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 had multiple possible histories due to Deepa intentionally rewriting her timeline (AUDIO: State of Bliss) and, due to the Time War, her family died prematurely or were erased from time and left her as an orphan of the war. (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 for her to return home as it could make one history dominant. (AUDIO: State of Bliss)

Able to trace her ancestry to South Asia, (AUDIO: The Conscript) Bliss was born in Central City on Derilobia to a mother and father. (AUDIO: The Lords of Terror) Her name was suggested by her grandfather, (AUDIO: State of Bliss) with whom she and her mother lived. (AUDIO: The Lords of Terror) Her friends, Calla and Ryall, both had feelings for her, but she had difficulty choosing between them.

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, led a group of people when the ship was attacked by Daleks. She met the Eighth Doctor and escaped with him and a group of others, including Jefferson and Rupa and Quarren Maguire, in a Dalek timeship. (AUDIO: The Starship of Theseus)

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

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

Bliss and the Doctor found that the Daleks had been erased from time, ending the Time War, although nobody was sure why. They continued to travel together long after leaving Thellian. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard)

Cessation of war
After the Doctor had a vision of the Valeyard, Bliss went with him to a Time Lord waystation and learnt about the Valeyard's mission and imprisonment on Grahv, something which sickened Bliss. The two of them went to rescue him in Tamasan's TARDIS and told him the truth, although he chose to remain there believing that he was the Doctor rather than risk his true personality being reasserted. Bliss and the Doctor left through a portal, Tamasan's TARDIS having been severely damaged. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard)

The war resumes
to be added

Legacy
The Valeyard remembered Bliss from their adventures together, which was far in the Valeyard's past. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard)

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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