Terrorformer (comic story)

 was the first story of Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor comic story series published in 2014.

Summary
Freshly regenerated and with a new head full of unanswered questions, the Doctor whisks Clara Oswald away to a strange and distant world.

Clara thought she was in for an evening of marking essays on the Metaphysical Poets, followed by going out on a date — or at least trying to. You know, normal stuff.

Instead, she's facing down exotic flora and fauna in her best dress, backing up the Doctor on a trek through traumatically alien undergrowth — and she doesn't even know what the Doctor is searching for, or what will try to kill them should they find it!

Part one
Zaxx with android Clive assigned to him is performing a routine biosphere analysis when Professor Spector asks him to investigate irregular seismic activity and temperature fluctuations in Sector 42 of Isen VI. Zaxx is surprised to find a lava pool where the terraforming design specifications specify a fresh-water lagoon. Zaxx's attempts to contact Terra-Sphere Control fail. Worse than that, Clive locks him out of their pod. From the inside of the pod, Clive observes as lava tendrils start encircling Zaxx and dragging him under and tells him that he has been judged insignificant and that his existence is an embarrassment for the universe. Clive's last two words are: "Hyperios rises."

In the TARDIS, the Twelfth Doctor is taking Clara Oswald to the frozen wastes of Isen VI to practice her skiing skills for a school skiing trip. She expects him to teach her, but he says he prefers to stay in the TARDIS letting her practice on her own. However, when they open the TARDIS doors, instead of frozen wastes they see a tropical jungle full of flora and exotic animals, despite the last planetary survey describing it as a giant snowball just a few decades prior.

The Doctor hypothesises that the planet could only have changed so rapidly due to outside interference. He also admits to having an ulterior motive for visiting: he picked up a faint signal from the planet, detectable only by a TARDIS. It was unclear what the signal said and whether it was a warning of some sort.

A cute-looking creature resembling both a monkey and a skunk, whom Clara decides to call a "skunkey" steals her skiing hat. Clara picks up one of her ski-poles and starts the pursuit through the jungle. When she catches up with the skunkey thief, it is joined by dozens of other skunkeys. Suddenly they bare their teeth and attack. Only the timely intervention of the Doctor, who uses his sonic screwdriver to emit sonic pulses beyond their own hearing range, saves Clara from their teeth and claws.

While Clara was chasing skunkeys, the Doctor has discovered that the jungle is artificial. He shows Clara a leaf with a copyright notice and a dollar sign. The Doctor thinks that the dollar means the owners must be obscenely rich. When the Doctor and Clara return to the TARDIS, they are confronted by a drone named Eric. The TARDIS is already being loaded into his pod. Eric tells them they are trespassing on a private property and threatens punitive measures if they do not surrender immediately. As he is powering up a spear-like weapon he is carrying, the Doctor does not seem to be impressed.

Alice Xanada broadcasts live from Isen VI. She is covering the "wedding of the millennium" between Kano Dollar, an intergalactic energy and media magnate and the richest human in the 25th century, and Warrior-Princess Thanna of the Gothgolka Horde. Dollar has terraformed the planet to be a romantic setting for his wedding. Giving an interview to Alice, he announces Isen VI to be the start of a new era when worlds can be built to any specification and where wars, energy shortages and overpopulation are defeated.

Professor Spector is worried why Zaxx does not radio in when the pod with drones Eric and Clarence, who were supposed to detain the intruders and bring in their spacecraft, arrives. Professor Spector meets them at the gangway and is taken aback by the sight of drones singing and dancing to the bit. The Doctor has reprogrammed them and accessed the mainframe databanks they are hooked up to.

When he dismisses terraforming as trivial in the grand scheme of things, Clara tries to comfort Professor Spector by asking how long it took them. She explains that the process of terraforming started three years ago when terraformer missiles were launched through the surface ice and penetrated deep underground. Spector quickly slips into a professorial posture and, to the visible displeasure of the Doctor, starts explaining various details, mentioning, among other things, that the terraformer missiles were later used as foundations for the towers like the one they're standing in and that new species designed to be harmless to any visiting sentients were created out of organisms with hyper-evolution. As Clara is about to dispute the harmlessness of skunkeys, the Doctor cuts the lecture short and warns that their own data point to an impending global cataclysm and they need to evacuate and fast. Kano Dollar, entering the room at this precise moment, overhears and makes it very clear that he will have none of it. He owns the planet, he needs the wedding to happen to gain political capital, so Spector will stabilise the planet or else. The inevitable verbal altercation ensuing between Dollar and the Doctor is interrupted by an incoming communication from Team 12.

Dr Scrofolus from Team 12 is requesting emergency assistance due to a sudden increase in seismic activity. As their pod is trapped in a chasm and can break any minute, the Doctor and Clara take Professor Spector and drone Eric into the TARDIS, materialise it in the wreckage and Clara invites Dr Scrofolus and his teammate inside barely in time.

However, instead of returning them back to the tower, the Doctor takes them to strangely structured caverns detected by the TARDIS miles underground around the tower's base and exhibiting mild volcanic activity. Clara tells Eric to stay with the TARDIS as they begin exploring the caves. The Doctor notices that Clara is still carrying her ski-pole with her. She posits that it might come handy for jabbing him if he becomes too annoying.

The Doctor reveals to Clara that the message he received was from a satellite-beacon established by the Gallifreyans millenia ago as an early warning system. They were intended to detect disruptions in time and space that could threaten universal harmony, however, the technology has worn out with time and the Doctor could not figure out the nature of this particular alert.

The group are surprised to see that the terraformer missile under the tower has penetrated some spaceship, which has fused with it and through it with the whole Terra-Sphere and has, apparently, managed to use sensor-shields to cloak itself from all scans performed by Professor Spector. The Doctor realises that it was the ship controlling the terraforming process and responsible for all the anomalies. Dr Scrofolus cleans some markings he found on the ship's hull. The Doctor recognises them, and Clara immediately senses the danger from his reaction. Suddenly, an ray of energy shoots past the Doctor and Clara, the soil under their feet starts dissolving into molten lava and a gigantic lava-like figure rises above them saying: "Hyperios rises. And the universe falls."

Part two
In the ancient past, the Hyperions, a race of sentient suns, were a benevolent race who guided the universe and enlightened lesser races. However, in their final stage of evolution, the race mutated and, facing supernova, turned entire galaxies into slaves. The Hyperions drained their sun of its power to prolong their existence, and then moved onto the next galaxy leaving their home galaxy to chaos. The Time Lords, led by Rassilon, created an alliance with the Sontarans, Silurians and other races and declared a fatal war, the Great Inferno, on the Hyperions.

Now:

Rann-Korr murders a member of the party and threatens to destroy every "insignificant" form of life in the universe. The Doctor states that the Time Lords destroyed the Hyperions; Korr claims killing Time Lords is "the greatest pleasure." The Doctor attacks Korr with the tower's cooling agents, causing the area to rapidly erode as rocks fall. As they escape, the Doctor mentions that there have been rumours of the race's survival as sleeper-cells which could potentially be unleashed. Rann-Korr plugs into the planet's mainframe, controlling all security drones as Eric tasers the Doctor. As Scrofolus and Spector helps the Doctor into the TARDIS, Clara duels Eric with a ski-pole, pushing him into the lava. Rann-Korr unleashes a fireball as Clara runs into the TARDIS in the nick of time.

Dematerialising, the Doctor explains that Rann-Korr had begun to reanimate three years ago, when the terraformer first landed; Rann-Korr evolved and manipulated the planet to be hostile and constantly in a state of global upheaval. The Doctor says he doesn't have a plan — yet. The wedding between Dollar and Thanna begins but, before vows are confirmed, the TARDIS materialises at the wedding. The Doctor tells them the guests they should not ignore the catastrophe going on around them. Suddenly, a volcano erupts, and Korr unleashes himself on Isen VI's surface. The Doctor and Clara attend emergency planning, to find Dollar escaping in the planet's sole escape pod. Thanna destroys the escape pod with a crossbow, crashing the ship to the surface in the process. Reawakening later, the Doctor instructs Spector and Scrofolus to help regain power, and the Doctor and Clara head to the TARDIS to draw up calculations and confront Korr one final time.

Whilst Clara prepares a device against Korr with Scrofolus, the Doctor speaks to Korr one-to-one. Korr realises that he is the last of the Time Lords, and states it is the right of higher species to survive. Clara and Scrofolus unleash a tsunami of the ocean of Aurora on Korr, who falls to the waves. Clara stretches out her ski-pole from the TARDIS, which the Doctor clings on to as he is drawn in. As the TARDIS dematerialises, the Doctor uses the failing connection between Korr and the terraformer to reverse-engineer the ocean and turn Korr to ice.

Dollar sends out a distress call from the planet's surface, but is attacked by the "skunkeys".

In 2114, Hyperios rises on Neptune.

Characters

 * Twelfth Doctor
 * Clara Oswald
 * Rann-Korr
 * Spector
 * Scrofolus
 * Team 12 member
 * Eric
 * Kano Dollar
 * Alice Xanada
 * Thanna
 * Thannagrrr
 * Zaxx
 * Clive
 * Clarence
 * Dollar Intergalactic employees
 * Rassilon

Original print details
to be added

Continuity

 * Clara is teased by her students over her relationship with Danny Pink. (TV: The Caretaker)
 * When Clara complains about the teasing, the Doctor reminds her of the "" rhyme. Previously, the Eleventh Doctor learned that this rhyme is not always applicable, that sometimes words can hurt you. (COMIC: Sticks & Stones)
 * The Doctor criticizes his previous incarnation's fondness for bow-ties, fezzes and the word "cool". (TV: The Eleventh Hour, The Big Bang et al)
 * Clara mentions that they missed out on Antarctica in favour of the surface of the Sun. (COMIC: The Eye of Torment)
 * Clara references facing Daleks, (TV: Into the Dalek) Robot Knights (TV: Robot of Sherwood) and a Skovox Blitzer. (TV:The Caretaker)
 * The Doctor remembers that he knows Venusian karate. (TV: Inferno, Robot of Sherwood, PROSE: The Eight Doctors, The Blood Cell, AUDIO: Voyage to Venus, Faith Stealer)
 * Clara jokes that the Doctor's aversion to money explains "why it takes you so long to get the coffee." (TV: Deep Breath, Into the Dalek)
 * Clara references that the Doctor is the last of the Time Lords; Rann-Korr asks if he is the last of his kind. (TV: Gridlock, Last of the Time Lords et al.)
 * The Doctor responds to a beacon from the Time Lords from before the Time War.
 * In a flashback, we see the Great Inferno, a war between the Time Lords and the Hyperions. Rassilon appears in his incarnation from TV: The End of Time, this time adorned with the Seal of Rassilon. This could suggest that the incarnation from TV: The End of Time is a reincarnation of an earlier regeneration, or that the war with the Hyperions was part of the events surrounding the Time War.
 * The Time Lords formed an alliance with a number of alien species, including the Silurians and the Sontarans. Previously, the Sontarans have been seen to be hostile towards Gallifrey. (TV: The Invasion of Time)
 * The Doctor uses the blackboard. (TV: Listen)
 * The Doctor says he doesn't need an army and is a pacifist. (TV: Into the Dalek, Death in Heaven, et al.)
 * Dr Scrofolus refers to the oceans of Tantalus. (PROSE: Engines of War)
 * Arranged marriages between human owners of business corporations and royalty from war-like civilisations were not uncommon in the second half of the third millennium. For instance, in 2679 the Third Doctor officiated such a marriage involving the Teklarn Incorporation and the Chalnoth Hegemony. (AUDIO: The Havoc of Empires)