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Winner Takes All
(Jacqueline Rayner) |
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 Name: Quevvils
Format:
Book
Time of Origin: The planet Toop, around
the present day.
Appearances: "Winner
Takes All".
Doctor: Ninth Doctor.
Companion: Rose Tyler
History: The Quevvils were a race of porcupine-like
aliens, native to the planet Toop, who have been at war with the
Mantodeans, huge alien insects resembling preying mantises, for reasons
that have never been determined. Unfortunately, this conflict was
an ultimately self-defeating struggle, as neither side could actually
successfully hurt the other; the Mantodeans couldn't hurt the Quevvils
as they could just curl up and escape any attacks from the Mantodeans,
and the Mantodeans' armour prevented the Quevvils from hurting them
with their porcupine-like spines. Another problem lay in the fact
that the Mantodean stronghold was surrounded by a forcefield keyed
to Mantodean biology, and they were also riddled with traps to deter
anyone trying to enter.
With
these factors driving them, the Quevvils eventually travelled to
Earth, where they handed out the computer game Death to Mantodeans - a game based on the conflict going on back home, practically giving
The Doctor their plans thanks to the pre-game introduction - while
subsequently setting up fake 'lotteries' for holidays. Anyone winning
the holidays was taken to the Quevvil homeworld and implanted with
a remote control device that 'wired them up' to a copy of the game.
Armed with a disruptor to shut down Mantodean technology, the humans
were sent into the fortress, where those playing the game back on
Earth could use them as 'players' to approach the centre of the Mantodean
fortress and disable the forcefield with the disruptor... little
realising that, when they were 'killed' in the game, people actually
died on the Quevvil homeworld as the ‘players’ were eliminated.
As the game was played, the Quevvils monitored the scores, waiting
for the player who would be able to guide them through the fortress
and win the ‘game’.
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| The
Ninth Doctor |
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This objective was eventually fulfilled when the
Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler, while paying a visit to Rose’s mother,
dropped in on Mickey Smith, The Doctor subsequently having a quick play
on Death to Mantodeans and getting a new high score in a matter of moments.
Initially the Quevvils captured Mickey by mistake, but The Doctor managed
to get himself captured by getting another new high score, he and Rose
being taken to the Queevil’s homeworld as Mickey managed to escape.
With
The Doctor now forced to play the game with Rose as his ‘carrier’,
he managed to rewire the control console to allow Rose to use her ‘superphone’ to
call Mickey back on Earth (Albeit with The Doctor talking through
Rose rather than Rose talking herself), thus encouraging Mickey to
find anyone with saved games and work to protect the innocent humans
trapped there from the Quevvils and the Mantodeans. Having disabled
the feature on the control devices that prevented the players form
meeting (Thus resulting in the truth about the ‘carriers’ being
revealed), The Doctor was able to shut down the devices using the
sonic screwdriver (Which he’d given to Rose before she went
into the fortress), although some humans were still left in the fortress.
Eventually, The Doctor managed to navigate Rose to the
centre of the Mantodean fortress, where she used her disruptor to
shut down the force field. Instantly the Quevvils teleported into
the fortress, but realised too late that The Doctor had tricked them.
While The Doctor distracted the Quevvils, Mickey and his friends
had moved their respective players right up to the control room,
and, using split-second timing, used their disruptors to shut down
the Quevvil teleporters mid-teleport, after the Quevvils had been
disintegrated but before they were put back together. Having removed
the control devices and destroyed the Quevvil teleportation devices
so that the survivors couldn’t try something like that again,
The Doctor and Rose then departed, The Doctor wishing to leave promptly
to avoid admitting that Mickey had done a good job. |
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