Douglas Cavendish
Captain Douglas Cavendish was a member of the Virtual Ordnance Group at UNIT.
Biography
Lieutenant Cavendish was sent to investigate the explosion at the Det-Sen Monastery, where he came in contact with some web made by the Great Intelligence and came under its influence.(PROSE: Downtime)
Back in England, he was promoted to captain. When the Great Intelligence was ready to make its move in 1995, Cavendish arranged a meeting with the retired Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart to see if he had any alien souvenirs from his old UNIT days; specifically, hoping to learn he had items relating to the Intelligence. Lethbridge-Stewart grew suspicious and, realising Cavendish was compromised, held him at gunpoint. (HOMEVID: Downtime) Cavendish later stole the pre-UNIT Ministry of Defence report of the initial Yeti encounter, which existed only on hard copy. (PROSE: Downtime) The mind-controlled Cavendish assisted the Intelligence and its Yeti hordes in the fight at New World University, where he almost caused Kate Stewart to be possessed. (HOMEVID: Downtime)
After being freed from the Great Intelligence, Cavendish suffered from trauma and resulting substance abuse. His once promising career stalled. Paranoid and disgruntled, he begun already been pilfering items as a "retirement fund" from the Black Archive and the Warehouse. He did maintain some contact with Kate Stewart, feeling the two had a connection.
Eventually, he was sacked from UNIT and isolated himself in a rural cottage, alone and vulnerable and believing UNIT to be an uncaring organisation if you weren't of use to it.
In October 2003, Kate Stewart received a message from Cavendish, asking her to visit him at his isolated country home, where he felt he was being stalked by a statue of a demon-like creature, as well as encountering a ghost-like figure in the house. It transpired that Cavendish was being influenced to summon a Dæmon named Mastho by forces from the future trying to affect the past, but he and Kate managed to stop them. She considered him a good man and defended him as such to Mastho. (HOMEVID: Dæmos Rising, PROSE: Dæmos Rising)
He encountered the Lethbridge-Stewart's again in 2004. (PROSE: Downtime: Child of the New World)
Behind the scenes
- He was originally going to be a character in Auton when that was intended as a Lethbridge-Stewart vehicle. Years later, plans were made for a Daemos sequel, The Face of the Fendahl, with Cavendish back again.
- In 2018, Reeltime announced another movie, Anomaly, would feature Cavendish: he would be lending Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart alien technology to work with.[1] A year later, it was announced as coming out in 2020 but this was disrupted by COVID-19[2]; as of 2022, has yet to enter production.
