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Sometime Never...
(Justin Richards) |
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 Name: The Council of Eight; specific members were
Soul, Trilon, Sept, Penter, Hexx, Duvar, Feear and Octan, with
Octan as the main ‘villain’
Format:
Book.
Time of Origin: Technically nowhere;
they originated from the end of the universe but subsequently dwelt
in the Time Vortex.
Appearances: Only appeared directly
in "Sometime
Never..."; their presence was hinted
at as far back as "The
Slow Empire" and "Anachrophobia",
with The Doctor taking specific action against their plans from "Time
Zero" onwards.
Doctor: Eighth
Doctor.
Companions: Fitz Kreiner, Trix MacMillan, Miranda,
technically Anji Kapoor (She helped The Doctor investigate
the Council’s plans without ever meeting them directly), Jo Grant,
Sarah
Jane Smith, Harry
Sullivan, Mel Bush, Ace and Samantha
Jones, (All captured or killed by the Council before its existence
was undone).
History: It is important to note that, strictly
speaking, the Council of Eight were not The Doctor’s enemies
in the sense that they wished him ill; their opposition to him
was primarily based simply around the fact that he represented
a ‘Rogue Element’ who threw off the predictions they
relied upon to ensure their own existence and thus threatened their
efforts to survive.
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The Slow Empire
(Dave Stone) |
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The
Council of Eight were essentially beings of living crystal, who came
into existence after eight archetypal crystals - the seven types
of crystal known to science at this point and an eighth one that
was as yet undiscovered - were infused with energy at the end of
the universe, thus allowing them to ‘escape’ into the
Time Vortex and evolve into sentient beings… these beings subsequently
seeding the universe with the crystals that would become them. Essentially,
the Council's existence was a paradox; the energy that allowed them
to exist came from the death of history, which provided the energy
they needed to save the eight archetype crystals at the end of time
that in turn allowed them to seed the universe with crystals at its
very beginning, allowing them to be drawn together at the end of
history and evolve into the Council and their people (Incidentally,
the eight members of the Council each bore a resemblance to The Doctor’s
various past incarnations, although whether this was intentional
or a simple coincidence was never explained).
Having established a station in the Time Vortex
in the post-Gallifrey universe (The universe that existed after the
Time Lords were wiped out by the destruction of Gallifrey ("The
Ancestor Cell")), the Council gained power by predicting events
in history, but if the event they had predicted failed to come to
pass, they not only lost the energy gained from the prediction, but
had to repay it with interest as well. As a result, they arranged
for all alternate timelines to collapse into one universe that they
could monitor freely by setting up a black light explosion at the
beginning of the universe ("Time
Zero") that would shape
all that followed by leaving one definitive timeline for the universe.
However, even after this plan succeeded, The Doctor and his companions
- whether past or present - remained a threat to the Council’s
plans; as a Rogue Element, The Doctor existed outside of time and
space and caused unpredictability by flying in the face of cause
and effect, thus disrupting the Council’s predictions, and
his companions, 'contaminated' by their prolonged contact with him,
would have the same effect on the universe and thus throw off the
Council’s predictions.
To
stop this, not only had Octan - the head of the Council arranged
the deaths of some of The Doctor’s past companions (Sarah
Jane Smith being shot in Hong Kong ("Bullet
Time"), Harry
Sullivan being attacked by a werewolf ("Wolfsbane"), Mel being murdered
on a dusty human colony in the future ("Heritage"), and
Ace being shot by the psychopathic George Limb ("Loving
the Alien", although she was replaced by an alternate version of
herself)), but he had also trapped other companions, such as Jo Grant,
in Schrodinger Cells, Cells in which humans removed from time and
space were trapped and the potential energy of lives left unfulfilled
provided the council with power. As well as all this, he had also
introduced Sabbath - an eighteenth-century secret agent of exceptional
skill - into the equation by granting him access to various information
about time travel (While ‘editing’ the information they
gave him to ensure that he would work to their agenda), regarding
Sabbath as a totally predictable counterpoint to The Doctor who would
hopefully cancel out The Doctor's actions as a Rogue Element. A particularly
interesting example of Octan’s power was seen when he attempted
to gain control of The Doctor via the use of strange hourglasses,
the hourglasses granting the inhabitants of the Council’s space
station with ‘artificial time’ in the timeless realm
of the Time Vortex while allowing Octan to influence those outside
the station if he deliberately created hourglasses for them; although
it was initially believed to be the result of The Doctor’s
heart trying to link him to Gallifrey after its destruction, Octan’s
attempt to create an hourglass for The Doctor caused The Doctor’s
body to ‘rebel’ against the glass, his heart essentially
destroying itself to keep The Doctor free, The Doctor growing a new
heart after Octan recognised that he couldn’t try to control
The Doctor like that again following the complete ‘demise’ of
his original heart.
With Sabbath working as their only human agent - their
other agents being other - dimensional entities who manifested as
apes, taking more basic action to ‘nudge’ history the
way the Council wanted it, such as ensuring that a blacksmith who
could have created the internal combustion engine early was distracted
at a crucial moment - the Council began to force other Vortex-dwelling
life forms out of the Time Vortex to ensure that they were the only
power present, Sabbath working to manipulate The Doctor to destroy
a race that manifested as Clock-Faced People by putting him in a
situation where the creatures appeared to be invaders rather than
refugees ("Anachrophobia"). Under Sabbath’s influence,
The Doctor also helped to eliminate a vast information-gathering
network known as the System, which the Council claimed possessed
information about Sabbath’s recruitment to their service that
had to be eliminated (Given later discoveries about their true goals,
it is more likely they sought the System’s destruction to prevent
it from storing information about history taking a path other than
the one they wanted it to take) ("History
101"). Eventually,
the Council arranged their greatest plan, attempting to make Sabbath
trigger a dark matter explosion at the beginning of the universe
itself, thus shaping all that followed, destroying all alternate
histories and leaving only one possible timeline, allowing them to
easily predict events that would take place in that reality and manipulate
them to suit their own purposes. Although The Doctor’s actions
initially stopped this plan from succeeding - albeit instead causing
reality to shift between various alternate universes ("Time
Zero") when the barriers were broken down by a black light explosion
- reality was eventually stabilised, although the Council’s
plans still succeeded when they managed to infuse the energy of their
crystal selves throughout creation by sending a casket containing
their essence back to the Big Bang ("Timeless").
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Anachrophobia
(Jonathan Morris) |
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Although
the Council now had control over their single timeline, Octan’s
ambitions stretched further than any of his fellows could have imagined,
allowing him to come up with an even more ambitious destiny for his
people; they would become the new Time Lords. By destroying Earth's
sun before life could evolve, he would annihilate all of human history,
and the energy from this prediction would increase their power tremendously.
However, he required another prediction to actually trigger the star-killer...
and that prediction came close to coming to pass when Sabbath came
into possession of a Vortex Gun (A gun that sends the target to eternal
agony in the Time Vortex) and aimed it at both The Doctor and Octan,
after The Doctor’s daughter Miranda sacrificed herself to stop
Octan using her as a hostage against The Doctor. If Sabbath shot
the person Octan had predicted Sabbath would shoot, all of history
would end, and Octan would have won. After The Doctor was able to
trick Octan into revealing that he had predicted that Sabbath would
shoot him, Sabbath shot himself - recognising that The Doctor’s
death would still be a victory for Octan but his demise would prove
Octan wrong once and for all - condemning himself to an eternity
of agony in the Time Vortex, and thus bringing Octan's entire plan
crashing down around his ears... along with the Council's station,
as the Schrodinger Cells returned their inhabitants to their proper
times due to the Council no longer possessing the energy to have
captured The Doctor’s companions in the first place.
In the last moments, aided by The Doctor, Soul, one of
the Council, restored the possibility of alternate timelines
to the universe by opening Cell Number Eight - which apparently
contained the possibility of alternate worlds - creating all
kinds of alternate universes, including not only worlds where
The Doctor's companions weren't killed by Octan's meddling
- worlds which would appear to be the true ones, given Sarah,
Mel and Harry’s continued survival - but also a world
where the Council survived… and, in one reality, a world
where Soul, having taken on some of The Doctor’s energy
to gain the strength to restore alternates to the universe,
accompanied by Zezanne, the daughter of The Doctor’s
adopted daughter Miranda, began the journey of several lifetimes
as Soul and Zezanne became that world’s versions of the
First
Doctor and Susan… |
