The title is a working
title only, but it amused me cos it’s not just a play on words, it’s also the
title of a Frasier episode where
Frasier and Niles struggle to repair a toilet.
SEAT OF POWER
Story 7, 1-part comic strip idea, by Jonathan Morris
Edinburgh, the present day. The Doctor has brought Amy here
to visit her old home country. He’s decided to go “incognito” by wearing his
normal outfit plus a Tam o’Shanter. But in reality he’s here to check out a
scientific research project run from a secret base underneath Edinburgh castle!
The Doctor psychic-papers his way into the base, and meets
the scientist in charge of research, Doctor Keenan (F). Doctor Keenan claims to
have found a way of tapping into geothermal power produced by the volcano under
Arthur’s Seat. She predicts the project will soon produce enough clean, cheap
electricity to not only power Scotland, but the whole of the British Isles. The
Doctor remarks, “The nationalists will love that!”
Amy, meanwhile, has befriended one of Keenan’s assistants,
Pascal. He is showing Amy the tunnels they have excavated under Arthur’s
Seat... when suddenly they are confronted by images of plague victims,
stumbling towards them like zombies, plus beak-masked plague doctors!
The Doctor confronts Keenan. Whatever she’s discovered, it
is far in advance of current technology (which made the Doctor suspicious and
is the reason for his visit). Which
means either she’s a genius... or a charlatan. Amy runs in, describing the
plague victims. The Doctor is intrigued and dashes off with Amy in tow. Keenan
calls security; these people aren’t who they say they are.
Amy leads the Doctor to the tunnel where she saw the plague
victims. This time, they are charged at by an enraged mammoth! The Doctor
realises it is a temporal projection, the type that can kill you if you don’t
know how to bypass it. But examining the power lines, it seems that someone has
already found a way of getting past it.
The Doctor and Amy pass through the temporal barrier into
another chamber, and find themselves looking down onto a vast spaceship almost
filling a huge cavern underneath Arthur’s Seat. The ship has been rigged up
with power lines. It’s the source of Doctor Keenan’s miraculous free
electricity.
Entering the ship, the Doctor deduces the ship is drawing
its power from the volcano under Arthur’s Seat. And it was generating the
temporal barriers as a warning, the equivalent of a ‘keep out’ sign.
Why? Because the ship is the only thing preventing the
volcano from detonating. It’s effectively acting as a very big plug. Then the
ship wakes up. It contains an artificial intelligence, which is a cybernetic
anemone/porcupine that uncoils itself from the ship’s fabric.
The Doctor learns that the ship visited Earth during the ice
age, as part of an interplanetary survey. It then parked itself on top of a
volcano vent for refuelling, the process taking 20,000 years. It was then ready
to take off, only to discover that it couldn’t do so without causing the
volcano to erupt.
“And what had you humans gone and done in the meantime?
Built a city on top of it!”
So the ship decided to stay put in order to prevent causing
the deaths of everyone in Edinburgh. Its
programming strictly forbids it from causing the deaths of intelligent beings.
Doctor Keenan arrives with security guards. When the Doctor
asks her what she has done, Keenan replies. “I could tell you, but then I’d
have to kill you. So I’ll tell you.” Discovering the ship, Keenan started
draining its power and learning the secrets of its technology in order to
advance her career.
As Keenan gives the order to have the Doctor shot, Amy
communicates with the ship. It can’t take off without destroying Edinburgh, but
Amy suggests the ship releases all the energy it has built up in the past 20,000
years. The ship prepares to do this and
the Doctor, Amy, Keenan and the guards run for safety. The Doctor calls Pascal,
who evacuates the secret base, while the ship creates projections to frighten
people away from the area around Arthur’s Seat.
But Keenan punches the Doctor in the face, and heads back to
the ship, determined to stop it from releasing the energy and destroying her
career. The Doctor runs after her, but the tunnel collapses, blocking his way.
Seconds later, the ship discharges the energy it has accumulated, incinerating
the secret base and turning Arthur’s Seat into a small, but fortunately very
self-contained, volcano!
It will take another 20,000 years for ship to refuel, by
which time Edinburgh will be unoccupied. The Doctor and Amy watch, another job
well done, though Amy is not pleased that Keenan was killed in the explosion.
But she wasn’t. Chiyoko rescued her at the last minute,
leaving her by the TARDIS. We see her being drawn into it, screaming in
terror... Chiyoko smiles. The final ingredient has been added to the mix.
