Doctor Who and the Rebel's Gamble was the second of two paperback gamebooks published by the American publisher FASA.
Publisher's summary[]
Something was seriously wrong with history... And the disappearance of a psychiatrist and his patient from the 20th century was only the beginning.
In this plot-your-own Doctor Who adventure, The Doctor and his companions travel back to America at the time of the Civil War. There, they learn that a time-loose rebel soldier has discovered how the war turned out and is hard at work making certain that this time around, the South wins!
Doctor Who plot-your-own adventures are a new concept in interactive fiction, combining the detail and depth of a novel with the fast-paced excitement of a role-playing game. As the intrepid Doctor, you make the decisions that determine the course of an adventure. Each decision leads you, step by step, through an unfolding story-plot, where your skill will make the crucial difference between success and failure.
Plot[]
Preludes[]
Opening text[]
The Doctor stands with Dr. Carl Jenner, studying the scene before him. He is at Gettysburg, looking at the leaders of the Confederate States of America. He can quickly General Lee, alongside another bearded officer. Everett Marshall. Dr. Jenner notices something very wrong and shouts out in surprise.
Standing alongside the group is a third man. Thomas J. Jackson... Stonewall Jackson. The Doctor feels a cold chill heralding disaster in his chest. "History has been changed."
The Adventure[]
Dr. Jenner sits in his therapist's office, speaking to his patient. He claims that his name is Everett Marshall, and he believes that he is a veteran of the American Civil War. This is despite the current year being 1986, something even Marshall admits. Jenner, himself a Civil War recreationist, tries to convince Marshall that he can help him.
Marshall says that he can't fight the feeling that something is pulling him back, like something is about to drag him back... to where he came from. Marshall believes he is being haunted by his "messmates", who are angry that he lives while they all had to die. He speaks of his brother, Frankie, who he notes died at Gettysburg according to history. He grows emotional that he wasn't there to save him. Marshall asks if he can feel the spirits, tugging at him...
Just then, something impossible happens. The room rips into a roar of wind and noise, as Marshall is sucked into what appears to be a vortex to another place and time. Marshall grabs at Jenner, causing him to be sucked in as well. Jenner's secretary rushes in, only to find the two men gone. The police are called, but none are able to solve the mystery of the disappearance of Doctor Carl Jenner his state ward patient...
Paragraphs[]
"Paragraphs" are what this novel calls the numbered segments the reader flips to to find the next path in the journey.
Paragraph 100[]
to be added
Possible Histories[]
This section documents the possible histories created by the outcomes below.
History 1[]
to be added
- Go to The South Wins below.
History 2[]
to be added
- Go to The South Wins below.
History 3[]
to be added
- Go to The South Wins below.
The South Wins[]
to be added
What Really Happened[]
to be added
Outcomes[]
Outcomes are, in a sense, the "endings" of the novel.
Outcome 1[]
You suffer almost total failure in your quest for Everett Marshall. You were unable to stop him from recovering the three lost cigars, and so General McClellan will not be encouraged to think the fate of a nation could hang upon something so insignificant as a pack of lost cigars.
Whether or not you live or die is irrelevant. Earth’s timeline has been shattered and the future thousands of worlds altered irreparably. To learn how the history of America’s Civil War will turn out, go to History 1.
Outcome 2[]
You have been successful in preventing Marshall from recovering the lost orders, and the Battle of Antietam took place. However, Marshall’s next to attempt to alter history was at Chancellorsville, where he succeeded in preventing General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson from being mortally wounded.
Again, this minor incident was a turning point of the war. Two months after Chancellorsville, Lee faced a mediocre named Meade at an unplanned battle called Gettysburg. What will happen in a world where Lee had relied on Jackson’s tactics in that battle? Go to History 2 to see how things might have turned out.
As history has been so completely rewritten, your continued existence does not matter. However, you sense that you must not have faced a total defeat if you and your companions survived!
Outcome 3[]
Having come this far in the adventure, you have preserved Earth history at Antietam and Chancellorsville. However, you were unable to prevent Marshall’s influence over Lee and the other Confederate generals at Gettysburg. Ewell and Longstreet were more aggressive, and Lee’s order clearer than was originally the case on July 1, 1863. See History 3 to find out how this effected the course of the war.
History has been altered so greatly that if you have survived does not matter. At least you and your companions are still alive to see the new universe created by history being altered.
Outcome 4[]
You have survived and have stopped Everett Marshall from changing Earth’s history. If Dr. Jenner also survived, your victory is even more impressive. Although you have won, you now have a dilemma. You have stopped Marshall by knocking him senseless and dragging him inside the TARDIS. Now you must convince him of the error of his ways or leave him in a time and place where he will not get into trouble.
Perhaps one possibility is to leave Marshall in the 20th century. This is not ideal, as it would mean he would spend the rest of his life an outcast in an era that does not believe his story. But if Dr. Jenner survives, perhaps he can help get him acquainted to the future. He could even be a guest of honor at his Civil War re-creationist meetings. Marshall might even come to appreciate life in the 1980s.
Outcome 5[]
Your mission has been a complete success. You prevent Marshall from finding the lost orders, stopped him from seeing to it that Jackson fought at Gettsyburg, and stopped him from changing the outcome of the battle. Earth’s history, and that of the Galaxy, has been preserved. If Everett Marshall has died during the adventure, you feel this was at a deep cost. You sympathise with the plight of a man displaced from his time.
It is also possible that Marshall survived and can still alter history. With your death, your companions are also stranded in the 19th century. There is a shadow over your victory, and Earth’s history may still be unsure.
Outcome 6[]
You have won a spectacular victory! You saved Earth’s timeline, the course of the Civil War flows as it should, and history is not changed. You have also won a personal victory, as Everett Marshall is alive, and his brother Frank is not dead after all. You rescued Frank form Devil’s Den shortly after the original Everett was displaced into the future. Frank is bewildered by all that has happened, but the brothers will live good lives in the 20th century.
Player’s Note[]
Readers who make it as far as Gettysburg and rescue Frankie Marshall will realize that it was the arrival of the TARDIS that caused the adventure in the first place. A fault in the TARDIS control circuitry brought it to the same place and time as the original Everett Marshall, at Devil’s Den. The TARDIS’ incomplete materialisation is what caused the storm which swept Marshall to the future in the first place. Once there, he was in a dimensionally unstable state and eventually slipped through the crack between the Vortex Barriers, returning to a point a little more than a year before his first disappearance.
If you and the TARDIS never make it as far as Gettysburg, but instead go to Outcomes 1, 2, 3, or 4, then your TARDIS was never at Devil’s Den to cause Marshall’s disappearance in the first place… And the whole adventure never happened!
If this is the case, go back to Paragraph 100 and begin again. If the adventure never happened, you still have another opportunity to save Earth’s history!
Questions[]
The Doctor asks Dr. Jenner several questions about the American Civil War, which prove essential in fitting in with the era.
Characters[]
- Sixth Doctor
- Peri Brown
- Harry Sullivan
- Everett Marshall
- Frankie Marshall
- Doctor Carl Jenner
- Carl Jenner's secretary
- Robert E. Lee
- Stonewall Jackson
Worldbuilding[]
to be added
Notes[]
- The story is written entirely in first-person narrative from the Doctor's point of view, enabling the reader to play through the scenario as the Doctor.
- The book was designed to be compatible with FASA's The Doctor Who Role Playing Game, so that a character created in that game could be substituted for The Doctor; conversely, a game-master in the RPG could use the book to create a scenario.
- In these books, the segments of The Adventure are divided into segments titled Paragraphs, despite some containing more or less than a single paragraph. The novel begins at Paragraph 100.
- Rolling dice was necessary to determine the outcome of some of the book's decisions; so the book could be enjoyed without dice, a random series of numbers was printed in the upper corner of every other page. The reader could flip through the pages and stop at a random place to simulate a dice roll.
- Depending on the player's choices, it was possible in this story for the Doctor to become mortally wounded and attempt to regenerate. If the necessary dice rolls were successful the Doctor would regenerate, just this once managing to keep the same body and personality, and the player would resume the adventure.
- The author originally wrote this novel to feature the Fourth Doctor, just as his previous novel in this range did. For unknown reasons the cover painting by FASA artist Harry Quinn portrayed the then-current Sixth Doctor and Peri Brown. Rather than have the cover repainted, FASA's editors rewrote the novel's references to the Fourth Doctor to refer instead to the Sixth and added Peri Brown, presumably in place of Fourth Doctor companion Sarah Jane Smith, but strangely left in Fourth Doctor companion Harry Sullivan as well. Author William Keith has made his dissatisfaction with FASA's edits known, calling the results "predictably abysmal." [1]
- This book's cover art was by Harry Quinn. The maps were by Todd F. Marsh.
