Dexel Dynes

Dexel Dynes was an amoral journalist from the 31st century unconcerned about the deaths or suffering of innocent people so long as he got a decent story out of it.

Dynes first met the Fifth Doctor and Peri when they became involved in the search for the legendary treasure of Rovan Cartovall, which had been missing for five thousand years. Dynes followed the Marquis de Rosscarrino and his niece Arnella, accompanied by Professor Thorrin and his assistant Willis Brockwell, to the planet Gelsandor, where it was believed the treasure was hidden. Dynes was allowed to record the others as they went on a quest to prove their worthiness to receive the treasure, the Gelsandorans wishing to observe them to better understand humanity. At one point during the quest, when Peri was taken as a hostage to ensure the Doctor's cooperation, Dynes actually suggested that there were places where footage of Peri's torture could sell well, although Peri was able to escape that by arguing that they needed the Doctor's cooperation. At the quest's end, Dynes was left alone on the planet as the others either died or left on their own, but when he tried to check his cameras, he discovered that the films had been removed; the Gelsandorans had allowed him to observe the hunt, but not to broadcast it for entertainment. Dynes contemplated arranging for a new group to take the quest with more discreet cameras that couldn't be wiped because they weren't known about, but the Gelsandorans had also edited both the ship's records and Dynes' own memory so that he couldn't recall the planet's exact coordinates, preventing him from trying such a scheme. (PROSE: The Ultimate Treasure)

Although his reputation suffered from having spent so long away with nothing to show for it, Dynes eventually tried to rebuild his reputation by following the exploits of Glavis Judd, a tyrannical dictator who subtly took over his home planet before going on to conquer others. Judd claimed he was "freeing" the people of these planets from oppressive leaders. In reality, Judd often created the situations he set out to "solve", but Dynes didn't care so long as he got a violent story as a result. Judd's expansion was forcibly put on hold when he attempted to "liberate" the planet of Esselven and the rulers fled before he could capture them, leaving him facing the problem of a safe containing all of the information necessary to run the planet, such as trade agreements and personal documentation. The safe was biologically locked so that it would only open to a member of the royal family, and was so securely designed that any attempt to force it open would destroy all the contents.

Forced to put his campaign on hold, Judd tracked the Esselven royals to a pleasure planet, only to learn that the Esselvans' attempts to increase their shield strength had caused time behind the shield to go five hundred times faster than outside, with the result that generations had passed for the people inside the shield. Unknown to Judd and Dynes, the Sixth Doctor and Peri had already found the planet by the time the Protectorate forces reached it, with the two quickly forming allies among the remaining and two artificial intelligences who had developed sentience — Oralissa, a hologram from an interactive story, and Green-8, a gardening robot — to defend the planet.

When Judd's fleet arrived at the planet, he had his ships launch an all-out assault on the shield, opening a brief hole in the shield that Dynes managed to slip through in his ship, Dynes gathering some information about the current situation both through his own research and an encounter with Peri, Peri exchanging her tale of the scavengers' oppression in exchange for Dynes' information on Judd. With this new information, Peri subsequently headed off to the palace after disposing of Dynes' camera, where she met up with the Doctor and Green-8 and told them about their current opponents.

Despite Judd's best efforts to claim the technology of the force field for himself, the Doctor and Peri dealt with Dynes and Judd by tricking them into thinking the planet was uninhabited and the palace was about to explode, driving them off while the Doctor took a short hop in the TARDIS a few minutes into the future.

As Judd and Dynes left the shield, the Doctor manipulated the shield to bring time back into sync with the rest of the galaxy. After that, he left to help the Esselvans' descendants re-learn their heritage with the aid of machinery in the palace. Judd and Dynes found themselves displaced around five hundred years into the future, at a point long after Judd's "Protectorate" had collapsed. Judd was seen as a madman who merely thought he was Glavis Judd and was last shown being taken to an asylum. While Dynes made contact with his former employers, he was forced to face the discovery that he was a forgotten has-been, his sensationalistic, tabloid reporting style a thing of the past. He now could only make documentaries about the old days with his insight into the world gone by, as his old style just wasn't popular any more. (PROSE: Palace of the Red Sun)