New Hope

The New Hope was a colony ship created by humans on Earth in the early 22nd century. Its crew became the original colonists of Agora, before the ship relocated to New Earth.

History
The New Hope was created, and launched, by humans on Earth in the early 22nd century, as part of the Century Program. The colony ship's launch - described by humanity as the beginning of the Colonial Age - was broadcast by satellite cameras to 800,000,000 humans across Earth, and was witnessed by the Sixth Doctor and Grant Markham from within the Doctor's TARDIS, 400,000 miles above the surface of Mars. The New Hope then began a journey to the Centraxis system, to a planet that the crew would colonise and name Agora, described by the Sixth Doctor as "the most remote of the prototype colonies". The majority of the New Hope 's Administrative Council voted that the civilisation that they would establish on Agora would eschew the advanced technology developed on Earth, in favour of a significantly more primitive, agricultural society.

When the New Hope eventually landed on Agora, the crew sealed away, in the ship's chambers, all of the blueprints and materials of the advanced technology that they had brought with them within the colony ship. The New Hope was then piloted by a splinter faction of the crew, who were against the idea of living in an agricultural civilisation, from Agora to a different planet; these splinter crew members eventually established a significantly more technologically-advanced civilisation on another planet, and named it New Earth. However, the decision by the colonists of Agora to abandon the advanced technology that they had brought with them onboard the New Hope ultimately resulted in the colonists and their descendants being unable to prevent the CyberNomads from invading Agora in the 2150s, and subsequently enslaving the planet's inhabitants to serve as a Cyberman breeding colony during the Vogan War and its aftermath. (PROSE: Killing Ground)

Appearance
The New Hope featured a significant amount of gold and large add-on components on its external shell. Although these served no functional purpose, Grant Markham observed that they made the colony ship appear exciting, complex and important, befitting the ship's role as the instigator of the Colonial Age.

The New Hope was lacking in the way of security protocols, as the Sixth Doctor described these as "amount[ing] to little more than crossed fingers and a prayer that [the crew's] deaths [would not] have to be explained", and described the New Hope's successful journey to Agora as the crew "get[ting] lucky". (PROSE: Killing Ground)

Crew
The crew of the New Hope included an Administrative Council, a discussion body who, after a crew-wide voting period, decided to establish a primitive agricultural civilisation on Agora. (PROSE: Killing Ground)