Luke Smith

An artificial Human, The Archetype was the creation of the Bane. On the day of his birth he met Maria Jackson, helped to defeat the invasion plan of his creators and received a name, Luke Smith and an adopted mother, Sarah Jane Smith. Though he was created rather than born, he had the physical form of a teenager despite his literal age being much younger.

Biography
The Bane's invasion of Earth depended on getting as many people as possible under their control. Their strategy was to use a Bane secretion as an ingredient in an extremely popular soft drink... but approximately 2% of the Human population was immune to the effect. In order to get the last remaining 2% to accept Bubble Shock!'s "special ingredient", they created the Archetype from thousands of samples of various entrants to the Bubble Shock! tour, including Maria Jackson and Kelsey Harper. However, when Kelsey inadvertently sets off an alarm by using her mobile phone, the ensuing events cause the Archetype to awaken and escape, joining Maria and Sarah Jane and instantly befriending them. Later he effortlessly memorises a very long string of numbers that he uses to defeat the Bane, and destroy the Bubble Shock! factory.

After Sarah Jane suggested several names, including "Alistair" (after the Brigadier) and "Harry" (after Harry Sullivan), Maria suggested "Luke". Sarah Jane had Mr Smith create adoption papers for Luke and took him in as her son. (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)

Over the next few months Luke slowly learned about the world around him, and successfully aided Sarah Jane, Maria and Clyde Langer in combating alien threats on several occasions. He demonstrated exceptional intelligence and eidetic memory along with almost complete naiveté about human nature which, while being a great asset to the team, has also been a problem, such as when he inadvertently aided the Slitheen in their plan to harvest the energy of the sun. (SJA: Revenge of the Slitheen)

He was given an ancient talisman by an elderly woman and told to keep it a secret, but was exposed by Mr. Smith. Knowing the importance of secrets, he expressed guilt at not keeping his, but is ultimately pleased with the outcome as the talisman is actually a key to a portal that allows evil Gorgons to enter the world. (SJA: Eye of the Gorgon)

When he was captured by the Uvodni General Uvlavad Kudlak along with Clyde, and several other teenagers from around the country, he successfully escaped from imprisonment on the alien ship and ultimately exposed a plot by the Mistress, thereby freeing the captives. He earned his first kiss from one of the captives, Jen, which bewildered and confused him. (SJA: Warriors of Kudlak)



Mysterious TV reports were later seen by the team implying that Luke was actually Ashley, the child of Jay and Heidi Stafford, who has been missing for three months. While Mr. Smith initially confirmed that he is a genetic match with the missing boy, and he was returned to his supposed parents. Mr. Smith was actually working with the parents, who are Slitheen, to capture Luke and, using the MITRE headset from the Pharos Institute to amplify his latent telekinetic powers to make the Moon crash into the Earth.


 * See powers and abilities.

He was saved from during this by his mother, who also re-programmed Mr Smith. (SJA: The Lost Boy)

Luke was later introduced to Jack Harkness, Martha, Rose, Donna and Harriet Jones via subwave network when the Daleks transported Earth into the Medusa Cascade. He aided their efforts to contact the Doctor with the idea of using Mr. Smith to link telephone exchanges and boost the signal. He then "met" the Doctor via the subwave communications network. (DW: The Stolen Earth)

Personality
Even in his first hours of life, Luke knew how to speak, but he knew nothing of the world. He tended to respond to anything happening around him with a naïve response, such as "Is that good or bad?". Kelsey Harper had a crush on him but he seemed entirely oblivious to this development.

He quickly built a strong friendship with Clyde, who, being far more socially adept than Luke, taught him the 'proper' way to be a teenager. However, his logical, analytical personality means he is too literal; he cannot tell good jokes because he is lousy at metaphor, and he has a terrible sense of balance meaning he is not good at skateboarding. As he spent more time with his new family, he gradually becomes accustomed to morals and gains a strong sense of right and wrong.

Powers and abilities
As the composite of thousands of Humans, Luke had genius-level intelligence, eidetic memory and enhanced learning ability. (SJA: Invasion of the Bane) Though he could not utilize telekinesis normally, he had, in theory, the latent telekinetic powers of thousands. (SJA: The Lost Boy) The preview for Enemy of the Bane appears to show Luke having precognitive dreams.

Andrea's World
The Trickster altered the timeline so that Sarah Jane had died in 1964. In this reality, Luke never existed. (SJA: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)

Donna's World
In the alternate reality created by Donna Noble, Luke went to investigate the Royal Hope Hospital in place of the Doctor, along with Sarah Jane, Maria and Clyde Langer. However, the Doctor was not there to save the situation, they died. (DW: Turn Left)