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K9 Mark I or K9 Mark 1 (TV: Regeneration) was a portable computer originally owned by Professor Marius, who considered the robot dog his "best friend". Together, they conducted advanced medical research at the Bi-Al Foundation for an unknown length of time. When the Fourth Doctor and Leela arrived at the Foundation, Leela quickly became enamoured of the dog. The professor eventually gave the dog to the time travellers as thanks for defeating the Swarm.
The Mark I was particularly associated with and protective of Leela. Therefore, when she elected to remain on Gallifrey, he also chose to stay behind with her. Nevertheless, he occasionally left Leela's side when he was sent on solo missions by the Time Lords. During these adventures he travelled in a spacecraft the Time Lords build especially for him called K-NEL.
He eventually came into the service of Lady President Romana II when Romana tapped Leela as her personal bodyguard. Together, Leela and the Mark I went on many missions together at Romana's request. He was a vital link between the two ex-companions of the Doctor, since he could easily and silently interface with Romana's K9 unit.
The unit's ultimate fate was considerably unclear, since two radically different accounts existed. According to one, he was utterly destroyed in an explosion and Leela adamantly refused to have another model built in its place. (AUDIO: Imperiatrix) The other held that he ended up on 21st century Earth, where he was forced to self-destruct when facing the Jixen, engage his regeneration unit and become K9 Mark 2. Thereafter he accepted a boy named Starkey as his new master, and had several adventures on Earth in the 2050s. (TV: Regeneration)
Biography
Creation
Professor Marius had a dog called Kelso. He couldn't take Kelso with him to his new workplace at the Bi-Al Foundation. So he constructed K9 six months before he was leaving Earth, working on it day and night. He used all the latest technology. The heart of the machine was Professor Marius medical computer. A state-of-the-art intraresponsive brain app was added inside it. This allowed K9 to talk. Furthermore a huge general knowledgepool was added into the brain. Professor Marius added these parts together creating K9.(PROSE: One Man and His Dog)
When he first met Leela, Professor Marius said only that he "had K9 made up" — not that he "created" or "designed" the unit — because weight restrictions did not allow him to bring his real dog from Earth into space. (TV: The Invisible Enemy)
One account claimed that K9 may have owed his existence to a temporal paradox. Far from inventing the dog himself, the professor copied the remnants of one of the versions of K9 created by the Doctor and given to Sarah Jane Smith. (PROSE: Tautology)
Meeting the Doctor and Leela
In the year 5000 AD, K9 aided Marius in scanning the Fourth Doctor for the Swarm inside him. He later fought off the humans infected by the Swarm on Bi-Al and on Titan Base, saving the Doctor and Leela's lives on several occasions.
The Professor offered K9 to the Fourth Doctor to travel in the TARDIS as the same weight restrictions made him unable to take Mark I back to Earth with him. (TV: The Invisible Enemy)
On the TARDIS
Needs info from The Sun Makers and The Time Vampire
Sometime during his travels, he met Robin Hood. (TV: The Last Oak Tree)
The Doctor arrived on Agratis to see the Jewel of Fawton and eat a banquet. However, the Jewel had gone missing, and the Judoon had been called in to reclaim it. While the Doctor searched for the Jewel's thief, Leela and K9 distracted the Judoon out of the city so the Doctor could leave; K9 connected himself to a tank, and Leela hijacked a motorbike.
When the species that originally owned the Jewel were discovered, the Judoon's search was called off. Becoming much less aggressive, Leela invited them to dine at the banquet. While Leela was feasting with the Judoon, a mysterious cloaked figure kidnapped Leela and K9. (COMIC: Prisoners of Time)
K9 participated in the Doctor's plan to put the Vardans in a time loop. In order to effect this, the Doctor had himself inducted as Lord President on Gallifrey. He had K9 destroy the transduction barrier, allowing the Vardans to travel along wavelengths and partially materialise on the planet. When the Vardans, and the Sontarans who followed them, were defeated, Leela chose to stay behind, having fallen in love with Andred. K9 chose to stay with his "mistress" to look after her. She asked him if the Doctor would be lonely without them, but he could only reply that there was "insufficient data", which saddened both. (TV: The Invasion of Time)
On Gallifrey
Though K9 remained on Gallifrey to "protect" Leela, he was occasionally used by the Time Lords for various solo missions. Towards this end, they gave him a specially built space vessel called K-NEL that only he could control, which gave him freedom of movement in space, but not time. (PROSE: K9 and the Time Trap, et al)
K9 was briefly reunited with the Doctor, now in his seventh incarnation, who stopped by to see how Leela's development had progressed. The Doctor took the identity tag from K9's collar as a memento. (PROSE: Affirmative)
After the temporary destruction of Gallifrey in the Second War in Heaven, K9 became trapped in the Doctor's TARDIS. He was ultimately freed by the Eighth Doctor and sent on a mission to the planet Espero. He presumably returned to Gallifrey once it was restored. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)
K9 was with Leela on Gallifrey for many years, but it was only after the disappearance of her Time Lord husband, Andred, that she and her K9 met Romana II and her K9. Despite the fact that the two K9 units did not get on well and competed with each other, (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice, The Inquiry) they frequently networked together and allowed easy communication between their respective mistresses. (AUDIO: Square One)
After Leela became Romana's bodyguard, and after many important missions on her behalf, Leela's K9 was destroyed in a bomb explosion, leaving Leela heartbroken, but refusing to allow a duplicate unit to be built in its place. (AUDIO: Imperiatrix)
After being destroyed
K9 Mark I survived the explosion that Leela and Time Lord technology confirmed had utterly destroyed him.
At some point after this event, and indeed after the Last Great Time War, he became an agent of the Korven. (TV: Hound of the Korven) During this period, he had a number of adventures whose details were not well recorded. For example, the Mark I was known to have gone to the second planet of the Montoon system and observed the Sea of Brains. He also liberated the Anubians from the Huduct. Furthermore he saved the Glomb Tenklept from being eaten by a Yakoclaw. (TV: Curse of Anubis)
Regeneration
Later, he went to the year 50,000 and met Zanthus Pia, head of the Galactic Peace Commission, whom he later saw murdered at the hands of Ahab, a Jixen emissary and his three guards. As K9 was a witness, the Jixen attacked K9. (TV: The Bounty Hunter) The Jixen were pulled to 2050 London via a Space-Time Manipulator and tried to warn the humans about a Korven invasion. However, they couldn't speak English and the humans believed they were attacking them. K9 came through the STM and attacked the Jixen. After a brief battle he realised his power was running low, and as a last resort to protect the humans, K9 self-destructed, destroying himself and two of the Jixen. Although working for the Korven, he cared for the safety of humans and advised them to evacuate. Using his regeneration unit, the remains transformed into a new incarnation. (TV: Regeneration, Hound of the Korven)
A new body
K9 Mark I survived the Last Great Time War, despite having been destroyed earlier. (AUDIO: Imperiatrix) Some time later, he went to the year 50,000 and met Zanthus Pia, Head of the Galactic Peace Commission, whom he saw murdered at the hands of Ahab. As he was a witness, Ahab's four Jixen friends attacked him (TV: The Bounty Hunter). He and the Jixen were pulled by a Space-Time Manipulator to Gryffen Manor on mid-21st century Earth. After a fight, K9 self-destructed to save the humans in the area. Starkey retrieved K9's regeneration unit, allowing him to rebuild completely, although he had forgotten his former Mistresses, Leela and Romana, and his former Master, The Doctor. After introducing himself, K9 completed his "orientation protocol", determining he was in London.
Alistair Gryffen studied this "Fallen Angel", though K9 could come and go as he pleased. Gryffen didn't tell his employers, the Department, but they saw CCTV footage of the night of the explosion. Starkey showed up after escaping from the Department's virtual reality detention facility. The dog realised that he was human. K9 gave Starkey his dog whistle, to let Starkey call him when he was in trouble and stayed at Gryffen's house, ready for more adventures. (TV: Regeneration)
A new master
Starkey stayed at Gryffen's with K9 to hide from the Jixen. K9 informed Gryffen that the Jixen was alive and on the move around Dauntless Prison, where the Department kept captured aliens. Starkey decided to go to the prison and get the Jixen before it got him, Gryffen asked K9 to go to the prison and track the Jixen. K9 obeyed but with great unease. When K9 entered the Department exclusion zone, Inspector Drake ordered him attacked by the Department's defense robots . Despite this, K9 helped the gang deal with Jixen. (TV: Liberation)
K9 helped Starkey evade the Department's surveillance. Sometime later, Jorjie came to give Starkey some food when she was called by Darius who told her that Gryffen had gone missing. K9 was able to contact a human soldier from the year 2618, who informed them that the Korven had sent an operative back through time to find a group of scientists who created a system to cool the Earth, Gryffen being one of those scientists. K9 explained that the Korven absorbed all information from the brain and then abandoned the host body leaving it like an empty shell in a process called leeching. Medowin warned them that if they get the data they need from the scientists they would cool the Earth and destroy humanity. Communication was lost just as he was about to give the Korven's weakness. K9 however was acquainted with the Korven's weakness, during the leeching process their entire being was focused on their victim, the only known time when they're vulnerable. The team followed the trail of phosphane gas traces. When they arrived at the iceworks the Korven took Gryffen to, the team split up. Despite assuring Starkey he was fine he later revealed he was being affected by the Phosphane gas K9 reveals he is being affected by the Phosphane as his behaviour became increasingly stranger. When Starkey saw the Korven leeching Gryffen, he was kidnapped by it. Darius and Jorjie found K9 on the floor, he tried to focus but engaged his self-protection protocol and shut down. Darius decided to take action, he destroys the Korven's phosphane tank and gains his attention, the Korven prepared to fire but K9 overrid his self-protection protocol and shot the Korven. K9 then shut down, Darius then woke Gryffen. The Korven then got back up; Darius grabbed the Korven's arm before it could shoot him but couldn't hold on. Starkey ordered K9 to fire his Photon Beam which K9 interpreted as "Baked Beans?". K9 shot the Korven with the temperature required to make Baked Beans edible, killing it. Back at the mansion, Gryffen accessed the Department mainframe and erased Starkey's computer encryption code it so that he was no longer a wanted dissident, he then offered a spare room for Starkey and K9 to stay. As they went to bed, K9 emitted the remainder of the phosphane in his systems in a manner similar to flatulence. (TV: The Korven)
K9 unit
After he defeated Ahab, who tried to convince him he murdered Zanthus Pia. He became part of the K9 Unit, being made the responsibility of Gryffen and under the control of Department inspector June Turner. (TV: The Bounty Hunter) He then foiled Inspector Drake's plan to control the population using Cerulium (TV: Sirens of Ceres) and experienced fear. (TV: Fear Itself) He later aided in the defeat of echoes of Gryffen's family and Orthrus, a duplicate of him created by Drake to frame him, (TV: Jaws of Orthrus) and the Bodach. (TV: Dream-Eaters) He was then met by Nehetka and Geb of the Anubians, a race his previous incarnation liberated. He was so obsessed with regaining his lost memories that he didn't realise Gryffen, Starkey and Jorjie's takeover by the Anubians. He soon found out when the Anubians attacked the Department, with the help of Darius he was soon able to defeat him. (TV: Curse of Anubis)
He later helped Starkey fight the Oroborus, (TV: Oroborus) freed the Medes (TV: Alien Avatar) and help one of the last Aeolians find her mate. (TV: Aeolian) He then saved a Centuripede and her young from being killed by Drake (TV: The Last Oak Tree) and absorbed the Hunger swarm which threatened to devour Earth. (TV: Black Hunger) He and Starkey then went through the STM to 1963 where they rescued Jorjie and saved Darius' great-grandfather William Pike from being arrested and erasing Darius from history. (TV: The Cambridge Spy) He enlisted the help of the Ukkan librarian Yssaringintinka to rescue Starkey who was trapped on the planet Urlic. (TV: Lost Library of Ukko) He later helped Birdie, a CCPC which implanted human DNA escape from the Department. (TV: Mutant Copper) He then discovered the last of the Etydions (TV: The Custodians) and taught Taphony how to be a friend. (TV: Taphony and the Time Loop)
Either Inspector Thorne or Lomax found out about K9's regeneration unit and decided to acquire it. Thorne joined forces with Freddie Maxwell, owner of Crashclub involving old robots being made to fight. K9 went undercover as a gladiator and made friends with the robot clowns Chuckles and Boris. He was called to fight the Pain-Maker who was laced with the explosive solarmite, when he was set to self-destruct K9 detected this and fled the explosion. (TV: Robot Gladiators) In an attempt to regain his memory and find out his connection to the STM, K9's achieve was scrambled and directives from the STM almost caused him to self-destruct and lose all his memory. However with help of Gryffen and Starkey he was able to override the directives. (TV: Mind Snap) He later helped Gryffen find the STM's temporal stabilizer from the fallen angel crash-site in Canada where it was revealed to be Korven technology. (TV: Angel of the North) He later stopped haywire CCPCs when the Last Precinct's plan backfired. (TV: The Last Precinct) After this he was tricked by Thorne to give him his regeneration unit in return for a lost memory chip, however this turned him into a bomb which would make him self-destruct upon encountering Jixey however Starkey helped him disarm himself. (TV: Hound of the Korven)
K9 fought valiantly during the botched Korven invasion of Earth that entailed but not without his companions' much needed assistance. After exhausting all his energy during the climax of the failed conquest, K9 retreated to Gryffen Manor where he almost died, his rundown state plunging him into the depths of oblivion. Luckily his regeneration unit homed back to its master and gave him the spark of life, replenishing his power core and using the excess energy to reconstitute his old dog collar. Given a new lease on life, a frisky K9 flew off to celebrate, rejoicing that he had cheated death once more and like always made it out in one piece. (TV: The Eclipse of the Korven)
After the unit
Someday after his time with Starkey, Jorjie and Darius K9 was free falling in space. He awaited any passing vessels that had been accussed of being a stow-away on the flagship of the Trodos Empire. K9 entered a space ship which turned out to be a Sporraxx space ship. The Sporraxx imprisoned K9 when they realised that his general reference capacity was far beyond any computer that they had ever come across. Then the Sporraxx tried to extract K9's memory core. Memories that K9 assumed to be erased were slowly coming back and the Sporraxx got to know more and more about K9's past. The Sporraxx got information about Earth and wanted to maraud the planet. They reprogramed K9 to protect a device, which turned out to be a small spherical marauder bomb, that would destroy Earth. However K9 was able to break free of their control, because deep in his memories a sense of right and wrong prevailed. He took the bomb back into the Sporraxx space ship which exploded. (COMIC: Short Circuit)
Another day K9 saved the people at the Aurora from being killed by a Federation war cruiser. (PROSE: Peaceniks)
While navigating a space ship back to New Earth K9 met Interstitials. K9 helped them passing into another existence where it was better for them. (PROSE: Interstitials)
10800 years after the Punch and Judy shows were created and performed by ltinerant children entertainers K9 was hired by Professor Peabody to protect her son Lukran Peabody. Lukran got kidnapped by the Pyxians but was saved by K9 who returned Lurkan to his mother and stopped the Pyxians. (PROSE: Stranger On The Train)
Personality
First incarnation
K9 was often left behind in the TARDIS and so he saw journeying out as a treat. (TV: The Sun Makers) Despite his claims that he was not programmed to feel emotion, he did show a capacity for feeling. He sulked when Leela insulted him, and would only talk to her again after she apologised.
The Doctor described him as overbearing, arrogant and insufferable, after K9 told him there was only a 1% chance of the Doctor having a better explanation for something than him.
Andred claimed "If [he] had a dog like [K9] in [his] unit, [he'd] make him a sergeant". (TV: The Invasion of Time)
Second incarnation
This version of K9 was more upbeat and aggressive than other versions that existed in the universe. Whereas the K9s that travelled with the Doctor tended to apply logic in a somewhat cautious way — frequently arguing why the odds suggested that something couldn't be done — this K9 tended to freely place himself in harm's way. He was also more ruthless than other K9's, killing a Korven, (TV: The Korven) offering to have Drake taken out (TV: Jaws of Orthrus) and threatening him and his CCPCs with liquidation. (TV: Aeolian) Unlike other K9s, he gave the title of master, specifically "young Master", exclusively to Starkey. Whereas other K9s commonly referred to all their friends as master or mistress, K9 never referred to Gryffen or Darius as master, nor Jorjie or June as mistress. (TV: Regeneration)
He also investigated human emotions in a more thorough way than his predecessors, and even, apparently, experienced the emotion of fear. (TV: Fear Itself)
Unlike his predecessor, he did not appreciate being called "dog" or "boy". (TV: Regeneration)
His use of the English language was far more colloquial than any of his predecessors, because he had downloaded 5000 human movies onto his memdrive, and these were influencing his speech. (TV: Alien Avatar) He did speak more technically sometimes, however, such as when Starkey announced "kicked surveillance butt", K9 vowed to "kick surveillance posterior" whenever possible. (TV: The Korven) When Starkey was attacked by a Jixen, K9 recommended "rapid movement in the opposite direction of the Xenomorph". (TV: Liberation)
K9 had totally independent, rational and benign psychological tendencies. Therefore his moral judgements were free of any original programmer. (PROSE: Peaceniks)
Features
Mark I
The mechanics of K9 Mark I included rotating ear-probes, telescopic "eye" probe, extendable nose, flashing lights on the top and the "eye" panel, waggling tail antennae, and ticker-tape tongue. The head could also move up and down. The shell was painted in gold/grey metallic. There was a monitor screen on his left flank, though K9 rarely used this during his travels with the Doctor. Around K9's neck was a tartan collar, from which hung a silver disk. (TV: The Invisible Enemy) By the time of his liberation of the Anubians, K9 was modified (likely by the Time Lords or the Korven) so he could fly through the vacuum of space. (TV: Curse of Anubis)
K9 had a vast database inherited by his next incarnation containing data on the following aliens:
K9 claimed that he was shaped like a dog because "the human ego requires a familiar reference point to aid in adjusting to new concepts. Animal forms are comforting to the majority of humans." (PROSE: Housewarming)
Mark II
K9 Mark 2 was radically altered in design and far more complex compared to Mark I. His ear probes were replaced with larger silver aerials, a set of blue lights on his head flashed when he spoke. Most of his body was dark silver in colour and a silver dog bone was located under his neck. He seemed to have the same capabilities as Mark I but was presumably more advanced. When attacked and incapacitated, he could give his living metal frame downtime to attune to energy signatures of weaponry with combat conditioning shielding. (TV: Liberation) He was also capable of emitting gas in a manner similar to flatulence. (TV: The Korven, Alien Avatar, Black Hunger) He was able to use a tractor beam to pull an object as large as an adolescent humanoid, (TV: Fear Itself) he could also use it to absorb microscopic objects. (TV: Black Hunger) Although he was vulnerable to energy attacks, he was nearly perfectly resilient when it came to explosive forces, as he said, while highly explosive forces were capable of damaging him, the only explosive force capable of destroying him was his own self-destruct function. (TV: Robot Gladiators)
This new K9 didn't have any memory of his past life, although he did regain fragments of his memory, remembering some of his travels. (TV: Curse of Anubis)
Behind the scenes
- In an early draft of The Invisible Enemy, K9 was called FIDO, for "Phenomenal Indication Data Observation". (INFO: The Invisible Enemy)
- The original K9 model was designed by visual effects designer Tony Harding. One early concept was to have a small actor in a large Doberman-shaped costume; however, Graham Williams vetoed this, saying that the robot should not look like a person in a costume. The eventual design was closely based on Harding's third concept sketch. (DCOM: The Invisible Enemy) K9 Mark 2 was designed by Paul Tams and Alex Kubalsky.
- K9 Mark I returned in the first episode of K9. When asked by a fan for clarification Bob Baker said:
Yes this is the K9 that the Doctor left with Leela on Gallifrey. In this version he was plucked out of space and time by the STM totally at random. His self-destruct in Ep 1 to save the humans results in triggering a "regeneration unit" put there presumably by the Time Lords, but of course we're not allowed to mention that.
- K9 Mark I was the first in a seven-year run of non-human televised companions who inhabited the TARDIS, ending with the departure of Turlough in 1984. Others included K9 Mark II, Romana I, Romana II, Adric, Nyssa and, nominally, Kamelion.
- The numbers appended to K9's "marks" have narrative origin — unlike, say, Romana I, which is actually a fan assumption. The Invasion of Time ends with the Doctor pushing a box labelled "K9 MII" into the console room, which implies that the model that stayed with Leela on Gallifrey was "K9 MI". However, based on televised stories alone, there was no indication that this designation was programmed into the two units. It was later established by John Leeson's dialogue in the audio story The Inquiry and the short story Jealous, Possessive that K9 Mark I thought of himself as "K9 Mark I" and Romana's model as "K9 Mark II". Nevertheless, nothing has ever clearly indicated that the Mark I was truly "the first K9 ever built, anywhere in the universe". The designation is relative to the Doctor's perception, or to relative age amongst the K9 units eventually resident on Gallifrey.
Footnotes
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