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Venusian Lullaby
(Paul Leonard) |
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 Name: The Sou(ou)shi, possibly also known as the
Sentience
Format:
Book.
Time of Origin: Existed near the beginning
of the universe, around three million years ago; evidence suggests
The Doctor encountered the ‘remnants’ of them on Earth
in 1968.
Appearances: "Venusian
Lullaby",
speculated that they appeared in "Nightshade"
Doctors: First
Doctor, evidence suggests
that they encountered the Seventh
Doctor
Companions: Barbara
Wright, Ian
Chesterton, evidence
suggests that they encountered Ace
History: One of the oldest races The Doctor has
even encountered, the Sou(ou)shi confronted the First
Doctor on a
trip to Venus over three billion years in the past. At this point
in history Venus was rapidly becoming uninhabitable, with only around
fifty years left to the planet before it would be unable to sustain
life. This left many Venusians increasingly desperate to find a way
to escape the planet, with the Sou(ou)shi appearing to be the answers
to their prayers as they offered to relocate the Venusians to the
third planet (Earth before humanity evolved).
In
appearance, the Sou(ou)shi initially appeared like overly pink humans
with large eyes and fine golden fur on their torsos, but their ‘feeding’ form
was approximately fifteen feet tall with massive jaws, four arms
ending in triple scimitar blades and legs like iron pistons (Although
this was apparently an illusion generated by the Sou(oui)shi’s
psychic abilities rather than an actual transformation, leaving their
true form a continued question-mark). In essence, the Sou(ou)shi
were psychic vampires, consuming the mind energy of dying species
and using their bodies to start life on habitable but uninhabited
planets, new life developing based on that species’ genetic
code. A particularly interesting detail of their society is that
they are incapable of lying due to their strict code of honour, meaning
that they could only hide their true intentions by ‘omitting’ certain
details, such as describing their use of the bodies of doomed species
to start life on uninhabited planets as ‘saving’ the
original species, and actually require permission in order to kill
anyone.
Although the Sou(ou)shi were able to reach
Venus with the permission of one of the Venusian councillors
- who believed that the Sou(ou)shi’s methods were the only way
for anything from his species to survive, partly due to an
interesting quirk of Venusian
physiology that allowed them to absorb the memories of the
deceased by eating the brains of others -, their attempts
to take the Venusians away
was hampered by the First Doctor, Barbara
Wright and, Ian
Chesterton, The Doctor having
travelled to the planet to attend the funeral of Dharkig
- an old friend of The Doctor’s and a famous Venusian philosopher
- to take his mind off Susan’s recent departure ("The
Dalek Invasion of Earth"). Although Ian and Barbara had some trouble relating
to the Venusians at first, they eventually came to relate
to them after Barbara
consumed some of Dharkig’s brain and gained a clearer insight into
Venusian life (Although the differences between humans and
Venusians meant that Barbara initially relived the memories
she’d
eaten, briefly believing herself to genuinely be Dharkig).
While
dealing with the demand of various Venusian factions seeking their
aid in assorted methods of surviving their world’s demise,
such as escaping the planet in primitive rockets - Venusians were
allergic to metal, forcing them to use wood and thus failing miserably
-, growing gills to relocate to the water, or moving into tunnels
under the sun’s surface, The Doctor and his companions witnessed
the arrival of the Sou(ou)shi ship, The Doctor instantly suspicious
of their claims to be preparing to take the Venusians to Earth due
to the lack of archaeological evidence of a Venusian presence. As
The Doctor confronted the Sou(ou)shi to learn more about them, Barbara
departed to search for Ian, who had recently been abducted by the ‘Rocketeer’ Venusian
faction, only to become separated once again when Barbara was injured
in a riot.
Realising the truth about the Sou(ou)shi from their carefully-chosen
patterns of speech - thus ensuring that they said only what they
wanted others to hear while concealing their true intentions -, The
Doctor attempted to warn the Venusians, although his attempts were
hampered by the Sou(ou)shi - despite being unable to kill him directly
without his permission - neglecting to set the safety buffers of
his shuttle, then going on to ‘warn’ the Venusians that
The Doctor would prevent them leaving Venus. Although the Sou(ou)shi
tried to force The Doctor to give them permission to kill him by
placing Barbara in a biofeedback force field - causing her intense
neurological pain while not physically harming her -, The Doctor
was able to pilot the TARDIS on
board the Sou(ou)shi ship by using Venusian algorithms to calculate
a person’s precise location
and ‘home in’ on that. Once on board, The Doctor freed
Barbara from the force field… and, due to the pain she had
endured, Barbara ‘regressed’ into the person of Dharkig,
the famous Venusian orator convincing his people to see past the
Sou(ou)shi’s lies, driving the Venusians to turn against the
Sou(ou)shi.
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Nightshade
(Mark Gatiss) |
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Thanks
to this delay, Ian, aided by the ‘Volcano People’ - a
group of Venusians who were trying to trigger volcanic eruptions
to shroud Venus in dust, thus lowering its temperature and increasing
its lifespan -, was able to trigger a mass volcanic eruption, the
eruptions shrouding Venus in dust and destroying the Sou(ou)shi ship
while giving The Doctor and Barbara the chance to evacuate the Venusians
into the TARDIS and return them home. Despite this destruction, the
Sou(ou)shi managed to survive as bodiless psionic energy, the energy
of those they had consumed on the ship sustaining them long enough
to bind themselves to the lifeless rocks of Earth, knowing that life
would develop there eventually for them to feed on.
Although
they have never definitively reappeared, it is believed by many -
including the writers - that the disembodied Sou(ou)shi went on to
become the Sentience, a barely-sentient entity that knew only all-consuming
hunger that attacked the village of Crook Marsham in 1968 ("Nightshade")
after it was unearthed in an archaeological dig at the turn of the
century, particularly since the Sentience required the consent of
its victims before it could consume them (Albeit by manipulating
their emotions by assuming the appearance of people close to its’ intended
victims rather than simply lying to them). The Sentience was eventually
defeated when the Seventh
Doctor and Ace used a local radiotelescope
to show the Sentience a nearby nova, tricking it into leaving Earth
to consume the dying star just in time to be absorbed by the subsequent
black hole, crushing it forever. |
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