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Father Time
(Lance Parkin) |
|
 Name: Miranda
Format:
Book.
Time of Origin: Distant future; met The Doctor
in 1980s Earth
Appearances: "Father
Time", "Sometime
Never...", flashback sequence
in "The
Gallifrey Chronicles".
Doctor:
Eighth
Doctor, technically an alternate First
Doctor.
Companions:
Fitz Kreiner, Trix MacMillan, and technically
an alternate Susan.
History: In many ways, Miranda does not qualify
as a companion of The Doctor, as she never even entered the TARDIS ,
much less travel in time in his company. However, she has a connection
to him that possibly could only be surpassed by Susan,
The Doctor's very first companion, so in that regard, she definitely merits
a place on this web site.
Originally, Miranda comes from the far, far, far future,
and was the daughter of the rulers of that time - who, incidentally,
are rumoured to be connected to the surviving Time Lords from after the
events
of 'The
Ancestor Cell' and the Eighth
Doctor's fatal encounter
with Faction
Paradox. At this point in history, the surviving Time Lords
had somehow triggered
a cataclysm that left whole galaxies uninhabitable, then
establishing a tyrannical empire ruled by an Imperial Family, until an
uprising killed
the entire Family baring their baby daughter, who was taken
back to the twentieth century by her bodyguard and nurse. Zevron, the leader
of a group
called Faction Klade in this time (Is the anagram a coincidence?)
became Prefect of this order, and began a search across all of Time and
Space
to find the last survivors, eventually tracking Miranda
to the early 1980s.
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The Gallifrey Chronicles
(Lance Parkin) |
|
However, what Zevron wasn't bargaining
on was encountering The Doctor, currently nearing the end of his
century-long amnesic exile on Earth, who met Miranda after he attended
a meeting of her school's chess club following a meeting with her
teacher, Debbie Castle. With her aid, The Doctor tracked a couple
of hunters dispatched to catch Miranda, and confronted Zevron, refusing
to let him kill an innocent child, despite Zevron's belief that Miranda
was genetically predisposed to be a monster. Although Zevron managed
to kill Miranda's 'parents', The Doctor was able to keep him occupied
long enough for Debbie's husband Barry to take Zevron's gun and shoot
him in the head, although Barry's mind was then destroyed by a mind-eater.
Adpoting Miranda, The Doctor made a living as a freelance business
consultant to give her the best chances possible in life, managing
to give her a normal life for six years after the accident (Despite
a brief encounter with an artifical alien Network that was trying
to turn Earth into part of its system via hi-tech mobile phones at
Miranda's school (Flashback in "The
Gallifrey Chronicles")).
Then, of course, Zevron's younger brother Ferran showed
up when Miranda was sixteen, and things went from bad to worse. At first
Ferran tried to kill her, but then he fell in love with her and wanted
her to marry him. However, she was unable to accept everything Ferran told
her, giving The Doctor time to send him back to his own time via a recall
bracelet, but Miranda then shot Ferran's second-in-command after he told
her she was evil through and through, and only his death would stop him
hunting her. Shaken, Miranda fled, and wandered the globe for a few years
until Ferran tracked her down thanks to a film made by a man she slept
with of odd events in his life (Including his night with her), taking her
on board his ship, the Supremacy, and introducing her to his second,
Cate - an android clone of Miranda.
However,
Ferran no longer loved Miranda; he needed her genetic codes to access the
databanks in the future, and regarded her as merely property. He tried
to convince Miranda that the strong always conquered the weak, but The Doctor's teachings had convinced Miranda that the Universe didn't work
that way, and managed to convince Cate to help her while Ferran confronted
The Doctor over a monitor, The Doctor having hitched a lift on a space
shuttle, the Atlantis, to get to Miranda. Ferran thought the ship was impregnable
- even if it rammed the Supremacy, the Atlantis wouldn't even scratch it
- but The Doctor mimicked Ferran's voice over the intercom and had the
ship's computer shut down all security systems until they could board.
While The Doctor confronted Ferran, Miranda freed the ship's slaves and
triggered a revolution against the guards, many of whom joined her side
anyway; barely ten minutes passed before the revolution was well underway,
proving that Miranda was The Doctor's daughter.
Having repaired
damage done to the ship's engines in the fighting, Miranda and Ferran came
to an understanding. Miranda was the supreme ruler of the Universe, and
thus she had the power to declare that there would be no more rulers. There
would be anarchy, and everyone will be free. No-one would be forced to
fight beside them, but if they chose to do so, they could stand united
against the evils of their own time, and make a better future together.
With this done, Miranda asked The Doctor to come with her, but he declined,
knowing she could handle the job on her own; besides, he was so close to
his appointment with Fitz in the year 2001 that it would feel like cheating
to just leave like that. Besides, he was sure Miranda could cope...
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Sometime Never...
(Justin Richards) |
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And she did.
In her time in the future, Miranda brought peace and stability
to the universe, even finding time to have a daughter, Zezanne, although
Zezanne's father
died. Miranda eventually met The Doctor again as he battled
the mysterious Council
of Eight, with the aid of their ex-agent Sabbath.
While The Doctor
and his current companions, Fitz Krienier and Trix MacMillan,
were fleeing a time agent, The Doctor having accidentally dragged Miranda
and Zezanne
into the British Museum while tackling a strange glass skeleton.
Their odd little group was then captured by one of the Council, Octan,
the leader,
and taken to the Council's station. As Octan took Sabbath's
ship, the Jonah, to the station, Miranda told The Doctor that she had lived
a full life
and had successfully united the factions of the far future,
ensuring peace in her time. She insisted that if The Doctor was forced
to choose between
her life and the safety of the Universe, he must choose
the Universe - as The Doctor himself would have done if the situations
were reversed. In
a confrontation with Octan, The Doctor nearly broke his
word to Miranda, but, refusing to let him break his word, grabbed her hourglass
(The Council's
space station created hourglasses to provide artificial
Time for the inhabitants of the station to survive in the Vortex) and smashed
it, causing her to
age to death instantly, her last words being 'I love you
too, Father'.
In the resulting
chaos as Sabbath shot himself, Zezanne fled the station with Soul, one
of the Council, in the shape-shifting Jonah, unaware that their hourglasses
had become slightly cracked before their departure. As a result, neither
could recall quite what happened to them; however, having taken on some
of The Doctor's life essence to gain strength to restore the multiverse,
Soul was reasonably certain that he was The Doctor - albeit a very elderly
Doctor - and Zezanne thus regarded him as her grandfather. The Jonah materialised,
blending in with its surroundings for the first and last time, as a Metropolitan
police box in a London junkyard in the year 1963. In one of the newly-restored
countless alternate universes, waiting at the end of a lane at the start
of a long journey, Soul and Zezanne created, for the universe that was
now their new home, the legend that would begin with the First
Doctor and
Susan... |
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