Alien Bodies (novel)

Alien Bodies was the sixth in the series of BBC Eighth Doctor Adventure novels. It was written by Lawrence Miles and first published in 1997. It was the first novel to feature parts of the Second War in Heaven, a major arc element for the first four years of the EDA novel range ending with The Ancestor Cell.

Publisher's summary

On an island in the East Indies, in a lost city buried deep in the heart of the rainforest, agents of the most formidable powers in the galaxy are gathering. They have been invited there to bid for what could turn out to be the deadliest weapon ever created.

When the Doctor and Sam arrive in the city, the Time Lord soon realises they've walked into the middle of the strangest auction in history — and what's on sale to the highest bidder is something more horrifying than even the Doctor could have imagined, something that could change his life forever.

And just when it seems things can't get any worse, the Doctor finds out who else is on the guest list.

Chapter Titles

Prologue: Last Rites

Dramatis Personae

Homonculette's Story

Strange Men and Their Companions
Loathing the Alien

UNISYC'S Story

Death, Death, and -- Good Grief -- More Death
The Continuity Bomb

The Faction's Story

The Bodysnatchers (Reprise)
Surprised?

Mr Qixotl's Story

The Body Politic
Enfant Terrible

E-Kobalt's Story

What is an Identity Crisis, Anyway?
Mind Mush

The Shift's Story

Shiftwork
A-Les-son-in-An-a-to-my

The Dead Man's Story

Final Offer

Epilogue: Last Rites

Plot

to be added

Characters

References

Books

Genetic Politics Beyond the Third Zone by Gustous R Thripsted contains a preface about cross species translation conventions.
The Doctor accesses the things he needs in his pockets from reading Karma and Flares: The Importance of Fashion Sense to the Modern Zen Master.

Cultural references from the real world

The Doctor mentions Ace when talking about Sam and popular cultural reference.
The Raston Hardware Company made the Raston cybernetic lapdancers Qixotl has in the auction room.
While meditating, Kortez has a vision where various spirits recite two iconic lines from Twin Peaks, mimicking the pilot episode when the character Dale Cooper meets two spirits within the Black Lodge. One of the iconic lines was, "But sometimes my arms bend back."

Dalek history

In the "late twenty-first century...by now, most of the Daleks are scattered around the edges of the Mutters' Spiral, trying to build up a decent galactic powerbase. The ones who got left behind on Skaro are just starting to think about putting together their own little empire. The 'static electricity' phase of the Dalek development".

The Doctor

The Doctor recalls finding his (faked) gravestone on Necros.
The Doctor is up to his seventh regeneration.
In his sixth body the Doctor had begun to see the logic in cold-blooded murder.
The Doctor, in thinking about Homunculette (being the High Council's puppet), considers the ways he's been pushed around in the past: "Gallifrey had pushed him around, too. A show-trial here, a subtle manipulation there. Exarius. Peladon. Solos. Skaro."

The Doctor's items

The Doctor uses his mark one sonic screwdriver which was destroyed "centuries ago". He explains how this occurs to Sam: "It's a Time Lord tool. Time doesn't work the same way for Time Lord tools."
The Doctor at one point had a winklegruber neural parameter predictor; you tell it what you're looking for and it works out the last place you'd think of searching.

Earth

UNIT was superseded by UNISYC, "the militant wing of the UN's 'Security Yard'" This implies UNISYC stands for United Nations Intelligence Security Yard Corps.
Kathleen Bregman joined UNISYC to fight Cybermen.
Cannabis cigarettes are manufactured in Birmingham and are legal at some time after 2069.
The Toy Store is where the Americans store their alien technology.

Individuals

The Shift can only manipulate ideas or work with them. He is working the Enemy.
At the training complex on Gallifrey XII Homunculette was taught escapology by the War Cardinals.
Colonel Kortez is a member of UNISYC. He's met the Doctor before when he was a Sergeant. He was part of the ISC division of UNISYC during the Cyberbreaches in the 2030s.
Trask is dead. He's representing the Celestis' interests. He was from era of Earth's history where the White House and the House of Commons were political centres. At some point the Doctor killed Trask.
E-Kobalt is a Kroton commander.

Languages

Homunculette swears in Old High Gallifreyan.

Time Lord enemies

The Doctor has met the Faction Paradox once before.
The Enemy are time-active.
The Faction's Shrine is like a TARDIS modelled out of pure mathematics.

Gallifreyan artefacts

Wearing the Sash of Rassilon changed elements of the Doctor's biology, giving the Doctor's biodata the High Council's security codes.
The Doctor liked to take the Hand of Omega around for walks when he was on Earth.

Planets

Qixotl is what they call the god of ludicrous profit on Golobus.
A "couple of weeks ago" Sam says she was in the 40th century.
Faction Paradox cultists came to Dronid from far off places such as Lurma and Salostopus.

Species

The organic ships of the Zygons and the thinker-weapons of the Selachians are mentioned with regard to the Faction Paradox's Shrine.
The Celestis are Time Lords who saw the war coming and removed themselves from existence and turned themselves into idea based lifeforms.
Inside a Dalek spacecraft the walls are luminescent black, not visible by humanoid eyes.
The Enemy is described as "a shape dressed in an ornate golden robe, a huge semicircular collar raised behind its head."
The Shift was a Gabrielidean, a liquid based lifeform on Simia KK98. He was fighting as part of the military, for the Time Lords.
The Kroton's original homeworld was called Krosi-Aspai-Core. The Kroton Absolute evolved from a quasi-organic tellurium-based crystal.

TARDIS

Marie is a Type 103 TARDIS. She started her life on Simia KK98. She mated with a Type 105. When the mini-TARDIS had grown in her womb the Time Lords took it from her.
The Shift introduces the concept of paranoia to Marie, making her turn her weapons systems on herself.

Time wars

"The Time Lords had fought the first battle of their war on Dronid almost half a century ago...the off worlders liked to think of it as a War in Heaven, all hellfire and thunder".
The Time Lords are fighting a four dimensional war against the Enemy.
The Time Lords need the Relic for the biodata codes.
At the start of the war a lot of stuff was wiped out by the Enemy. The De-mat Gun and the Sash of Rassilon were taken out early on. The Hand of Omega was also (probably) lost early on.
A future Doctor, probably "the last one", visited Mictlan and made a deal with the Celestis for them not to involve themselves in the attack on Dronid, for his body, with a few stipulations attached.
At some time around the local Dronid year of 15367 the Time Lords launched an offensive on Dronid, the Enemy took counter-measures. The Doctor was there and (probably) died during the assault. Qixotl was there.
Justine believes/understands that (from the point where Homunculette is from) the Time Lords have been fighting the war for half a millennium.

Theories and concepts

Silverberg energy is present when there are signs of psychic energy.
The Faction Paradox cultists wear masks that look a bit like bats which looked the way they did because... "'the Time Lords fought a great war many years ago...They won. If they'd lost, by the grace of time, then this is how they would have looked.'"
"Homunculette is a Time Lord, one from an era of Gallifrey's future, How far in the future, I'm not sure."
Learning about future history (possibly Gallifrey's, or your own personal future) is against the Laws of Time (probably the third).
Displacer syndrome is the likelyhood of going mad/committing suicide after seeing the things UNISYC deal with.
The Doctor says in passing that Susan was the psychic one in the family.

Time Lords

Homunculette spent time in his house on Simia KK98 sealed in under silos and permafrost trying to go mad or get drunk.
Homuncultte is (like all Time Lords) alcohol-immune.
The Doctor has childhood memories that "the Spirits of the Faction had been numbered among time's bogeymen just like Rassilon's Mimic or the Great Vampires."
Biodata goes deeper than DNA and genetics, though it is part of the biodata matrix, as certain experiences (particularly those involving time travel) get encoded into the biology of the being whose biodata it is. Time Lords have certain mechanisms built into their biodata that makes them sensitive to distortions in the biodata around them.
The Last Wave is a Time Lord organisation.

Weapons

Colonel Kortez gives the Doctor a Selachian thermosystron bomb, which he uses to destroy the Relic.
Bio-induction pumps genetic material into an eco-system. It was also used as a security system that protected the Relic using biodata.
Homunculette is paranoid about Anarchitects when visiting 22nd century Earth to look for artefact.
Sam Jones is tormented by an extract of biodata from her alternate timeline, rendered into reality by the biodata security systems.
Kathleen Bregman is tormented by the City's defences by attacking her psychologically through her body image and how she is viewed by others.

Notes

The Daleks are not the Enemy.
DWM 282 has an interview with Lawrence Miles concerning Alien Bodies and Interference.
According to Lawrence Miles^[1]
"...there's at least one Celestis agent in each of the seven "flashback" stories; the Celestis have been watching the Relic's progress for quite a while, just waiting for the right time to seize it (as the narrator notes on p.288). All these agents finally line up on p.295."

"If you want to know the history of the Relic - and, indeed, some of the history of the War - all you have to do is read the seven "flashback" stories in reverse order. Qixotl hears about the Doctor's demise in Mr Qixotl's Story, and thereafter begins his search for the Relic. It's Faction Paradox who finally dig it up from the ruins of Dronid, and thereafter send it into the vortex, from whence it eventually finds its way to Earth in 2069. The American authorities hide it in the Toy Store, where it stays for a hundred years, until the planet's invaded by the Daleks and the Relic falls into the hands of the Black Man (in 2169, as we see in Homunculette's Story). It's here that Qixotl finally catches up with it, and takes it to the Unthinkable City in time for his auction. However, if p.309 is anything to go by, Qixotl has learned something about the Relic while he's been searching for it. Something he's not sharing with us, natch."

On Dronid's name Lance Parkin notes: "In the note about Drornid it's claimed that I got the name of the planet wrong in A History of the Universe. The spelling 'Drornid' appears in the script which came with the video (of Shada). The spelling 'Dronid' first appeared in The Universal Databank - the joke that Lawrence is making is that so many people read the 'guidebook' without checking the facts that the name 'Dronid' stuck in the end! For the record, it's spelt 'Drornid' in A History of the Universe (p.251)."^[1]
In 2012, Miles said, "Alien Bodies shares 95% of its DNA with its closest relative, 4-D War."^[2]

Continuity

PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet is the first Doctor Who novel to mention Grandfather Paradox.
The Doctor pulls a sink plunger from his pocket to operate a Dalek craft, similar to the one he used in TV: Remembrance of the Daleks.
The final events of TV: Earthshock are mentioned by the Doctor's psychosis.
According to another account, Laika was rescued by an alien entity and given human level intelligence and human voice (taken from cosmonaut Marinka Talanov). The Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown encountered her on 10 November 1963. (AUDIO: 1963: The Space Race)

External links

Footnotes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 Doctor Who Bewildering Reference Guide to - Alien Bodies with notes by Lawrence Miles accessed 22nd February 2010
↑ Miles, Lawrence (25 July, 2012). 1979. Lawrence Miles' Doctor Who Thing. Retrieved on 9 August, 2012.

[bewildering-1] 1.0 ^1.1 Doctor Who Bewildering Reference Guide to - Alien Bodies with notes by Lawrence Miles accessed 22nd February 2010

[2] Miles, Lawrence (25 July, 2012). 1979. Lawrence Miles' Doctor Who Thing. Retrieved on 9 August, 2012.

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