Cass Fermazzi
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Cassfor other, similarly-named pages.
Cass Fermazzi was a companion of the Eighth Doctor during the Last Great Time War.
Cass travelled with the Doctor and Alex Campbell. As the timelines shifted around them, she met the Doctor again and again in different circumstances, (AUDIO: Cass-cade [+]Loading...["Cass-cade (audio story)"]) their lives "entwined". (AUDIO: The Road Untravelled [+]Loading...["The Road Untravelled (audio story)"])
In one crucial timeline, whilst piloting a crashing gunship, she foolishly chose death over being rescued by the Doctor, whom she did not recognise, and whom, as a Time Lord, she blamed for the death and destruction caused by the Time War. Her precise fate following the crash differed by source. (TV: The Night of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Night of the Doctor (TV story)"], PROSE: The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (novelisation)"], et al.)
Biography
Early life
Cassmarra[nb 1] Fermazzi (AUDIO: The Road Untravelled [+]Loading...["The Road Untravelled (audio story)"]) grew up in a "nothing town" (AUDIO: Vespertine [+]Loading...["Vespertine (audio story)"]) on one of the farm planets of the Gazrond Belt (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (novelisation)"]) during the time of the Earth Empire. (PROSE: The Eighth Doctor and Companions [+]Loading...["The Eighth Doctor and Companions (feature)"]) She had enough brothers to man a flight deck, at least one of which was younger than her. (AUDIO: Meanwhile, Elsewhere [+]Loading...["Meanwhile, Elsewhere (audio story)"]) She only had her father to herself when he was telling her stories about Hudson Sage. When her father died, she sometimes chose to imagine that he was exploring like Sage did. (AUDIO: Vespertine [+]Loading...["Vespertine (audio story)"])
As her family were poor, the only therapy that they could afford for Cass was a robot clown to take away some of her memories. However, the robot was already full of the Eleventh Doctor's memories and kept spewing them out, telling her to "never be cruel, never be cowardly" and giving her other advice that she considered cheesy. Nonetheless, the advice got to her. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (novelisation)"])
Cass and her brothers once rescued a Mini 60 from the scrap shores. (AUDIO: Meanwhile, Elsewhere [+]Loading...["Meanwhile, Elsewhere (audio story)"]) One winter when she was left alone with her mother while her dad and brothers were away working, she stole money for flying lessons. After she stole the money, the shame caused her to run into the garden and throw up. Despite this she still tried to use the money for flying lessons, but was turned down for being too young, so she spent the money with her friends instead. The family meals were smaller that winter due to the loss, and Cass could sense that her mother was anxious about them being short of funds. (AUDIO: Nowhere, Never [+]Loading...["Nowhere, Never (audio story)"])
Leaving home
For the version of Cass who caused the Eighth Doctor's regeneration, the Doctor would later learn that Cass had stowed away on a star freighter at the age of fourteen to see the wonders of the universe, but instead ended up running from the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (novelisation)"])
In the version of her timeline where she travelled with the Doctor, Cass saved up enough money to get a commission as an engineer on the EC-141, wanting to go out and see the universe. (AUDIO: Meanwhile, Elsewhere [+]Loading...["Meanwhile, Elsewhere (audio story)"])
In another timeline caused by the interventions of Hieronyma Friend, Cass was recruited into Friend's crew aboard the Kalanos, where she entered a romantic relationship with Graff. (AUDIO: The Road Untravelled [+]Loading...["The Road Untravelled (audio story)"])
Travels in the TARDIS
When the ship became destabilised by fractures in reality, she briefly found herself on Hervandel and met Alex Campbell, soon meeting the Eighth Doctor and a later version of Alex on the ship and working with them to save it. She helped thwart Hieronyma Friend, sabotaging her scoop to imprison the Garaban flies, and turned down a promotion from the Vice to join the Doctor and Alex in the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Meanwhile, Elsewhere [+]Loading...["Meanwhile, Elsewhere (audio story)"])
For her first trip in the TARDIS, the Doctor took Cass to Station Twilight where they descended into the cavern below to examine the Vespertine, which was the ship of Cass's childhood hero, Hudson Sage. They found Hudson living inside a time lock, but he was killed after the temporal destabiliser that Rin Martolo had given them, claiming that it was a beacon, caused the time lock to decay and collapse. Cass believed that Rin had used them to kill Hudson, but learnt that she had only been targeting the ship and did not know that Hudson, her grandfather, was down there. (AUDIO: Vespertine [+]Loading...["Vespertine (audio story)"])
Because of how much the Doctor spoke about them, Cass looked up the Daleks in the TARDIS information system and watched footage of them. She encountered them for the first time on an uninhabited planet where she and Alex distracted them whilst the Doctor went to sabotage a Battle TARDIS they had captured, but its explosion sent the three of them a year into the past and created a race of people who shared some of the trio's traits. Cass helped the city defend against the Dalek attack and disappeared after the Battle TARDIS was shut down, with the Doctor and Alex temporarily forgetting about her before promising to find her. (AUDIO: Previously, Next Time [+]Loading...["Previously, Next Time (audio story)"])
Cass found herself amnesiac in a 1950s style home where she was led to believe she was a housewife and was prevented from leaving. She eventually recovered her memories and reunited with the Doctor and Alex, and discovered that she had in fact been time-scooped inside a temporal weapons testing facility run by Hieronyma Friend on her Time Lord Galleon, the Kalanos. (AUDIO: Nowhere, Never [+]Loading...["Nowhere, Never (audio story)"])
Aboard the Kalanos, Cass is surprised to find out that she is supposedly the Chief Engineer of the ship, and in a relationship with head of security Graff. She encountered the time sensitive pilot of the ship, Sinsa and explored the arboretum with the Doctor. She fell into a wound in time, causing her to be erased from the Doctor's timeline. (AUDIO: The Road Untravelled [+]Loading...["The Road Untravelled (audio story)"])
She found herself meeting the Doctor and Alex again and again in various scenarios aboard a space station, although each time they did not recognise her. She soon figured out that she was experiencing time out of order, and began to piece together the mystery of who was sabotaging the space station before it crashes into the sun, while also trying to make the Doctor and Alex remember her. She eventually theorises that reality is trying to slip her back into the Doctor's timeline after she fell into the wound in time inside the void. Eventually she gets the full picture of events and also notices that the Doctor and Alex's memories of her are beginning to persist. She finds herself back at the beginning of the adventure with the Doctor and Alex, and she guides them through it in chronological order before they all go off travelling together again. (AUDIO: Cass-cade [+]Loading...["Cass-cade (audio story)"]) While travelling with the Doctor and Alex again, she eventually died in their company and recalls all her possible deaths with the Doctor across the timelines. She finds herself inexplicably back aboard the TARDIS, shortly after she fell into the wound in time, where she is discovered by Alex. Cass is still aboard the TARDIS when a seemingly possessed Alex who has lost faith in the Doctor decides to abandon the Doctor in the void and steal his TARDIS, taking a reluctant Cass away with him as his companion. (AUDIO: Borrow or Rob [+]Loading...["Borrow or Rob (audio story)"])
Fighting in the Time War
After helping an old soldier dying in a crater full of mud snakes, Cass realised that avoiding the Time War was impossible and decided to listen to the advice of the robot clown when she was young. She briefly met the Thirteenth Doctor, whom she believed to be a medtech and who handed her the soldier's bandolier.
Cass went on to crew a gunship for four years, during which she survived an encounter with the Nightmare Child, witnessed the massacre of Skull Moon and fought in the ruins of the Ulterium. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (novelisation)"])
Eventually, the Time War overwhelmed the Earth Empire and its temporal wake had rewritten her history so much that her wanderlust in previous versions of history had been replaced by a cynical pessimism, brought on by facing the horrors of the Time War. (PROSE: The Eighth Doctor and Companions [+]Loading...["The Eighth Doctor and Companions (feature)"]) One day, the ship fought off a Dalek fleet from the feeding hives of the Vantross and was attacked by a Time Lord battle cruiser, the crew of which were frustrated that Cass had got between them and the Daleks. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (novelisation)"]) As the only one who was not panicking, she teleported her colleagues off of the ship and onto the nearest planet. (TV: The Night of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Night of the Doctor (TV story)"])
Fate
Upon realising that a safe crash-landing was impossible, (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (novelisation)"]) Cass sent out a distress call which attracted the attention of the Eighth Doctor. He came aboard in his TARDIS and tried to rescue her, but she refused to join him upon learning that he was a Time Lord and deadlocked a door between them, telling him to return to his battlefield. The Doctor remained on the ship with her and the two of them died when the ship crashed onto Karn.
Whilst the Sisterhood of Karn were able to revive the Doctor long enough for him to regenerate, Ohila claimed that Cass's injuries were too severe for the Elixir of Life to heal. Her death was the catalyst for the Doctor to regenerate into a warrior, deciding the universe no longer needed a Doctor. After his rebirth, he claimed her bandolier to remind himself of what he would be fighting for. (TV: The Night of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Night of the Doctor (TV story)"])
According to one account, despite her initial claim, Ohila used a remaining Elixir to successfully bring Cass back to life. Rejecting Ohila's initial choices to return to death or return to the Time War, Cass instead chose to join the Sisterhood. (PROSE: Loose Ends 8: The Eighth Doctor [+]Loading...["Loose Ends 8: The Eighth Doctor (short story)"])
Other accounts instead maintained that Cass's death was permanent. By one such account, the Sisterhood gave Cass a funeral which the Doctor refused to attend, although he did visit her grave after the ceremony to apologise to her. (AUDIO: Light the Flame [+]Loading...["Light the Flame (audio story)"]) One further account revealed that years later, the Doctor spent some time searching for Cass's family and eventually returned her body to them. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (novelisation)"])
Other realities
By one account, Cass' life was frequently rewritten by temporal wakes from the Last Great Time War. In timelines where the Time War had less influence, her spirit of adventure attracted her to the Eighth Doctor and she eagerly joined him as a companion after they met on a luxury liner or scientific exploratory vessel. She continued to travel with the Doctor after meeting him in timelines where she provided aid at the edges of the Time War, although she sometimes died before meeting the Doctor, with the Doctor noticing her absence. The timeline where she caused the Eighth Doctor's regeneration was a version of history where she had joined the military; the Doctor, remembering the previous versions of history, knew in his final meeting with her that he had failed her. (PROSE: The Eighth Doctor and Companions [+]Loading...["The Eighth Doctor and Companions (feature)"])
A version of Cass who existed in the Daft Dimension seemingly suffered the same fate as her counterpart, for which the Eighth Doctor also apologised, before attempting to initiate his regeneration. (COMIC: The Daft Dimension 499 [+]Loading...["The Daft Dimension (DWM 499 comic story)","''The Daft Dimension'' 499"])
Personality
Cass was clever and brave, (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor) with a great spirit of adventure, quick reflexes and a technological savvy that served her well. (PROSE: The Eighth Doctor and Companions [+]Loading...["The Eighth Doctor and Companions (feature)"]) According to Hieronyma Friend, Cass was a born soldier, tough and adaptable, and fiercely loyal, which made her a perfect subject for interrogation experimentation. (AUDIO: Nowhere, Never [+]Loading...["Nowhere, Never (audio story)"]) She does not do "quiet calm" and "grace" in a high pressure situation, instead preferring "shouting" and "stress". (AUDIO: Cass-cade [+]Loading...["Cass-cade (audio story)"])
Cass had a strong sense of family, often telling stories about her brothers (AUDIO: Meanwhile, Elsewhere [+]Loading...["Meanwhile, Elsewhere (audio story)"]) and spoke about how much she cherished one on one time with her mother (AUDIO: Nowhere, Never [+]Loading...["Nowhere, Never (audio story)"]) and her father. (AUDIO: Vespertine [+]Loading...["Vespertine (audio story)"]) She also considered the Eighth Doctor and Alex to be her family. (AUDIO: Cass-cade [+]Loading...["Cass-cade (audio story)"])
By the time of her death on Karn, her wanderlust had been torn away and replaced by a cynical pessimism. (PROSE: The Eighth Doctor and Companions [+]Loading...["The Eighth Doctor and Companions (feature)"])
Behind the scenes
- Layla Bridge, Emma Campbell-Jones's character in The Keeper of Light, was written so that the audience would suspect that she would be revealed to be Cass, but this was not the case.[1]
- In response to a meme on Twitter, Big Finish joked that "Cass" was short for "Stu".[2]
Footnotes
Notes
- ↑ The correct spelling is unclear without access to the written scripts.
References
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