The Genocide Machine (audio story)

The Genocide Machine was the seventh story in Big Finish's monthly Doctor Who range. It was the first serial in the Dalek Empire arc, which continued in the Sixth Doctor audio The Apocalypse Element and the Fifth Doctor audio The Mutant Phase before concluding in the Eighth Doctor audio The Time of the Daleks.

The story introduced the character of Bev Tarrant who would go on to be a main character in the Bernice Summerfield audio range.

Behind the scenes, this story was notable, not just as the first Big Finish production to feature the Daleks, but as Nicholas Briggs' first time voicing them in an official Doctor Who production. He previously voiced the Daleks for the Audio Visuals in the 1980s. Briggs later went on to voice the Daleks throughout the BBC Wales series of Doctor Who, as Russell T Davies was a Big Finish subscriber and discovered him that way.

Another first behind the scenes was the first use of Pro Tools to edit a Big Finish story, namely by Nick Briggs, who provided the post-production and music/sound design for The Genocide Machine. The small 8-track device he previously used to edit Big Finish broke down mid-production, and he was forced to upgrade.

Publisher's summary
The library on Kar-Charrat is one of the wonders of the Universe. It is also hidden from all but a few select species. The Doctor and Ace discover that the librarians have found a new way of storing data — a wetworks facility — but the machine has attracted unwanted attention, and the Doctor soon finds himself pitted against his oldest and deadliest enemies — the Daleks!

Plot
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Ace - Sophie Aldred
 * Bev Tarrant - Louise Falkner
 * Chief Librarian Elgin - Bruce Montague
 * Cataloguer Prink - Nicholas Briggs
 * Rappell/Phantom voices - Daniel Gabriele
 * The Daleks - Alistair Lock and Nicholas Briggs

Daleks

 * The Daleks were kept in cryogenic hibernation in what was thought to have been a ziggurat on the planet.
 * According to Bev Tarrant, the Daleks' ziggurat is at least twelve hundred seventy years old, meaning that it was most likely built during the 29th century.
 * The Daleks use a duplicate of Ace to bring down the Kar-Charrat library defences.
 * The Kar-Charratans attack the Daleks by flooding their shells and drowning the mutants inside of them.
 * A Special Weapons Dalek, the Dalek Supreme and the Dalek Emperor are all present or are in contact during the course of events.
 * The Daleks count in rels.

Technology

 * The Doctor's consciousness/mind was used as a buffer to control data transfer from the wetworks facility to the Dalek test subject.
 * The Doctor blows up the wetworks facility, freeing the captive natives.

Time technology

 * The Kar-Charrat Library is hidden behind a temporal barrier.

Continuity

 * This is the first appearance of art thief Bev Tarrant. She would later feature in AUDIO: Dust Breeding and the Big Finish Bernice Summerfield series, eventually (and somewhat ironically) running and protecting the Braxiatel Collection, one of the largest collections of art in the universe.
 * The Dalek mission to the Kar-Charrat library would have important ramifications following the Dalek invasion of Mutter's Spiral in 4162. (AUDIO: Invasion of the Daleks, AUDIO: Project Infinity)
 * A Dalek Supreme of the same design as the one seen in TV: Planet of the Daleks makes an appearance. It is subordinate to the Dalek Emperor.
 * Bev mentions Coralee. The Doctor and Ace visited Coralee in PROSE: Storm Harvest. Flinkstab murdered a dancing girl on Coralee in AUDIO: Square One.
 * The Doctor picked up Benny's diaries from the Kar-Charrat Library, and sent them to her on the Collection. (PROSE: A la Recherche du Temps Perdu