#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Zygons (and Vogons!)

Doctor Who has had many writers over the years who have contributed to the deep lore of the show. But some writers stand out and some creatures stand out. 

Today I want to wrap up my A to Z of Doctor Who with the best-known Z creature they have, the Zygons, and maybe their related species the Vogons.

Zygons

The Zygons are great creatures. They first appeared in "Terror of the Zygons" where they were controlling the Loch Ness Monster. They are shapeshifters, but require special technology to achieve this, and look like they could be related to cephalopods.  This seems confirmed when we meet them again in "The Day of the Doctor."

I like that idea, to be honest. An octopus has natural camouflage abilities, it is likely that the Zygons did too, and then used their superior technology to take it to the next level.  They are the perfect doppelgängers in Doctor Who. 

Like the cryptids I mentioned yesterday, the Zygons kind find their way into myths and legends of the Earth by replacing doppelgängers or changelings (the faerie kind, not the Star Trek kind, though they work too).

Their planet was destroyed as collateral damage in the Time War, so they have taken to settle on Earth. At first they wanted to take it over, but soon realized trying to live in peace and hiding, is a better choice.

But what about their lesser-known cousins? The Vogons?

Vogons

Now to be fair. Vogons are not really related to the Zygons, at least not in canon. They do share some similarities, though. But their biggest connection comes from the creator of the Vogons, Douglas Adams.

Douglas Adams has a deep connection to Doctor Who. He was a script editor during the Tom Baker years. He was good friends with Lalla Ward (Romana II) and Richard Dawkins. In fact, he introduced them to each other and they were married. He also wrote some Doctor Who episodes, namely "The Pirate Planet" and "Shada."

Adams' character of Professor Chronotis, aka Salyavin, is a renegade Time Lord (much like the Doctor) and appears in the serial "Shada." Shada is the Time Lord's prison planet where Salyavin was supposedly kept.  Professor Chronotis also appears in a not much-changed appearance in his own novel "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency."

This has lead some to conjecture that Adams' own "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" is part of the Doctor Who universe.  It was at least what we all thought back in the 1980s while reading HHGttG and watching Doctor Who.  My first Doctor Who characters were versions of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and Zaphod Beeblebrox. All three of these characters also appear in the 8th Doctor's version of Shada as prisoners. Zaphod I get, but certainly not Arthur.

To make the connections deeper, the BBC TV series of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" aired in 1981. The show has a solid Doctor Who look and feel to it. I swear that they were the same sets half the time. Also Sandra Dickinson, who plays Earth scientist Trillian, was married to Peter Davidson the Fifth Doctor at the time. Their real-life daughter is Georgia Moffett, now Georgia Tennant, who is married to David Tenant, the Tenth Doctor, and Georgia played "Jenny," the Doctor's Daughter in "The Doctor's Daughter."  Confused? Yeah not surprised.

These connections were finally canonized by the Tenth Doctor in "The Christmas Invasion" when walking around in a robe and his "jim-jams" (pajamas), he remarks that he looks "very Arthur Dent. Now there was a nice man."  The novelization of The Christmas Invasion also makes more mentions of Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, and the Vogons.

So back in the 1980s we just assumed that Zygons and Vogons had to be related and used them as such in the FASA Doctor Who RPG. 

While the Zygons are deadly, I doubt they have anything near as awful as Vogon Poetry. 

This has been an absolute blast to do. And today's post is a good segway into next month's Sci-Fi Month's topic of the Doctor Who RPGs.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

And that is another April A to Z in books.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 30

 The last room on this level can be accessed via Room 23 or Room 29. The doors to this room are locked.

This room appears to have been the start of something, but unfinished in many aspects. There is a flight of stairs carved into the stone with wood for supports. The wood is old, but newer than the rooms above might suggest.

The stairs descend very far down and there is a glow seen at the bottom of the stairs some 100' below.

There are no monsters and no treasure here.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Yeti (and other Cryptids)

The Doctor has battled all sorts of monsters over the years. But some of those monsters (ok, more than some) have had their genesis in the myths and legends of Earth. I already talked about Vampires, but today let's look at a few cryptids, starting with our featured creature, the Yeti.

The Yeti

The Yeti first appeared in the Second Doctor serial, "The Abominable Snowmen" (1967). At first, we are led to think these are actual yeti, but they are, in reality, robots controlled by The Great Intelligence, a disembodied entity trying to take over the Earth, but it needs a physical body first.  The Yetis and the Great Intelligence appear again in 1968's "The Web of Fear." 

This reminds of the various "Bigfoot" episodes of The Six-Million Dollar Man. Here Bigfoot was revealed to be a robot sent by aliens. 

Interestingly enough, when we meet the Great Intelligence again in the new series, it is in an episode called "The Snowmen." This time the GI is using animated snowmen (as in made of snow) to do the same thing. 

Patrick Troughton (the Second doctor) often said he would have liked to come back to Doctor Who and just play a monster like the Yeti. No one would know it was him under all that costume.

Reptoids

Reptoids and reptilian humanoids are an old favorite among cryptid hunters and UFOlogists. I even featured them twice in last years A to Z of Conspiracy Theories under C Cryptoterrestrial Hypothesis and E Extraterrestrials on Earth.  The Silurians and the Sea Devils fit these ideas perfectly. They are reptilians, and they come not from outer space but from the inner Earth.  The Draconians fit the notion of reptile-like humanoids from space.

Loch Ness Monster

The Loch Ness monster might be one of the most famous cryptids ever, and good old Nessie appears in Doctor Who's Season 13 opener "Terror of the Zygons" as well.  In this case, as a creature controlled by the Zygons (more on them tomorrow). The Zygons are using Nessie (in reality a creature from the Zygon homeworld called a "Skarasen") to destroy oil rigs that are digging into their underwater base.

Others

Other cryptids like the Chupacabra and the Australian Yowie has appeared in prose and audio dramas of the Doctor not televises.

Like the creatures mentioned above and the Vampires there is a lot of cryptids in the world now that could be made to fit Doctor Who. Creatures from the past, future or other dimensions or planets are all great choices.

I might have to try my hand at stating a few up for the various Doctor Who RPGs.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 29

The door at the rear of Room 28 leads to a finished room exactly like Room 23.

There are four statues in each corner of demonic women standing 7 ft tall. Each holds a sword. There is a fifth statue in the center of the room holding a staff.

The statues are really Caryatid Columns. 

They will only attack people if they attempt to go throw the door straight ahead. 

Whenever a character strikes a caryatid column with a weapon (magical or nonmagical), the weapon takes 3d6 points of damage. Apply the weapon’s hardness normally. Weapons that take any amount of damage in excess of their hardness gain the broken condition.

The caryatid columns do not have treasures, but their swords can be used.  Each Caryatid Column has two masterwork swords they wield. These swords require an 18 strength to use but are treated as a +2 weapon that does 1d10 hp damage.

Additionally, there are two dead orcs here with no treasure or weapons.

Adapted from Pathfinder.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who Xoanon

Doctor Who: You know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit the views, which can be uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering.

- The Fourth Doctor, The Face of Evil

Ok. The quote is connected to today's topic, but only tangentially. It comes from the same episode, and it is just a great quote. 

If there is one thing you can pretty much guarantee in Sci-Fi, and Doctor Who is no exception, if there is a brilliant artificially intelligent computer then at some point it is going to go mad.

Such is the case with the supercomputer Xoanon from the Mordee expedition. We meet this computer centuries later when the expedition had failed and the Survey Team and Technicians are separated and evolved into different groups of primitive humans, the Sevateem and the Tesh, who both worship the god Xoanon.  The trouble for the Fourth Doctor, the computer is mad and has part of the Doctor's own personality stuck inside it. So it's "Face of Evil" is that of the Fourth Doctor.

I rather enjoyed the whole idea of the insane computer. It is something that Doctor Who would come back to a few more times.

In "The Armageddon Factor," the sixth part of the Key to Time series, the computer Mentalis on the planet Zeos (not sure if the computer company was named after it) was at war with the planet Atrios. The computer is running everything and even takes over K-9.

We get another one in the semi-lost story of "Shada" on Skagra's (our bad guy) spaceship, but it is reprogrammed in end by the Doctor (you think he would have learned by now).

Our next encounter with a crazy computer comes much later on in the time of the 10th Doctor.

We meet up with the Doctor and River Song on The Library where everyone has gone missing. Here we encounter the computer CAL who just keeps repeating the same message over and over.  In this case we learn the computer CAL is actually "Charlotte Abigail Lux" and she is not a computer per se but the consciousness of a girl who died early. Her father created the library so she had every book in the universe to enjoy. She downloaded all the minds of the people in the Library to "save" them (as a computer would) and it was driving her crazy.

The Doctor (ok, really River) fixed her and the Doctor uploaded River to Library computer to watch over her.

There are some others of course. These stories were popular in the 70s when computers started becoming a thing. Now if we want to scare viewers it is less about computers and more about out of control AI.

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.

#Dungeon23 Tomb of the Vampire Queen, Level 4, Room 28

 In room #25 the other exit (not the one that leads to Room #26) is a locked door. The corridor leads a square room.

Inside this room are two War Pigs. These are Orcs infected with the Devil Swine lycanthropy.  When they see the party, they transform into large boars and attack the party.

They were part of a larger group coming up from the lower levels.

These creatures have 3x Treasure Type C, looted from their previous companions.

#AtoZChallenge2023: Doctor Who War (The Time War and the War Doctor)

DORIUM: The asteroid, where you've made your base. Do you know why they call it Demon's Run?
MANTON: How do you know the location of our base?
DORIUM: You're with the Headless Monks. They're old customers of mine.
KOVARIAN: It's just some old saying.
DORIUM: A very old saying. The oldest. Demons run when a good man goes to war.

- Doctor Who, "A Good Man Goes to War"

Today's quote does not come from the episodes I am covering, but it sums them up very well.

When the new series of Doctor Who was released in 2005 Russel T. Davis was very smart on how much detail to give the viewers. Just enough to get the old fans like me hooked and not too much to scare off the new fans (like my wife).

Over the course of many episodes, we learned something very, very terrible. First, the Doctor was the last of the Time Lords. Then later, it was because Gallifrey had been destroyed. Then later because it had been destroyed in the Last Great Time War between Gallifrey and the Daleks.

Over the years, more details emerged. The Time War was so great that there was collateral damage across all of Time and Space. The Daleks and the Time Lords had destroyed much of the universe. Even to the point that regular humans like Cass (Night of the Doctor) knew of Time Lords and their science. 

At one point, the Doctor, tired of running, tired of death, regenerated into something new. The War Doctor, played by veteran actor John Hurt. This time Lord, no longer the Doctor, was a warrior.

"No more."

- The War Doctor

The War Doctor steals a weapon so terrible even the Time Lords won't use it. Known as "The Moment," it will destroy all of Gallifrey and take all the Dalek with it.

This is all detailed in the 50th Anniversary story, "The Day of the Doctor."

After "The Day of the Doctor" aired, I realized that the "New Who" doctors fell into the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief.

• The Eight Doctor - Denial. He avoids the war he knows he caused and tries to help where he can.
• The War Doctor - Anger. He turns to fight against the War. Not against the Daleks or even the Time Lords, but the War itself.
• The Ninth Doctor - Bargaining. He runs. He runs as far away as possible and hopes to make something good.
• The Tenth Doctor - Depression. I mean, look how he acts. The silly façade is only that. Underneath, he was weighted down with guilt.
• The Eleventh Doctor - Acceptance. He knows he can't change his past, no matter what.  Or can he?

The Time War was something hinted at in the Doctor Who novels. No surprise, really, since some of the novel and short story writers would later come on to the show, most notably Steven Moffat.

It could be one of the more exciting pieces of Doctor Who lore created for the show. 

House: Fear me! I've killed hundreds of Time Lords!
The Doctor: Fear me. I've killed all of them.

The Doctor, "The Doctor's Wife"

Rewatching old episodes, especially the old Dalek ones, you get the notion that the Daleks have been ramping up their ability to fight, particularly the Time Lords. I mean, from their point of view, the Doctor has been the center of all their most significant defeats. He was there when they were created and slowed down their progress. He was there when they finally broke out of their destroyed cities on Skaro. He was there to defeat them in their attempts to revive themselves or even against their ancient enemies the Movellans. Even the Time Lord's "weapon" (really a scientific device to harness the power of a star), The Hand of Omega, was used to destroy their homeworld of Skaro.

The Doctor may have wanted to avoid this war, but he picked this fight.

DOCTOR: Do I have the right? Simply touch one wire against the other and that's it. The Daleks cease to exist. Hundreds of millions of people, thousands of generations can live without fear, in peace, and never even know the word Dalek.
SARAH: Then why wait? If it was a disease or some sort of bacteria you were destroying, you wouldn't hesitate.
DOCTOR: But I kill, wipe out a whole intelligent lifeform, then I become like them. I'd be no better than the Daleks.

The Fourth Doctor and Sarah Jane, "Genesis of the Daleks"

The Time War, and thus the War Doctor, were always going to happen.

The idea was so pervasive that even the novels and the audio productions did their own versions before we saw details of it on TV. The two most powerful groups in the Universe were going to butt heads sooner or later.

As I mentioned before, in the language of the Gamma Forests, the word "Doctor" translates into "Great Warrior."  Another tidbit from "A Good Man Goes to War."

In the time of the 12th Doctor's regeneration, we see what being "The Doctor of War" means, in a way only Capaldi's Doctor could. "Try to be nice, but always be kind."  Which, in a way, influences how his 1st incarnation sees things right before his regeneration into the 2nd Doctor.

The Time War was great, but I hope it holds true to it's name as "The Last Great Time War."

All images are used with permission from the BBC and are copyrighted 2023 by the BBC.