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| Fenric and the Ancient Haemeovore |
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 Name: Fenric, also known as Hastur the Unspeakable
Format:
Television Show and Audio
Time of Origin: Technically the beginning
of the universe - he was created from the remaining negative energies
that existed in the universe prior to this one -; encountered The
Doctor on Earth in Constantinople in the 3rd century and Yorkshire
in 1942; briefly time-travelled to Perivale in 1987 and 9th century
Scandinavia; confronted in the realm of the Elder Gods at the beginning
of time
Appearances: "The
Curse of Fenric";
unrecorded previous adventure; behind-the-scenes in "Protect
and Survive" and "Black and White" until appearing
in person in "Gods
and Monsters".
Doctors: Seventh
Doctor; unspecified
encounter with an earlier Doctor.
Companions: Ace, Hex, Captain Lysandra Aristedes,
Private Sally Morgan (May or may not have encountered other companions
in his previous encounter with The Doctor)
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| Lady Peinforte |
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History: One of the most powerful and evil of
the Great Old Ones, Hastur the Unspeakable, better known as Fenric,
was created out of the evil impulses of the universe that existed
prior to this one, gaining some degree of sentience after the Big
Bang even as the good forces that had opposed him were simply dispersed.
While the other Great Old Ones are ‘content’ to act as
virtually independent entities, barely even acknowledging their connection
to each other as they pursue their own independent agendas and methods
of conquest, Fenric became one of the Elder Gods, ancient beings
who influenced various mythologies across the universe, being particularly
interested in playing games with the lower beings; The Doctor speculated
that Fenric and the other Elder Gods needed the something of the ‘tiny’ mortal
universe to give themselves scale as purpose, although Fenric dismissed
the idea that they could need anything from the mortal universe.
While
Fenric was unquestionably a powerful entity, the exact limits of
his powers were never specified, aside from his ability to possess
others in the absence of a body of his own. It would appear that
even in a dormant state he was able to exert some influence over
those who had been in some way touched by his influence, although
it was implied that he would need prolonged contact with someone
to achieve control; during his confrontation with The Doctor, he
was able to manipulate and influence the families of people who had
been in close proximity to his prison for an unspecified but evidently
significant length of time, ranging from those present when he was
awoken in 1943 to descendants of those who had originally buried
his flash. He also possessed some awareness of the past and future,
as he was able to draw a creature from the future into his current
time and banish The Doctor’s companion Ace - already at least
forty years in the future from his perspective - several centuries
and light-years away from her point of origin. However, on some occasions,
whether by some accident of his powers or his ego encouraging him
to taunt his enemies, Fenric always had to leave ‘clues’ to
his presence, such as when he apparently aided the mysterious Lady
Peinforte in her attempt to control the powerful Nemesis statue;
The Doctor was aware of his presence due to a half-completed chess
game in Lady Peinforte’s study ("Silver
Nemesis"),
although he didn’t mention it at first.
Although
the precise circumstances of The Doctor’s first confrontation
with Fenric are unclear - to the point that we do not know what incarnation
of The Doctor defeated Fenric or what companions he had with him
at the time -, save for the fact that it occurred in 3rd century
Constantinople, it is known that The Doctor was somehow able to defeat
Fenric by stalemating him in a chess match, Fenric exhausting so
much energy trying to figure out The Doctor’s final puzzle
- The Doctor setting up the pieces in a manner that he claimed would
allow Fenric to win in one move - that he was weakened enough to
be banished to the Shadow Dimensions while his physical essence was
trapped in a jar, the jar subsequently being sealed in a Northumberland
tomb by a group of Vikings in the tenth century. However, contact
with the jar turned the Vikings into Fenric’s ‘wolves’,
a group whose descendants would subconsciously work to release Fenric
in later centuries, Fenric’s influence prompting them to make
certain decisions that would eventually result in his release (Although
it is unclear how much of this influence was the result of deliberate
manipulation on Fenric’s part or how much was indirect).
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| Jean and Phyllis as Haemovores |
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The opportunity for Fenric’s release
came in 1942, although it would appear that he had been working to set
up the events that would allow him to escape long before that, even using
events that would happen in the future to assist him. When the Seventh
Doctor and Ace arrived at a secret military base in Yorkshire, they encountered
the paralysed Doctor Judson, who had developed the ULTIMA code-breaking
computer and was attempting to translate the Viking inscriptions on a
local tomb. The Doctor having forged documents that allowed him and Ace
to observe the ULTIMA experiments, they learned that a Russian platoon
was trying to steal the machine, and that the father of Reverend Wainwright,
the local vicar, had already translated the Viking inscriptions to learn
that evil was inside the church. While Ace befriended Kathleen, one of
the WRENs working on ULTIMA - who had to keep her baby Audrey with her
as her husband was away -, The Doctor encountered the Soviet troops,
but was able to convince them that he was on their side after prior analysis
of a lost copy of their orders.
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| The Wrens |
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Analysing
the crypt, The Doctor discovered new runes, and learned that Millington,
the base commander, was becoming increasingly unhinged, not only
believing that the runes dictated that the final battle of the Gods
was coming, but also intending to allow the Russians to steal ULTIMA
after booby-trapping it so that, if/when relations between Britain
and Russia ever degenerated, it would explode after translating a
certain word, Millington having overseen the creation of a highly
toxic gas that would be implanted in the machine in sufficient quantities
to destroy Moscow. Unfortunately, although The Doctor realised what
he was dealing with, it was too late to stop the plans being completed,
as some of the local villagers were transformed into a new breed
of vampire known as the Haemovores, loyal to Fenric and originating
from a dark possible future, while Ace provided Judson with the inspiration
to complete the last translation in the form of a logic diagram that
could be run as a computer program.
Working with the Russian soldiers, The Doctor and Ace
were able to drive back the vampires due to their strong beliefs
- crucifixes did not keep back vampires, but rather the faith of
the person wielding them repelled the vampires -; The Doctor drove
off one group of vampires attacking them in a church with his faith
in his old companions, and the leader of the Russian platoon, Captain
Sorin, was able to walk through the graveyard with his faith in the
Russian Revolution protecting him, although Wainwright was killed
because the brutality of the war had cost him his own faith in his
religion. With ULTIMA locked into its current program, Millington
acquired the flask containing Fenric and placed it in the machine,
willing to risk everything to make up for the guilt he felt over
causing Judson’s original accident in the belief that Fenric
could give Judson power. Despite The Doctor’s attempt to reach
ULTIMA in time, he was too late to stop the computer completing the
program, breaking the flask and allowing Fenric to be reborn in Judson’s
body.
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| The Ancient Haemovore |
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Fortunately, Fenric’s continued interest in games
allowed The Doctor to delay him by setting up another version of
the same chess game that he had used to defeat Fenric the last time,
although he was unable to act in time to stop the Haemovores summoning
the Ancient One, an old and powerful Haemovore from the far future,
into the present for his ‘fated’ meeting with Fenric.
While Ace helped Kathleen escape, the other WRNs were turned into
vampires, leaving the last Soviet and British soldiers to team up
to face the real enemy before Fenric destroyed the now -unnecessary
vampires. While The Doctor conversed with the Ancient One, realising
that Fenric’s plans to dump Millington’s toxins in Earth’s
options would create the Ancient One’s future, Fenric was left
to agonise over the puzzle, until he was confronted by Sorin...
When Ace visited the chess game and found Sorin standing
over it, she inadvertently revealed the game’s solution before
she realised that she was actually facing Fenric rather than Sorin,
Fenric gleefully completing the game as he revealed that Kathleen
had actually been Ace’s grandmother, and the baby Ace had saved
was the mother she’d always hated growing up. After The Doctor
had deliberately weakened Ace’s faith in him by claiming that
he’d always known about her ‘service’ to Fenric
and he would never have travelled with her otherwise, the Ancient
One, having been convinced of Fenric’s true plan by The Doctor,
was able to attack Fenric, locking itself and Fenric in an isolation
booth and releasing the poison, destroying them both and erasing
the Ancient One’s future.
The Doctor and Ace fought Fenric again when,
accompanied by new companion Hex and Lysandra Aristedes and Sally
Morgan - the last two former operatives of the anti-alien organisation
known as the Forge -, Ace discovered that The Doctor had been tracking
Fenric for a while, beginning with the discovery of a pocket dimension
where The Doctor had trapped two god-like beings in human bodies
where they were forced to relive the beginning of a nuclear war ("Protect
and Survive"), followed by the discovery of an alien robot on
Earth in the fifth century that had captured The Doctor ("Black
and White"). Travelling with Lysandra and Sally in a secondary
TARDIS that had been grown in the original TARDIS after an accident
forced the ship to regenerate its outer plasmic shell ("The
Angel of Scutari"), The Doctor had been working with Lysandra
and Sally to battle various schemes of the Old Ones to keep Ace and
Hex safe while confusing Fenric’s motives, having become aware
of the presence of the Elder Gods during a trip to a Swedish sanatorium
("The
Magic Mousetrap"), his attempts to follow up the
evidence leading him to the story of Weyland’s Shield, an object
that would greatly increase Fenric’s power and allow him to
manifest an independent form.
However, The Doctor’s scheme went wrong
when he was captured by his enemy in a new host while tracking Weyland’s
Shield, leaving his companions to follow him to Fenric’s Keep
- a flat world that Fenric identified as his true realm of Hell,
at the beginning of the universe itself in the time of the Elder
Gods, although The Doctor said that it reminded him of ninth-century
Scandanavia -, where The Doctor was forced to play himself in pointless
games of chess as Fenric waited for The Doctor’s companions
to come to save him. Using the shield to ‘track’ Fenric
after locating it in Earth’s past, the companions found themselves
facing various armies, ranging from Vikings to Persian warriors and
a new wave of Haemovores. With the companions having discovered Fenric’s
Keep - shaped like a chess piece -, Fenric briefly taunted the three
women by sending them to various points in history, showing Lysandra
and Sally a scene from their future where Sally would torture and
kill Lysandra to activate a weapon that would destroy Earth to defeat
the universal threat of the mysterious White Fleet while taking Ace
back to Perivale to give her a ‘chance’ to prevent her
younger self being caught in the time-storm; Fenric knew that Ace
would never change history in such a manner, but enjoyed tormenting
her with the knowledge that she would have been nothing without his
interference in her life, Ace owing her time with The Doctor to Fenric
even as she would always hate him.
Fortunately, Ace gained an advantage when she
acquired a Persian artefact that Fenric had used to create his time-storms,
allowing her to return to his Keep and rescue The Doctor, Fenric
briefly weakened by the energy expenditure so that he couldn’t
follow them. While Lysandra and Sally were rescued by another Elder
God - revealing that, on this occasion, The Doctor was just as much
a piece in the game as his companions -, The Doctor studied the shield
and learned that it was covered in instructions that could only be
read by a being in the higher dimensions, the discovery that an old
bullet-wound of Hex’s ("The Angel of Scutari") had
reopened providing further evidence of a higher entity in control
of their actions, suggesting that Fenric’s adversary had saved
Hex to play his part in this confrontation with Fenric. Ace managed
to find Lysandra and Sally when she used the charm again, learning
that they had been rescued by Peggy, one of the elder gods that she
had previously encountered ("Black and White"), while The
Doctor and Hex were able to retreat to the TARDIS due to the ‘aid’ of
Fenric’s opponent and the Shield rendering Hex invisible to
Fenric when he was wielding it.
Arriving in the Middle Ages, The Doctor and Hex
found themselves in an old battlefield, located near Weyland’s
Forge, the resting place of the gods’ blacksmith, Weyland,
where they encountered Weyland himself, Weyland’s true form
nearly driving Hex insane before The Doctor made him return to human
form. Weyland claimed responsibility for the Forge and The Doctor’s
latest companions, claiming that Lysandra, Sally and Hex were his
creatures just as Ace was once one of Fenric’s Wolves, Weyland
subsequently departing in the TARDIS with the brainwashed Hex to
confront Fenric himself. As Weyland and Fenric confronted each other,
summoning their assorted Wolves to each other, Ace used the charm
to summon a timestorm to recover The Doctor, simultaneously taking
various weapons from Weyland’s forge to assist their allies
in the final battle. Although Peggy claimed that they were all just
Weyland’s pawns as they acted against Fenric - she was only
serving Weyland because he was holding Peggy’s husband hostage
-, The Doctor dismissed the idea of them being anyone’s pawns,
helping the others rescue Hex and free him from Weyland’s control
after taking him back to the TARDIS.
With the information provided by Peggy and deduced
on his own, The Doctor realised that Hex - whose mother had been
a vampiric ‘agent’ of the Forge ("Project:
Twilight" and "Project:
Lazarus") - was Weyland’s secret weapon, invisible to
Fenric’s forces thanks to Weyland’s Shield, Sally and
Lysandra realising that the Shield was a smaller version of the matter-reshaping
weapon that they had seen in the future; the shield disrupted the
structure of matter it was aimed at, with the weapon that they would
have created in the future Lysandra and Sally saw never created as
they claimed the shield before the Forge could recover it. With Weyland
intending to use the shield to destroy the universe, the TARDIS crew
were momentarily uncertain whether that made Fenric the ‘good’ in
this conflict, but they were nevertheless still resolved to defeat
both gods. Returning to the battlefield, Hex initially obeyed Weyland’s
orders to read the runes on the shield - despite The Doctor’s
attempt to take on the purpose himself -, but changed his role at
the last minute, using the shield to banish Weyland rather than Fenric,
allowing the TARDIS crew to retreat to the ship.
Although Fenric initially appeared to have departed with the
loss of the Shield, the companions were horrified to realise that
Fenric had retreated into Hex - Fenric unintentionally exposing his
deception when he called Sally by her name where Hex called her ‘Sal’ -,
but Hex was able to hurt Fenric from the inside thanks to his faith
in his mother, inspiring the other companions to rally their faith
and stand against Fenric. With no other way to stop Fenric, and dying
of his own injury without Weyland there to keep him alive, Hex eventually
begged Lysandra to open the TARDIS doors so that Hex could throw
himself into the Time Vortex, trapping himself and Fenric outside
the universe with Weyland, where they would continue their games
with each other out of a lack of anything else to do with themselves.
However, given Fenric’s nature as a being from beyond time
as we understand it, it is possible that he will find some way to
return again in the future. |
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