Daughter of the Gods (audio story)

 was the second and final story of the sixth series of The Early Adventures, produced by Big Finish Productions. The range's first multi-Doctor story, it was written by David K Barnes, narrated by Wendy Padbury and Peter Purves, and featured the Second Doctor, Jamie McCrimmon and Zoe Heriot teaming up with the First Doctor, Steven Taylor and Katarina to fight the Daleks.

Producer David Richardson credits Jason Haigh-Ellery with the initial idea of a multi-Doctor story featuring the First and Second Doctors in The Early Adventures to celebrate 20 years of Big Finish Doctor Who material. Richardson envisioned the story as a sort of "5 year anniversary special" which could plausibly have been made in 1968, albeit with slightly heavier emphasis on continuity.

The Daleks' Master Plan served as the basis for the plot and emotional core. Daughter of the Gods derived its title from a monologue delivered by the First Doctor in Master Plan in tribute to the short-lived companion Katarina. This story gives Katarina substantial development, effectively making her the central character. (BFX: Daughter of the Gods)

Publisher's summary
When Zoe reattaches an old piece of equipment to the TARDIS console, she, Jamie and the Doctor are very lucky to avoid a collision.

But the place they find themselves in may be even more dangerous - because there they encounter another Doctor, a space pilot named Steven...and a young woman called Katarina who really shouldn’t be there....

Part 1
While the TARDIS is in flight, Jamie notices a door in the corridor which he has never seen before. The Doctor tries to prompt him away but Jamie opens it, spilling its contents all over the floor. The Doctor explains the room is a cupboard, where he keep various "useful" knickknacks he had acquired in his travels that the chest in the console room has no space for.

As the Doctor and Jamie amuse themselves with a remote-controlled car, Zoe notices another strange device. The Doctor tells her it is a time path indicator which detects other vessels travelling through the Time Vortex but dismisses its importance, which baffles Zoe – more so after she examines the device in the console room just before the TARDIS collides with another police box.

Struggling to deal with the crash, the Doctor suddenly hears voices he recognises, including talk of the Place of Perfection. The Doctor tries to communicate with these voices but they dissipate and the TARDIS lands.

With the ship's circuits in need of repair, the trio venture out onto the planet where they are swept up in a chaotic evacuation effort in the midst of a destructive invasion, with buildings falling in a bombardment. Jamie is separated from the Doctor and Zoe, fleeing from Captain Parlos. The Doctor and Zoe, meanwhile, unsuccessful in their attempts to learn where they are or who is invading, are boarded onto the ship. The pilot arrives to calm the passengers but the Doctor recognises the man as his old companion Steven Taylor, yet he has no memory a previous visit to this planet. As the Doctor considers this, the face of his previous incarnation appears on all screens, warning the evacuees that the invaders are almost upon them.

Jamie arrives in an empty street, where he runs into Varx and Piril on a looting spree. They threaten him when a lost young woman arrives. Jamie protects her, knocking Piril out and causing Varx to flee. The woman then urges Jamie to follow her to her lord's Temple as another bombardment begins. To Jamie's surprise, he recognises the Temple as the TARDIS. The suspicious young woman informs him she has a key but does not wish to upset her lord. Jamie informs her that if they stay outside, they will both die. The woman declares that her name is Katarina and that she is already dead.

Part 2
On the morning prior to the invasion, Katarina is awoken by a nightmare depicting her death. Steven assures her everything is all right. As the Doctor digs in to his breakfast in their rented apartment, Steven comes in to complain that the Doctor's party with his scientific colleagues kept him up all night. Katarina's appearance breaks up their argument. The Doctor opines that she has made remarkable progress in her education since their arrival or Urbinia.

The Doctor heads for his next lecture at Kiria City's university with Katarina and they discuss their current situation and her recurring nightmares, which have plagued her since she first entered the TARDIS. After the TARDIS departed wartorn Troy, it collided with another ship in the Time Vortex, landing them on Urbinia, where the travellers have remained for three months, unable to fix the burnt-out circuits. In that time, the Doctor has networked with the political leaders and scientific community while Steven found a simple job at the spaceport. The Doctor considers it fortunate that they landed on such an advanced planet which allowed them to treat Steven's wounds received at Troy. Before he can continue his conversation with Katarina, Captain Parlos approaches him informing him his next lecture is cancelled. He has instead been summoned before Chancellor Atrias, on matters concerning the safety of the planet.

Steven continued his work when his co-worker Krell shows him some strange readings on the scanner. He has picked up a fleet of ships heading their way from the neighbouring planet Baralda, which is itself nowhere to be found on the readings. The planet has disappeared in a matter of hours.

In the meeting with Chancellor Atrias, the Doctor and Katarina are shown a distress transmission from Baralda. First Citizen Togrok appeals for aid against a sudden attack but before he can complete his message, he is aged to death and the planet with him. Atrias thought it only fitting to ask the Doctor for help in the matter and the Doctor agrees, considering that he knows just the kind of creatures so willing to destroy and with the ability to manipulate time to that end. At that moment, Atrias received an incoming transmission from the inbound fleet. The Daleks demand his people surrender and submit to slavery or suffer the fate of Baralda. Atrias suffers a nervous breakdown and agrees to the Daleks' terms. He flees in cowardice, much to the Doctor and Parlos' disgust. The Doctor urges Parlos to begin an evacuation. He gives Katarina a TARDIS key and tells her to return there, while he plans to contact Steven and warn the rest of the population about the imminent Dalek invasion.

After warning Steven to ready the spaceport, the Doctor's message is broadcast throughout Kiria City. Steven and Krell ready any available ship but the crowds are swept into a panic and the Daleks begin to bombard the city. Parlos confronts three onlookers gawking at the crowds, unaware of what is going on.

Shortly after, Katarina is left on her own when her own guard escort panics and leaves her. Lost in the city, she tries to find her bearings before finally encountering Jamie.

In the Council Chamber, the Doctor demands to know why the Daleks are bombarding the city when Atrias already has surrendered. The Daleks claim they are a warning in response to the mass population movement, which is to be ended or the Time Destructor will be brought to bear on the planet. The Dalek saucers descend, heralding the beginning of the Harvest of Urbinia.

Part 3
After the First Doctor's message is broadcast around the city once more, the Second Doctor tries to end his argument with Steven. When he learns that the Daleks are behind the attack, he urges Steven to take them to his Doctor. To avoid the suspicions of Captain Parlos, the Doctor offers himself and Zoe and volunteers to help with the evacuation, to which Parlos reluctantly agrees. The Doctor questions Steven as to the whereabouts of Vicki. Steven says she isn't travelling with them any more; they are travelling with Katarina. The Doctor remembers Vicki stayed in Troy, information which Steven realises only the Doctor could know. Katarina's presence, however, is noted by the Doctor.

At the First Doctor's TARDIS, Jamie and Katarina enter and find safety. They both realise that with the Doctor's ability to travel in time, the two Doctor's time streams must have overlapped, although Katarina's understanding of events is a mystery to Jamie. She still believes she is dead and is yet to pass into the Underworld, while the Doctor, her god, is doing battle against the Evil Ones who have come to claim her soul. Jamie at least does learn that the Daleks are responsible for the invasion, a discovery which prompts Jamie into action and he leaves the TARDIS to warn his Doctor. He and Katarina meet Parlos and other security forces as a Dalek saucer lands nearby. Parlos tells the troops to take no prisoners. Several Silver Daleks descend from the saucer's boarding ramp and engage Parlos in battle. Jamie and Katarina make for the spaceport after witnessing the start of the firing. The pair seek refuge in an abandoned and looted bank as the Daleks begin to kill and capture civilians.

Back in the Council Chamber, the Doctor finishes contact with other cities and contacts Parlos. He is surprised to learn the Daleks have already landed but tells Parlos to not to engage in battle and risk the use of the Time Destructor. Instead, she must lure the Daleks away from the spaceport to buy more time for the evacuation. The Doctor is then contacted by Steven and Zoe, the latter of which warns that all ships should evacuate at the same time so the Daleks get no chance to find out what is happening before everyone can escape. She has also already calculated the coordinates necessary to bypass the Dalek Fleet much to the Doctor's chagrin. Additionally, to assist the Doctor, Zoe has sent her friend, the Doctor, to help. With a knock and the door, the Second Doctor introduces himself and informs the First Doctor that he shouldn't be here.

Atrias is brought before the Dalek Supreme, having been captured after his own ship was stolen, foiling his escape attempt. Although the Daleks recognise him as the leader of the city who agreed to their terms of surrender, Atrias tells them the Doctor is in charge. The Dalek Supreme sends its subordinates to find the Doctor, and then disposes of Atrias.

The Second Doctor explains to his past self that the TARDIS collision threw them off their original course. The First Doctor, Steven and Katarina were meant to land on Kembel and defeat the Daleks before they could develop the Time Destructor; the landing on Ubinia was a mistake. When the First Doctor realises the Second Doctor was the cause of the collision which ultimately led to the invasion, the Second Doctor concedes and agrees that he must put things right. He does, however, inform the First Doctor that doing so will reset the timeline, meaning that the previous three months will never have happened, and, far worse, Katarina is destined to die on the mission to stop the Daleks. As the First Doctor struggles to digest the news, a Dalek arrives and demands the population be turned over to them.

At the spaceport, the evacuation is only half complete by Steven's estimation when the security forces clamp the hangar bay doors shut, citing a lack of time. Any one not in a ship is thought to be hiding at home or trying their luck outside the city. In addition to the worries afflicting the haphazard evacuation effort, the ships are already at capacity and food supplies are woefully insufficient. Steven finds Zoe tampering with compressed power cells called phason pods, one of which could power a starship for a whole day. Zoe continues to make them more volatile using a molecular bonder as part of an idea to meet the demands of a pressing need for them. At that point, Jamie and Katarina reach the spaceport and cry for the doors to be opened, while three Daleks catch up with them. "Exterminate! Annihilate! Destroy!"

Part 4
Jamie agrees to surrender, knowing of the Daleks' orders to capture and enslave as many people as possible rather than kill them. One Dalek reckons it is a deception but decides to take them back to the ship. Another Dalek countermands the order. It has a better use for them.

In the confrontation in the Council Chambers, the Daleks discover that the two Doctors are one and the same man. They try to return them to the Dalek Supreme to investigate how this is possible. However, the Doctor's are saved by the arrival of Parlos and other security officers, giving the Doctors time to escape.

At the spaceport, the Daleks use Jamie and Katarina as hostages to gain entry to the hangar bay. Steven and company open the doors but the Daleks run straight into an ambush. Zoe detonates the phason pods, igniting the fuel spread across the floor. The dazed and blinded Daleks fire randomly through the smoke into the resisting crowd before the three of them explode in succession. The crowd cheers at their success but the celebrations are short-lived once Steven finds Krell dead, killed by one of the stray Dalek shots. As he solemnly orders the doors closed again, Parlos and the Doctors run up to join them.

Yet as the travellers are all united, the First Doctor angrily warns his companions to stay away from his future self, whose motives, he declares, are far from benevolent. The Second Doctor doesn't deny the charge. He asks to speak with Katarina. The First Doctor objects but Katarina convinces him otherwise. Steven, Jamie and Zoe are all left in confusion.

The Second Doctor talks to Katarina in private about her dreams, in which she sees her future death but also the Second Doctor wishing to speak with her. The Doctor attributes this to a form of psycho-temporal feedback, "a collision of possibilities manifesting in a particularly receptive mind." He tells Katarina about the original timeline in which she died fighting the Daleks and tells her the decision to choose between that timeline and the present one is hers.

Torn by the dilemma, the First Doctor accuses Jamie and Zoe of knowing of Katarina's death, and doesn't yet believe that the timeline the Second Doctor told him about is actually the correct version of events. Steven objects to the Doctor's unfair and irrational behaviour, causing the latter to storm off. The three companions still think there may be a way to stop the Daleks and save Katarina's life. As they think on this, Parlos meets the Doctor and informs him the Daleks have surrounded the area.

Katarina questions the Doctor: if he and her Doctor are the same being, why are they in such a heated conflict of interests? The Doctor puts it down to different experiences. The Second Doctor has already witnessed Katarina's death and had long felt the guilt of his inability to save her. The First Doctor, on the other hand, feels a fondness for Katarina and a guilt for the fate of her people; it was his idea, after all, to build the Trojan Horse which led to the Fall of Troy. That led to the deaths of many people all in order to save Vicki, and now the First Doctor is once against willing to risk the lives of millions at the hands of the Daleks in order to save Katarina. With a new understanding of her Doctor, Katarina realises that the Doctor is not an all-powerful god, but he is a friend. She is ready to make her decision.

The spaceport becomes more and more crowded as straggling civilians seek refuge. The Dalek Supreme contacts the First Doctor and gives him one last chance to surrender or the Time Destructor will be deployed. The Doctor reminds the Dalek Supreme about the other Daleks still on Urbinia, although the Dalek Supreme dismisses them as having failed. Parlos urges the Doctor to allow the ships to take off but the Doctor is reluctant to do so. Having already made contact with the other cities, he learned that their evacuation efforts were not so successful. Every ship which tried to leave the planet has been destroyed and the cities surrendered. Only Kiria is left and even Zoe's coordinates are no longer of any use. The full Dalek arsenal is now concentrated on the Kiria evacuation as they prepare to destroy the planet to make an example to others.

The Second Doctor and Katarina then arrive with a repaired circuit, assuring the First Doctor and Parlos that they can stop the Dalek invasion from every happening. Parlos and the security forces buy time by engaging the Dalek ground forces while the Second Doctor, Katarina, Jamie and Zoe make for the TARDIS. Parlos is killed in the engagement. The First Doctor and Steven also stay behind to protect the remaining Urbinians for as long as they can. Soon the Daleks force their way into the hangar bay, believing total victory is theirs. The Doctor simply retorts that "It's far from being all over!"

The Second Doctor's team struggle their way to the TARDIS as the Time Destructor is activated. Jamie, Zoe and Katarina begin to age rapidly but the Doctor pulls them into the TARDIS in time, shielding them from the effects. He replaces the broken circuit, turns off the temporal safeguards and uses the fast return switch to catapult the TARDIS back to the heart of the original collision. Zoe fears it would cause a temporal paradox but the Doctor claims he is well-versed in breaking the rules. The TARDIS crashes again, undoing the new timeline. At the eye of the temporal storm, the Doctor and Katarina are able to say some parting words. Katarina asks if the Doctor will remember her. Then they are separated.

With the TARDIS having departed Troy, the Doctor tells Katarina to look after an unconscious and wounded Steven. Katarina seems distant for a moment, feeling like she has lost something. The Doctor considers that he knows very little about his new companion and hopes to solve that problem later. The TARDIS lands in the jungles of Kembel, where the Daleks are waiting for them...

In the Second Doctor's TARDIS, the Doctor finds himself holding the time path indicator. Zoe reminds him he removed it because it was making an annoying noise. Zoe and Jamie go to further explore the items from the cupboard, and to play with the remote control car again. Left alone, the Doctor tries to concentrate on a word he remembers from somewhere: "Urbinia". All it reminds him of are "flickering shadows". He closes his eyes and then opens them, remembering Katarina. He smiles. "Of course I'll remember you."

Cast

 * Jamie / The Second Doctor - Frazer Hines
 * Zoe - Wendy Padbury
 * Steven / The First Doctor - Peter Purves
 * Katarina - Ajjaz Awad
 * Captain Parlos - Laura Elphinstone
 * Atrias / Varx / Krell - Ian Crowe
 * Piril / Togrok / Guard / Sergeant - Max Keeble
 * The Daleks - Nicholas Briggs

Uncredited

 * Officer - Ian Crowe (BFX: Daughter of the Gods)

Continuity

 * Katarina calls the Daleks "Evil Ones". (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
 * Steven, Katarina and the Doctor all reference Vicki's departure from the TARDIS team in Troy. (TV: The Myth Makers)
 * The First Doctor picked up a fondness for delivering lectures from his time at Cambridge University. (AUDIO: Entanglement) The Twelfth Doctor later showed this same interest. (TV: The Pilot, Oxygen)
 * Katarina recalls her life in Troy under Lady Cassandra and the fall of the city. The Doctor tells her this was his doing. (TV: The Myth Makers)
 * The First Doctor is aware of the Daleks' ability to manipulate time. (TV: The Chase)
 * Jamie compares Katarina's meeting with the Doctor at the Fall of Troy to his own meeting at the Battle of Culloden. (TV: The Highlanders)
 * Without the interference of the Doctor, the Daleks successfully develop the Time Destructor. The Second Doctor tells the First Doctor that he originally foiled their plans after arriving on Kembel, although Katarina did not survive. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
 * The Doctor's TARDIS later collides with itself again, while piloted by the Fifth Doctor and Tenth Doctor. (TV: Time Crash)
 * Steven recalls previous encounters with the Daleks, (TV: The Chase, AUDIO: Across the Darkened City, The Dalek Occupation of Winter) as do Zoe (AUDIO: Fear of the Daleks) and Jamie. (TV: The Evil of the Daleks, COMIC: Bringer of Darkness)
 * The Doctors have petty arguments with each other upon meeting, regarding matters such as age and appearance. (TV: The Three Doctors, Time Crash, The Day of the Doctor)
 * The Daleks chant "Exterminate! Annihilate! Destroy!" (TV: The Chase, The Power of the Daleks)
 * The First Doctor scoffs at the implication that the Daleks "offer life". (TV: The Dalek Invasion of Earth)
 * The First Doctor tells the Daleks "It's far from being all over!" (TV: The Tenth Planet)
 * The Second Doctor uses the fast return switch. (TV: The Edge of Destruction)
 * Steven wonders why he does not have a TARDIS key. The Doctor earlier promised to get him one during their travels with Vicki. (PROSE: The Empire of Glass)