Cardiff Earthquake
- You may be looking for Boom Town or the titular short story.
The Cardiff Earthquake was the public name that UNIT gave (PROSE: Cardiff Earthquake) to the earthquake caused by Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen's plan to trick the Ninth Doctor and Jack Harkness to use the tribophysical waveform macro-kinetic extrapolator to refuel the TARDIS, which actually opened the Cardiff Space-Time Rift instead. (TV: Boom Town)
History
Background
- Main article: London UFO crash
Seeking to make a profit, a branch of the criminal Slitheen family of Raxacoricofallapatorius came to Earth, where they infiltrated the British government. In March 2006, the Slitheen staged the crash of an alien ship in central London, fabricating an alien invasion so that the United Nations would grant the British government the codes for nuclear weapons which the Slitheen would then use to start World War III, reducing the Earth to radioactive chunks which could be sold as fuel for spacecraft. This plot was opposed by the Ninth Doctor and his companion Rose Tyler, with assistance from Harriet Jones, Mickey Smith, and Jackie Tyler. Ultimately, Mickey, on the Doctor's orders, hacked into the UNIT website and launched a harpoon missile designated UGM-84A at 10 Downing Street, killing the Slitheen (TV: Aliens of London/World War Three) bar one, Blon Fel-Fotch Passameer-Day Slitheen, who used a teleport to escape, ending up on a skip in the Isle of Dogs. (TV: Boom Town)
A Slitheen's Sinister Scheme
to be added
Aftermath
With Blon reduced to an egg, the Doctor intended to drop her off at a hatchery on Raxacoricofallapatorius, where she could have a second chance at life. (TV: Boom Town) Adopted by the Jingatheen family, Blon was reborn as Margaret Ag-Kris Therur-Ford Jingatheen, who eventually became a Detective Inspector with the Shadow Proclamation. Left with her human skin suit, Margaret would wear it throughout her life. During her career with the Shadow Proclamation, she led a ship of Judoon, encountered the Twelfth Doctor and faced Weeping Angels. (COMIC: A Confusion of Angels)
UNIT issued a press briefing on 8 October, in the aftermath of the quake, where they announced that the clean-up of the tremor had been successful, however they stated that many people were missing, including Margaret Blaine, and that the Blaidd Drwg Power Plant project would have to be abandoned due to the ground it was to be built on being unstable. (PROSE: Cardiff Earthquake) Torchwood Cardiff, led by an older version of Jack, kept a newspaper clipping of Margaret Blaine as the new Mayor of Cardiff. (TV: Reset) Torchwood also made use of an invisible lift which, as Jack recalled, was enabled when a dimensionally transcendental chameleon circuit placed on a particular spot on Roald Dahl Plass welded its perception properties to the rift. (TV: Everything Changes)
For the TARDIS crew, they moved on from Raxacoricofallapatorious to Kyoto in 1336 before they were brought to the Game Station, where they were embroiled in the Dalek invasion of Earth in the year 200,100. (TV: Bad Wolf) By using Blon's extrapolator, the TARDIS wielded a force field which protected it from the firepower of both the Daleks and their flagship, allowing the Doctor and Jack to rescue Rose when she was captured by them. When the Doctor sent Rose home for her own safety, Rose refused to leave him and, having witnessed the heart of the TARDIS reveal itself before, enlisted Mickey and Jackie's aid to do it again so she could return. Exposed to the energy of the Time Vortex, Rose briefly became the Bad Wolf, the power of which she used to destroy the Dalek Emperor and his fleet whilst resurrecting the slain Captain Jack. However, Rose was endangered by the vortex energy, forcing the Doctor to take it within himself before returning it, resulting in his regeneration into the Tenth Doctor. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Much later from the Doctor's perspective, when he took the TARDIS back to Cardiff to refuel again in 2008, Martha Jones recalled the earthquake from a "couple of years ago", correctly presuming that the Doctor was involved. The Doctor admitted that there was a "bit of trouble with the Slitheen" and that he was "a different man back then". (TV: Utopia)
Behind the scenes
The online game Slitheen Surfer depicted an alternate outcome of the events of Boom Town, the objective of the game being to navigate Blon on her extrapolator through the debris of the Earth.
