Original Sin is the thirty-ninth New Adventures novel, first published in 1995. It featured the Seventh Doctor and Bernice Summerfield and introduced two new companions, Adjudicators Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej.
- You may be looking for the religious concept or the audio story.
Publisher's summary
"I'm playing with a fire so dangerous I could scorch eternity."
The last words of a dying alien send the Doctor and Bernice to thirtieth-century Earth in an attempt to avert an unspecified disaster. Before they can even unpack they've been arrested by the Adjudicators and sentenced to death by the Imperial army. Their attempts to prove their innocence take them from the mosaic planet Purgatory to a prison inside a star.
Meanwhile, Adjudicators Roz Forrester and Chris Cwej have their own problems. Investigating a series of apparently motiveless murders, they have stumbled upon a conspiracy with sinister overtones. On the run and out of luck, the only people they can turn to are their chief suspects: the Doctor and Bernice.
And as they run, someone is watching them. Someone who knows the Doctor of old...
Plot
to be added
Characters
- Seventh Doctor
- Bernice Summerfield
- Christopher Rodonanté Cwej
- Roslyn "Sarah" Forrester
- Professor Zebulon Pryce
- Tobias Vaughn
- Fenn Martle
- Provost-Major Beltempest
- Doc Dantalion
- Annie Falvoriss
- Olias
- Homeless Forsaken Betrayed and Alone
- Powerless Friendless And Scattered Through Space
- Hater of Humans And Leader Of Hith
- Hopeless Itinerant Taking The Blame
- Dweller In Sorrow Abandoned And Lost
- Waiting For Justice And Dreaming Of Home
- Avenging Injustice And Burning With Ire
- Chris Cwej's mother
- Volsted Kornbluth Cwej
- Divine Empress
- Shythe Shahid
- Evan Claple
Worldbuilding
- Krohg is the control nexus for the Skel'Ske.
Biology
- Chris had a body bepple so that he looked like a teddy bear.
Colleges and universities
- Pryce is a member of the University of Sallas.
- Chris Cwej's father graduated from Ponten IV in 2905.
Culture
- Chris made (and painted) model spaceships when he was young.
Foods and beverages
- The Doctor enjoys lapsang souchong tea.
Individuals
- Vaughn has kept himself "alive" using Cyberman technology and also funded the BOSS, Professor Kettlewell and the National Institute for Advanced Scientific Research's robotics research and also Whitaker's Time Scoop.
- Lady Genniploritreludar taught the Doctor stellar engineering at the Academy.
- The Divine Empress rules the Empire from her palace orbiting Saturn.
- The Master frequently used regeneration as a disguise.
Laws
- The Data Protection Act was created in 2820, and amended in 2945.
Locations
- Overcities are large tower blocks the size of cities which have large anti-grav engines allowing them to hover over the undercity below.
- The Imperial Landsknechte headquarters are on Purgatory.
- The prison planet Dis is inside the photosphere of a red giant.
- The Second Doctor and his companions moved on to "the Collection and that nasty business with the Bookworms." after defeating Vaughn and the Cybermen.
Organisations
- The Guild of Adjudicators is over 800 years old.
Planets
- Roz spent two years training on Ponten IV.
- There is fighting on Murtaugh and Heaven.
- Dweller In Sorrow works in a fast food restaurant on Alpha Centauri.
- Florana is now a waste planet and Metebelis III is a desert wasteland.
- The Imperial fleet stamp out an insurrection on Jallafillia.
Psychology
Spacecraft
- The Hith experimental craft Skel'Ske uses icarons to enter hyperspace.
- The Doctor has memorised the names, shapes and registration details of Dalek, Sess, Scumble, Drahvin and Falardi spacecraft.
- The Daleks piloted a time ship to Ghana in 1995.
Species
- Bernice sees Arcturans, Alpha Centaurans, Thrillps and Foamasi among the offworlders visiting Earth.
- An Earth Reptile band plays at a bar in Spaceport Eight Seacity.
- Hater of Humans will buy weapons from Draconians, Daleks, the Usurians, the Ook, and the Cimliss to help regain Hithis.
- Vaughn protected Earth from Daleks, Jullatii, Cybermen, Draconians, Chelonians, Ice Warriors, Sess, Kraals, Nestenes, Greld and Zygons.
- The Zygons tried to flood Earth in 2765.
- Cwej wonders whether the Skel'Ske is of Dravidian, Shlangiian or Antonine design.
Vehicles
- An Adjudicator vehicle is a flitter.
Notes
- This story is set a few years following the Wars of Acquisition.
- An audio adaptation was released by Big Finish Productions in 2016.
- Vaughn talks of the Cybermen from The Invasion as possessing a means of time travel. This was not established in The Invasion, but Illegal Alien, released two years later, established the invasion force as originating from the 30th century.
Continuity
- The Doctor promised to take Bernice to see the Oolians of Oolis at the end of PROSE: Human Nature.
- Vaughn survived the destruction of his original body. (TV: The Invasion) He scavenged Cyberman bodies from 1985, (TV: Attack of the Cybermen) 1986 (TV: The Tenth Planet) and the post-Cyber-Wars period. (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen)
- The manner in which the Divine Empress is hooked into the computer system is extremely similar to the Controller in TV: Bad Wolf.
- The Divine Empress reappears in PROSE: So Vile a Sin.
- Vaughn funded:
- BOSS (TV: The Green Death)
- Whitaker's time scoop (TV: Invasion of the Dinosaurs)
- Professor Kettlewell's researches (TV: Robot)
- The Glittergun (TV: Revenge of the Cybermen)
- The Doctor says that Romana tried out various genetic configurations before she settled on one. (TV : Destiny of the Daleks)
- The Doctor remembers a cave on Metebelis Three and the radiation sleeting through his body. (TV: Planet of the Spiders)
- The Doctor sees a "dark figure" in his thoughts with "burning eyes raking at him from beneath a black skull cap". (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
- The Doctor quotes the Armageddon Convention. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)
Illustrations
- Includes two illustrations by Tony Masero. A colour version of the end piece is shown in DWM 252.
Frontispiece
- Original Sin end piece.jpg
End piece
