Time vessel (Attack of the Cybermen)
A time vessel was manned by a crew of three consisting of the Flight Leader, Lintus Stratton, the Time Navigator, Eregous Bates, and a flight engineer. (PROSE: Attack of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (novelisation)"], TV: Attack of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (TV story)"])
History
There were several possibilities for the vessel's origins. (GAME: Attack of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (game)"]) By one account, it constructed by the humanoid people of the planet Hatre Sedtry in Repton's Cluster. (PROSE: Attack of the Cybermen) Another account, observing that the Moroks were one of the few species with limited time travel capabilities at that time of the second series of Cyber Wars, suggested that the craft was a Morok Time Vessel which the Cybermen had hijacked from the decaying Morok Empire. (PROSE: The Universal Databank [+]Loading...["The Universal Databank (reference book)"])
The vessel might have been a commercial timeship from the 52nd century, similar to the SS Madame de Pompadour. It might have been owned by the Torchwood Archive, being what was grown from Jack Harkness's TARDIS coral. Stratton might have been the final descendant of Henry van Statten, with the time machine being built from the cumulative work of the Van Statten family. (GAME: Attack of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (game)"]) By another account, it was a Time Agency exploratory vessel used to observe the Last Great Time War. (GAME: The Sixth Doctor and the Time War [+]Loading...["The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)"])
Whilst on a flight test, the craft crash landed on Telos, resulting in the death of the flight engineer as well as Stratton and Bates' capture by the Cybermen. The Cybermen used the vessel to travel to 1986 to try to change history. They hid the vessel on the dark side of the Moon. When the vessel returned to Telos, Stratton and Bates died trying to get to it. (PROSE: Attack of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (novelisation)"], TV: Attack of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Attack of the Cybermen (TV story)"])
By one account, this vessel was eventually sent to Gallifrey's distant past during the Time War, and was the original inspiration for the first TARDISes. (GAME: The Sixth Doctor and the Time War [+]Loading...["The Sixth Doctor and the Time War (game)"])
