The Doctor 'outs' The Master!

I've just been watching the 2007 Children-in-Need Telethon, 'mini-episode' of Doctor Who entitled "Time Crash" ( see it here, if you haven't seen it yet. )

It details an encounter with the then current, Doctor (David Tennant) and one of his previous incarnations (Peter Davison) and takes place in the period between the Doctor saying goodbye to Martha Jones (at the end of the "Last of the Timelords" episode) and the incident where the Tardis crashes into the 'RMS Titanic' spaceship at the beginning of the Christmas 2007 episode "Voyage of the Damned."

Most of the seven and a half minute episode deals with interaction between the two Doctors, and there's a curious conversation between them that takes place when the subject of the Master crops up:

DT: "Right, Tardises are separating. Sorry Doctor, back to long ago. Where are you now? Nyssa and Tegan? Cybermen and Mara? Timelords in funny hats, and the Master?- Oh! he just showed up again, same as ever."

PD: "Oh no! Really? Does he still have that rubbish beard?"

DT: "No. No beard this time; well.. a wife."

As many of you reading this will be aware, when a gay man who prefers to publicly conceal his sexuality, makes use of a woman to masquerade as his wife or other sexual partner for the purposes of diverting any attention from his otherwise non-heterosexual preferences, the term often used for the said lady is 'a beard' (presumably because, like a beard, she adds some illusion of masculinity to her partner; for simlilar reasons the male equivalent, helping to conceal a woman's secret lesbian persuasion, is known as 'a handbag'.)

So is the Doctor publicly 'outing' the Master? Or since both parties to the conversation are in actuality the Doctor himself, could this be something that has been known to the Doctor for long enough for him to casually mention it to his other self? If this is the case, it begs the question: Why has the Doctor never mentioned the subject when other characters have been present?

Is the Doctor himself possibly gay?

Were he and the Master perhaps lovers at one time?

Now I know this is all supposition, and I'm sure the Doctor Who scriptwriters will never confirm or deny any part of it, but it makes me wonder why they'd put such a blatant clue into the script.

Make your own minds up, but I'll leave you with one final thought: Quite definitely the most effeminate of the Doctor's incarnations was the one played by Jon Pertwee. This particular Doctor was without his Tardis for most of his tenure and found himself exiled on Earth, yet he still found himself meeting up with the Master at least once if not more, when the Master was supposedly travelling the highways & byways of time and space. Did a shared affection maybe draw them together?

You decide.

Introducing Trevor, The Two-Dimensional Telepath

In my outline of book ideas posted recently (see previous posting) specifically in the brief outline of 'Mobile Home,' I mentioned a character called Trevor: "a being who can perceive only two dimensions and lives on a shovel." This rather brief description may have confused or hopefully intrigued you; it may even have amused you; but I feel that Trevor needs a little more introduction if you're to appreciate what a remarkable lifeform he really is, (and why the surface of a shovel could possibly be an adequate domicile for him.)

I've dug out an introduction to Trevor that I wrote years ago, even before the ideas for 'Mobile Home' occurred to me, but while I was pottering around with the concept of writing about a species that was only aware of two dimensions, just as we're only aware of three (or possibly four, if you're a physicist of that particular persuasion.)

It's rather short and also incomplete. It's in exactly the same form as I wrote it about three years ago, so it could probably benefit from some editing, but I've presented it here unchanged. Reading it recently, I was even mildly amused myself, so I hope it manages to at least raise a smile with you too.

Trevor and Nigel lived in a multi-dimensional universe: a fact that they were only partly aware of; that was to say that they had a bit of a blind spot when it came to the 'multi' bit of the 'multi-dimensional' idea, in that the number of dimensions they were conscious of was only two.

It wasn't that they were stupid: On the contrary, they were two of the more intelligent members of their species; but their species consisted of beings whose bodies were only a few cells deep. They had all of the usual sensory organs, but each of their senses was only receptive on a single plane. They had no problem with left or right, and forwards and backwards held no mysteries for them either. Up and down on the other hand, meant absolutely nothing to them. They were 'surface dwellers' in the absolute sense of the term.

In spite of their apparent limitations in perception, the species had developed into the most intelligent on their planet. OK, so they were the only sentient species on their planet, but nevertheless the extent to which their intellects had advanced beyond that of the moss, grasses and assorted microbes who shared their world was incredible. Trevor was one of a number of profound thinkers among his people (if 'profound' is a word to use for someone who's unaware of the concept of depth,) and he would have been amazed at just how far above the lesser species his people had evolved. At least he would have, had he known what 'above' meant. To be honest, he may have had a bit of a problem grasping the concept of 'evolved' as well; when your species is the only one around, developing a theory to explain how you came to be, is not really on the to-do list of even the most philosophical of individuals.

There was however, limitless scope for philosophy in Trevor's world. Existing in a two-dimensional world left many questions unanswered; questions whose solutions would have been obvious in a world of three (or even more) dimensions.

Trevor mentally studied his list of questions. Leftmost in his list (since lists had to be written sideways for obvious reasons, and starting at the left seemed as adequate as the alternative) was the question of the light. There were periods of dark followed by periods of light; they varied in duration, but one thing he'd always noticed was that when the light-time began, things were always illuminated to one side of him first; always the same side as well, unless he was facing the other way; and when the dark-time was beginning, the last things to stop being visible were always at the opposite side.

"It's as if the light is a sort of force passing through our world in waves, always in the same direction, flowing around us as it goes," he said to Nigel. This was of course, though totally inaccurate, an interesting theory for someone with a 2-D outlook. The fact that he was able to share his thoughts with his companion was no less interesting: A body that's only a few cells deep doesn't leave much scope for a decent set of vocal chords. Trevor didn't need vocal chords: like all of his species, he'd evolved to communicate via a sort of thought transference. He 'spoke' to Nigel by sending concepts and ideas, not words; they didn't use words at all, in fact Trevor and Nigel weren't even their real names, but since we can't communicate by sending concepts and ideas, we have to call them something.

'Light' and 'dark' were two concepts that they understood; they were things that happened, even if they couldn't get their thoughts around the mechanism as to why they happened. 'Wet' and 'dry' were another two that were easy to grasp: Trevor and Nigel could sense moisture as well as light and there were times when they sensed that it was wet and times when it was dry; these times weren't as regular as the periods of light and dark, and it had been known to be wet in one place at the same time as it was dry in another. Some places that they knew of were always wet and never dry.

"If it's a force like the current and it's flowing like we know the current does," said Nigel, continuing the discussion about the light, "why doesn't it affect us like the current does?"

"It's a different force, so it'd probably have a different effect," answered Trevor, "The light flows around us and it's everywhere; the current pushes against us and is only present in some places."

The 'current' was how Trevor's people chose to explain the curious one-way discrepancies between 'fast' and 'slow', which were two other facts of life in a 2-D world. Just like there were times of light & dark and times & places of wet & dry, there were also places where moving took a lot less effort than others and these were the fast and the slow; the fact that the fast places were covered with moss and the surface of the slow places was coarse sand was a connection that had never presented itself.

For some reason some areas took less effort to move in one direction than in the other; in a 3-D world these areas would have been called 'slopes' or possibly 'inclines', but in two dimensions this phenomenon was explained as an effect called 'current.' Under the influence of the current, both the fast and the slow got faster in one direction but slower in the other.


As ever, remarks, comments and criticisms are welcome and invited. Your feedback is important to me.
Thanks.

Unexpected Inspirations? Or not?

Like everyone with an aspiration to write, with the need to write, with stories to tell, I can't just concentrate on a single project or a single idea. Ideas occur to me daily. Some are rejected outright, some can be incorporated into stuff I'm currently working on, but others are too individual and independent to use elsewhere, too complete to be used anywhere other than as stories in their own right.

I file them away in my memory & make notes about them for future reference, and many of them are eventually forgotten when I decide that they're not worth taking any further. But occasionally there'll be one or two that are almost too compelling to not do something with: whether it be turning into a book or a short story, or whatever. I'll often outline plot details and develop characters for these, knowing that one day I'll create something more substantial from them.

Following is some 'extended blurb' for a few of my ideas. I think they'd make good subjects for future projects. I'd appreciate your comments. Your impressions, your suggestions and your criticisms are all equally welcome. I'd also be interested in title suggestions for the unnamed ones.

"Mobile Home"
Genre - Sci-fi / Humour

Everything about Gordon's life seems crap. He's unemployed; he's nearly homeless, living in a caravan trailer by the sea, perilously close to a rapidly eroding coastline. Then one day he discovers his home has been destroyed by something that came from the sky. But luckily for Gordon, aliens like all other sensible (if not responsible) travellers, have insurance. But like all other insurance companies, even alien ones make mistakes.

So it is that Gordon finds himself the owner of a brand new shiny mobile home. This one is actually mobile however. This one is so mobile that Gordon, with his friends Jim and Crusty, and his new colleague Trevor (a being who can perceive only two dimensions and lives on a shovel) travels the galaxy, encountering some new, as well as some strangely familiar beings, and getting into all new kinds of previously unimagined crap.

Untitled (suggestions appreciated)
UPDATE: Possible title: "Between What's Flesh and What's Fantasy"
(Phrase from a Bruce Springsteen Lyric)
Genre - Sci-fi / Fantasy crossover

“Once I dreamed I was a butterfly, and now I no longer know whether I am Chuang Tzu, who dreamed I was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly dreaming that I am Chuang Tzu.” – Master Chuang, (370-301 BC)

Fowler wasn't really sure when it first happened. He couldn't in all honesty claim to know the exact date when he first dreamed about Angit Shenby: dreamed that he was indeed Shenby, the warden of the tree city of Lapifel. He was almost certain that he remembered a time before the dreams began, when he was just plain Victor Fowler and nobody else. He knew the dreams had started while he was still back on Earth, but apart from that, he couldn't be absolutely certain when his own sleeping hours had become the waking life of an entirely different person in a totally different world.

Angit Shenby lived the very existence that had been only dreams to Fowler, but he too was intrigued by his own dreams. Dreams where he lived a life of someone far away from the forest, in an environment so unfamiliar to him, somewhere strange and complicated, where incredible, unbelievable ideas were commonplace, where ordinary people led an almost godlike existence, travelling between worlds in amazing ships built to sail above the sky and through the void between worlds.

And now, against all the odds, their worlds were about to merge, and though Fowler and Shenby could never meet, their two separate lives would become one.

Untitled (suggestions appreciated)
Genre - Sci-fi / Thriller

In the early part of the twenty first century, theories about alternate realities and multiple universes are finally proven beyond doubt, when scientists begin to receive audio, video and data transmissions from 'another' Earth. This Earth is so different and so fascinating that before long, the media turn the transmissions into a new kind of entertainment.

But the scientific research continues. Soon it's discovered that certain people exist in both universes: people who are genetically identical, but living two totally different lives.

Abbie Kay is an accomplished doctor, attached to the research unit investigating the parallel world. The team need a medical expert, but they're also aware that Abbie is special. In the other world, she's Gemma Kay: celebrity heiress and media favourite. Abbie and Gemma are the perfect subjects for an attempt to link individuals from each world.

Something goes wrong, and Abbie finds herself waking up in Gemma's universe living Gemma's life in a world so unpleasant to her that she'll do anything to get back to her own existence.

Ray McGuinness is a detective. He's investigating the disappearance of a number of men. When one of them turns up dead, his enquiries keep leading to the woman from the TV. The one who's been ranting about 'parallel worlds' on the chat show circuit. The one who used to be the object of women's envy and men's desire until she suddenly became a figure of ridicule for her outlandish beliefs. Ray is determined to discover the truth about Gemma, but his investigations will also lead him to something much more serious, and make him question existence itself.