The Van Statten Code
The Van Statten Code was a narrative prose puzzle-game in the Doctor Who Annual 2006. It featured an original illustration by Ben Morris while the writing of the Annual's puzzles was collectively attributed to Justin Richards and Gareth Roberts.
Though heavily tying back into the continuity of the series (with Henry van Statten's alien collection colliding with the plot of Aliens of London and the wider lore of UNIT), this game is not considered a valid source on this Wiki, as it essentially casts the reader/player as a staffmember at UNIT, thereby arguably breaking the fourth wall.
Summary
Named for Henry van Statten, the so-called Van Statten Code was broken using the Slitheen Tablet, an artefact from the Slitheen family's attempt to destroy the Earth and commercialise the result as spacecraft fuel. Now, UNIT receives a message in the same code which must be translated using the Tablet. This yields the eerie translation "Beware the Bad Wolf"…
Characters
References
- UNIT Headquarters in Geneva received a message from the Slitheen.
- Henry van Statten is remembered as "a billionaire philanthropist" following his "mysterious disappearance" in 2012.
- The Slitheen Tablet suggests that the Slitheen family intended to make "spacedrive fission material" out of the remains of the Earth once they had blown it up.
Notes
- This story mentions the concept of spacedrive, a word earlier mentioned in TARDIS Teaser, another game in the 2006 Doctor Who Annual.
