Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2008-09-29 12:45 am
ptahrrific) wrote2008-09-29 12:45 am
Entry tags:
Fake News/Doctor Who: I'm Your Moon (1/9)
Title: Truthiness And Relative Dimensions In Space: I'm Your Moon (1/9)
Rating: PG
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything through New Who S3/Torchwood S2 is fair game.
Summary: In whisking Sarah Jane and adult Stephen away from Gallifrey, Four parks the TARDIS somewhere far more interesting. Elsewhen, Jack, Ten, and young Stephen have an absolutely filthy experience (but not the one you're thinking of).
The title is from the Jonathan Coulton song; major props to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
stellar_dust for introducing it to me.
Beta and Brit-picking by that samestellar_dust. Table of contents, and footnotes, here.
I'm Your Moon
Part One
The Vortex.
The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Sarah Jane Smith is 29. Stephen Colbert is 44.
"I don't understand why we couldn't have stayed on Gallifrey after dropping off the kid," complained Stephen, as the TARDIS rattled on its way through the Vortex. "You never took me there before. I was looking forward to getting the tour."
Though his objections were usually petty ones, this time Sarah Jane found herself agreeing. "He's not the only one, Doctor! You never talk about your home planet. We get curious."
"Oh, there are good reasons not to talk about it," the Doctor assured them in between yanking levers. "It's stuffy and boring and hidebound and altogether ridiculous. Nearly every other spot in the universe is more interesting than Gallifrey."
With a crash that knocked both humans to the floor, the TARDIS landed.
"This one, for instance!" the Doctor said brightly, ignoring the groans from his bruised and battered companions. "I bet you anything this place is interesting."
"Why?" asked Stephen. "Where is it?"
"Dunno. Let's see what the scanners say."
After the Doctor had hummed over the console for a minute or two, Sarah Jane spoke up. "What do they say?"
"We're on a small satellite planetoid, close to the year three million AD. Flat surface. Breathable atmosphere. No lifeforms detected."
"In other words, boring," summarized Stephen.
"Well, now, I wouldn't say that."
"I would."
"The scanners could always be broken," hedged the Doctor.
"Only one way to find out!" Stephen pushed open the front doors, letting a shaft of nondescript white light into the room, and strode through. "One small step for Colbert . . . ."
Before Sarah Jane or the Doctor could follow, there was a terrific rumbling that seemed to vibrate them down to the bones. The room shook worse than ever; the door swung wildly a few times before slamming shut.
"Wh-what did I tell you?" shouted the Doctor over the noise, his teeth rattling as he spoke. "Interesting!"
⇔
Higgins' Moon: 2556.
The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. Jack Harkness is old enough to know better.
Stephen felt absolutely filthy.
He hadn't imagined it was possible to get so thoroughly dirty, but after what he had been through on this planetoid, it was easy to imagine that he would never feel clean again. He hesitated to get back into the TARDIS, lest he defile it permanently.
And it seemed that Jack felt the same way.
"Honestly, Doctor," he griped, "why did we decide it was a good idea to visit a place whose primary export is mud?"
The Doctor shrugged, sending down a shower of dirt flakes from his suit and hair. "There was a temporal anomaly in the area. Someone had to take care of it. And don't knock the mudders! Mud mining is very important to the economy of this system."
Stephen just shuddered. If there was a worse job in the universe than mud miner, he hadn't thought of it yet.
"Is there a system where bathing is important to the economy?" asked Jack, looking dubiously down at the trail his boots were leaving. "I mean, I could use a pretty serious bath, but I don't want to ruin the halls traipsing through the TARDIS to get to one."
"Good point," said the Doctor. "Besides, I had to get rid of the really nice bath a few regenerations ago. Poor thing sprung a leak. Hm, how about sixteenth-century Budapest? Everyone talks about how the Romans elevated bathing to an art form, but for my money a good Turkish bath is hard to beat."
⇔
????: 2,999,404 AD
The rumbling subsided as quickly as it had begun.
"Better get Stephen back in here before that happens again," said the Doctor briskly, picking himself up. "Or at least, make sure there aren't falling rocks involved."
"I'm glad you have your priorities straight," replied Sarah Jane, who had just been thrown on her backside twice in a row and was loath to do it a third time.
"Always!" agreed the Doctor, throwing the door open and stepping out.
Immediately, as though picked up by an invisible hand, he was thrown back in and crashed to the floor.
"Doctor!" exclaimed Sarah Jane, running to his side.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," insisted the Doctor, waving her off and rubbing the back of his head. "Can't think what that was, though! Didn't feel like a lifeform, or an energy being, or any levitation field I've ever been in."
"What about antigravity?"
"There's a thought." The Doctor frowned, getting the distant expression he wore when having an internal debate that he presumed was light-years beyond Sarah Jane's comprehension. He was probably right, of course, but it was still a little irritating when all she got to hear was his conclusion: "Yes, it could certainly be antigravity."
"Though you did say the planet was uninhabited."
"So I did, so I did." He lapsed into that expression again.
This time Sarah Jane didn't wait for him to finish thinking. "I'll just go check for myself, shall I?" she said, and walked over to the doorway before he could answer.
She put her foot out into thin air.
Before she had time to react, her leg swung back in, as though it were on some kind of pendulum. A good thing, too, because every spare neuron in her brain was being pressed into service to make some kind of sense out of what she was seeing, leaving nothing to spare for keeping her from falling to her death.
"I have it!" exclaimed a voice from the floor. Looking down, Sarah Jane jumped: the Doctor had crawled over on his stomach and was peering over the threshold. "Come down here and see!"
When Sarah Jane had lowered herself to the same level and stuck her head out the door, she felt instantly dizzy. She closed her eyes, but the feeling persisted. "Doctor, please tell me what's going on."
"It's really very simple," the Doctor replied cheerfully. "We're in an artificially modified environment in which the force of gravity is in effect at an angle of ninety degrees to the dominant gravity source in the natural environment around it."
"What?"
"The TARDIS fell on its side. But the gravity in the console room hasn't changed, so 'down' inside this doorway is a different direction than 'down' outside of it."
Sarah Jane considered this for a moment, then cautiously opened her eyes. Sure enough, from this perspective she seemed to be in a perfectly ordinary box lying on a perfectly ordinary floor. Trouble was, as far as her head was concerned, her body ought to feel like it was hanging off the side of a cliff rather than lying flat on the ground.
No wonder she had gotten dizzy. You can't keep your sense of balance when the meaning of 'down' changes from one step to the next. "Isn't there some way to turn the TARDIS back upright?"
"We could always leave and come back. She'd materialize in the upright position automatically. But I don't want to chance missing the coordinates. Besides, it shouldn't be too hard to climb out of this. Just move forward with your lower body, and up with your upper body—and don't forget that they're the same direction."
"Well, when you put it like that, it seems obvious," Sarah Jane muttered.
It was an awkward business. She found herself lifting limbs in the wrong direction more than once, and slipped back into the console room several times. But the Doctor made it out first, and once he was safely outside he was able to give her a hand, until finally both of them had clambered out of the TARDIS and were standing beside it.
"I hope Stephen's had an easier time than we have," grumbled Sarah Jane as she brushed herself off.
"I rather think he has," said the Doctor, in a very odd voice.
Only then did Sarah Jane take a good long look around.
They were standing in some kind of long corridor, boasting high arched ceilings, which seemed to glow as though the sun were shining behind them, and cool white marble floors threaded with gold. The walls alternated between faintly Greco-Roman columns and lavish Renaissance-type tapestries, bursting with color and so huge that you had to step back to look at them properly.
But once you had done that, you could see that every single tapestry depicted Stephen Colbert.
The TARDIS lay calmly on its side next to a gigantic woven facsimile of Napoleon Crossing the Alps, modified to feature Stephen's face and rather more stars and stripes than had been in the original. Across from it was a massive image of Stephen against a blue sky, a bald eagle landing on his arm. Beside that was simply a close-up of Stephen's face, mouth a firm line, eyebrows arched high. On and on this went in both directions, with no indication that the hall changed its decor when at last it turned a corner.
"What is this?" breathed Sarah Jane, a little awed in spite of herself. "The Intergalactic Stephen Colbert Appreciation Museum?"
"Oh, I hope not," replied the Doctor. "He'd be so upset to find it deserted."
Rating: PG
Series: The Colbert Report, Doctor Who
Spoilers: Anything through New Who S3/Torchwood S2 is fair game.
Summary: In whisking Sarah Jane and adult Stephen away from Gallifrey, Four parks the TARDIS somewhere far more interesting. Elsewhen, Jack, Ten, and young Stephen have an absolutely filthy experience (but not the one you're thinking of).
The title is from the Jonathan Coulton song; major props to
stellar_dust for introducing it to me.Beta and Brit-picking by that same
stellar_dust. Table of contents, and footnotes, here.I'm Your Moon
Part One
The Vortex.
The Doctor is in his fourth incarnation. Sarah Jane Smith is 29. Stephen Colbert is 44.
"I don't understand why we couldn't have stayed on Gallifrey after dropping off the kid," complained Stephen, as the TARDIS rattled on its way through the Vortex. "You never took me there before. I was looking forward to getting the tour."
Though his objections were usually petty ones, this time Sarah Jane found herself agreeing. "He's not the only one, Doctor! You never talk about your home planet. We get curious."
"Oh, there are good reasons not to talk about it," the Doctor assured them in between yanking levers. "It's stuffy and boring and hidebound and altogether ridiculous. Nearly every other spot in the universe is more interesting than Gallifrey."
With a crash that knocked both humans to the floor, the TARDIS landed.
"This one, for instance!" the Doctor said brightly, ignoring the groans from his bruised and battered companions. "I bet you anything this place is interesting."
"Why?" asked Stephen. "Where is it?"
"Dunno. Let's see what the scanners say."
After the Doctor had hummed over the console for a minute or two, Sarah Jane spoke up. "What do they say?"
"We're on a small satellite planetoid, close to the year three million AD. Flat surface. Breathable atmosphere. No lifeforms detected."
"In other words, boring," summarized Stephen.
"Well, now, I wouldn't say that."
"I would."
"The scanners could always be broken," hedged the Doctor.
"Only one way to find out!" Stephen pushed open the front doors, letting a shaft of nondescript white light into the room, and strode through. "One small step for Colbert . . . ."
Before Sarah Jane or the Doctor could follow, there was a terrific rumbling that seemed to vibrate them down to the bones. The room shook worse than ever; the door swung wildly a few times before slamming shut.
"Wh-what did I tell you?" shouted the Doctor over the noise, his teeth rattling as he spoke. "Interesting!"
Higgins' Moon: 2556.
The Doctor is in his tenth incarnation. Stephen Col-bert is 17. Jack Harkness is old enough to know better.
Stephen felt absolutely filthy.
He hadn't imagined it was possible to get so thoroughly dirty, but after what he had been through on this planetoid, it was easy to imagine that he would never feel clean again. He hesitated to get back into the TARDIS, lest he defile it permanently.
And it seemed that Jack felt the same way.
"Honestly, Doctor," he griped, "why did we decide it was a good idea to visit a place whose primary export is mud?"
The Doctor shrugged, sending down a shower of dirt flakes from his suit and hair. "There was a temporal anomaly in the area. Someone had to take care of it. And don't knock the mudders! Mud mining is very important to the economy of this system."
Stephen just shuddered. If there was a worse job in the universe than mud miner, he hadn't thought of it yet.
"Is there a system where bathing is important to the economy?" asked Jack, looking dubiously down at the trail his boots were leaving. "I mean, I could use a pretty serious bath, but I don't want to ruin the halls traipsing through the TARDIS to get to one."
"Good point," said the Doctor. "Besides, I had to get rid of the really nice bath a few regenerations ago. Poor thing sprung a leak. Hm, how about sixteenth-century Budapest? Everyone talks about how the Romans elevated bathing to an art form, but for my money a good Turkish bath is hard to beat."
????: 2,999,404 AD
The rumbling subsided as quickly as it had begun.
"Better get Stephen back in here before that happens again," said the Doctor briskly, picking himself up. "Or at least, make sure there aren't falling rocks involved."
"I'm glad you have your priorities straight," replied Sarah Jane, who had just been thrown on her backside twice in a row and was loath to do it a third time.
"Always!" agreed the Doctor, throwing the door open and stepping out.
Immediately, as though picked up by an invisible hand, he was thrown back in and crashed to the floor.
"Doctor!" exclaimed Sarah Jane, running to his side.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," insisted the Doctor, waving her off and rubbing the back of his head. "Can't think what that was, though! Didn't feel like a lifeform, or an energy being, or any levitation field I've ever been in."
"What about antigravity?"
"There's a thought." The Doctor frowned, getting the distant expression he wore when having an internal debate that he presumed was light-years beyond Sarah Jane's comprehension. He was probably right, of course, but it was still a little irritating when all she got to hear was his conclusion: "Yes, it could certainly be antigravity."
"Though you did say the planet was uninhabited."
"So I did, so I did." He lapsed into that expression again.
This time Sarah Jane didn't wait for him to finish thinking. "I'll just go check for myself, shall I?" she said, and walked over to the doorway before he could answer.
She put her foot out into thin air.
Before she had time to react, her leg swung back in, as though it were on some kind of pendulum. A good thing, too, because every spare neuron in her brain was being pressed into service to make some kind of sense out of what she was seeing, leaving nothing to spare for keeping her from falling to her death.
"I have it!" exclaimed a voice from the floor. Looking down, Sarah Jane jumped: the Doctor had crawled over on his stomach and was peering over the threshold. "Come down here and see!"
When Sarah Jane had lowered herself to the same level and stuck her head out the door, she felt instantly dizzy. She closed her eyes, but the feeling persisted. "Doctor, please tell me what's going on."
"It's really very simple," the Doctor replied cheerfully. "We're in an artificially modified environment in which the force of gravity is in effect at an angle of ninety degrees to the dominant gravity source in the natural environment around it."
"What?"
"The TARDIS fell on its side. But the gravity in the console room hasn't changed, so 'down' inside this doorway is a different direction than 'down' outside of it."
Sarah Jane considered this for a moment, then cautiously opened her eyes. Sure enough, from this perspective she seemed to be in a perfectly ordinary box lying on a perfectly ordinary floor. Trouble was, as far as her head was concerned, her body ought to feel like it was hanging off the side of a cliff rather than lying flat on the ground.
No wonder she had gotten dizzy. You can't keep your sense of balance when the meaning of 'down' changes from one step to the next. "Isn't there some way to turn the TARDIS back upright?"
"We could always leave and come back. She'd materialize in the upright position automatically. But I don't want to chance missing the coordinates. Besides, it shouldn't be too hard to climb out of this. Just move forward with your lower body, and up with your upper body—and don't forget that they're the same direction."
"Well, when you put it like that, it seems obvious," Sarah Jane muttered.
It was an awkward business. She found herself lifting limbs in the wrong direction more than once, and slipped back into the console room several times. But the Doctor made it out first, and once he was safely outside he was able to give her a hand, until finally both of them had clambered out of the TARDIS and were standing beside it.
"I hope Stephen's had an easier time than we have," grumbled Sarah Jane as she brushed herself off.
"I rather think he has," said the Doctor, in a very odd voice.
Only then did Sarah Jane take a good long look around.
They were standing in some kind of long corridor, boasting high arched ceilings, which seemed to glow as though the sun were shining behind them, and cool white marble floors threaded with gold. The walls alternated between faintly Greco-Roman columns and lavish Renaissance-type tapestries, bursting with color and so huge that you had to step back to look at them properly.
But once you had done that, you could see that every single tapestry depicted Stephen Colbert.
The TARDIS lay calmly on its side next to a gigantic woven facsimile of Napoleon Crossing the Alps, modified to feature Stephen's face and rather more stars and stripes than had been in the original. Across from it was a massive image of Stephen against a blue sky, a bald eagle landing on his arm. Beside that was simply a close-up of Stephen's face, mouth a firm line, eyebrows arched high. On and on this went in both directions, with no indication that the hall changed its decor when at last it turned a corner.
"What is this?" breathed Sarah Jane, a little awed in spite of herself. "The Intergalactic Stephen Colbert Appreciation Museum?"
"Oh, I hope not," replied the Doctor. "He'd be so upset to find it deserted."