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ptahrrific) wrote2008-08-07 12:32 am
ptahrrific) wrote2008-08-07 12:32 am
Entry tags:
Fake News/Doctor Who: First Meetings, part 2
Title: Truthiness And Relative Dimensions In Space: First Meetings (2/2)
Rating: PG
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything through New Who S3 is fair game.
Summary: Stephen Colbert catches a lift with Four'n'Sarah Jane . . . and, in his younger days, Ten'n'Jack. Can Four cope with the older Stephen acting like an old hand at time travel? Can Ten avoid saying anything to the younger Stephen that will cause a paradox? And can the rest of space and time handle the truthiness?
This one's illustrated!
Table of contents, and footnotes, here.
First Meetings
Part Two
Earth: 1981.
"Why am I the one doing all the work here?" teased Captain Jack Harkness, a sack of peaches slung over his shoulder.
"Aw, don't complain," replied the Doctor around a mouthful of fruit. (He'd been unable to resist having one. Just one.) "Wait'll you've had TARDIS peach cobbler. It's worth it."
"I'm not complaining, I'm just saying—hey, did you leave the door open?"
The Doctor swallowed the peach and licked his lips. "No."
"But you didn't lock it," observed Jack. He eyed the blue police box as it sat nonchalantly in the middle of a South Carolina orchard, a sliver of its orange interior visible through the open door.
"Weeeeell . . . no."
With a staccato nod, Jack set down the peaches and moved silently towards the opening.
"Oh, come off it, Jack. Bet you it's just a squirrel," said the Doctor brightly, clapping his companion on the shoulder before striding through the door. "It's probably more scared of you than you are of—"
"Hi!"
"Whoa!" exclaimed the Doctor, jumping backwards.
"Welcome to Earth!" cried the teenage boy in the TARDIS console room, running down the stairs to greet them. "I was just looking at your ship! It's so cool! It's bigger on the inside! How do you do that?"
"Some squirrel," quipped Jack.
"I'm not a squirrel! There must be some mix-up in your computers. Squirrels are the little brown furry things with the big tails that run around in trees. I'm a human!"
"Yes, yes, we know what you are," snapped the Doctor—more testily, Jack thought, than he needed to. "Who are you and what are you doing in my TARDIS?"
"Is that your word for spaceship? TARDIS?"
"No, our word for spaceship is spaceship. Will you just listen—"
"How does it fly? Rocket fuel? We've sent some rockets into space. Humans, I mean. The government says we landed one on the moon, the year before I was born, but my dad says it was all faked. Can you share your technology with us, or is it a Star Trek thing where you're not allowed? Or—you're not going to invade, are you? Because if you are, let me be the first to say I accept the dominion of our alien overlords . . . ."
The Doctor looked plaintively at Jack. "I'm just not getting through to him, am I?"
"Let me try." Clearing his throat, Jack stepped forward, proffered his hand, and flashed his most winning smile. "Hi."
The boy stuttered to a stop and held out his own hand, allowing it to be shaken. "H-hi."
"I'm Captain Jack Harkness. And you are?"
"Stephen," said the kid, beginning to blush. (Oh, yeah. Jack was good.) "Stephen Col-bert."
The name set off a twinge of familiarity in the back of Jack's mind, but he couldn't place it without context. He glanced at the Doctor, hoping for some kind of hint, but the Time Lord was glowering testily at nothing in particular. No help there.
Oh well. If this kid was famous for something, it probably hadn't happened yet as far as he was concerned. "Thing is, Stephen, we aren't here for anything big or impressive. We're just a couple of travelers who stopped in to pick up some of your peaches. I hope you don't mind."
"No! Not at all! You can eat my peaches any time you want!"
"Great!" interrupted the Doctor, carrying the bag past them. "Well, we've got everything we came for, so we'd better be off! Jack, show the gentleman to the door, please."
"You heard the man," said Jack, putting an arm around Stephen's shoulders and steering him in the right direction. "It's been lovely to meet you, but we need to get going."
They were almost at the door when Stephen pulled out of his grip. "Wait!" he said breathlessly. "Can—can I come with you?"
⇔
The Vortex.
The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Stephen Colbert is 44. Sarah Jane Smith is 29.
"So you see," concluded Sarah Jane, "even though he's a different person, he's still the Doctor."
"I don't believe it." Stephen crossed his arms defiantly. He had some experience with completely altering his identity, but this sounded much more complicated (and less plausible) than growing a mustache and shelling out $20 for a fake ID. "If you're the Doctor, what was the last thing you said to me?"
"I don't know," replied the Doctor distractedly, running around the console to press a series of buttons and leaning back to keep an eye on a screen. "For me, it hasn't happened yet."
"But you were younger then. You're older now."
"Oh, that's just how regeneration works," chimed in Sarah Jane. "He looked even older before this. White hair and everything."
"So he's getting younger as time moves forward? Is this another time travel thing?"
"Nonsense," said the Time Lord. "I'm getting older in regular time. I just don't look it. But the reason I don't remember you is a 'time-travel thing.' A past version of you met a future version of me. So I don't remember you because I haven't met you yet, even though you've met me; and the next time I meet you, you won't remember me, because you won't have met me even though I've met you. Did you follow all that?"
"Don't patronize me, sir," snapped Stephen, scowling to cover the fact that he hadn't followed it at all.
"Excellent! Then you know why I'm going to take you back now."
"Yes—wait! What? No!"
"Oh yes!" The Doctor paused to shoot Stephen a disconcertingly broad grin before going back to the console. "Wouldn't want you to be missed back home, now would we?"
"I suppose not. The Nation would be devastated if . . . wait." Struck by a sudden flash of insight, Stephen shook his head to clear his mind's eye of the unfamiliar afterimages. "You're a time traveler! You can drop me back in my hotel room five minutes after I left, and no one will ever know!"
"Well, you're not a complete idiot," observed the Doctor dryly.
"Oh, let him stay around for a bit, Doctor," urged Sarah Jane. "He seems nice enough."
"Yeah, what she said," echoed Stephen. "I'm nice! And you let me stay last time, whether you remember it or not!"
"I did? And you didn't destroy the TARDIS by the end of it?"
"Are you kidding? I'm surprised it hasn't fallen apart by itself, what with all the explosions that happen while you're tinkering with it."
"Well, that settles it," said Sarah Jane. "That was you he met, all right."
⇔
Earth: 1981.
Jack looked from Stephen to the Doctor. "What do you think? Could he tag along for a while?"
"Please?" added Stephen.
"Oh, no," said the Doctor. "No no no no no no no no no."
"But . . . !" The enthusiasm seemed to have drained from the boy, leaving him suddenly vulnerable. "But you can't just leave me here! Not now that I know there's more out there! You can't dump me back with my horrible school and my crazy family! I'll be good, I promise, I'll do anything you say, just please, please, please, don't leave me behind!"
"Doesn't matter how good you are," said the Doctor tiredly. "Space and time is no place for someone your age to go gallivanting about."
"I'm seventeen! I can take care of myself!"
Jack put a hand on Stephen's shoulder to calm him, then addressed the Doctor. "Only two years younger than Rose."
This was answered with silence.
"Let me talk to him a minute," said Jack, giving the boy's shoulder a quick squeeze before striding over to the Doctor and the peaches. The Doctor turned with Jack so that both were facing away from the guest, but didn't say a word.
"C'mon, Doctor, what gives?" murmured Jack, low enough that Stephen wouldn't hear. "He's just a lonely kid who could use a little adventure. Is there any reason not to take him?"
"Oh, no," replied the Doctor in a hushed voice, brow furrowed and eyes wide in that way he had when his brain was about eight steps ahead of the conversation at hand. "Just the opposite. I have to take him."
He flicked his eyes towards Jack as if noticing the man's presence for the first time. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it."
⇔
The Vortex.
"Out of curiosity," said the Doctor as he wrenched a lever, sending the console room tilting precariously to the right, "what was the last thing I said to you?"
Stephen, occupied with swinging his arms in a frantic attempt to stay upright, didn't answer right away. After he had crashed into the wall, in what he thought was a very dignified matter under the circumstances, he replied: "Um . . . well, you said I was the best companion you had ever had, and that next time I saw you I should say you said to take me wherever I wanted to go."
"Did I really? That doesn't sound like me."
"Yes," said Stephen firmly. "You really did. Really."
Sarah Jane rolled her eyes. Stephen arched his eyebrows threateningly at her, and she looked away, clearly discouraged by his intimidating presence.
Fortunately, the Doctor was too busy frowning at a readout to watch them. "I suppose I can let you pick one destination. Where to? There's a lovely nova going on near the Crab Nebula just a few thousand years ago. Jiangyin is nice if you catch it after the revolution—or before, but only if you happen to like cows. Oh, if you're hungry, we could drop by Milliways. The food's nothing special but the floor show is absolutely spectacular . . . ."
"Can we go to Pinewood Studios? In April 1964?"
Now the Doctor did look at Stephen, if only to make sure that he had heard right. "Pinewood Studios? The one in Buckinghamshire?"
"That's the one!"
"If you're sure," said the Doctor dubiously, twisting a knob before dashing around the console again. "Why, what's going on there?"
Stephen couldn't hold back his giddy grin. "They've just started filming Goldfinger."
⇔
Earth: 1981.
Stephen Col-bert is 17. Stephen Colbert is 44.
Finds-most-nuts was having a harrowing day.
There was nothing unusual about the human pup in her orchard. They tended to throw sticks, but by this point Finds-most-nuts knew how to avoid them.
But then a big loud blue thing had appeared out of nowhere, and out had come a human adult and something that looked human but smelled very funny. Finds-most-nuts had kept a careful eye on them. Eventually they went back into the blue thing, along with the human pup, and vanished without a trace.
No sooner had Finds-most-nuts breathed a sigh of relief, though, than another loud blue thing appeared, and out came a creature whose smell was entirely baffling: like the human pup but adult, with a heavy sheen of stress and the faintest whiffs of scents funnier than any Finds-most-nuts could have dreamed of.
After taking some fruit from her trees, he went back into the blue thing, and it vanished, also leaving no tracks.
No more alarming blue things appeared after that.
Finds-most-nuts held very still for the next hour, just in case.
Rating: PG
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything through New Who S3 is fair game.
Summary: Stephen Colbert catches a lift with Four'n'Sarah Jane . . . and, in his younger days, Ten'n'Jack. Can Four cope with the older Stephen acting like an old hand at time travel? Can Ten avoid saying anything to the younger Stephen that will cause a paradox? And can the rest of space and time handle the truthiness?
This one's illustrated!
Table of contents, and footnotes, here.
First Meetings
Part Two
Earth: 1981.
"Why am I the one doing all the work here?" teased Captain Jack Harkness, a sack of peaches slung over his shoulder.
"Aw, don't complain," replied the Doctor around a mouthful of fruit. (He'd been unable to resist having one. Just one.) "Wait'll you've had TARDIS peach cobbler. It's worth it."
"I'm not complaining, I'm just saying—hey, did you leave the door open?"
The Doctor swallowed the peach and licked his lips. "No."
"But you didn't lock it," observed Jack. He eyed the blue police box as it sat nonchalantly in the middle of a South Carolina orchard, a sliver of its orange interior visible through the open door.
"Weeeeell . . . no."
With a staccato nod, Jack set down the peaches and moved silently towards the opening.
"Oh, come off it, Jack. Bet you it's just a squirrel," said the Doctor brightly, clapping his companion on the shoulder before striding through the door. "It's probably more scared of you than you are of—"
"Hi!"
"Whoa!" exclaimed the Doctor, jumping backwards.
"Welcome to Earth!" cried the teenage boy in the TARDIS console room, running down the stairs to greet them. "I was just looking at your ship! It's so cool! It's bigger on the inside! How do you do that?"
"Some squirrel," quipped Jack.
"I'm not a squirrel! There must be some mix-up in your computers. Squirrels are the little brown furry things with the big tails that run around in trees. I'm a human!"
"Yes, yes, we know what you are," snapped the Doctor—more testily, Jack thought, than he needed to. "Who are you and what are you doing in my TARDIS?"
"Is that your word for spaceship? TARDIS?"
"No, our word for spaceship is spaceship. Will you just listen—"
"How does it fly? Rocket fuel? We've sent some rockets into space. Humans, I mean. The government says we landed one on the moon, the year before I was born, but my dad says it was all faked. Can you share your technology with us, or is it a Star Trek thing where you're not allowed? Or—you're not going to invade, are you? Because if you are, let me be the first to say I accept the dominion of our alien overlords . . . ."
The Doctor looked plaintively at Jack. "I'm just not getting through to him, am I?"
"Let me try." Clearing his throat, Jack stepped forward, proffered his hand, and flashed his most winning smile. "Hi."
The boy stuttered to a stop and held out his own hand, allowing it to be shaken. "H-hi."
"I'm Captain Jack Harkness. And you are?"
"Stephen," said the kid, beginning to blush. (Oh, yeah. Jack was good.) "Stephen Col-bert."
The name set off a twinge of familiarity in the back of Jack's mind, but he couldn't place it without context. He glanced at the Doctor, hoping for some kind of hint, but the Time Lord was glowering testily at nothing in particular. No help there.
Oh well. If this kid was famous for something, it probably hadn't happened yet as far as he was concerned. "Thing is, Stephen, we aren't here for anything big or impressive. We're just a couple of travelers who stopped in to pick up some of your peaches. I hope you don't mind."
"No! Not at all! You can eat my peaches any time you want!"
"Great!" interrupted the Doctor, carrying the bag past them. "Well, we've got everything we came for, so we'd better be off! Jack, show the gentleman to the door, please."
"You heard the man," said Jack, putting an arm around Stephen's shoulders and steering him in the right direction. "It's been lovely to meet you, but we need to get going."
They were almost at the door when Stephen pulled out of his grip. "Wait!" he said breathlessly. "Can—can I come with you?"
The Vortex.
The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Stephen Colbert is 44. Sarah Jane Smith is 29.
"So you see," concluded Sarah Jane, "even though he's a different person, he's still the Doctor."
"I don't believe it." Stephen crossed his arms defiantly. He had some experience with completely altering his identity, but this sounded much more complicated (and less plausible) than growing a mustache and shelling out $20 for a fake ID. "If you're the Doctor, what was the last thing you said to me?"
"I don't know," replied the Doctor distractedly, running around the console to press a series of buttons and leaning back to keep an eye on a screen. "For me, it hasn't happened yet."
"But you were younger then. You're older now."
"Oh, that's just how regeneration works," chimed in Sarah Jane. "He looked even older before this. White hair and everything."
"So he's getting younger as time moves forward? Is this another time travel thing?"
"Nonsense," said the Time Lord. "I'm getting older in regular time. I just don't look it. But the reason I don't remember you is a 'time-travel thing.' A past version of you met a future version of me. So I don't remember you because I haven't met you yet, even though you've met me; and the next time I meet you, you won't remember me, because you won't have met me even though I've met you. Did you follow all that?"
"Don't patronize me, sir," snapped Stephen, scowling to cover the fact that he hadn't followed it at all.
"Excellent! Then you know why I'm going to take you back now."
"Yes—wait! What? No!"
"Oh yes!" The Doctor paused to shoot Stephen a disconcertingly broad grin before going back to the console. "Wouldn't want you to be missed back home, now would we?"
"I suppose not. The Nation would be devastated if . . . wait." Struck by a sudden flash of insight, Stephen shook his head to clear his mind's eye of the unfamiliar afterimages. "You're a time traveler! You can drop me back in my hotel room five minutes after I left, and no one will ever know!"
"Well, you're not a complete idiot," observed the Doctor dryly.
"Oh, let him stay around for a bit, Doctor," urged Sarah Jane. "He seems nice enough."
"Yeah, what she said," echoed Stephen. "I'm nice! And you let me stay last time, whether you remember it or not!"
"I did? And you didn't destroy the TARDIS by the end of it?"
"Are you kidding? I'm surprised it hasn't fallen apart by itself, what with all the explosions that happen while you're tinkering with it."
"Well, that settles it," said Sarah Jane. "That was you he met, all right."
Earth: 1981.
Jack looked from Stephen to the Doctor. "What do you think? Could he tag along for a while?"
"Please?" added Stephen.
"Oh, no," said the Doctor. "No no no no no no no no no."
"But . . . !" The enthusiasm seemed to have drained from the boy, leaving him suddenly vulnerable. "But you can't just leave me here! Not now that I know there's more out there! You can't dump me back with my horrible school and my crazy family! I'll be good, I promise, I'll do anything you say, just please, please, please, don't leave me behind!"
"Doesn't matter how good you are," said the Doctor tiredly. "Space and time is no place for someone your age to go gallivanting about."
"I'm seventeen! I can take care of myself!"
Jack put a hand on Stephen's shoulder to calm him, then addressed the Doctor. "Only two years younger than Rose."
This was answered with silence.
"Let me talk to him a minute," said Jack, giving the boy's shoulder a quick squeeze before striding over to the Doctor and the peaches. The Doctor turned with Jack so that both were facing away from the guest, but didn't say a word.
"C'mon, Doctor, what gives?" murmured Jack, low enough that Stephen wouldn't hear. "He's just a lonely kid who could use a little adventure. Is there any reason not to take him?"
"Oh, no," replied the Doctor in a hushed voice, brow furrowed and eyes wide in that way he had when his brain was about eight steps ahead of the conversation at hand. "Just the opposite. I have to take him."
He flicked his eyes towards Jack as if noticing the man's presence for the first time. "But that doesn't mean I have to like it."
The Vortex.
"Out of curiosity," said the Doctor as he wrenched a lever, sending the console room tilting precariously to the right, "what was the last thing I said to you?"
Stephen, occupied with swinging his arms in a frantic attempt to stay upright, didn't answer right away. After he had crashed into the wall, in what he thought was a very dignified matter under the circumstances, he replied: "Um . . . well, you said I was the best companion you had ever had, and that next time I saw you I should say you said to take me wherever I wanted to go."
"Did I really? That doesn't sound like me."
"Yes," said Stephen firmly. "You really did. Really."
Sarah Jane rolled her eyes. Stephen arched his eyebrows threateningly at her, and she looked away, clearly discouraged by his intimidating presence.
Fortunately, the Doctor was too busy frowning at a readout to watch them. "I suppose I can let you pick one destination. Where to? There's a lovely nova going on near the Crab Nebula just a few thousand years ago. Jiangyin is nice if you catch it after the revolution—or before, but only if you happen to like cows. Oh, if you're hungry, we could drop by Milliways. The food's nothing special but the floor show is absolutely spectacular . . . ."
"Can we go to Pinewood Studios? In April 1964?"
Now the Doctor did look at Stephen, if only to make sure that he had heard right. "Pinewood Studios? The one in Buckinghamshire?"
"That's the one!"
"If you're sure," said the Doctor dubiously, twisting a knob before dashing around the console again. "Why, what's going on there?"
Stephen couldn't hold back his giddy grin. "They've just started filming Goldfinger."
Earth: 1981.
Stephen Col-bert is 17. Stephen Colbert is 44.
Finds-most-nuts was having a harrowing day.
There was nothing unusual about the human pup in her orchard. They tended to throw sticks, but by this point Finds-most-nuts knew how to avoid them.
But then a big loud blue thing had appeared out of nowhere, and out had come a human adult and something that looked human but smelled very funny. Finds-most-nuts had kept a careful eye on them. Eventually they went back into the blue thing, along with the human pup, and vanished without a trace.
No sooner had Finds-most-nuts breathed a sigh of relief, though, than another loud blue thing appeared, and out came a creature whose smell was entirely baffling: like the human pup but adult, with a heavy sheen of stress and the faintest whiffs of scents funnier than any Finds-most-nuts could have dreamed of.
After taking some fruit from her trees, he went back into the blue thing, and it vanished, also leaving no tracks.
No more alarming blue things appeared after that.
Finds-most-nuts held very still for the next hour, just in case.
no subject
Yay Milliways shout-out!
no subject
So glad you approve!