Dominion (Doctor Who)

Doctor Who book
Dominion
Series	Eighth Doctor Adventures
Release number	22
Featuring	Eighth Doctor Sam and Fitz
Writer	Nick Walters
Publisher	BBC Books
ISBN	ISBN 0-563-55574-2
Release date	May 1999
Preceded by	Revolution Man
Followed by	Unnatural History

Dominion is an original novel written by Nick Walters and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Eighth Doctor, Sam and Fitz.

As with all Doctor Who spin-off media, its relationship to the televised serials is open to interpretation.

Synopsis Book 1

The story begins with a girl named Kerstin and her boyfriend Johan swimming in a lake near a cabin in Sweden. Later than night, Kerstin, unalble to sleep, goes to get some food from the fridge. While there, an immense bolt of lightning strikes the ground, knocking her over. When she wakes up, she finds the whole front of the cabin gone, including Johan. There is a huge crater in the earth where the beds should be. After finding no reasonable explanation, Kerstin realises that she may have lost Johan forever. After getting dressed, Kerstin goes to a nearby farm.

The owner of the farm, Björn Andersson wakes up at three in the morning. He remembers that he fell into a drunken rage about putting off fixing the farm's power generator. As he walks down to the pen, he hears the pigs screaming. Hurrying back to the house, Björn grabs his shotgun and hurries back to the pen. He walks to the pen where the screaming is coming from, and finds that there is blood everywhere. There were 12 piglets and a sow in the pen. A strange creature lunges at Björn. It has sinewy, reptilian legs with cactus-like spines and gleaning white teeth. Björn manages to kill it with the shotgun, before passing out.

Inside the TARDIS, Fitz starts walking towards Sam's room. Sam is still feeling angry at him after the events of the Revolution Man. After knocking at her door, Fitz hears a strange sound like a bell underwater (Presumably the cloister bell). After hearing Sam scream, Fitz barges down the door and sees Sam falling into a whirlpool of light. After it seals, the area which it occupied is replaced with grey static, and the walls start warbling like wet cardboard. Fitz hurries back to the console room, where the Doctor is busy operating controls. The Doctor explains that the TARDIS is being attacked by something. He initiates the emergency landing just as everything in the room turns into a 'porridgey' substance. The Doctor asks what happened to Sam, but Fitz falls into the porridge. The Doctor and Fitz only just manage to escape the TARDIS.

The TARDIS materialises in a forest, and the Doctor and Fitz are spat out. Fitz explains to the Doctor what happened to Sam and the Doctor says that the TARDIS will need time to heal itself. The Doctor thinks that a vortex infarction or time scoop may have captured Sam, but none of those things should be able to enter the TARDIS, and he admits that he doesn't know what happened to her. After the Doctor concludes that they are on Earth in the late 20th Century, they set off to find civilization, but they encounter a strange alien insect in the forest, which crashes into a tree and dies. Fitz wonders if this is really Earth, but the Doctor says that this creature shouldn't be here. Eventually, they find a farm. As they head toward it, the Doctor realises that they are in Sweden from the architecture.

Kerstin wakes up in a bed on Björn's farm at midday. After telephoning the police about Johan's disappearance the night before, Kerstin calls again. Inspector Nordenstam tells her that there's been no sight of him, but also lets out a secret that 5 other people have disappeared within a five mile radius of the forest. She hears Björn groaning, and goes to investigate. Björn has a deep gash in his leg and has been applying ointment and painkillers. When Kerstin asks what happened, Björn says that he's not entirely sure he wants to tell her. After Kerstin tells Björn what happened to Johan, Björn shows her the creature that was in the pig pen last night. Björn refuses to show it to the police, because all of the media attention would ruin his privacy. Then Kerstin suggests that she phones the police on her own and say that she found it miles away, in the forest. After a while, Björn helps her carry it away in a truck.

Meanwhile, the Doctor and Fitz are still walking towards the farm. Suddenly, the ground beneath Fitz gives way, and he falls into a hole. The Doctor goes to get a ladder. After The Doctor drops the ladder down, he leans over too far and falls into the pit, too. But the ladder remains perched on the side of the pit. After climbing out of the hole, the Doctor and Fitz return to the farm so they can return the ladder. deciding to travel to the next town, they catch the bus to Strägnäs, and Fitz realises that the date is the 31st of July, 1999 from a newspaper. The Doctor says that everything that has happened may have been part of some kind of plan that they've got involved in. In town, Fitz sees Sam across the street. After chasing after her, Fitz and the Doctor are captured by the police. But the Doctor realises that the police are the most likely people to know about strange occurrences in the region.

Nordenstam receives word of the Doctor and Fitz from Officer Hansson, who claims that their friend has gone missing. Nordenstam goes to meet the Doctor and Fitz. The Doctor asks him if the blonde-hair woman that Fitz saw earlier was Sam, but Nordenstam denies it. The three of them go into an interview room. Nordenstam describes the other six missing people. The Doctor says that he is the scientific advisor of UNIT, and Fitz is his assistant, but Nordenstam has never heard of UNIT. The Doctor says that they've been trying to keep quiet about their investigating the disappearances, but they decided to reveal themselves. He tells Nordenstam that Sam is a UNIT operative, investigating UFO activity in the area, but vanished. The Doctor shows Nordenstam his UNIT ID, but it has the third Doctor's face on it. Nordenstam tells Hansson to fax the UN to confirm UNIT's existence. The Doctor concludes that the human race is in danger, just as Hansson returns, confirming the Doctor's story. When Nordenstam asks the Doctor to explain the photograph, the Doctor loses his temper. Trying to get the Doctor and Fitz to confess about being impostors, Nordenstam shows them photos of the disappearances. The Doctor says that something is taking chunks out of reality. Nordenstam finally accepts the Doctor's story, and goes to show them the dead alien that Kerstin turned in earlier. The Doctor then concludes that the boundary between this dimension and other one is deliberately being broken down. The TARDIS was attacked because the Doctor was the only person who had a chance of stopping the alien invasion. Nordenstam takes the Doctor to where the body was found.

Returning to the farm, Fitz wonders if the Doctor has found the TARDIS. The Doctor walks into the pig pen, which Björn is hosing down. When Björn asks the Doctor what he wants, the Doctor replies that he wants Sam back. Fitz and Nordenstam drive to another reported crime scene, where another strange alien has been killed. When Nordenstam asks Fitz what it is, Fitz has to examine it to come to any sort of conclusion. A white van pulls up, and some soldiers in white suits emerge. Nordenstam has an argument with them in Swedish, and Fitz tries to settle the matter. The people in white suits identify themselves as the State Biohazard Protection Unit, and tell the police to leave the area. As they leave, someone stumbles in front of the police van. Nordenstam identifies the person as one of the six missing people. The person is Johan.

At the hospital, Nordenstam approaches with Dr Lindgard, who says that Johan's sedatives will wear off in a couple of hours. The Doctor and Fitz arrive at the hospital, and Dr Lindgard tells the Doctor that Johan is stable. The Doctor wants to examine Johan, but Lindgard refuses. The Doctor barges into the isolation ward anyway. After examining Johan, the Doctor pulls Fitz aside and says that he's going to go back and check on the TARDIS, and that Fitz should stay here with Kerstin who is visiting Johan. The Doctor and Nordenstam go back to the forest, and Nordenstam gives Fitz his mobile phone so Fitz can call him if anything happens. Kerstin asks Fitz if he knows what happened to Johan and about the thing in the barn, but Fitz cannot give her an answer.

The Doctor returns to the forest, but he can't sense the TARDIS at all, due to the telepathic circuits being broken. The Doctor has taken a sample of Johan's blood using a tiny cybernetic mosquito, and has found strands of alien bacteria. Eventually, he finds the TARDIS, but now it has turned into a grey block. The TARDIS has diverted all of its power to healing itself, even destroying the outer plasmic shell. The Doctor can't find the entrance, and returns to the hospital. He explains to Fitz what happened to the TARDIS and says that if the telepathic circuits are disconnected for too long, the TARDIS will die. Fitz explains the alien creature in the forest to the Doctor, who thinks that it's probably come from a planet with low gravity.

The Doctor and Fitz enter the hospital and visit Kerstin, who's watching Johan. Fitz realises that Johan's head is moving and tells the Doctor. The Doctor, Fitz and Kerstin quickly hurry over to Johan, who starts thrashing and screaming, and Lindgard comes into the room. The Doctor sends Johan to sleep with a hypnotic trance. Johan starts sweating violently, and Lindgard administers more sedatives. Then Johan begins to sweat blood. A huge purple lump forms on his chest. It explodes into clear fluid, and one of the aliens from the forest climbs out of Johan's stomach. The Doctor, Fitz, Kerstin and Lindgard all back out of the room and slam the door shut. More aliens burst out of Johan's body. The Doctor realises that alien eggs have been planted in Johan's stomach. Lindgard goes to begin evacuations. The Doctor tells Fitz to get Kerstin back to the farm, then goes to get a look at the aliens. Fitz realises that the same thing could be happening to Sam. Fitz takes Kerstin to the reception area, where the nurses tend to her. Nordenstam arrives, but when Fitz goes to show him Johan's body, he finds that it's disappeared. Fitz thinks that the State Biohazard Detection Unit may have taken his body, along with the creatures. The Doctor thinks that the members of the organization might not even be human after Nordenstam confirms that there is no such organization.

The Doctor, Fitz and Kerstin return to Björn's house. The Doctor proposes breaking into the hospital in the middle of the night to find Johan's body, but Björn hears something outside. One of the alien monsters smashes its head against a window. The Doctor decides to barricade themselves in, and Fitz tells Kerstin to go back to her room. The Doctor finds Björn's shotgun, but can't use it. Björn shoves the fridge into the doorway to block the entrance to the kitchen, where they're hiding. One of the creatures bursts into the window, but Fitz shoots it with the shotgun. Hundreds more aliens crowd the back door. Fitz shoots the alien trying to get through the door that's blocked by the fridge, and they run up the stairs and head for Kerstin's room. The Doctor notices that Björn is missing.

At the bottom of the stairs, Björn gets torn apart by the aliens. The Doctor realises that he needs the TARDIS to make accurate judgements. They make it up to Kerstin's room. Fitz tries to call Nordenstam, but the mobile phone's battery runs out. The State Biohazard Detection Unit arrive, and use a flamethrower to kill the aliens. The aliens outside the bedroom stop scrabbling at the door. As The Doctor steps outside, he finds them all dead on the floor for no reason. The Doctor, Fitz and Kerstin are approached by two members of the unit, and one of them turns out to be Lindgard. He tranquilises The Doctor, but Fitz and Kerstin manage to escape into the forest.

Synopsis Book 2

Sam wakes up in a strange low-gravity dimension, with a sky that looks like a sea, and finds her things from the TARDIS room scattered everywhere. She also notices a strange black disturbance in the sky, which looks like a hole. She finds a tunnel and starts to follow it.

Fitz and Kerstin keep running through the forest until they get tired. Kerstin asks Fitz who he really is, and is shocked when he tells her. Some members of the State Biohazard Detection Unit walk past them, and Fitz and Kerstin follow them.

The Doctor wakes up in a strange, gaudy-coloured room and starts examining it.

Sam finds two strange, frog-like creatures playing in an ocean at the end of the tunnel. She accidentally catches their attention, but then they start playing with her. Eventually, they leave, and Sam follows them to find two adult aliens. The adults take Sam towards a strange, flying, leaf-like vehicle. It starts flying towards one of the sky-seas.

Synopsis Incomplete

External links

• Dominion at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Cloister Library - Dominion
• Dominion at The TARDIS Library
• Dominion publication history at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

Reviews

• Dominion reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• Dominion reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• The Whoniverse's review on Dominion