The Bidmead Masterplan, or...
... the Birdseed Marzipan
Blair Bidmead. Obverse author. Faction Paradox novelist. Iris scribe. Champion of Original Characters and headcanon. Hartnell lover. A Bludgeon to canon.
Señor 105: By the Time I Get to Venus: Señor 105 (when merely Señor 93) and the time traveling DJ Theo Possible travel back to the Venus of three billion years ago, a few relative years before the date and events of Paul Leonard’s Venusian Lullaby. There, 93 and Possible learn the art of the Venusian and train under Venusian aikido masters, with Mondasian Cyber(wo)man Litany Chromehurst, and a young First Doctor. During the training, Theo Possible, holding contempt for the Doctor and his people (a race of “trans-temporal aggressors”), beats the Doctor in combat, and leaves him with a limb that would require the use of a cane for the remainder of the incarnation’s life. The Doctor leaves Venus with a Venusian training stave (which would become one of his primary and favorite walking sticks).
(Due to translation technology, Señor 105 only knows the Doctor as “El Jefe,” and Litany’s homeworld as “El Mundo.” Despite Bidmead’s use of the the title of the satirical deconstruction of the Doctor in the Iris Wildthyme story First Meetings, the “El Jefe” seen here is inarguably the Doctor proper.)
“Significant Others,” A Target for Tommy: Prior to retiring from adventuring, Theo Possible begins to travel with Rose Tyler. Due to his trans-temporal nature, Possible is able to cross other dimensions and locked off timelines, and met Rose in Pete’s World. Feeling abandoned by the Tenth Doctor and now disgusted with the Metacrisis Doctor, Rose happily travels with Possible. The pair cross paths with the much older First Doctor in the Fourth Universe (on a planetary neighbor of Quinnis), realizing that their adventure was intertwined. While seemingly willing to let bygones be bygones, Theo is unable to get the Doctor to let go of old grudges, and the Time Lord totters off after telling Possible he “is not canonical!”
Rose never learns the identity of the old man.
“With All Awry,” Myth Makers: The Golden Years: After The Ancestor Cell, in an intermission before The Burning or a different temporal path entirely, the amnesic Eighth Doctor is given refuge from the universe in the Eleven Day Empire by the Faction. With his history damaged beyond repair, the Doctor is insubstantial and ghost-like, an echo. He shares his flat in the Empire with “Reg,” the equally insubstantial Ninth Doctor of Scream of the Shalka. The pair are looked after by Iris Wildthyme, at least at first. The few things that help the Eighth Doctor hold on to his existence are: a letter from Fitz Kreiner, explaining that the Faction are actually trying to help, and Fitz’s leather jacket, sent to the Doctor to ground him.
However, a “large Northerner with close cropped hair” appears in the flat one day, using the Doctors’ remembrance tank bathtub to become real flesh and blood, seemingly with Iris’ help. The Eighth Doctor and “Reg” are evicted by the Faction, and before the ghostly pair can make it to the TARDIS, the “Northerner” steals Fitz’ leather jacket and the TARDIS. “Reg” abandons the Eighth Doctor and vanishes into the mists of the Empire.
The final fate of this version of the Eighth Doctor is unknown.
“Now or Thereabouts,” Faction Paradox: A Romance in Twelve Parts: After vanishing from the face of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Kelsey Hooper attempts to join Faction Paradox at eighteen years of age, wishing to gain the technology and means of destroying her ex-boyfriend Ryan (in truth a humanoid creature with a face of exploding glass). Now going by Ceol, she and a select group of young Siblings take part in Godfather Starch’s Apprentice-style media ritual. One of the many tasks Ceol is set to accomplish is to evict the Eighth Doctor and “Reg” from the Eleven Day Empire, and she witnesses the “Northerner” in the bath (as well as giving him a ride to the TARDIS).
Ceol eventually becomes the victor of the media-ritual, gains a shadow weapon, and destroys Ryan.
“Party Kill Accelerator!” The Panda Book of Horror: Calling herself Kelsey for simplicity, Cousin Ceol meets up with Theo Possible at the Zona Obscura Music Festival as part of a “cultural exchange.” She has an adventure with Iris Wildthyme and Panda after refusing to kill them at the request of the evil Jimmy the Mandrill. Before Kelsey departs, Theo Possible gives her his record box.
“Entirely Possible,” Webcomic: An unknown time between, before, after, or during all these stories, Theo Possible begins a new adventure.
(This story is unfinished, but establishes that Possible’s primary time traveling is done on the Parallel Line, a literal railway through history and timelines (maintained and regulated by the Time Lords perhaps?). Theo’s compassion and pity for (what appear to be) survivors of the Anchoring of the Thread and time wars is made apparent.)
“The Calamari-Men of Mare Cimmerium,” Iris Wildthyme of Mars- Iris Wildthyme and a Martian named Vardo discover Ares, the Greek god of war, drunk in a bar, locked away by Mars, the Roman god of war. The Roman god allied himself with the Calamari-men, whose Queen could produce an ink that could literally rewrite the pages of history.
Faction Paradox: Weapons Grade Snake Oil: This story establishes the exsistence of Godfather Christèmas, the renegade Homeworlder the Hussar, brings the infamous Anne Bony into Faction lore, and gives us a wonderful new character in the form of the renegade timeship the Kraken.
Several years after escaping the Faction, Cousin Ceol, now Sojourner Hooper-Agogô, led a rebellion against the company seen in The Sun Makers and became the president of PROTEC. The Faction drags her back into the mess (but certainly not without a fight).
(This story established the concepts of “Oxbow Realities” (strongly implying NuWho is the end product of the Doctor’s protagonist syndrome) and “Elective Semantectomy.”)
“Grumpy Auld Men,” Battlefield by the Meadow: To the joy of absolutely nobody, Theo Possible and the Doctor cross paths again, the Doctor now in his twelfth incarnation.
“Happily Ever After is a High-Risk Strategy,” Tales of the City: Now semi-retired from adventuring, Theo Possible goes to and fro through the universe lazily, and is capable of getting into the City of the Saved (despite not being human, and not being dead.)
While in the City, Theo learns that Litany Chromehurst, the Mondasian Cyber(wo)man he trained with on Venus, was resurrected in the City.
“A Hundred Words from a Civil War,” Faction Paradox: A Romance in Twelve Parts: Kelsey Hooper/Cousin Ceol/Sojourner Hooper-Agogô is resurrected in the City of the Saved with her cymbiont L-Event.
