Irving Braxiatel
Irving Braxiatel, also known to his friends as Brax, was a Time Lord and the elder brother of the Doctor.
He maintained the Braxiatel Collection and briefly held several high offices on Gallifrey, including Cardinal, High Chancellor, and Lord President. He was an associate of Bernice Summerfield and Romana II.
Braxiatel's life was one of many paradoxes and anomalies, including separate lives on Dellah, Legion, and the Braxiatel Collection. He was finally set on his “true path” by the Watchmaker, (AUDIO: Enemy Lines) after which he became embroiled in the Last Great Time War.
Biography
Early life
Braxiatel lived on Gallifrey (PROSE: The Empire of Glass, etc.) and had a brother, the Doctor. He would later imply to the Oracle of the Lost that he had lost either a daughter or a sister (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle) and the Thirteenth Doctor mentioned having sisters. (TV: Arachnids in the UK)
He studied at the Time Lord Academy, an experience that he hated and during which he was nicknamed "Icicle". (AUDIO: Lies) He was tutored by Danna and learnt from her how to be a diplomat and a soldier, as well as how to shoot down a whole flock of Pazitha bats with one shot. (AUDIO: Soldier Obscura) A lesson that he learnt at school was that "time plays silly buggers with us all". (PROSE: Winging It)
Never wanting to conform and being attracted by the wealth of knowledge in the outer universe, Braxiatel was keen to leave Gallifrey and excelled at the Academy, passing with a handful of firsts. He became an unofficial ambassador for the Time Lords, dealing with off-world affairs that he pretended not to be wholly interested in so as to disguise his desire to leave. He was eventually able to persuade the Time Lords that he would be of more use as an unofficial permanent presence off-world.
Although the First Doctor respected Braxiatel, he envied his brother's freedom to leave the planet and attempted to follow in his footsteps before realising that the Time Lords did not need Braxiatel. He instead deliberately underachieved at the Academy, something that Braxiatel believed was genius. (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle)
Maris' potential engine told her that the Doctor's brother was a government stooge. (PROSE: Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir) At one point, Braxiatel held the position of Lord Burner, the personal assassin of President Pandad VII, who "burned" people from history. During this time, he allowed "an old man" and "his granddaughter" to flee Gallifrey, even though Braxiatel had been given the order to erase them from history. The very same day, President Pandad died when a power relay in his office overloaded; an inquiry headed by Braxiatel found that this was an "accident". (AUDIO: Disassembled)
Whilst tutoring at the Academy, Braxiatel taught Romana. She confided in him about her encounter with Pandora in the Vaults, prompting him to hypnotise her to forget about it. (AUDIO: Lies)
Beginning the Collection
Braxiatel became a cardinal but did not have a seat on the High Council. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Extinction Event, Lies, etc.)
He calculated that Project Alpha's Timonic Fusion Device would be devastating and, after failing to convince Glower to put an end to the project, placed a data bomb in the Matrix recording information on it and its destruction of Minyos. However, time was changed and the device was stolen, with Braxiatel being told that it had been dismantled. Given the amount of destruction that the device could have caused, he was driven to begin the Braxiatel Collection, gathering art from across the universe for its own protection, a mission which involved regularly communicating with his future selves. (AUDIO: The Inquiry)
In his position as the Time Lords' unofficial ambassador, Braxiatel organised the Armageddon Convention, which he tried to get the Third Doctor to chair, but after the Omega crisis, his agents accidentally brought the wrong incarnation. The Convention was not particularly successful, although it did outlaw the use of Cyber-bombs. Due to the relative failure of the Convention, Braxiatel decided to begin focusing on building up his Collection rather than involving himself in galactic politics. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)
Wanting to find like-minded people, Braxiatel helped found the Collector's Guild, though rarely played a part in the way it was governed. (PROSE: The Cost for a Collection)
Romana's presidency
Braxiatel sought Romana II out when she returned to Gallifrey and supported her throughout her campaign to become president, wanting to keep an eye on her due to Pandora (AUDIO: Lies) and planning to succeed her. (AUDIO: Pandora) Some years after her election, he informed her when the Eighth Doctor's TARDIS dematerialised of its own accord, having been infected with anti-time. (AUDIO: Zagreus)
Months later, (AUDIO: Lies) Braxiatel went to the Outlands with K9 Mark I to take Leela back to the Capitol and discussed the issues of the Timonic Fusion Device and Gryben with Romana and Narvin, later countermanding Romana's command for Gallifrey's transduction barriers to be lowered for the refugees. Darkel informed him that there would be an inquiry into how the Gryben situation was handled. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice)
Whilst a pretend temporal summit was held elsewhere under Liaison Officer Hossak's supervision, Braxiatel attended the real one as Gallifrey's chief negotiator. (AUDIO: Square One)
Alongside Darkel, Braxiatel presided over the inquiry into Romana's actions. He was arrested by "Torvald" once his flouting of the Laws of Time became known, although he claimed that he did so for the benefit of the universe, and was let off when Romana determined his crimes to be inconsequential. He admitted that he had planned to install a data bomb should Project Alpha have gone ahead to ensure that it could not be covered up and also suggested that Leela look at Andred's biodata in the Panopticon Archive to help with her search for him. (AUDIO: The Inquiry)
Braxiatel was placed in charge of Romana's new university and set his sights on the office of High Chancellor and a place on the High Council, two things that Romana told him that she would not give him due to their friendship and Braxiatel's involvement with his past and future selves. He defended Narvin when he was implicated in Andred's escape and, in the vaults, confessed to Romana that he had put a memory block on her at the Academy. Following Pandora's apparent defeat, Braxiatel recommended that Narvin, whom he had told about his law-breaking, be given a selective memory wipe. (AUDIO: Lies)
More than a week later, Braxiatel suggested that Romana take a leave of absence whilst K9 Mark I and Mark II scoured the Matrix for Pandora, aware of Darkel's desire for her to step down. He investigated the broken man and planned to collect him and his TARDIS secretly to protect Romana, a mission in which he was unsuccessful. (AUDIO: Spirit)
Braxiatel was finally made Chancellor after Darkel suggested that Romana do so for the good of Gallifrey. He appointed Leela as acting castellan in Wynter's absence (AUDIO: Pandora) and successfully trapped Pandora inside Darkel's mind after she released her, storing some of the creature in his own mind to act as a key to its true prison. (AUDIO: Mindbomb) He chose to protect Gallifrey from her by entering a self-imposed exile to keep Pandora from entering the Matrix, but Romana was forced to strip him of his titles and exile him in disgrace after Narvin made his breaking of the Laws of Time known. Before leaving, he advised Romana to place Leela in charge of the Academy. (AUDIO: Pandora)
Exile and the Axis
In exile, Braxiatel had a number of adventures in which he took down the Free Time movement. He heard several rumours of Gallifrey one day facing a terrible threat which only Pandora would have had the strength to defeat and also realised that whoever was president during the Dogma Virus situation would be taken down. (AUDIO: Panacea)
Following the destruction of the Matrix, (AUDIO: Warfare) Braxiatel returned to Gallifrey. He publicly declared that Darkel was not president due to the stripping of his offices being technically annulled, meaning that Valyes was never Chancellor and could not appoint her as his successor. Braxiatel claimed the presidency for himself but, unable to deal with Pandora's hatred in his mind in the presence of so many Time Lords, he resigned and appointed Matthias as his successor, seeking to save Romana. Before returning to his exile, he used the small amount of Pandora in his mind to free the creature imprisoned in Darkel, which devoured her. (AUDIO: Mindbomb)
Braxiatel brought Romana and Elbon to the Axis, (AUDIO: Reborn) although he pretended that they were on a planetoid. He used a Time Scoop to remove the biodata archive, along with Leela and Narvin, with the intention of using it to reconstruct the Time Lords following Gallifrey's fall. However, matters were complicated after a cure that removed the ability to regenerate headed to Gallifrey with a consignment of guns. (AUDIO: Panacea) He located a portal in the Axis which led to a Gallifrey that he wished to explore.
On the first Gallifrey that the group visited, Braxiatel met and flirted with an alternative Romana and was intrigued by the selling of regenerations. (AUDIO: Reborn) Upon returning to the Axis, he remained there to prevent it from being taken over by anybody from an alternative timeline and fought with an alternative Doctor who attempted to do so, falling into a portal with him. Romana said that it was likely that they would fall through time for eternity, although one or both of them might survive and land in one of the timelines. (AUDIO: Disassembled)
Brax of Dellah
Dellah and the Gods
As it turned out, Braxiatel arrived in what appeared to be his original universe. (AUDIO: Disassembled, etc.) He founded and sponsored the Department of Theatrology at St Oscar's University, claiming that helping out on Dellah was "good for the soul" whilst also spending large amounts of time away and making use of criminals such as Skutloid. (PROSE: Dragons' Wrath)
Braxiatel met Bernice Summerfield at the university, although she had already met his future self and told him that he would one day be at her wedding. (PROSE: Dragons' Wrath; AUDIO: Disassembled) Together, the pair investigated Newark Rappare's death and thwarted Romolo Nusek, in the course of which Braxiatel accidentally caused a volcanic eruption, before returning to Dellah. (PROSE: Dragons' Wrath)
During the summer holidays at St Oscar's, Braxiatel spent his time wandering the arboreta, reading in the library, writing entirely incorrect annotations to the museum's catalogues and drinking wine. He was interrupted in the course of enjoying a bottle when Benny burst in and told him of her latest adventure. (PROSE: Ship of Fools)
Braxiatel asked Benny to look out for Emile Mars-Smith. He later gave her Jakson Pierce's coordinates Ardethan coordinates and arranged new lives for the political prisoners that Jason Kane and Chris Cwej rescued. (PROSE: Deadfall) He later helped Benny and Skutloid by providing them with information on Medusa and assisted Stuart Stonely. (PROSE: The Medusa Effect)
The Time Lords demanded that Braxiatel return to Gallifrey, a summons that he and ignored and was punished for by having his TARDIS recalled. He made Renée Thalia join the New Moral Army as he was concerned about the movement, only to find himself unable to get her to leave after he realised that he was wrong to do such a thing. Warned by Emile of the planned bombing of the spaceport, Braxiatel led the evacuation and was forced to abandon Benny. (PROSE: Where Angels Fear)
Braxiatel won KS-159 from Hayward Denson after Jason learnt that it was the location of the Oracle of the Lost, an old friend of Braxiatel's, where he requested assistance from Gallifrey and was sent Chris. Learning that Benny was dying, he told her of the fabled Fountain of Forever discussed in one of the manuscripts in his collection. (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle)
Braxiatel and Benny sought the help of the Stratum Seven Agent to investigate after Kara Delbane was killed, also being assisted by Chris. (PROSE: Return to the Fractured Planet) He began construction of the Braxiatel Collection on his asteroid and, with Benny, Jason, Chris and Clarence, used it as a base whilst fighting the All-High Gods. (PROSE: The Joy Device) Following the destruction of Dellah and the retreat of the Time Lords and the Gods, Braxiatel helped establish a university on Vremnya. (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods)
Early days on the Collection
Once the Collection was completed, Braxiatel recruited Benny to work for him, shortly after which she accompanied him to mediaeval Blackpool. (AUDIO: Many Happy Returns) He set a trap for the Comparative Religion Society by inviting them to dinner at the Collection, knowing that they would try to steal a book in his possession, and invited Benny without telling her his true plans. (PROSE: A Question of Identity)
Braxiatel suggested that a bored Benny assist him in cataloguing films, during which they discovered Mrrct'llz on a tape of executions. At his request, Braxiatel cut out his execution and spliced the film back together. (PROSE: The Light that Never Dies) He later sent Benny to the Ganesh system (PROSE: Heart of Glass) and joined her when she was impeded by the authorities, having his face briefly stolen by Janus during his visit. (PROSE: Kill the Mouse!) He confronted Benny with security after she stole a stone ring for Porl Tomas. (PROSE: Step Back in Time) At Steven Mead's memorial, Braxiatel delivered a speech and, two days later, had Benny speak to Tony Deek. After Tony was saved from a Memory Stone, Braxiatel and Benny shared some bourbon. (PROSE: Christmas Spirit)
When Daglan Straklant asked for Braxiatel's help, he refused as he did not want anything to do with the Fifth Axis. He accepted his offer of finding the other half of the Doomsday Manuscript to show good faith, but was alarmed upon finding that Josiah Vanderbilt, whose invitation Straklant had, was murdered. He disguised himself as a Fifth Axis commander, took Benny prisoner and branded Straklant a traitor before returning to the Collection. (PROSE: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Doomsday Manuscript)
Braxiatel sent Benny on a mission to locate R. F. Wilburton (PROSE: The Door into Bedlam) and encouraged her to take part in a docudrama based on her life. (PROSE: Digging up the Past) He questioned Benny and Avril Fenman to determine which of them was the real Benny and allowed Avril to remain in the Collection living in her former tomb, something that Benny was unhappy with. (PROSE: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Squire's Crystal)
When the Earthlink Federation refused to allow Braxiatel to send an expedition to Venedel but permitted the Nishtubi, he covertly sent Benny. (PROSE: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Gods of the Underworld) Wishing to obtain a Halstad Harp, he took her to an auction on Palastrid and discovered the truth behind the death of the planet Halstad. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Extinction Event) He later introduced her to Dr Rupert Gilhooly and Father Igron Alsabalus and sent her to collect data from Tinker's Cuss, after which he allowed Jason Kane to stay at the Collection. (PROSE: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Infernal Nexus)
Braxiatel informed his friends of the disarray caused to the Fifth Axis by the death of their imperator. He rewarded Sophia by granting her access to the Collection's treasures and arranged for Isaac Summerfield to attend the naming ceremony of Benny's son, Peter. (PROSE: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison) He told Benny that there was nothing she could do when she learnt from illegally gained records that Blastertal started a war (PROSE: Something Broken) and, when she was unable to get to a dig that was being broadcast, he suggested that she fake her appearance. (PROSE: Time's Team)
Braxiatel sent a message to Benny informing her of Charles Stafford's upcoming visit and reminded her again two days later, finding that she had completely forgotten what had happened to her in that time. He later burned the mnemosine store book that Stafford gave to her. (PROSE: A la Recherche du Temps Perdu)
The Braxiatel who later went to Legion had the Pandora in his head transferred back in time to the Braxiatel on the Collection, around the time of Peter's birth, by Avril Fenman. The liberated Braxiatel believed that this accounted for the actions that the Braxiatel on the Collection would go on to perform. (AUDIO: The Curse of Fenman)
Braxiatel and Adrian Wall went after Benny and Jason after they fell through a mirror, inside of which Braxiatel encountered a fake Benny who accused him of engineering Peter's birth so that he could add him to his Collection. When Jason accused Braxiatel of knowing more than he was saying and asked why there was no evil double of him, he hypnotised him into forgetting his suspicions and suffering migraines whenever they should resurface, later blaming his migraine on the mirror. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Mirror Effect)
Captain Patrick Quilby asked Braxiatel to send an archaeologist to Bellotron, a request that he granted by sending Benny. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Bellotron Incident) He later told her to accept Lord Paranash's invitation to Draconia (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Draconian Rage) and to Chosan upon learning of the Calabraxian threat to the Sea Devils there, knowing of her friendship with Nedda. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Poison Seas)
Axis occupation
The Collection was attacked and occupied by the Fifth Axis, who placed Braxiatel under house arrest (PROSE: The Fall) and, hoping to gain access to his TARDIS, tortured him. (PROSE: Five Dimensional Thinking; AUDIO: Death and the Daleks) He and Joseph altered the Oracle of the Lost to give the Axis false prophecies (PROSE: Careless Talk) and, coming to believe that his future self was behind the Axis, attempted to kill himself and Mushtaq Anson with poison. However, Benny convinced him to allow her to administer the antidote. (PROSE: Five Dimensional Thinking)
Braxiatel contacted Kellarn and asked him to come to the Collection disguised as Leo Didas, but he was killed by the Axis and replaced with a duplicate who tested Benny's loyalty, (PROSE: The Price of Everything) and later told Ash Madai how to get Benny's Time Ring when Madai threatened to tell Anson how the Axis would be defeated. (PROSE: Midrash)
A Watcher appeared to Braxiatel. Braxiatel had Joseph tell Benny where he was before strangling Bev Tarrant, leading Benny to shoot him in the chest and the Watcher to be dragged towards him before falling apart. Once it had, Braxiatel came to and was unharmed, telling Benny that he strangled Bev in an attempt to defeat the Watcher. (PROSE: Fear of Corners) The root of an organic part of his technology later took Benny's form and attempted to kill him, but he was able to defeat her. (PROSE: Paths Not Taken) When the Axis demanded that Braxiatel remove his non-human acquisitions, he convinced Martlak to sell them to the Finliri and coordinated with Bev to smuggle the Axis' Ormand-Seltec flyers off of the Collection. Once they were found out, they were punished. (PROSE: Passing Storms)
Braxiatel learnt from Benny of Isaac Summerfield II's involvement with the Axis and continued to resist the temptation to use his TARDIS for fear of it being what the Axis wanted, also making sure that Anson did not know how worried he was about the changes to the timeline that allowed the occupation. When Joseph told him of the Daleks' involvement through a coded message, Braxiatel dematerialised his TARDIS and observed the fight, later using it to take the resistance to the control centre and attacking Isaac upon finding that he was still under Dalek control and was part of a plan to steal his ship. He built a device similar to a battle computer which Isaac used to destroy the Axis, after which Braxiatel returned him to the 1980s. (AUDIO: Death and the Daleks)
The restoration
With the Collection liberated and the Axis defeated, Braxiatel made new alliances and arrangements with the nearby civilisations, who ensured that the Collection would be protected in the future. (AUDIO: Death and the Daleks) As Mr Crofton had died during the occupation, Braxiatel hired Veronica Bland as the new gardener and fell in love with her due to her powers. The two were soon engaged until, at the wedding, Braxiatel realised that he was being controlled and turned everyone against her, causing her to wither away. (AUDIO: Braxiatel in Love) He then persuaded Hass to take on the job.
By Christmas, the Collection was almost fully rebuilt. He threw a party with tacky decorations and, in his office, found that the Eighth Doctor had left him a pair of socks, signed "Thete". (PROSE: ...Be Forgot) In April, Braxiatel invited students to the Collection so that everybody would start to relax, giving them made-up traditions to rebel against. (PROSE: Misplaced Spring) He later held the First Annual Braxiatel Collection Archaeology Conference and wondered if the academic setting was too restrictive for Benny. (PROSE: Final Draft)
Learning from the Draconians that something was coming for the Collection, Braxiatel contacted his past self on Gallifrey and had him send him a Gallifreyan crystal. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Crystal of Cantus) He brought Ronan McGinley to the Collection to help Clarissa Jones move on from Bernard Moskof, (PROSE: A Summer Affair) after which he turned him into a Cyberman and took him to Cantus, the Gallifreyan crystal allowing Ronan to control and manipulate the Cybermen to defend the Collection. Braxiatel was aware, however, that the crystal would slowly kill him. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Crystal of Cantus)
Braxiatel refused to cancel Stamis's speech when Benny asked him to, saying that it would make him no better than the Axis, and instead told her to convince Stamis not to give it. (PROSE: Denial) He showed Benny Dr Kardom's body and presumed that he had been killed by the poisonous book that Benny acquired, although this was later found to be untrue. (PROSE: The Blame of the Nose) As part of a plan to acquire a set of statues, Braxiatel gave Benny time off to spend with Jason and sent Bev to Viveka instead, eventually resulting in the statues being removed to the Collection. (PROSE: Reparation) He informed Benny of a complaint that he received about her hacking a satellite. (PROSE: Buried Alive)
Marlow, an old friend of Braxiatel, left him a number of artefacts in the event of his death. He had Benny investigate after Jason was accused of killing Marlow's wife, Brenda, and it was eventually found that they had faked their deaths. During this time, Braxiatel was facing criticism due to the statue debacle. (PROSE: Nothing Up My Sleeve) He set up a conference on war and conflict which Benny argued against due to the Axis occupation having ended less than two years prior, unaware that Braxiatel intended to allow speaker Ovmakh to dig for Axis tech for him to acquire. (PROSE: Mentioning the War)
Braxiatel sent Benny to Jegg-Sau to search for Robert Eliot Whitman's "treasures". (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Relics of Jegg-Sau) He visited Earth when invited by old friend Matthew Barrister, who told him about the murders related to the Purpura Pawn and asked for a loan for his gambling debts. (PROSE: The Purpura Pawn) To cover up his involvement in the Purpura affair and the deaths of Kristoffa Tailor's parents, he had a waiter poison Krostoffa and Clare Marsh before putting the waiter into a coma with a migraine. (PROSE: On Trial)
Braxiatel removed the copy of The Masquerade of Death that Benny recovered as he suspected that it was dangerous and believed that someone had tried to kill her. (AUDIO: Professor Bernice Summerfield in the Masquerade of Death) He told Benny that it was impossible to contact Ronan when she asked him asked him to do so for Ms Jones's sake (PROSE: Parallel Lives (I)) and objected to her going after Ms Jones when she left. (PROSE: The Serpent's Tooth) He later sent Jason after Benny, telling him that he did not want Peter to see his mother kill someone, (PROSE: Parallel Lives (II)) and told Bev that she had done the right thing when she shot and killed Ms Jones to save Adrian. (PROSE: Parallel Lives (IV))
History machine and departure
Aware that Benny was destined to fall through a time portal and become instrumental in the creation of the Deindum, Braxiatel planned to turn them into less aggressive creatures by altering the genetic material that they would be based on. (AUDIO: Resurrecting the Past) To this end, he invited Doggles to the Collection with his history machine, which activated (PROSE: Inappropriate Laughter) and created multiple timelines. (PROSE: Siege Mentality, etc.) Braxiatel shifted through the realities trying to find a way to stop the fracture, trying to convince his alternative selves to detonate reality bombs to slow the phenomenon. (PROSE: Family Man)
One Braxiatel created a reality bomb which Benny kept him from detonating. (PROSE: Siege Mentality) Another learnt from Wolsey that either Braxiatel or Doggles had to die, leading him to attempt to kill Doggles and hypnotise Adrian into killing Bev, later killing Jason and Wolsey. Unbeknownst to this Braxiatel, Wolsey's plan was to get Benny to realise what he was really like. (PROSE: Dead Mice)
A third Braxiatel was more interested in his mirror than with Peter's illness (PROSE: Acts of Senseless Devotion) and another, in a world in which Benny died, fixated on a feud with the Martians. (PROSE: Night of the Living Martian) Other Braxiatels tried to use a world-destroying statue, (PROSE: Showing Initiative) identified Benny as Doggles' murderer (PROSE: A Murderous Desire) and met an older version of himself who tried to convince him to build a bomb. However, Benny shot and killed the elder, after which the younger hypnotised her into forgetting. (PROSE: One of My Turns) In another world, a Braxiatel built and installed a reality bomb into the Collection's power generators (PROSE: The Ice Garden)
In another world, Braxiatel met a human version of himself who had two children and told him to destroy his world. Irving eventually did so, after which Braxiatel realised at Benny and Doggles' wedding that the latter's death would resolve the situation as he had Axis technology inside him which drove him to create the machine. He cut off Doggles' head, severing the link between the history machine and Braxiatel's TARDIS which was close to ending the universe. (PROSE: Family Man) In the restored world, only Braxiatel could remember that, before the debacle, Hass was an Ice Warrior and not a Yesodi. (PROSE: After Life)
Aware that Ronan was dying, Braxiatel manipulated Jason into going to Cantus with him, not telling him that he planned for Jason to replace Ronan as Cyber-Leader. However, Benny stowed away on board their ship, something that Braxiatel dealt with by ensuring that she felt the need to return to Peter. Braxiatel made Jason the Cyber-Leader when Ronan died, his last words warning him that Pandora was still in his mind, but Benny saved him and they returned to the Collection together where Jason, his memories returned, threatened Braxiatel into leaving. He departed in his TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Crystal of Cantus)
Requiring some time on standby and being, according to legend, on his death bed, Braxiatel travelled back in time and paid an ascetic to transmute him into crystal, ensuring that he would be preserved. He remained within the crystal, which became known as the Stone of Barter, for more than three thousand years. (AUDIO: The Empire State)
Return
Braxiatel was freed by Saf in 2607, having been convinced by Benny, who was travelling with Maggie Matsumoto, to do so. (AUDIO: The Empire State) He placed himself inside a null-field casket during their journey to the Collection in order to protect himself and showed no empathy after Maggie became anchorite for the Gravity Rainbow. However, Maggie heard him in a dream asking her if there was any way for her to get out and telling her to be careful. (AUDIO: The Tub Full of Cats)
Back on the Collection, Braxiatel locked himself away in his study and directed the restoration of the security systems, claiming that he would be leaving once it was done. He was distracted, however, by the matter of the Judas Gift attached to Bev, giving the Draconians the opportunity to invade, and later deleted Bev's message warning Benny that somebody was using them. (AUDIO: The Judas Gift) He told Benny that he was negotiating Adrian's release, after which she accused him of having an angle on the war and disappeared.
Braxiatel encouraged the Draconians to believe that Benny was behind the acts of resistance against them and ensured that they were infected with the Harvey Virus, causing them to hallucinate and become obsessed with her. He secretly put an end to the war between them and the Mim by convincing Hass to wipe out the entire Mimsphere and framing the Draconians. After this, Kothar informed Braxiatel that the Collection would be allowed sovereignty but would be considered part of Draconian space and would receive the Empire's protection. (AUDIO: Freedom of Information)
When Jason confronted Braxiatel about messing around with the past and future, Braxiatel admitted that he removed Keith and Rebecca Kane-Summerfield from the timeline as they would have taken up too much of Benny's time and he needed her at his side and also confessed to a number of other alterations including the Draconian-Mim War. He told Peter that Jason was planning on killing his mother and everyone on the Collection, leading Peter to kill Jason. As Jason died, Braxiatel told him that he was never good enough for Benny. (AUDIO: The End of the World)
Braxiatel comforted Benny upon her return to the Collection and attempted to manipulate Bernice to bring her closer to him, having Doggles attempt to rape her so that he could save her. He regained dominance of the Collection through a puppet government and, after Benny rejected Braxiatel and fled with Peter, he decided not to send robots after her as he knew that she would always return. (AUDIO: The Wake)
Deindum and downfall
Braxiatel once asked Benny to paint him which he used to keep as part of his vault in the Vingus Bank. The bank staff were clones of him for security reasons. (AUDIO: Glory Days)
Braxiatel's reasons for setting up the Collection where he did were later revealed to be due to the location of a great temporal leak depositing enough power to fuel a hundred colonies, or perhaps even bring back his own people. He began to syphon the leak, moving it to the planet Maximediras which he had just purchased following the failure of its economy, thinking it could potentially become a new homeworld for his people. (AUDIO: Resurrecting the Past) Whilst plotting to restore his people he became aware of the Deindum, a species in the future who would learn the secret of time travel and could rival his own people. He attempted to prevent their creation using Frost but was ironically stopped by the involvement of Bernice Summerfield and Robyn, an android created by this race and sent back in time to ensure their creation. (AUDIO: Secret Origins)
His reasons for keeping such a close eye on Bernice Summerfield, and tampering with her personal history, were revealed when it appeared she was destined to fall through a portal in time and become instrumental in the creation of the Deindum. Unable to prevent their creation Braxiatel, with the help of Doggles, planned to turn them into less aggressive creatures by altering the genetic material they would be based on. However, due to the actions of Robyn and Hass, Bernice was prevented from falling through the portal at all, leaving the Deindum a far more aggressive and paranoid species than before. (AUDIO: Resurrecting the Past) The Deindum travelled back and began a full-scale invasion of the galaxy in order to protect their own history and ensure their creation. Keen at first to fight off these enemies of his own people, Braxiatel led a galaxy-wide resistance against the Deindum, although he eventually lost faith in his abilities and surrendered to his defeat. (PROSE: Present Danger)
Braxiatel was captured and tortured by the Deindum, before being rescued from the Deindum mothership by Bernice Summerfield. She finally confronted him with the death of Jason, and he explained that Jason was about to be used against him by the Deindum. He expressed no guilt for his actions, except that he had failed in his mission and brought about the Deindum's creation. When Bernice offered him an alternative solution he expressed interest, and finally (begrudgingly) apologised for Jason's death. He and Bernice began to engage in a personal time war against the Deindum, engineering a plan to prevent them from ever having existed. The plan worked, although just before its conclusion Braxiatel was shot by a Deindum soldier. (AUDIO: Escaping the Future)
Brax of the Collection
Another Braxiatel (AUDIO: Many Happy Returns) ran the Collection in the late 40th century, meeting Benny in 3985 when the Seventh Doctor sent her to learn about Manaxus. Braxiatel helped her in her work and provided her with a ship to get to Heletia. (PROSE: Theatre of War)
He later attended Bernice Summerfield's wedding to Jason Kane in Cheldon Bonniface on 24 April 2010 where he played cricket with the Seventh Doctor. (AUDIO: Many Happy Returns, PROSE: Happy Endings)
Brax of Legion
Another Braxiatel, uncertain of whether or not he was in his own universe, learnt of his other self and his many enemies, whom he hoped to avoid by leaving the area that his other self lived his life. (AUDIO: Paradise Frost) He travelled to Dexter Prime to find somewhere else to live, originally planning on purchasing a gallery or museum, and met Avril Fenman who removed Pandora from his head, transferring it into his other self eighteen years in the past. She used her powers to manipulate Braxiatel into buying property on Legion and taking Peter Summerfield there after he rescued him from Bastion. (AUDIO: The Curse of Fenman)
Braxiatel located Bernice in a stasis capsule on a planet called Atlantis, where he left her a message, claiming he was not the same man who she once knew and that he was on Legion with Peter. (AUDIO: Brand Management) Bernice travelled to Legion, and though she tried to attack him, Braxiatel claimed he had never met Benny before. By this point, Braxiatel owned a club in Legion city called the White Rabbit. (AUDIO: Paradise Frost, PROSE: The Slender-Fingered Cats of Bubastis)
He tried his best to make Benny comfortable. (AUDIO: Vesuvius Falling) He decided to buy a house for Benny outside Legion City for her to store her archaeological finds. He bought it from Galot, one of his other self's acquaintances. Benny then inquired into how he wasn't the Braxiatel she knew. He explained that there were other versions of him and they knew the bigger picture, and the more he knew about the other Braxiatel he didn't like him. He got Benny to check over the base. It was also at this point he bought the Irverfield to use on missions to other planets. (AUDIO: Everybody Loves Irving)
He celebrated Advent with Benny. On his way to Benny's place, he became very agitated when he saw Antonio Tulloch whom he knew was dead. He wanted to know what Avril Fenman's plan was. He told Benny that the only reason he employed Jack was that he had one of Fenman's crystals in him. He tricked Fenman when she manifested and blew up Hera, as he knew he had to protect Peter and Benny. (AUDIO: The Curse of Fenman)
Braxiatel was tending to the bar at the White Rabbit when Miss Hannigan appeared. He was surprised to have a customer so late in the night. Shortly afterwards, the Brimstone Kid arrived telling him, Benny and Toothless Bob that Cazador was after him. He went with the Kid to find the money in a diamond mine with Benny. In the mine, the Kid revealed that he was a bounty hunter who was sent to capture Braxiatel for the other Braxiatel's crimes. He escaped with the real Brimstone Kid and Benny in an escape pod. Benny then lost contact with him. She thought he had crashed into an asteroid. (AUDIO: The Brimstone Kid)
He was actually kidnapped by the Epoch. The Epoch took Braxiatel to a point beyond time, where his memory was altered to make him think that he was an actor, called Miles Richardson, portraying Braxiatel. Bernice awoke the dormant personalities in her companions and defeated the Epoch by burying it under paradoxes of its own creation. Using the Epoch's technology, Braxiatel then sought out a way to find Gallifrey. (AUDIO: In Living Memory)
On his true path
Saving Gallifrey
In the aftermath of Omega's escape back into the prime universe, Braxiatel rescued Romana from her dead Type 160. (AUDIO: Intervention Earth)
Braxiatel saved the earlier Romana from regenerating into her third incarnation on the Moros, claiming that a war had broken out after Omega's return and her future self sent him back to change Gallifrey's future. Braxiatel took her and Leela back to Gallifrey and guided Romana into shutting down the Adherents of Ohm and resigning the presidency. He helped investigate the death of Narvin and stop the Warpsmith plot to start a war.
After Romana succeeded in changing Gallifrey's destiny, Braxiatel was confronted by the Watchmaker, who told him that his life could no longer continue as the paradox that it was and that he would have to choose between his separate lives on Dellah, the Braxiatel Collection, Legion and Gallifrey. Braxiatel submitted to his fate and gave himself to the Watchmaker, who intended to find him his "true path". (AUDIO: Enemy Lines)
The Last Great Time War
The long standing tensions between the Time Lords and Dalek Empire finally broke out into the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Meet the Doctor) After the declaration of war, Braxiatel asked Coordinator Romana for her permission to go on a field mission with Ace to gain vital intelligence for the war. (AUDIO: Celestial Intervention)
He told Ace they were going to the Obscura, an old battlefield, where he claimed a weapon was stored in a station guarded by his old mentor Danna. They discovered Daleks had already started infiltrating the station, being immobilised by Danna and he was concerned when one of the wounded Daleks started to transmit. He showed the Dalek in the hold the picture of the Obscura and it screamed. In truth he was leaking information about the Obscura deliberately to bring the Daleks there as a trap, planning for Danna to fire a perfect shot to trigger the Dalek fleet‘s destruction. He’d been planning this trick for sometime, as he’d known that the Time War was going to happen from the scarred soldier who told him about the Obscura in his youth came from a battle in this war, not an ancient one. She revealed that she couldn’t make the shot due to her advanced age and with the Daleks approaching he killed her to stop her being a liability. Upon their arrival he tried to deceive the Daleks that Ace was the secret weapon, stalling long enough to open the station’s shutters on the Daleks and they saw the true power of the Obscura. With their eyes closed, he sent Ace back to their TARDIS while he returned to the control room to ensure the station’s destruction took the Dalek fleet with it. He was taunted by Danna‘s voice, though was unsure if that was his guilt or an effect of the Obscura. Ace overheard his confessions to Danna via the scanner and confronted him in the TARDIS, furiously denouncing him as a coward. In fury he showed Ace his mind and all the terrible things he’d done in his life. Following this, he wiped her mind of Gallifrey and the War and left her on 20th century Earth, saying that he would check on her from time to time. He then fled the War, sending a message to Gallifrey that invasion was imminent. (AUDIO: Soldier Obscura) Afterwards he meddled in Ace‘s timeline as far back as her travels with the Doctor, which resulted in Narvin being unable to track either of them down. (AUDIO: Assassins)
Braxiatel later returned to the war to rescue Narvin from the Project Revenant facility. He returned Narvin to Gallifrey with a message for Romana. In the message he reflected that the Time War was always going to happen and the Doctor was right to abandon the war like he had and that Romana should too. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures)
Fate
Eventually Braxiatel journeyed into the Beyond and spent many years stabilising a possible timeline where the Daleks did not exist and making a gateway to it so he could escape the Time War there. The gateway became known as the Parallax.
A younger version of Braxiatel learned of the Parallax, believing it to be a weapon capable of totally erasing the Daleks. Despite the alleged cost of every world the Daleks had ever invaded, he believed he could use it to end the Time War. Hearing that a second Time Lord was required activate the Parallax, (AUDIO: Beyond) he rescued Romana from the Daleks on Unity (AUDIO: Dissolution) and took her with him into the Beyond.
Braxiatel and Romana travelled through an alternate timeline within the Beyond, going deeper in search of the Parallax and being pursued by the Ravenous. Romana eventually forced him to reveal what he thought the Parallax did and was horrified by the civilisations it would erase along with the Daleks. They were rescued from the Ravenous by the older version of Braxiatel, who revealed the truth about the Parallax. The younger Braxiatel was infuriated by his older self’s cowardice and resolved to return to the Time War. As he tried to return to his TARDIS the Ravenous attacked, having been attracted by the paradox of the two Braxiatels meeting, and consumed him. The temporal energy within him overwhelmed and killed them. After Romana declined his offer to join him and used his TARDIS to return to the normal universe, the older Braxiatel passed through the Parallax to the timeline without Daleks. (AUDIO: Beyond)
After the Time War ended, the Ninth Doctor believed that his entire family had died, (TV: Father's Day, The Empty Child) and the Tenth Doctor would outright tell Martha Jones that he no longer had a brother. (TV: Smith and Jones) Even after learning that Gallifrey had not been destroyed, (TV: The Day of the Doctor) the Thirteenth Doctor told her soon to be companions that her entire family had died a long time prior. (TV: The Woman Who Fell to Earth)
Alternate timelines
In a timeline in which Benny and Jason remarried and had children, Benny found Braxiatel in the wine cellars of a monastery on Old Earth, long after he had employed anyone at the Collection. He told her that he never had a brother so that everyone would believe that the Doctor was dead. (PROSE: The Shape of the Hole)
In an alternate timeline accessible via the Axis, Braxiatel was killed by his brother, the Doctor, when he was supposed to erase him from history as the Lord Burner. After he was killed, the Doctor received the title of "Lord Burner." (AUDIO: Disassembled)
In another alternate timeline in the Axis, Gallifrey's war with the Great Vampires never ended. In order to combat the vampires, the True Lords genetically engineered savage warriors called "hounds" to kill the vampires. Braxiatel became a victim of the process. (AUDIO: Annihilation)
In another alternate timeline in the Axis, Braxiatel was a minor councillor of the Inner Council, living under a tyrannical President Romana II. Braxiatel was present at her assassination, after which he was interviewed by Commentator Theta Sigma. (AUDIO: Forever) After taking her place, the Romana of the proper timeline considered him "oily" compared to their Braxiatel. However, Narvin wondered how she could tell the difference between them. Lord Zakar referred to him as a "worm." (AUDIO: Arbitration) He tried to ally himself with the Daleks who invaded Gallifrey. They exterminated him after finding records that the Braxiatel from their universe had betrayed them. (AUDIO: Extermination)
Appearance
Shortly after leaving Gallifrey, Braxiatel had long brown hair which flopped over his forehead and half-moon spectacles. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)
Bev Tarrant described him as dark-haired, slim, and with immaculate dress sense. (AUDIO: Glory Days) On a trip to Ganesh, he wore a big black coat. (PROSE: Kill the Mouse!) Whilst the Fifth Axis occupied the Collection, Braxiatel wore a grey suit. (PROSE: Fear of Corners) Shortly after the occupation, he wore a pinstriped suit with a silk brown tie and gold cufflinks in the shape of a double helix. (PROSE: Denial)
On Legion he generally wore an expensive suit with an overcoat. (PROSE: Filthy Lucre, AUDIO: Everybody Loves Irving) He wore an open white shirt on occasions. (AUDIO: Big Dig)
At Benny's wedding, Braxiatel wore a summer suit, with leather boots, and his spectacles balanced on the end of his nose. (PROSE: Happy Endings)
Personality
In his youth, Braxiatel was overconfident and more sensible than his younger brother. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass, AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor) He had a great interest in the universe and strove to gather as much knowledge as he could from it. (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle) The Doctor referred to Braxiatel as "an occasional collaborator in adventures of the mind, the soul and the body". (PROSE: The Banquo Legacy) Braxiatel told the Oracle of the Lost that he missed his brother, but knew he was always out there, and that was what he believed real family should be. He considered Bernice Summerfield to be the closest thing to family he had found since leaving his home. (PROSE: Tears of the Oracle) During the Last Great Time War, Braxiatel was under the impression he would never see his brother again. (AUDIO: Beyond)
Suave, smart (AUDIO: The Wake) and politically savvy, (AUDIO: Lies, etc.) Braxiatel believed that the universe was a place of disorder and disarray. He believed that if someone didn't manipulate the chaos, the universe would get into all sorts of trouble. (PROSE: The Propaganda War) So long as he had a good enough reason, he was willing to stoop to any low (AUDIO: Disassembled) and was willing to break Gallifreyan laws despite being a Cardinal, (AUDIO: The Inquiry) only ever doing what he thought best. (AUDIO: The Mirror Effect) He was once described as a "self-obsessed narcissist with a God complex" (AUDIO: The Tub Full of Cats) and Jason Kane said that, should one cut him open there would be the word "bastard" running through him like a stick of rock. (AUDIO: Freedom of Information)
Braxiatel was charming (AUDIO: Reborn) but found it difficult to convey sympathy and, as a result, generally did not try. (PROSE: The Doomsday Manuscript) However, he was not self-centred nor entirely unsympathetic, staying with an alternate Romana that he had shared a flirtatious relationship as she regenerated. (AUDIO: Reborn) Romana II found it "unnerving" when Braxiatel was quiet. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice) He had no problems with swearing, referring to Cybermen as "metal bastards". (AUDIO: The Crystal of Cantus)
Braxiatel enjoyed drinking champagne, (PROSE: Dragons' Wrath) wine, port, coffee (PROSE: The Joy Device) and tea. (PROSE: Careless Talk) He read travelogues, including those written by Dent Harper. (PROSE: The Joy Device)
The Sixth Doctor believed that Braxiatel was condescending and only looked after himself, with Evelyn Smythe agreeing that she did not like the look of him and believed him to be untrustworthy. (AUDIO: The 100 Days of the Doctor)
The presence of Pandora in his mind caused Braxiatel to manipulate and kill others to serve his own ends. (AUDIO: The Curse of Fenman, Escaping the Future)
Behind the scenes
- Along with Leela, the Master, and Jack Harkness, he is one of only four characters to play a major role in two audio spin-off series: Bernice Summerfield and Gallifrey. Braxiatel and Leela have both also appeared in the main range of Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories as a result of their guest roles in the audio story Zagreus.
- Braxiatel's voice actor Miles Richardson used the screen name "irvingbraxiatel" on his personal blog.[1]
- Despite understandable assumptions, Braxiatel has never been stated or implied to be from the House of Lungbarrow. What is indicated is that his house was responsible for the invasion seen in Dead Romance: in Tears of the Oracle, Braxiatel mentioned "his people" retreating into a bottle universe, and The Eleven Day Empire recast that event as the actions of a single Great House, Braxiatel's birth House.
References
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
