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Hope
(Mark Clapham) |
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 Name: Silver
Format:
Book.
Time of Origin: Originally Earth in
the late thirtieth century, but ended up on the planet Endpoint in
the unbelievably far future, near the end of time.
Appearances: "Hope"
Doctors: Eighth Doctor
Companions: Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor
History:
When
Silver was born, he was a rather sickly child called Humberto don
Silvestre from the thirtieth century, when the underprivileged lived
in the toxic waste dump known as the surface of the Earth. Humberto
suffered from numerous birth defects, and in his teens he attempted
to strike back at the uncaring upper classes by hacking into the
worldwide military computer net. He was detected, but the military
showed their appreciation for his skills by enlisting him, giving
him surgery and cybernetic implants which saved his life.
Just as Humberto was beginning to make a name
for himself as a soldier, however, he was critically injured by another,
more successful hacker-terrorist. His mother Maria gave her permission
for the military doctors to use experimental alien technology to save
his life, and they bonded his brain to a liquid computing medium which
effectively turned him into a human computer, almost a new species; indeed,
he then hacked into government records and changed his name to show this
new identity. When the Earth was attacked in 3006, several of Earth’s
best agents were sent through Time using experimental technology; Silver
was sent into the distant future, to search for reinforcements or technology
with which to save humanity. But even then, Maria knew that her son had
become something other than human, and that he would not be coming back...
She
was correct. Arriving on the distant planet of Endpoint, consisting
of a colony of several evolved humans, among other species, Silver
quickly became the most powerful man on the planet, taking charge
of a casino and gathering all kinds of resources to him. To present
an alternative to himself, Silver oversaw the creation of a group
called the Brotherhood of the Silver Fist, a race of cyborgs devoted
to pure logic - although, since they were programmed to hate Silver,
despite him being everything they apparently aspired to be, their
'logic' didn't really make sense (AN: There are hints that the Brotherhood
were created using remains of the Cybermen). Basing himself in the
city of Hope, Silver rapidly became the most powerful man on the
planet, reaching a state where the only reason he didn't expand any
further was because then he'd have eliminated all rivals, and then,
persistently, began to long for another challenge...
He eventually got his wish when, trying to compensate for
his recent feelings on adequacy after Sabbath had extracted his second
heart in "The
Adventuress of Henrietta Street", the Eighth Doctor took the TARDIS millennia into the future, arriving on Endpoint,
where the TARDIS was unfortunately lost to the bottom of Endpoint's
acid sea. With no other means of getting it back, The Doctor struck
a deal with Silver, whereby Silver would get the TARDIS back if The
Doctor investigated a number of murders that had been committed recently,
the only linking factor being that every victim had been decapitated.
Reluctantly agreeing, The Doctor examined the physiology of the Endpointers,
and determined that a gland existed in their heads that generated
a unique chemical called Kallista that allowed the Endpointers to
operate on a 'permanent adrenalin rush' - for lack of a better term,
and, since the chemical dissolved rapidly upon contact with air,
the heads were being taken to provide a regular supply of the chemical.
Since the killers couldn't be native to Endpoint if they needed Kallista,
The Doctor decided to offer himself up as bait - a strategy that
wouldn't have occurred to the Endpointers as they constantly think
defensively - and was taken to the base of the killers... who, it
turned out, were humans - humans from the present stage in humanity's
development - who'd recently awoken from cryogenic stasis.
Fortunately,
Silver was able to track The Doctor thanks to a nano-tracer he'd
injected into him when they'd shaken hands on the deal, but his time
down in the human's bunker had helped The Doctor see the benefit
of Endpoint's existence; the humans in the bunker may still be physically
human, but spiritually, they'd lost the innovation and adaptiveness
that made humanity great, while the Endpointers had kept it. This
fact also helped The Doctor get over his recent feelings of inadequacy;
he may have lost one of his hearts, but even without the physical
advantages that heart had given him, he was still The Doctor. His
point about the Endpointers' supremacy over the so-called 'pure'
humans proven when Silver tore through the bunker, since the humans
had never even bothered to set up defence systems as they were so
convinced of their superiority - although The Doctor was less than
pleased at Silver slaughtering almost half the active humans in the
bunker when breaking in. With the killers exposed, the TARDIS was
recovered, allowing Silver to carry out a deal he'd made with The
Doctor's companion Anji; in exchange for cloning her dead boyfriend,
Dave, to give him another chance at life, Silver required Anji Kapoor to
take detailed scans of the TARDIS to allow Silver to build his own
version of it.
Having got the scans, however, Silver revealed his full plans;
create a race of cyborgs like himself- which he called 'Silverati'
- and then, using the plans he'd acquired of the TARDIS, create a
fleet of timeships that would allow him to spread his new 'species'
throughout existence. In his own words, there would now 'only be
Silver, and those who follow him'. However, to do this, Silver would
need to use a hypertunnel - a kind of artificial wormhole, like used
in Stargate SG-1, that allowed the user to travel to other planets
- Silver intended to travel to the mineral -rich planet of the nearby
'Imperial homeworld', where he would find the resources to build
duplicates of the TARDIS. The Doctor managed to escape his cell using
a bomb he'd stolen earlier, and, aided by the revived clone to Dave
- now upgraded into a cyborg independent of Siver's control and brainwashing
- The Doctor confronted Silver while Dave altered the coordinates
of the hypertunnel to the dead world of A2756.
During his fight with Silver, The Doctor was badly injured,
but thanks to Anji distracting Silver by shooting a dart into his
still-human eye, The Doctor was able to remove the chip containing
the data on the TARDIS without Silver knowing. Silver dived through
the hypertunnel, reeling from his injuries, only to realise too late
what The Doctor had done; he was now stuck on a dead world with no
way off. With the Silverati gone, The Doctor and his companions departed
from Endpoint, leaving humans and Endpointers to work together towards
a better future in a less toxic environment, Anji leaving Dave II
to make a new, good life for himself on that world. |
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