SAIWA

Inside the Station

As humanity finally left behind the confines of its homeworld in the 21st and 22nd centuries, many competing strategies arose concerning how best to deal with the extreme environments of space.   The initial impulse, of course, was to recreate Earth-standard conditions wherever humanity went, but this often proved unfeasible.  Thus came the trans-humanist argument; if not all environments could be adapted to man, perhaps man could be adapted to them.

The Saiwa Facility from Orbit

This was a real crossroads for the human race, as genetic manipulation became possible, raising the question of whether or not it was ethical or even desirable.  As a Time Lord, I am certain that in the Dark Times of our distant past we Gallifreyans were also faced with these issues, but it was all so long ago as to be erased from living memory.  If you have the power to remove frailties and illnesses, to prolong life, to reconfigure the basic design...why not?  

Low-Atmosphere Clones

I considered these things recently as the Fallen Hour and I found ourselves on the Saiwa facility, a genetic nursery that grows tailored clones for low atmosphere environments.  As humanity spread out to colonize the bodies of its solar system, stations such as this one--sponsored by the African Confederation--became quite common.  Largely automated, I wandered the anti-septic halls studying the genetic tailoring process.  And I wondered...how many stations like these did my own ancestors construct as we improved our cardiovascular systems and gave ourselves the gift of regeneration?  If life is about adaptation, where precisely does self-adaptation fit into the scheme?  Lofty questions indeed.

The Early Years of Solar System Colonization

THE TREES OF NUMBAKULLA

The temple rite is simple

An open heart is first

Water for the living

To quench the living thirst

-"The Temple Rite" (A Numbakulla Poem)

The Withered Trees

I do not, as the Doctor was often wont to do, take up Companions in my travels.  Few species are as long-lived as mine, and any meaningful association with a member of another race is doomed to be fleeting.  For them, life passes so quickly, and as they age and weaken, I go on year after year regenerating.  It is not fair, I think, to make them watch this, to have them realize how limited their own time is while mine seems to run on and on.  And for my part...I have already lost everything; my race, my home.  I do not want to add new Companions to the long catalogue of what time has taken from me.

Nor do I find members of what my people patronizingly called "the Lesser Species" to be half as interesting as the Doctor did.  Perhaps because they are so short-lived, their lives seem to be spent in willful ignorance, grasping at all they can get and consume "now" with little thought towards the consequences.  Most seem to me predictable and dull.  Most, but not all.

While tangling with the Order of Malkuth in the streets of New Babbage, I found myself allied with a remarkable Terran woman named Dinah Greymoon.  A young adventuress with a knack for racing and consequently destroying vehicles, when I first came across her she was recovering from a crash that had tipped her into one of New Babbage's wintery canals.  Together we encountered a street urchin who had valuable information, and after warm cups of chocolate in a cafe, the hunt was on.  I found her to be spirited and full of what the Earth people call "pluck."  It surprised even myself then when I invited her aboard The Fallen Hour for a few short voyages.  After a Black Hole and a missing moon, I showed her a reflection of lost, time-locked Gallifrey.  Though slightly overwhelmed, she took all in stride.

When we parted in New Babbage, I did not think to see her again.  But I had given her a means to contact me and she did so...finding herself shipwrecked on an abandoned isle while sailing for Tahiti.  The sole survivor, she had come across the ruins of a strange civilization, and sent for me.  I came almost immediately.

**ALERT: RIVER SONG SAYS "SPOLIERS!!!"  IF YOU INTENDED TO PLAY THE "POT HEALER ADVENTURE" LOOK UP NUMBAKULLA AND GO START.  READ NO FURTHER UNTIL YOU DO!!!** 

On this island, Numbakulla, a tragic tale played out of over-reaching human ambition.  As the mystery unfolded, it appeared that what had once been a unified and peaceful society split into two factions, and ended up destroying itself in the process.  Concerned with guardianship of the two sacred trees housed in  a massive temple atop the island's highest mountain, the people of Numbakulla became divided into the "Gardeners" and the "Pot Makers."  In time their differences separated them, and they built very different civilizations on opposite ends of the isle.  As the Pot Makers delved deeper and deeper into new technologies, they lost sight of their sacred duties and caused the great trees to wither.  Life on Numbakulla languished and died.  But led by ancient clues and the notes of another, earlier shipwreck victim, new seeds were discovered hidden, and a chance for Numbakulla to be reborn.

The Great Temple

In the wake of the mystery, Miss Greymoon and I parted company again.  But I have come to understand, a little, what the Doctor saw in his Companions.  If they possessed any of the wit, perception, and strong will of Miss Greymoon, it is easy to see why he so often enlisted their aid.

The Gardener Civilization was Organic in its Technology

The Pot Makers Evolved Along More Conventional--and Ambitious--Lines

Looking Ahead to Series 6

I will be the first to admit I wasn't wild about Series 5 when it first began.

I think, honestly, my taste buds had been desensitized.  After all, Russel T. Davies' Doctor Who had been like huge, spicy helpings of Thai green curry...hot, fiery, and anything but subtle.  His Doctor was an operatic figure,  a tragic hero.  Moffat is a very different kind of writer.  He is subtle, and his Doctor is a return towards the classic program, the erratic alien who meddles in lives like a trickster or clown.  Having been overwhelmed for four years, Series 5 came off as a whimper rather than a bang.  Which of course is not really fair after going back and giving it a second viewing.

I should point out that of all the writers who worked under Davies, Moffat was my favorite and I was initially thrilled to hear he was taking over Who.  "The Empty Child/Doctor Dances," "The Girl in the Fireplace," "Blink," and "Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead" are among the best episodes the Davies' years had to offer.  His episodes also introduced two of the most intriguing characters Whodom has ever seen; the roguish Captain Jack and perplexing River Song.  And if Davies excelled at emotional highs and lows, Moffat's gift is that he understands better than anyone else in Doctor Who history that the show is essentially about "time travel," and how to use that in the plot.  In "The Girl in the Fireplace" he wielded it as an emotional weapon.  In "Blink," he boggled the audience's mind with the DVD sequence.  And don't get me started on the ingenious out of sequence relationship between River and the Doctor.  Looking back then, my initial distaste stemmed from the fact that I had unconsciously expected him to continue the tone and feel of the Davies era, something I was wrong to expect.

I was also mistakenly disappointed with the finale of Series 5.  Who the heck made the TARDIS blow up?  What brought that impossible alliance of hostile aliens together?  What is the bloody Silence?  And will somebody please explain to me why "The Lodger" just got brushed under the rug?  I mean, someone was trying to build a freaking TARDIS!!!!   But seeing the Series 6 trailer, I understand that Moffat plans to answer all those questions, but unlike Davies, who wrapped up his story arcs in a single season, Moffat has spread his out over two (or three?).  

And I, for one, and really looking forward to it.