The Tides of Time (comic story)

Summary
The Prime Mover, universal guardian of the Event Synthsizer, plays a discordant note in error, causing the timestreams of the Universe to cross and opening a rift through which the demon Melancius is able to escape from his otherdimensional prison. A cricket match in the quiet English town of Stockbridge is interrupted when the cricket ball is suddenly transposed with a grenade from an Army testing range on the same site forty years previously, and the Doctor, who was participating in the match, bows out to investigate the time anomaly. Accompanied by the temporally displaced English knight Sir Justin, the Doctor returns to Gallifrey and connects himself to the Matrix to commune with the High Evolutionaries of the cosmos, including Rassilon and Merlin. They inform him that Melancius has seized control of the Event Synthesizer and intends to plunge the Universe into war; to this end, he has removed the Synthesizer from spacetime, creating a maelstrom of event turbulence in the Universe.

The Doctor, Sir Justin, and a shadow construct of the Matrix known as Shayde enter the maelstrom in search of the Synthesizer, but are plunged into a surreal dreamscape that takes the form of a malevolent funfair. They manage to escape, but while they shelter from the effects of the maelstrom, Melancius uses the Synthesizer to instigate the Millennium Wars, crossing timelines so that different worlds in different time eras fight each other for no reason whatsoever.

Shayde directs the Doctor to a starcraft from Althrace, a gestalt organism of a star system where the planets have been bolted together and set in orbit within a white hole as a testament to the glory of Creation. The High Evolutionaries of Althrace explain that Melancius was exiled from their system when he attempted to lead his people into war. On 3rd-century Earth, Melancius contacted a despot named Catavolcus and introduced him to the secrets of technology and time travel, but before they could conquer the world Merlin banished Melancius to a dimensional prison. The Doctor now understands the significance of his previous encounter with Merlin.

The High Evolutionaries of the cosmos join mental forces to halt Time and locate the Synthesizer, in a church on a future Earth devastated by the Millennium Wars. There, Sir Justin douses Melancius with holy water, and as the demon attempts to escape, Shayde shoots him and Sir Justin leaps through the window of the church to stab Melancius through the heart and destroy him once and for all. The Event Synthesizer is thus restored to the hands of the Prime Mover, and the Doctor awakens back in Stockbridge, uncertain how much of what he experienced really happened.

Characters

 * Fifth Doctor

Continuity
to be added