Übermensch (audio story)
Übermensch was the third story in The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield audio anthology Blood & Steel, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Rochana Patel and featured Lisa Bowerman as Bernice Summerfield and David Warner as the Unbound Doctor.
Publisher's summary[[edit] | [edit source]]
Why does the Doctor want Bernice to join a German archaeological expedition?
Plot[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Doctor takes Benny to see a rock covered in theta particles, keeping the idiograms etched into it from being translated by the TARDIS's telepathic circuits. Although Benny wants to leave 1930s Berlin, she agrees that they need to solve the mystery before the museum is looted in 1945 and they an expedition to the Teutoburg Forest led by Professor Bergmann, who has decoded the rock and believes that it is a map to the centre of Vril culture. The Doctor uses his sonic screwdriver to detect theta particles and leads the expedition to a cave which they blast their way into.
After the Doctor opens a heavy door, Bergmann leaves her students above ground and passes through a tunnel to a temple with Benny, the Doctor and Herman. The Doctor remains in a chamber to decode further idiograms whilst the other three go on, finding gold figurines, a map of Earth during the Ice Age which Bergmann sees as evidence that the Vril settled in Europe and a jacket belonging to rival archaeologist Ulrich Schneider. Benny returns to the surface when she has trouble breathing and worries that she has been damaged by the Cybermen's neural-programming nanites, but the Doctor assures her that it is a natural response to her recent experiences.
Recognising that the supposed temple is providing Bergmann with everything that she wants, including validation of Nazi beliefs, Benny leaves Bergmann and her students to explore a hatch they have opened despite the Doctor's warnings and shows the Doctor what she has realised is a Cyberman symbol. Benny tells Bergmann that the temple is a trap, pointing out the temple's condition and Schneider's jacket being inside despite the group having had to blast their way in, but she does not listen and is partially-converted whilst most of her students become Cybermen. Herman refuses to allow the same to be done to him and runs, followed by the converted Maria.
Benny and the Doctor enter the control centre and the Doctor overloads the network by shorting out the cooling system energy exchange with one of the gold figurines, but Bergmann reveals that a second element of the trap was to lure and capture a Time Lord. The Cybermen are no longer vulnerable to gold and are unharmed, with the Doctor's natural defences damaged by his failed attempt to destroy them. As the temple starts collapsing because of Herman blasting open the closed hatch, the Doctor is injected with nanites and Benny left alone as the nanites already inside of her are reacting. The Doctor says that he belongs to the Cybermen.
Cast[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Bernice Summerfield - Lisa Bowerman
- The Doctor - David Warner
- Lotte - Natascha Slasten
- Herman - Jeremias Amoore
- The Cybermen - Nicholas Briggs
Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Benny and the Doctor claim to be from the University of Munich.
- The Doctor uses the alias Johann Schmidt.
- The Doctor offers Benny a marshmallow.
- Benny notes the students are no older than Wulf.
- Benny mentions her son Peter and his Killoran father.
- Bergmann believes that Ulrich Schneider has also decoded the idiograms.
- Doggerland connected Great Britain to the European mainland.
- The Doctor does not know about Kulturkreis.
- Benny discusses the theories around the "tear-drop" motif of the Cybermen's appearances, which the Doctor dismisses as a fluid reservoir to prevent obscuring of vision.
- The Doctor speculates the intelligence test is designed to select minds for Cyber-Leaders and Cyber-Planners.
- The Doctor identifies Mondasian technology.
- Helga, Erich, Anton, Maria and Gunther are students.
Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]
to be added
Continuity[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Benny still has Cyber-nanites in her body. (AUDIO: Willkommen)
- Benny recalls hearing about the Vril before. (AUDIO: Willkommen)
- The Doctor recalls encountering a mad German scientist before, saying it could have had something to do with Atlantis. (TV: The Underwater Menace)
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Official Übermensch page at bigfinish.com
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