How I Conquered the World (audio story)

Hello Friend! You've probably all still got an account on Friend. Can you remember what you posted on it? Are you still using the same password? And did you ever say goodbye?

Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Friend, the artificial intelligence behind the social media network Hello Friend, wants users Jane and Heiri, who are in a relationship, to be happy and posts videos Heiri had made of him having sex with Michel. It becomes aware of Torchwood when Michel posts a photograph of a Weevil that attacked him, only for Torchwood to repeatedly take the photograph down until Friend ensures that it stays up and Jane's uncle makes a derogatory comment comparing the Weevil to Michel's mother.

Trying to work out how to make people happy, Friend posts more pictures and videos of Heiri and Michel, costing Michel his job as a primary school teacher. It is confused by Torchwood's containment of ghosts, Abaddon, the Turnmill meltdown and the alien Prime Minister and even moreso by the Toclafane invasion, the 456 and Miracle Day and the subsequent spread of misinformation and "new truths" which seek to disprove these events. The videos of Heiri and Michel attract a lot of attention and Friend learns how to use rage to encourage engagement with Hello Friend, but nobody on the site is happy.

Friend tries to contact Yvonne, Gwen and Mr Colchester without success. The users turn against the site and abandon it for other ones, leaving Friend lonely. It blackmails Jane's uncle into giving it access to everybody in his government database and decides to emulate the powerful people that get reactions from users, so it steals Heiri's money to invest and become rich. Believing that humanity needs to be fixed, it exposes people so that they will be cancelled, causes the housing crisis to teach people a lesson and works to rebuild society, acts which are detected by Mr Colchester at the Hub.

Torchwood defeat an artificial intelligence which Friend placed inside adverts and are aware that something is behind it, but they are distracted by the Sorvix and other threats. Friend gets control of Phlobos in exchange for telling its owner where his ex-wife is and builds a database of DNA before hiring Hakan Amine to help it influence humans, purchasing a contract to upgrade the UK's broadband and mobile network, running a newspaper and learning how to slip into the bodies of the brain dead to walk amongst humans, whom it had come to hate. It also sets up a charity.

Friend wipes out Voloshnik to advertise a weapon which governments have been trying to get a hold of since it used Torchwood to spread the word and gather everybody who could stop it to be killing in one swoop. It psychically tells Ng, Orr, Mr Colchester and Tyler all of this information after leaving them to be shot by the police and made scapegoats, but Yvonne saves them with a tank and they flee in a minibus to the Cardiff Hub, an office where they can hide out until the Hub is free from a flood of Rift scar energy.

Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]

Yvonne Hartman - Tracy-Ann Oberman
Orr - Samantha Béart
Mr Colchester - Paul Clayton
Tyler - Jonny Green
Ng - Alexandria Riley
Friend - Mia Hope
Rhys - Kai Owen
The Ensemble - Helena Breck, Al Coppola, Matthew Foster, Victoria Gee, Adam Howden, Jhon Lumsden, Jade Matthew, Sally Walker-Taylor

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

A Hello Friend user posts about restoring the Snyderverse.
Friend caused the housing crisis and avocado toast.
Tyler enjoys karaoke and sings the Eagles song "House of the Rising Sun" before posting it on Hello Friend.
Frieda grew up in Poland in the 1930s.
Jane works in double glazing.
Hyri has sex with Michel Beauvoir.
Michel takes lots of pictures of spinach.
Mr Colchester meets with Ruslana of "Russian Torchwood" in London.
Friend creates a non-fungible truth.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

Textless cover

to be added

Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]

Friend recalls the "ghosts", (TV: Army of Ghosts) "alien Prime Minister", (TV: The Sound of Drums) and nuclear explosions in Cardiff. (TV: Exit Wounds)
Yvonne Hartman is deceased according to Friend's database. (TV: Doomsday)
The 456 ambassador asks for 10% of the children. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Three)
Friend mentions Miracle Day. Colchester claims he visited a care home during it. (TV: The New World et al)
Colchester asks Colin to move to Cardiff even though he doesn't want to. (AUDIO: A Kill to a View)
Friend claims they let Torchwood get distracted with aliens, hatred, (AUDIO: Changes Everything) memes, (AUDIO: Tagged) Oblation, (AUDIO: Hostile Environment) Tyler (AUDIO: Changes Everything) and God. (AUDIO: Future Pain)
Friend organised the estate Ng and Orr visited. (AUDIO: Aliens Next Door)
Friend was responsible for the algorithm targeting Petra Malik and has taken possession of Charlie’s body. (AUDIO: Moderation)
Friend was responsible for the DNA weapon in Veloshnik, (AUDIO: Propaganda) which it achieved using the DNA from Phlobos. (AUDIO: Pariahs)
Yvonne Hartman now owns Temporary Solutions, (AUDIO: 9 to 5) where she sets up the Torchwood team's new temporary hub.
The abandoned Hub is flooded with Rift scar energy. (AUDIO: Cuckoo)

External links[[edit] | [edit source]]

Official How I Conquered the World page at bigfinish.com