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| The Keys of
Marinus DVD Cover |
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 Name: Yartek, leader of the Voord
Format: Television
show
Time of Origin: The planet Marinus;
precise date and location relative to Earth is unknown
Appearances: "The
Keys of Marinus"
Doctors: First
Doctor
Companions: Susan, Barbara
Wright and Ian
Chesterton
History: The most significant thing about Yartek
is that he was the first true individual villain The Doctor ever
confronted, his previous enemies to date in the show’s
history being the Daleks (The Doctor’s travels to Earth’s
past prior to this had simply pitted him against people who merely
objected to his presence rather than him dealing with someone
who had any other long-term plan or agenda). A native of the
planet Marinus - apparently populated by a long-lived race who
bore a physical resemblance to humans, given that reference was
made to life spans of several centuries -, Yartek was one of
many who lived under the influence of the Conscience of Marinus,
a vast computer developed two millennia earlier as a vast justice
machine which kept law and order across the entire planet.
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| The Keys of
Marinus Target Book |
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For
seven hundred years, the Conscience was absolute, radiating
its power across the planet Marinus, and eliminating
all thought of evil, until Yartek learned how to resist
it - most likely due to his own pre-existing insanity
given his fanatical mental state - and led his people,
the Voord, in an uprising. Arbitan, the Keeper of the
Conscience, was able to prevent Yartek from gaining control
of the Conscience by sending four of the five keys necessary
to power it to four different locations across Marinus,
giving him time to work on upgrading the Conscience so
that it would affect the Voord, but he was unable to
collect the Keys himself until the TARDIS materialised
on his island. Explaining the situation to the TARDIS
crew, Arbitan locked them out of the TARDIS until they
agreed to help him, leaving the First
Doctor, Susan, Barbara
Wright and Ian
Chesterton with no other choice but to help him.
Although they avoided contact with the Voord themselves
in their travels, the four companions faced a wide variety
of dangers in their time on Marinus. The city where the
first Key was kept was controlled by disembodied brains
that kept the population passive via an elaborate telepathic
illusion - the TARDIS crew only escaping their influence
thanks to Barbara realising the truth when the hypnotic
disc required to make her receptive to their influence
slipped off her head while she slept, allowing her to
destroy the Brains -, a Key located in a jungle was hidden
along with a decoy key amid a series of traps and rapidly-growing
plants, the third Key was in an arctic wasteland guarded
by an insane trapper and powerful Ice Soldiers, and Ian
was accused of murder and the theft of the fourth Key
from a museum in the city where it was kept. Fortunately,
in the last case The Doctor was able to organise an effective
legal defence to buy time until the true culprits were
exposed, their goal being to steal and sell the Key as
a rare item.
Returning
to Arbitan’s island, the TARDIS crew were initially
seemingly unaware that Yartek had managed to reach the
island and take Arbitan’s place - wearing heavy
robes to conceal his identity -, willingly providing ‘Arbitan’ with
the Keys. However, alerted to the Voord presence after
one of the Voord attacked the travellers in a fit of
impatience, Ian saw through the deception, giving Yartek
the fake key in place of one of the real ones. The use
of the fake Key in the Conscience triggered an energy
surge that caused the entire machine to explode, destroying
Yartek, his Voord and the Conscience. Despite this ‘failure’,
The Doctor reflected that the loss of the Conscience
was no bad thing, noting that only people can decide
true justice rather than machines.
Although he only appeared once in the series, The Doctor
has continued to remember Yartek, although it would appear that
he regards Yartek as a comparatively minor annoyance compared
to some of the enemies he has faced since. During his eighth
incarnation, when reflecting about the tales he had heard of
the mysterious ‘Enemy’ the Time Lords would face
in the Future War, The Doctor commented that, given his luck,
the terrifying ‘Enemy’ would probably just turn out
to be ‘Yartek, the leader of the alien Voord, armed with
a big stick’ ("The
Taking of Planet 5") (The
Enemy was later revealed to be Faction
Paradox ("The
Ancestor Cell"), the Faction being apparently replaced
by the Daleks ("Dalek") after The Doctor destroyed Gallifrey and
erased the Faction from existence). |
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| Yartek |
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| A Voord |
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| The Voord's Craft |
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| A Voord Attacks Susan |
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