Ok you guys... We're going for a record this time. 3 comments! Can I get a 3?.... and then and then you guys say
Very good. Well then! Let's talk a bit about writing. For any of you cats that had the chance to hear my "4 Truths and a Lie", you will have heard that I watch a bit of Doctor who when I can.
A fine show and all.. but not really the point. I was able to take HIST 4810 for the second time last semester (the first time was failed due to a lack of trying hard enough on my part and the teacher trying too hard), and I was super blessed to be able to take it from a professor who just liked to read. He told us that if we'd like to we could, instead of writing the normal research paper, we could write a piece of historical fiction. I jumped at the chance. Doctor Who, lends itself as the perfect back drop for a historical fiction piece. For those of you who want to read it, I'm copying and pasting it in here. For those of you who don't want to read it, I will make it clear when to stop scrolling.
Doctor
Who and the Timelock
By:
Keith Jackman
History
4810
The Ice World and his betrayal of the Ice Warriors became
a mere memory to the Time Lord as his TARDIS traveled to its destination. A destination that was quite unknown to its
pilot, The Time Meddler. A man of simple needs and desires, all he had wanted
was to change history, but it’s a bit difficult when he couldn’t decide on a
destination.
“Curse you Doctor! Had you taken any part besides my
directional unit, I could have been able to replace it with spares on board.
You wily little sneak!”
Still wearing his monk habit from his previous outing,
(he had decided it was actually quite comfortable) he sat down with his cup of
tea. Suddenly, the center console of his
TARDIS stopped and there was a clunk as he landed, which spilled his tea
slightly. Putting down his cup, he approached the controls, scanned the
atmosphere and looked at the monitor to see where he had landed.
On the screen he saw a bustling city, with trees,
bicycles and pagodas. There was no sign
of Ice Warriors, The Doctor or anything else unpleasant in sight. He quickly
put his sandals back on and opened the doors to explore the new place.
Upon exiting, he noticed that there was a group of
Japanese soldiers marching towards him, quickly he got out of their way and hid
behind the TARDIS to avoid questioning. Seeing a map on the wall he realized he
was near the beach. Given the troops, he decided it would be better if he got
away from this part of the city and decided to head for the coast. Perhaps he
could take a relaxing walk around the beach for now and see what type of
mischief he could cause in this time period later.
Suddenly as he approached the sand, he heard a sound
which was familiar to him. (WAAHHHHOoooo WAAAhhhhhOOOO WaaaHHHOooo Ka-Chunk!)
He dove into the bushes at his right as a 1960s style, blue, English style
Police Box appeared no less than 20 feet away from him. As he watched, a man
with a mop-top hairstyle and baggy clothes came out of it, as well as a young
man wearing a kilt. He listened in on their conversation.
“Well it does seem rather odd that the Time Lords would
make you come here without telling you, what in the world you were supposed to
do,” the Scottish one said.
“Jaime! I was just grateful that they told us where we
were going. That’s certainly a relief isn’t it?” The Doctor replied.
“Well I suppose so. But to say “You’re going to Earth,
August 6, 1945 to stop a disturbance that may happen”, is a fairly vague way to
go about giving reassurance.”
“The date is familiar to me; let’s have no worries about
that now. Let’s just keep our eyes open and we’ll figure it out as we go. Come
on now.” He pulled out a recorder and started playing “Merrily we Roll Along”
as they walked down the beach.
“At last” cried The Time Meddler, “my moment has arrived
to pay a visit to my old friend’s TARDIS and take back what is rightfully
mine!”
He ran from the bushes and into the Doctor’s TARDIS. Upon
entering he saw almost immediately that he wouldn’t be able to disable the
TARDIS by stealing its directional
unit. Unfortunately, the Doctor’s model was an outdated model and would never
converge with his newer Mark IV. But
upon further inspection he found that there was an option that may be just as
tasty. Sitting on the center console was a Stattenheim remote control, a device
used to call the TARDIS to the user no matter what the location or time. He
swiftly snatched it up, tuned it to his own TARDIS, pressed the button and
escaped back to the beach. His ship appeared just in front of him, also in the
shape of a Police Box. As he started to make his way back into his own ship, he
heard footsteps running towards him.
“What do you mean we need to leave?! We just got here
Doctor!” It was Jamie and the Doctor.
“I just realized why today’s date had any significance!
It is 8:12 am. If we are here at 8:15 we will be one of hundreds of thousands
of victims, killed by one of the most deadly weapons known to mankind!”
They stopped running momentarily as they saw that there
were two TARDIS in front of them with the Time Meddler staring in the middle.
“Hello Mortimus.”
“Goodbye Doctor” he said and with that returned to The
Doctor’s TARDIS, locked the door and started the take off procedures.
“Doctor! He’s getting away with our TARDIS.”
“We don’t have time to worry about that Jamie! Look!”
Overhead and in the distance a few miles out, they saw an
enormous B-29 Superfortress bomber. From the way it was flying it could be
guessed that the payload was just about to fall. Without another word to each
other they scrambled into the Monk’s TARDIS and raised the shields. They had no
sooner done so than they were rocked to one side. The shields protected them
from the blast, but the blinding light from the blast still filled the room. Suddenly there was a flicker of light and
movement from the motor within the center console. It started to move up and
down and immediately they took off! Realizing it could get out of hand quick,
the Doctor felt his way to the controls and closed the door, just as another
jolt knocked them both off their feet.
“Doctor! Where are we going?!” Jamie yelled as he struggled
to get back up on his feet.
“I have no idea Jamie! I haven’t touched the controls
and….!” He went to his coat pockets and found that the remote control was not
there. “Oh dear….. Jaime, I fear that we may be in for a bumpy ride.”
“You don’t mean…”
“Yes, that Meddling Monk has my remote control!”
“Yes I do Doctor.” The image of the Monk appeared on the
monitor. “And you’re going to help me accomplish a few things before I give it
back. I don’t ask for much, I just want you to alter a few unpleasant events
that occurred.”
The Doctor, having recently regained his footing, sat
down hard in a nearby seat. “You seem to have my back up against the wall and a
leash around my neck.”
The Monk smiled grimly, “I believe you’re right old
friend, but I’ll make it easy for you. All I want you to do is simply show up.”
And with that the screen went black.
“Boy, today hasn’t been our day for receiving clear
instructions at all has it?” Jamie stated exasperatedly. “Well, what are you waiting for? Grab the controls;
let’s go tell the Time Lords we never found their ‘disturbance’.”
“Don’t you understand Jamie, there’s no way to control
this TARDIS while it is being called by the remote.” He wiggled a few handles
and knobs to no effect. “Our only shot is to see where he takes us and try to
hi-jack our TARDIS back from him.”
The monitor started to flicker into life as they landed.
They read a sign in the window of the building they were facing that read
“Buckman’s Tavern”. In the distance, on the roadway, they saw two opposing
forces standing against each other. No one was fighting, but the energy between
each of them was visible.
“Where are we Doctor?”
“As best as I can tell from the clothing and firearms, I
would say that we are very near the end of the 18th century. I would
further venture a guess that the forces are the American settlers and British
Army.”
“Well now we’ve landed, let’s get out of here!” Jamie
went to the controls and pushed a large yellow button. The TARDIS rumbled a bit
and a loud “BANG!” occurred. Outside, the light on top of the TARDIS shot off
and a red and white striped parachute emerged, covering the view on the
monitor. The Doctor, shaking his head, pulled a lever next to the button that
sucked the parachute sucked back in.
“Please don’t touch things Jamie; you have no idea where
he’s been.”
On the screen, they were startled to see that the forces
had started firing at each other. Bullets were coming in volleys upon volleys.
People were scurrying around trying to find safety. And as they watched, they
saw men falling on either side clutching their wounds.
“You fools!” The Monk appeared on the screen again. “Is
it really so hard to just be visible. You were supposed to land right between
them! The faulty directional unit must be altering your trajectory.” With that
he disappeared again, and the TARDIS once again jolted from its position and
disappeared with a wisp from behind the tavern.
The Doctor pulled himself up and turned to Jaime “I do
wish he would stick around long enough to ask him about what he is expecting
from us.”
They landed again with a jolt. “That didn’t take long at
all Doctor!”
“No it didn’t Jaime; I expect our omnipotent friend is
having some troubles controlling my older model while controlling his by
remote. Our TARDIS together are now locked together. They are fused by their
destination targeting systems. They’re equal now, aside from mechanics. My
suspicion is that we simply switched places, though the blast from the atomic
bomb seems to have recharged the communication circuits. I have never spoken
across the years like this. However with the lack of Directional Control unit
from this TARDIS, it is taking us to locations that it feels have a familiar
tone or something connecting the previous place it has been sent.”
The TARDIS had transformed into a doorway on the side of
large building with a balcony out front. The Doctor and Jamie exited and walked
around to the front of the building. There was some type of excitement going on
in front. As Jaime turned the corner and saw the British soldiers he couldn’t
help but stop in his tracks. He noticed that there were quite a few others that
were throwing objects and yelling at the infantry men.
He scooped up a handful of snow himself “You stupid
Redcoats! Go home already would ya!” The Doctor tried to stop him but it was
too late; the Highlander had thrown a wallop of a throw and had knocked the man
down. They could hear him shout, “Fire, damn you!” and his gun went off into
the crowd. For a moment things all stood still.
The Doctor then turned to Jaime and whispered in his ear,
“When I say run, run. ...RUN!” Then the
British started to fire in earnest at the crowd. The Doctor and Jaime bolted
back into the TARDIS and the Doctor closed the door. “You stupid, stupid boy!”
He yelled at Jaime. “What were you thinking?!”
“I’m sorry Doctor. But I’ve spent so much time reacting
that way to the Red Coats that it just came natural. Besides, it looked like
they couldn’t even put a proper volley together.”
“Really, Jaime? Let’s take a look, shall we?” The Doctor
turned on the monitor to see at least 3 bodies lying in the street.
But before they could reflect on the scene the TARDIS dematerialized again and
they were off.
The TARDIS fell to one side and spit them out in the
middle of a parking lot, and then landed next to them, disguised as a car. There
were many people there, but they didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the
two of them nor to the fact that a Volkswagon appeared out of nowhere. Instead,
they were chanting and protesting by throwing rocks. About a hundred meters in
front of the Doctor and Jamie was their target.
Troops with guns at the ready, turned as a group of students rushed them from
the east and shots were fired. All around the duo people scattered. One young
girl, not twenty yards from them was hit on her left side. She
twirled and hit the ground, her Kent State University sweater splattered with
blood. Up ahead of them a young man’s head jerked back and he fell flat on his
face.
Jamie could take no more of it and reached to try to open
the TARDIS, but the crowd swept him up as they fled.
“Jamie!” The Doctor reached out for him and grabbed his
wrist as he held on to the door handle of the Beatle. He was able to open the
door just in time. He threw Jamie in the TARDIS as there was a break in the
crowd. Jaime pulled the Doctor in quickly behind him.
“Having fun Doctor?” The Monk spoke softly from his perch
on the monitor. “Evidently I ended up “before” you this time, but the gap is
getting smaller. I do hope you have changed things where you are. I couldn’t do
a thing here”
“You maniac… you fiend! We won’t be your puppets you hear
me?!” The Doctor yelled at him, but again, he was gone.
Jaime was evidently getting more and more shaken up by
sites that he was seeing. The Doctor
seeing this comforted him, “Don’t worry Jamie, I have a plan. I just need to
stop so I can work the controls.”
“I hope so Doctor. So much of the things we have seen
have been so careless and crass. Like there was no purpose at all behind much
of it.”
The Doctor nodded as they again landed with a thud. As
they stepped out of the TARDIS they saw they had landed in the middle of what
they could only suppose was Hell itself. The huts surrounding them were all on
fire. There were piles of burning personal belongings and dead half-naked bodies everywhere they looked. They
saw a helicopter fly off full of people who looked like they had lived here.
Two soldiers came running around the corner and pointed their rifles at
them. One lowered his rifle though and
said to his companion, “These are definitely not Charlie. Let’s get going.” The
other said “Medina said to ‘kill anything walking crawling or growing in My Lai’”
and cocked his firearm. His companion swiped at his barrel and put it down in
the ground. “That’s enough shooting for one day.” Then to the Doctor and Jaime,
“You two get the hell out of here.”
The Doctor quickly grabbed something by his foot, a
bullet shell, and turned with Jaime to rush back into the TARDIS. The Doctor immediately started tinkering with
the controls. Jamie covered his eyes and sat on the steps. “Don’t worry Jaime;
it will all be all over soon. All I have to do is reverse the polarity of the
neutron flow…. Add the conductor.” Sparks flew and the lights dimmed aside from
an electrical beam that was flowing right in front of him. “I need something
else!” He reached in his pockets. “Ah! A jelly baby! How perfect!” He threw it
in the beam, closed the door and then put his arm around Jaime.
“Hold on tight!
Transmat Beaming can leave you a bit squeamish.” He said as he flipped a switch
on the nearby wall and walked them on to a platform in the corner. In almost an
instant they had switched places with the Monk and were back in their own
TARDIS.
“Ha!” The Doctor said, “Now not only will you not know
where you’re going, but the sugar content from that jelly baby will make it so
you get there…. Let’s just say much later than you expected.”
“Blast
you Doctor!” The Monk cried as he was slowly sucked to his next destination.
“You could have saved thousands of lives! But instead you had to stick with the
insipid Time Lords and their non-intervening! Their blood is on your hands
Doctor! You hear me! You, who claim to
be a pacifist and yet mediated NOTHING when given the chance. You are just as
guilty as the ones who pulled the triggers!” He continued to rant, but by then
the Doctor’s TARDIS had drifted far away from reception of his signals.
“But why did you do it Doctor?” Jamie wept, “All of those
people died. The Monk’s intentions were good; we could have saved thousands of
lives and you refused!”
The Doctor slowly sat down next to Jaime and took a deep
breath, thinking carefully about what he would say next before he said it. After
a few moments slowly he spoke.
“It isn’t our place to meddle in history. The Monk’s
motivations were not to save lives, but to see for his own selfish purposes if
he might change the fixed points time is destined to go through. Pride was his
motivation, not love. Even if we did wish to make it our mission to travel back
in time and try to fix all the massacres and genocides, you can't rewrite history.
Not one line.
Even if you were to try, time has a way of correcting itself. What is in the
past is what has made us who we are today. We are the inescapable result of our
tragedies.”
He stood slowly, and helped his companion up, and looked him square in the eyes.
“But it is essential Jamie to remember all lives are important — including ours
— and as we see, so we learn... Our destiny is in the stars, so let's go and
search for it. Here… have a jelly baby.”
With that he went to the controls and piloted the ship away from the
hostilities of man.
I was so happy with the job that I did on it that I didn't care what kind of score I got on it. I was up late, so it was hard to find people to edit it, but I was lucky enough to find a fellow "Whovian" or two to look into it for me. I had a few things I cleaned up on it and then I sent it in to the professor. When he posted our scores he asked us to e-mail him if we would like any feedback. So I did! This is what he had to say back:
Needless to say I was thrilled to death to see some appreciation for something I cared so much about and had worked so hard on. I think the reason that I was able to write it as well as I could was because I was able to choose what I wanted to write about. I hate it when I get backed in a corner to analyze some document and try to interpret it's meaning (right.... well not all the time. It's just when you have to write 8-10 pages about 3 paragraphs it can be a bit difficult.) I love to tell a good story and that was just what I was able to do in this situation. I never have thought it was a sin to let the students go hog wild when they write. His only guidelines were that it had to be 8-10 pages and that it had to have 3-5 different sources. (I could be wrong about the number of sources.) That freedom really let me blossom.
Obviously, it could have gone through more editing and more revisions. I don't know... maybe it's the fact that he (the professor) had spent all of his life in the Air Force, that he didn't knit pick over the grammar and spelling of my work. In all actuality, having finally gotten this submitted the morning of the final exam, and working on it all night, I think it turned out pretty good. I only had peer review, but I guess I would have felt like I was ruining the story by letting the professor look it over first. Because that was the case, I made extra sure that my sources were accurate and well chosen. That seemed to work just fine for him! So, I feel like I can assuredly put Level Three writing on this paper.
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