Empty Child Syndrome

The "Empty Child" plague was a technological plague which spread around a part of London in 1941.

History
Chula nanogenes, who had never encountered Humans before, interacting with a dying human boy caught in the Blitz, created the so-called "Empty Child" with a gas mask for a face. The nanogenes also give the child standard issue for Chula soldiers, specifically super-Human strength, telepathic abilities and the ability to communicate using other items. Unfortunately, the Empty Child still had a child-like mentality and escaped to search for its mother.

The nanogenes created in the compulsion in the child to infect others and those who infected did likewise so that the nanogenes spread in a similar fashion to a virus. All of the victims grew faces like gas masks and developed the same wounds as the original child, as well as the same needs as the child. This plague was eventually stopped when the Empty Child was reunited with his mother and the nanogenes recognized the proper sequence for a Human. Rose Tyler later described the victims of "gas-masked zombies" (DW: School Reunion) in 1943 London. (DW: The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances).