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| The Shansheeth |
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 Name: The Shansheeth
Format: Television show
Time of Origin: Present, exact homeworld
unnamed.
Appearances: "Death of The Doctor"
Doctors: Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Jo Grant and Sarah
Jane Smith
History: The most obvious thing to note about
the Shansheeth is that their essential goal - to avert death
across the universe - was something that The Doctor may have
agreed with in principle, if it weren’t for the fact
that their methods for doing so involved violating the Laws
of Time and stealing The Doctor’s TARDIS.
Possessing
a reputation as galactic undertakers who returned lost heroes
to their kin after their demises, the Claw Shansheeth of
the Fifteenth Funeral Fleet discovered the Eleventh Doctor - currently alone as his companions Amy Pond and Rory
Williams were on a literal Honey Moon after their wedding ("The Pandorica Opens/The
Big Bang") - investigating an old
battlefield on a planet known as the ‘Wasteland of
the Crimson Heart’, stealing the TARDIS and leaving
The Doctor stranded on the planet. Knowing of The Doctor’s
affection for Earth, the Shansheeth travelled to the planet
and made contact with UNIT colonel Tia Karim. Whether their
contact with her was intentional or by chance, Karim, callously
dismissing The Doctor as a fool and his companions as overly
pious, agreed to help the Shansheeth in exchange for her
being able to accompany them as she had nothing on Earth,
faking the DNA test of the body provided by the Shansheeth
so that it would be positively identified as The Doctor’s
body.
Karim subsequently contacted some of The Doctor’s
old companions, including Sarah
Jane Smith and Jo Grant,
claiming that The Doctor had died ten thousand light-years
away saving five young children from the ‘Scarlet Monstrosity’,
and they had brought his body to Earth for the funeral (On
the grounds that his own home was gone and his affection
for Earth was well-known). Although they were only able to
contact Sarah and Jo to attend the funeral due to the rush
of the events - Liz Shaw was
on a moonbase (Most likely the one she would visit during
the events of "Eternity
Weeps")
and The
Brigadier was
on a classified mission in Peru -, this was enough for the
Shansheeth’s purpose, the Shansheeth
requiring people with strong memories of The Doctor to achieve
their goal.
Although
Sarah doubted that the Shansheeth’s story was true
- claiming that she had always felt she would ‘know’ when
The Doctor died -, she agreed to attend the ‘funeral’ nevertheless,
telling her son Luke that she doubted The Doctor was really
dead and only going to the funeral to find answers. Having
arrived at UNIT Base 5 in Mount Snowdon, Sarah and her friends
witnessed the rocket that was going to be allegedly launched
with The Doctor’s body - learning that the TARDIS had
apparently not been found with The Doctor -, only for Clyde
Langer to become suspicious when his hands began to crackle
with artron energy, Clyde having made contact with the TARDIS
during his last meeting with The Doctor and becoming charged
with artron energy ("The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith").
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| Jo and Sarah |
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After Jo Jones - formerly Jo Grant - arrived at the funeral,
she and Sarah quickly bonded over their time with
The Doctor, realising that both of them believed
that the funeral was a fake. While the two women
returned to their temporary quarters to brainstorm
which of The Doctor’s enemies would have something
to gain by faking his death, the Shansheeth concluded
that Jo and Sarah - the ‘wise women’ -
possessed the strongest memories of The Doctor. To
this end, the Shansheeth attempted to use their music
to ‘prompt’ the two companions’ memories
of The Doctor, only for Sarah’s friends Clyde
Langer and Rani Chandra and Jo’s grandson Santiago
to overhear their intention to ‘drain’ Sarah
and Jo’s memories. Fortunately, Clyde’s
artron-charged hand distracted the Shansheeth from
playing their music long enough for Jo and Sarah
to break off their influence, Clyde subsequently
telling Jo and Sarah what had happened before the
Eleventh Doctor used Clyde’s residual artron
energy to set up a complicated biological swap -
constructed using some of the parts scattered around
the battlefield where he had been trapped - across
ten thousand light-years that allowed him to briefly
switch places with Clyde (Although it took a few
moments for Rani in particular to accept that he
was The Doctor).
Although the Shansheeth attempted to shoot The Doctor,
the artron exchange was still unstable, resulting in the
weapon they used against The Doctor being ‘cut off’ when
Clyde returned to Earth in The Doctor’s place. As The
Doctor continued to switch between Earth and the Wasteland,
he was able to take Jo and Sarah with him to the Wasteland
to perfect the artron exchange, allowing him to return to
Earth without having to switch places with Clyde. Although
the Shansheeth managed to capture Jo and Sarah while The
Doctor was occupied with rescuing Clyde, Rani and Santiago
after they were trapped in an air vent - Karim simply scorning
The Doctor’s decision to save the children rather than
the world -, The Doctor was nevertheless able to save the
children before tracking the Shansheeth to the room where
his ‘funeral’ had taken place. As Karim revealed
that the Shansheeth possessed the TARDIS, Jo and Sarah were
connected to the Shansheeth memory weave, a device that would
recreate the TARDIS key from their memories, the Shansheeth
intending to use the TARDIS to prevent the loss of life by
travelling to all scenes of death, changing history on a
massive scale. As The Doctor, Clyde, Rani and Santiago tried
to access the room with the memory weave, Jo and Sarah fought
to avoid thinking about the TARDIS key, only to recreate
it despite their best efforts.
Just as the key was beginning to take shape, The Doctor was
able to activate the room’s communication systems,
instructing Jo and Sarah to focus on all their memories
of their travels with him, the scale of memories being sent
into the wave disrupting the Shansheeth’s efforts to
recreate the key. With the memory weave unable to adapt to
the wide variety of memories being sent into it, the system
eventually overloaded, preventing the Shansheeth from recreating
the key. As the memory weave exploded, Sarah and Jo were
able to hide in the lead-lined coffin that had been allegedly
provided for The Doctor, protecting them from the explosion
while leaving Karim and the Shansheeth to die in the explosion.
After the TARDIS took Sarah and her friends back home, Sarah’s
computer Mr Smith clarified that the Shansheeth they had
faced here were a renegade group, assuring Rani that the
Shansheeth high command had condemned the actions of the
group they had faced and sent them their apologies for recent
events. |
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| Death of The Doctor |
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| Death of The Doctor |
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| Death of The Doctor |
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| Death of The Doctor |
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