Doctor Who Monsters, Aliens and Villains

Silver
Book - Hope
Hope
(Mark Clapham)
 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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Parts of this article were compiled with the assistance of David Spence who can be contacted by e-mail at djfs@blueyonder.co.uk
 
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