AustLit

'The Doctor has been helping a group of revolutionaries fight against the repressive regime of their planet. His allies have been killed and he is taken prisoner and driven to the Malamud, who is waiting for him. The Malamud leads the Doctor to House Osmo, a palatial structure that contains hundreds of thousands of books. In the course of their conversation it is revealed that everyone on the planet has a book which accurately foretells the events of their lives. The revolution which he has been aiding is an attempt by the Doctor to free the people from this apparent tyranny: it is seen as blasphemy to attempt to break from the path predicted by the books. The Malamud explains that every inhabitant, building, garden or visitor to the planet has their own book, but even the busiest only generate around twenty five volumes or so, and the record was thirty-four. Then the Doctor's books began to arrive, appearing overnight as if from nowhere. No-one on the planet knows the origins of the books. It gradually dawns on the Doctor that House Osmo is solely the collection devoted to his life and is told that it extends to a massive 750,000 volumes. By their count the Malamud and the archivist of the library think that the Doctor is over 20,000 years old, a point which the Doctor does not contradict. Instead he retorts that the volumes merely recount his adventures and do not foreshadow them. The Malamud disagrees and says that the final volume arrived three years ago. The Doctor scans this volume and sees that it predicts he will be dead within two days.'

[The Doctor is the Sixth Doctor.]

Source: drwhoguide.com (http://www.drwhoguide.com/whotrip26.htm). Sighted 20/5/11

'The Doctor responds to a distress call, calculating the odds that he should have received it at all are astronomical. He arrives outside a door and tosses an apple into a force field. The fruit is destroyed so he throws in a battery. The energy field is absorbed by the battery which the Doctor pockets for use later. He enters a hall which is full of an astonishing array of machinery, covering all sizes from small to vast and all complexities from clockwork to anti-matter fusion. At the centre is a tall box containing a man. This man is attached to the box by a variety of wires, rods, tubes and metal cages. A scalpel is about to cut into his chest. The Doctor produces his sonic screwdriver and a leather pouch containing small tools. With these he begins to disconnect the man from the mechanical devices that have been attached to and inserted into his head, body and limbs. As he works at this the Doctor draws the man into conversation. It turns out that the Doctor has freed this man from a similar predicament several times before but never understood who the victim was or how he came to be captured in this way. This time he begins to get some answers. The man knows that the Doctor is a Time Lord. He himself is from a race that exists outside time and the universe. However, he has seen that machinery is capable of developing a life of its own. He has taken on physical shape to hold back the machinery before it expands to fill the universe, but each time he does this he is overtaken by the machines which try to mechanise his body. Each time this happens he sends out a distress call that the Doctor answers. The first time the Doctor came, the machine was the size of a spaceship; this time it is the size of a small planet. This time, unlike others, the man has a robotic arm which attacks the Doctor. Holding it in check, he allows the Doctor to escape. The Doctor returns to the TARDIS and removes the mechanical devices which are already attaching themselves to it. He turns to the man, still part-machine, and says farewell until the next time. The man says that he thinks that the next time will be the last. The Doctor says he had better go away and prepare himself for this.'

Source: drwhoguide.com (http://www.drwhoguide.com/whotrip26.htm). Sighted: 20/5/11

'The Second Doctor and Jamie are enjoying the Atkyan Peace Festival known as Yelyahj. This festival celebrates the Atkyans survival from a plague that killed many of their race one thousand years earlier. Jamie in particular seems very attracted to a young woman called Soji whose parents are providing somewhere for the time travellers to stay. The next morning, however, they wake up in a harsh and militaristic world where their hosts view them with hostility. The Doctor is enrolled as a scientist in a weapons facility and Jamie is conscripted into the army. The Doctor suspects that time is in flux and that somehow only he and Jamie have any memory of the alternative time stream. One thousand years earlier the Fifth Doctor and Turlough manufacture the cure for the plague, but it has a side effect - transforming the peaceful Atkyans into an aggressive and warlike people. The Doctor then manages to come up with a stabilising agent that removes this dreadful side-effect and departs the planet, congratulating himself on his work. The Second Doctor and Jamie now find themselves alone in a giant museum. It tells them that the entire race was wiped out by the Doctor's cure which halved their life expectancy for each generation. The Doctor realises that this must be a reference to a future incarnation of his. Jamie wonders why this future version of the Doctor has not got any memory of the fate of the people he was trying to save. The Doctor replies that once the time stream has settled the memories - and a giant headache - will come flooding back. The memories return to the Fifth Doctor and he tells Turlough what they have done. Turlough asks if they can go back in time to undo their mistakes but the Doctor tells him that time has crystallized already. As a consolation Turlough reminds the Doctor that the Atkyans would have died anyway, or (in the alternative version) become a deeply unpleasant race.'

Source: drwhoguide.com (http://www.drwhoguide.com/whotrip26.htm)

Sighted: 9/6/11