Flux Fixers (game)

Flux Fixers
Doctor:	Thirteenth Doctor
Key crew
Publisher:	Penguin Group
Writer:	Paul Lang
Release details
Printed in:	Doctor Who The Official 60th Anniversary Annual 2023
Release date:	1 September 2022
Doctor Who annual
← Previous	What the Future Holds
Next →	Meet the Crew

Flux Fixers was a game in Doctor Who The Official 60th Anniversary Annual 2023, published in 2022. It tied in with the Flux storyline of Series 13 and ran throughout the Annual, included as a series of vignettes in-between other stories and features. The individual vignettes each bore the heading Flux Fixer, singular, while the original one introducing the game was plural.

Summary

The Flux has "jumbled upon" words from the Thirteenth Doctor's past and scattered them throughout "this book", requiring its readers to try and help her by unscrambling the Flux-created anagrams and thus allowing the Doctor to recover her missing memories, based on "clues" written from the perspective of the Doctor herself.

Characters

• Thirteenth Doctor

Mentioned only

• Azure
• "A friend"
• Nardole
• Swarm
• The Valeyard

Worldbuilding

• The words from the Doctor's past that have gotten "jumbled" by the Flux include:
  • "Gallifrey", scrambled as "Age Frilly" and described as "a planet from my past — and future!"
  • "Regeneration", scrambled as "Argon Teenier" and described as "a big change for me"
  • "Crimean War", scrambled as "Inca Warmer" and described as "a terrible conflict on the border of Eastern Europe".
  • "Liverpool", scrambled as "Orlop Vile" and described as the "location of the Sontaran base on Earth"
  • "Death Zone", scrambled as "Dozen Heat" and described as "dangerous games".
  • "The Valeyard", scrambled as "Elva Hydrate" and described as "another me?".
  • "Silurians", scrambled as "Suni Rails" and described as "reptile rulers".
  • "Bad Wolf", scrambled as "Bowl Fad" and described as "a message from a friend".
  • "Ravagers", scrambled as "Rag Saver" and described as "what Swarm and Azure were".
  • "Nardole", scrambled as "Led Nora" and described as "a faithful friend".
  • "Gloucester", scrambled as "Celt Rogues" and described as a "Judoon destination".

Notes

• Although the baffled-sounding description of the Valeyard as "another me?" by the Thirteenth Doctor may simply reference the Valeyard's basic nature as an apparent other version of the Doctor in general, it may also be understood as a more specific reference to the Valeyard's originally scripted nature as a possible final incarnation of the Doctor, "somewhere between their twelfth and thirteenth regenerations" — making the Valeyard not just another Doctor, but another Thirteenth Doctor, of sorts.

Continuity

• The game establishes the existence of a book serving as an in-universe version of Doctor Who The Official 60th Anniversary Annual 2023, providing a framing device for the writing credited to the Thirteenth Doctor herself which runs throughout other features in the book, starting with PROSE: Meet the Crew ^[+]Loading...["Meet the Crew (feature)"].
• The Crimean War being cited as an element of the Doctor's past is a reference to the events of TV: War of the Sontarans ^[+]Loading...["War of the Sontarans (TV story)"], as is the presence of a Sontaran base in Liverpool.
• The Death Zone was introduced in TV: The Five Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"] as a venue for ancient Gallifreyan blood-sports, including the Game of Rassilon, bearing out the clue of "dangerous games".
• The Valeyard was introduced in TV: The Mysterious Planet ^[+]Loading...["The Mysterious Planet (TV story)"], and revealed, to the Doctor's shock, as another version of themself in TV: The Ultimate Foe ^[+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"].
• The Silurians were introduced in TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians ^[+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story)"]; they had been name-dropped in the Thirteenth Doctor's televised era in TV: Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror ^[+]Loading...["Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror (TV story)"].
• The Bad Wolf meme, introduced in TV: Rose ^[+]Loading...["Rose (TV story)"], is described as a "message from a friend", referencing the eventual revelation of its true nature in TV: The Parting of the Ways ^[+]Loading...["The Parting of the Ways (TV story)"] as a message sent back in time by Rose Tyler to her younger self after she'd merged with the heart of the TARDIS to become the Bad Wolf entity.
• Swarm and Azure are identified as Ravager, a species name mentioned by the Doctor in TV: The Flux is Coming... ^[+]Loading...["The Flux is Coming... (TV story)"] and used multiple times in TV: Once, Upon Time ^[+]Loading...["Once, Upon Time (TV story)"].
• The Doctor speaks of the two in the past tense, referencing their deaths at the hands of Time in TV: The Vanquishers ^[+]Loading...["The Vanquishers (TV story)"].
• The Doctor references Nardole, one of the Twelfth Doctor's final companions, as a "faithful friend". Nardole was introduced in TV: The Husbands of River Song ^[+]Loading...["The Husbands of River Song (TV story)"], originally serving as a henchman to River Song as part of her assassination plot against King Hydroflax, and was separated from the Doctor in TV: The Doctor Falls ^[+]Loading...["The Doctor Falls (TV story)"], making a final post-mortem appearance in TV: Twice Upon a Time ^[+]Loading...["Twice Upon a Time (TV story)"].
• Gloucester is mentioned as a "Judoon destination", referencing the events of TV: Fugitive of the Judoon ^[+]Loading...["Fugitive of the Judoon (TV story)"], where a squad of Judoon headed to the city to track down the Fugitive Doctor.