A
Long-Winded Summary
Of
Whatsit’s Origin Story.
Part
One:
History
Stuff
This story isn’t about the Doctor. It isn’t even set in
his own era. This is a tale from the far-flung future of Gallifrey. (Yes, we’ve
read Ancestor Cell, and we’re not impressed. If Gallifrey was destroyed
by the Doctor to defeat Grandfather Paradox, who was him due to a paradox
created by killing his third incarnation, and that paradox was resolved back to
normal history, then ol’ GP couldn’t exist, that whole mess on Gallifrey
wouldn’t have happened, and the Doctor wouldn’t have blown up his homeworld,
now would he? The Time Lords are probably aware of what almost happened to them
and are now scared out of their wits of the Doctor and hiding Gallifrey from
him. Anyway….)
This future is based on the fact that the Time Lords are such a pompous, boring, unfeeling people. Our theory is as follows: the Time Lords think they are superior to just about everybody else and decide to perfect themselves. They use genetic manipulation to make themselves a race apart from ordinary, working-class Gallifreyans. This might include everything from adaptations for time-traveling to their ability to regenerate. They begin using artificial reproduction entirely in order to have complete control over the creation and development of the entire population. This makes them the butt of rude jokes across half the galaxy, but the Time Lords pay little attention to ordinary beings’ opinions. Their methods are so much tidier, more rational and efficient than reproducing randomly like animals. Their offspring are all raised in crèches divided up in genetic groups by elite family relationship, not by loving parents or caregivers. As a result, none of them really understands much about loving or caring about anyone or anything—not even the good ones, like the Doctor, who has been gradually learning a little about the matter from his human companions.
The high technology of the Time Lords was also perfected, virtually maintenance-free and in control of every aspect of life on Gallifrey, making it a climate-controlled paradise for them. They worked for nothing and wanted for nothing, all thanks to a technology that was already becoming the stuff of legend by the Doctor’s era. But all this perfection becomes the downfall of the Time Lords. Why bother with maintenance checks when nothing is ever wrong? Why leave your comfortable, perfect world to actually do anything when you can watch the universe from your office? Why care about people around you that you scarcely know and can be quite comfortable without?
Apathy sets in like dry rot. The Time Lords begin to fall away from their greatness into lazy indolence; no longer bothering with duty, or study, history or custom…and so one of the oldest and mightiest civilizations in the galaxy fades away with the most pathetic of whimpers.
Outside the Citadel, the working-class people scarcely notice what is happening. Time Lords rarely come outside to bother with them, and an increase in their insular behavior is more a relief than a concern. Life goes on for these people as always, not sharing in the full bounties of their rulers’ vast technological riches. This probably saves them. And when at last enough people grow curious about the now-total seclusion of their elite ruling class, they find the Citadel is now completely sealed off to all non-Time Lords and no response can be gained from any attempt at communication with any who might be inside. To all intents and purposes, the Time Lords are now gone, leaving a baffling mystery and a gaping hole in the governing system of Gallifrey.
On their own now, the citizens of Gallifrey develop their own government as they continue to puzzle over the Time Lords’ disappearance. Many blame time-travel technology and in general it is therefore shunned. The secrets are locked away in the Citadel now, at any rate. Centuries roll by, the Time Lords become mere legend, and no one really misses them…until it becomes clear that the rest of the universe has a very low opinion of Gallifrey as it now exists. It isn’t a bad place, just rather mundane, but it has fallen a vast distance on the ladder of power galaxy-wide, and don’t seem interested in trying to regain that status. Some worlds contemptuously re-name their planet Gollifred, which is a thoroughly disgusting insult in many alien languages. Finding themselves to be the losers and wasters of the galaxy now in most eyes makes the people of Gallifrey unhappy, and in time they begin to regard the ancient glory days of power with nostalgia. Their legends of the Time Lords become increasingly romanticized and mixed-up with accounts of the adventures of just one long-ago wandering outcast. Now all Time Lords are thought to have been noble and heroic defenders of truth and goodness across the galaxy. Children grow up avidly devouring these tales, pretending to be Time Lords, and dreaming of entering the still-sealed Citadel to become Time Lords themselves. Most grow up, set these fantasies aside as child’s play, and get on with life.
Part Two:
Our Hero…Sort of.
One little boy named Emrhoset just won’t let go of his dreams. He grows up still clinging to them to the point of obsession, annoying his few friends until they abandon him one by one. Nothing seems to concern him except getting into the Citadel. He passionately believes something that is just an idle, whimsical notion to Gallifreyans now—that the Time Lords are still up there even now, and if he is persistent enough, they will allow him inside. He even stands at the base of the towers day after day for hours, waiting and yelling plaintively up at them. By this time everyone has written him off as a total nutcase, and when at last he disappears as he reaches late adolescence, no one misses him. But Emrhoset hasn’t wandered off into the wilderness. His dreams have finally come true.
Emrhoset was overjoyed when at last he was allowed to enter the Citadel and given tasks to earn a Time lord rank. He happily swept floors and polished TARDISes, serving as a janitor without complaint. He found the Time Lords’ behavior at odds with their legendary image, what with all the partying and lazing around he saw all the time, but when they journeyed away in their TARDISes to faraway places like Malibu and Daytona, he was certain they were fighting evil and just needed a lot of resting up between times. He’d be a part of those missions someday….
Decades
later, Emrhoset is still sweeping and cleaning, and his fantasies are
tarnishing badly. His cheerful optimism soured into cynical sarcasm, he
continues to stay because he can’t stand to think what a reception he’d receive
back home if he left. Who would believe him? He no longer believes these
pathetic, lazy, party-animal losers the Time Lords have degenerated into will
ever give him Time Lord status. But one evening, they call him into their party
and let him join the boozing and merrymaking. And then, when he’s not quite
sober any longer…President Barry announces he is going to reward his long patience
and make him a Time Lord! He leads them all deep into the Citadel to a
long-unused machine, tells Emrhoset to enter it, and then begins puzzling over
the controls. A button is randomly pressed, and a huge blast of Artron energy
practically fries Emrhoset. When he comes out, he seems dazed but well…until he
falls on his face, bruises his nose, and…regenerates. And he regenerates
into the body of an ape!
Emrhoset has been supercharged with the energy that helps Time Lords regenerate. Now he regenerates at the least cell damage, and can become anything living! Inside he remains the same, the only constant in his now chaotic life. The Time Lords treat him extremely cruelly now, as very spoiled children would treat their toys. They make him regenerate just for laughs, and it is soon found he has more than twelve regenerations…a lot more. The supply seems to be infinite! This just means Emrhoset goes years on end being tormented by the idiot games devised by the Time Lords, until he is hiding in the air ducts and acting more like a mouse than a man to avoid them. But one day, having scurried high into the towers in search of peace, he blunders across a place long forgotten by the Time Lords. He finds the Matrix Room, and ancient Time Lords still inhabit the Matrix. One (suspiciously familiar) Lord takes Emrhoset under his wing and begins teaching him how to be a proper Time Lord. With his new knowledge and confidence, Emrhoset goes back among the present-day Time Lords and demands a TARDIS of his own. They merely laugh at him. He is only a Whatsit to them now. They tell him to go sweep up as of old, and take off on another time-cruise.
His dreams fulfilled but completely turned inside-out, Emrhoset stomps around the sub-basements of the Citadel, and discovers a long-abandoned TARDIS with the key in the door. He immediately steals it and tries to journey to the place his friend in the Matrix told him so much about: London, Earth. He makes it to Earth, but by far the wrong era and location. This TARDIS is a mess, it seems. It never takes him anywhere he wants to go. Worse yet, the chameleon circuit shorts out, leaving it in the shape of a construction-site port-a-loo! When the Time Lords see this, they aren’t angry that he stole a TARDIS because he is so much more hilarious to them now. They dub his ship the TOIDY.
Centuries pass in his weird new life. Emrhoset bundles himself increasingly under layers of coats, hats and scarves as if this could hide his strange changes. He’s lucky that more than half his regenerations are Gallifreyan bodies that are variations on his original one, though with weird hair color or a different height or eye color. He begins trying to make a new identity, fighting against his new Whatsit title. He demands to be called Doctor. He is also known to go places such as UNIT HQ, declaring himself to be the Doctor. He always blunders somehow and gives himself away as an impostor. He is imitating a legendary hero, trying to become like him and be taken seriously, but no one ever does. He has more and more companions in his TARDIS, who take over the place and don’t respect him. Only one little girl of the crowd respects him and likes him, and her affection confuses him.
So does Emrhoset, now called Doctor Whatsit or just Whatsit by everyone, continue his crazy new life….