Vienna Salvatori
Vienna Salvatori was a human bounty hunter who became a law enforcement officer before returning to bounty hunting, albeit only assassinating those whose deaths she believed would be best for the universe.
Biography
Childhood
Vienna was the daughter of Carlo and Delta Tuvala of Forest Gala I, who sold her to Death Incorporated when she was a child. She was placed into a simulation with other unwanted children and orphans and trained to become an assassin, having her memory of her parents wiped (AUDIO: Deathworld [+]Loading...["Deathworld (Vienna audio story)"]) and being given an education which involved "certain mental training". (AUDIO: Dead Drop [+]Loading...["Dead Drop (audio story)"]) She and everybody else at the school referred to the Kreyfin as "Lobster Mobsters". (AUDIO: Bad Faith [+]Loading...["Bad Faith (audio story)"])
Early contracts
Once Vienna was fully-trained, she was let out into the universe with a false memory of her mother being in a hospice on Miracle 3. (AUDIO: Deathworld [+]Loading...["Deathworld (Vienna audio story)"]) She sent all of her fees to the hospice, (AUDIO: The Memory Box [+]Loading...["The Memory Box (audio story)"]) unaware that the money was going into Death Incorporated's accounts. (AUDIO: Deathworld [+]Loading...["Deathworld (Vienna audio story)"]) She had a policy of killing (AUDIO: The Shadow Heart [+]Loading...["The Shadow Heart (audio story)"]) or altering the memories of anybody who learnt her name (AUDIO: The Memory Box [+]Loading...["The Memory Box (audio story)"]) so as to protect her anonymity, which she found to be her greatest asset in her career, and asked her employers to refer to her simply as "the contractor". (AUDIO: The Lady from Callisto Rhys [+]Loading...["The Lady from Callisto Rhys (audio story)"])
Several people tried to kill Vienna during her career. (AUDIO: The Memory Box [+]Loading...["The Memory Box (audio story)"]) Because of how busy she was, she never had the time to learn how to be a good cook. (AUDIO: Deathworld [+]Loading...["Deathworld (Vienna audio story)"])
Vienna was hired by the Wrath to capture the Doctor and Kylo Sorsha to resolve the contradictions in the Imperial Engine's morality. Knowing that Kylo was well-protected, she got herself hired by him to capture the Doctor, keeping her true paymasters a secret, and got his coordinates after briefly capturing the Doctor on Temperance VII. She lowered the defences of Kylo's castle on Thagros to allow the Wrath entry and was later threatened by Kylo to force the Doctor to connect him to the Imperial Engine. Once Kylo and the Wrath were defeated, the Doctor handed her over to Captain Webster of HMS Trafalgar and she swore revenge. (AUDIO: The Shadow Heart [+]Loading...["The Shadow Heart (audio story)"])
Anonymously sent an assignment crystal to assassinate Berkley Silver, Vienna was suspicious and agreed to help Arned McGinnis investigate Silver in a scheme involving several memory boxes in return for records of her crimes being wiped. She accepted Silver's offer of double her fee in return for killing whomever hired her and travelled to Research Base Algor with Norvelle Spraggott to do so, only to find that it was a trap. After travelling to Volcana to track down Flaming Sword, she learnt that Norvelle had a copy of Silver's mind in his and that Silver had been the one to hire her as his previous body had become unsuitable. She restored Norvelle and removed McGinnis's and Roxanna Ceverley memories afterwards. (AUDIO: The Memory Box [+]Loading...["The Memory Box (audio story)"])
As Vienna became more moral, Death Incorporated began to see her as more of an embarrassment and decided that they would have to have her assassinated. (AUDIO: Deathworld [+]Loading...["Deathworld (Vienna audio story)"])
Hunting Crevo Finn
Vienna was tasked with assassinating Jamela K'lynn and used a memory box to get access to the Custodian as Commander Arcadia Corinth, hiding a psychic bomb in her mind which killed K'lynn when she probed her mind with her telepathic powers. Because the ship lost contact with the Hyperspatial Data Network, Vienna was unable to summon her own ship to escape in when the Chtzin attacked and worked with Lt Paley to get the engines working before using K'lynn's array to find the suppressed warp codes inside the mind of Salaron, her employer. She saw Crevo Finn inside of Salaron's mind and, upon being rescued from an overheating escape capsule by her ship, she put off accepting any new assignments in favour of finding Crevo, (AUDIO: Dead Drop [+]Loading...["Dead Drop (audio story)"]) although she could not remember how she knew him. (AUDIO: Deathworld [+]Loading...["Deathworld (Vienna audio story)"])
Bax Spendlove hired Vienna to kill the Kreyfin on Karnos Delta as part of a trap to inject her with faith in the New Church of Wonderment and use her to assassinate Percival Kendrick, his first step in destroying the Old Church. However, she knew that she was being manipulated and played along whilst discreetly saving Kendra Spendlove from a thermal explosive he had placed inside her and learning that Kendra had been injecting him with faith in the Old Church, creating a separate personality based on Percival. After this personality killed Spendlove, Vienna learnt from the real Percival, for whom she synthesised faith in the Cult of St Viola Raven to restore him following his faith being stolen, that he had worked with Crevo Finn in the kitchens of the Magisterial Palace on Kazbar and decided to leave Kendra alive despite her usual rule of killing whoever knew her real name. (AUDIO: Bad Faith [+]Loading...["Bad Faith (audio story)"])
Upon leaving Kendra and Percival on Miradox, Vienna's ship gave her a memory of Crevo killing her father and injuring her mother as part of Death Incorporated's plan to get her to kill him before being killed herself by Canton Malrick. She was able to perform a partial memory scan on Crevo before Malrick killed him and then a posthumous one on Malrick after shooting him, learning that Crevo could not have attacked her parents and that Malrick had an almost identical memory of her attacking his parents implanted in his mind on Mercator. Travelling there, she entered Death Incorporated's simulation using Malrick's avatar whilst her ship's computer used hers to remind her of her aims and she learnt the truth of her origins from Felman Shazarel before destroying the company. Although she considered looking for Carlo and Delta Tuvala, she did not want them to know that she was a murderer and changed her mind. (AUDIO: Deathworld [+]Loading...["Deathworld (Vienna audio story)"])
Retrieving Vad's book
Vienna travelled to Bradburyville on Mars after receiving an assignment crystal from Cage Zorn and agreed to hunt down Lara Memphis to retrieve A History of Earth. She investigated her whereabouts and character, learning that she was a volunteer for Famine Fund and being told by Magenta Dotrice that she would never steal for her own benefit or for others', and slipped Zorn a micro-shocker in his champagne in case he double-crossed her. Upon visiting Bradburyville Spaceport, she deduced that Lara was escaping in a cargo hold and located her, killing Zorn with the micro-shocker when he tried to kill the two of them so that the Gomagog could destroy the book.
Vienna met Bernice Summerfield when Benny fell (AUDIO: The Lady from Callisto Rhys [+]Loading...["The Lady from Callisto Rhys (audio story)"]) through a wormhole from Sisyphus IX, escaping Captain Quinn's usage of the Japheth weapon to wipe out the Gomagog. After Benny told her the story of how she arrived on Mars and learnt that she had Kronos Vad's book, she told Vienna that it was too important to be sold at auction and they took it book to the Archive where Romulus Chang decided that it would be kept in the Department of Eschatology. (AUDIO: The Phantom Wreck [+]Loading...["The Phantom Wreck (audio story)"])
Working with Jexie
Info from Underworld [+]Loading...["Underworld (audio story)"], The Vienna Experience [+]Loading...["The Vienna Experience (audio story)"], Self Improvement [+]Loading...["Self Improvement (audio story)"], Big Society [+]Loading...["Big Society (audio story)"], Impossibly Glamorous [+]Loading...["Impossibly Glamorous (audio story)"] and Retribution [+]Loading...["Retribution (audio story)"] needs to be added
Now working for Crime Corps under the chief Doran Curtis, she was sent on a mission with Lieutenant Jexie Reagan to investigate the mutilation of a person by a Psycho Morph. Vienna formulated a plan to lure herself, Doran Curtis and the Psycho Morph into a Personality Hotel, where their personalities would be "reset", thus giving them enough time to find the Psycho Morph before it could continue killing.
Vienna soon realised that the Psycho Morph had killed Curtis long before they entered the hotel and managed to use the personality back-ups stored by the hotel's computer to overload the Psycho Morph's brain and confuse it to death. Vienna managed to reset the entire hotel, leaving the computer in charge and the guests safely sent home. She decided to continue her career as "Vienna Salvatori: Law Enforcement Officer". (AUDIO: Tabula Rasa [+]Loading...["Tabula Rasa (audio story)"])
Hunting the Master
Vienna was promised enough money for her and Jexie to retire on if she went back in time to 2223 and assassinated the Master, an offer which she accepted despite not knowing the identity of the individual who hired her partly because she knew of the Master's villainy in her own time. Unbeknownst to her, she had been hired by Magnus Drake on the orders of the Dalek Time Controller so that the Master could not pose a threat to the Daleks' invasion of Earth. (AUDIO: Vengeance [+]Loading...["Vengeance (audio story)"])
Travelling through a warp tunnel and diving to London City with an anti-grav chute, Vienna located her assistant on the mission, Artie, and obtained a bazooka from a weapons cache which she attempted to use to kill the Master in his penthouse in Ludgate Citadel. She damaged his flier when he and Lila Kreeg attempted to escape and followed them into Notting Hill, having Artie detonate a limpet mine in the court of King Muggy after he took the Master and Lila prisoner and then following them into the London Underground. She pushed the Master in front of a train Lila summoned to rescue them and left with Artie's cranial unit as he had been badly damaged by the Trogs. (AUDIO: Prey [+]Loading...["Prey (audio story)"])
As the Daleks invaded London City, Vienna managed to get the location of her contractor from Artie and met Drake in his bunker, learning from him that the Master was still alive and being directed to a secret passageway leading to the Vauxhall Building. There, she offered to tell the Master who contracted her in return for help leaving the planet, but he had Lila lock her in a storeroom where she was contacted by the Dalek Time Controller, her true employer. She accepted Lila's offer of help in capturing the Master in return for 15% of the bounty and they fought the Daleks alongside him before using Project Yellow Brick to send him and the Dalek saucer into the Time Vortex. Before Vienna returned to her time, Lila gave her pieces of Daleks which she intended to sell as antiques. (AUDIO: Vengeance [+]Loading...["Vengeance (audio story)"])
Aboard the Kairos
Vienna was hired by Thaddeus Drinkall of the Insah Sect to find Griz Scarden aboard VSS Kairos and retrieve the Heart of Tiamat, but she was unable to locate him after fighting her way onto the ship and began her mission with the unwanted assistance of Urmah. Eventually, she found Thaddeus's corpse and learnt that Urmah had been working for the Master, who manifested on the ship after it hit a pocket of dark time and got Thaddeus to hire Vienna to acquire the Heart. The Master became corporeal by draining Urmah's life force and Vienna chased after him with Passion, who wanted revenge for Scarden's death. (AUDIO: Nemesis Express [+]Loading...["Nemesis Express (audio story)"])
Authorised to enter the Ammonite segment of the ship by the Master after handing over their weapons, Vienna and Passion mingled with the wealthy guests partying before their hunt for Chronovore, something which Vienna found repugnant. They attempted to expose the Master after he released a Chronovore to kill Dr Miroy and attract the mother of the Chronovore for him to capture and exploit, but Natalia Zicaria and Mr Chule only believed them after the Master murdered Blixen with a time cannon containing a Chronovore. Vienna and Passion stopped the Master's plan to capture the mother, although Natalia and Mr Chule died on the mission, and they moved on through the ship thanks to the evacuation procedure. (AUDIO: Capture the Chronovore! [+]Loading...["Capture the Chronovore! (audio story)"])
Vienna reached the front of the ship with Passion and was detained by the Master, who intended to steal her body after exploiting Passion's Triangulum resistance to radiation to set the ship on a collision course with Earth. Stealing Kryle's keys, Vienna escaped and forced the Master at gunpoint to release Passion, after which Passion revealed that she had set the ship to return to the pocket of dark time to get rid of the Master. Vienna and Passion decoupled the engine room from the rest of the ship and escaped in a maintenance pod, leaving the Master to face oblivion once more. As they prepared to leave the Time Vortex, Passion agreed to join Vienna as her partner. (AUDIO: Passion [+]Loading...["Passion (audio story)"])
Operation Basilisk
Having left Passion to meet a potential employer, Vienna was captured by Clark Phillips and Mike Chaoxiang (AUDIO: Axos Rising [+]Loading...["Axos Rising (audio story)"]) and fit with a Voltaic smart bracelet. Phillips used the threat of the bracelet to force her into using her emotional connection to the Master to reconstitute him from the Vortex and act as his handler during Rubidium's Operation Basilisk. Vienna and the Master, who was also fit with a bracelet, worked together in an attempt to discover what the team were hoping to find beneath the ziggurat and, foreseeing that the Master would betray her, she hacked the smart bracelets so that the Master would die if she did. They travelled to the planet where the Master took over the team and had Vienna restrained, but she revealed what she had done with the bracelets to keep herself alive. (AUDIO: Basilisk [+]Loading...["Basilisk (audio story)"])
Vienna soon deduced that the traps beneath the ziggurat were designed to keep something inside and encountered Axos, trapped within a barrier which drained time and which made her worry about how long Passion would be without her. She attacked Axos after it trapped her and then fought an Axon which had taken on her form, but the Axon overpowered her until Passion arrived and shot her and the Master. Because of Vienna's injuries, she was unable to cross a chasm with Passion and the rope snapped, (AUDIO: Axos Rising [+]Loading...["Axos Rising (audio story)"]) after which Passion activated a parachute to save them.
Vienna was surprised to learn that she had been gone for three years from Passion's perspective and they told one another that they loved each other before making for higher ground to contact the Cerberus, only for Vienna's bracelet to prevent her from leaving without the Master. They saved the Eighth Doctor, who removed Vienna's bracelet with his sonic screwdriver, and escaped to the site of the TARDIS with the Master after the planet started to fall apart due to Axos's escape. Although Vienna considered leaving the Master to die, she unsuccessfully tried to save him from falling and then asked the Doctor to take her and Passion somewhere relaxing. (AUDIO: Hellbound [+]Loading...["Hellbound (audio story)"])
The Time War
Vienna's timeline was fragmented during the Time War and several versions of her existed, some of whom retained their glamour. One, however, ended up running Vienna's and had a bald head and an eyepatch. This version was paid by the Fugitive Doctor to help her trap the War Doctor.
When the War Doctor visited Vienna's as planned, Vienna tricked him and locked him up to await collection by the Fugitive Doctor. However, he escaped using a Time Ring and the Fugitive Doctor left Vienna with a ram that the War Doctor had materialised aboard her TARDIS. By the time the War Doctor returned to visit her, Vienna had named the ram Jexie. (AUDIO: Coda - The Final Act [+]Loading...["Coda - The Final Act (audio story)"])
Personality
According to Jamela K'lynn, Vienna had "tragedy burned into [her] soul". (AUDIO: Dead Drop [+]Loading...["Dead Drop (audio story)"]) She hated sushi (AUDIO: Bad Faith [+]Loading...["Bad Faith (audio story)"]) and was not much of a cook. (AUDIO: Deathworld [+]Loading...["Deathworld (Vienna audio story)"])
Appearance
to be added
Behind the scenes
Ken Bentley originally intended to have Vienna played with Received Pronunciation to contrast with Talbar and Horval's accents. However, he was unable to think of an actress who was suitable and David Richardson instead suggested Chase Masterson.[1]
Footnotes
- ↑ BFX: The Shadow Heart [+]Loading...["The Shadow Heart (audio story)"]
