Ancient History (audio story)
Ancient History was the third and final story in the audio anthology Buried Threats, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Matt Fitton and featured Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor and Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield.
Publisher's summary
Professor Bernice Summerfield is delving into the mystery of the Korravin, a mighty warrior horde, vanished overnight. But her expedition seems jinxed. And when a familiar blue box appears, Benny knows they’re in trouble.
As ancient history resurfaces, the Doctor wants to keep some things buried - but Benny’s an expert at digging up the past.
Plot
Benny is excavating artefacts from the Korravin Empire with the Doctor, who is keeping his identity a secret and claiming to be a visiting professor named Arthur van Dango, as well as a team including Dr Cantiple, Finnda and George, an android. She argues with Dr Cantiple about the supposed burial chamber that the team has located thanks to sonic seismology and believes that the civilisation was a theocratic dictatorship rather than a society of technological pioneers, something she seeks to prove by translating an inscription. In the night, Finnda wakes Benny up as the trench they have been digging has partially collapsed thanks to an instability which she suspects the Doctor might be responsible for.
George's simulation of the site reveals an inscription reading "eternal war, eternally" and an object which, despite being ancient, was not located there the previous day. Realising that it is the TARDIS, Benny deduces the Doctor's identity and confirms that he has been responsible for the technical malfunctions, most of the crew travelling to the wrong planet, the vanishing artefacts and the treacherous weather in the hopes that the team would leave. Although she is hurt that he tried to keep his identity a secret from her, she offers him help when he references the deaths of the Time Lords in a cataclysm which left the planet inaccessible for eons thanks to chronon storms and he explains that he has been back to the Korravin Empire.
Thanks to the particles surrounding the TARDIS, George is able to create images of the Korravin which inspires Dr Cantiple to pitch the idea of a time window to the team's benefactor, Mr Lomaz, who wants Korravin DNA for Lomaz Industries' military division. Meanwhile, the Doctor and Benny evade an avalanche, after which the Doctor tells Benny how the Korravin came to worship a Time Lord device which responded to the TARDIS when he went back to collect it, forcing him to leave his ship behind and escape using an old Time Ring. Dr Cantiple holds them at the point of an ion bonder when they return and, having identified the Doctor as a Time Lord thanks to his binary vascular system, has everybody scanned to determine who is and is not human. Finnda too has a double heartbeat, but only because she is pregnant.
The time window shows the High Korravin using the Time Lord device, a dimensional diffusion splicer, to suck up energy from the TARDIS and hijack George's systems to bring himself and two of his people to the present, followed by the first of several hordes to continue their conquest. The Doctor offers to find a way to return them home as the universe has moved on without them, but the High Korravin refuses and the Doctor tries to deactivate the splicer with his sonic screwdriver without success because of its psychic bond with the High Korravin. Forced to leave Dr Cantiple and George behind, the Doctor heads with Benny and Finnda to the shuttles to get them to safety whilst he recovers his TARDIS by blowing up the mountain.
The Doctor distracts the Korravin so that Benny and Finnda can get access to one, but they decide not to leave and Benny uses the shuttle to blow up the mountain, exposing the supposed burial chamber where the TARDIS was. It has since been confiscated, however. The trio are captured by the Korravin and taken to the High Korravin, who has murdered Dr Cantiple due to her being of no further use to him and threatens to kill Benny and Finnda unless the Doctor shows him inside the TARDIS. He agrees and, once inside, discreetly activates a speaker which he uses to obliquely direct Benny to find his sonic screwdriver in her pocket and to use it to shut down the splicer. To distract the Korravin whilst Benny restores the controlled George, Finnda claims to be a Time Lord.
George destroys himself and the splicer, causing the past two million years to catch up with the Korravin and kill them. Although the High Korravin is shielded inside the TARDIS, the Doctor opens the door and Benny enters to throw him the splicer, which he shuts down for good. Benny decides to leave the Korravin war machine to her friends at a special collection and confides in the Doctor that she was planning on quitting archaeology, but the Doctor tells her that she is his hero and that she should keep his sonic screwdriver. He again declines to discuss what has happened to him recently and advises her to carry on, after which they part ways; the Doctor intends on keeping away from archaeology and archaeologists for the time being.
Cast
- The Doctor - Christopher Eccleston
- Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
- Finnda Twisk - Eliza Shea
- George - Gary Jordan
- Cantiple / Korravin Second - Rosalyn Landor
- High Korravin / Lomaz - Nabil Elouahabi
Worldbuilding
- Benny uncovers an axe blade.
- George brews peppermint tea.
- George uses holograms and transmats.
- Benny does not like sonic seismology.
- Benny has a data pad.
- Lomaz owns Lomaz Industries.
- Benny loses her lucky socks.
- The Korravin Empire was 2 million years ago.
- Dr Cantiple has been promised a miniseries.
- The planet has been inaccessible for eons thanks to chronon storms.
- The Doctor is reminded of the Alps.
- The Doctor told Hannibal that the pachyderm roboforms they encountered were elephants.
- Dr Cantiple sarcastically remarks that she has not asked George to perform an appendectomy.
- Finnda is pregnant.
- Dr Cantiple sarcastically asks Finnda if she has a craving for gherkins.
- The dimensional diffusion splicer shorts out differentials.
- The Doctor likens the dimensional diffusion splicer to a music box.
- Dr Cantiple says that she will be infamous across the Nine Galaxies.
- The shuttles have meson drives.
- Benny invokes the Gods of Korravis, namely Ravan the Burning and Tinver the Wanderer.
- The Doctor knows of Benny's work following Peter's birth because he has read her books.
- The Doctor shows the High Korravin the helmic regulator.
- Benny believes that the Doctor is now capable of making a good cup of tea.
Notes
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to be added
Continuity
- The Doctor mentions how Benny carried on working after having her baby, whom she gave birth to in Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison [+]Loading...["Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison (novel)"].
- Finnda notes that Benny has written multiple books, as mentioned in Oh No It Isn't! [+]Loading...["Oh No It Isn't! (novel)"] and Seeing I [+]Loading...["Seeing I (novel)"], and imagines sitting down to actually write them must have been incredibly boring. In fact, Benny dealt with major writer's block sitting down to write her second book, unable even to decide on a title for a long while, in Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Infernal Nexus [+]Loading...["Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Infernal Nexus (novel)"].
- The Doctor compares the Korravin to the Daleks, who first appeared in The Daleks [+]Loading...["The Daleks (TV story)"], the Cybermen, who first appeared in The Tenth Planet [+]Loading...["The Tenth Planet (TV story)"], and the Vulpreen, who first appeared in The War Factory [+]Loading...["The War Factory (audio story)"].
- Lomaz wonders if the Doctor is a spy for Drake Interplanetary, which appeared in Faustian [+]Loading...["Faustian (audio story)"] and Vengeance [+]Loading...["Vengeance (audio story)"].
External links
- Official Ancient History page at bigfinish.com
