Scream of the Shalka (webcast): Difference between revisions

He wakes up a short while later to see Alison and Kennet leaning over him. Alison tells the Major that she can’t find a pulse which leads the Doctor to reply “and with so many to choose from!” He gets to his feet and contains the parasite in a jar. He declares that the score is now 2:1 to him in the game of “I thought you were dead, Doctor”. He congratulates Kennet for not shooting anyone and the Major remarks that it’s about time they got some luck. The Doctor then adds that it’s about time they made their own and questions why the Shalka are still controlling people and why they had the people march on a warehouse. Greaves then reports that it’s not just happening there.

Back at HQ, they learn that twenty-six communities have been mobilised all over the world and that there may be others that they don’t know about. The Doctor says that they’re arranging themselves precisely around the planet and asks if there’s a map of their exact positions. Greaves begins to bring that information up and the Doctor adds that if they can get a satellite photo of an area of [[Siberia]] then they will find controlled people there too.  Greaves then brings up a picture of [[China]] from an American satellite and they see that the controlled people there are all just standing still. The Doctor declares that they have to stop all these people from reaching their destinations and that they have to try and coordinate the armed forces in those areas. Greaves reports that the Chinese have started shooting and Kennet tells the Doctor that soon this will be the story everywhere. He replies that the Shalka will protect them but, at the same time, they can afford to lose a lot of their slaves. He doubts that the loss of the Lannet group will make a difference to their plan and Alison asks what that plan is. He asks her and Joe if they’ve still got sore throats and Greaves replies that he has too. Joe affirms that a number of patients have been suffering from sore throats for several weeks and the Doctor realises the Shalka are using humans to transmit the scream; they’ve been subsonicly training them while they’ve been under the Shalka’s influence. Alison asks why they’ve done this and he replies that it’s because human vocal chords have evolved in Earth’s atmosphere whilst theirs haven’t. He then opens a cylinder releasing a gas into the room which makes everyone start coughing and so he quickly turns it off. He tells them that is the Shalka’s preferred atmosphere which is typically found deep inside a planet rather than on the surface. That is what the captured Shalka got Greaves to make: a chemical reaction caused by severe agitation at the molecular level. The scream turns the oxygen and nitrogen in the air into the complex compounds that the Shalka prefer. Alison questions why they can’t simply do that themselves and he replies that they are using a fast track invasion plan: get the humans to do it for them. He adds that they’ve been waiting these past three weeks so that they can activate all their human slaves at once; each group being led by someone with a Shalka parasite in their head. Kennet begins to question about the new atmosphere the Shalka have planned but the Doctor cuts in that they won’t be able to breathe it and he doubts that it will be able to absorb solar radiation; meaning the weather is about to become their biggest enemy. The Shalka will be able to move freely on the surface while the chaos unfolds and finish off any remaining survivors. Kennet asks how long they’ve got and the Doctor replies that the atmosphere is a very sensitive system and given the number of release sites, he concludes that once the controlled people start screaming they’ll have, maybe, an hour.

In the TARDIS, the Master tells Alison that she, horrifyingly, reminds him of “all the others”. She challenges him about that remark and asks who he is. He says to her, in a sinister tone, “I am the Master. And you will –” but the Doctor then steps in so the Master quickly says “–come to like me once you get to know me my dear Miss Cheney.” The Doctor tells them that he’s just been in an extreme state of meditation so as to prepare himself for what is about to come; remarking that it’s hard to clear one’s mind of all its baggage in five minutes. He then sings quite loudly for a moment and asks Alison and the Master what they think. They exchange a sideways glance and the Master replies “just a touch flat”. The Doctor says he learned to do that from Dame Nellie, leading the Master to comment that he would never have guessed. Alison asks the two Time Lords what they’re talking about, stating that this is serious. The Doctor replies that he is being deadly serious.

The TARDIS materialises back in the cave of the Shalka. Alison asks if the Master is coming with them and the Doctor replies that he can’t leave the TARDIS. They step out and the Doctor comments that one can really admire the architecture of the cave now that there are less Shalka in it. He points to a spiral on the ceiling and Alison remarks that it’s very Gaudi, leading the Doctor to comment that he was a man who knew a thing or two about string; and that he was very lucky that the Doctor was there when he ran out. He then tells Alison that she’s a very informed barmaid and she replies that she gave up a degree in history to be with Joe. Prime then approaches them and she tells the Doctor that, despite the technology he possesses, he distracts, de-emphasises and he talks. She adds that she thinks that is all he does and he merely comments, sarcastically, that she sounds happy. She ignores this and declares that in a few moments Earth will be added to the Shalka Confederacy. He then tells Prime that he now has a horrible idea that he knows where their empire of a billion worlds is. She disagrees but he tells her that he used the TARDIS scanner to search for recent meteor debris and traces of radiation that suggest a miniature wormhole. He says that they’ve been targeting worlds that are in “ecological trouble” and she remarks that they take the weakest of the herd. She names three other planets that they have claimed and the Doctor replies that those planets were all dead with lost civilisations and that history records claim that they destroyed themselves. Prime says that they did most of the damage and then the Shalka merely finished them off. Those worlds are now occupied by billions of Shalka that reside underground and therefore don’t get into “ridiculous wars” like lesser creatures. She says that the Shalka now inhabit eighty percent of worlds in the universe; those which the Doctor rates as “dead”. The Doctor then calls Prime the “great limiting factor of the cosmos” and the “death principle” among other things and she replies that once the Earth’s atmosphere is gone and the surface is infected with solar radiation, the Shalka will arrive through the worm hole and live off pure volcanic energy.