Dark Space 8
Dark Space 8 was a space station near the edge of the Galaxy.
Crew
Dark Space 8 was commanded by Commander Paul Keele. Directly under him was Dr. Eleanor Harcourt, Professor Ivor Fassbinder and Lieutenant Strindberg. In truth, the sub-commanders were not as professional as expected. Dr. Harcourt had no medical training and contributed to the deaths of many crewmembers including, eventually, Commander Keele. Professor Fassbinder was a drunkard who made up his scientific assessments. (AUDIO: Bang-Bang-A-Boom!)
History
Dark Space 8 was set up by Earth at the edge of known space. For seven years, it had a variety of adventures — including being sent back in time to medieval Wales, encountering an alien who claimed to be God, fighting sweat vampires and being infected by Altarian plague. Over time, other space stations were created with better technology and the attrition from the accidents took their toll.
Eventually, Dark Space 8 was chosen to host the 309th Intergalactic Song Contest, which was actually a front for the Gholos/Angvian peace conference. Loozly, a Gholos-aligned terrorist, learned of the conference and attempted to disrupt it. Around the same time, Commander Paul Keele died of Orion flu. His replacement was sent, but was killed by Loozly with an Angvian scatter bomb. By coincidence, the Seventh Doctor and Melanie Bush were on board his ship and were mistaken for the commander and his pilot. While the preparations for the Song Contest were occurring, Loozly struck again, killing the competitor Cyrene with Angvian methods to place the blame on them. Unfortunately for him, the crew of Dark Space 8 was unable to figure out what sort of weapons were used. Only the Gholos competitor learned the truth, but was unable to communicate with anyone else. Logan, the host of the Intergalactic Song Competition, was developing a translation device that could work on Gholos, so Loozly killed him. Professor Ivor was also figuring out the truth, so was also killed. Loozly also attacked the Angvian competitor to create the illusion of a double bluff. With this, the Doctor finally figured out and revealed the truths of Dark Space 8. Though the peace conference was a success, with the loss of the senior members the future of Dark Space 8 was uncertain. (AUDIO: Bang-Bang-A-Boom!)
Behind the scenes
Dark Space 8 is a direct spoof of Deep Space 9, both in name and in function as an outpost serving as a hub to many species. Other similarities to Star Trek noticed on the space station include:
- The "Captain's log" style voiceovers.
- The United Federation of Planets-style command structure and clearly-defined crew.
- The repeated catchphrases of the crewmembers.
- Over the course of the previous seven years, the crew had dealt with a sweat vampire, an alien claiming to be God, a plague which stripped them of their inhibitions and a silicon-based lifeform which threatened to enslave all other lifeforms. Furthermore, Dr. Harcourt's reference to the space station's senior officers being sent back in time to medieval Wales would appear to be a reference to the numerous time travel episodes of Star Trek.
- Fassbinder's made-up technobabble echoes the style of Star Trek.
