Ida Scott was the science officer of the Walker Expedition crew on Krop Tor researching the black hole known as K37 Gem 5.
Biography
Early life
Ida was the daughter of Dr Odysseus Scott and his wife and was brought up Neoclassic Congregational because of her mother, but she "never believed" in the religion and did not consider herself to have any sort of faith. (TV: The Satan Pit) She attended antiquities school and regularly stole things as a child, including a book in which Daphne Zane's father had written encouragements, the likes of which she never received from her own father.
Odysseus was disappointed upon learning of Ida's penchant for petty theft and thought that she had inherited her mother's weaknesses in addition to his strengths. Her mother left Odysseus and Ida shared a tense relationship with him, largely keeping her distance (AUDIO: Odyssey) and effectively running from him. (TV: The Satan Pit)
Like her father, (AUDIO: Odyssey) Ida became a scientist. (TV: The Impossible Planet) She remained in contact with her mother, who frequently went on what her father described as pilgrimages, (AUDIO: Odyssey) and referred to her longingly as her "old mum". (TV: The Satan Pit) She knew that Odysseus's voice was used by the translator spheres, but she spent so much time around Ood that she stopped recognising it as that of her father. (AUDIO: Odyssey)
Walker Expedition
On Krop Tor, Ida was researching the previous civilisation who enabled Krop Tor to orbit a black hole and trying to discover the power source that was holding the planet in orbit. She also accompanied the Tenth Doctor down into the pit within the planet. The Doctor and Ida discovered a "trapdoor" that led further into the planet which began to open. (TV: The Impossible Planet)
While Ida was sitting next to the trapdoor, waiting for contact from the Doctor after he fell to the bottom of the pit, she was rendered unconscious and suffered mild oxygen starvation when her oxygen supply ran out. She was rescued by the Doctor and reunited with her crew after the rocket was beyond the reach of the black hole. (TV: The Satan Pit)
Saving Odysseus
Ida borrowed a Torchwood spaceship from Zachary Cross Flane to travel to Faber where Odysseus, whom she had not seen in some time, was receiving gravitational therapy at the Spire in an effort to cure his Axobar's syndrome. Concerned about him relying on alternative therapy instead of conventional medicine and wondering why only he, Thomas Good and an Ood were at the Spire, she looked into the whereabouts of Kennedy Destin and Odysseus's fellow patients and came to the conclusion that they had never left the planet.
The Resilient, who had been formed by the merging of Destin and the patients within a fold of reality, warped gravity and, as a result, time. Ida failed to save Tom from being absorbed but managed to get Odysseus and the Ood off of Faber in the Torchwood ship before the planet turned to dust as a result of the Resilient building the Spire backwards and creating a loop. Before she parted ways with her father, who was unconscious and losing his power of speech, she accepted the Ood's offer to read out the encouragements that Daphne Zane's father had written for her and which she had never heard from Odysseus. (AUDIO: Odyssey)
Personality
Ida Scott was very self-confident. She had the ability to command a ship. She acted tough and still maintained calmness and control when she learned that they would soon run out of air, with no way of escape, but pled to the Doctor that he mustn't go because she didn't want to die on her own.
She also was faithful to her crew and found it hard to believe that one of the members of her crew had attacked, and tried to kill, other members. She also grew faithful and loyal to the Doctor and Rose and she started to take orders from them, especially when she and the Doctor were alone in the pit. (TV: The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit)