The Luna University, The Hammerstein Building, smaller lecture theatre. 2643.
The little man on the podium plucked his watch from his waistcoat and glanced quickly round the lecture hall. Around fourteen million, he estimated. Almost half full. Ten minutes more would probably see the rest of the virtual attendees downloaded from the… thingummy. Never any good at technobabble, he reflected. All those consonants.
As his hand reached for the scroll button (on his Notematic Whatchamacallit) he noticed he was shaking, if only very slightly. Nerves, of course. Understandable. He wasn’t just giving a speech, after all: today he was going to change history. And a great deal was hanging on his getting things exactly right.
The lovingly prepared speech (eight weeks of actual writing, thirty years of research, a lifetime of serious resentment) spun silently across the Vidtronic Whatsit.
Ten minutes. Just time for one quick readthrough…
Extract from Professor Candy’s lecture notes.
Doctor Who?
(Notes for Franklin lecture)
Doctor who? Nice guy or utter bastard? (Look round the audience sternly. Ignore gigglers.) With the wealth of historical evidence now unearthed, few people still doubt that the time‐travelling Doctor is more than simply a myth or, as has been claimed, a conspiracy of historians on drugs very late at night. He’s real and he’s out there. The question is – do we want him?
The sole surviving Morthoid from the Dark Planet once remarked, ‘Never argue politics with the Doctor. He’ll just nip down a ventilation shaft, destabilize your political infrastructure, and blow up your solar system.’ (If get laugh, smile knowingly. If don’t, look serious.)
The Daleks of Skaro, of course, know him as the Ka Faraq Gatri. Traditionally this is translated as ‘Bringer Of Darkness’ though Professor Lyttle has established beyond reasonable doubt that this translation was, typically, the work of the Doctor himself. More accurately, and with that wonderful Dalek sense of irony, Ka Faraq Gatri means ‘Nice guy – if you’re a biped.’ And that perhaps sums up the Doctor better than anything. He just never knows when the Daleks are kidding.
Do we want him then? Do we need this one‐man crusade crashing round our history, patronizing our ancestors and kidnapping young women? Oh, yes, kidnapping them indeed! And simply discarding them wherever and whenever he chooses, the moment they grow too old or cease to be amusing. Consider, for a moment, the plight of the grieving parent whose daughter is not dead, nor in any conventional sense missing, but is a Warrior Queen on Thoros Beta. Can you imagine explaining that while the police are digging up your garden?
Incidentally, on the subject of the young women who have, seemingly voluntarily, become the disciples of the Doctor, the sponsors of today’s lecture have released a special, full colour pictorial tribute to these many unfortunates, which is available in the foyer for any students who wish to continue their studies on their own. I’ve been asked to tell you that it includes never seen before holographs of Jo Grant, Tegan Jovanka, and…
