Bliss

Bliss was a companion of the Eighth Doctor. They met onboard the starship Theseus, and soon found themselves caught in the crossfire of the Last Great Time War. When she finally returned home in the TARDIS, she found that her whole life there now never existed. She was an orphan of the Time War.

Early life
Through biodata analysis, Bliss' ancestry was traced to the South Asia subcontinent on Earth. (AUDIO: The Conscript) She grew up on the planet Derilobia (AUDIO: The Lords of Terror) and was an alumna of Luna University. (AUDIO: Echoes of War)

Original timeline
In the original timeline before the Time War, Bliss studied robotics and computer science on Derilobia. She was kidnapped by the Nine, along with other companions of the Doctor, but, in this timeline, she had never met him. The Nine had received Bliss's name from River Song, who was aware of when Bliss had travelled with the Doctor and was able to explain that the change to Bliss's history was likely due to her being caught in a 'complex temporal event' when she originally met the Doctor. Despite being confused at the situation facing her, Bliss was able to work with Charley, Liv Chenka and Helen Sinclair to escape her prison, reprogram the Nine's drone guards and rescue River. Bliss claimed that she would be sure to run away from the Doctor if she met him after this, even if she had enjoyed working with the other three, but River erased her memory of this encounter once she returned Bliss home, and her memory of the event may have been erased by the Time War in any case. (AUDIO: Companion Piece)

Caught up in the Time War
With her history rewritten, (AUDIO: Companion Piece) Bliss had become a student of quantum engineering around the outbreak of the Last Great Time War. It was Bliss' idea to study the effects of the Time War up close, aboard the Theseus. It was there that she met the Eighth Doctor. (AUDIO: The Starship of Theseus, Echoes of War)

When a Time Lord agent crashed onboard the Theseus, it allowed the Daleks to enter the ship in search for the Time Lords. Once onboard, they went on to kill all passengers and crew. Bliss was part of a group of survivors that the Doctor rounded up in order to escape via his TARDIS. However, the TARDIS was not where the Doctor had landed it, so he led them back to a Dalek ship which had been left by them. (AUDIO: The Starship of Theseus)

The Doctor tried to escape, but the ship was badly damaged and it fell down to the planet below. This planet was a jungle planet, yet fallout from the Time War badly affected it and it went through constant states of flux, with the jungle dying, and then growing back again over and over again. The Dalek ship was not empty as the group had thought, with it containing a Dalek who had lost its memory and therefore did not display normal Dalek personality traits. The Doctor quickly christened this Dalek Dal in order for it to not discover its true species name, the possibility of it remembering what it is was too risky.

Dal discovered a temporal safe zone, and so began to lead the group on its way there. However, on the way, the group were attacked by primate-like creatures, and the Doctor was amongst those taken. Due to this, Dal elected Bliss as the new group leader, and they continued to press onwards to the safe zone. On arrival at the zone, the group found those who had been taken there. They discovered the creatures were benign, they had simply been affected by the fallout of the War and were trying to ask for help.

The Doctor found that the TARDIS had been damaged by the fallout, and so in an attempt at healing itself, it prevented all access to the console room. At this time, numerous TARDISes arrived in the zone, Cardinal Ollistra being a part of the group of Time Lords having just landed. Dal was destroyed, despite the Doctor's effects and Bliss, with the rest of the survivors were taken via TARDIS to a nearby Gallifreyan Military Moon Base. (AUDIO: Echoes of War)

Held at the Gallifreyan base, Bliss was interrogated by Ollistra whilst the Doctor was being trained to fight in the war. After Daleks began to attack the base, she met up with the Doctor, Rupa and Quarren, and was present when Ollistra threated to shoot the Doctor once they had gotten to his TARDIS. (AUDIO: The Conscript)

Ollistra did not shoot the Doctor and instead asked for a way out of the base. The Doctor tried to leave the system, but he could not do anything until he left the boundaries of the system. The Dalek ships tried to block the TARDIS, by materialising in the same point in space across all time, preventing the TARDIS access out of the system. Bliss then pointed out the quantum theory that if the Dalek ship is simultaneously everywhere, then it's also nowhere. Trusting her, the Doctor continued the path the TARDIS was taking and passed right through the ships. Ollistra then revealed the truth about Quarren, he was actually a Time Lord who made himself human because of his psychic powers. After Quarren turned himself back to human and before he wiped himself from history, he set in motion events to make Bliss the Doctor's companion. (AUDIO: One Life)

A companion in the War
The Eighth Doctor initially attempted to take Bliss back to her planet so that she could tell her mother and grandfather that she had survived the destruction of the Theseus, but Bliss's dilemma about whether she would stay with the Doctor or return home was cut short when she learned that Derilobia had become a weapons manufacturing planet for the Time Lords, its history changed by the Time War so that it had been apparently invaded by the Daleks twenty years before what would have been Bliss's present. Her life and family on Derilobia never existed. The Doctor learned that this was due to the actions of Carvil, a Time Lord who had lost his family to the Daleks and sought Derilobia's mineral resources to create missiles to be fired at the Daleks, but rejected the idea that the sacrifice of an entire planet was necessary. The Daleks destroyed Derilobia after a Dalek agent sent them the coordinates, which forced Bliss to flee with the Doctor, although he promised that he would find some way to restore her homeworld. (AUDIO: The Lords of Terror)

Behind the scenes
Although Bliss appeared in The Eighth Doctor: The Time War 1, she wasn't originally planned to be a companion. (VOR 125)

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