#turlough and the earthlink dilemma

[cringecompanionapologist]

In Which I Do an Obviously Bad Idea

So, back in the day, the day being one in 2006, there was a LiveJournal post called Doctor/Turlough: The Shipper's Manifesto, or something like that, going over the appeal of Five and Turlough as characters and as a slash pairing, while also recommending which TV episodes, BF audios, and novels were good for shipping. Since this was 2006, a lot of stuff that I'd recommend is left out, due to not existing at the time. But, by this point, the VMA and PDA ranges of novels had wrapped up, so all the Turlough novels that exist now existed in 2006. They are described in the post thusly:

The novel Imperial Moon is missing, but it's not very slashy either. The slash fandom of the era considered most of the books unremarkable, provided the standard warning for The King of Terror, and said to avoid Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma.

Notice how despite the standard warning for The King of Terror, the manifesto doesn't warn you not to read it. The only book that they straight up Do Not Recommend is Earthlink Dilemma. This was the first place I ever saw it discussed at all.

So, either this book is really bad or really pisses off Five/Turlough shippers specifically. Or both. I'm guessing both. But, one of the best ways to get someone to do a thing is to tell them NOT to do the thing. So I wanna what the fuck is going on.

To start out with, let's talk about why Earthlink Dilemma is a thing in the first place. Unlike basically every other Doctor Who novel that isn't a novelization of a TV story, Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma is not a product of the Wilderness Years. In 1994, the Virgin Missing Adventures launched as a line of books telling new stories about Doctors 1-6 (7 was considered the current Doctor at the time). Earthlink Dilemma came out in 1986.

There as been Doctor Who EU material for almost as long as there has been Doctor Who, with the TV comics starting up in 1964. Other than those, there were the annuals containing more comics and short stories. Most of these had very little to do with the actual show. They were cash-ins.

The first Doctor Who Novella, Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space, was released in 1966. It also had very little to do with the show. There were already novelizations of a handful of serials out by this point and there would be many more, but outside of those, the idea of Doctor Who in novel form was pretty much abandoned.

The big change began in 1980, with John Nathan Turner becoming producer for Doctor Who. He proceeded to fuck a lot of shit up and one of the ways he fucked shit up was by pandering to the fanbase, treating them as the primary audience of the show. But, this had some positives. The TV Comic stories died out around the same time fanzines starting doing their own comics. One of these, Doctor Who Weekly, which became Doctor Who Monthly, which became Doctor Who Magazine, was given a sort of official status. JNT gave them a lot of interviews. But the important thing to this story is that we got better comics done by people familiar with the actual show.

Through this process, the BBC started to get more control of the Doctor Who EU and now they wanted to cash-in. Sort of. Target, the company that released the novelizations, was down to do original Doctor Who novels, but not ones featuring the actual Doctor. Instead, spin-off novels starring companions would be a thing. Thus, in 1986, The Companions of Doctor Who series began. And the very first one was Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma.

Now, the Companions line didn't last very long. The fandom didn't seem too into it, so it ended up being only three books, all following the continuing adventures of companions after leaving the TARDIS. Here's a list of literally all of them:

The series only lasted a little over a year.

Take note of the authors of these stories. Harry Sullivan's War was written by Ian Marter AKA The Guy Who Played Harry Sullivan. K9 and Company was supposed to be a TV series but it never got past the pilot. What we've got here is a novelization of said pilot. Terence Dudley wrote several Doctor Who serials, so, like Ian Marter, he had experience with the show. Ian Marter, along with playing Harry, wrote a few of the Target novelizations. Basically, both of them were experienced Doctor Who writers.

K9 and Company is basically never talked about as a novel. I can't find much commentary on Harry Sullivan's War either. In general, all three of these books are mostly forgotten. But, Harry Sullivan's War and K9 and Company have the advantage of being written by people who at least somewhat knew what they were doing.

But then there's Tony Attwood. It was hard to find anything on this guy. His page on TARDIS wiki just says he wrote Earthlink Dilemma. He has no Wikipedia page, though there is a Tony Attwood that does. It's not the same Tony Attwood. The most I could dig up for Tony Attwood as a writer of fiction was Earthlink Dilemma and something for Blake's 7. So, not an established Doctor Who writer, nor even really an established writer. It's hard to say how this guy even ended up writing this novel. So, I think a portions of Earthlink Dilemma's failure was a tragic case of No One Knows What They're Doing.

According to the introduction at the beginning of the book, Mark Strickson himself seemed to like it. He was consulted for the book. However, Peter Grimwade, the writer who basically created Turlough was not. I can't find a source for this, so it might just be bullshit gossip, but apparently Grimwade was actually kinda pissed about this. He felt like Turlough was his creation. Considering that he wrote the novelizations for the Turlough serials he wrote, one wonders why he wasn't given the project of writing The Turlough Novel. Mark Strickson found the character pretty vague and JNT's idea for the character was pretty vague, so Grimwade seems to be the only person involved in Turlough's creation who really knew the character at this point.

From the few people who've read Earthlink Dilemma, Turlough's characterization is criticized, usually considered to be out-of-character. But it doesn't seem like Attwood believed there was a character to get wrong, because Strickson was frustrated with being given nothing to do. So Turlough's characterization was probably considered something that could be created for the novel. To be fair, the show did, in fact, fail to give Turlough much to do, so whatever personality he was given was rarely on display. Later novelists and BF writers actually managed to expand on the vague, small amount of characterization in the show.

Anyway, I'ma do a stupid and read Earthlink Dilemma. I intend to blog about it here, both to motivate myself to keep going, and to make sure that someone talks about the book in enough detail that reading it for oneself will no longer be necessary. If the book really is a trainwreck, I can save people from it.

For now, to start out with, I'll talk about the introduction. Mark Strickson left a note for the readers at the beginning of the book and he says some interesting things.

Of course, if you ask Turlough's fandom, the various states of bondage are often one of the things we like about the character, but it probably wasn't as interesting to play as it is to watch.

Two things stand out here:

The first is the sense of humor. Big Finish tends to give Turlough a lot of funny lines, so that's an aspect of the character that continued to be expanded upon, though most of the humor is based on Turlough being various levels of Done with everything.

The second thing that jumps out is the romantic side. This implies that Turlough's gonna get a girlfriend. In was 1986, so an explicit gay romance would've been considered subversive enough that he'd explicitly reference it if there was one. So, Strickson is actually all for Turlough being straight.

Note: I don't intend this as an insult. He perceives Turlough as straight when a large audience perceives him as gay, but saying "I didn't intend for this to be gay and thought my character was straight." isn't a rejection of gay characters existing or condemning the fandom interpretation. I will continue to say Turlough Gay because that's the vibe I get from him, but as far as I can tell, all the queer-coding around Turlough was unintentional. This makes sense with the philosophy of the showrunners at the time. They didn't want to do anything controversial and the didn't want romance or, even worse, sexuality, to factor into the show at all. This means that no matter how easy it is to see the entire Fifth Doctor Era as full of queer-coding, the writers absolutely did not have the guts to do it on purpose.

As for how the queer-coding got there, I have a theory. Peter Grimwade was gay and he based Brendon School on some of his one public school experiences. Since we mostly see Brendon through Turlough's eyes, he might've accidentally taken on the traits of a teenaged Grimwade. Turlough Gay because the primary influence on the character was gay and being autobiographical at that moment. Later writers, not knowing what to do with the character, carried on projecting that vibe.

Of course, this is speculating on the psyches of real people, so I can't say that for certain. I don't know these people.

I do get this amusing vibe that Strickson wanted Turlough to be a romantic lead when the companions were never the lead during this era and romance wasn't allowed at all. So, we know that something usually considered out-of-character for Turlough will be present in this novel.

Lastly, there's this:

Mark Strickson draws a little tie for his signature and I love it.

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

Beyond Doctor Who: Harry Sullivan's War to be Turned Into an Audiobook This Christmas

Beyond #DoctorWho: Harry Sullivan's War to be Turned Into an Audiobook This Christmas

Harry Sullivan’s War, a Target book by Ian Marter which tells the story of the former companion’s adventures after his travels with the Doctor, is to be adapted for release as an audiobook later this year. The book, first published in 1986, was part of a short-lived series of Doctor Who spin-offs under the banner The Companions of Doctor Who. Writing in the Doctor Who Magazine Target Books…

[crystalromana]

"The red hues of Major, the dominant star, mixing with the blues of Minor, the dwarf companion, giving the landscape of tall elegant buildings standing amidst the golden corn colours a shading unknown on worlds served by only one sun"

-Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma

So what this tells us is

Turlough: Spoken like someone who's planet only has one sun

Tegan: ?!?!? and what is that supposed to mean ?!?!?!?

[truebluewhocanoe]

I saw someone in the comments of my Tales of the TARDIS uploads bitching about how every companion ends up in a position of authority so here's me going through every televised companion, what occupation they ended up with after leaving the Doctor, and then analyzing whether there is an uncalled for number of authority positions in the list. As this is televised companions only I will be prioritizing the canon of televised stories. Here we go:

Ian Chesterton: Professor at the University of Cambridge (Death of the Doctor)

Barbara Wright: Professor at the University of Cambridge (Death of the Doctor)

Susan Foreman: Member of the Earth Council world government (Audio: An Earthly Child), though this is contradicted by some other stories

Vicki Pallister: Farmer (Tales of the TARDIS)

Steven Taylor: King (Tales of the TARDIS)

Katarina: N/A

Sara Kingdom: N/A

Polly Wright: Co-running an orphanage (Death of the Doctor)

Ben Jackson: Co-running an orphanage (Death of the Doctor)

Jamie McCrimmon: There are way too many sources for him and none of them definitive; the Tales of the TARDIS episode he appears in does not confirm what he got up to, but does decanonize certain other sources such as The World Shapers

Victoria Waterfield: Head of New World University (Some home video called Downtime?)

Zoe Heriot: President, presumably of Earth (Tales of the TARDIS)

Liz Shaw: Multiple contradicting sources: includes but not limited to doing scientific research, teaching as a professor, or running P.R.o.B.e. (don't ask me what that is, I'm not deep enough down the rabbit hole yet)

Jo Grant: Climate activist (Death of the Doctor, multiple other sources)

Sarah Jane Smith: Reporter, defender of Earth (School Reunion, all of The Sarah Jane Adventures)

Harry Sullivan: This man's EU canon is a mess but we know at the very least that he stayed with UNIT for a while as a scientist (The Zygon Invasion)

Leela: Bodyguard (Gallifrey audios)

Romana: President of Gallifrey (Gallifrey audios)

Adric: N/A

Nyssa: Scientist/medical researcher on Termius (Terminus, multiple other audios), but she eventually returned to Earth, occupation unknown (Tales of the TARDIS)

Tegan: Airline attendant (multiple EU sources), later activist (Power of the Doctor)

Turlough: Astrophysicist (Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma)

Kamelion: N/A

Peri: Canonically multiple endings including brain death, talk show host, botanist, Queen of Krontep, married to Yrcanos in multiple different arrangements ranging from happily to unhappily (Mindwarp, Peri and the Piscon Paradox, Tales of the TARDIS, lots of other audios and books too, sheesh)

Mel: Unknown (multiple EU endings have been decanonized by Power of the Doctor)

Ace: CEO of A Charitable Earth (Death of the Doctor, At Childhood's End, Power of the Doctor)

Grace: Copyright hell

Chang Lee: Copyright hell

Rose Tyler: Marital bliss (Journey's End)

Mickey Smith: UNIT Agent (End of Time)

Martha Jones: UNIT Agent (End of Time)

Donna Noble: I'm posting this a week before the first of the 60th Anniversary Specials, so... TBD?

Amy Pond: Novelist (Angels Take Manhattan, The Bells of Saint John)

Rory Pond Williams: Not 100% determined but presumably nurse (Angels Take Manhattan, misc. EU sources)

Clara Oswald: Traveling the universe with her immortal girlfriend, also technically N/A (Hell Bent, Twice Upon A Time)

Bill Potts: See prior entry, crazy how that happened twice, huh (Twice Upon A Time)

Nardole: Implied to have ended up a farmer (The Doctor Falls, Twice Upon A Time)

Yasmin Khan: Presumably still a cop, unfortunately (Power of the Doctor)

Ryan Sinclair: Unknown, too recent, implied to have been studying to be a mechanic (Revolution of the Daleks)

Graham O'Brien: Presumably still a bus driver, also head of the companions group that never got an official name but we all agreed to call it Companions Anonymous (Power of the Doctor)

Dan Lewis: Presumably still unemployed and volunteering (Power of the Doctor)

Okay. Phew. That's all of them.

So, that's 41, not including K9 (there's too many K9s running around, sorry, also he's a robot dog.) Let's cut Katarina and Sara Kingdom, who I only really included to flex. That's 39. Okay, now let's cut Adric and Kamelion, who died before they could have a post-TARDIS career, as well as Grace and Chang Lee because c'mon, you need to actually travel in the TARDIS before you can have a post-TARDIS career. Now we're down to 35 companions.

Companions in a position of high authority, not just an expert in their field or whatever but with governmental authority are: Susan (choosing the specific EU canon where she's on the Earth Council), Steven, Zoe, Romana, Peri, and... oh wait, that's it! Just those five! And three of them are from sources that aren't the main show episodes! Considering that fiction usually follows interesting people rather than the average person, and both the Doctor and the TARDIS are picky about who they let on board, I'd say that 5/35 is a perfectly reasonable figure. Some people just want to complain.

[believerindaydreams]

wait fuck this is how Turlough and the EarthLink Dilemma got written sorry everyone

wouldn't it be funny if the reason gravity messes up the Unified Field Theory is because it extends into the fourth dimension as the force that makes sure you land on the planet you mean to during time travel, as opposed to the empty bit of space where the planet just was

[victoriantrashjohn]

any book recs?

Aaah I saw these earlier and then went to feed my animals and forgot to answer!! Mmm well I always reccomend my favorite book, A Dogs Purpose, as it's emotional, fun, and introspective. Also it has a dog!! The last books I read were Time Travellers Wife (though I actually only reccomend it if you want an interesting time travel concept or want to roast moffats new adaption because this book is a big yike it's baffling it's written by a women), um an actually as I'm thinking about it perhaps I can't reccomend any recent books I've read other than Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma. Because recently I read H.G. Wells Time Machine which is bad, A-Z of Dogs Diseases and Health Problems which no one else wants to read lol, a few fear streets, and one directions Who We Are. I am actually terrible. Oh!! I did reread good omens, the first series of unfortunate events, murder on the orient express, and have started Abraham Lincoln vampire slayer all of which are good! I'm also halfway through reading gone girl again for fun. This answer is a mess and has almost no useable book recs but I hope it's at least a wild read

[positronicandomnipotent]

"That old warmth he'd had with her was gone, perhaps forever..." NO IT CAN'T BE. DON'T SAY THAT JUST WHEN YOU'RE STARTING TO BE CUTE DANGIT.

"He laughed with Juras, and put his arm round her." SEE? CUTE.

"The twinkle in her eyes deepened." OH COME ON YOU'RE STILL SO TOTALLY INTO HER. YOU CALLED HER AN EMPRESS LIKE 2 PAGES AGO.

[quiescentace]

"And what will you do dear boy?" "Argue," said Turlough "I *always* argue,"

Out of context quote from 'Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma'

[ilwinsgarden]

I've started reading Turlough and the Earthlink dilemma (found the download) few days ago (I read by inches, I'm not able to read longer text in english at once) and I don't like Juras. Nope. No, I really don't.

(yeah, that's all. at least so far)

[cringecompanionapologist]

Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma: Chapter 2

This one's called Duo, because it's the beginning of Turlough and Juras working together. Other than that, I only half-understand a fair amount of this chapter.

This chapter gives us more of Turlough's PoV than the first. He's been visiting various ancient ruins on Trion and one of its moons to learn about stuff that I'm still not sure how it ties into everything else he's doing.

First, brief vocab definition:

The Old Regime is when the Imperial Clans were in charge. The Revolutionary Regime was Rehctaht's little reign of terror. The New Regime is the congress/parliament/whoever is in charge with Rehctaht overthrown.

There is a bit of insight into the Old Regime here. This particular moon of Trion has a poisonous atmosphere. Apparently the old Trion scientists sent animals to the moon in hopes that they'd adapt to the atmosphere, but they all died. This shows a bit of the Imperial Trion "Science above all else" mindset, since it's a bit cruel to do that to so many animals. I guess it's not as bad doing it to people, but it feels a little disturbing.

After finishing his moon research, Turlough meets up with Juras again and invites her back to his house. It's apparently his house from before his exile, so you'd expect like a palace or something, but it's only described as a house. Other, later depictions of places Turlough lived during his childhood tend to go with palaces.

Earlier research I did about this book said that Turlough lived in a rainforest, but this is not that at all. Interestingly, the place is given a latitude of 50 degrees north. We don't know the exact size of Trion compared to Earth, but we can see what sorts of places are 50 degrees north on Earth.

That line would be here:

So around the border between the US and Canada as well as going right through the middle of Germany and Poland.

Here's a climate map:

The climate of this entire latitude line is naturally gonna vary, but we're mainly looking at Dfb with a bit of Cfb thrown in.

You probably don't know what that means. Most people don't spend as much time staring at maps as I do.

C and D both refer to temperate climates with distinct seasons. The main difference is that, while it can snow in some C climates, the temperature of every month averages above freezing. D climates have winter months where most days are below freezing.

The second letter is about dry seasons. In some parts of the world it rains/snows far more in one half of the year than the other. The "f" means there is no dry season.

The last letter is about how hot the summer gets. Climates with "a" get hotter summers than climates with "b".

So, a Dfb climate has warm, but not too hot summers, cold, snowy winters, and no dry season.

Cfb has warm, but not too hot summers, coldish, sometimes snowy winters, and no dry season.

The descriptions of the summers around Turlough's house staying cool and the winters bringing regular snowfall would fit with a Dfb climate. Very far from what could be called a rainforest. It's more like Toronto.

Look, I got distracted by geography because this chapter was hard to read. The talk of physics and engineering makes me feel dumb so I switched to something I can be smart about.

Anyway...Turlough and Juras talk about what Turlough's been up to. She still doesn't get why he's visiting ruins instead of going into politics.

There's still a lot of exposition going on and a lot of it is in dialogue.

Turlough is studying Trion's past because he's found a weird connection between Trion and Earth. The New Regime's main allies are people called the Gardsormr. If that sounds vaguely Norse to you, it did to Turlough as well. On Earth, he heard of a myth about the Midgardsormr and the myth was very apocalyptic, making him suspect that the Gardsormr, who apparently also worked with Rehctaht, are up to no good.

His reasoning isn't Science enough for Juras' liking.

Also now it's four years away. It was two last chapter and the number will continue to change.

Turlough has one more set of ruin to visit: Slotsruin.

So, as well as Trions, Trion has another intelligent species called the Slots who are (spoilers!) descended from the Laima, who were the ancient astronauts who visited Trion and ate people back in ancient times. The Slots don't eat people, though. They have an island to themselves and they mostly keep to themselves.

So Turlough stops by Slotisland to visit Slotsruin.

So was Turlough previously pronouncing "Slots" the way it's spelled? The correct way is apparently Schlootz. Okay.

So Turlough checks out more ruins, mostly of a giant monument with a forcefield around it so nobody can learn what it is.

Once he gets home, Turlough spends a few days trying and failing to contact Juras again, but she's gone AWOL. So he gets into his own personal spaceship (a small ship meant for around four people) which he's building a new engine for: one that travels in time.

Turlough had helped the Doctor with TARDIS repairs and was able to learn a bit of how the TARDIS worked. So now he's building his own time machine. Not a TARDIS, just a small time machine. Previous Trion attempts to figure out time travel all failed at the last minute and it's suspected that the Time Lords might've been involved. So, Turlough worked in complete secrecy to avoid his work being sabotaged.

Turlough reflects a bit on not knowing whether he can trust Juras or not and how Rehctaht sucks, in his opinion.

You'd think they'd give Thatcher-Spelled-Backwards some more upsetting dictator shit to believe in but she apparently genuinely believed in egalitarianism of some sort and rich boy Turlough complained about it until he got exiled, something he apparently hasn't learned anything about. Considering that Rehctaht is Thatcher-Spelled-Backwards in 1986, we're probably not supposed to like her. Turlough is supposed to be the good guy who stood up for what he believed in, but this really isn't making him look good.

Apparently, another thing the Imperial Clans believed in was sharing knowledge. Everyone told everyone else what they were working on. But, Juras, while working for Rehctaht, got involved in secret projects.

So the Clans believed in the superiority of a minority of the majority based on genetics, valued scientific progress above all else, and didn't believe in the right to privacy. Okay then...

But this does create a sort of interesting insight into Turlough's perspective on secrets and lies. For such a dishonest character, he came from a society that didn't really do dishonesty. He was apparently a good, dutiful, Imperial Clansman who was driven to keep secrets and tell lies. He probably felt like he'd abandoned his principals in order to survive well before he met the Black Guardian.

Turlough's thoughts about Juras are interrupted by finding out that Juras stowed away in his time machine, so now they kinda have to have a conversation. Juras, an engineer, fangirls over Turlough's stories about the TARDIS for a bit and then the subject switches back to politics and the Gardsormr. The Gardsormr are the New Regime's first allies and nobody is gonna believe they're evil. They won't even listen to the evidence.

So...uh...wow. Turlough was almost driven to murder by exile. His main conflict in Planet of Fire was being afraid that he'd face exile again if he did the right thing. And now he doesn't care. He just wants to make Trion the way it was again and he doesn't care if he'll be exiled again trying. After all that trouble, he doesn't care.

Yeah, I don't buy it.

Anyway, there's going to Earth to test the time machine because Turlough apparently left some stuff at Brendon that he wants to retrieve. He still doesn't get what the Doctor likes about Earth so much and assumes that he knows something about this Planet in the Middle of Nowhere that makes it interesting.

My guess is that the story is going to imply that Turlough is right when the truth is that the Doctor's first companions whom he learned morality from were from Earth. He did, in fact, just like the inhabitants.

So, they get the time machine together. Turlough does some physics technobabble, Juras does some engineering technobabble, I fail to keep with it, and it can easily be summed up as, "Turlough and Juras, with their knowledge of two different fields, work together to build a time machine." And that's the chapter.

So, still a lot of exposition with a lot of characterization coming out as variations of : "X, I know that you have, Y personality trait!". The characterization we can see is a tad questionable. When it comes to characters like Juras, who were made up for this book, I don't have much to say. But, yeah, Turlough's characterization definitely doesn't feel quite right, though we're still early in the book and this could go in a better direction later.

[cringecompanionapologist]

Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma: Procrastination Edition

The hard sci-fi is already giving me a headache. I can't call it bad but it's not an easy read...

[cringecompanionapologist]

Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma: Chapter 1

This chapter is called Ace. Since it was 1986, it obviously has nothing to do with that Ace. Now I want a story where Turlough and Ace meet each other. It'd probably be more fun than this is.

The story begins with the PoV of a tour guide of some old ruins. Trion's got a lot of old ruins, many of a people called the Laima who visited Trion in ancient times. They were twice as tall as Trions and apparently ate them.

For reasons to be explained later, Turlough is very interested in all these ruins and has been spending time visiting archeological sites all over the planet. He's seen as a famous hero by the public, or kind of expect him to get involved in politics, but he's doing this instead.

So the tour guide spots Turlough and eventually recognizes him.

Okay, Turlough has such extremely ginger hair that I have no idea why someone would see sandy brown. Perhaps it’s a Trion thing.

So, Turlough after his adventures with the Doctor is around 20. When we see the timeline of his exile, things will start to become very confusing.

Also, apparently Turlough likes to dress very casually. Were there really no T-shirts in the TARDIS? And why do the casual clothes of Trion look so similar to those on Earth?

Meanwhile, the tour continues.

A 16 year-old showing interest in a museum trip, where there’s a chance that other people his age might see it, is proof that this takes place on another planet. This also seems to make it clear that Trion teenage boys look like Earth teenage boys, meaning that the two species most likely are meant to age at the same rate. Again, the timeline here’s gonna get confusing.

The tour passes by Giants' Drop, a very deep, artificially made hole in the ground. Based on what else I've read about this book, I'ma call it Chekov's Hole. Because that's very fun to say.

After exploring Chekov's Hole, the group goes outside.

Okay, Trion’s two suns make colors that don’t exist in Earth lighting. Maybe that’s why Turlough’s hair could look sandy-brown. The lighting tones down his hair color a little.

Turlough's Science Adventure is interrupted by Juras Maateh, an Imperial Clanswoman that Turlough was apparently quite close to back in the day. Now he's actively trying to avoid her, which she's really not into. You see, Juras wasn't exiled. She played nice with dictator Rehctaht and ended up working for her. Turlough was exiled for speaking out against Rehctaht, so he's kinda pissed at Juras for being a collaborator.

Though, getting themselves exiled didn't go so well for anyone else.

Turlough is apparently one of the last Imperial Clansmen outside of those who sucked up to the dictator to not be exiled. We don't hear much about any other Imperial Clanspeople who survived by sucking up to Rehctaht, so Turlough and Juras might be the lasts of their kind.

Turlough is so determined to ignore Juras that she has to confirm that he even recognizes her.

The more of this diologue I read, the more I wonder why at least some of the prologue wasn’t written as a flashback so we could actually see this stuff, getting us emotionally invested in Juras early on.

Another interesting little detail that’ll pop up all over the book is how names are used. Turlough is given the full name Vislor Turlough in the book. Juras Maateh is generally referred to as Juras, but Vislor Turlough is referred to as Turlough even by people close to him. Turlough’s on first name basis with Juras, but she’s not on first name basis with him.

The BF story Kiss of Death is in someways a remake of this story, establishing Turlough’s backstory on Trion, including a romantic relationship with a young woman. Deela is Juras 2.0. But, the writing of Kiss of Death actually does show the intimacy of their relationship by having Deela call Turlough “Viz”, a nickname from his first name. So I’m guessing that aspect of the character dynamic was thought through a lot more in Kiss of Death.

Turlough continues to brush Juras off. She continues to express her dislike of this decision. He says he's been busy.

Wait. Was Turlough exiled for two years or has be been back on Trion, ignoring Juras for two years? It’s stated in the prologue that Rehctaht was in power for seven years and she most likely dealt with the Imperial Clans early on in her reign, so Turlough was exiled for at least seven years, which means that the two are probably years he spent on Trion whilst avoiding Juras. This means that Turlough, age 20, in a species with the same aging rate as Earth, was around 11 years old when exiled. At the oldest. Now, since every member of the Imperial Clans, regardless of age, was probably exiled, this wouldn’t be too strange, especially since he’d blend in easily at Brendon School as an 11 year-old. But, it doesn’t make sense with what we’re told about Turlough’s exile in this story. He apparently openly spoke out against Rehctaht and was exiled for it. Juras, the same age as Turlough, held her tongue and became a scientific adviser for Rehctaht at around the same time. The implication is that Turlough and Juras were young adults at the time, already having careers and being active in politics. If an 11 year-old Trion resembles an 11 year-old human, this would be extremely unlikely. 

If 20 year-old Turlough was exiled for two years, making him 18 at the time, this might be a bit more plausible, but that would mean Turlough stayed on Trion for five of the seven years of Rehctaht’s reign, which isn’t what seems to have been implied elsewhere.

Now, this problem could’ve been fixed if human age numbers weren’t used or it was stated that Trions age at a different rate from humans. Considering that a planet with two suns would probably have a different orbit than a planet with one sun, the years being a different length would also make sense, but this is never stated in this book So, all in all, this is a major case of Writers Can’t Do Math. At least this one can’t.

The argument continues.

This is a very “As You Know” kind of line, but that’s honestly a bit of a nitpick. But, it tells us some of what would be expected for an Imperial Clansman. This novel usually refers to “Imperial Clansmen and women” instead of the more neutral “Clanspeople” or something like that. So, when gendered language is used, it’s difficult to tell if they’re talking about “men and women” or if they’re talking about “people, who in this case happen to be a man and a woman”. So is it considered the duty of an Imperial Clansman to find time to share his thoughts with his fellow Clanspeople, or it specifically his duty to share thoughts with women? Or a specific woman? It is the duty of an Imperial Clansman to form a sort of intellectual partnership with an Imperial Clanswoman? Are we learning something about Trion gender roles and relationships here? I don’t know. It’d be interesting if we explicitly were. It would provide some good context and framing for this relationship that we’re only just now learning about. Perhaps Turlough and Juras had a sort of intellectual engagement before everything went to shit, at least partly because it was considered the duty of people of their age and social status to do so. There’s a romantic subtext to their past relationship at this point and the idea that at least one of them invested in the relationship more out of duty than love would provide some interesting tension.

Turlough is finally able to escape and go to another museum on his list.

More numbers, eight years ago would have to be before Turlough’s exile if he went to this museum eight years ago. So he was 12 then? Fuck this timeline.

Now, since it’s Doctor Who, you might be asking “What about time travel? Maybe we’re all out of sync because of time travel.” And well…maybe? Trions themselves do not have time travel. Despite all their scientific advancements, time travel is the one thing they just can’t get. This is very important to the plot. But, as for the time travel of Turlough’s time with the Doctor, it’s never made clear if we’re supposed to factor that in. Nobody acts like Turlough appears younger than he should be based on how much time has passed. If Juras had aged more than Turlough appeared to, you’d think she’d say something. So, if time travel through everything off here, nobody seems to suspect it.

The chapter ends with Turlough on the way to Njordu Nerthus, on of Trion's three moons, since there's some other interesting stuff up there. We finally get some of his PoV and learn that he absolutely did intend to meet up with Juras again, but not until he'd finished his research.

So far, the book's been high on exposition and low on characterization, but that might just be because there's a lot to catch up on. The timeline makes no sense, but the TV timeline didn't make sense either. Malkon was apparently an infant when his family was exiled. We meet him as at least a young teenager while it's not made clear if he just grew up really fast or if Turlough skipped ahead with time travel. So I can't exactly say this timeline bullshit is anything new.

So, we'll just have to see where they're going with this.

[cringecompanionapologist]

Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma: Prologue

Doing this now because it's short. This reads a lot like a Star Wars title crawl or the opening to Avatar: The Last Airbender. Here's all out lore and backstory.

A long time ago the people of Trion lived together in harmony, but everything changed when the revolution attacked...

So, nine thousand years before Turlough the Imperial Clans gained power on Trion with one goal in mind: Science!!!

Since they mostly just wanted to do science, they were eventually convinced to stop being assholes.

I'm including so many of these exposition screenshots because there's something funny happening. Specifically, the names of the various backstory characters. Spell Ykstort backwards. Trotsky. Nilatis? Sitalin, because Nilats wouldn't have looked as good I guess.

The wording here is ambiguous as to whether the Alien Soviets were the last of the asshole dictators or the first people to suggest not being asshole dictators. I think it's supposed to be the latter. I find it funny that the leaders of an autocratic dynasty are named after people who were all about killing those sorts of people. If there's supposed to be a political allegory here, it makes no goddamn sense.

Yes, the aristocracy just somehow never got around to telling the peasants about their scientific advancements...

Anyway, the Clans lived in isolated citadels in the forests and were so caught up in their science that they didn't realize there was a revolution happening until it was too late. The revolution created a sort of power vacuum for one of the revolutionary leaders to take over.

Here we get another "spell the name backwards for hilarity" character. Rehctaht backwards is Thatcher. The evil dictator lady is Thatcher. This was written in 1986, so I don't really know why I'd expect anything else. But yeah, Earthlink Dilemma made the antagonist Space Thatcher two years before The Happiness Patrol did it on television.

Apparently all Turlough stories take place in the same galaxy. The TARDIS has been to other ones, but not with Turlough.

So, Tehctaht turned out to be worse than the people she replaced and was eventually overthrown. By the COPS. No really.

Committee of Public Safety. CoPS. I'm not sure if this is even meant to be political commentary or if it's just ridiculously amusing to me specifically. Trion is supposed to be more democratic by this point, but it's run by cops. So maybe it's actually a police state and we're just not gonna comment. Aristocracy, to fascist dictatorship, to police state...Maybe Trion just sucks.

The last thing I want to note is a notable absence in the story that makes me question if Attwood was aware of the plot of Planet of Fire at all. Where the fuck is Malkon? The main reason Turlough went back to Trion is because he'd found his little brother, Malkon, his only surviving family. This novel will repeatedly state that Turlough is the sole survivor of the exiled Clanspeople. There should be at least one more. But Malkon doesn't seem to exist in this novel to the point that I don't believe the author knew about him.

So, Turlough's back on Trion, brother retconned out of existence, and this is where our story begins.

[cringecompanionapologist]

So Kiss of Death rewrote Turlough's backstory. I have no evidence of intent here, but I swear it all fits and I'll explain later.

[cringecompanionapologist]

Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma: Chapter 3

This one's called Trio because a third important character shows up at the end.

Turlough and Juras test their time machine, though it doesn't appear to be working. They're also still arguing about the secret work they've been doing. Juras explains that Rehctaht wanting to build some kind of gravity control thing. Trion has a bit of a history with gravity tech for Tractator reasons. This would apparently be a gravity time machine, which wouldn't have worked probably.

There's something kinda interesting to this. Rehctaht wanted to take control of time with a dynasty of artificially bred children. This book was written in 1986, before the VNAs added the whole loom thing, but...Rehctaht's trying to be Rassilon. She wanted to loom her own set of Trion Time Lords. But, because this story is from before most of the Gallifrey lore this parallels, it's probably a complete coincidence.

Now, if Rehctaht hated the Imperial Clans, why did she want Juras, an Imperial Clanswoman, doing her science research. This is a side effect of the Imperial Clans existing in the first place. They were the scientists. The only scientists. The other Trions didn't have much knowledge of science and technology, because all the scientists were from the Imperial Clans. So, Rehctaht couldn't have just picked regular Trions completely loyal to her to build her gravity/time machine.

Anyway, Turlough's new time machine doesn't appear to be working and they decide to stop by the planet Regal for supplies and to not be in space for a while. The Trions have something of an empire and Regal is one of their planets, though I don't think it's a Trion colony. It's just some other random planet that was interested in Trion technology, leading to the Trions teaching them how to manufacture it. Mostly to mine their own planet for the necessary resources. So children of the Imperial Clans take field trips to Regal to see the industrial results of Imperial intelligence.

The Regalans work hard and live hard, but the Trion researchers get most of the credit. So there's that classism that caused a revolution then.

I'll say that it doesn't feel quite as bad as the real world stuff you can compare it do. That's because it's not quite capitalist. The Imperial Clans do stuff. They don't just own the materials that other people are paid to use to make stuff on their behalf. It's kind of like comparing computer programmers to the people who make the physical computer parts. The Trion system merges the role of the programmer with the role of the tech company ceo, so they're a bit more than just bosses. It still kinda sucks though.

But what really sucks is that when Turlough and Juras arrive at Regal, there are no signs of life anywhere. The space stations orbiting the planet are gone. When they land on the planet, they're in a desert.

After looking around a little and being attacked by strange, extremely violent, birds, birds that appeared completely out of nowhere, they find a nice humanoid to explain what the fuck is going on.

Though he won't be properly introduced until later, this is The Magician. From the wacky dress sense and title instead of a name, you can guess that he's a Time Lord. Here is an unknown artist's impression (I have no idea who drew this I'm sorry):

Yeah, it's those Doctor Who RPGs, this is a nonofficial EU one. But now we have this eccentric Time Lord who appears slightly older than Turlough, sort of like the Fifth Doctor. The Magician is mostly here because this Doctor Who novel wasn't allowed to have Doctor Who in it. He's not an incarnation of the Doctor. Just another Time Lord, probably a renegade based on the Title Instead of a Name thing. So Turlough is apparently just a magnet for young-looking renegade Time Lords.

Pretending to just be some random hermit living in a cave, the Magician explains that travelers are rare on Regal these days.

By "eaten", he meant that all the minerals were mined. The Regalans used up all their resources and then abandoned the planet. This wasn't even close to happening when Turlough last visited Regal and the Magician claims it happened thousands of years ago. He shows them what it used to look like through a sort of screen in a rock. Remember that time travel television thing from The Chase? I think it's supposed to be that sort of thing.

So, I said that the time machine didn't appear to be working. Turns out it actually was. Turlough and Juras immediately run back to the ship to discuss wtf just happened while the friendly cave hermit they just met acts all sinister once their backs are turned.

So the strange bird attacks from nowhere were apparently the Magician...

Despite how bad this all looks, the Magician isn't actually evil. He's just not quite as good as the Doctor and often not particularly helpful. Once we meet him again, perhaps he'll explain himself.

Though the fact that a Time Lord clearly now knows that Turlough can time travel could also become a problem.

[crystalromana]

Trying to do the math of how much time Turlough skipped forward and I'm laughing because it means Planet of Fire would be happening circa 1998ish.

(Malkon was a baby at the end of the war (which TARDIS wiki puts in the 70s) which tracks with Mawdryn Undead taking place in 1983. Malkon's actor was 23ish at the time of filming)

Basically Turlough has to be old enough to be a seen as a vaguely culpable child soldier (although I'm of the camp he was an adult by the time he gets picked up by the doctor, being trapped in a school is just a convenient spot to have him imprisoned) and he's been on earth long enough to be desperate to leave. So that puts the end of the war in the late 70s. There's only so much wiggle room with old enough to be seen as culpable and still young enough looking to pass as a school boy and been passing for several years.

So it's a good thing big finish implies Turlough travels for a long time because he's legitimately going to be 20 years younger than he should be. It would probably work better to have Malkon be 17ish in Planet of Fire and have Turlough be 19ish in Mawdryn Undead and then add lots of TARDIS travel to bridge the gap.