| Stuart Humphryes Doctor | |
| No. stories: | 1 (to date) |
| First appearance: | The Ten Doctors |
| Last appearance: | The Ten Doctors |
| Preceded by: | War Doctor |
| Succeeded by: | N/A |
| Series: | BabelColour |
This incarnation of the Doctor, dubbed the Alternative, is an alternative future incarnation of the Doctor who serves as the main antagonist of The Ten Doctors. Admitting himself to be insane, this Doctor was "born of war" from an alternate timeline in which the Last Great Time War ended with the War Doctor using the Moment to destroy Gallifrey. After the timeline was reconfigured so that "all thirteen" incarnations of the Doctor saved Gallifrey by freezing it into a parallel pocket universe, the Alternative was erased from time.
Biography[]
Similar to the Valeyard, the Alternative sought to gain life by absorbing the life forces of his predecessors, a process which took him many years. His first victims were the ten incarnations of the Doctor's initial regeneration cycle (the Morbius Doctors), preceeding the First Doctor. As a result, these incarnations were erased from history.
The Alternative then abducted the first two incarnations of the Doctor. While traveling with Stephen and Dodo, the First Doctor was displaced from the TARDIS. The Second Doctor followed suit, despite making an attempt to resist.
Following this, the Alternative's disembodied voice addressed the Third Doctor. Claiming to be the President of Gallifrey, or "the Boss" as the Doctor put it, the Alternative informed him of the abduction of his predecessors and requested his assistance along with his future incarnations. Meanwhile, the Alternative had the Seventh Doctor create the signal which summoned the Doctors up to the Tenth Doctor, whom the Alternative assembled ostensibly to recover the first two incarnations. While the Third, Eighth and Ninth Doctors were to recover the First Doctor, the remaining incarnations were sent to UNIT HQ in the 20th century, where they found the Second Doctor who still existed thanks to the brief pocket of reality in which the Time Lords transported him to assist in the battle against Omega.
However, when the Doctors arrived on 20th century Earth, the Alternative secretly created a portal which let through an army of Daleks and Ogrons who enroached on the battle between UNIT and Omega's gell guards. However, to the Alternative's surprised frustration, the Doctors present used instruments connected to a device on UNIT jeep commandeered by the Tenth Doctor, which they used together to destroy the Daleks and the portal they came from.
Contacting the Doctors who had completed "Phase 1", the Alternative directed them to "Phase 2". The Alternative informed the Doctors that their other selves had located the First Doctor in March 1415 within the settlement of Cardiff, where he was protected by a temporal rift. Stressing that the First Doctor was to be retrieved lest the Doctors' timelines be endangered, the Alternative saw that all ten Doctors were at the same place at the same time. However, the Alternative had arranged another trap as the Cardiff fortress came under attack by a Sontaran invasion force who successfully shot down all incarnations of the Doctor bar the First. Back aboard his TARDIS, accompanied by Ian and Barbara, the First Doctor transported his nine successors, who were merely unconscious, while combining the ten versions of the TARDIS into a single box.
With all ten Doctors assembled, the Alternative attempted to present them with the final phase of their "mission" when the Doctors detected an abnormality with Boss' signal, which they found was being bounced around the galaxy to obscure its origin. The Alternative claimed it to be an inconsequential spatial anomaly, however, the Doctors realised something was wrong and followed the space portal the planet Raston in the Telosian era, heart of the Dalek-Cyber War. Setting foot on Raston, the ten Doctors were quickly caught up in a battle between Daleks and Cybermen only to be saved by the Raston Warrior Robots.
Using their sonic screwdrivers, the Doctors shatter the invisible barrier which hid the portal, uncovering "a doorway to a dark dimension." Finding themselves in a dark, empty void, the Doctors were greeted by the voice of the Alternative, who welcomed them to his domain. When the Doctors asked for his true identity, the Alternative recalled how, when the Moment was used to end the Last Great Time War, the chains that bound reality were shattered. While doorways to other dimensions closed, new ones ripped through the casual nexus, entering time and creating potentials, "a new Doctor, a new alternative." Finally, who the Doctors knew as the "Boss" clarified that he was the Doctor, confirming the Tenth Doctor's inquery as to being insane. The First Doctor correctly deduced that the Alternative's elaborate plan must have been conceived for some reason. Indeed, the Alternative revealed that his plan was to get the life forces of all the Doctors together in one time so he could harvest and absorb them and their regenerations.
It soon beacme clear that the Alternative had no regard for his predecessors, who in turn stood their ground with mockery. Though the Alternative gloated that the ten Doctors would not live to see their next incarnation, the Doctors revealed that the Alternative had been led into a trap arranged by the Eleventh Doctor. As it turned out, the Eleventh Doctor contacted his predecessors beforehand, warning them of the danger they were in as he proceeded to interfere in the Alternative's plan. At UNIT HQ, the Doctor provided the jeep with "the magic Dalek blowy-uppy thing on the back". In Cardiff, inspired by the Sontarans' cordolaine signal, the Doctor conceived a "Doctorlaine" signal which saved his predecessors lives when they were shot by the Sontarans. On Raston, the Doctor reprogrammed the Warrior Robots to ignore Time Lord physiology. At this moment, the Eleventh Doctor arrived in person, disembarking from his TARDIS alongside the War Doctor and a Tenth Doctor "Mark II", the result of the time when the Tenth Doctor regenerated and kept the same face. However, the Alternative had anticipated the gathering of the Doctor's regeneration cycle and revealed the thirteen absorption chambers he had prepared, containing the First and Second Doctors who had already been abducted and assimilated.
Though the Doctors felt their timelines being rewritten, they were able to return the captive First and Second Doctors to their rightful places in space and time by reversing the polarity. The Alternative, however, claimed to have arranged "a trap within a trap". After revealing that that he had already erased ten Doctors prior to the First Doctor, the Alternative disclosed his own origin, a timeline where the War Doctor really did use the Moment to destroy Gallifrey. At this point, the Alternative, at the request of his predecessors, finally revealed his own face as he prepared to take their respective life forces. However, he was interrupted by a communication by the Twelfth Doctor, who revealed to his predecessors that he got K9 to pump a temporal dampening field into the chamber, imobilising the Alternative for a period of 11.5 minutes.
While the Alternative was in stasis, the Doctors revealed a plan they had started "a very long time ago"; using their TARDISes, "all thirteen" Doctors entered Kasterboran space on the last day of the Time War, where they saved the planet Gallifrey by freezing it in a single moment in time held in a parallel pocket universe. As a result of the timeline reconfiguration, the Alternative was erased from time.
Notes[]
- The Alternative is presumably the equivalent of the Ninth Doctor.