28. Theia Co-incidence.
1. Theia Moment of Co-incidence.
The Doctor is taking Crystelle's daughter, Chloe, to see the very early Earth.
The Doctor had met Crystelle one day when he needed comfort thinking he had lost his close companion. Crystelle had been able to comfort him and also return to rescue his companion (ref. 4). She'd then become a second companion for a while. Later, she'd met her husband, got married and started a family.
Chloe is sixteen and showing interest in space travel and, necessarily she thinks, space history. The Doctor describes what is about to happen.
"There! The very early Earth," the Doctor announces proudly. "And over there, another planet we call Theia. It's getting very close to Earth."
Chloe asks, "will it touch?"
"Yes, collide, actually," the Doctor confirms.
"My planet of ancestral origin and you're letting another planet crash into it?" Chloe asks furiously. .
"Naturally! To not do so would change the entire path of history," the Doctor says. "Mankind wouldn't have a moon to look at and start thinking about what's up there. Man would never reach for space travel or the stars."
Chloe groans. The thought of her planet of ancestral origin being so massively disrupted is almost unbearable. She considers how anything could survive such an impact.
"What sort of lifeforms are down there on the surface of Earth right now?" Chloe asks.
"Bacteria..." the Doctor starts saying. There is a great long list of different types of microbial life, both land and aquatic varieties, but Chloe has asked about the surface, so he must start there. He doesn't get further than the first in the list.
"Do you mean to say that I'm descended from bacteria?!" Chloe is incensed at this. .
"No, no!" the Doctor says. He tries to calm Chloe down. "There are many tiny life forms, mostly in the oceans. Bacteria are some of the few that exist on land at the moment. If we visited, that's what we would see on the surface."
"Can we visit now?" Chloe asks impatiently. She wants to see what it was like on Earth then. Oxygen would likely be in short supply, but the Tardis will supply what they need.
"It's getting rather close to the co-incidence moment," the Doctor says. "The spatial co-incidence. The time when Theia crashes into Earth."
"We have a time machine," Chloe says demandingly. "Can't we take an hour there?"
"Yes," the Doctor says. "But it's very boring there just now... Alright, just a short time."
"Can we go to where the planets will collide?" Chloe asks determinedly. If she's going to visit, then she wants to be in the place of action.
"Let's just go near there," the Doctor tries to negotiate to be away from the most dangerous place for millions of miles around. "It will be the first place to be dangerous."
"Right at the centre," Chloe insists. "Please, Doctor?" .
"Oh, alright then, but don't say I didn't warn you!"
The Doctor points at the Tardis Console Monitor screen. "There, just there."
He starts to enter the co-ordinates.
"I can see a blue blob there already," Chloe imagines, smiling as she had got her way. .
"That's us there already," the Doctor jokes. He knows it can't be, but in a moment of distraction he makes a mistake.
The Doctor pulls the dematerialisation lever, and the monitor screen shows a rocky valley in the early evening sunshine.
They step out onto a rough flat rock which the Tardis has chosen to land on. Each little gap between rocks has its own small stream.
"It's so wet!" Chloe says looking down at the rocks under her feet.
"A brief interlude between rain storms," the Doctor says. "Let's have a look at the rocks."
He picks up a loose rock and holds it for Chloe to see. A thin sheen layer of wet brown bacteria adorns the side of the rock that had been upward facing.
"What's life like after the co-incidence moment?" Chloe asks. She is still very concerned how life might possibly survive such a calamity.
"Pretty rough for a long time," the Doctor says, "but it settles down."
"And then what's it like?"
"Acid rain for ages until much of the carbon is entrapped in the ocean sediments."
"Did life forms do that?" She likes to think that her ancestral origins helped to shape the Earth into the pleasant, inhabitable place it went on to become.
"Yes," the Doctor says. "They all played their part in making Earth a pleasant place to live. It's lovely to see it now at the beginnings of its life as a planet..."
A large rough brown rock falls from the sky. They look up to see the approaching planet looming close. .
"Rocks will start to peel off the surface of Theia as the Earth's gravity overcomes Theia's gravity just where those rocks are," the Doctor yells. "We must go. There's seconds to go until the co-incidence moment." .
"Didn't you give us an hour?" Chloe asks.
"Sorry, apparently not." The Doctor's minor mistake becomes evident. .
More large rocks come raining down from the sky as Chloe and the Doctor run the few steps to the Tardis.
The Doctor pulls the dematerialisation lever, and they observe from space again.
"It's much safer from up here!" the Doctor says. "Let's watch carefully. No-one else can see this, only us."
They watch. Chloe wonders what the coming cataclysm will look like.
"You've watched this moment before?" Chloe hazards a guess.
"Yes, but not with company."
"Yes, but it's awesome, too," Chloe says. "To think that the planet down there is my ancestral home."
Rocks start flying across the ever-decreasing gap between the planets. Soon much of the closest edge of Theia is ripping apart and flying to land on the surface of Earth.
"Earth is taking quite a pounding there!" Chloe says.
"Not nearly as much as it will in a few moments!" the Doctor says.
The Doctor loves some flamboyancy. He announces, "Observe the Moment of Co-incidence!"
The stream of rocks becomes constant as the planets touch. A red glow from behind the nearest rocks then becomes a golden yellow.
"The stresses on the rock are terrific!" the Doctor says enthusiastically. "The rocks will all melt."
Large cracks appear in the surface of both planets with the golden yellow glow becoming ever more prominent.
"There's a big splash of molten rock which will head upwards shortly," the Doctor says.
"Will it solidify in space?" Chloe asks.
"Yes," the Doctor says. "It will become the Moon. That's why the Moon always has the same face turned towards the Earth. For a very brief period of time, maybe only a few minutes, it was part of the Earth. It's like a drop of water hitting a water pool surface and you get a splash that jumps back out of the water pool."
"So, the Moon is just a splash?" Chloe laughs. .
"Yes," the Doctor says. "Incredible, isn't it?"
"This is happening in slow motion, isn't it?" Chloe asks. It's all taking a rather long time unfolding before them.
"Real time, actually," the Doctor says. "Accidents often appear to be in slow motion, but planet collisions are not rapid, just catastrophic if you're on the planet."
"How long will it be until the moon splash happens?" Chloe asks.
"Just a minute before it starts going up, and three days to get to orbit. But it will take a hundred years to form the Moon, even then there will be two moons for a while."
The two planets deform like squash balls, the yellow glow between rocks becomes whiter.
"Can we go now?" Chloe asks. "I can hardly bear to watch. It just looks like it's totally unsurvivable. Does any life survive this?"
"At the very bottom of the oceans quite a lot of life survives in small pockets," the Doctor says. "The water doesn't boil off; it just gets warm. But the fun has only just begun!"
He can see that Chloe is now covering her eyes, so the observation time is over.
It's a shame it became traumatic for Chloe to watch. Where and when will the next outing be to and how will Chloe cope?
