Project Destiny (audio story)

Project: Destiny was the one hundred and thirty-ninth story in Big Finish's monthly range. It was written by Cavan Scott and Mark Wright and featured Sylvester McCoy as the Seventh Doctor, Sophie Aldred as Ace, Philip Olivier as Hex, Stephen Chance as Sir William Abberton and introduced Maggie O'Neill as Lysandra Aristedes.

It was a direct sequel, leading directly on from June 2009's The Angel of Scutari, the last Seventh Doctor story featuring Ace and Hex. It led directly into the next Seventh Doctor story A Death in the Family.

It was also the third and final in the "Project:" series of audio stories Project: Twilight (which featured the Sixth Doctor) and Project: Lazarus (which featured the Sixth and Seventh Doctors).

Unknowing to listeners at the time, this saw the audio debut of a character who would later become the Seventh Doctor's companion - Lysandra Aristedes, a soldier working for the Forge.

Publisher's summary
1999: Leaving her infant son behind, a young mother named Cassandra Schofield departs Bolton, seeking a better life amid the lights of London.

2004: Despite the best efforts of the time-travelling Doctor, "Cassie" Schofield dies on Dartmoor, a vampirised victim of the sinister organisation called the Forge.

2021: All grown up, and a nurse at St Gart's Hospital, Thomas Hector Schofield, known as "Hex", meets and becomes a companion to that time-travelling Doctor... but remains unaware that his alien friend knew his mother, and watched her die.

1854: In the Crimean War, Hex takes a bullet, and is seriously injured. The Doctor promises to return him to St Gart's.

2025: Now. In a London ravaged by a deadly contagion... destiny awaits.

Plot
to be added

Cast

 * The Doctor - Sylvester McCoy
 * Ace - Sophie Aldred
 * Hex - Philip Olivier
 * Sir William Abberton - Stephen Chance
 * Captain Lysandra Aristedes - Maggie O'Neill
 * Sergeant Jarrod - Philip Dinsdale
 * Helen/Oracle - Ingrid Oliver

Crew

 * Cover Art - Simon Holub
 * Director - Ken Bentley
 * Executive Producers - Nicholas Briggs and Jason Haigh-Ellery
 * Music and Sound Design - Howard Carter
 * Producer - David Richardson
 * Script Editor - Alan Barnes
 * Writers - Mark Wright and Cavan Scott

The Doctor

 * The Doctor's files concerning "Project: Twilight" are listed under "T" in the TARDIS' filing cabinet.

Cultural references to the real world

 * Ace refers to Nimrod as "Dracula" and to Lysandra as "Rambo".
 * Ace always hated A-ha.
 * She's also never seen Dawn of the Dead.

Organisations

 * Nimrod refers to Internal Counter-Intelligence Service (ICIS), a British ultra-nationalistic group which served as a rival organisation to UNIT until it was closed down in 2005 following its involvement in ethnic cleansing and an attempted coup.

People

 * Mark Mathias was one of Hex's St Gart's associates.

Politics

 * In 2026, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is a woman.

Science

 * It requires just a drop of family-blood to regenerate Cassandra Schofield's dusty remains into a body, although she is reduced to a fundamentally feral state that barely recognizes Hex as her son.

Species

 * The "contagion" aliens exist as a hive mind.

Substances

 * The Forge archive is reinforced with Dalekanium.

TARDIS

 * Ace looks for the TARDIS key in the cubby-hole above the "P" in "Police Box" on the roof of the TARDIS.
 * The Seal of Rassilon is displayed above the inner doors of the TARDIS.

Continuity

 * The events of Parts 3 and 4 of AUDIO: Project: Lazarus (to which this story serves as a sequel) are in the past but are in the Doctor's personal future. Nimrod informs the Doctor that he was present at the destruction of the Forge's alpha facility in 2008. The Doctor attempts to prevent Nimrod from telling him too much about his personal future so as not to disrupt the Web of Time.
 * The Seal of Rassilon is displayed above the inner doors of the TARDIS as is seen in TV: Doctor Who, confirming that the console room now looks as it did in the TVM.
 * The Forge's files on Hex state that he was present during the Charnage Hospital incident in the north of France during World War I in 1917. (AUDIO: No Man's Land)
 * Ace mentions that on their previous visit to St Gart's Bankside Hospital, when the Doctor mentions her fire safety training, that she was the one in Human Resources and he was the caretaker, so there was no need to quote the book at her. (AUDIO: The Harvest)
 * UNIT had records of Ace's involvement in this incident. (AUDIO: Signs and Wonders)
 * Hex mentions the Daleks killing injured people on Bliss. (AUDIO: Enemy of the Daleks)
 * After Nimrod's death, Lysandra was appointed acting director of the Forge. (AUDIO: Black and White)
 * The Forge operates out of the Crichton Building, named after Charles Crichton, the former deputy director of the Forge. (PROSE: Project Valhalla)