Escaping the Future (audio story)
Escaping the Future was the fiftieth Bernice Summerfield audio story released by Big Finish Productions. It was the second story of the eleventh season.
Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
The galaxy has been torn apart by merciless invaders from the future. A coalition of worlds set up by Braxiatel has been comprehensively defeated by the superior technology of the Deindum. Only a few scattered pockets of resistance are still active.
Bev is running the Braxiatel Collection as a refugee camp, living in daily fear of attack. Adrian and Doggles hide in a bunker on the Moon, trying to launch covert attacks on the enemy with limited resources. And Hass is stranded on the occupied planet Maximediras.
Bernice and Peter are free for the moment, travelling around time in an attempt to learn more about the Deindum. Where did they come from? What do they want? And can Bernice find a way to strike back at them?
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
Having travelled to Deindus in the future in an attempt to find out how the Deindum would and could be defeated, Benny and Peter explore the planet before returning to the Braxiatel Collection in their own time where around 20,000 people are taking refuge from the Deindum. Bev suggests surrender due to dwindling supplies and, on Maximediras, the captive Braxiatel calls for the same. Hass and Lianna have Joseph returned to them and are given a brief audience with Braxiatel, observed by the Deindum. Braxiatel tells them to take no action against the Deindum given that they are interested only in the future they come from and, uninterested and lacking any will, sends them away.
Adrian and Doggles control the BPMs from the research facility on the Moon and plan to transfer the energy field around Maximediras back to the Collection. They use the BPMs to attack the Deindum and teleport Joseph to them, but the BPM that reached him is destroyed before it can do the same for Hass and Lianna and crack into Braxiatel's cell. The Deindum trace Adrian and Doggles's location after capturing two BPMs and they transmat away to the Collection with Joseph before the base is destroyed by missiles. Hass and Lianna are imprisoned by the Deindum.
Having deduced that the Deindum are guarding the energy field and their hatcheries on Deindus until their own time and are thus interested in fighting the Collection, Benny heads to the Deindum's industrial age with Peter and witness a message from the Deindum to their past-selves, promising to protect them until they are ready to take over the universe. Benny plans to make the younger Deindum suspicious of their future selves and they return to the Collection where Joseph gives Benny what little information he has on the Deindum, who erased a significant amount of data before returning him to Hass and Lianna: partial knowledge of the Deindum spaceship layout and confirmation that the Deindum intend to move the energy field and Braxiatel to Deindus.
Doggles prevents the Deindum ship from materialising near Deindus and travels aboard with Benny, Adrian, Bev and Peter in travel pods with the goal of stealing information. Benny rescues Braxiatel and has Adrian put him in a cell once the group all return to the Collection with the information. Later, she visits him and gets him to admit that he got Peter to kill Jason, something he did to keep Jason, who was aware of his changes to the timeline and threatened to involve his people, from being recruited by the Deindum and to bind Benny and Peter to him. He let her leave the Collection following Jason's death because he hoped that her adventures would change her and have a different effect on the Deindum and manipulated things to restore her Time Ring so that he could use it to observe her. He apologises.
Using Benny's Time Ring, Braxiatel retrieves his ship and works with Benny on her plan to create a false civilisation to trick the younger Deindum into believing that their future selves are impostors and thus provoke a war between them. He uses the ship to scoop up the energy that leaked from the field when the Deindum imperfectly moved it to Deindus, despite having intended to use the energy to resurrect his people, and uses it to move the Collection, after which he uses his ship to provide the refugees with food and generate minor temporal flux. With the timeline muddied to keep the Deindum from noticing any changes, Benny creates fake remains, Doggles technology, Adrian architecture and Bev artefacts which they plant on Rawlos in the past. Hass, meanwhile, is tortured by the Deindum for information on Braxiatel.
At the Collection, Benny gets a message from Adrian that Rawlos is being attacked by the Deindum and begrudgingly gives Braxiatel permission to do something she had previously protested against in order to save everyone. He travels to Hass on Maximediras, warns him that the Deindum will soon go back in time to attack their friends on Rawlos and suggests that he releases the radiation in his suit to wipe out everyone on the planet, an act which would be undone once the group succeeded in changing the timelines. Hass agrees and wipes everyone out after promising to find Lianna if he remembers her once the timelines have changed. As a result, the attack on Rawlos does not occur and Benny and Braxiatel collect the group there once their task is complete. They return to the Collection, only to be warned by Peter that the Deindum are attacking.
Adrian finds Bev amidst the fighting and Joseph and Doggles are killed when they reach the travel pods. Benny and Braxiatel return to the ship and Braxiatel causes a navigational fault to send the younger Deindum down a wormhole, but the elder ones detect them, materialise around the ship and manage to break through its doors. They execute Benny and Braxiatel, who hope to see each other in another life once time has changed. As Benny dies, the timeline is changed thanks to the younger Deindum discovering the ruins on Rawlos and coming to the conclusion that their future selves are con artists.
Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
- Irving Braxiatel - Miles Richardson
- Adrian Wall - Harry Myers
- Bev Tarrant - Louise Faulkner
- Joseph - Steven Wickham
- Hass - Paul Wolfe
- Doggles - Sam Stevens
- Peter - Thomas Grant
- Lianna - Rachel Laurence
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Lianna has the flu.
- The syphon Braxiatel used to move the energy field is on Minimediras.
- Doggles created travel pods based on technology given to him by Braxiatel. They use fusion rods.
- Braxiatel says, "Lead on then, Macduff."
- Disruptor points refract the spectrum and cause Deindum to lose their integrity.
- Peter uses the Overnet.
- Braxiatel transforms his ship into an articulated lorry.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- This audio drama was recorded on 20 April 2010.
- A download version of this story was released on 23 May 2022.[1]
- This story's cover art is one half of a full illustration, with Resurrecting the Past completing the other half.
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Lianna mentions how Braxiatel treated the population on Maximadeiras. (AUDIO: Resurrecting the Past)
- Adrian mentions when Doggles tortured him. (AUDIO: The Wake)
- Braxiatel tells Benny why he had Jason killed. (AUDIO: The End of the World)
- Hass kills the Deindum in the same way as the Mim. (AUDIO: Freedom of Information)
Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Official Escaping the Future page at bigfinish.com
- Escaping the Future at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
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