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The Auto Pilot was a program in a Time ship (of unknown origin) that landed on Earth in 2010.
Technology
Some time around the 21st century, a Time ship crash landed on planet Earth. The ship's crew all died, leaving the Auto Pilot, an intelligent hologram, to fix the ship and find a captain.
In 2010, the Auto Pilot used a high-level perception filter to disguise the ship as the second storey of an average, everyday flat. It used a speaker phone outside the flat to ask people to come inside. Once there he asked them to help him upstairs, where he then tested to see if they were capable of flying the ship. As all the people tested did not want to leave their home and their brains were unable to cope with the machine's power, it killed them and caused a strange stain to go through the ceiling on the lower floor. The Doctor came to stay as a lodger in the lower floor of the flat with Craig Owens and his roommate Sophie, as the Auto Pilot's tests were preventing his TARDIS from materialising.When Craig once noticed flashing lights coming through the door upstairs, he knocked on the door to check that everything was okay; however, the Auto Pilot told him to go away, claiming that he was not needed. Meanwhile, the TARDIS came close to materialising outside the flat, but the ship in the building prevented it from doing so and also caused a localised time loop. During a conversation with the Doctor, Sophie revealed that she wished to move abroad to care for animals, as opposed to Craig, who was very attached to his home. When Sophie returned the next day, the Auto Pilot called her upstairs, under the guise of a young girl. The Doctor used a cat to spy on the upstairs 'room', learning what was really going on. Finding out that Sophie had ventured up, the Doctor and Craig ran into the upper floor and found the ship's time engine. Seeing Sophie being pulled towards the engine by an energy beam, the Doctor used his Screwdriver to break her free. The Auto Pilot appeared and revealed that it was prepared to test every member of the human race as a captain, but Craig pointed out that it told him earlier that he was not neded. The Doctor realised that the Auto Pilot knew that Sophie had been willing to leave home, unlike Craig, and that the ship could only be reactivated by someone who wishes to move away. The Auto Pilot activated the energy beam and tried to link the Doctor to the engine, but the Doctor knew that his mind will be too powerful for the time engine and would cause an explosion large enough to destroy the whole solar system. The Doctor told Craig to link up to the engine, as his unbreakable attachment to his home would cause the engine to shut down. Craig did so by revealing that he was in love with Sophie; she then returned his love and also connected herself to the engine. As the time engine began to shut down, all three were released and the Auto Pilot disappears. After the three of them ran outside, they saw the Perception filter deactivate before the ship imploded, leaving the building with just one storey as it was always meant to be. (DW: The Lodger)