Ada Lovelace
Ada Lovelace, born Augusta Ada Byron, (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers [+]Loading...["The Enchantress of Numbers (audio story)"]) sometimes called Ada Gordon, (TV: Spyfall [+]Loading...["Spyfall (TV story)"]) and later known as Countess of Lovelace, or Lady King after her husband, (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers [+]Loading...["The Enchantress of Numbers (audio story)"]) was Lord Byron's daughter and the first computer programmer. She was secretly a lifelong agent of the Star Chamber, a secret organisation founded to combat vampires, and which had, by her time, also developed an enmity with Faction Paradox. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"])
Ada had encounters with both the Fourth Doctor (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers [+]Loading...["The Enchantress of Numbers (audio story)"]) and, at an earlier point in her personal timeline, the Thirteenth Doctor. She became a temporary companion to the latter as the two battled the Spy Master and the Kasaavin, until the Doctor decided to forcibly wipe Ada's memory of their encounter to preserve history. TV: Spyfall [+]Loading...["Spyfall (TV story)"])
Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]
Childhood[[edit] | [edit source]]
Ada Byron was born in 1815 to Lord George Gordon Byron and his wife Annabella. However, after Lord Byron's depraved behaviour disturbed his wife, she took Ada and fled from his company (PROSE: The Book of the War) sometime before he left for Switzerland. (AUDIO: The Witch from the Well [+]Loading...["The Witch from the Well (audio story)"])
Ada was mentioned in her father's work, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. When the Thirteenth Doctor visited Villa Diodati in 1816, Lord Byron believed that she was after the third canto of the title. The Doctor debunked this, but complimented Byron on the work's mention of his daughter Ada, prompting him to ask how she knew of his daughter. The Doctor responded that Ada had a "gorgeous brain". (TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati [+]Loading...["The Haunting of Villa Diodati (TV story)"])
Through Annabella, the Star Chamber recruited Ada at a young age, and she was raised to be a mathematics prodigy. She was kept removed from poetry so she would not follow in her father's footsteps. (PROSE: "Ada Byron" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"Ada Byron","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) According to Colonel Wildman, Ada's mother brought her up to believe that Byron had been mad. It was kept secret that Ada was Byron's daughter. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers [+]Loading...["The Enchantress of Numbers (audio story)"])
Starting when Ada was 13 years old, she began to experience bouts of paralysis during which she was transported to a strange realm that she believed was her mind. There, she was visited by glowing apparitions which she called her guardians. No doctor was able to determine the cause of these events; in reality, they were caused by the Kasaavin, who were abducting Ada into their dimension to be studied. (TV: Spyfall (part 2) [+]Loading...{"part":"2","1":"Spyfall (TV story)"})
As her talent for mathematics developed, the Star Chamber came to hope that Ada would manage to decode Bach's Musical Offering, which they knew to hold meta-temporal coordinates key to an attack on the Eleven-Day Empire. However, even she struggled to interpret its encrypted data. As time passed developed, she came to be haunted by visions of mysterious apparition who seemed to be guarding her, appearing and disappearing: a middle-aged man with greying hair and a cane. It would later become apparent that this was Lord Byron, who had faked his death and joined Faction Paradox, watching over his daughter from beyond his official "death". She wrote of him in her journal, saying: "an angel or a devil watches over me, I know not which". (PROSE: "Ada Byron" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"Ada Byron","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Working with Charles Babbage[[edit] | [edit source]]
In 1829, after the Star Chamber bribed Charles Babbage's assistant to resign and bring them some of his former employer's notes on the difference engine, the Chamber learned of Babbage's designs for a new, even more ambitious device: the analytical engine. (PROSE: "The Analytical Engine" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"The Analytical Engine","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) Ada was given access to these notes and realised the analytical engine's potential to crack the Musical Offering, (PROSE: "Ada Byron" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"Ada Byron","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) prompting the Chamber to assign the then nineteen-year-old woman to Babbage as his new assistant. (PROSE: "The Analytical Engine" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"The Analytical Engine","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) As the two worked on the analytical engine, she wrote the world's first computer program. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers, PROSE: City of Death [+]Loading...{"name":"CoD Lovelace","chaptname":"All Roads Lead to Paris","page":"21-22","chaptnum":"1","1":"City of Death (novelisation)"})
In 1834, Ada, helping Babbage with a science exhibition at the Royal Gallery of Practical Science, experienced a bout of paralysis. In the Kasaavin realm, she encountered the Thirteenth Doctor, being startled to meet someone else there given that she had previously rationalised the alien dimension as a private manifestation of her unconscious. Shortly after they returned together, the Spy Master arrived and began murdering guests with his Tissue Compression Eliminator; during his confrontation with the Doctor, Ada used the technology on display to shoot at him and hit him with several grenades. Babbage was startled by her proficiency with, and willingness to use, such weapons.
Afterwards, the three went back to Charles Babbage's London home. There, the Doctor realised Babbage and Ada's identities upon seeing the difference engine prototype, her first inkling that the Kasaavin were researching the history of computing and data storage through Earth's history. She deduced that the Silver Lady, a device left in Babbage's possession and which projected "apparitions" of the Kasaavin, was a creation of the Master to help stabilise the Kasaavin, and decided to trigger it in an effort to return to the 21st century via the Kasaavin realm. At the last moment, Ada grabbed the Doctor's hand, allowing her to come along.
Rather than leading to the Kasaavin dimension, the portal led them to 1943 Paris, where they ran into Noor Inayat Khan, a World War II spy and another figure being investigated by the Kasaavin as part of their survey. After Noor helped them survive an encounter with a platoon of Nazi soldiers infiltrated by the Master, the Doctor got the Master captured by the Nazis and highjacked the Spy Master's TARDIS, with which she arrived back in 2020 just long enough to confront the present-day Master and the Kasaavin. There, the Doctor was reunited with Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan, with Graham briefly being peeved that the Doctor seemed to have "replaced" them with Ada and Noor for new companions. However, the Doctor soon dispelled any notion of taking the two on long-term, retunring them to their home periods. Amazed by the technological wonders she had witnessed, Ada begged the Doctor to let her continue travelling in the TARDIS, but despite Ada's desperate pleas for mercy, the Doctor forcibly wiped her memory of all she had seen. (TV: Spyfall (part 2) [+]Loading...{"part":"2","1":"Spyfall (TV story)"})
The Clockwork Ouroboros[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Main article: Clockwork Ouroboros affair
In late 1834, Babbage finally abandoned the difference engine project, and instead tried and failed to secure government funding for the analytical engine. This was the impetus for the Star Chamber instructing Ada to officially inform Babbage of her true allegiance, and to offer him funding if he would build an analytical engine for their own purposes. (PROSE: "The Analytical Engine" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"The Analytical Engine","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) The work was swift, with Ada nicknaming the resulting machine the Clockwork Ouroboros, both in reference to the Grand Families' sigil and because of its nature as a self-programming machine. The machine was completed in September, and tested within Charles Babbage's London home. (PROSE: "The Clockwork Ouroboros" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"The Clockwork Ouroboros","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
On the evening of 14 October, the night before the planned activation of the Ouroboros, the mysterious stalker approached her as she was leaving Babbage's home, and finally identified himself as her allegedly-dead father, Lord Byron. (PROSE: "The Clockwork Ouroboros" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"The Clockwork Ouroboros","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) While the topics discussed by Ada and her father in their meeting were unknown, The Book of the War concluded that she must have told him about the Clockwork Ouroboros, in an act of rebellion against her upbringing and of desire to please her absent father. Byron did not tell his daughter about his involvement with Faction Paradox, but he promised to stay in touch with her, a promise he would go on to keep, under a variety of pseudonyms, right until Ada's death. (PROSE: "The Clockwork Ouroboros" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"The Clockwork Ouroboros","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
The following morning, the analytical engine was activated and the Star Chamber's invasion of the Eleven-Day Empire began. The subsequent "Clockwork Ouroboros affair" ended with Ada fleeing the scene as her father, now revealed as a Faction agent, destroyed the machine with his shadow-weapon. (PROSE: "The Eleven-Day Empire: The 1834 Attack" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"The Eleven-Day Empire: The 1834 Attack","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
In 1835, Ada went on to write a letter to Mary Somerville which gave an account of her meeting with her mysterious stalker on 14 October, although she did not name him as her father or discuss the exact contents of their conversation. (PROSE: "Ada Byron" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"Ada Byron","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})
Enchantress of Numbers[[edit] | [edit source]]
As one of England's foremost mathematicians and logicians, Lovelace was given the title of "Enchantress of Numbers". She considered herself to be an analyst and a metaphysician. Lovelace also invented the discipline of poetical science. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers [+]Loading...["The Enchantress of Numbers (audio story)"])
She maintained a close relationship with Charles Babbage and his circle, in the process informing her father about their efforts to recreate the clockwork engine that had breached the Eleven-Day Empire. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Lovelace designed an alternate computer while corresponding with an Italian polymath, the plans for which were found by Harrison Mandel. (PROSE: City of Death [+]Loading...{"name":"CoD Lovelace","chaptname":"All Roads Lead to Paris","page":"21-22","chaptnum":"1","1":"City of Death (novelisation)"})
Ada married William King, Lord of Lovelace, and became known as Ada Lovelace. As her physical and mental health began to decline, she was frequently overcome with unexplained exhaustion. She had a disease which ravaged her body. Ada turned to activities which brought her pleasure, such as gambling, to ease the misery she felt would come with simply staying idle.
By her own account, Lovelace developed a mathematical model for placing calculated bets, in large sums, at horse races. She set up a gambling syndicate in an attempt to prove that her hypothesis held true and had practical applications for betting with real values. By her own admission her model failed her, putting her into thousands of pounds in gambling debt; to curb her losses, her husband, Lord King, sent her to Newstead Abbey. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers [+]Loading...["The Enchantress of Numbers (audio story)"])
Meeting the Fourth Doctor[[edit] | [edit source]]
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By 1852, Lovelace considered her life with mathematics to be behind her. At Newstead Abbey, she claimed to prefer her new, quiet life, in which she entertained herself by playing cards with Colonel Wildman. In reality, she escaped the estate on nights, regularly visiting the nearby Papplewick Arms to engage in low-stakes gambling.
Lovelace repeatedly refused Edvard Scheutz's efforts to gain her assistance with his calculation engine.
Prior to first meeting her, the Fourth Doctor had read all of Lovelace's notes on Babbage's analytical engine. On the Doctor's arrival, Colonel Wildman assumed that he was a visiting physician, answering his call, as the Countess of Lovelace was unwell. Lovelace was flattered by the Doctor's account of her to his companion Ann Kelso, though at first she denied any need for medical assistance.
That night, she escaped Newstead Abbey to visit the Papplewick Arms, as usual. She was followed by the Doctor, who had suspected she was hiding the true nature of her night-time activities. The Doctor joined in and partnered with her to compete against Harry, Ted, George, and Charlie in a game of 5-card cribbage. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers [+]Loading...["The Enchantress of Numbers (audio story)"])
Death[[edit] | [edit source]]
Ada ultimately died of cancer in 1852 (PROSE: "Ada Byron" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedep":"Ada Byron","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) after "many years of ill health". (PROSE: History's Finest [+]Loading...["History's Finest (short story)"])
Legacy[[edit] | [edit source]]
According to the Fourth Doctor, because Babbage's analytical engine ultimately "came to nothing", Lovelace's accomplishments went unacknowledged for almost a century. She would later be regarded as the world's first computer programmer, though more as a "footnote" in computer science history than as the pioneer she could have been. (AUDIO: The Enchantress of Numbers [+]Loading...["The Enchantress of Numbers (audio story)"]) The Thirteenth Doctor regarded her as a visionary because she was the "first to see the potential" in computer technology. (AUDIO: Spyfall (part 2) [+]Loading...{"part":"2","1":"Spyfall (TV story)"})
Her plans for the computer were later found by Harrison Mandel, who built it. It worked very well. The Americans and the Russians both attempted to buy copies of it, but Mandel did not agree. He eventually sold it to Scaroth, last of the Jagaroth, in return for a replica of the Mona Lisa. (PROSE: City of Death [+]Loading...{"chaptname":"All Roads Lead to Paris","page":"21-23","chaptnum":"1","1":"City of Death (novelisation)"})
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
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