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 transport. From the inside of the transport, 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 the 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.

Clara is attacked by monkey-like creatures, who Clara calls "skunkeys". Fending them off with the sonic, the Doctor realises that the jungle is manmade and was terraformed by the businessman Kano Dollar, of Dollar Intergalactic, into a paradise for his fiance, Princess Thanna, and he plans to expand. The TARDIS is confiscated, as the Doctor and Clara are taken to Professor Spector in the central tower.

Spector explains that the planet was terraformed over a period of three years, building towers from underground upwards by robo-drones, modifying the atmosphere, temperature, topography and ecology through nanotek swarms and populating the planet with hypoevolutionary organisms. The Doctor warns them that they are at risk of global cataclysm. Dollar, who has the galaxy gathered on the planet for his upcoming wedding, threatens Spector to stabilise the planet.

An exploration team crashes under an earthquake, however the Doctor and Clara materialise the TARDIS in the wreckage to save the crew from near-certain death. He takes the crew, along with the drone Eric and Professor Spector, to the volcanic caverns surrounding the tower's base. The Doctor reveals to Clara that the message is a beacon established by the Gallifreyans millenia ago, used to detect inexplicable phenonema across the universe, however the technology has worn with time. The group are intrigued to find the terraformer has penetrated below the surface and joined with Rann-Korr, a Hyperion. Examining the runes on the side, Dr Scrofolus reawakens Rann-Korr.

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, pushing him into the lava. Hyperios 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
 * Kano Dollar
 * Rann-Korr
 * Alice Xanada
 * Thanna
 * Thannagrrr
 * Spector
 * Scrofolus
 * Zaxx
 * Clive
 * Eric
 * Clarence
 * 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; Hyperios 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)