Dark Places of the Inside
Various accounts documented "the Dark Places of the Inside", (PROSE: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (novelisation)"], Mark of the Medusa [+]Loading...["Mark of the Medusa (short story)"]) the "dark places of the inside", (PROSE: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (novelisation)"]) the Dark Places, (COMIC: Endgame (part four) [+]Loading...{"part":"Four","1":"Endgame (DWM comic story)"}, The Body in Question [+]Loading...["The Body in Question (comic story)"]) or Inner Space, (PROSE: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (novelisation)"], Snakedance [+]Loading...["Snakedance (novelisation)"]) were a reality or realities connected to the darker aspects of consciousness (TV: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (TV story)"], PROSE: Mark of the Medusa [+]Loading...["Mark of the Medusa (short story)"], COMIC: The Body in Question [+]Loading...["The Body in Question (comic story)"]) in which dark forces could dwell or even be spawned, (TV: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (TV story)"], COMIC: Endgame (part four) [+]Loading...{"part":"Four","1":"Endgame (DWM comic story)"}) most infamously including the Mara. (TV: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (TV story)"], Snakedance [+]Loading...["Snakedance (TV story)"], etc.)
Some accounts described the Dark Places of the Inside as a singular dimension, (PROSE: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (novelisation)"], Snakedance [+]Loading...["Snakedance (novelisation)"]) while others suggested there were many "Dark Places", distinct nightmarish worlds all "a stilled heart-beat from our own"; (COMIC: The Body in Question [+]Loading...["The Body in Question (comic story)"]) when Aliganza Torp encountered the Mara, he thought of the world he found himself in as a singular "dark place". (PROSE: The Dreaming [+]Loading...["The Dreaming (short story)"])
Nature[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Dark Places of the Inside were a reality which existed "in the mind, in dreams". (PROSE: Mark of the Medusa [+]Loading...["Mark of the Medusa (short story)"]) The Fifth Doctor described and thought it as "another dimension" separate from his own world, (PROSE: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (novelisation)"], Snakedance [+]Loading...["Snakedance (novelisation)"]) but also stated that it could be thought of as "Inner Space"; (PROSE: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (novelisation)"]) one account equated the Mara finding a home within the darker parts of the mind of the Doctor's TARDIS itself with it being back in "the Dark Places of the Inside". (PROSE: Mark of the Medusa [+]Loading...["Mark of the Medusa (short story)"])
One account documented that "there are worlds a stilled heart-beat from our own; Dark Places that breed the stuff of nightmares. We touch them every day — the dark shape glimpsed from the corner of an eye, the involuntary shiver — but close our minds, preferring the womb of ignorance". One of these worlds was Styrakos, which was also described as "a place that is not a place, a time where time has no meaning". (COMIC: The Body in Question [+]Loading...["The Body in Question (comic story)"])
The Toymaker and the Mara, both suggested to be connected to the Dark Places in certain accounts, (COMIC: Endgame [+]Loading...["Endgame (DWM comic story)"], TV: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (TV story)"]) were stated in another source to both be members of the Pantheon, (TV: The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"]) a group of powerful creatures from "beyond Time and Space", (TV: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith [+]Loading...["The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith (TV story)"]) with the Toymaker's domain being identified in a related account as "a hollow beneath the Under-Universe". (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"])
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
Relationship to the Mara[[edit] | [edit source]]
When he first encountered the Mara, the Fifth Doctor was told by Karuna that the Mara inhabited the Dark Places of the Inside, (TV: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (TV story)"]) which he recognised as another name for "Inner Space" and described as "another dimension". (PROSE: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (novelisation)"]) When the Doctor later concluded that the Mara had retreated to "where it came from", Todd guessed that this meant the Dark Places of the Inside, although the Doctor was less decisive, correcting: "Or wherever". (TV: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (TV story)"], PROSE: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (novelisation)"]) Nevertheless, his later recollection was indeed that Tegan had been possessed by "an evil entity from some other dimension that manifested itself as a snake". (PROSE: Snakedance [+]Loading...["Snakedance (novelisation)"])
However, during a second encounter with the Mara, the Doctor was told by Chela that the Mara had in truth been accidentally created by the Manuss ans from the evil in their own minds, given form by the Great Crystal. The First Federator overthrew the Sumaran Empire on Manussa and defeated the Mara, banishing it into the Dark Places. (TV: Snakedance [+]Loading...["Snakedance (TV story)"]) When asked by Taskia about the Mara, the Eleventh Doctor would simply later state that "it comes from the dark places of the inside — or so the Kinda used to say". (PROSE: The Dreaming [+]Loading...["The Dreaming (short story)"])
Tegan Jovanka entered the Dark Places after falling asleep alone beneath some wind chimes on Deva Loka. She perceived it as an infinity of complete darkness, save for a metal structure of some kind, and found that she could manipulate its reality with the power of thought, creating ten copies of herself on a whim. The manifold Mara manifested to her as Anatta, Anicca, and Dukkha, with the former two believing Tegan to not be real, while the latter tempted her into letting him have her body for a while; although the Doctor and his allies forced the Mara to face itself, believing they had banished it, either back to the Dark Places of the Inside or somewhere else, (TV: Kinda [+]Loading...["Kinda (TV story)"]) it remained within Tegan to some extent, and would make other attempts to reemerge through her. (TV: Snakedance [+]Loading...["Snakedance (TV story)"], WC: The Passenger [+]Loading...["The Passenger (webcast)"])
During the Siege of Trenzalore, the Mara was one of the many beings and species which attempted to attack the town called Christmas. Aliganza Torp was confronted by the Mara dressed as an undertaker in "a dark place", which he felt had an oily texture that would react if he tried to move. The Mara was subsequently driven out of him, with the Doctor using a dream inhibitor to ensure Aliganza would not be used as a vessel again. (PROSE: The Dreaming [+]Loading...["The Dreaming (short story)"])
Other instances[[edit] | [edit source]]
After nearly being killed by Big Shot on behalf of Pyra, Death's Head was pulled by Ty Rejutka Lupex into a nightmarish world called Styrakos, described as one of the many "Dark Places" which existed a heartbeat away from the ordinary universe, connected to the darker aspects of conscious experience. Styrakos was also known as the Styrakan Zones, being divided into a number of distinct zones which alternated between working on principles of "majik" and "techno"; when majik reigned, technology would cease to function, and vice-versa, when "techno" was operative, magic would be unusable. Although ruled by Lupex, and largely consisting of hostile wastelands, Styrakos was hope to a city.
Death's Head discovered that he had been created by Lupex within Styrakos, as a perfect android body combining the powers of techno and majik within which Lupex could transplant his own mind. After defeating Lupex, Death's Head was unsure how to leave Styrakos, but was taken back to 2020 New York City by Pyra, who had revealed to him that she was the one who had given him a mind and identity of his own to thwart Lupex. (COMIC: The Body in Question [+]Loading...["The Body in Question (comic story)"])
After the Eighth Doctor used the Imagineum to create a duplicate of the Toymaker inside the Celestial Toyroom to play against the original Toymaker in a perpetual stalemate, the two Toymakers began fading away. The Doctor told Izzy that the Toymaker was "returning to the Dark Places from where the Toymaker came", where he and his doppelganger would be locked into a "perpetual stalemate" which he hoped would be the last he'd see of the villain. (COMIC: Endgame (part four) [+]Loading...{"part":"Four","1":"Endgame (DWM comic story)"}) Other accounts cast doubt on whether the Toymaker had genuinely been spawned in the Dark Places, describing his origins as shrouded in mystery (AUDIO: The Nightmare Fair [+]Loading...["The Nightmare Fair (audio story)"], PROSE: Divided Loyalties [+]Loading...["Divided Loyalties (novel)"], TARDIS Data File: The Toymaker [+]Loading...["TARDIS Data File: The Toymaker (feature)"]) and occasionally hinting at alternative, specific origins. (AUDIO: The Nightmare Fair [+]Loading...["The Nightmare Fair (audio story)"], etc.)
