Inevitable Origins
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"Those insufferable old coots!" The man growled, glaring at the sterile white door.
The insult would seem from the outside ineffectual as the man himself was quite ancient looking. Physical age was to him and his species nothing more than an affect to put on like a false accent or fluttering hand gesture. The man was thin, graying with a cragged face and hawkish nose, with fierce blue eyes. His fingers curled in seemingly arthritic rage as he turned, his orange robes ruffling awkwardly around his slight frame. He reached up to his neck and released the fittings pulled the absurd frill from his neck and tossed it to the floor. He sneered at the frill.
It represented decades of work. Centuries if he was honest. He had done extensive research in the great depths of the libraries of Gallifrey. He had cloistered himself in the dimensionally transcendental stacks. He'd missed so much, working so hard that he'd missed his children growing up, going through academy, finding themselves partners and having their own children. He fumed at the thought of so much missed time. Whilst he had been in the deepest canyons of the library they had been out and then...He clutched his craggy hands tightly.
"I dare say, old boy, I couldn't help noticing, didn't go well hmm?" The man looked up to see a flowing gale of purple robes that seemed to twist and furl like smoke around a mountain peak.
"My lord, I am sorry." The old man flustered as he turned to reach for the frill he'd thrown to the ground but the other Time Lord was already grasping it by the great axe-shaped curl and lifted it.
"It is understandable, many a time have I been by the auditors' offices, many a time, indeed." the lord said smiling amicably. "Many a young post-doctorate I've seen fuming as his project has been cut from the academic council. It is frustrating to say the least. Years of work, and dedication, and then fft-" the lord with his free hand swiped as if he was holding a sword, "gone with the stroke of some old bureaucrat's pen."
"Yes-quite." the man said nodding quietly still not quite mustering to look the lord in the face. "None the less it is quite inappropriate for someone of my standing to act such a child."
"My boy you are but a child…" the lord said. The man looked up to the lord's eyes, they were the sharpest green. "Trust me this is not the end, I'm sure…wait I know you, don't I? Yes…my it is you isn't it?"
The old man broke eye contact with the lord. "I suppose you would hear about it…"
"My dear son, deepest condolences, such an accident was horrible, nothing could be done, nothing at all…" the lord said putting his hand heavily on the old man's shoulder. "If I seem to remember there was one survivor, yes?"
"Yes-" The old man said nodding. "My-granddaughter. I have taken her in, she has no one else, now. I was hoping that with this research permit that I would be able to take her with me away, being in the citadel brings too many memories back, it's quite hard for her actually. However, it seems that I will not be doing any research at all, and that I will instead be going back to being a glorified librarian. I pity the child, she is still quite raw emotionally speaking. My research was really the best hope for her to get away from all of it…"
"Your research?" the lord looked at the old man. "You may as well tell me what it was to be about?"
"I don't see the point; the academic auditors have stricken it…" the old man started.
"Then no harm can come of it if you tell me." The lord replied congenially, a warm smile playing off of the lords round piggish face.
"It is on the nature of good and evil-" the old man said looking up at the lord. The old man seemed to expand his body as he became limber and his body seemed to shed the old age that it had come to affect as he explained. The old man clutched the lapels of his robes and started. "In the universe, across the universe there are all these civilizations on every level of development but they all in general have one thing in common…regardless of how violent and aggressive their initial temperament and origins are, eventually they moderate and become good. From the Draconians to the Argonians, even the Trakkenites…they started as societies that committed horrible acts of atrocity and evil against their own people and even others only to, over time, be consumed by goodness, even when being cruel and brutal would have benefitted their expansion and prosperity…remarkable, simply remarkable.
"My research was going to be about why that, in a universe where inflicting suffering and pain is so much more profitable than being kind, why is it that good which has all the hallmarks of a negative behavioral trait seems to continually succeed in the face of evil which, on the face of it, has all the hallmarks of being the beneficial trait…"
"And the application of this research?" The lord asked.
The old man frowned and shook his head. "That's what the auditors asked. I believe it is obvious. If we can understand the fundamental forces that push civilizations towards 'goodness' we could greatly improve the plight of the universe as a whole. There's a war going on out there right now being fought by two races, it's been raging for fifty thousand years, a race of squat clones fighting an interminable war with a hive-mind of shape changers, and all these smaller civilizations are being destroyed in the crossfire…if we could harness the forces that turn civilizations good we could end the war, bring peace to the universe…"
"I see-" The lord said quietly, his green eyes sizing the man up. "And the auditors…they didn't like that answer?"
"'It is not the in the interest of the high council of Time Lords to interfere in the plight of lesser races'," the old man growled, glaring at the lord before realizing who he was glaring at. He blinked and shook his head. "I just think, we have all this knowledge, technology and power and we do nothing with it…nothing at all….and the universe suffers in our neglect…"
"I can understand your frustration…" the lord said quietly, patting the old man on the back. "I am one of the leads of the High Technologies Department. I have also gone through one of these audits recently. We have an entire fleet of perfectly functional TT capsules that just sit there in disuse. Perfectly functional type 40s mark I and mark II's….and they never go anywhere, so what's the auditors' suggestion? Decommission them, melt them down and use them as templates for the next generation. Absolutely unforgivable…they wouldn't even notice if one disappeared, they are so disinterested in them. All they see is the materials and not the potential."
The old man looked up, he seemed to lift his hand to his lips as if thinking. "That is pitiable, indeed."
"Think of all the research that could be done…" the lord said, he sniffed quite loudly, his green eyes locked with the old man's. "Just imagine all of the research an industrious, young lad, not unlike yourself, could be doing if the high council just every once in a while allowed just one of those marvelous ships to go out on their intended duties…but no, instead they'll simply be broken down for raw materials." The lord shook his head. He sighed. "But that's bureaucracy for you, too busy looking at pocket books to see the big picture. All of those marvelous capsules just sitting in the repair bays awaiting the axe, fully functional, completely operational, some of them like new. It's a crime, is what it is, a right crime against society. You know then these hoity-toities have the gall, the unmitigated gall, to go on about waste in the budget and fat to trim, and look at what they have been doing with what they have…politics my boy, never get into it, it's terribly depressing the kinds of things that go on, terribly depressing."
"The repair bays, you say? Most interesting." the old man asked.
"My goodness yes, my boy." the lord said laughing. He smacked the old man in the chest with the back of his hand in the laughter. "Which is hilarious, they go on and on about how invaluable those capsules are as resources and then they have them birthed in possibly the least secure facility in the entire port!" The lord stopped laughing and looked directly at the old man the back of the lord's hand still pressed against the old man's chest. The lord leaned in closely. "It's almost as if they are asking for someone to steal them…" The lord arched a grayish-red eyebrow, pulled his hand away and lifted it, tapping the side of his nose slightly. The lord sighed loudly. "But what would I know…" The lord waved his hand airily. "Three thousand years on the job and I'm the one being directed by a few young bucks only barely out of the crib a hundred years back, who've gotten an appointment out of academy to write the checks and pay the bills, and it's young people like you who get kicked out onto the streets who are the ones that would hold the keys to changing Gallifrey's destiny but…what can you do? Hmm?" The lord looked at the old man intently and then shook his head. "Really what can you do?"
"I guess not much." The old man said quietly, slowly amassing sense of discomfort welling up as he looked around for cameras or spying devices.
"I look forward to seeing your career grow, my lad." The lord said slapping the old man on the back. "I will have to send someone over to see how you and that granddaughter are doing…I may have some work for you, might not be able to crack the ol' nut of good versus evil but I may have work for a keen, inquisitive mind like yours!"
"Thank you, my lord!" the old man said bowing almost out of reflex than respect.
"Now, I must be going, always places to be when you're important, you'll understand when you're older, of course!" the lord laughed and his purple robes pulsed like great, slushing avalanches of grape jelly against his rotund body.
"I will look forward to any future communication, my lord." The old man said backing away and walking in the opposite direction as the lavender clad Time Lord.
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"Silence the alarm-" the blonde man in black robes said as he watched the monitor.
"I told you the old chap would go for it." The rotund Time Lord said quietly as he watched the thin, old man in a tattered suit usher a young girl behind him towards one of the capsules.
"Yes, Lord Balzaran, he doesn't seem to suspect anything at all." the man in the black robes replied. "You did well, the Celestial Intervention Agency is, of course, very pleased with your cooperation…"
"I dare say, that isn't the capsule we had him marked to use…" The Time Lord in purple said as he watched the old man move towards a different TT capsule and enter it.
"No, it would appear it is not." the man in black grumbled. "I guess some things really cannot be altered after all."
"What do you mean?" Lord Balzaran asked.
"Nothing, nothing, the important thing is that the Doctor has started his journey, we'll simply have to monitor him much more closely this time…" the man in black said as he turned towards a column that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
"My compensation, I can be assured that that has been paid?" Lord Balzaran asked.
"Of course it is, in the future you are by far one of the most opulently furnished Time Lords on Gallifrey…" the man in black said quietly. The surface of the column became water light and disappeared revealing an entire room within it. "Your family is assured its position on the council, and of course the extra regenerations will be granted when they are needed…" The man in black entered the column and the surface returned closing itself off. The man in black sneered and shook his head and placed his hands on the console. "It's a shame that they'll all be wasted when the Daleks invade the southern continent…but maybe this time the Doctor will fight…"
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AN: I will not apologize….and this is an obvious callback to a concept I gave long before and of course the obvious one of what we just had…and ultimately this project was never EVER not going to be needlessly self-indulgent, and runs so hard towards it that it often twists an ankle in the running….And on some level I secretly love Lord Balzaran….he's a Time Lord archetype that I love…never truly 'evil' per se…just…so pompous and believing that they are right that they are callous about how they do things believing that if people understood they'd accept it, but they also know enough that people won't like it so they have to be shifty and conniving and basically come into the situation with a parental sort of sneer, 'we're doing it this way and you have no choice because it's the best thing to do' and also more importantly generally selfish…which in many ways is what the Doctor has the propensity to be…only you know…kinder…