The Children of Seth (audio story)

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The Children of Seth was the third story in the third series of The Lost Stories, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was adapted by Marc Platt, from the original script by Christopher Bailey, and featured Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, Sarah Sutton as Nyssa and Janet Fielding as Tegan Jovanka.

Publisher's summary

During one of Nyssa's experiments, the TARDIS' temporal scanner picks up a message: "Idra". Just one word, but enough to draw the Doctor to the Archipelago of Sirius.

There, the Autarch is about to announce a new crusade. A mighty war against Seth, Prince of the Dark...

But who is Seth? What is the secret of Queen Anahita, Mistress of the Poisons? And what terror awaits on Level 14?

Plot

Part one

Despite being forbidden from visiting her husband without his express permission, the disfigured Queen Anahita sneaks to the Autarch's rooms at night and has her servant, Mira, open his sonic lock. Lord Byzan finds them and accuses them of attempting an assassination, sending Anahita back to her rooms and having Mira reassigned to Level 14 with her mind wiped after she fails to divulge any information. The next day, on the Autarch's birthday, Byzan prepares a speech declaring war on the planets outside of the rim on the pretence that they are sheltering their enemy, Seth.

Nyssa has devised a program based on probability theory and transmits a question from the TARDIS which is answered by a message from the Archipelago of Sirius saying "Idra". The Doctor attempts to materialise the TARDIS at the message's origin, but the ship is held in a time-space probability lattice and is unable to decide which of the possible futures to travel into. A low-level intelligence drone breaks in and scans the console, designating the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan as hostile intruders and blowing up whilst attempting to calculate the TARDIS's infinite coordinates. The ship gets through the lattice and materialises in the Imperial City in the Sirian Empire.

The Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan are mistaken for off-world guests and listen to Byzan's speech. Shamur, who calls himself a wanderer between heaven and the world, arrives with weapons and a helmet from the Plains of Ragnarok in search of his granddaughter and says that he has come to speak with the Autarch, but Byzan orders him to leave. He hits Dario Varidi with his stick when he attempts to remove him by force and Nyssa draws attention to herself and the Doctor when she calls Dario an android. Realising that they are the ones who breached the defence net, Byzan gives them the choice of interrogation or a mind wipe.

Part two

Tegan sees the Doctor and Nyssa being arrested and is kept from getting involved by Anahita, who met the Doctor in one of his previous incarnations and is the one who sent the message to the TARDIS, "Idra" being her original name. She covers for Tegan by claiming that she is her new servant, gifted to her by the Autarch, and takes her to the Imperial Judiciary to rescue the Doctor and Nyssa, imprisoned with Shamur. Byzan visits the three prisoners disguised as a priest and listens to Shamur's story of the battle on the Plains of Ragnarok being a hallucinogenic-fuelled exercise in which the imperial soldiers killed one another. He then has Albis, his android private secretary, take Nyssa for interrogation.

to be completed

Part three

to be added

Part four

to be added

Cast

References

  • Tegan makes tea for herself and Nyssa.
  • Timor was Mira's father. He died with honours on a campaign.
  • Dario Varidi is Radulf's son.
  • Tegan describes herself as "a fully paid up Aussie republican" and "downright Bolshie."
  • The Doctor previously visited Sirius during one of his first four incarnations.
  • Per the Doctor's instructions, Shamur uses the fast return switch to return the TARDIS to Sirius.

Notes

  • The images of Honor Blackman and David Warner used on the CD cover do not accurately reflect the descriptions of their characters' appearances as given in the audio drama. Queen Anahita is said to have been noticeably disfigured by fire many years earlier whereas Autarch Siris makes several references to his beard.
  • This audio drama was recorded on 10 and 11 January 2011 at the Moat Studios.
  • When originally submitted to the production office in the 1980s, the script for this story had several working titles including Manpower and May Time.[1]
  • This story was originally released on CD and download.

Continuity

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Shannon Sullivan

External links

v • e
The Lost Stories
First Doctor
Second Doctor
Third Doctor
Fourth Doctor
Fifth Doctor
Sixth Doctor
Seventh Doctor
Sara Kingdom
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