Author's Note: Here are some summaries of stories that I was intending to write, as part of the Child of Balime Series, but wound up not writing. I thought the summaries were still interesting, so I figured I'd post them here, just so you can see how everything was supposed to turn out.
Enjoy!
Season 5 Ideas
The next season of the Child of Balime was supposed to be Jenny, Seo, and the Doctor traveling around together.
First, they'd have gone to Messaline and fought a monster (which I hadn't thought up, yet). Then, they'd have gone to Sunnydale in the wild west when it was first founded , allowing Jenny to butt elbows with the Watchers Council. Neither of those stories ever had real summaries.
After that came my Temporal Moebius Idea.
Temporal Moebius Idea
Eager to teach Seo how to cook, the Doctor tries to take them to 1950's Earth to meet Julia Child. Jenny notices they're going to Earth, though, decides that's boring, and changes the coordinates to someplace she knows about that could be good.
They emerge on a planet, where Seo discovers it's the equivalent of October 1st — causing no end of distress for her, as this means she's now a year older. She complains at them that they can't just go landing on October 1, or she'll become old and cranky way before her time.
The Doctor and Jenny try to explain to her that time travel doesn't work like that — but she knows and doesn't care.
Anyways.
It all goes wrong, and they wind up having to face down a bunch of evil monsters or whatever, controlled by mysterious enemies in a castle — unseen but present. But at the end of saving the day, they discover a new clue which makes them have to go into their enemies' castle and basically do a bunch of things, which wind up being countered by a mysterious force outside the castle.
They very cleverly counter everything their adversaries do, and wind up back outside the castle, again. Which is when they realize that new enemies have taken up residence inside the castle, and they have to take the castle, again.
Jenny and the Doctor, strangely, aren't suspicious of this.
But Seo is.
Because of the date. October 1st. The date has such importance to her that hearing it causes a psychic jolt, which breaks through the temporal conditioning of the place they've landed.
"We've done this before," Seo tries to tell Jenny. "I remember. October 1st! Time is folding back on itself."
Jenny utterly dismisses this, explaining that she has time senses that'll allow her to sense time loops, and this isn't one. She assures Seo that she knows they're perfectly fine and perfectly safe. Seo, embarrassed that her sister has better time senses than she does, doesn't mention her worried feelings to the Doctor.
But Seo can't shake the feeling that something is very wrong, here.
.
Cut to outside the loop.
We're on an alien planet, with a gigantic complex in the middle of it. The race that owns the complex are the Agrathans, a hostile race that Jenny has faced down and defeated many times. The Agrathans inside the complex are working alongside a profiteer (Chorjel) who sells time tech on the black market.
Right now, the Agrathan general and Chorjel are both on a raised platform, looking down at an environment bubble within a gigantic, transparent dome. Other Agrathans are monitoring everything within the dome, carefully.
On the monitors (and inside the dome), we see the castle. And Seo, Jenny, and the Doctor.
"Perfect," the Agrathan general sneers. "Our greatest enemy, trapped and helpless — and she doesn't suspect a thing."
All the other Agrathans roar out, "Death to Jenny!" and similar things, some even smashing small items because they just hate Jenny so much.
(The TARDIS, by the way, is outside the dome. They pulled it out earlier.)
Chorjel has no interest in Jenny, however. But instead tweaks the settings on the monitor nearest him, and checks on the Doctor — making sure he doesn't suspect anything.
"If there's one person who'll figure it out, it won't be Jenny," Chorjel informs them, tapping the screen. "Remember our trade. You get Jenny and the TARDIS. And I get the big money."
Yep, you guessed it! The Doctor's enemies have put a price on his head, and the Agrathans have agreed to hand the Doctor over as part of Chorjel's payment.
(Chorjel, a profiteer to the last, had actually created a bidding war for the Doctor's head. The Sontarans won this bidding war, and are on their way to collect him. Chorjel just has to keep the Doctor trapped long enough for the Sontarans to show up, then he gets his money.)
The readers discover, by the way, that there were two Doctor-enemies who didn't participate in the bidding war. The Cybermen. And — surprisingly enough — the Daleks, who were apparently preoccupied elsewhere.
Anyways.
"You'll get your money," the Agrathan general insists. "The Sontarans will be here any minute, now." He demands that Chorjel show them how to manipulate the bubble, and Chorjel pops up a display.
What we see is that the inside of the dome is a temporal Mobius strip.
Time folds back on itself, so that the trio keeps reliving the same events, over and over again, but on different sides. They are both inside the castle, and outside it — but due to the nature of the prison, they never see who they're fighting against, or suspect that time is messed up.
"It's easy," Chorjel explains. "Just split the Mobius strip into three different strips, each one its own system." He demonstrates on a model, which is suspended in midair. The hologram splits into three separate Mobius strips. "Each individual is in their own system. We can pluck them out, one by one, and deliver them to whomever we choose." He presses a button, and the hologram disappears. "But three Mobius strips will eat through the power in no time, so you'll have to wait until the last possible second before you divide them."
"And then," says the Agrathan general, "we'll finally get to kill Jenny!"
Everyone cheers.
Jenny is the Agrathans' greatest enemy. They want to drain the information from her brain, then publically execute her in the most painful and horrible way possible — as a warning to the rest of the universe.
Funny thing is… no one's very interested in the third member of the party.
No one particularly wants her. And, in fact, no one can really figure out what to do with her. Maybe just throw her into space?
Anyways.
This is when an alarm flashes, and Chorjel dives for the controls. He pokes and prods and fiddles, and his face looks more and more worried. "Something's wrong," Chorjel says. "It's the Doctor's companion. It's like… she can see the boundaries of the Mobius strip. She's pushing at the edges."
The Agrathans dismiss this. "Impossible!" says the general. "Our research shows that the Doctor's companion is an Earth female. No Earth female would be able to break a temporal Möbius strip."
Chorjel agrees.
"I'll run a diagnostic," Chorjel says, and sets the diagnostic into action. As he does so, out of curiosity, he asks, "Who is the Doctor's companion, anyways?"
"All records indicate that the Doctor travels with a girl named 'Clara'," says the Agrathan general. "Therefore, this must be 'Clara'."
At first, Chorjel seems to accept their research. And think this is a perfectly reasonable assumption.
But something on the diagnostic stops him.
Chorjel freezes. Then looks at the diagnostic closer, double checks a few things, runs a separate report. "No, it can't be," he mutters, but soon gets confirmation.
He's a little dumbfounded.
"I heard the Doctor was clever," says Chorjel. "But this! The one thing everyone wants… and he hid it in plain sight."
Then Chorjel starts packing up, and turns to the Agrathan general.
"On second thought," says Chorjel, "I'll waive the fee. Oh, and you can get whatever the Sontarans owe. Just give me that companion, and I'll be on my way."
"What is she?" the Agrathan general asks, suddenly wary. Had they missed something?
"No one important," says Chorjel, already working to isolate her from the others. "Just something I've been looking for for a very long time."
He'd heard it had been hidden in human form, but he'd never actually expected to come across it! He figures the Doctor picked it up, knowing how dangerous it could be, and chose to take it on as a traveling companion so he could keep a better eye on it.
The Sontarans show up, and they are suitably happy that the Doctor has been captured. They are upset that they can't get the TARDIS, too, but decide that the temporal Mobius strip technology will make a reasonable replacement.
(Presumably, they intend to study it, then attack the Agrathans with it, later, to get the TARDIS.)
The Sontarans double check – "Is the temporal technology really foolproof? We must not allow the Doctor to escape!"
During this negotiation with the Sontarans, Chorjel slips out of the room to go and pick up Seo from where the Mobius technology spat her out. He knew the Doctor was always a risk, and he's just as happy to give that risk to someone else — in exchange for money in the bank.
Chorjel has heard through the grapevine that Seo's biology is shaky at best, and therefore, more susceptible to poisons and other things. So he brings her into a room and floods it with a cocktail of drugs that puts her right to sleep.
The boards her onto his ship.
.
Back in the dome…
Jenny and the Doctor have looped back to the beginning, again — but this time, without Seo, because she's out of the system. They don't notice, as the system makes sure they can't remember that she was with them.
Problem is, then they hit that October 1st date. They both realize there's something wrong. Every time they hear the date, they can start to see the edges of the Mobius strip.
(This is what Chorjel had worried about, and why he wanted to get out of there as fast as he could.)
Turns out, every time that Seo heard the October 1st date, she'd been subconsciously using her Key energies to tear at the edges of the Mobius strip.
Now, Jenny and the Doctor can see the frayed edges of their prison.
The Doctor and Jenny remember Seo, and Jenny tells him what Seo told her. The Doctor takes it all seriously, and works out that they're in a temporal Möbius strip, which is why they never registered the loop — it would have felt perfectly linear to them.
He and Jenny figure out a way to trick the system, and escape.
The moment they do, Jenny takes one look at where they are. And knows exactly what's going on. "The Agrathans," she breathes. "Oh, no."
.
Meanwhile, onboard Chorjel's ship, Seo wakes up. Finds herself just lying down, free and unchained, on a bed. Being sped away through space in a ship.
Chorjel is nearby, piloting the ship. He tells her he's rescued her, and asks her if she's all right. Seo is disorientated and woozy, and seems to believe him when he tries to act nicely to her and pretend to be her friend.
Seo puts a hand to her head. "Where are we going?" she asks. "And where are Jenny and… the Doctor?"
(Clearly, by this point, she's learned better than to call him 'father' in public.)
"We're going to Sontar," Chorjel replies. "After all, the Sontarans have taken the Doctor, and it's up to you to rescue him — before they drill a hole through his head."
Seo glares at him. "And what's in it for you?" she asks. "Or is this just some elaborate calibration test?"
"Calibration test?" Chorjel acts surprised. "Calibrating what?"
"Me, of course!" Seo shouts. "Testing me out! Seeing how well I kill people and destroy worlds. Seeing if you got your money's worth out of me." She gets up. "This isn't a rescue. I'm just a weapon for your arsenal."
Sure enough, the Sontarans are just a test — to see how far she'll go, and how well she operates. "But the Sontarans really do have the Doctor," says Chorjel. "And they really will kill him, if you don't rescue him. So it's still in your best interests to do what I say."
Seo never gets a chance to answer.
She doubles up, physically sick. She has no idea why, and neither does Chorjel. But he soon finds out when a gigantic ship swallows up his own, and the aliens cut their way inside.
It's the Cybermen.
The Cybermen had decided, back during the bidding war, that they didn't need to bid money for the Doctor. They'd just invade the Agrathans and take him.
However, on the way to the Agrathans' planet, the Cybermen were distracted because they sensed their Cyberplanner nearby. They veered off in another direction, and found Chorjel's ship. The Cybermen's proximity has triggered Cyberplanner instincts inside Seo, creating a mini-war inside her body which has caused her to be sick.
The Cybermen board the ship to get back their Cyberplanner, but Seo manages to escape them. She carefully manages to duck and hide from them for a very long time, long enough for the Cybermen to land on the Agrathan's planet.
.
The Agrathans, meanwhile, have realized that the Doctor and Jenny have escaped the Dome. They place everything on high alert.
The Sontarans decide to just go down there and capture the Doctor themselves — and they're taking the TARDIS and Jenny, too, since the temporal Möbius strip technology proved to be so unsuccessful.
The Agrathans are about to fight them for Jenny, but that's when the Cybermen show up. And everyone suddenly has much bigger issues to worry about.
Meanwhile, the Doctor ask Jenny — "Agrathans? I've never heard of the Agrathans."
Jenny tells him that they're a race of really nasty, warlike aliens, who've been trying to invent time travel so they could go back and wipe out their enemies before their enemies ever even evolved. Jenny has been encountering them at strategic moments in history, and making sure they can't possibly succeed.
She is their greatest enemy.
The Doctor's quite proud of her for this. But before the congratulations can come, they find themselves running away from the Sontarans, who are keen to capture or kill the Doctor. Either is fine.
They get separated. Jenny winds up running into the Cybermen. Then running away from the Cybermen. She uses her strategic brilliance to evade them.
The Doctor, meanwhile, discovers that the Sontarans have mistaken Seo for Clara. He therefore convinces the Sontarans not to kill him, by telling them that Seo isn't human. And for that reason, he's pretty sure that the Sontarans would have more use for him alive, instead of dead.
The Sontaran commander ignores this, and is about to shoot the Doctor.
But Chorjel steps out of the shadows with a super-gun (which he's used to fight off the Cybermen), and kills the Sontaran commander. Then carefully picks off the rest of the Sontarans, nearby.
The Doctor tries to use this distraction to run, but Chorjel quickly turns the gun on him.
"Here's the deal," Chorjel says. "You get the Weapon to work for me, and me alone — and I let you go. Refuse, and I'll follow you around the universe, manipulating her so she kills any planet you land on — because she thinks she's saving you."
The Sontarans interrupt this, and nearly kill Chorjel. But Chorjel makes them a second offer — "Give the Doctor to the Rutans, and I'll rent you a Weapon that'll wipe them all out, to save him. You get the Doctor, and win your war. I get money."
The Sontarans consider this, carefully. They really don't trust the Doctor, is the problem, and they have a suspicion that this could be a very sophisticated trap. Or that the Doctor would find a way to work against them, if he were in Rutan hands.
The Doctor takes advantage during the negotiations, and goes to the controls to the temporal Mobius strip. He fiddles with the controls and traps Chorjel and the Sontarans inside the loop — but loops their negotiations for Seo.
So by the time they realize they're trapped, it's too late, and everyone else has already gone.
.
Meanwhile, the proximity of the Cybermen seems to have activated something of the Cyberplaner inside of Seo. Jenny finds her, but is surprised to discover that Seo's acting a lot more Cyberplanner than usual.
"Yeah, he's giving me a tummy ache," Seo tells Jenny. "Why are Cyberplanners so mean to my tummy? What did my tummy ever do to them?"
Jenny realizes that they've got to get Seo out of here.
She uses the Cybermen to get rid of all the Agrathan time technology, then meets up with the Doctor — who's just finished foiling the Sontarans and Chorjel.
The three race into the TARDIS, and dematerialize.
The Cybermen, meanwhile, haven't destroyed quite all the Agrathan's time technology. They've actually stolen some of it, as well. They quickly install the time technology into their ship, and decide to go after their Cyberplanner.
In the TARDIS, Seo warns the others that the Cybermen won't give her up that easily.
Then there's a jolt, and the Doctor realizes that the Cybermen are following them.
.
END OF TEMPORAL MOBIUS STORY