Another Ark in Space

As you can see from the excerpt above, there's this giant spaceship called Hope and it is an ark carrying the remains of humanity, both cultural artifacts and literal remains in the form of DNA samples. It's trying to go home again, essentially, with a course set for Earth which they hope is habitable once again so that the extinct human race can be resurrected. Six androids run the ship and are responsible for getting it to its destination.

However, for years they've been plagued by a group of mutants simply called the Others. The Hope's automated defense systems have been successful in repelling the Others' attacks until now. A small group of them manage to penetrate the ship's hull and gain entrance. They attempt to get to the DNA samples but are killed by three of the androids - a.k.a. - Guardians - who also die in the defense of the ship.

With such a close call, the remaining Guardians decide to kill any other intruders on sight and to destroy the Hope rather than have their precious cargo fall into the wrong hands. Enter the TARDIS.

The Doctor wanders out on his own but Jamie and Zoe can see on the scanner that 2 of the Guardians are on their way to intercept him. In a bit of levity, Brake notes that the TARDIS has "a near-magical ability to amend the scanner’s view to show the occupants exactly what they wanted to see." Seeing the Doctor about to encounter some peril, they spring into action, the upshot of which is that the 2 androids are destroyed and this triggers the auto-destruct sequence. The remaining Guardian is amenable to the Doctor's entreaties and our time traveling hero manages to put the auto-destruct countdown on hold.

However, it wasn't completely disabled and so the ship's automatic defense systems are not working as they're still laboring under the theory they're not needed as the ship is going to explode soon so why bother. As the Doctor does an autopsy on the remains of one of the Others and finds out that they're mutated humans, the indefatigable foes realize their opponents are defenseless and spring into action.

With the Others set to breach the hull again at any moment, the remaining Guardian insists that the Hope be scuttled. But it gives the Doctor a piece of art so that something of the human race survives. It's a picture of a man and a woman called "The Faces of Humanity". The Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe depart and the Hope self-destructs.

This story is one that I think would benefit from being a fully-fledged novel. It's a fine short story with a premise that casts a pall over things. Humanity exists only in packing crates and then our heroes' intervention does more harm than good. The Others remain enigmatic and I thought of them as being like Reavers from Firefly. Now, what did they want the DNA for?

I felt it was really neat to have them be descendants of humanity. A novel could have explored human nature using the Others as representative of our base animal instincts while the ark and its contents could stand in for the better, less warlike aspects of our nature.

There is perhaps a hint of this dichotomy on display when the author, Colin Brake, references 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Doctor is running around the TARDIS console hitting buttons and activating switches in a manner "like a prehistoric chimp confronted with a big black alien obelisk". Brake hints at a comparison between our primitive ancestors and a species that can create big spaceships.

Random thought: The Hope has at least one dome and this brought the ships from Silent Running to mind.

I enjoyed the rather solemn tone as it was so different from most Doctor Who stories. It wasn't a simple good vs. evil setup with good proving triumphant. Just as the Guardians misunderstood the intentions of the TARDIS crew, might the Others also have less than malicious motivations? Some real food for thought in this story that would benefit with some more breathing space.

As he wanders outside the TARDIS, we are told "the Doctor’s face was once again both grave and dark" and this is an apt take on the tone here. A nice departure.