Recap / Eighth Doctor Adventures The Ancestor Cell

Following

The Doctor and Fitz, traveling in Compassion, are forced to make a sudden and unexpected landing to avoid the Time Lords, who have picked up their trail again and are still trying to hunt down Compassion to use her for TARDIS breeding stock. They land inside an Edifice made of solid bone, a huge flower shape hanging in the skies over Gallifrey. The three are quickly separated (drink).

The Edifice is eventually revealed to be the TARDIS, presumed destroyed over Avalon, striving desperately to do something about the Doctor's two histories: whether he died on Dust, or Metebelis Three, has great significance. Its collapse ultimately destroys Gallifrey, which is rapidly falling to Faction Paradox.

The Ancestor Cell provides examples of:

• All for Nothing: Romana's composure finally breaks in the climax when she realises that for all of the plans she's made and all of the terrible things she's done in the interests of trying to protect Gallifrey, it's going to be destroyed anyway.
• Ambiguous Situation: Father Kreiner begs the Doctor to undo all of the horrors he has lived through and become himself, asking him to go back in time and make sure that he never leaves with the Doctor and Sam in 1963. The Doctor protests several times that he can't do this without becoming as bad as the Faction himself and causing even more damage to the timestream, before abruptly seeming to change his mind and agreeing to help Kreiner. Because Kreiner is killed shortly afterwards when Grandfather Paradox discovers his treachery, it's never confirmed whether the Doctor would have actually tampered with history like this or if he was just lying to get Kreiner on his side.
• Amnesiac Hero: By the end of the book, the temporal trauma of removing Gallifrey from existence and rewriting his own timeline has wiped the Doctor's memories, leaving him stranded on Earth in the late nineteenth century with no idea of who he is.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Mother Tarra admonishes Father Kreiner for letting his hatred of the Doctor get the best of him, telling him to let go of his personal past and denying his request to be left alone with the Doctor. Kreiner responds by asking her who she used to be before she assumed the identity of Tarra, and this immediately causes her to back off and leave the two of them alone.
• Back from the Dead: The Doctor's original TARDIS, destroyed during "Shadows of Avalon", managed to cling onto existence, warping into the enormous Edifice over Gallifrey. In the climax when everything else is destroyed, the TARDIS just survives, being so depleted of energy that she is reduced to a small cube and it will take roughly a century for her to be restored to her old self.
• Big Damn Heroes: The Doctor was fully prepared to sacrifice himself by destroying Gallifrey and this would have ensured Fitz's death as well, but Compassion rescues them both at the last possible second.
• Body Horror: Ryssal is equipped with a time-distortion weapon and forcibly regenerated multiple times before being shot to death. The shots trigger the weapon to explode with the stored regeneration energy, mutilating both Ryssal and everyone caught in the bomb's field.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Compassion seriously malfunctions, crashlands in a horrible spooky place, and spits out everything inside her, including the Doctor and Fitz, who admits to farting with terror:
  The Doctor: "[...]There's a stench of decay here."
  "Sorry." Fitz smiled and wafted with his hands. "That would be me. Well, I was very frightened."
• Broken Tears: Both the Doctor and Fitz have separate breakdowns after the horrible things they are subjected to during this story. The Doctor spends quite a long time weeping on the floor after accidentally causing Ressadriand's death and then having to make the choice not to undo it, and after Compassion rescues Fitz towards the end he curls up next to her console and bawls his eyes out, finally having time to feel all the pain he had been holding back throughout the book.
• Catastrophic Countdown: The Nine Gallifreys are mentioned towards the start, as are the six sides of the Panopticon building, which represent the six founders of Gallifreyan society, as seen in their respective giant statues outside. Each subsequent time any of these things are mentioned or thought of by another character, it's always one number less than previously, indicating that Gallifrey's history is being slowly changed by the Faction and counting down towards its eventual erasure from existence. Fitz is the only one to notice the numbers changing, but Romana doesn't believe him until it's far too late.
• Clone Angst: Father Kreiner does try to inflict some of this upon Fitz, dismissing him as just a copy while he is the original. Being that the "original" is now an ancient, insane, murderous cult leader held together with nanotech and hatred, Fitz is quite content with being a copy, all things considered.
• Continuity Nod:
  • The seed code of the randomiser the Doctor installed in Compassion was discovered in the previous book by Simpson, and used to track Compassion down in the first chapter here.
  • The changes made to the Third Doctor's timeline on the planet Dust are brought up again and reverted to their original state by the end of this book. I.M. Foreman's bottle universe where Father Kreiner was trapped also shows up and it's revealed that it was the Time Lord High Council who stole it from Foreman's World.
  • Though the memory of his third incarnation's original death has been erased, the Doctor has a very strong feeling he should be terrified of spiders for some reason. The bone spiders on the Edifice were created by the projection of the Third Doctor as lookouts, and he chose to make them spiders because they seemed to be somehow significant to him.
  • Father Kreiner asserts that he is the true Fitz Kreiner by recounting his memories of being in Chairman Mao's army, weeping at the T'hiili Queen's song and being on Vega Station with Sam. Fitz counters by saying that the person Father Kreiner is now could never have been Frank Sinatra on Drebnar or any of the other aliases he has used on other worlds.
• Cosmic Retcon: The Doctor uses the weapons of the Edifice to remove both Gallifrey and Faction Paradox from space and time, negating the effects of the War in Heaven. This also has the side effect of reversing the Cosmic Retcon performed on the Third Doctor during "Interference", fully restoring his original death and regeneration to the timeline, which the Doctor's TARDIS had previously been maintaining by herself.
• Determinator: The TARDIS held on through her own destruction in order to keep protecting the Doctor's real timeline.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Gallifrey is caught in the collapse of the Edifice and destroyed.
• Evil Versus Evil: Faction Paradox vs. The Time Lords.
• Face–Heel Turn: Romana insists that everything she has done was for the protection and survival of Gallifrey, which may well be true, but she has not only crossed some major lines to do so, she seems to be happy with her choices. She is smug and indifferent to Compassion's rage against Romana's attempts to abduct and forcibly mate her to other TARDISes, only shows concern for the Doctor for as long as it takes for him to give her the information she wants and, towards the end, is shown to not only be in possession of many extremely horrific weapons of mass destruction, she personally designed many of them herself.
• Freudian Excuse: Faction Paradox are an expert in exploiting these to recruit their operatives. Mother Tarra was originally a poor girl from a struggling colony who was badly abused by her father. These experiences made her easy prey for the Faction, who offered her the chance to get back at her father and people like him and she readily accepted, her first act with the Faction being murdering her father many times over by travelling back a few seconds each time she killed him in order to do it again. After killing and replacing the original Tarra, she delights in murdering the girl's own father, relishing the look on his face as he died thinking his daughter had killed him.
• Future Me Scares Me:
  • Grandfather Paradox is a manifestation of the Eighth Doctor who was consumed by the Paradox biodata virus, and the TARDIS is the only reason that version of the Doctor isn't already a certainty.
  • Father Kreiner is Fitz several thousands of years in the future, warped by the Faction and his hatred of the Doctor. He is a cruel, vengeful and violent monster whose existence terrifies Fitz more than any of the other horrors he experiences here.
• Giant Spider: Large, indestructible spiders made of bone populate the Edifice and they viciously tear apart any living being who isn't the Doctor. They were originally conjured by the TARDIS's projection of the Third Doctor to act as scouts and lookouts, their form chosen because he knew he was missing something from his natural timestream involving spiders, and the bone creatures are his approximation of the half-forgotten creatures of Metebelis III.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: The TARDIS/Edifice has clung onto her life for thousands of years while slowly being torn apart from the inside on the outskirts of the universe and the strain has definitely taken its toll. Both its inner and outer dimensions are a surreal Death World for anyone who isn't the Doctor, and the bone spiders that were originally meant to be guardians have devolved into slavering killer beasts. The projection of the Third Doctor is also not a perfect replica, seeming quite unhinged much of the time.
• Götterdämmerung: Both the Time Lords and Faction Paradox are virtually annihilated - the Time Lords by the collapse of the Edifice, and the Faction by the destruction of the Eleven-Day Empire. Both sides are, in their own way, gods.
• Heel–Face Turn: Father Kreiner is convinced to turn away from Faction Paradox and help the Doctor destroy them in exchange for the Doctor altering the timelines so that he never joined the TARDIS in the first place. He doesn't get to do much to actually help, as his betrayal is discovered fairly quickly and he is eventually killed by Grandfather Paradox, but he still made the right choice in the end.
• Hyde Plays Jekyll: At one point the Doctor is able to trick the Faction into thinking that he's already succumbed to the Paradox biodata virus, aided by the fact that the Grandfather is more in tune with the "infected" timeline while the TARDIS is still working to protect the original version of events where the Doctor was never infected.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Right up until the end, Romana is adamant that all of the monstrous things she's done were all worth it to ensure Gallifrey's continued survival.
• Ironic Nickname: Greyjan the Sane's resurrection by the Faction drives him completely insane.
• Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Romana has made many ethically dubious choices during her tenure as the "War Queen" of Gallifrey, but it's the reveal that she has personally designed several cruel and horrific weapons of mass destruction that convinces Fitz that she is every bit as bad as Faction Paradox. One such weapon is a bomb which force-regenerates the Time Lord wearing it to use the power of regeneration energy to make its explosion stronger, and she deploys a very young Time Lord to wear it because he had so many more lives left to live, making the bomb that much stronger. She shows zero remorse for this.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: The main reason that Fitz doesn't immediately flee the cult after being summoned by them is because there are several very attractive women in their ranks. He is easily manipulated by the beautiful Tarra into accompanying her while she ransacks the Matrix, and later on his panic about waking up to find himself abducted and tied up like a sacrifice is briefly abated when Tarra appears to offer to take her clothes off in front of him. During the hellish race for survival towards the climax, he takes the time to admire Romana's shapely legs as they run for their lives, shamelessly looks up her dress as she scales a gravity lift above him and keeps his eyes firmly on her backside as she leads him through the Panopticon.
• Love Makes You Crazy / Love Makes You Evil: After thousands of years working for the Faction and stewing in his own rage, it doesn't take long after being reunited with the Doctor for Father Kreiner to reveal that he just wanted the Doctor to come back for him, and the despair of being let down by someone he trusted so completely made him highly unstable and murderous.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: Faction Paradox declare all-out war on Gallifreyan history and win, superimposing themselves over all of space and time for a brief moment.
• Mirroring Factions: The Time Lords are engaged in the same kind of paradox abuse as the Enemy will get up to, building weapons they haven't invented yet based on information from the future. When the Doctor calls Romana out on this, she points out that his Faction biodata infestation means that he's fast becoming the expert on it.
• Myth Arc: This book culminates the Faction Paradox arc that stretched all the way back to Alien Bodies, more than thirty books previously.
• Mythology Gag: "No, these shoes fit perfectly."
• Never My Fault: Romana refuses to take personal responsibility for any of the atrocities she commits, believing herself completely justified in taking "preventative measures" against Gallifrey's destruction. When the Doctor calls her out for all the blood on her hands, she deflects by saying that he has no room to judge as Compassion (against the Doctor's wishes) recently killed two War TARDISes and their crews, overlooking the fact that these ships were trying to abduct Compassion and force her to breed more TARDISes like her and she was defending herself.
• Noodle Incident: While asserting his status as the true Fitz Kreiner, Father Kreiner lists off several of the documented adventures he had with the Doctor and Sam and also mentions seeing the double sunrise on Cherantrin V, part of an adventure not seen in any story. Fitz responds by taunting Kreiner that he could never assume the identities he has done while undercover for the Doctor, listing a couple of known aliases like Fitz Fortune and Frank Sinatra, as well as previously-unseen ones like Simon Templar and Alphonse Lebleu.
• Not a Mask: After Tarra reveals herself as a Mother of the Faction Paradox, she pulls off her skin to expose the bone beneath and doesn't replace it for the rest of the story. Several characters initially believe she is just wearing an elaborate version of the skull masks they used to play-act at being the Faction and are quickly horrified to touch her face and find their hands covered in her still-flowing blood.
• Put on a Bus: Finally free from the threat of being enslaved by Romana and knowing the Doctor will eventually have his own TARDIS back again, Compassion deposits him and Fitz back on Earth and takes her leave of them, choosing to explore time and space with Technician Nivet. She will make many future appearances in other "Faction Paradox" works, but this is the end of her tenure as the Doctor's Companion. Fitz will also be absent for the next five books, not appearing again until "Escape Velocity".
• Redemption Equals Death: Father Kreiner agrees to betray Faction Paradox and help the Doctor take them down as long as the Doctor promises to give him his old life back. Grandfather Paradox rewards him for this by throwing him on the ground and then stamping on his chest until his foot hits the floor, ending the extremely long life of the original Fitz Kreiner.
• Rich Boredom: Most of the young Time Lords involved in Tarra's scheme to bring Faction Paradox into Gallifrey are bored high society types who see dressing up in cult outfits and performing dark rituals as a bit of silly fun and a way to rebel against their parents.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Fitz proves impervious to the Faction's attack on Gallifrey's history, noticing the perpetually shifting number of founders and of the number of Gallifreys in existence. After the Faction and Gallifrey are removed from time at the end, he notes that he still retains his memories of everything that happened.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Father Kreiner immediately goes into one upon seeing the Doctor again, beating him within an inch of his life and killing anyone who tries to get in his way. He has to be restrained by other Faction agents to keep him from killing the Doctor and later threatened against trying to go after him again.
• Running Gag: Though likely never intended to become a recurring plot element, this book nevertheless marks the first of an eventual multitude of times that Gallifrey is completely destroyed, something that will be explored again particularly in the revised television series, where the Doctor is also personally responsible for killing his home planet at least once.
• Say Par Ate Ted Words Gag: Mother Tarra is brought down by the Doctor stealthily getting a message to the projection of the Dust Doctor by making an offhand comment about Time being "a fickle mistress. If only I'd espied her coming". This prompts the projection to summon the biggest spider yet to attack and ultimately kill Tarra, as he was able to figure out the phrase's true meaning: "If only I'd a spider coming."
  Dust Doctor: "Espied 'er coming", indeed. As lines go, that was more painful than this is.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
  • The TARDIS has almost allowed its entire existence to be twisted around trying to preserve the timeline that existed before the Third Doctor's alternate regeneration on Dust, giving the Doctor a chance to put things back the way they should be and escape his infection with the Paradox biodata virus.
  • Father Kreiner has come to believe that he made a mistake by agreeing to travel in the TARDIS and begs the Doctor to change time so that he never left Earth with him and Sam, offering his help against the Faction in exchange.
• The Slow Path: Compassion deposits Fitz on Earth in the year 2000 and the Doctor in the late nineteenth century with instructions to meet one another again in 2001, once the Doctor's TARDIS has had enough time to restore itself.
• Smug Snake: This version of Romana doesn't just do horrible things in the name of protecting Gallifrey, she shows zero remorse and takes active pride in having done them. The Doctor's rants about her murders and manipulations receive no reaction other than sarcasm or cold deflections, and Compassion's threats to kill her for how she has been treated only get a fake smile and an assertion that Compassion "belongs" to her. The mask finally falls at the very end as Gallifrey is torn apart and she realises that she not only failed to save her planet, but she also contributed to its downfall.
• Spirit Advisor: As part of the Edifice's nature, it manifests a "ghost" of the Third Doctor from the dust in the console room, which appears to be essentially a manifestation of the part of the Third Doctor's timeline that ceased to exist when he regenerated ahead of schedule.
• Take a Third Option: During the confrontation with the Doctor and the Grandfather, the dust-ghost of the Third Doctor observes that the Doctor has three options; leave the fight for Gallifrey and give up, try to beg the Grandfather for mercy, or a third option that he is prevented from sharing when the Grandfather destroys the image. The Doctor concludes that the only option is to drain off the energy holding the Edifice together by firing the ancient weapon systems, forcing the universe to "choose" whether the original reality or the infected timeline will become real.
• Temporal Paradox: Naturally, the Faction delights in using these to their advantage and also seek to corrupt the Doctor by encouraging him to use paradoxes to save the day. When he accidentally abandons a Time Lord in a room full of killer bone spiders, they give him the choice of leaving him as a corpse or bringing him back the moment before he died. The Doctor mournfully chooses the former to preserve balance. He ultimately creates one with his destruction of Gallifrey, removing it from all of time and space as though it never existed, despite his own continued existence and the effects of the Time Lords on the greater universe remaining intact.
• That Man Is Dead: Father Kreiner vehemently objects to the Doctor calling him Fitz, believing that Fitz died as soon as the Doctor abandoned him.
• Tranquil Fury: Compassion doesn't raise her voice or use violence when she tells Romana how much she wants to kill her for what she has done to her, but that doesn't make her desire to do so any less intense.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: The Doctor destroys Gallifrey (for the first time) and both the psychological and temporal aftereffects leave him unable to remember anything about himself.
• The Virus: The Faction's biodata attack on the Doctor is starting to bear fruit, though not as much as they believe. The TARDIS has been using a considerable amount of power to stave off the paradox of the Third Doctor's early regeneration which enabled the Faction to implant the virus in the first place, making it significantly weaker than it should be, and the Doctor is able to play up its effects to his advantage.
• Undying Loyalty: Father Kreiner and other members of the Faction attempt to tarnish the Doctor in Fitz's eyes by telling him that the Doctor left his original self to rot in the vortex and that he doesn't truly care about any of the people who travel with him. Fitz considers this possibility briefly, but ultimately asserts his belief that the Doctor is a hero and always tries to do his best. Notably he comes to this conclusion alone, without the Doctor having to convince him to trust him again..
• Wham Episode: Gallifrey is destroyed, the Doctor's memory lost and Compassion parts company from the Doctor, but at least his biodata infection is cured, and the timeline is fixed, and the TARDIS is back.
• Where I Was Born and Razed: Gallifrey is destroyed by the Doctor (for the first time), erased from time and space using the weapons of the Edifice in a bid to take out Faction Paradox and undo the catastrophic effects of the War in Heaven.