Category: Doctor Who

Philosopher’s Stone – aka “Jewel of Time”. An artifact of immense power created by the crystallization of temporal energy. The Doctor described the crystal as a kind of cyst formed by a particular kind of damage to the Web of Time. The Kronos Crystal was a Jewel of Time created by the Guardians of Time and used to trap a Chronovore [OS: The Time Monster]. After that crystal was discovered by the people of Atlantis, legends of its power prompted the alchemists of Earth to attempt to recreate the crystal via a process called the Magnum Opus, a primitive form of Block Transfer Computation [PDA: The Quantum Archangel]. In the 15th century, the alchemist Nicolas Flamel abused Time Lord knowledge he gained from The Doctor to complete the Magnum Opus and produce a Philosopher’s Stone [US: As Above, So Below]. The stone acts as an anchor point for its own independent web of time. A person bound to the stone effectively gains their own private spacetime, rendering them functionally immortal [US: Doctor Who and the Prisoner of Torquemada]. Traveling in time via TARDIS disrupts this private spacetime, causing the user to age rapidly. This private spacetime can also be used to circumvent temporal barriers as were used by the War Lords during the Great Time War [US: War of the Doctor]. Flamel attempted to use the stone to destroy Earth, but was persuaded to redirect its energy in the form of a Rainbow Road into the Time War [US: Doctor Who and the Philadelphia Experiment]. The eighth, ninth and tenth Doctors later used a Schrodinger Cell to create two additional stones, which they used to remove the planet Arcadia from the event horizon of the war. It initially appeared that the stones were consumed in the process, but the eighth Doctor later recovered them and attempted to use them to hide Gallifrey in its own private spacetime [WDA: The Gallifrey Chronicles]. He did not know whether this was successful.

Schrodinger Cell – aka “Paradox Box”, “Magic Box”. A Time Lord device capable of protecting its contents from the results of Temporal Paradoxes and the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. Anything placed within the box enters a “quantum null state” until the box is opened. So long as the box is closed, its contents are indeterminate, thus the box could contain any object. During and after the Time War, The Doctor carried a Schrodinger Cell bearing the Seal of Rassilon, given to him by The War King (WDA:The Ancestor Cell), which he planned to open only in his moment of greatest need (US:The Last Time Lord). He considered, but ultimately rejected opening the box when facing Varnax (US:The Mark of Varnax) and the Mothrai (US:Nothing at the End of the Lane). The War Doctor placed the Philosopher’s Stone into his box, allowing the tenth and ninth Doctors to create identical copies of it by removing the stone from their own boxes (US:War of the Doctor). Later, the War Doctor placed the sixth segment of the Key to Time into the box, allowing Alice Jones to remove it in the Guardians’ Domain to complete the key without sacrificing herself. Schrodinger Cells could also be used as a power source by extracting the temporal energy of unrealized potential universes (WDA:Sometime Never). Among its other features, the Pandorica was a Dimensionally Trancendental Schrodinger Cell (BF:The Pandorica Opens, BF:Other Wars).

Nestene Consciousness – A disembodied alien consciousness able to animate and control plastic. The Nestenes leveraged their control over high-weight organic polymers to conquer planets which had reached a particular level of industrial development, but found spacefaring races not worth the effort to conquer (NDA: Autonomy), though they did make at least one attempt to conquer the New Earth Republic during a period of decline (PDA: Synthespians^TM). The consciousness made three attempts to conquer Earth during its “optimal phase”, which occurred during the 1980s and 1990s. These attempts all followed the same basic pattern: a fragment of the consciousness would be sent to Earth to create Autons, plastic constructs which could set the stage for the invasion. These autons would exploit human greed to construct a plastic host body from which all plastic on Earth could be controlled once the Consciousness had fully transferred itself. Some autons duplicated and replaced important humans (OS: Spearhead from Space, US: Plastic Fantastic), while others were traps intended to sew chaos by killing large numbers of humans unexpectedly (OS: Terror of the Autons, US: Artificial). In two of these attempts, the consciousness hired The Master to act as their agent on Earth (OS: Terror of the Autons, US: Artifical/Plastic Fantastic). In each case, The Doctor was able to destroy the host body before the Nestene Consciousness could transfer into it. Fragments of the Nestene Consciousness survived the aborted invasions and were awakened in the early 21st century and began to take over the recreation facility Hyperville (NDA: Autonomy). The Nestene Consciousness was a combatant in the Time War on the side of the Time Lords for a time, but withdrew from the war when their protein planets were destroyed (BF: Liberation).

Malcolm – Assumed name of the leader of the Morthrai advance force on Earth. Third in command of a Morthrai colony ship which crashed on Earth after The Doctor collapsed a Warp Shunt created by The Master (US: The Final Problem, Part 2). When his commander was killed in the crash, Malcolm assumed his identity, usurping the rightful role of his second-in-command (US: The Armageddon Variations). The pressure of this deception causes him to become unbalanced, obsessing over the destruction of humanity and protecting his own position. Fearing exposure, he repeatedly sets up his subordinates for failure (US: Totally Real, The Defector, A Time to be Born). The Doctor exposes his true identity to the second-in-command, who executes Malcolm shortly before the Morthrai were driven from Earth (US: Nothing at the End of the Lane). In an alternate timeline, Malcolm was taken prisoner when UNIT defeated the Morthrai and was the only one of his race to survive the subsequent genocide. He was imprisoned by the United Earth regime for the next hundred years. During the centennial celebration of the Morthrai defeat, The Doctor releases Malcolm, who kills presidential advisor Steve Whitman before committing suicide (US: He Jests at Scars That Never Felt a Wound).

100 Internet Points to the first person to notice which episode is missing. 200 if you know the episode title.

Sadly that time again…

“You know, I never know where the faces come from. They just pop up. Zap. Faces like this one.”