The Trial of the Archics

[badwolf]

Just FYI: I am not actually going to write this (most likely), but it would be SUPER COOL if someone else did. What follows is my treatment/summary for a large, expansive story arc made up of several serials set between The Horns of Nimon and The Leisure Hive, starring the Fourth Doctor and Romana II.



Doctor Who and the Trial of the Archics


Serial One: The Kings of Time


Part One: The Fourth Doctor is summoned to Gallifrey to visit an old friend, Dergontyrando, who has apparently gone mad. The rambling Time Lord speaks of whole periods of time vanishing from rivers, and lakes full of centuries that shouldn’t exist. What could this all mean? Could Dergontyrando really be crazy? The Doctor isn’t convinced, and is determined to find the meaning of these cryptic messages.

Part Two: The Doctor has discovered that Dergontyrando has been sensing tears in the very fabric of time, but before he can act, the unthinkable happens: Daleks invade Gallifrey, and the Doctor is badly injured in the crossfire! Now it’s up to Romana and K-9 to find the Doctor and, as trillions of Daleks swarm Gallifrey, they must escape and regroup as events give birth to a Time War!

Part Three: The Doctor and Romana are overcome with grief at the loss of their homeworld, but they have no time to mourn its passing. The Daleks have defeated their strongest foes, and they see no reason to stop their rampage. The Doctor and his companions, now refugees from the almighty Dalek Empire, flee to Girix Nine, a world inhabited by exiled Time Lords, lorded over by a set of 13 Time Lords calling themselves the “Kings of Time”.

Part Four: The Kings of Time have revealed to the Doctor that they have amassed a huge army in the millennia spent on Girix Nine; one powerful enough to possibly take back Gallifrey. The Doctor has no choice but to accept their help, but he doesn’t trust the Kings. Indeed, once the battle is won, and the Daleks routed, the Kings of Time double-cross the Doctor!

Part Five: The Doctor, Romana, and K-9 manage to escape the Kings of Time with the aid of a Time Lady who insists she knows the Doctor, but the Doctor insists he has never met her. Things get more complicated when the woman reveals her identity: she is ALSO Romana!

Serial Two: A History of Maybe

Part One: Romana stares in awe as she inspects her “twin”. The other Romana, identifying herself as The Magician, then breaks the silence by recounting the tale of her origins in another timeline on a planet designated Gallifrey Prime, and how events in the Doctor’s Timeline may give birth to a terrible catastrophe.

Part Two: The Magician continues her oral history of Gallifrey Prime, detailing her adolescent years, her first work in the Great Library of Nohx, and the beginning of the end for her Homeworld by an unbeatable foe.

Part Three: The Doctor and his companions listen in horror as their accomplice details the nature of her Gallifrey’s end at the hands of the Archics, but the future becomes far more terrifying than any past when the Doctor realizes that the disturbances caused by the Kings of Time are bringing the Archics to HIS universe.

Serial Three: Fire of the Archics

Part One: The Doctor and his companions, having discovered that the tears in time Dergontyrando felt in the past are being caused by the rampant acts of the Kings of Time in the present, and these tears are bringing the destructive Archics, a race of inter-universal lawmen, to this universe! Knowing what lies ahead if events play out, they attempt to dissuade the Kings of Time from continuing any further down their current path before it becomes too late.

Part Two: Having been unsuccessful in averting the arrival of the Archics, the Doctor bears witness to the wrath of the mighty beings as they set fire to Gallifrey, and announce their intention to follow up with the destruction of rest of the universe!

Part Three: Desperate to save as many lives as possible, the Doctor locates and confronts a “Speaker of the Law”, a being the Archics speak through. With the Doctor pleading for mercy for the innocent, the Speaker halts the destruction, but for how long?

Serial Four: A Universe on Trial

Part One: The Doctor argues with the Archics that the Universe deserves the chance to defend its right to exist. The Archics agree to this, and declare the Doctor as the one to speak for the entire universe. Complications arise when the Doctor realizes he must also speak for the Daleks in addition to all other species, or the trial will not happen.

Part Two: Having accepted the Daleks as a necessary evil to preserve the universe, the Doctor realizes that the trial is due to begin, but he has no evidence! The Doctor pleads for time to collect evidence of the goodness of the Universe, in the form of witnesses and testimonies pulled from throughout Time and Space. The Archics agree to grant him a period of one year to gather his evidence.

Part Three: The Doctor, Romana, and K-9 bid a farewell to the Magician, who is venturing on her own journey to gather evidence in defense of the Universe, and travel to Europe in the early 20th century to locate their first piece of evidence. Their goal: a German Border Patrolman who will put his career on the line to save a Jewish Family from the Nazi Authorities.

Part Four: The Doctor and his companions next travel to the planet Skaro, 200 years before the Daleks evolved, searching for a Thal soldier who is destined to die to save his Kaled lover. But as the Doctor does his best to gather his evidence, can Romana resist changing history with a single selfish act?

Part Five: The Doctor scolds Romana in the TARDIS for almost ruining everything, leaving her somewhat depressed. Urging her to look past her potential failure, the Doctor steers the TARDIS to 1895 New York City, where they encounter a past incarnation of the Magician attempting to stop a surviving War Lord from consuming the city in criminal violence.

Part Six: The Doctor, almost ready to leave New York City without the evidence he came for, saves a teenage boy from being hit by a carriage. When the fabric of time begins to unravel around him, the Doctor realizes that he had inadvertently prevented an as-yet invisible fixed point in history from being able to form. The Doctor must race against logic and the Laws of Time to prevent himself from saving the boy, and allowing someone he desperately wants to save to die instead for the good of the future.

Part Seven: On board the Tardis, the Doctor allows a brief moment to mourn for the boy, and sets out for his next piece of evidence. The Tardis lands on Jaconda, where the Doctor encounters a face from his past, the Time Lord Azmael. Upon seeing his old friend, the Doctor is informed that something dark is stirring under the surface of Jaconda. The Doctor, Romana, and Azmael must put an end to an ancient evil, and save the people Azmael has sworn to protect.

Part Eight: Still hung over from a night of heavy drinking with Azmael, the Doctor accidentally crashes the Tardis into a large asteroid in the Sol System’s asteroid belt, where he finds a single Cyberman, lost and alone, struggling with his resurfacing humanity.

Part Nine: The Doctor’s time to gather evidence is running out, and an encounter with a Speaker reminds him of this fact. Desperate for one last piece of evidence, the Doctor searches for something, anything that might help him prove his case. The evidence comes in a rather unusual form: a robot dog named K-9.

Part Ten: The Doctor’s allotted time has run out, and the trial resumes. The Prosecution replays a brief montage of the Doctor’s collected evidence for the court, and the Speaker known as The Honor who presides over the trial tells the Doctor to call his first witness: Romana.

Part Eleven: Romana’s testimony fails to singularly move The Honor, who insists that the Doctor call his next witness. The Doctor takes the ultimate risk by calling himself to take the stand.

Part Twelve: The Doctor continues to be hammered by questions and accusations by the Prosecution, but suddenly the Trial stops, and the Doctor finds himself alone in the courtroom, with a single being made entirely of light. The Being identifies itself as The Archic, the being behind the Speakers and the Trial. The Archic engages the Doctor in a debate of philosophy, the value of compassion, and scenarios that challenge the Doctor’s sense of morality. Finally, the Archic tells the Doctor that it is willing to spare the entire universe… should the Doctor be willing to offer himself up for execution!

Part Thirteen: The Doctor is ready and willing to die to save everything, even his mortal enemies, the Daleks. Romana weeps as the Doctor is seemingly disintegrated by the prosecution, who delivers the verdict of "Not Guilty" to the Universe due to the Doctor's single selfless act. As Romana heads back to the Tardis with K-9, she wonders to herself what life will be like without the Doctor, and ponders her own future. Upon arriving at the Tardis, she discovers the Doctor, alive and well, as if the previous year's events had never happened. Romana questions the Doctor, who tells of his final conversation with the Archic.