ship and aged quite drastically. She hoped that when they returned back to their time, this would be undone. (AUDIO: Ever After Happy)
Having rented a faulty spaceship, Benny and Ruth crashed on Drahva looking for a previous ship that was there. Benny was initially captured by Zabel but was released when Shekkina thought Ruth was an empress. She found it weird that people lived on the dark side of Drahva. She tracked it to a sacred temple which only Shekkina was allowed to enter. Benny thought that Ruth was getting to into royal life. She was told by Zabel that her rooms had been moved and Zabel helped her get into the sacred Temple. She discovered that Ruth was to be killed. She found the original ship in the temple. (AUDIO: Empress of the Drahvins)
Reunited with the Doctor
Bernice was called to Arviem 2 to help discover information about the indigenous population with Professor Ameilia Geller. She met with Renk Van Magnastein in a bar where she explained the philosophy of Archaeology whilst drunk. She met the Seventh Doctor who was on Van Magnastein's wall. She stole a hover bike from Renk to escape the Robots with the Doctor. She was being pursued because of the archaeological finds she had dug up. After a group of frogs fell from the sky, she went to see her team after hearing messages from Ameilia Geller and asked Renk for his ship. Renk thought Benny and the Doctor were a couple. When Benny and Renk started getting acquainted, the Doctor reappeared and crashed the ship. She tried to explain to the natives that she was there as an independent witness to save their religion. This was the reason she was being pursued. On arriving at her dig, she discovered that her team had become zombies. She didn't believe that the Doctor's jacket hopped off on its own. After asking for a cocktail from one of the indigenous peoples, she discovered that Renk had manipulated the history of the planet using the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor then gave her a message that she should go and find Ace. (AUDIO: The Revolution)
Following Ace to Adolin, she crashed on the planet. On the surface she met Steven Day and Claire. She was delighted to explore the famous ruined cathedral on its surface. On walking through the ruins, she explained the religion of the planet to Steven. She found a set of Nitro-9 in the Cathedral which confirmed that Ace had been there. Shortly afterwards, a Dalek caught up with them. She didn't like Daleks but she knew that she had to follow them to get to Ace. She found her childhood doll in the ruins. She used one of the Nitro 9s to blow up a Dalek. She later realised that Claire was a Dalek duplicate of her deceased mother created from the Dalek time ship that was in the ruins. Claire gave Benny a message from Ace, but told her that she would die if Benny chose to use the ship to follow her. Knowing that she owed it to her friend, she sacrificed her chance to keep her "mother" alive and chose to pursue Ace to the place she had travelled using the ship. (AUDIO: Good Night, Sweet Ladies)
Arriving on a "forbidden world", Benny located Ace but became trapped in a 24-hour time loop along with a small group of natives and visitors. Falling in love with a native named Klinus, she worked together with a scientist named Varna and a visitor to the planet, Vince Foster, to break into the city and break the loop, avoiding the "ghosts" of the natives who were outside the loop. The group managed to use the energy discharge caused by the ghosts coming into contact with matter inside the loop to open the doors to the city, much to Ace's dismay, who revealed to Benny that the planet was Skaro. (AUDIO: Random Ghosts)
Because of the time-lock that Ace placed on the planet, Benny lived through stages of the Daleks' time line from, the First Doctor's first visit there, to meeting the Dalek Emperor during and after the Dalek civil war, to the destruction of Skaro's sun. When the Doctor finally managed to materialise on the planet, he asked Benny to take the Omega device that Ace had used to create the time-lock. She created a time corridor which allowed a Dalek that had survived 4000 centuries to meet itself at the start and end of its life, because of the experiences that the older one had told his younger self, it exterminated him and created a paradox, which ended the decaying time-lock. Benny then asked the Doctor to take her back to her family, but he asked her to stay for a while to keep the peace between him and Ace before he took her back to Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Lights of Skaro)
Bernice met the Twelfth Doctor when investigating the Ancients of the Universe. (PROSE: Big Bang Generation)
It was during this time that she met Vienna Salvatori. (AUDIO: The Lady from Callisto Rhys)
She went on an archaeological dig to Sisyphus IX. She found a wreck of a Gomagog ship after Iris Wildthyme flung it into the vortex and the comedian that Jenni Marcel reported on as missing. She found out that Quinn was helping the Gomagog. After defeating them she travelled to Mars to escape the explosion, encountering Vienna. She and Vienna then went to the Archive to return the Kronos Vad book Vienna had recovered. (AUDIO: The Phantom Wreck)
It was during this time she met with the Valeyard who wanted her help with finding a myterious text relating to the Caragot. He posed as the Doctor. She went with the Valeyard and Liyi through an ancient temple which reconfigured itself. Upon talking to Chorus she found out that the tunnels were actually a living creature, and she was inside one of them. She eventually worked out that the Valeyard wasn't the Doctor. She worked out that the Valeyard couldn't regenerate and was afraid of dying. She worked out a way to bluff the Caragot not integrate them. (AUDIO: Every Dark Thought)
Whilst taking a fortnight off to attend her son's wedding, she found an ancient tablet, which told her to go to a Pyramid on Mars. At the pyramid, she found the Doctor in the middle of the tomb in a trance vowing to bring Sutekh's gift of death. She managed to trap Sutekh in his sarcophagus chamber. She found a strange pool of liquid in the pyramid. She tried to escape the pyramid but Horus' guardians of truth and lies tried to stop her. The guardian of lies took the voice of Jason Kane to try and trick her. She found the Osiran flesh loom and tried to disable it. Because it would only respond to Osirans, she injected herself with the remains of an Osiran, but this action poisoned her. She used her new powers to convince the warring colonists to bomb the pyramid. The Doctor managed to find a cure but promptly crumbled to dust. She was left stranded on Mars, until Ace turned up in the TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Pyramid of Sutekh)
Ace told Benny that she had also seen the Doctor die on Earth in Sutekh's tomb. Ace took her back there and they discovered that the Eye of Horus had been stolen. They managed to track it down with the help of Alozza to the local museum. Having found that it had been stolen, they went to the local gang leader who told him to go to Vasha. She went with them to Geneva and met with the bank manager Graull. Graull invited her to his bank and she found out he wanted to use it to destroy Isis. Benny then helped Isis to escape her prison. After this, she fell through time. (AUDIO: The Vaults of Osiris)
She eventually landed in the time of Hatshepsut, where she was introduced as the goddess Hathor. At a party, she met the Doctor who was trying to protect the Earth. She became annoyed when the Doctor wouldn't give her a full answer. She accidentally told Hatscheput about her legacy. Tutmosis wanted to know from her about his future, but she wouldn't tell him. She sought Tutmosis' advice on how to tell the Doctor that he would die. She became agitated when Tutmosis let Sutekh in. She tried to get the people to ignore Sutekh. Tutmosis had Benny and the Doctor locked in a tomb, where she wrote the tablet that lead her to Mars in the first place. She used her last breath to apologise to Peter. Ace saved her from death. (AUDIO: The Eye of Horus)
When they landed in the 29th century, Benny went off in search of survivors against the Doctor's advice. She thought it was weird that the aristocracy had survived. She discovered the Sutekh worshippers Susannah and Russell Courtland and their daughter Alyx. She couldn't convince Russell and Susannah to escape with her but Alyx came with her. She was to be sacrificed to please Sutekh. Before Sutekh came to the house, she told Susannah and Russell that Sutekh would kill them. After Alyx died, Iris came to stop Sutekh from killing Ace and Benny. The Doctor made her believe Sutekh had won in order to trick Sutekh into creating an Ouroboros loop. (AUDIO: The Tears of Isis)
Meeting an Alternate Doctor
During one of her lectures, an alternate version of the Doctor came to take her, so he could anchor himself to her universe. She came with him to the Library. She found that the Kareem were appalling as they wanted to destroy all knowledge. She tried to find a way to defend it when it came under attack, and eventually found a way. When there was a murder in the Library, she used the Prisoner's Dilemma to make sure that she was free to find out who did it. When Mandeville told her that the Doctor was president of the universe, she found it hilarious. She realised that there was something wrong with the Library when it had a book that knew everything about her. She worked out how to stop the Library by getting the visitors to write the most painful thing that they could think of. (AUDIO: The Library in the Body)
She decided to go to Planet X when the Doctor asked her where she wanted to go, though the Doctor kept trying to direct the TARDIS somewhere else since he knew enough about the planet's reputation to know she wouldn't enjoy it.
She discovered that she wasn't taken away to be processed because the people thought archaeology was boring. She was later almost arrested with Millie for being emotional. Millie told her that if they got excited the local police force will kill them. She gave Millie her name because she wouldn't remember her number. When she saw how the police killed a local, she wanted to fight against it. She helped Millie to realise she was in love with a fellow student. She went with Millie to find him in the north quarter and discovered it empty. In the quarter, she theorised that anyone who showed excellence was killed. When they were attacked by the blank squad, they discovered that they were the people who passed the excellence exam including Millie's boyfriend. (AUDIO: Planet X)
She became furious at the Doctor when he wouldn't stop the attack on Tramatz. When the Doctor wasn't paying attention to what was going on, she became furious. She was the only one who could hear Admiral Effenish's ultimatum. Benny kept mentioning the Unicorns but Megatz told her to stop mentioning them. When Benny mentioned the very dark thing, she was amazed that no one else had already seen it. She later met a unicorn and had to have a chat with one. She wanted to keep the unicorn but the Doctor wouldn't allow it. She had to explain about the weapons she had seen in this universe and the reality destruction. She was delighted that Megatz decided not to use the superweapon again and turned it off. (AUDIO: The Very Dark Thing)
She went exploring around the Emporium when she discovered that people could sell their memories in exchange for credits which could buy them a way out of the universe. The Master tried to persuade her to go through a portal back to her own universe in order to stabilise the portal, but in fact she discovered that he was converting everyone that went through the portal into energy so that he could escape the universe. (AUDIO: The Emporium At The End)
She went on an archaeological dig to find the Apocalypse Clock at the behest of the Doctor. She was delighted to actually go on a fully funded dig for once. Using her research, she thought that there might be some truth in the legends. She became angry when the Doctor hadn't read her reports. When the Doctor was interested, she thought that her Doctor would be in his element right now. Whilst working at the dig, she was spooked by a man in a radiation suit. The following day, she became very angry that the Doctor's most important presidential issue was to fix the plumbing in an ambassadorial suite. She went after one of the ghosts and watched him walk through solid rock, which caused the entrance of the Clock to be found. She turned off the Clock which allowed the ghosts to disparate. (AUDIO: The City and the Clock)
She suggested that the Doctor should seek therapy. In a war zone, she criticised him for actually starting a war, by just walking out on the peace summit. She was angry when the Doctor met with a genocidal maniac to get resources that he needed for the universe. She got annoyed when she realised that he was manipulating time to get to all his meetings. When the Doctor was trying to prove a point to a leader, she became irate that this would result in the death of an entire race. She came to the Doctor's psychiatrist, Guilana, to talk about him and not her drinking problem. She thought that the Doctor would be the same in each incarnation fundamentally. After the Doctor's last session, she walked him home. (AUDIO: Asking for a Friend)
She went after the Doctor when he went gallivanting across the universe for a source of excitement. She was only a few hours after him. She eventually caught up with him on Kellor. She was captured with him, and argued with that his mid-life crisis would have to wait until he solved the apocalypse. When she went to the security services, she discovered that all the planet was the invaders. She discovered that there was only one of the original inhabitants left on the planet. She went to Kellor but wasn't allowed on the planet. Bernice convinced the invaders to organise the movement of the people into the safe zone. (AUDIO: Truant)
After the Mother Superior arrested the Doctor, the Master came to Benny saying that he would save the Doctor. The Master took her to a tea shop to discuss the Doctor's impeachment. She was later shot at by the Hood but managed to survive. The Master later took her to dinner at the best restaurant in the universe. She realised that the Master was in fact behind the failings. When the Master addressed the Parliament, the Hood arrived and tried to bribe her by saying that the true saviour could get her back to Peter. The Master tried to persuade her to stay with him. She was the first to see that something had gone wrong after the Master had activated the Apocalypse Clock and the Great Old Ones arrived. The Doctor then used the energy that this had created to get Benny back to her home universe. (AUDIO: The True Saviour of the Universe)
At some point she lost her memory and thought she was a lecturer called Annis. She didn't get a fellowship and moaned to Alker about it. She later inquired with Feris about this. The Doctor tried to get her to remember her real life. She was then refused access to her dig. She was later refused access to the boat before Tremaire sorted it out. Tremaire gave her a device to experience the history of an object. She used it to discover more information about her archaeological finds and she found out that the building was a cathedral not a church. She then argued with Alker that her peoples history was being downplayed. She met with the Doctor again who reminded her of her former self. She then went to a student protest about the curriculum. She later inquired about the Doctor and the Summerfield he knew. She was later fired. She found out that Alkin was the reason for her lectures. She went to her dig and found Tremaire covering it up but he told her that he was trying to save her work. She was shot in the back. She then regained her memories and the Doctor took her into the future and showed her how Annis was remembered. (AUDIO: The Angel of History)
Death
Different accounts were held of her death by the 46th century, confusing later archaeologists and making many of them believe her to be naught but a myth. A popular version was that she died in the catacombs of a cathedral on Vremnya on 31 October 2599. Even her tomb there was not valid evidence, though, as there were similar tombs both on Mars and in the Kalkravian asteroid belt. (PROSE: Paydirt)
Alternative timeline
In an alternative timeline where the Epoch captured and repeatedly remapped her. She turned into a man who called himself Dr Bernard Springmoore and believed that he was in charge of the Epoch. (AUDIO: In Living Memory)
Personality
Benny was intelligent and observant, with a well-deserved reputation for thinking on her feet. (PROSE: Ship of Fools) Her intellectual gifts had less to do with straightforward, logical intelligence (she did not enjoy logic puzzles) (PROSE: The Infernal Nexus) and more to do with seeing disparate parts of a problem and correctly inferring the connections between them — and therefore, the solution.
She tended to eschew the detached, purely analytical approach of academia (PROSE: Dragons' Wrath) in favour of reconstructing history from primary sources. Though she loved getting her hands dirty and the thrill of discovery, she appreciated creature comforts, particularly baths, and didn't particularly enjoy the tedious, day-to-day grind of archaeological fieldwork. (PROSE: The Dead Men Diaries, AUDIO: The Extinction Event)
Bernice's living quarters were perpetually disorganised. She had several organisers, but rarely used them except to reset her watch to the current local time. She was also habitually tardy (PROSE: Dragons' Wrath) and absent-minded, frequently mislaying her Braxiatel Collection identity card. (PROSE: The Dead Men Diaries)
Benny prided herself on her tolerance and open-mindedness. (PROSE: Dry Pilgrimage) Though her mother was Catholic, (PROSE: Love and War) Bernice was a lifelong atheist. (PROSE: Oh No It Isn't!, Dry Pilgrimage)
Benny viewed food derived from actual animals with a vague distaste, and was a vegetarian on most of her travels. (PROSE: Ship of Fools)
Her favourite colour was turquoise. (AUDIO: The Worst Thing in the World)
Bernice kept a diary from her childhood. (PROSE: Oh No It Isn't!) She wrote longhand in a notebook she kept with her at all times — if she forgot, she would try to go back for it. (PROSE: Falls the Shadow) Benny frequently "corrected" diary entries with sticky notes or correcting fluid, often rewriting embarrassing or painful events to be more appealing. (PROSE: Human Nature, Down) She published at least one compilation of her diary entries. (PROSE: The Doomsday Manuscript) At some point before 2601, she replaced her notebook with an electronic catalogue of vocal recordings. (AUDIO: The Greatest Shop in the Galaxy)
Academic career
Bulleted lists should be converted into normal prose.
Benny was an expert in Martian language and culture, particularly that of the Ice Warriors. It was her excavation of a Martian site at age twenty-four that cemented her reputation as an archaeologist. (PROSE: The Dying Days, Transit, Legacy, AUDIO: Benny's Story) She was also an expert on 20th century Earth history, especially the period that she called the "early Space Age", (1963-1989) (PROSE: The Dying Days) but admitted her knowledge of Earth history was a bit hazy before about 1900. (PROSE: Walking to Babylon)
Benny was proficient in Egyptian, Hebrew, French, Ancient Greek, Modern Greek, Old English, Old Norse and most Martian dialects. (PROSE: Just War, The Dying Days)
Degrees
- M.A. in Archaeology (University of Jaiwan) - awarded 2562 (PROSE: Genius Loci, Old Friends)
- Ph.D. in Archaeology - awarded 2587 (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad)
- Her dissertation was titled They Sit Above In Shadow: Archaeological Echoes of the Universe's First People (PROSE: Return of the Living Dad)
Impressive-sounding titles
Benny seemed to enjoy inventing impressive-sounding titles to append to her name. Some common ones included:
- F.R.A.S. - Fairly Rotten At Scrabble
- F.G.A.S. - Fairly Good At Scrabble
- Holder of the Martian Gallantry Medal (she found it and felt she had earned it) (PROSE: Human Nature)
Published works
- Down Among the Dead Men (2466, revised edition published 2593) (PROSE: Theatre of War, Walking to Babylon)
- The Dead Men Diaries, Bernice's autobiography (PROSE: The Dead Men Diaries)
- Devil Gate Drive: The Influence of The Descent of Inanna on Twentieth Century Popular Culture (2594) (PROSE: Walking to Babylon)
- A Practical Guide to Archaeology for Beginners (2594) (Broadsword issue 4)
- An Eye for Wisdom: Repetitive poems of the Early Ikkaban Period (2595) (PROSE: Sleepy, Walking to Babylon)
- S for Surprise: Memoirs of an Unorthodox Archaeologist (after 2595) (PROSE: Walking to Babylon)
- Halstad Musical Notation: Initial Thoughts and Questions (before 2600) (AUDIO: The Extinction Event)
- The Traxian Paradox: A New Perspective (before 2600) (PROSE: A Question of Identity)
- Incredibly Bad Jokes of the Twentieth Century (before 2600) (PROSE: Sky Pirates!, A Question of Identity)
- Dead Man Running (2600) [source needed]
- Little Archaeologist's Primer: A Storybook (2605) (AUDIO: Timeless Passages)
- The Doctor Who Makes Planet Calls (2606) [source needed]
- The Collected Benny Summerfield (2617) (PROSE: Sky Pirates!)
- Head Invaders: Asinine Quasi-Psychological Old Toot of Your Times (2619) (PROSE: Sky Pirates!)
- 45 Second Piglet (a comic book only commissioned as Bernice was passing through an American publishing house and had an English accent) (PROSE: Oblivion)
- Similarities in Proto-Cultural Artifacts of the Second Dynasty of the Zyrs (in print in the 60th century) (PROSE: Zamper)
- Man, Two Hearts in One Mind (AUDIO: Master)
Alternate timelines
Bernice's personal history contained some ambiguity. Partly this was due to Irving Braxiatel's attempts to edit her timeline for his own purposes. (AUDIO: The End of the World, Resurrecting the Past)
Both contradictory accounts of her visit to Guernsey (PROSE: Just War, AUDIO: Just War) appear to have taken place (PROSE: Paydirt) and Bernice was able to recall them both. (PROSE: Dear Friend)
In general though, Bernice's timeline was not fundamentally unknowable or non-linear like Iris Wildthyme's, but was repeatedly diverted from what it should have been. Bernice and Jason's divorce was never meant to occur and by the time of the Mim-Draconian War, itself an alteration to history, they should have had two children together. Key moments from her relationship with Jason Kane were removed from the timeline, making it as if they had never happened. (AUDIO: The End of the World)
In an alternate universe, the Doctor saw an image of a woman from his past. She appeared as "professional‐looking with a generous mouth, wearing a tailored suit and baggy coat" with "long legs, high cheekbones and ruffled black hair". She was also heavily pregnant. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) A universe existed in which Benny and the Eighth Doctor had thirteen half-immortal children. (PROSE: Paydirt)
Behind the scenes
Paul Cornell created the personality and biography of Bernice Summerfield with assistance of the then-editor of the Virgin New Adventures range of novels, Peter Darvill-Evans, with artist Lee Sullivan "designing" her visually. Initially, Cornell had visualised her as resembling a short-haired version of actress Emma Thompson.
Bernice first appeared in the Virgin New Adventures series, heralded by an illustrated two page introduction in Doctor Who Magazine 192. Later, she crossed over into comics in Doctor Who Magazine. Since her creation she starred in her own series of novels, and would later appear in audio dramas and new novels and short fiction from Big Finish Productions. The cancelled 30th anniversary story The Dark Dimension would have featured an alternate timeline character named "Summerfield," but it is left open to interpretation in the script if she and Bernice are one-and-the-same.
Lisa Bowerman currently acts as Benny's voice in audio plays as well as serving as the visual model for cover art, publicity photos, illustrations, and other depictions of the character.
In terms of continuity, early novels placed Bernice Summerfield as living in the 25th century when she first met the Doctor. Later books changed this to the 26th century, to better fit in with continuity established in the Doctor Who television story Frontier in Space, which took place in the year 2540.
External links
- Extract From 'Practical Archaeology For Beginners' by Prof. B. S. Summerfield PhD, FGAS. (First Draft). Editor: Paul Cornell
- Bernice Summerfield at the Faction Paradox wiki
Footnotes
- ↑ Benny has encountered the Second Doctor (in Time & Time Again), the Fourth Doctor (in Time & Time Again), the Sixth Doctor (in The 100 Days of the Doctor), the Seventh Doctor (in many stories), the Eighth Doctor (in The Dying Days, ...Be Forgot, and Benny's Story), the Twelfth Doctor (in Big Bang Generation), the "Merlin" Doctor (in The Collection and Excalibur of Mars), Muldwych (in Birthright and Happy Endings), and an alternate Third Doctor (in The Unbound Universe).
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