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The Devil Goblins From Neptune
(Keith Topping & Martin Day) |
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 Name: Control
Format:
Book.
Time of Origin: Uncertain; he has been
confirmed as being present on Earth from 1971 to 2003, but given
that he apparently never aged between 1970 and 1999 it is uncertain
whether he was even human, or where he came from originally if he
wasn’t born on Earth.
Appearances: "The
Devil Goblins From Neptune", "The
King of Terror", "Escape
Velocity", "Time
Zero" and made a brief appearance
in "Trading
Futures"
Doctors: Third
Doctor, Fifth
Doctor and
Eighth Doctor
Companions: The
Brigadier, Sergeant
Benton, Liz Shaw, Mike
Yates, Tegan
Jovanka, Turlough, Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor
History: Even after confronting The Doctor directly
on at least three occasions, the true origins of the mysterious individual
known only as Control remain a mystery. Although he appeared to be
a human working for the anti-alien division of the CIA, the fact
that Control appears to have never aged a day between 1971 and 1999
raises several questions, coupled with the fact that he apparently
knows enough about The Doctor’s various incarnations to be
aware that the Fifth Doctor is the ‘vulnerable one’ ("The
King of Terror"). When these details are taken into account,
along with The Doctor’s anger and automatic knowledge that
the CIA were the ones responsible for a particular crisis ("The
Devil Goblins From Neptune"), there is enough evidence to suggest
that the CIA share more than just an acronym with the Celestial Intervention
Agency of the Time Lords, a theory that is further reinforced when
noting that Control appeared to have visibly aged during his appearance
in "Time
Zero", an event that took place ‘after’ Gallifrey’s
destruction (Assuming that its destruction only ‘registered’ to
the rest of the universe after Fitz Kreiner departed from Compassion in 2001 rather than beginning after The Doctor was left to recover
in 1887).
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The King of Terror
(Keith Topping) |
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Despite
the mystery surrounding Control’s origins, his agenda has always
been explicit; ‘defend’ Earth from alien assault while
taking the technology for the CIA to develop and exploit, constantly
demonstrating a strong arrogance and belief that every action he
takes is the right one simply because he is the one making it (The
similarities in method suggest that there may have been some connection
between the CIA and the pre-Canary Wharf Torchwood, given that both
regarded all aliens as an automatic threat and were convinced they
knew best about how to deal with the problems caused by their presence
on Earth only to prove woefully inadequate at dealing with a problem
in any way other than brute force). During his first appearance,
Control revealed that the CIA - precisely when he became involved
in the department is unknown, although his lack of aging suggests
that he could have been present from the beginning - first became
aware of alien life during the Roswell crash of 1947 when American
military forces shot down a spacecraft belong to the Nedenah, a benevolent
alien race, subsequently keeping the Nedenah prisoner in Area 51
while attempting to duplicate their technology.
Having become aware of UNIT, Control resolved
to expose them for the upstart incompetents they were, believing
that their alliance with The Doctor proved that they couldn’t be
trusted with the defence of Earth. Unfortunately for Control,
his attempt to
discredit UNIT failed miserably when he constantly underestimated
his enemies; although he managed to get an inside agent into
UNIT to steal
various files, the agent’s attempt to escape after killing a scientist
and dressing the man in his own clothes was quickly exposed,
and even when Control managed to capture The
Brigadier in Area 51 The Brigadier
swiftly overpowered his guards and escaped to rescue the
Nedenah. Control’s
arrogance was further demonstrated when he attempted to destroy
The Waro -
invading aliens who sought to create a cobalt bomb to destroy
Earth - using planes developed using Nedenah technology, only for
The Waro to rapidly destroy the planes and easily slaughter
the American forces.
Fortunately, The Brigadier was able to free the Nedenah in
time to help them return to their ship, the Nedenah subsequently
releasing an airborne
chemical that destroyed the chemical blocks the Waro had
previously created to control their natural anger to turn
it against only non-Waro life
forms, driving the Waro to destroy themselves before their
brains collapsed from the sheer intensity of the rage they
felt. Despite this ‘setback’ Control
continued
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Escape Velocity
(Colin Brake) |
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Control
and The
Brigadier met once again in 1999, after The Brigadier had
contacted the Fifth
Doctor to help in the investigation of InterCom,
a major communications conglomerate whose head, Paolo Sanger, had
recently purchased a large amount of plutonium. Thanks to information
gathered from the CIA, The Doctor’s investigations swiftly
revealed that InterCom was actually a front for the Jex, a ruthless
insect-like race of conquerors who had once controlled a vast corporate-based
empire before their former slave race the Canavatchi rose up against
them (Although the Canavatchi were almost worse than the Jex, destroying
entire planets just because the Jex had been on them), the Canavatchi
having been operating on Earth for centuries to retard humanity’s
development - via the use of artefacts and mysticism such as the
Turin Shroud and the prophecies of Nostrodamus - while the Jex intended
to alter Earth’s atmosphere to make it suitable for their own
long-term habitation, capturing The Doctor’s companion Turlough to try and analyse his genetic make-up to work out a means of altering
humans to serve as a suitable slave-race for the future. Although
Control had been attempting to manipulate the Jex in order to gain
access to their technology, the presence of the Canavatchi threw
off his plans, the two sides now determined to wage war on each other
even after The Brigadier managed to kill the Jex leaders by throwing
a grenade into the main conference room while they were distracted
with a Canavatchi infiltrator. Unable to deal with the assault himself,
Control was forced to contact UNIT for help, The Doctor using their
resources to modify Earth’s satellites to generate a force
field that would protect Earth from the worst of the upcoming battle.
As The Doctor departed, however, Control - who was apparently answerable
to another, although his superiors were never identified - reflected
that this new alliance with UNIT would give them a significant advantage
in future dealings with alien invasions thanks to their access to
The Doctor.
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Time Zero
(Justin Richards) |
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Control’s third encounter with The Doctor was probably
his most frustrating yet, since he was dealing with a Doctor who
had no memory of his past and thus had no idea who Control was; specifically,
he was dealing with the Eighth
Doctor, coming to the end of his century-long
amnesic exile on Earth after the destruction of Gallifrey ("The
Ancestor Cell" and "Escape
Velocity"). Following reports
of a man with two hearts being killed in Brussels - the advance guard
of an alien race called The Kulan - Control was alerted to the presence
of alien technology when one of his agents stole an alien gun from
a hotel room belong to tourist Anji Kapoor, Control seeking to resolve
the problem without involving UNIT, only for matters to become complicated
when Anji met The Doctor’s companion Fitz Kreiner - who had investigated
reports of the death in case it turned out to be The Doctor - and
was thus introduced to the amnesic Doctor. Despite Control’s
efforts to find the aliens by capturing Fitz and planting a tracking
device on him, matters rapidly escalated out of his control when
his agent was killed, resulting in the Kulan spearhead escaping to
the main fleet, with the invasion only being thwarted when the TARDIS completed regenerating itself and The Doctor was able to take it
up to the Kulan mothership, Anji subsequently accidentally turning
all the ships in the fleet against each other when she attempted
to take control of the ship’s weapon systems only to fail to
fully understand the controls.
Since
then Control has yet to make a return appearance in The Doctor’s
life, although he did appear ‘off-screen’ during the
events of "Time Zero", when he ordered a CIA division to
investigate an area in Siberia that had caused a plane to experience
a strange form of time-lag before they caught up with the rest of
the world. Assuming that this time lag was caused by a time machine,
Control ordered the team to acquire the machine, although The Doctor,
Fitz and Anji discovered that it was actually a temporal anomaly
leaking ‘dark matter’ into the universe rather than a
controlled effect. Although Control never appeared in person, he
was described as appearing significantly older than in his previous
appearances, suggesting that, if his lack of aging was connected
to the Time Lords’ Celestial Intervention Agency, the destruction
of Gallifrey has - like what happened to The Doctor’s old companion
Leela during her imprisonment by the Z’nai - caused him to
begin aging at an accelerated rate to ‘catch up’ with
the years that were kept back by the Time Lords, presumably accounting
for his desire to acquire a time machine. Control’s current
status is unknown; however, given the implications of his new ability
to age, coupled with the similarities between his potential problem
and Leela’s own, it seems likely that Control has died of accelerated
aging by the time the Ninth
Doctor arrived on Earth. |
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