Steven Taylor

Steven Taylor was a former solo spaceship pilot turned companion of the First Doctor.

Prior to meeting the Doctor
Steven grew up during a war (DW: The Chase) on a Hiveblock on Earth (MA: The Empire of Glass) in the middle of the 23rd century. After visiting the ruins of New York City, (a legacy of the 22nd century Dalek invasion) he enlisted in the military. He served as a helmsman on a battleship and later as a solo combat pilot, going from one spaceship or space station to another. He held the latter post as a form of reprisal for reporting the killing of a homeless person on Roylus Prime, which he visited on shore leave (PDA: Salvation).


 * By the time Steven met the Doctor, the war, with unspecified combatants, had stretched on for fifty years.

On a mission, Steven crashed on the planet Mechanus. Having landed in the jungle, Steven wandered around for days, trying to avoid the hostile plant life. Eventually he was captured by the Mechanoids, and taken to their city. He spent two years as a prisoner, alone but for a panda mascot called HiFi.

Adventures with the Doctor
While a prisoner, Steven built a wooden construction rather like a climbing frame to keep himself active. It let him climb up to the roof for fresh air. It was here, in his room in the Mechanoid City, that Steven met the Doctor and his companions, and soon after the Daleks. Upon seeing them, he asked, "Who won the war?" and introduced himself as, "Steven Taylor, Flight Red Fifty". Steven helped the others escape from the city, though he returned to retrieve HiFi. Steven fell from a great height when the Daleks destroyed the Mechanoid City. Luckily, he stumbled through the jungle found the Doctor's TARDIS. Steven stumbled into it as the Dotor and Vicki were saying goodbye to their former companions, Ian and Barbara. Before the Doctor and Vicki returned to the TARDIS, Steven passed out in a dead faint. (DW: The Chase) When Steven recovered, he discovered that the TARDIS had re-materialised in England, in 1066. The Doctor explained, briefly, how the TARDIS works, and that the TARDIS would blend in with its surroundings. Steven's natural sarcasm showed as he commented, "That rock over there looks just like a blue box". Despite his sharp wit, Steven was good-humoured. He was also independent, and had good leadership skills. He had also brought HiFi with him but left it in the TARDIS. (DW: The Time Meddler)

In the city of Troy, Steven temporarily adopted the name Diomede. He was wounded in the shoulder by a sword thrust, and suffered blood poisoning. A temple handmaiden called Katarina, whom the travellers had met earlier, nursed him back to health and helped him return to the TARDIS. (DW: The Myth Makers) Once he had recovered, Steven faced some of the worst experiences of his life. Katarina and two new allies, Bret Vyon and finally, Bret's sister, Sara Kingdom, all died violently in the midst of a complicated series of events which ranged from the planet Kembel in 4000 throughout time and space.. Minutes after the death of Sara Kingdom, Steven asked the Doctor, in the waste that the Time Destructor had made of Kembel, if he considered the loss of so many lives worthwhile to defeat the Daleks. (DW: The Daleks' Master Plan)

When the travellers arrived in Paris, in 1572, Steven was disgusted by the Doctor's abandonment of his Huguenot friends, in particular the young Anne Chaplet. He became so disillusioned that he left the TARDIS when it had arrived in 1966 London, but returned to warn the Doctor that some Police Constables were approaching. He met Dodo Chaplet, possibly, he thought, a descendant of Anne Chaplet' proving she had lived (DW: The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve) When Dodo Chaplet joined the Doctor and Steven, he picked up her cold virus, as he had no immunity to it. (DW: The Ark)

Leaving the Doctor
Eventually, the experiences that Steven had on his travels led him to decide to use his skills and training to help rebuild a civilisation. When Chal invited him to help the Elders and the Savages live together, he decided to accept the challenge, and left the TARDIS. (DW: The Savages)

Other information

 * The Doctor didn't give Steven a TARDIS key until late in his travels. (MA: The Empire of Glass)
 * The Doctortook pains that Steven that Steven didn't draw undue attention to himself. When the TARDIS materialized in the American Wild West, Steven wore a flashy, inaccurate recreation of western dress and fancied himself  "Dead-eye Steve, the fastest, meanest gun in the west". The the Doctor introduced him as "Steven Regret, tenor." Fortunately Steven really could sing and play the piano, or this cover would have been almost as eye-catching as Steven's own idea. (DW: The Gunfighters)