Mop Doctor Episode 10: The Master Plan

Game can be downloaded here: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/233361/doctor-who-solitaire-story-game-second-edition/files

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This is it. The last episode of the season. I’d like to thank anyone who decided to join me throughout this playthrough… but let’s get to it.

Lewis, a police officer from the 1940’s, Flora, a maid from the 1920’s, Sera, a socialite also from the 1920’s, and Jerri, a Slitheen accountant from a far off future… all here on the planet...

I got out of the Tardis, along with my now extensive group of companions… the planet was cold, as expected. We were planning on just a nice little hike, when suddenly. A masked man, heavily shrouded in red, held his gun up towards me. He was erratic, an insignia on his shoulder read “Spacefleet!”. 

He yelled “Are you HIM? You’re not killing me!” 

I replied “... do you mean the Doctor? I’m the Doctor.”. He lowered his gun and uncovered his face, it was Captain Jack Harkness but he didn’t seem to recognise me. 

“My bad. You look different Doc… better fashion sense, never did like the yellow jumpsuit and green cape, too 60’s.”

I asked him “What happened? Why were you so convinced I was going to Kill you?”.

He lowered his head as he replied.

“A man came, a mysterious one, came to our little Spacefleet colony… that’s when things went wrong. I don’t remember how, but everyone is dead.”

Sera decided to speak. “Well then Doctor. We know what you’re like. Go investigate it.”

As we walked through the snow, I came across boot prints in the snow, and a large circular indent… looks like someone wore… flip flops? Must be the outsider. Suddenly, out of a Glacier came a bulky green figure followed by several others… the Ice Warriors… they bowed their heads in the direction the footprints led, before turning towards us.

The empress hissed. “You’re a bad man.”

“No, I’ve checked him, he’s the Doctor, not the other one… he isn’t responsible for the massacre.” interjected Jack.

“Well then… go… they were nice to us. Never provoked us, genuinely wanted to understand us unlike so many others before…”

Well, that rules out one theory.

We didn’t stick around to talk to them, continuing along the path we chose.

Eventually we reached it, the base. Almost entirely abandoned, the walls a particularly ugly shade of grey steel. Inside, Jerri set off the security, prompting a scientist to come over to us before hugging Jack.

“You’re alive! Who are these people?” He asked.

“Uhh, that’s the Doctor, the rest are his companions of wildly varying levels of attractiveness, sorry Slitheen I don’t know the name of.” He said, hugging the Professor back.

“Oh, that evil man, he’s gone and sabotaged the heating systems, he intends for us to die in the cold!”

“Well, the Doctor can fix that, can’t you?”

I nodded as I let him lead me through the base to where this act of sabotage had happened. The place was broken down, on loop was a piece of promotional Spacefleet material, people with red and blue and yellow shirts smiling towards the camera holding guns that, based on Jack’s loadout, weren’t in use anymore. We arrived at the heating system and I got to work…

Extract from the Diary of Seraphina Garbert-Smithe:

I don’t know how that sonic screwdriver does anything really. Doesn’t have any buttons, not sure why it’s a dried out tentacle cradling a gemstone, not even a clue how it fixed the heating system. Yet, the doctor let it make it’s high-pitch screech into the core of the heating system and warmth returned to the base. 

Back to the Doctor:

Once I was done fixing the heating system, I looked around, finding a personal forcefield on the table. I gave it to Flora, not having a descendant explode as well, especially as she’s so keen to protect Sera. Looking around for any clue as to who this man was, suddenly a crazed scientist lunged at me, along with a guard. “It’s the man! It’s the man!” he screamed, Jack quickly had him knocked out and zip-tied up while Jerri killed the guard… probably not the best thing to do since apparently everyone thinks I’ve massacred everyone. We left the crazed scientist there as we wandered on, finally reaching a security room. Cold wind blew through a large hole in the room, overlooking a cliff. Needless to say, we were careful around that area.

Winding back the security footage, I saw the Man as he did the massacre… he planted a circular metal disc (probably an atmosphere replacer) in the room and the people collapsed to the floor, all across the hallways we just walked through, yet we didn’t see the corpses. The man then turned to the camera and waved.

It was the Master.

Suddenly, whirring noises were heard as a large metallic cylinder appeared in the room and the Master stepped out, wearing flip flops the madman.

“Long time no see Doctor. Glad I skipped all that wandering around you did. Thanks for turning the heating on by the way, it was getting cold...”

He stepped out of his ship and moved towards the group. He had actually landed it in such a way that his ship was blocking off the hole, we were being backed up against a solid corner of the wall assuming we don’t just jump him.

I walked right up to his face and said to him “Why did they all have to die? They were just here to investigate the planet, they did not plan on harming anything, you had no right.”

He tutted. “Oh Doccy Doc Doctor, don’t you understand? They serve more use to me dead. I’d like you to see my science fair project, YOU CAN COME IN NOW!” 

Marching could be heard as they approached the door, bursting through to reveal their large hulking metallic bodies.

Cybermen.

(Nabbed piece of Cyberman concept art I found because I didn’t want to use the Cyberon from the movie “Cyberon“)

“Ok, get back to the conversions.”

The Cybermen walked back into the base. I stood in shock, but first I had to emotionally disarm an idiot. I clapped. “Well done good friend.” I said. “Just wait until Gallifrey hears about this. Can I look around, see what you’ve done?”.

He nodded and let us leave. Cybermen marched across the base, picking up whatever corpses they could find and placing them into a makeshift conversion chamber. We saw them carry off the crazed scientist and soldier from earlier… could’ve saved them but we didn’t. The Cybermen were told not to harm us, but I never got the impression that they followed that command because the Master told them so, rather they just ended up following it because we weren’t deemed important enough to kill yet.

Stumbling around the base, we accidentally activated an audio log. It said “Captain Raimi Kolton, Stardate… uh… eh whatever. Today we found this tomb filled with metal people. The Man was very much interested in these, asking that he be left alone with them. We said yes but we shall investigate shortly.”

The Master then popped out behind us. “Like what you see so far?”

“Uh, uh yes.” I replied.

“Not long now, I’ll rule this planet Doctor, exciting!”, he gleefully walked out. Suddenly, laser shots were heard as the Master ran back into the room.

“Not exciting, I won’t be ruling this planet, help!”

“So Master… did you have a contingency plan?” 

He just blinked.

“Your cruelty is just made so much worse by your utter stupidity in this incarnation. Come on, let’s stop the Cybermen.”

As Cybermen ships arrived, carrying a different less advanced version of the Cybermen, the newer ones quickly grabbed these ones and took them away to be upgraded. Good thing too to be honest, they kind of looked very unintimidating, but these older models were more just preserving a corpse with some loose metal protection, whereas these newer ones were just a brain basically.

He led us to one of their newly made conversion chambers, when I found a computer. The Cybermen stomped on in, I used the sonic screwdriver to connect to... this weird Bluetooth signal that they gave out for some reason… I was confused by this too. But it got them all hooked onto this computer, just press the delete key and boom! Well, not boom, they fell to the ground dead. As we left the base in a similar state to when we got there, full of corpses, we came across one standing alone… an older Cyberleader. I decided to go back to the TARDIS, didn’t have energy to reach it, but Jack ran after it and Flora, the Professor and… the Master followed. This I had to see. 

I asked Jerri to carry me over there and he did while Lewis and Sera followed. Jack did most of the fighting, Flora was able to give punching advice (which is weird because she’s not strong, she just knows strategies I guess… I wonder if my Tardis has a gym), the Professor basically just cheered him on, and the Master… just went on this amazingly angry rant towards the Cyberleader, barely comprehensible but very enthralling. Eventually Jack punched the Cyberleader’s head and sparks flew as it exploded. The group returned to me. I asked Jack and his companion whether they wanted a lift off the planet and he gave me the direction to Starfleet HQ so I dropped them off there. I didn’t offer the same to the Master though, that git has his own Tardis.

“So then.” I said. “Where next?”.

And thus ends season 1, once again thank you for joining me on this journey from thinking playing a singleplayer Doctor Who rpg wouldn’t create exciting stories to me still not thinking that but trying anyway. When I started this I barely envisioned finishing Season 1, but here we are. So, I guess I’ll take a break from releasing these, but what comes next?

Maybe more variant rules, maybe more willingness to let the characters die, maybe more Doctors, I don’t know. Goodbye.