Badger (Lungbarrow)

Badger was an avatroid which Quences gave the Doctor when he was a child. It acted as his tutor, protector and friend. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

Biography
Badger came with the rest of his race to Gallifrey seeking time travel. They were told that their home planet would be sealed behind a force field if they ever returned there. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)

When the Doctor was a child, Quences gave Badger to him. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) Quences sent Badger to collect the Doctor from the Academy, wanting him home to celebrate Otherstide and his name day. The Doctor refused and sent Badger home without him. (PROSE: Divided Loyalties)

When the Doctor was disowned by his family and left Gallifrey in his stolen TARDIS, Badger was stored away in the House of Lungbarrow. He remained in stand-by mode, reactivating only when the Doctor returned to Lungbarrow in his seventh incarnation. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

Other realities
In a parallel universe, where the Doctor never left Gallifrey, Badger was the robot servant of the Doctor. (AUDIO: Auld Mortality)

The version of the Eighth Doctor that lived in the Obverse also had a version of Badger as a private nurse and school-teacher. (PROSE: The Blue Angel)

Appearance
Badger looked nothing like its namesake Earth animal. It was bulky, standing about seven feet tall and was covered in serrated black stripes over a cream-coloured pelt. Its body was bear-like and tusks sprouted from its mouth. On either side of its head were massive, curling horns "big enough to hang a coat from".

Despite a realistic exterior, there were things which marked Badger as obviously mechanical. It had a wide variety of emotions programmed into it, but most of them were too robotically precise to be convincing. Its speakers were apparently hidden in its chest, because its voice never sounded as to be coming from its mouth.

Because Badger was meant to protect the Doctor, it had incredible strength, enough to fight and kill a monster who'd taken up residence in the flooded northern annex of the House of Lungbarrow. Badger would even attack other Time Lords if it thought they threatened the Doctor. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

Behind the scenes

 * In his afterword to the digital edition of Lungbarrow, Marc Platt wrote that Badger was "essentially the Doctor's first companion."
 * Mike Tucker made a maquette of Badger as a reference for cover artist Fred Gambino. (DWM 317)