"Why should changing one little thing, saving one life, destroy the universe? How is the universe ever going to know? It can't be watching all the time."
The time has come: after losing the man he loved to uncaring tides of History, the Doctor's most flambouyent and deliberately shallow companion has decided to call it quits and go home. No more loss, no more adventures, no more saving the world. Only it's not that easy to walk away. It never is
A bungled assassination attempt results in Luke stealing the TARDIS to undo the horrific consequences only to end causing more harm than he could have imagined. Unable to stop him, the Doctor instead finds causality fracturing around himself as he investigates the use of an insideous technology that doesn't belong in this time or place. A technology that's letting Kirena hunt down the people who murdered her.
You might be able to cheat Death, but you can't run forever
Lawrence Miles' future War plot from the EDAs, later spun off into The Book of the War.
A reference is made to the genetic engineering of Jurassic Park (the company InGen).
Fluffs
Goofs
Second Minister Benz temporarily becomes Minister Bintz and then Bentz (Ch. 7)
Hiroshi needs a special gun to avoid the weapon scanners showing him to be armed, but there's no worry about the exceptionally powerful bomb in his rucksack [The bomb is also specially shielded] (Ch. 13)
Technobabble
Everything to do with bio-data, not to mention the whole nano-virus solution to escaping the paradox bubble.
The implosion bomb that kills Kirena.
Plot Victims
Doctor Who In-jokes
The line in the second epilogue about two hearts beating as one is made in reference to the voice-over at the beginning of the slash-print of the Doctor Who telemovie.
Fashion Victims
Double Entendres
Dialogue Disasters
Any time someone swears by Rassilon's name.
Dialogue Triumphs
The Doctor and Ryan/Mavis
"You once told me you wanted immortality."
"Yes. Though I didn't quite mean like this," shi shook hir shoulders.
"All those people you tortured, living the rest of their lives with your face burned into their memory, carrying around a little part of you in their scars." (Ch. 9)
New Cheadle, located in the Pacific, is one of the floating cities existing as part of the Atlantis Protectorate - it's free port with a free press. It's government includes a position called 'Second Minister' [a rebadging of the term 'Deputy Prime-Minister'].
Black has replaced platinum as the colour of elite credit card designation.
Links
The events of Ticket to Writhe background the initial police handling of Kirena’s death and set the scene for the return of Ryan Purity, while this story is the conclusion of the character arc for Luke that has run in the previous two IAs.
The ubersoldaten from Transit are namechecked, and Luke is revealed to have dodged the draft for that war.
The biodata grafting project is revealed to be an attempt by a faction of Time Lords to escape the coming Time War first alluded to in Alien Bodies.
Luke and his descendents are shown to be instrumental in allowing Earth to recover from the events of The Dalek Invasion of Earth without overt interference from the off-world Corporations.
Locations
A floating city named New Cheadle on Earth, January 12 2101 (several months following the events of Ticket to Writhe).
A bubble in the Space-Time Vortex.
Kapone, in an unspecified century (Jadi's and Kirena’s home time).
A cloning facility on Capadoceous Prime, in another unspecified century.
Earth following the expulsion of the Daleks, presumably south-east England.
Future History
In response to global over-population, floating cities have been established upon the Earth's oceans as well as on other worlds in the solar system.
For a short time around the turn of the 22nd Century, biodata grafting becomes a legally recognised investigative technique for investigating murders and suspicious deaths.
In 2167, Admiral Kirena Bramley dies commanding the Dauntless while leading the fleet that breaches the Dalek blockade of the solar system.
Sometime shortly before 2201, decades of campaigning and diplomacy result in the signing of the World Freedom Accord, the first act of a global socialist democracy that survives to the early 25th century until overthrown by a military coup.
The Luke Bramley Institute for Making Life Better, a centre of learning and discourse, is built in London in 2212. It is closed-down and levelled after the military coup of the twenty-fifth century. An exact replica is built in the reconstructed London on the reclaimed surface of Earth, after the repeal of the Imperial Edicts in 3269. A further replica is built in the Federation Headquarters complex on Io in 3532.
04.00 GMT, 9th April 6101: Bramley's Eye (Elliptical Galaxy G35) reached by star pioneers. No Wirrn detected.
Unwritten Adventures
Around 2170 AD, an unnamed human off-world corporation colonises a moonin the process accidentially releasing an ancient and powerful being called Danjor. Possessing the minds of its liberators, it crept into the dreams of every living thing within a million light years. The Doctor, Luke & Kirena arrive, stopping the nightmares, liberating the colonists and once again confining Danjor to that world. The incident grabs a number of headlines. (This presumably occurs before Clockwork Orange).
A recent but unexpected trip to Capadoceous Prime following far too many tequila sunrises (also presumably pre-dating the events of Clockwork Orange).
After leaving the Doctor, both Luke and Kirena start families; Luke has several children by different women, Kirena has a single son.
The Bottom Line
Bloody brilliant. As the closing chapter of the 'Morok Years' of the IAs — and should interest have waivered, potentially of the series as a whole — it does an amazing job of wrapping up the lives of the Doctor's supporting cast of the last few years in ways both dramatic and poignant.
