Listening Post

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Setting: Earth's Orbit, 2165

Instead of landing at the World Fair on the Moon in 2300, the Tardis lands in Earth's orbit, 2165, aboard what seems to be a starship. Stan gives Arthur his editor's copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for research purposes of the starships of that time.

Examining the scanner and the environment, Stan discovers the ship in question is abnormally cold (-11 C) and emitting disturbing levels of background radiation. They all would eventually succumb to the radiation, but it is tolerable.

They exit the Tardis to find themselves in a octogonal cargo bay with a variety of space junk in cartons and on skids. The typical stuff space explorers would have. They exit through a relatively rudimentary locking system using the sonic screwdriver.

They find themselves in a long dark futuristic corridor with red walls with green backlights. Down the corridor they spy a quite out-of-place giant plastic white clown's head. As they approach, the clown's eyes and mouth begin to light up and speak in a large booming voice:

"HI! I'M FOODY THE FOOD DISPENSER! I AM A MARK IV FOOD CREATION DISPENSING UNIT! I AM CAPABLE OF MAKING ANY FOOD IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE! ANYTHING! ANYTHING AT ALL! REALLY! TODAY'S SPECIAL IS....

toast

HOW CAN I SERVE YOU TODAY?"

They attempt to order a variety of foods, but FOODY seems to be incapable of producing. "I'M SORRY, I CANNOT CREATE THAT", "ONE MOMENT.... I'M SORRY, WE'RE OUT! WOULD YOU LIKE SOME....toast...?" They relent and order toast. The toast comes out horribly burnt and utterly inedible. They go on.

Next to the cargo bay is another octagon room with gleaming red walls, ceiling, floor, with a red dias in the middle with the hugest ruby they had ever seem on top. As they eagerly enter the room, the entertrance closes with no apparent escape and the ruby lights up in synch with a female computer voice that says: "Beginning Level 1 combat simulation"!

The midsection of dias flip around to produce force blasters, which begin to whirl around and fire in random directions. Stan and Arthur attempt rush over to dismantle the blasters, only to be blasted back several times by mild concussion blasts. Arthur eventually makes it to the dias. When he touches the ruby atop the structure, the blasters stop. The ruby begins to glow again and the familiar female voice states: "Begin Level 2", at which point the walls of the room revolve to reveal much larger blasters. In a panic, they quickly leave the room using the sonic screwdriver to jimmy the exit.

They search on. As they creep through the long corridor, they come to a window. Outside they see Earth, and in orbit, they see pitched space battles going on between the human and the Dalek fleet in the First Dalek War. Stan suddenly remembers the significance of 2165!

They continue to search the area. After reaching a trunctification, they traverse a long corridor to what appears to be someone's private quarters. In the middle of the room is a small yellow rentagular box where a seductive turquoise female hologram appears:

The hologram is interactive and reveals herself to be a "PLEASUREGRAM" under the owner, Ossslo. She doesn't seem to know too much outside of her functions as a holographic stripper despite the crew questioning. She offers to pleasure the crew as only a pleasure hologram can, but they decline and turn to search further. Stan turns off the pleasuregram and quietly pockets the device. Searching further into the room, they find a journal of great battles and exploits from said crewmember, Ossslo. Stan recognizes the script: MARTIAN!

Quckly, they search further to find adjoining rooms. A strange open concept living arrangement where the crew would have to walk through adjoining quarters along green carpeting to get to their own quarters. Privacy isn't needed, apparently, in Martian culture. They find 7 joined crew quarters, with a variety of personal items. They exit.

When they open the door, they come face to face with an 8 foot tall scaled member of the Ice Warrior race. It levels a sonic blaster at them and ushers them to rudimentary cells in the brig. In the brig, they wait. In the cell across they see a familiar face: Magnus!

Magnus looks like he's been tortured, rather horribly. He is missing his left hand and left leg, has bruises and cut all over his face and body. He was left bleeding to death on the floor on this cell to die, or further torture, persumably. They are shock at the sight of him! Magnus reveals that he'd been captured by the Ice Warriors several weeks ago and has been tortured in the attempt to assertain WHERE STAN WAS! He explains that ironically, although Stan and Magnus had met numerous times before, in these cells was the first time they had met in this time period....

Magnus reveals that the Davros had disappeared in 2160 and in investigating his disappearance, the Daleks had identified remnants of DNA of Davros, three humans, and one timelord. (Conquest of the Daleks) For some unknown nefarious reason, the Ice Warriors were involved and were hunting for Stan.

Arthur and Woan are led around to an area called astrometrics (they didn't enter), crew quarters, war room, torture room, cargo bay, and finally, the engine room. As the engine room door opens, they feel a rush of radiation sickness and find a panicked ice warrior running back and forth between space age columns screaming "Help me! The cloaking device has failed!"

Arthur rushes to help, and thinks he can shut down the failed cloaking device and repair it in 3 hours! As Woan examines Arthur for radiation sickness, he tells him the radiation in the engine room will kill him in 2 hours.

Woan rushes off to the Tardis to find an environmental suit for Arthur, only to find bulkheads closing off all the sections as he reaches the Tardis.

Entering the bridge, Stan find himself in a room full of Martians! He is introduced to the Overseer..... Paramanthea!

Before she can explain why she is there, the pilot and navigator alert the room that the cloaking device had failed. Worse still, a dalek ship, half-destroyed in the fire fight outside, was hurtling towards the bridge!

The dalek ship crashed into the brdige, shearing it open at the viewscreen, sending half of the ice warrior flying out into space. Stan kept shouting "Shields! Turn on the shields!" to Paramanthea, to which a mental image of the scientific officer's panel appeared in Stan's brain. The scientific officer, of course, was floating out in space. Against the forces of air rushing out of the bridge into space, Stan climb over the instrument panels to get to the scientific officer outlet. Just as he was about to reach the controls for the shields, he lost his grip and hurtled towards the ripped open viewscreen, taking Paramanthea with him. At the last second, Stan grabbed Paramanthea with one hand and held on to a section of the bridge to keep from flying out into space.......

As Woan approaches the Tardis, blast doors close around him, trapping him in the cargo bay!

Stan grabs Paramanthea's hand and grabs a bridge railing to keep them both from flying out into space!

Arthur, dying of intense radiation poisoning must fix the station's power core before it explodes!

What can they do?

Stan helps Paramanthea grab a secure handhold, and rushes towards the scientific officer's panel. Losing his grip, he nearly flies out of the gaping hole in the front of the ship. He waits until the cold and intense wind die down a bit and then climbs over and activates the shields before they all freeze to death! Quickly Paramanthea, Stanislaw, and one surviving Ice Warrior rush over to the exit, release the ship's bulkheads and escape to safety! As they close the exit doors, they can see signs of lights emanating from the crashed Dalek ship. Quickly, Stan closes the doors and destroys the locking system so they can't be followed.

Woan, discovering he's trapped, surmises that airducts in the cargo bay would have much more managable blast doors. He grabs an acetylene torch from the Tardis workshop, works loose a metal grate and slides up it with acrobatic expertise. He climbs up the airduct, just as the bulkheads raise again.

Pleading with Arthur to save himself before the station goes critical, the engineer Vissssnu offer him alternatives: shut down the engines or eject the power core. Arthur will have none of that! He's there to fix the problem! (Besides, he feels that Woan will come back immediately with a proper environmental suit and medication to help him, not knowing that the bulkheads have dropped and Woan is trapped). Vissssnu grabs a spanner, climbs to the engine room's second level and attempts to reverse the polarity of the power core's neutron flow as Arthur regulates the incoming power and repairs the computer systems below.

Panicked, Stan pleads with Paramanthea, then co-erces her into sparing Woan and Arthur's lives in the perspective that he'd just saved her life on the bridge. She begrudgingly agrees. It was then that Paramanthea, explained how she came to the station:

When last we saw her, the crew were on Earth, 2001, in North Carolina. Feeling this was going to be the closest she was going to get to Mars, she left Stan and the Tardis. Over the next 150 years, she had managed to contact Mars. Through the years, she rose through the ranks of their matriacal society to become "Overseer". The purpose of the space station is not explained.

She explains that it was her idea to capture Magnus. As he'd seen Stan so often in his travels, she surmised (wrongly) that he would know where he was during this time. In custody, Stan was to be traded to the Daleks in exchange for amnesty in the First Great Dalek War with the humans. Stan pleads with her to release him, to which she sardonically claims that she is just following orders. Stan explains that the Daleks are lying and not to trust them....

In the engine room, Arthur feels his assistance in stabilizing the core is enough for the engineer to continue. Woan quickly administers anti-radiation pills and the environmental suit.

They quickly board the Tardis and escape. As they leave, Stan flips on the scanner to see Dalek ships surround the Earth in a lattice shaped pattern and begin firing. To their shock, they see:

They leave, wondering at the consequences.

Listening Post (5 Episodes total)
Act I
Setting: Earth's Orbit, 2165


Instead of landing at the World Fair on the Moon in 2300, the Tardis lands in Earth's orbit, 2165, aboard what seems to be a starship. Stan gives Arthur his editor's copy of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for research purposes of the starships of that time.

Examining the scanner and the environment, Stan discovers the ship in question is abnormally cold (-11 C) and emitting disturbing levels of background radiation. They all would eventually succumb to the radiation, but it is tolerable.

They exit the Tardis to find themselves in a octogonal cargo bay with a variety of space junk in cartons and on skids. The typical stuff space explorers would have. They exit through a relatively rudimentary locking system using the sonic screwdriver.

They find themselves in a long dark futuristic corridor with red walls with green backlights. Down the corridor they spy a quite out-of-place giant plastic white clown's head. As they approach, the clown's eyes and mouth begin to light up and speak in a large booming voice:
	"HI! I'M FOODY THE FOOD DISPENSER! I AM A MARK IV FOOD CREATION DISPENSING UNIT! I AM CAPABLE OF MAKING ANY FOOD IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE! ANYTHING! ANYTHING AT ALL! REALLY! TODAY'S SPECIAL IS.... toast HOW CAN I SERVE YOU TODAY?"
They attempt to order a variety of foods, but FOODY seems to be incapable of producing. "I'M SORRY, I CANNOT CREATE THAT", "ONE MOMENT.... I'M SORRY, WE'RE OUT! WOULD YOU LIKE SOME....toast...?" They relent and order toast. The toast comes out horribly burnt and utterly inedible. They go on.

Next to the cargo bay is another octagon room with gleaming red walls, ceiling, floor, with a red dias in the middle with the hugest ruby they had ever seem on top. As they eagerly enter the room, the entertrance closes with no apparent escape and the ruby lights up in synch with a female computer voice that says: "Beginning Level 1 combat simulation"!
	The midsection of dias flip around to produce force blasters, which begin to whirl around and fire in random directions. Stan and Arthur attempt rush over to dismantle the blasters, only to be blasted back several times by mild concussion blasts. Arthur eventually makes it to the dias. When he touches the ruby atop the structure, the blasters stop. The ruby begins to glow again and the familiar female voice states: "Begin Level 2", at which point the walls of the room revolve to reveal much larger blasters. In a panic, they quickly leave the room using the sonic screwdriver to jimmy the exit.
They search on. As they creep through the long corridor, they come to a window. Outside they see Earth, and in orbit, they see pitched space battles going on between the human and the Dalek fleet in the First Dalek War. Stan suddenly remembers the significance of 2165!

They continue to search the area. After reaching a trunctification, they traverse a long corridor to what appears to be someone's private quarters. In the middle of the room is a small yellow rentagular box where a seductive turquoise female hologram appears:

The hologram is interactive and reveals herself to be a "PLEASUREGRAM" under the owner, Ossslo. She doesn't seem to know too much outside of her functions as a holographic stripper despite the crew questioning. She offers to pleasure the crew as only a pleasure hologram can, but they decline and turn to search further. Stan turns off the pleasuregram and quietly pockets the device. Searching further into the room, they find a journal of great battles and exploits from said crewmember, Ossslo. Stan recognizes the script: MARTIAN!
Quckly, they search further to find adjoining rooms. A strange open concept living arrangement where the crew would have to walk through adjoining quarters along green carpeting to get to their own quarters. Privacy isn't needed, apparently, in Martian culture. They find 7 joined crew quarters, with a variety of personal items. They exit.
When they open the door, they come face to face with an 8 foot tall scaled member of the Ice Warrior race. It levels a sonic blaster at them and ushers them to rudimentary cells in the brig. In the brig, they wait. In the cell across they see a familiar face: Magnus!

Magnus looks like he's been tortured, rather horribly. He is missing his left hand and left leg, has bruises and cut all over his face and body. He was left bleeding to death on the floor on this cell to die, or further torture, persumably. They are shock at the sight of him! Magnus reveals that he'd been captured by the Ice Warriors several weeks ago and has been tortured in the attempt to assertain WHERE STAN WAS! He explains that ironically, although Stan and Magnus had met numerous times before, in these cells was the first time they had met in this time period....
Magnus reveals that the Davros had disappeared in 2160 and in investigating his disappearance, the Daleks had identified remnants of DNA of Davros, three humans, and one timelord. (Conquest of the Daleks) For some unknown nefarious reason, the Ice Warriors were involved and were hunting for Stan.

As Stan attempted to pick his way out of their cell, the door opened and an Ice Warrior Marshall and two soldiers entered. The Marshall chastised one of his minions for enprisoning them, and in a show of good faith, offered to show Arthur and Woan a tour around the station. Stan was to be led away to meet "The Overseer". As they leave the room, the Marshall turns to Magnus and fires at him with his blaster, incinerating him. Shocked, Stan demands to know why. "The purpose of his being here is now superfluous. We don't require this being anymore".
Arthur and Woan are led around to an area called astrometrics (they didn't enter), crew quarters, war room, torture room, cargo bay, and finally, the engine room. As the engine room door opens, they feel a rush of radiation sickness and find a panicked ice warrior running back and forth between space age columns screaming "Help me! The cloaking device has failed!" Arthur rushes to help, and thinks he can shut down the failed cloaking device and repair it in 3 hours! As Woan examines Arthur for radiation sickness, he tells him the radiation in the engine room will kill him in 2 hours. Woan rushes off to the Tardis to find an environmental suit for Arthur, only to find bulkheads closing off all the sections as he reaches the Tardis.
Entering the bridge, Stan find himself in a room full of Martians! He is introduced to the Overseer..... Paramanthea!

Before she can explain why she is there, the pilot and navigator alert the room that the cloaking device had failed. Worse still, a dalek ship, half-destroyed in the fire fight outside, was hurtling towards the bridge!
The dalek ship crashed into the brdige, shearing it open at the viewscreen, sending half of the ice warrior flying out into space. Stan kept shouting "Shields! Turn on the shields!" to Paramanthea, to which a mental image of the scientific officer's panel appeared in Stan's brain. The scientific officer, of course, was floating out in space. Against the forces of air rushing out of the bridge into space, Stan climb over the instrument panels to get to the scientific officer outlet. Just as he was about to reach the controls for the shields, he lost his grip and hurtled towards the ripped open viewscreen, taking Paramanthea with him. At the last second, Stan grabbed Paramanthea with one hand and held on to a section of the bridge to keep from flying out into space.......

Paramanthea is a Martian princess from 65 million years in the past, from before Mars' ice age (which had occurred roughly at the same time as Earth's, but in this case the ice age began with the destruction of an advanced technological yet delicate weather control device buried in the deserts of Mars). Stan had rescued her from the avails of menacingly maniacal giant green spiders and allowed her to come aboard as a companion. She made her first appearance in The Monoliths from Mars and left after Giant Space Blobs from South Carolina. On her homeworld, she had telepathic powers that knew no bounds and was considered a Seer. Paramanthea has jet black skin, no mouth, yellow pupils, and black eyes, and could only communicate telepathically.

Act II

As Woan approaches the Tardis, blast doors close around him, trapping him in the cargo bay!
Stan grabs Paramanthea's hand and grabs a bridge railing to keep them both from flying out into space!
Arthur, dying of intense radiation poisoning must fix the station's power core before it explodes!
What can they do?

Stan helps Paramanthea grab a secure handhold, and rushes towards the scientific officer's panel. Losing his grip, he nearly flies out of the gaping hole in the front of the ship. He waits until the cold and intense wind die down a bit and then climbs over and activates the shields before they all freeze to death! Quickly Paramanthea, Stanislaw, and one surviving Ice Warrior rush over to the exit, release the ship's bulkheads and escape to safety! As they close the exit doors, they can see signs of lights emanating from the crashed Dalek ship. Quickly, Stan closes the doors and destroys the locking system so they can't be followed.

Woan, discovering he's trapped, surmises that airducts in the cargo bay would have much more managable blast doors. He grabs an acetylene torch from the Tardis workshop, works loose a metal grate and slides up it with acrobatic expertise. He climbs up the airduct, just as the bulkheads raise again.

Pleading with Arthur to save himself before the station goes critical, the engineer Vissssnu offer him alternatives: shut down the engines or eject the power core. Arthur will have none of that! He's there to fix the problem! (Besides, he feels that Woan will come back immediately with a proper environmental suit and medication to help him, not knowing that the bulkheads have dropped and Woan is trapped). Vissssnu grabs a spanner, climbs to the engine room's second level and attempts to reverse the polarity of the power core's neutron flow as Arthur regulates the incoming power and repairs the computer systems below.
	In the hall, Stan and Paramanthea are approached by the executive officer, Slaaaayr. He salutes and addresses Paramanthea: "Overseer: I have reported to be homeworld. They congratulate you on the capture of the Stanislaw. Our orders are to Transmat down to the surface of Barsoom and expedite its transfer to Dalek High Command."
"We are to transfer all of our scans and observations to homeworld. As is customary, we are to abandon the station and destroy any evidence that we were here. " "It's companions have been deemed superfluous. They are to be *executed*. I have dispatched Oslo to eliminate them."
Panicked, Stan pleads with Paramanthea, then co-erces her into sparing Woan and Arthur's lives in the perspective that he'd just saved her life on the bridge. She begrudgingly agrees. It was then that Paramanthea, explained how she came to the station:
When last we saw her, the crew were on Earth, 2001, in North Carolina. Feeling this was going to be the closest she was going to get to Mars, she left Stan and the Tardis. Over the next 150 years, she had managed to contact Mars. Through the years, she rose through the ranks of their matriacal society to become "Overseer". The purpose of the space station is not explained.
She explains that it was her idea to capture Magnus. As he'd seen Stan so often in his travels, she surmised (wrongly) that he would know where he was during this time. In custody, Stan was to be traded to the Daleks in exchange for amnesty in the First Great Dalek War with the humans. Stan pleads with her to release him, to which she sardonically claims that she is just following orders. Stan explains that the Daleks are lying and not to trust them....

As they rush to the engine room, they meet Woan, half-trapped in the airduct. He escapes and they go on.

In the engine room, Arthur feels his assistance in stabilizing the core is enough for the engineer to continue. Woan quickly administers anti-radiation pills and the environmental suit.
As they go back to the cargo bay, they are confronted by Oslo! Stan instructs Paramanthea to order Oslo to stand down. Quickly, they slip into the cargo bay and lock the door, saving the crew from recapture!
They quickly board the Tardis and escape. As they leave, Stan flips on the scanner to see Dalek ships surround the Earth in a lattice shaped pattern and begin firing. To their shock, they see:




They leave, wondering at the consequences.