The Guardian of the Solar System (audio story)

The Guardian of the Solar System
Doctor:	First Doctor
Companion(s):	Steven, Sara
Featuring:	Bret Vyon
Main enemy:	Mavic Chen
Main setting:	Ely, England The Great Clock, 3999
Key crew
Writer:	Simon Guerrier
Director:	Lisa Bowerman
Release details
Release number:	5.01
Release date:	July 2010
Format:	1 disc
Production code:	BFPDWCC33
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84435-483-2
The Companion Chronicles
← Previous	Solitaire
Next →	Echoes of Grey

For the political office, see Guardian of the Solar System.

The Guardian of the Solar System was the thirty-third release in the Companion Chronicles audio range. It was the first story of season 5. It was written by Simon Guerrier and featured Sara Kingdom.

Publisher's summary

Space Security Agent Sara Kingdom is dead, her ashes strewn on the planet Kembel. But, in an old house in Ely, Sara Kingdom lives on…

Now joined in the house by her confidante Robert, Sara recalls her travels in the TARDIS with the Doctor — and a particular adventure when the ship appeared to land inside a giant clock, where old men are caught in its workings…

And behind this nightmare is an old enemy: Mavic Chen, Guardian of the Solar System.

Then and now, Sara's past is catching up with her. The cogs have come full circle…

Plot

The Old Men in the Clock (1)

to be added

The Guardian of the Solar System (2)

to be added

Cast

• Sara Kingdom - Jean Marsh
• Robert - Niall MacGregor

Uncredited cast

• Robert's daughter - Lisa Bowerman

References

• After ten years living with her father in the house, Robert's daughter decides to leave in order to see the outside world. She was 21 years old at the time. She never returned.
• Sara's elder brother Bret Vyon was senior to her in the Space Security Service.
• Robert was told stories of the Daleks when he was child. However, most people believe that they were nothing more than a myth.
• Sara considered Steven to have been a good ally and a good man to have around in a crisis.
• While in college, Robert and his fellow students had to build their own clocks. His never worked.
• Sara considered clockwork mechanisms to be a relic of an ancient age.
• According to Sara, the Doctor and Steven were the best of friends.
• Sara spent six months on assignment on Venus in 3999.
• In the 40th century, androids were considered equal to humans.
• Mavic Chen entered politics before Sara was born.
• Sara described Mavic Chen as "ruthless, pragmatic and vain."
• Robert summons the TARDIS to the house and offers Sara the opportunity to travel with the Doctor once again. However, he tells her that the Doctor is "not quite the man [she] used to know."

Notes

• This story explains why Sara is always seen in her SSS uniform during The Daleks' Master Plan, despite travelling well outside her jurisdiction. Sara explains that she thought herself indivisible from her oath of service at that time, and that her uniform represented that oath.
• This audio drama was recorded on 25 November 2009.

Textless cover art

Continuity

• Robert once again relates the story of the Doctor, Steven and Sara's first visit to the intelligent house in Ely a thousand years earlier. (AUDIO: Home Truths, The Drowned World)
• Robert recalls agreeing to remain in the house forever in exchange for his daughter's life. (AUDIO: The Drowned World)
• Sara recalls that she was sent to arrest the Doctor after he stole an emm of taranium from Mavic Chen and that her brother Bret was aware that he had allied himself with the Daleks. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
• Sara refers to her visits to Liverpool on 25 December 1965 (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) and Mars before it was colonised by humanity (PROSE: The Little Drummer Boy).
• Sara previously told Robert that she encountered a withered old man who was trapped in the workings of a clock. (AUDIO: Home Truths, The Drowned World)
• Sara refers to her encounter with the Visians, an invisible, predatory species, on Mira in 4000. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
• Mavic Chen mentions the android SSS agent Mark Seven while Sara refers to her first encounter with the Daleks on M5 many years earlier. (AUDIO: The Destroyers)
• Sara refers to Robert's attempt to record her voice on a wax cylinder more than 20 years earlier. (AUDIO: The Drowned World)
• Sara mentions that the Doctor and Steven first met Mavic Chen and Bret on Kembel in 4000. (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan)
• Many years later, Sara would be reunited with the Doctor, by then in his fifth incarnation, and Steven in an alternative Death Zone on Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Five Companions)
• The Eighth Doctor and Charley Pollard would later visit the inner workings of another giant clock in Caerdroia in the Divergent Universe. (AUDIO: Caerdroia)

External links

• Official The Guardian of the Solar System page at bigfinish.com
• The Guardian of the Solar System at the Doctor Who Reference Guide