Veronica Buchman was the partner of Roger Buchman and the mother of Iron and Toasty Buchman. She was a technician.
Biography[]
In 16007, Veronica and Sheer Jawn had a daughter they named Toasty. Veronica informed neither Roger nor Toasty, letting Toasty know that Sheer was a family friend who regularly worked on Nerva Beacon.
Some time later, the Buchanans moved to a Nerva colony on and around a frozen Loch Lomond. In 16112, while Roger and Iron were fooling around with a transmat, Roger accidentally transmatted Iron into one of the hundreds of Wirrn hibernating inside the loch. He covered this up from Veronica and Toasty, tricking Veronica into thinking Iron had drowned. Veronica concocted her own falsehood for Toasty: Iron abandoned his family to join the army.
The grieving Buchanans returned to Nerva City, coming back to the colony fifteen years later. As they reacquainted themselves with their house, they encountered the Sixth Doctor and Flip Jackson. After an unpleasant introduction involving guns, the animosity between the travellers gradually melted. Veronica helped Flip warm up and prepared "forage porridge", nearly serving it to the group before the Doctor revealed it was unknowingly made from Wirrn mucus. Investigating the trails left behind, the group stumbled upon the corpses of workers from Nerva City. Veronica grew desperate to leave, dragging Roger, despite his objections, into a failed attempt to transmat back to the City. Via a recorded message from Paul Dessay, a Nerva City bureaucrat, the group was informed that transmats had been made one-way for the forseeable future.
The group took other steps to return to Nerva City, Flip flying Iron's microlite to the nearest transmat substation, and the Doctor and Veronica catching up with her after she crashed. At the substation, Flip ran into Iron's Wirrn, frantically calling the Doctor and Veronica for help. She was soon transmatted to Nerva City, leading Veronica to call Roger, back at the house. The Doctor realised Roger was trying to retrieve Iron, using Toasty as a means of locating him. To his and Veronica's horror, Roger went through with it, shunting Toasty into the transmat buffer.
Veronica, angry and fearful for her children's safety, accompanied the Doctor to find Iron's microlite. Turning it into a makeshift sled, they sped to the substation, avoiding the Wirrn inside the ice. They stopped as Veronica was called by the Iron's Wirrn, using his voice to dupe Veronica assuming she was talking to her son. The microlite's engine having seized up, the two resumed walking to the substation on foot. The weather was so treacherous, Veronica worried she had developed frostbite on her feet.
Veronica and the Doctor returned to the Buchanan house by transmat just as Roger was transmatting in Iron's Wirrn. The Doctor stopped the process, overruling Veronica and Roger, and Iron's Wirrn commanded its brethren to invade the house. Veronica and Roger assisted the Doctor in repelling the invasion and recovering Toasty from the buffer. When the Doctor was unable to find Toasty using Roger's DNA, he deduced that Roger wasn't her biological father. He confronted Veronica, who reluctantly revealed the truth.
Once again, Roger tried to bring home Iron. This time, he was successful, though because Sheer was simultaneously transmatting from Nerva City, Iron's Wirrn absorbed Sheer as well. Now possessed of Sheer's experience with transmats, the Wirrn decided it no longer needed Roger, coldly killing him. The Doctor dissuaded Veronica from joining Iron and Sheer inside the Wirrn.
Iron and Sheer's Wirrn left the colony for Nerva City, aiming to copy itself a thousand times over, thereby incubating every person on Nerva with its eggs. Left alone as the Wirrn overwhelmed the house, the Doctor and Veronica recovered Toasty using Veronica's DNA. Reuniting with her daughter, Veronica took aggressive steps to repel the Wirrn swarn's invasion, rewiring the house's electrics so that the swarm would be electrocuted following the next transmat. She was talked down by Toasty and the Doctor, the Doctor informing her that Wirrn mothers also sought the best for their children.
The transmat repaired, Flip and Dare could send a diagnostic signal from a besieged Nerva City, and the Doctor could respond by calling them. The pair transmatted to the colony, Veronica snatching Dare's fission gun to scare off the swarm. The Doctor transmatted away the ice in the loch, as he had advised Roger he could do, transmatted Iron's Wirrn and all its copies inside, and froze over the loch again, leaving the humans and Wirrn to come to terms. Veronica and Toasty returned to Nerva City, promising to help the process along. (AUDIO: Wirrn Isle)
Psychological profile[]
Personality[]
Veronica was immensely dedicated to her children. She was devastated by Iron's alleged death, vigorously refusing to bring it up with others, and felt similarly crestfallen when Toasty became stuck inside the transmat buffer. Discovering that Iron could still be alive, she grew obsessed with seeing him again, not bothering to listen to the Doctor's suspicions that the situation wasn't as was claimed by "Iron". (AUDIO: Wirrn Isle)
Skills[]
Though she was a technician by trade, Veronica had heard enough about transmats from Roger to know it would take ages for an automatic backup to finish. (AUDIO: Wirrn Isle)