Author's Note: In all honesty, I kind of need this "summaries" story because our hotel has gone into meltdown mode. Funny thing is, the hotel itself is really nice. But the guy I work with has just completely given up. He gets drunk every night and insults the guests. Then he lays into me because I can't justify his expenses.
Somehow, he's decided this is all my problem.
Especially when the internet goes down, and he won't let me get to the wifi box to reset it. "Shoshi, that's my personal space! You're invading my personal space!" "But it's the hotel lobby. That's not your personal space. It's an office area." "No, it's my personal space! Get out!"
Anyways. That's why I'm having trouble posting things.
Enjoy.
Seo and Jenny visit Traken Idea
Takes place directly after the previous story.
Story starts with the Doctor, Jenny, and Seo running away from the Cybermen. Jenny wants to know why no one mentioned to her that Seo had a Cyberplanner inside her head, and they both yell back that it's complicated.
The Doctor attempts to perform an evasive maneuver with the TARDIS, to lose the Cybermen, but the console explodes! Turns out, Jenny's fiddled with the systems in the TARDIS, again, to try to see how they worked (she does this a lot). As a result, the Doctor's evasive maneuver has taken down most of the shielding and has wound up crashing them into real time.
With the Cybermen on their heels.
"What's the number one rule, Jenny?!" the Doctor shouts, trying to evade the Cybermen through space instead of time.
"Don't wander off!" Jenny said. "And I didn't!"
"No, I mean… the new number one rule!" The Doctor pulls a lever, and the whole TARDIS shakes. "Hands off my TARDIS!"
The TARDIS buckles and groans, and it sounds like it's about to shake apart.
Jenny looks at the stars around them, and realizes where they are. "Wait! I've been here, before!" Jenny leaps at the TARDIS controls. "I know where we'll be safe!"
The Doctor tries to get her away from the controls, but Jenny manages an emergency landing.
And smashes them right into a planet.
.
When the others regain consciousness (from the harder-than-normal crash landing), Jenny is eager to show them the outside.
"It's one of my all-time favorite planets!" Jenny says, running to the doors. "I come here every chance I get. It's peaceful, it's beautiful, and it's the perfect place to hide from the Cybermen!"
She throws open the doors.
And the Doctor, Seo, and Jenny step outside. The Doctor immediately recognizes where they are. "Traken? This is Traken!"
(Obviously, they've landed during a time in Traken's past, before the Master destroyed it.)
The TARDIS, in need of repairs, shuts itself up and locks them out, so it can go into self-repair mode. Which leaves them stranded on Traken for a while.
"You know it?" Jenny asks, surprised.
"I'm surprised that you know it!" the Doctor replies.
Turns out, Jenny landed on Traken by accident, once, and found it a wonderfully peaceful and tranquil planet. She fell in love with the place. She now comes to Traken fairly often, just to relax and take a break from saving the world.
Jenny also mentions that she had a hand in using the Source to displace Quandar, back during Traken's primordial days.
Jenny and the Doctor have a discussion about all this, the Doctor telling Jenny about his own experiences on Traken, while Jenny tells him about hers, and they walk around a beautiful garden while this is happening.
However, as they're talking, Seo suddenly discovers — she can't take another step.
"Guys!" Seo calls out, trying in vain to move her legs, but finding them stuck, as if in mud. "Help!"
Both the Doctor and Jenny turn around, then hurry back and try to help Seo. However, the more they try to help her, the more stuck she becomes. And the numbness is spreading up higher and higher, every second.
"Oh, no," the Doctor says. "She's not stuck in the mud."
Jenny, in horror, realizes the same thing. "Her skin. It's… gray."
"What do you mean, gray?" Seo asks, suddenly scared, as she sees both their faces. "What's going on? Why are you looking at me like that? What's happening to me?!"
The Doctor and Jenny don't know how to say this.
"You're… turning to stone," Jenny admits.
"It's the Source," the Doctor tries to explain. "An invention on this planet. Its light shines down on Traken, and turns anything evil into stone. That's why Jenny figured we'd be safe from the Cybermen, here! Only, problem is…"
The Doctor hesitates.
"But I'm not evil!" Seo cries. She can feel it spreading up into her chest, now.
"It's made a mistake," Jenny says. "It's seen the Cyberplanner in your mind — or maybe the Weapon — and thinks you're a monster. It's trying to correct that mistake."
"But there's gotta be some way to stop it!" Seo insists. "I don't want to die!"
Jenny spins around. "Yes, there is!"
Jenny grabs the Doctor, and races to the Consul Chamber. When she arrives there, she begs an audience with the Keeper of Traken. All the consuls recognize Jenny, and welcome her to the Union — calling her an "honorary daughter of Traken."
(Jenny's part in Traken's formation have given her a position of trust for all time, on that planet. She has the privilege of being able to speak to the consuls and have an audience with the Keeper of Traken.)
The Keeper of Traken also recognizes Jenny, and welcomes her. "Jenny, the embodiment of good and light in the universe," the Keeper says. However, when he sees the Doctor, he hesitates. "But you come with another… and although his good shines through, death follows in his shadow. The Source sees a terrible future for Traken, the destruction of our world and the death of all our people — and the Doctor has a role in that future."
"Well, don't believe everything you hear," the Doctor says. 'Future has yet to be written, and all that!"
Doesn't mention that this is actually his past.
The Keeper also mentions that the last time the Doctor showed up on Traken, he was tricked into helping Quandar invade their home and kill their people.
"Dad!" Jenny hisses, elbowing him.
But the Keeper is willing to let the Doctor remain, so long as he remains under Jenny's guidance and supervision.
"And what about Seo?" Jenny asks. "My sister?"
The Keeper suddenly gets very confused. "The light of the source... has trouble... seeing her," he explains. "But it senses much evil within her."
The Doctor realizes — "Of course! The Source is 'omniscient' and 'infallible' — it's basically a god! But Seo was built specifically to confuse gods. So the Source can't see her properly."
The only reason the Source can see Seo at all is because of what happened on Fake Gallifrey, and because of the Cyberplanner inside her head. Which means that, basically, all the good parts of Seo are invisible, and all the evil parts are visible.
Jenny tries to explain that her sister is good.
The Doctor, however, explains it better.
"You say that Traken is entirely good," the Doctor reasons. "But there are still Melkur on its surface — beings of evil. What about that?"
"The Melkur are stone statues, Doctor," the Keeper says. "The evil has been contained."
"Exactly!" the Doctor agrees. "You have evil here, you just contain it. So what if Seo's mind worked the same way?"
"And all the evil you've seen inside has been smothered by her goodness!" Jenny agrees.
The Keeper concedes that this might be the case. He decides to give Seo the chance to prove herself, and lets her go.
They discover Seo out in the garden, free from stone. Seo is relieved, and very happy.
But then the Cybermen invade.
.
Turns out, the Doctor was right that the Source couldn't really see Seo correctly. All the good parts were invisible, so the only part that the Source could see… was the Cyberplanner.
According to the Source, that's all Seo is.
A Cyberplanner.
And since Cyberplanners are basically an extension of the Cybermen, themselves, that means that by making an exception for Seo, the Source created an exception for all Cybermen.
So any Cyberman can set foot on Traken, no problem.
Jenny, Seo, and the Doctor run.
.
At first, Jenny, Seo, and the Doctor assume that the Cybermen are here to get their Cyberplanner back.
They soon discover there are two groups of Cybermen after Seo. One group wants to get Seo back as their Cyberplanner. The other has already created a new Cyberplanner, and wants to destroy Seo.
Both groups invade Traken.
Seo gets knocked unconscious and dragged off to the Cybermen's ship (her Cybermen). She comes to, and finds herself plugged into a machine. It can read her (all cyber-technology can, since she programmed it that way), and will rearrange her mind so the Cyberplanner imperatives become dominant once more.
It activates.
Seo's eyes go dark. She looks and acts a lot like Mercy, from that episode in Victorian London. A Cyberplanner, through and through.
.
Meanwhile, on Traken, everyone's trying to figure out why this is happening, and how to stop it. Particularly the Doctor and Jenny. The consuls mention that they should never have let the Doctor on Traken — as death and disaster follows in his shadow.
The Cybermen, upon finding the Doctor, recognize him as one of their greatest enemies. He must be deleted.
"Don't you want my brain?" the Doctor prompts. "Secrets of time travel?"
"Negative," say the Cybermen. "The Cyberplanner has the secrets of time travel. You will be deleted."
He and Jenny make a run for it.
They are cornered, however, and wind up surrounded by Cybermen. All wanting to delete them. They figure this is the end.
But the Cybermen don't shoot.
In fact, apart from saying that they must be deleted, they don't actually seem inclined to harm Jenny or the Doctor at all. And, when the rival Cybermen show up, these Cybermen blast the others to pieces before any harm can come to the Doctor and Jenny.
The Doctor and Jenny take advantage of the distraction, and run.
"Of course! Seo's been woven into the Cyberplanner programming!" the Doctor says. "You can't just activate one and get rid of the other."
"You mean Seo's still in there, trying to protect us?" Jenny asks. "But why did they say they were going to kill... no, wait. Nevermind."
This is Seo. She may speak a lot of rubbish, but her hearts are always in the right place.
"I don't think she can override their logic," says the Doctor. "And their logic says I should die. But she can make sure they don't actually kill me."
They arrive at the consul chamber, and discover that Seo's Cybermen have been bringing the children into that chamber, to protect them. They say they're gathering organic material to create new Cybermen, but it's pretty obvious what's really going on.
This is more of Seo's personality woven into the Cybermen. And Seo doesn't hurt children.
The consuls are consulting the Keeper of Traken, trying to figure out what's going wrong. "The Cybermen are evil!" they say. "Why isn't the Source protecting us?"
The Keeper still seems very confused by the whole situation. "The Source says... the Cybermen... are good."
The consuls don't understand how the Source could be so fallible about this!
The Doctor and Jenny explain it — the Source is confused because the Cybermen are working for good, or some of them at any rate. Seo's actions (saving children, not killing the Doctor and Jenny) are proving to the Source that she is good, just like Jenny said, and it can't distinguish between her Cybermen, and the other ones.
"Long and the short of it is," the Doctor concludes, "the Source is all mixed up! Because Seo's around. And her energies make its programming go… a bit funny."
.
The fight continues. Maybe a few other plot twists here, as the Doctor and Jenny try to stop things?
.
Eventually, it becomes clear to Seo that she can't stop even her own Cybermen from converting the people of Traken, and that the other side will keep killing and converting anyways.
She learns from the Doctor and Jenny that the Source won't destroy the Cybermen because of her.
Seo gets up from her seat on the Cybermen's ship. "I am a Cyberplanner," she says, dully. Walking over to the control panel. "I have no fear."
She starts adjusting things on the control panel.
"I have no fear."
The alarm bells sound, and the Cybermen all start chiming that there's a massive reactor overload and this is not logical.
"I have no fear," Seo whispers.
Presses the button to explode the ship's reactor core.
.
In the blink of an eye, the Cyber-ship and every single Cyberman on the planet... turns to stone. Immediately.
On the ship, so does Seo.
.
Jenny and the Doctor learn what Seo has done from the Keeper.
"The Cyberplanner attempted to detonate the reactor, which would have killed all Trakenites on this continent, and turned the planet into a radioactive wasteland," says the Keeper. "The Source saw clearly for the first time. This action was evil. Therefore the Cyberplanner and its Cybermen were evil. And must be destroyed."
"She sacrificed herself to save your world," Jenny realizes.
She and the Doctor go out to the Cybership. They're really sad, when they see Seo there, like all the others. Then Jenny examines Seo a little closer.
"No, wait!" Jenny cries. "She isn't stone!"
Turns out, unlike all the others, Seo hasn't been turned to stone. She's been frozen in place.
The Doctor surmises that the Source recognized that Seo's actions were for the good of the Union, and saved her for this reason.
"When the TARDIS unlocks," the Doctor says, "I'll be able to get her back. But as long as she's on Traken... I don't think the Source will let her wake up. She's too... confusing."
Jenny feels terrible about this, since she was the one who suggested they come here in the first play. "This is all my fault," she says. "And now, my sister's going to be alone and scared, just because she tried to be a hero." She puts an arm on Seo's frozen one. "But I won't let her be alone."
So Jenny stays by Seo, and talks to her. To keep her company. That night, Jenny falls asleep next to Seo, just to make sure she won't be alone.
.
When Jenny wakes up, the next morning, she finds that the people of Traken have all gathered to place flowers by Seo's statue. They explain to Jenny that they recognize her sacrifice, and that Seo has taught them that all evil may still contain some good.
Moreover, they have sent out the children of Traken to bring flowers to the stone Cybermen. They mourn the people these Cybermen once were, and want to show gratitude for the way some of the Cybermen actually tried to save children, instead of harming them.
Jenny beams at this. Amazed, as always, by the kindheartedness of the Trakenites. "It's a beautiful idea," Jenny tells them. "Maybe… this should become a tradition on Traken. Just to remind you all that even evil creatures may have a little bit of good inside."
The Trakenites agree that this should become a custom.
And they set one up.
.
Jenny tells the Doctor about this, expecting him to be just as happy and overwhelmed as she was.
The Doctor, however, just turns away.
And sighs.
.
We leap forwards in time to when they manage to revive Seo. They're on the TARDIS, and the Doctor is explaining what he thinks will happen to the Cybermen statues, over time.
"No, they'll never come back to life," the Doctor says. "They'll stay stuck like that forever! But over the centuries, they'll crumble and erode away — until the Cybermen look just like the rest of the Melkur statues on Traken."
Seo stretches and wiggles her toes.
And everyone is thrilled that Seo is all right.
Jenny tells Seo about the Traken children giving her flowers, to thank her for her sacrifice. And how the children laid flowers by the stone Cybermen, out of thanks for saving them, and because Seo taught them that evil might still contain some spark of goodness.
Seo is touched.
The Doctor is obviously not. "Yes, well," he mutters, "it's not such a nice tradition if you've seen where it leads."
Jenny turns around. "What do you mean, where it leads? Why've you been so obtuse about this?"
The Doctor, reluctantly, tells them about the time he came to Traken, in his fourth incarnation, when the Master turned his TARDIS into a Melkur and took advantage of this same Trakenite custom to put a trance over Cassia, one of the consuls. He then tricked his way into becoming Keeper of Traken.
"And by the end of it all, Traken was destroyed by an entropy field," the Doctor said. "I saw it happen."
Jenny and Seo don't feel so wonderful about this, anymore.
They look at one another, and think about the consequences their actions really have. And how one small incident may cause the death of an entire world, in the future.