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
Bliss's timeline was rewritten several times by Deepa, resulting in multiple possible histories. (AUDIO: State of Bliss) She was also seemingly erased from history by the Time War when her family were killed or never existed. (AUDIO: The Lords of Terror) As a result of these possible histories, the Eighth Doctor would later say that it would not be a good idea to return to her home so as to avoid making one become dominant. (AUDIO: State of Bliss)

Bliss was born in Central City on Derilobia to a mother and father (AUDIO: The Lords of Terror) and could trace her ancestry to South Asia. (AUDIO: The Conscript) She lived in a house with her mother and grandfather, (AUDIO: The Lords of Terror) who was the one who suggested her name, and befriended Calla and Ryall, both of whom had feelings for her and whom she had difficulty choosing between.

With Calla and Ryall, (AUDIO: State of Bliss) Bliss attended Luna University and studied Applied Quantum Astrotech as a postgraduate student. She was aware of the Time War, although she thought that it was "ancient history". As a postgraduate, she went on a field trip to Titan (AUDIO: Echoes of War) with Calla and Ryall and observed a temporal anomaly which split her across several timelines. She would later find that she could not remember much about her past nor exactly what happened during her field trip. (AUDIO: State of Bliss)

Meeting the Doctor
Bliss boarded the Theseus to measure quantum fluctuations in a temporal warzone (AUDIO: Echoes of War) and, arming herself with a regression weapon, she led a group of people when the Daleks attacked. She later met the Eighth Doctor and escaped with him, Jefferson, Rupa and Quarren Maguire and others in a Dalek timeship. (AUDIO: The Starship of Theseus)

The timeship crashed on a jungle planet where Bliss was effectively put in charge of leading the refugees by Dal following the Doctor's kidnapping. She tried to save Dal when Ollistra arrived with Time Lord soldiers, but Tamasan killed him and took Bliss prisoner with the Maguires. (AUDIO: Echoes of War)

On the Moon of Tenacity, Ollistra interrogated Bliss to find out if she was the renegade that she was looking for, (AUDIO: One Life) but Bliss refused to answer her questions and fled to the TARDIS with the Doctor and the Maguires when the Daleks attacked. Ollistra, however, refused to allow her prisoners to leave. (AUDIO: The Conscript)

Ollistra allowed Bliss and the Maguires to enter the TARDIS when the Daleks broke through the final defences. Upon learning that Quarren was the renegade, the Doctor tried to find a safe planet for Bliss and Rupa but, after the Daleks were defeated and Quarren erased himself from time, Bliss joined the Doctor as his companion. The Doctor told her that they would have to try to stay ahead of the Time War. (AUDIO: One Life)

Early adventures
Not wanting her mother and grandfather to think that she was dead, Bliss asked the Doctor to take her back to Derilobia for a visit. However, they found that the Time Lords had altered the history of the planet and that Bliss' family seemed to have been erased from history, making her an orphan of the Time War. She helped the Doctor defeat Carvil, telling him that he was far worse than the Daleks, and left in the hope that there might be a way to restore her family. Until then, she and the Doctor agreed to look after one another and help out far from the battlefields. (AUDIO: The Lords of Terror)

Bliss and the Doctor visited Sto where she convinced him to hear the Twelve out when she approached them with Doctor Ogron. They went to the Planet where she and Doctor Ogron attempted to get the Ogrons to fight against the Daleks without success, instead appealing to the Crab Gods. A Dalek taskforce later took Bliss, the Doctor and the Twelve prisoner. (AUDIO: Planet of the Ogrons)

Imprisoned on Sangrey with their memories wiped, Bliss, the Doctor and the Twelve were periodically interrogated by the Daleks before having their memories of the interrogations removed. Bliss, known as Kappa Zeta, befriended the Doctor and came to believe that she might have once been an engineer. The trio eventually escaped and recovered their memories and Bliss rounded up the other prisoners to be taken to safety by the Time Lords, after which she was told she would be joining the Doctor and the Twelve in travelling to Uzmal. (AUDIO: In the Garden of Death)

Bliss, at the Doctor's request, kept an eye on the Twelve whilst aboard the Bloodhound and found that she could not remember exactly what she was doing and escaping from when she met the Doctor on the Theseus. She was attacked by the Twelve when the Ourashima took over and later plotted the course towards the Ourashima. (AUDIO: Jonah)

Making a difference
To make sense of Bliss's past and her corrupted biodata, Bliss used the TARDIS's telepathic circuits to find out exactly how she had ended up on the Theseus. She observed several possible histories and learnt that Calla, as Professor Deepa, had rewritten her past several times over as part of a plan to lure the Doctor to her and give her access to a TARDIS. She found that she was happy to remember her possible pasts and not to fix one by returning to Derilobia, asking the Doctor if he could take her somewhere where she could help make a difference. (AUDIO: State of Bliss)

On Iptheus, Bliss ate some of the ichor but, unlike the Doctor, was able to escape from the Enablers and investigate what was happening to the starving people of the planet. She was reunited with the Doctor after stealing a teleport from an Enabler and was cured of the ichor by Aeronwen after they managed to convince her to stop using it. (AUDIO: The Famished Lands)

In return for Tamasan's promise to protect the Sea of Nemocene, Bliss and the Doctor joined her in travelling to Thellian in an Argodian escape pod to find out how the last of the Helixara survived time deletion. Bliss became lady-in-waiting to King Vashko and was exposed as an off-worlder by her ignorance of Thellian culture, leading her to pretend that she, the Doctor and Tamasan were Argodians. She sympathised with Shonnath, feeling that she too was an aberration of the timelines. (AUDIO: Fugitive in Time)

Further adventures
to be added

Alternative timelines
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)

Personality
Bliss enjoyed solving problems and always deconstructed and analysed situations as well as people. She saw the practical application in things. (AUDIO: In the Garden of Death)

Appearance
The Twelve told Bliss that she could do with "fattening up a bit". (AUDIO: Planet of the Ogrons) She was of South Asian ancestry. (AUDIO: The Conscript)

Behind the scenes
Although Bliss appeared in all of the The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume One stories, she was not originally intended to be a companion and the end of One Life had to be rewritten to accommodate this change. (BFX: The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume One) The Lords of Terror was rewritten to include her, making Derilobia her home planet. (BFX: The Eighth Doctor: Time War: Volume Two)

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