Zoe Heriot

Zoe Heriot (surname spelled in some literary works as "Herriot") was a young astrometricist, first class, and astrophysicist on board Station 3 (aka The Wheel) when she met the Doctor and Jamie McCrimmon. She introduced herself to them as 'astrophysicist, pure-mathematics major', to which her colleague Dr Gemma Corwyn added 'with honours'. Zoe had a photographic memory, and was described by her colleagues as 'the librarian'. her training left her emotionally underdeveloped, having been taught the value of logic. This lack of emotion led to confilct with some of her colleagues, who challenged her about her apparent lack of personal interest in the Wheel when it was about to be struck by meteorites. When she met the Doctor, Zoe was presented with a case study in how illogical, intuitive, action and instinct could be successful.

Biography
As Zoe became more aware that there was more to knowledge than mere facts, she decided to hide on the TARDIS. She realised that she had learnt as much as she could on the Wheel, where her abilities and role were compartmentalised and defined. Zoe had become ready to discover the universe, and her place in it.

When visiting the War Museum on Dulkis, Zoe was reminded of 'the old atom test islands on earth'. At the same time, she was dissmisive of the Quarks, claiming 'they're only robots' (The Dominators)

Later in her travels, Zoe was lured out of the TARDIS by seeing her home city on the TARDIS scanner screen. Having recognised the Karkus from the hourly telepress of the year 2000, Zoe was able to defeat him - and used her logic skills to overload the computer (The Mind Robber). Zoe tended to regularly use her programming skills to find solutions to problems. Whilst helping the Doctor and Jamie deal with the Cybermen's attempted invasion of Earth, Zoe destroyed the computer in the reception at International Electromatics. Determined to not be beaten by a 'stupid tin box', Zoe gave the computer an insoluble program in Algol, and took great delight in the computer's destruction. Using her mathematical, and logic, knowledge Zoe later computed the attack pattern for missiles to set up a chain reaction which was needed to destroy the incoming Cyberships (The Invasion).

Zoe's great knowledge and intellect were always evident, but never more so than when she was tested on the Gond teaching machines. Having scored more than double the score of the best Gond students, Zoe declared that the Doctor could certainly answer the questions too (The Krotons). Again using her computational and logic skills, Zoe, in further travels, worked out the trajectory of beacon segments to deduce that the Space Pirates base must be on Ta.

Eventually the Time Lords sent Zoe back to the Wheel. Having had her memory of her time with the Doctor and Jamie removed, she was never aware that she had ever been away (The War Games)

Quotes
"Suppose that we do get ourselves out of this mess - What have I got left? A blind reliance on facts and logic."

"I don't want to be thought of as a freak. Leo said that I was like a robot, a machine.  I think he's right.  My head has been pumped full of facts and figures which I can reel out automatically when needed, but I want to feel things as well."

"Logic... merely enables one to be wrong with authority" -- The Doctor explains the pitfalls of Logic to Zoe

"There's too much I don't know. I was trained to believe that logic and calculation would provide me with the answers. Well I'm just beginning to realise there are questions which I can't answer... What good am I?  I've been created for some false kind of existance where only known kinds of emergencies are catered for."

The Wheel in Space

"It's quite logical really, hardly any calculation needed at all. Except the simple stuff like speed, angle of descent and relative positions of the spaceships."

The Invasion

"He's almost as clever as I am." -- talking of the Doctor

The Krotons

"It's rude to point, you know. Especially with a gun."

The Space Pirates

"Will we ever meet again?"

"I thought I'd forgotten something important, but it's nothing."

The War Games