Tardis

New to Doctor Who or returning after a break? Check out our guides designed to help you find your way!

READ MORE

Tardis
Advertisement
Tardis
Lady Aesculapius Appearances Talk

You may be looking for the Olympian deity.

Lady Aesculapius. called Aesc for short, was a member of the Firmament, the powerful species who controlled the bounded multiverse known as the 10,000 Dawns. A renegade, she travelled across all universes aboard her Factory of Crystal.

Biography[]

Early life[]

Aesculapius was a Firmament. Her teacher when she was young was Professor Meistras, a harsh, twisted individual who frequently killed her current incarnation to "teach her a lesson", who would remain her nemesis throughout her subsequent lives.

Eventually, Aesculapius became a freewheeling space-time-traveller aboard her "Factory of Crystal", (PROSE: Life After Death) or "Foce", interdimensional vessels which could resize themselves as anything from marbles to moons. (PROSE: A Bright White Crack)

Aesculapius had many incarnations, who died in a variety of ways. When possible, she recovered her past bodies and laid them to rest inside her Factory.

She picked up a number of companions, who came and went. They included Graelyn Scythes, Archimedes Von Ahnerabe, and, at a different point in time, Blanche Combine. She also shared single adventures with Rita Andros and Jessica Zhane, but stayed in contact with both women. (PROSE: Life After Death)

Blue-peacoat-wearing incarnation[]

Main article: Blue-peacoat-wearing Lady Aesculapius

One incarnation of Lady Aesculapius had curly hair and wore a blue peacoat. She also often wore a slouch cap of the same colour. She witnessed the fictionalisation of the Firmament, was present at the Christmas Needle Agreement, (PROSE: White Canvas) and ultimately met her end when Professor Meistras placed a booby trapped parcel in her control room. (PROSE: Life After Death [+]Michael Robertson, 10,000 Dawns-related stories featuring DWU elements (Arcbeatle Press, 2019).)

Grey-tweed-coat-wearing incarnation[]

Main article: Grey-tweed-coat-wearing Lady Aesculapius

The next incarnation of Lady Aesculapius wore a grey tweed coat, and had several adventures, including figuring out who had murdered her previous body, (PROSE: Life After Death [+]Michael Robertson, 10,000 Dawns-related stories featuring DWU elements (Arcbeatle Press, 2019).) negotiating with the Selachians on Hytheriax VII, and bringing down the villainous Letharchy. (PROSE: And Today, You [+]James Wylder, Cwej: The Series, 10,000 Dawns, WARSONG (Arcbeatle Press, 2023).)

Undated events[]

Relationship to a certain time-traveller[]

I'm well aware people think of me as a dollar store - sorry, pound store knock-off. And from how easy I fooled him, maybe I am. But I feel like my own person. I'm genuine on the inside.Grey-tweed-coat-wearing Lady Aesculapius [src]

Although she was accused of being a "rip-off" of Chris Cwej's former boss and friend, the inspiration behind Professor X by both Chris Cwej and Jhe Sang Mi, and even impersonated them at one point to give Grant Markham a sense of fulfilment, and easily fooled him, she maintained that she was her own distinct person. (PROSE: And Today, You [+]James Wylder, Cwej: The Series, 10,000 Dawns, WARSONG (Arcbeatle Press, 2023).)

Behind the scenes[]

Lady Aesculapius earlier incarnation

Aesculapius's blue-peacoat-wearing incarnation, as illustrated by Johannes Chazot.

Originating in the short story Never Go On Walks, first published in James Wylder's unofficial Doctor Who poetry book An Eloquence of Time and Space, Aesculapius was a take-off on the Doctor, similar to the likes of the Chiropodist or Iris Wildthyme, essentially serving as her corner of the multiverse's equivalent to him — being a renegade member of the Firmament to match the Doctor's status as a Renegade Time Lord, wielding a Quantum Whisk as a wink to the sonic screwdriver, and travelling with companions in a dimensionally-anomalous space-time ship. The name "Aesculapius" is a reference to this, alluding indirectly to the idea of a "doctor" by being the Latin name for the Greco-Roman God of Medicine.

As the character evolved, she and the lore of the Firmament took on more distinct characteristics; for example, although, like the Doctor, Aesc displayed the ability to escape death many times over, she was shown to revive herself by downloading her consciousness into new bodies. However, winking similarities remained a recurring element of Lady Aesculapius: Series 1, with Life After Death featuring her Master-like nemesis Meistras (and including a red herring character with even greater similairities to the Master), and the story Jason and the Astronauts drew intentional parallels between the process of Aesc changing bodies and a regeneration scene, with Aesc paraphrasing several of the Doctor's lines from their regeneration scenes — "I just want you to tell you that you were fantas-" (TV: The Parting of the Ways) "I’ll always remember when I was me" (TV: The Time of the Doctor) and "I don’t want to go!". (TV: The End of Time)

Lady Aesculapius's incarnations have never been officially numbered. Life After Death served as the transition from one who was characterised by her blue frock coat to a new incarnation, illustrated on the poster of the series.

Advertisement