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Vanishing Point
(Stephen Cole) |
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 Name: Cauchemar
Format:
Book.
Time of Origin: Unknown, but some time
in the far future.
Appearances: "Vanishing
Point"
Doctors: Eighth
Doctor
Companions: Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor
History: Cauchemar was, originally, an aspiring
geneticist in the far future, but things went wrong for him through
his own desires. In seeking the key to immortality, he caused the
deaths of several innocents while trying to perfect his immortality
process; the fact that he managed to make his cells capable of dividing
to infinity didn't really make any difference to the officials who
sentenced him to prison for murder. He was put on a prison ship,
but the ship then hit a disturbance and at least half the crew were
killed, forcing some of the more intelligent prisoners to take the
place of crewmembers just to keep the ship going. In the process,
Cauchemar fell in love with one of his wardens - a woman called Jasmine
- but she could never love him in return, knowing what she knew about
him, and he was left heartbroken.
Things
went from bad to worse when the ship passed through a spatial anomaly
that severely damaged the cells of the crew, but they were then contacted
by beings of pure energy, who had elevated themselves onto this level
of existence after discovering the gene for the soul. Striking a
deal with the humans to dispose of their criminal element, Cauchemar
engineered the humans into carriers, living prison cells for the
alien race’s criminal souls, but created a symbiotic relationship
so the human souls would also share in the testing process and have
the chance to achieve communion with the Universe. The principle
was, in its way, rather like a scientifically-constructed Heaven;
if a person lived a worthy life, the soul passed on; if not, then
the Creator - the controlling 'program' - re-engineered the same
soul into a newborn body, giving it a chance to try again, and again,
until it got it right. Vanishing Point would be reached when all
souls are saved. In order to maintain the experiment and prevent
the colonists discovering the truth, the aliens created the Holiest,
genetic constructs made from the dead, and outlawed genetics. The
Holiest knew the true nature of the planet's society and were responsible
for passing the Creators' judgement on the colonists at the point
of death.
However, Cauchemar’s experiments upon
himself had rendered him unsuitable as a host, and the aliens’ offer
of freedom was no longer enough for him without Jasmine. Because of this,
Cauchemar was expelled from the world, but eventually found his way back
and became involved with the 'reincarnation' of Jasmine, even though
he knew that his intervention - and, indeed, his eventual offspring -
would taint the gene pool, creating humans who went around with nothing
but their own baggage, rather than a recreated soul getting another shot
at life. Even worse, Cauchemar's transition through space had left him
fatally ill, causing his immortal DNA to gradually collapse in various
piles of sludge, and when he tried to save himself by taking genetic
samples from “Jasmine”, she was badly injured in the process.
He tried to take her to the water mountains where the Creator existed
for help, hoping that the Creator would aid him for making this world
possible, but the Creator could not perceive Cauchemar, and its defences
unmade Jasmine's DNA. The Creator could not perceive Cauchemar, but his
close proximity to Jasmine allowed Cauchemar to share a moment of bliss
as her entire life was made known to her, as the Creator always did when
someone died on his world. Cauchemar built several devices using stolen
genetic equipment to try and save himself, but all they did was put off
his own inevitable death, and injuries such as being shot only hastened
matters, but he refused to let the world he created go on without him,
without being given the chance to know himself.
Taking
advantage of the fact that the Creator could only detect, alive or
dead, the colonists containing the godswitch on chromosome 13, Cauchemar
lobotomised colonists to remove the aliens' essence and make them
invisible to the Creator; served by these, he searched for years
for the colonist containing the reincarnation of Jasmine. After prolonged
searching, Cauchemar - now calling himself Derran Sherat - believed
he had tracked Jasmine's soul down to a woman called Treena Grace,
with whom he had a child, although he had another son at the same
time with Treena's sister Ettiane. To force the Creator to accept
him, Cauchemar genetically engineered a baby containing the fingers
taken from colonists he murdered; as their flesh still lived in the
baby, their godswitches - the DNA that let them know the meaning
of their lives - were never thrown. He intended to kill the baby
in close proximity to the Creator, releasing the built-up potential
energy of all the separate experiential tracts within it, thus confusing
the Creator, and further overwhelming it by mass-murdering the inhabitants
of the planet's sole city with a network of bombs. The resultant
self-defensive frenzy of the Creator would cause a feedback of energy
into the remaining colonists, killing everyone carrying the godswitch,
and thus preventing any more of the alien souls from being released,
while Cauchemar killed Jasmine's current host and rode into Heaven
with her.
When Treena discovered his plan and was disgusted
by it, Cauchemar believed that she couldn't be Jasmine, and allowed
her to die during a botched bank robbery where she tried to kill
him. Turning his attention to Ettianne - who guarded the 'mooncalves',
individuals lacking a godswitch and born deformed due to Cauchemar's
past interference in the planet's development - Cauchemar sent his
agents to collect her, but the plan was interrupted when the Eighth Doctor and Anji Kapoor interrupted the abduction,
seeking help for Fitz Kreiner after he
nearly fell over a cliff. Fitz was subsequently 'captured' by Cauchemar's
forces after he killed one of their number (By accident)
and took his coat; their conditioning was such that they only recognised
each other by 'colour coding' about the jacket, meaning that they
thought Fitz was their colleague despite the fact that he looked
nothing like the man. Aided by Nathaniel Dark, one of the Diviners
- people who worked out the meaning of peoples' lives when they didn't
die natural deaths - The Doctor worked out that Derran Sherat was
the key to the puzzle, but it was too late to stop Cauchemar's agents
capturing Ettianne's son Braga in an attempt to blackmail her into
coming to him. Taking Ettianne's place, The Doctor confronted Cauchemar
and managed to recover Braga, but Ettianne was captured by Cauchemar
during their escape and taken to the Creator's mountains.
Realising
that Cauchemar had 'named' his followers - Seven Two C One, Two Two
E Two - according to grids and locations on the map of the city,
The Doctor and his remaining allies were able to deduce that the
people were named according to the places where they would set off
their bombs in the final attack on the Creator. As one of the men
had been killed during Ettianne's capture, the group concluded that
Cauchemar's right-hand-man, Hox, would take his place, and The Doctor
dispatched Fitz, Anji and Dark to stop Hox while he and the mooncalves
went to save Etty. In the subsequent confrontation, Hox was killed,
destroying Cauchemar's plan - his followers would never be able to
set the bombs off themselves - and the infant was killed while some
of the mooncalves got Etty to safety. As Cauchemar's body finally
fell apart, he tried to kill The Doctor by dragging him into the
water with him, but, even as Cauchemar died, The Doctor simply put
himself into a healing coma, allowing his body to drift until Fitz
and Anji could recover him. Years later, as Dark began to die, he
learned the reason for his existence; thanks to his actions, the
Creator had learned of the mooncalves and Cauchemar’s zombies,
and has incorporated them into its Design. Once again, all life on
that world had meaning, and all souls would go the planet's 'Heaven'
when they finally died. |
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