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| The Collector |
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 Name: The Collector
Format:
Television show
Time of Origin: Originally from Usurius,
but encountered The Doctor on Pluto, apparently far future.
Appearances: "The
Sun Makers"
Doctors: Fourth Doctor
Companions: Leela and K9
History: The Collector is easily one of the most
self-centred, sadistic individuals The Doctor has ever encountered.
Originating from the planet Usurius, the Collector’s natural
state resembled a ‘lump of seaweed with eyes’, but use
of particle radiation allows them to assume human form for long periods
of time, suggesting at some basic shape-shifting ability. Full details
of Usurian physiology are otherwise unknown, but the Collector stated
on one occasion that he didn’t breathe air, suggesting that
he drew energy from the container in his chair or some other form
of sustenance.
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| The Sun Makers |
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Regarding
economic power as more effective than military conquest, the Usurians
operated a vast Company, establishing a work force in various areas
of the galaxy to earn a profit for future property expansion; they
are apparently even aware of Gallifrey and the Time Lords, but Gallifrey
has long been ruled as economically non-viable and has been ignored
by them. This policy eventually brought them to Earth in the distant
future - most likely after one of Earth’s Empires had collapsed,
given humanity’s implied lack of effective space flight - where
they offered to relocate the population of the currently-dying Earth
to Mars in exchange for humanity becoming a labour force, taxing
the population to recover the losses caused by the original relocation.
After Mars had been drained of all its potential material value,
humanity was once again relocated to Pluto - the intervening four
planets not being regarded as viable for the Company’s purposes
- subsequently creating six artificial suns to supply Pluto with
constant light and warmth, making it environmentally similar to Earth.
By this point the Company’s business
deals on Pluto were controlled by the Collector, who assumed the
physical form of a small bald man in a grey suit, constantly remaining
in a chair that generated the particle radiation he required to maintain
human form and guarded by his Inner Retinue of soldiers (It is unclear
whether he had been in charge of this branch since the beginning
or had replaced a previous Collecter; no reference was made to the
Usurian life span), with various Gatherers collecting taxes from
the people in other parts of the city. In order to insure his control,
the Collector introduced a gas known as Pintho Cylimic Mentholhydrate
- known as PCM for short - into the planet’s atmosphere via
the oxygen production plants, inducing a low level of fear into the
general population which prevented them from rebelling against the
Company, although a small amount of the population retreated underground
after they were unable to keep up with demand where the PCM contamination
was relatively low.
On
a personal level, the Collector was very sadistic individual, enjoying
the ‘Steaming’ executions - which featured the people
being executed being steamed to death - because of the wide range
of screams and pain that resulted, and displaying little regard even
for his own Inner Retinue; during the revolution triggered by The
Doctor, he decided to return to his headquarters on the grounds that
he would be shielded by the bodies of the Inner Retinue. As was to
be expected from an economically-minded being like a Usurian, the
Collector was constantly consumed by thought of profit; he regarded
a 0.047% drop in production as ‘acceptable’ when he believed
that he would witness Leela’s tortured demise, but after
Leela was rescued by The Doctor he immediately ordered all work-units
to work double shifts to make up for the decline (The Collector was
also regularly addressed by titles such as ‘Hugeness’ and ‘Enormity’ by
Gatherer Hade despite his small size, but it was never clear whether
this was because he himself desire to be addressed as such or was
simply Hade attempting to flatter him).
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The Sun Makers
(VHS Release) |
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The Collector’s control of humanity situation continued
until the Fourth
Doctor, Leela and K9 arrived on Pluto, the TARDIS crew swiftly befriending a young man called Cordo who had recently
discovered himself unable to pay the necessary taxes for his father’s
funeral. Forcibly recruited into the underground rebels, The Doctor
was sent to acquire some money with a stolen cash card, only to be
taken to the ‘Correction Centre’, where he befriended
a fellow prisoner called Bisham, a former Executive worker in chemical
distribution who told him about the PCM. Fortunately, due to Gatherer
Hade believing that The Doctor was part of a conspiracy amongst the
local miners and trying to identify his co-conspirators, The Doctor
and Bisham were able to escape the centre.
Resolving to bring down the Company, The Doctor led Leela,
K9, Bisham, Cordo and Mandrell - the leader of the underground group
- to the central control chamber for the PCM, intending to shut down
the PCM production while the rest of the underground rallied the
people of the city in revolution. With the Collector otherwise occupied,
The Doctor and Leela subsequently broke into the Collector’s
headquarters, The Doctor delivering a public broadcast stating that
there had been a successful revolution to gain more support for the
people before he confronted the Collector to learn the true nature
of his species... as well as establishing that the Company intended
to abandon humanity to die after Pluto had run out of resources,
humans having proven to be a more troublesome labour force than they
were worth.
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| The Collector Reverts
To His Natural Form |
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As Leela quickly disarmed the last of the Collector’s
guards, the Collector, unable to cope with the way events had increasingly
spiralled out of his control, turned his attention back to the tax
rates fed out by his computer, unaware that The Doctor had fed a
two percent growth tax into the computers prior to his arrival, triggering
the economic collapse of the entire Company. Unable to cope with
the loss of profit that would result from this catastrophe, the Collecter
reverted back to his natural form and retreated into his chair, Cordo
subsequently blocking it with a cork that The Doctor provided. The
Company defeated, The Doctor, Leela and K9 departed, The Doctor encouraging
humanity to return to the Earth that would have assuredly regenerated
during the centuries humanity had been away.
To date the Usurians have yet to return for a full-time
adventure; although a brief reference was made to the Sixth
Doctor having just
defeated a Usurian attempt to destabilise the world economy with
the aid of The Master at the beginning of "Business
Unusual",
their intention being to defraud Dow-Jones of $68 million and reduce
the contents of Fort Knox to dust, the full details of this encounter
are unknown. |
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