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Paradox Lost
(George Mann) |
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 Name: The Squall
Format:
Book.
Time of Origin: Technically they exist
outside of time, but The Doctor confronted them in London in October
1910, as well as a brief meeting in London in 2789.
Appearances: "Paradox
Lost"
Doctors: Eleventh Doctor
Companions: Amy Pond and Rory
Williams
History: A temporally active race, The Doctor’s
encounter with the Squall was interesting as he and his companions
actually caused the crisis while trying to investigate it.
A
race of pan-dimensional parasites, the Squall normally exist in other
planes of reality, similar to the more powerful Chronovores, but
they can only access this universe when a temporal rift is created,
allowing them the chance to enter the real universe, where they can ‘feed’ on
the psychic energy of others to gain greater power and produce more
of themselves. A hive mind, the Squall start off as simple beasts
but become more intelligent as more of them are unleashed into this
universe, their minds gaining power as they come together until they
can even ‘hack’ the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits,
allowing them to communicate with The Doctor and his friends inside
the ship.
Although the Squall attacked Earth in 1910,
The Doctor was alerted to their presence when the Eleventh Doctor, Amy
and Rory were drawn to London in June 2789 by a distress signal. Tracking
the signal to its source, the three discovered a centuries-old android
in the Thames that had just been salvaged by an archaeology team, the
android attempting to pass on a message to The Doctor about the time
experiments of Professor Gradius and the presence of the Squall before
it apparently ran out of power. Having determined the date that the android
would sink, The Doctor departed to investigate the Squall in the past,
leaving Amy and Rory to find Professor Gradius in the present.
Visiting
Professor Gradius’s laboratory, Amy and Rory discovered that she
was dead, but quickly found another ally in the form of her robotic assistant
RVN-73, Amy nicknaming him ‘Arven’ for convenience’s
sake. Although Arven was able to reveal that Gradius had been killed
by the Squall, they were forced to subsequently retreat to the time machine
that Gradius had been working on when the Squall resumed their attack
on the lab, travelling back to 1910 to meet up with The Doctor. Ironically,
when Amy, Rory and Arven used Gradius’s time machine to travel
back to 1910 to escape the Squall, they actually caused the rift that
would draw the Squall to London in the first place, landing in London
on 13 October 1910 and remaining underground by hiding in the sewers
for three days until The Doctor arrived in that time period (Rory was
briefly concerned that they’d made a bad situation worse by causing
a situation that they’d already learned about, but The Doctor assured
him that such paradoxes were really nothing serious given the complex
nature of time).
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Paradox Lost
(CD Cover) |
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Meanwhile, The Doctor had discovered a new ally in 1910
in the form of Professor Angelchrist, a scientist who had spent his
life working to track down alien technology and defeat alien attempts
to conquer Earth. With Angelchrist’s research helping The Doctor
identify the Squall’s feeding grounds - they generated a low-level
telepathic field that had prevented anyone else realising that they
were present, but Angelchrist had been immune as he had experience
with other-worldly matters -, The Doctor was able to track down the
time-ship in time to rescue Amy, Rory, and Arven, using the sonic
screwdriver to disorientate the Squall long enough to drive them
away.
Retreating to Angelchrist’s house to use some of
the alien technology that he had assembled over the years, The Doctor
was able to turn a top hat into a psychic amplification beacon that
would enhance the signal given off by his mind, allowing him to lure
the Squall back to the original rift, although Arven was forced to
sacrifice himself to end up in the Thames as he had originally so
that the humans could escape. Luring the Squall back to the time
ship, The Doctor was then able to set the ship to overload as the
Squall tried to attack him, destroying the rift while he was rescued
by the TARDIS, which he had programmed to home in on his mind at
the moment the implosion occurred (Although he had claimed that he
couldn’t use it earlier to trick the Squall into thinking that
he was more vulnerable than he was). With the rift closed and the
Squall destroyed, The Doctor took Angelchrist on a brief trip to
the future so that they could recover Arven, The Doctor transferring
him into a new body and then leaving him with Angelchrist so that
Arven could make a life for himself without worrying about the legal
issues he might face as an independent A.I. in his time, as well
as giving Angelchrist a friend in his old age. |
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