War Stories was a special free release in the Short Trips audio range from Big Finish Productions series. It was the winning entry in The Paul Spragg Memorial Short Trip Opportunity.
Publisher's summary[]
The Intergalactic Fringe Festival spans a whole planet. Its programme offers millions of shows, so the Doctor and Bill can choose anything from anti-grav acrobats to the quantum cabaret.
But the Doctor is alarmed when he attends a play about the Time War. It's not just that it tells his personal history - its performance could unravel the universe.
Plot[]
It is hours before the premiere of Gallifrey Falls No More, Cymbelline Sharp's latest play. Cymbelline is excited to provide a definitive dramatisation of the Time War, just as Homer did the Trojan War and Stanoff Osterling did the Vogan War. As the cast and crew frantically prepare, she checks in on them, ordering them to take it from the top.
The Twelfth Doctor and Bill Potts have just arrived at the Intergalactic Fringe Festival. After watching a juggling performance from the Beheaded Boy of Balhoon, they venture into a sprawling town square where the Doctor fills Bill in on the Fringe. At a cocktail garden, prompted by her wondering how they will choose what to watch, he introduces her to the MASKs. They review the Beheaded Boy's performance upon request, other visitors' ratings far harsher than hers, before perusing the listings of recommended performances.
The Doctor finds the listing for Gallifrey Falls No More and becomes concerned. Sharing it with Bill, he summarises the Time War for her, unable to understand how Sharp found out he and his previous regenerations concealed Gallifrey inside a time lock and why one of her countless plays would revolve around him. He tells a skeptical Bill that since Gallifrey Falls No More is a one-man show, it is guaranteed he will be its focus.
The Doctor and Bill attend the premiere of Gallifrey Falls No More at an amphitheatre which seats 100,000 people. As the Doctor suspected, the play is a dramatisation of the last day of the Time War. Bill is confused by the presence of the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, so the Doctor explains regeneration to her. She cannot comprehend this at all, instead focusing on how he saved Gallifrey from himself.
The Doctor is motivated to leave the premiere by his appearance during the scene wherein Gallifrey is concealed inside the time lock. Bill follows, reminding him he saved the Time Lords and Daleks instead of destroying them with the Moment. Technically, he replies, he did both, creating a mental paradox which could be problematic when thought of by the sizeable audience of Gallifrey Falls No More. He believes that since it is fading, the projection of Gallifrey onto the Fringe's moon is connected. Bill scolds him for asking his other selves for help when he needed it most, being told that sometimes, every choice is wrong.
Reasoning that his presence would be distracting, the Doctor asks Bill to investigate the paradox alone at a backstage bar. She sits at the bar and is joined by Tuxa Mulleen, a light and multimedia designer on Gallifrey Falls No More. By chatting up Tuxa, she learns that a cast party will soon be held, Sharp being in attendance.
Bill and Tuxa arrive at the party, taking place inside the amphitheatre. Sharp quickly notices them, being excited to see Tuxa and considerably less so to see Bill. Tuxa notifies Sharp that the stars are going out, being snapped at to turn them back on. Bill mentions the Doctor, which prompts a sarcastic dismissal of him and the way he operates.
The TARDIS materialises on the stage, and the Doctor exits. He has watched a dozen of Sharp's plays in succession, being most intrigued by her newest play, which involves Bill and her imagined conversations with her mother. He reveals that the MASKs are neural, mining the memories of their "wearers" for ideas which could be used by Sharp for her plays. Bill is quite disturbed by this.
Sharp downplays the Doctor's accusation, approaching the light of the moon as she does so. When she mentions that Bill's story is powerful, Bill makes a sudden connection between her plays and the projection of Gallifrey, which the Doctor had mentioned would require a vast amount of power. Bill introduces the Doctor to Tuxa, and he, too, has a lightbulb moment. Prodding Tuxa, he explains his theory: the projection is powered by the electrical impulses inside the brains of people seeing Sharp's plays. Staging her plays inside the amphitheatre, essentially an open-air transformer, and weaving in paradoxical moments, such as the Doctor both saving Gallifrey and destroying it, has provided Sharp with all the more energy.
The Doctor asks Sharp whether she hacked the MASKs. She admits she did, having changed the psychic circuits inside to be bidirectional. The Doctor exploits this, using his sonic screwdriver on his MASK to wipe the memories of her plays from everyone on the Fringe. A still-triumphant Sharp is ultimately cut down when the Doctor, acting on Bill's recommendation to ask for help on occasion, sends a Fringe-wide request to review Gallifrey Falls No More. Since no one remembers it, Sharp is deluged with confused, zero-star reviews, lowering her average rating to the point of banishment.
Some time later, the Doctor, Bill, and Tuxa are sitting on a hillock by the bay in the yodeling archipelago. Tuxa invites the Doctor and Bill to a quantum cabaret she designed the pyrotechnics for, the Doctor demurring so she and Bill can go on a date.
Characters[]
- Twelfth Doctor
- Bill Potts
- Cymbelline Sharp
- Tuxa Mulleen
Crew[]
- Writer - Patrick Ross
- Senior Producer - John Ainsworth
- Narrator - Alan Cox
- Cover Art - Soundsmyth Creative
- Director - Lisa Bowerman
- Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
- Music and Sound Design - Alistair Lock
- Producer and Script Editor - Peter Anghelides
Worldbuilding[]
- At some point, Stanoff Osterling wrote what is considered the definitive depiction of the Vogan War.
- The Intergalactic Fringe Festival is a planet dedicated to artistic talent. Guided by the recommendations of their Mobile Audience Services Kiosk—MASK, for short—visitors can witness millions of acts, including transparent trapeze girls, handless harpists, sword swallowers with four-foot-long throats, and rocks who perform rock operas. After each performance, they are invited by their MASK to provide reviews consisting of a rating out of five stars and an explanatory comment. If a participant's average rating reaches one star, they are banished from the Fringe, forced to leave on an eviction shuttle.
- Among the four million participants in the Fringe during the Doctor and Bill's visit are the Beheaded Boy of Balhoon, Flack Bambo, which the Doctor assumed had retired, Poot's Foots, apparently a tearjerker, a Judoon opera the Doctor has no desire to watch, and the Raxacoricofallapatorius Chorus Group and their sister group, the Children's Choir of Clom. Janis Goblin is performing as part of her The Immodest Proposal Tour.
- In 1993, Elton John had a residency at the Fringe. He was the only human to participate until the 23rd century.
- A cocktail garden on the Fringe serves kerosene spirits. A bar adjacent to an amphitheatre uses edible cocktail straws and serves a drink with a name Bill can't pronounce. It tastes like black mango and has the texture of granola.
- Though she only joined the Fringe seven months ago, Cymbelline Sharp has already become a successful participant. She is the author and director of such plays as Jimsha the Giant, The Jonk of Great Gonshark, Gallifrey Falls No More, and an unnamed play based on Bill's experiences of having lost her mother young. 1,203 of her plays are being concurrently performed during the Doctor and Bill's visit, and at least one is being staged inside a massive amphitheatre and has cutting-edge effects.
- MASKs are highly customizable. They normally resemble theatre masks used by the ancient Greeks, but they can also sport horns and scales, be given the texture of gossamer veils, and be shaped to look like snail shells.
- Recommendations from MASKs are curated using a psychic circuit embedded inside. Sharp made the circuits bidirectional, mining visitors' memories, especially those paradoxical, for inspiration for her plays. This proves her downfall, as the Doctor is able to wipe all memories of her plays from the minds of everyone on the Fringe.
- The Time War is well-known enough for Sharp to consider it public domain.
Notes[]
- This audio story was recorded on 25 October 2024 at the Soundhouse.
- This story marks Bill Potts' debut in the Short Trips range.
- Patrick Ross was inspired by his experiences staging a play at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Where he was one of 4,000 acts, Sharp's plays are among four million. (BFX: War Stories)
Continuity[]
- Sharp positively references Stanoff Osterling. (PROSE: Theatre of War)
- Gallifrey Falls No More is a dramatisation of the last day of the Time War. The play depicts the fall of Arcadia, the War Doctor's meeting with the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors in the barn on Gallifrey (though neither Clara nor the Moment appear), and the teaming up of the first fourteen regenerations of the Doctor to seal Gallifrey inside a time lock. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
- Bill pretends she can talk to her mother. (TV: Knock Knock, Oxygen, The Lie of the Land)
- As Wilf did in Donna's World, (TV: Turn Left) Tuxa mentions that the stars are going out.
External links[]
- Official War Stories page at bigfinish.com
Footnotes[]
|