Project Infinity (audio story)

 was the fourth story in the Dalek Empire I audio series produced by Big Finish Productions. In this story, the identity of the narrator of the previous three stories was revealed. This was also the first story in the series not to feature Susan Mendes in a primary role. This story also featured the most actors voicing Daleks in an audio story with Nicholas Briggs, Alistair Lock, Steven Allen and Robert Lock all providing the voices for Daleks.

Publisher's summary
The Seers of Yaldos have a sad story to tell, but Alby and Kalendorf know they must listen.

Meanwhile, the Daleks seem unconcerned by their recent defeats. They have their sights firmly fixed on Project Infinity.

In the hands of the Daleks, the human race's only hope of victory could signal the destruction of the entire universe.

Plot
Alby is drinking on his ship, he receives a message, but he is not interested in listening to it. His ship plays the message anyway. He repeatedly says that he doesn't care what anyone has to say, until he hears part of the message which makes him suspect that somehow, Susan Mendes sent it.

Kalendorf and Mirana discuss current events, they have noticed that the daleks appear to be allowing the humans to win; they suspect that it is part of a secret plan. A ship lands on the planet that Espeelius is on, a man comes to tell Espeelius about the ship, but has trouble delivering his message because Espeelius keeps saying that he does not want to be disturbed. The man finally manages to tell Espeelius about the ship and that Ernst Tanlee is on it. Espeelius tells the man to tell Tanlee to go away, as he is too busy to talk to him. As soon as the man leaves, Tanlee enters.

Alby hears Susan's voice coming from the comms on his ship, he asks the ship to replay the message, but the ship says that there is no message. He then gets a message from Kalendorf. Kalendorf and Mirana follow Alby to Yaldos, they ask him what he is doing, he tells them that it is none of their concern. Eventually he tells them that he is looking for pickled onions. He runs away from Kalendorf and Mirana, stopping when he finds the pickled onions. He tells Kalendorf and Mirana that Susan said her Grandma would send her pickled onions from earth, so he thinks Susan put these ones on Yaldos. Kalendorf reminds him that Susan is dead.

Alby hears Susan again, a woman comes out of a cave, Kalendorf says that she must be one of the seers of Yaldos. The seer tells them to come into the cave, as she has a story to tell them; she speaks with the voice of the narrator. In the cave, the seer recites everything the narrator said in Episode 1. Alby is confused, the seer explains that Susan visited her to ask her to deliver a message to them; while Susan was there, they formed a mental link with each other. The seer then goes on to show them Susan's full conversation with the Dalek Emperor, her speech, and her death.

Kalendorf says that he will go to Lopra Minor, Mirana says that she can't let him do that, and she shoots him. Alby asks her what she is doing. Mirana suddenly starts screaming, so does the Dalek Emperor; The Seer of Yaldos is doing a psychic attack on Mirana and the Dalek Emperor, who seems to be mentally linkd to Mirana and is controlling her. The Seer tells Alby to take Mirana's gun off of her, but Alby is unable to get near her as she is shooting crazily. Mirana is repeating everything the Dalek Emperor says; she says exterminate, which causes Alby to realise that she is being controlled by daleks. Alby goes to Kalendorf, who is still alive. The Dalek Emperor tells the daleks to increase the amount of energy being fed into his cerebral cortex, Kalendorf tells Alby to help him get near The Seer; the daleks increase the amount of energy being fed into the Dalek Emperor's mind; The Seer can no longer keep up the psychic attack and asks for help; Kalendorf grabs hold of her. Mirana introduces herself as the Dalek Emperor, she says that they will be exterminated and that no one can resist his power. Kalendorf says they will see about that, and sends a psychic shockwave into Mirana, which does a lot of damage to the Dalek Emperor. The Daleks hurry to disconnect the Dalek Emperor's mind from Mirana's before it is destroyed.

Espeelius tells Tanlee about a dimensional fissure. He then tells Tanlee to leave so that he can rest. Tanlee reveals himself as an agent of the daleks and summons them into the building. Mirana awakes in the care of a man named Dr Johnstone. Dr Johnstone asks her if she knows where she is, she says she doesn't. He tells her that she was working for the daleks, but she can't remember that, nor can she remember most of what she did whilst under dalek control. Dr Johnstone tells her that she's been in a coma for 5 months. Kalendorf enters the room, Mirana somehow remembers him. Kalendorf tells Mirana that she is on a starliner called Courageous. Dr Johnstone and Kalendorf discuss the implant in Mirana's brain, they believe that it contains information from the Dalek Emperor's brain, and that they will be able to use it to find out what Project Infinity is. Kalendorf asks Dr Johnstone if he was able to remove the implant; Dr Johnstone says that if he tried to, Mirana would've died. Kalendorf asks how they will get info about Project Infinity if the implant is still in Mirana. Dr Johnstone says that he has set up a device that will send electrical impulses into the implant in Mirana's brain, so that when they ask her about Project Infinity, she should automatically know and answer. Kalendorf asks Mirana what Project Infinity is, Dr Johnstone sends an electrical impulse into Mirana's brain, but it doesn't work as she doesn't know the answer. They try again, same result. After several failed attempts, Mirana finally says that the daleks want to use Project Infinity to take over the universe.

As they approach Lopra Minor, Mirana starts picking up dalek transmissions, the device in her head allows her to do so. She recites the dalek battle plan, which involves special weapons daleks. Alby has the idea to link her up to the tactical computer. Mirana also hears that the Dalek Emperor is on his way to Lopra Minor. The Earth Alliance ships enter the planet's atmosphere; the special weapons daleks rise up into the air, but thanks to Mirana, the Earth Alliance ships are ready for them. During the battle, many special weapons daleks are destroyed, but only 1 Earth Alliance ship is destroyed. The Earth Alliance have foot soldiers on the planet, Mirana guides them. Daleks attack the soldiers from multiple directions, but they are destroyed. Alby tells one of the Earth Alliance ships to destroy a special weapons dalek, before it destroys the soldiers. With the daleks destroyed, the soldiers reach the building with Project Infinity is being held; they begin cutting through the door. The daleks inside the building contact the Courageous, telling them that they have hostages, and if the attack isn't called off, they will exterminate those hostages. The exterminations begin, Alby tells the soldiers to stop cutting through the door; however, the daleks still continue to exterminate the hostages, saying that they will only stop if the soldiers leave the planet. Espeelius tells the occupants of Courageous that the lives of the hostages don't matter, they must stop the daleks from using Project Infinity, or else everyone is doomed. Before he has a chance to explain what Project Infinity does, he is exterminated. The platoon leader asks Courageous what they should do, Alby tells him to continue the attack.

Later, Alby and Kalendorf enter the building where Project Infinity is, unfortunately, all of the hostages have been killed; however, the soldiers find Tanlee outside in the jungle. Tanlee says that he took a squad outside to fight the daleks, but they were all killed except for him. He is unsure how he survived. Mirana appears and tells them that the Dalek Emperor's ship has arrived. Tanlee reveals himself to be a dalek agent and points a gun at Alby, Kalendorf and Mirana, he says that he will shoot them if they move. Alby says that they could rush him, and he would only be able to shoot one of them; Tanlee asks which one of them would be willing to sacrifice themselves. Tanlee laughs when he finds out that the 3 of them believe Project Infinity to be a weapon. He asks them if they've heard the theory of parallel universes, they all say they have; he says that the daleks want to use Project Infinity to find a universe where daleks are in complete control, then they will open a gateway into that universe and bring the daleks from it into this universe. Daleks arrive to take them prisoner.

On the dalek command ship, Alby, Kalendorf and Mirana are taken to a room where there are hundreds of humans in suspended animation. They ask if the daleks are planning to robotise them, Tanlee says that that will only be the first phase. Because of her connections with the daleks, Mirana realises that the daleks plan on turning the humans into daleks. Tanlee tells them to not bother trying to escape, Susan Mendes learned the hard way what would happen. Alby asks Tanlee if Susan is here, Tanlee asks "why shouldn't she be?" The daleks find a universe where readings indicate that daleks are in complete control, they open a gateway into it, the imperial command ship flies through the gateway. The Dalek Emperor talks with the Supreme dalek of the other universe, he asks the parallel daleks for assistance in taking control of his universe. The Parallel Supreme dalek reads the files of the Doctor's universe daleks, he lists many things that those daleks have done, and calls them the worst crimes known. The Parallell Supreme dalek tells his daleks to neutralise the Doctor's universe daleks, and they begin doing that.

Cast

 * Kalendorf - Gareth Thomas
 * Mirana - Teresa Gallagher
 * Alby Brook - Mark McDonnell
 * The Seer of Yaldos - Joyce Gibbs
 * Espeelius - Ian Brooker
 * Herrick - Jeremy James
 * Ernst Tanlee - David Sax
 * Dr. Johnstone - Simon Bridge
 * The Daleks - Nicholas Briggs, Alistair Lock, Steven Allen and Robert Lock
 * The Dalek Emperor - Nicholas Briggs

Astronomical objects

 * Mirana's parents are from the GalSec colony. She was born on a freighter which was passing through Orion's Belt at the time.
 * The Lopra system is on the opposite side of the galaxy from Seriphia.

Conflicts

 * According to Mirana, there is an arc of rebellion emanating from Yaldos which runs through almost every planet to which Suz and Kalendorf were taken by the Daleks during the former's work as the Angel of Mercy.

Daleks

 * Kalendorf believes that the Dalek invasion of Mutter's Spiral and the subsequent galaxy wide rebellion against the Dalek Empire were both designed to serve as a distraction so that the attention of the Earth Alliance would be diverted away from a single Dalek vessel making its way to the Lopra system, the location of Project Infinity.
 * Special Weapons Daleks are deployed to Lopra Minor to act as ground troops.

Individuals

 * Suz knew nothing of Project Infinity until it was mentioned to her by the Dalek Emperor.
 * After she was seemingly exterminated on Yaldos, Suz's body was never found. Tanlee believes that she may have been placed in suspended animation in preparation for robotisation, the first step in converting humans into Daleks.
 * Mirana has been an unwitting agent of the Daleks for the last five years, through a psychotropic link to the cerebral functions of the Dalek Emperor.
 * After the Dalek psychotropic implant in Mirana's brain is deactivated, she is left in a coma for five months. She awakens aboard the Earth Alliance battle cruiser Courageous shortly before it arrives in the Lopra system. She maintains the ability to pick up Dalek communications through her implant, one of which states that the Dalek Emperor is on its way aboard the Dalek Imperial Command Ship.

Science

 * The Daleks learnt of Project Infinity and the dimensional fissure, a spatio-temporal rift, from the Library on Kar-Charrat.
 * Project Infinity is based on Lopra Minor. It was instigated after the last Dalek War centuries earlier. Its Infinity Scan is designed to probe temporal fissures to find parallel universes, particularly one in which the Daleks were defeated once and for all. Using this knowledge, the Earth Alliance would be able to repeat this action in their own universe. Conversely, the Daleks intend to use Project Infinity to find a universe in which the Daleks emerged victorious and succeeded in conquering the entire universe. By increasing the power of Project Infinity with veganite, the Daleks will be able to open a gateway into another universe and allow Daleks from that universe to cross over.

Species

 * In a parallel universe, a peaceful and ordered race of Daleks are the supreme beings, having earned their status by enforcing peace and order throughout their universe rather than by waging war or causing the destruction of other species.

Continuity

 * The Daleks raided the Library on Kar-Charrat. The Seventh Doctor and Ace were present for that event. (AUDIO: The Genocide Machine)
 * The Seriphia Galaxy was recreated using the Apocalypse Element. (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element)
 * The Dalek Emperor has a psychotropic link to Mirana's cerebral functions, as it had to Commander Ganatus in an alternative timeline in 4253. (AUDIO: The Mutant Phase)
 * Following his capture by the Daleks, Tanlee was converted into a highly sophisticated Roboman in the same manner as Gordon Pellan. (AUDIO: "Death to the Daleks!")
 * High quantities of veganite are required to power the Infinity Scan. This is why the Daleks began their invasion of the galaxy in the Vega System. (AUDIO: Invasion of the Daleks)