The Captain's Blog

Volume 74.5, Week 1


Alien activity: One Time Lord with a new and unfortunate penchant for bowties. It's the Doctor, of course, with a new regeneration. Though it would almost be worth seeing the Master again if he were wearing a bowtie. Almost. Also, a species I'd actually never encountered before. I don't know him well enough to say one way or another about coming in peace, but he was certainly friendly enough that I'm sure I could find out. I think I met a vampire but I don't want to jump to conclusions; there are several alien races that strongly resemble what humans portray as vampires. I don't know what to think about the guy who knew I was immortal. And there was the dragon, but I find myself unable to call that "alien." There are, after all, many fantastic things that spring from the earth itself. It's too easy to forget that, sometimes.

That's all that I can list as far as specifics. The appearance of an alien invasion led to a conversation where I found out that aliens are pretty common here. (See below for further details on "here.")

Oh, and zombies, too.

On a personal note, the Doctor and I got off to a really bad start. And, well, part of the issue is that it was a start. He's both someone who's changed my life in every way possible and someone I don't even know. Time Lords are so damn complicated. We're lucky to have him here, though. He was wrong to say a lot of what he did. But he was also right. I have a hard enough time being myself. I can't imagine being him.

Alien technology: Possibly everything around me. Maybe even the air. First of all, there's whatever unknown thing that's being used to bring everyone here from different places, planets, times, realities. ("Thing" being the proper technical term for it, of course. Or maybe it's more of a "thingy." Hard to say at this point.) A little more concretely, there's apparently a barrier surrounding the entire encampment. It sounds like it turns the entire place into a Pac-man game -- leave one side of the screen, and you just come back in from the other side. I'll have to check that out myself. Much more disturbingly, though, there's some force or mechanism that continually brings people back to life. There's obviously no way for me to really research that on my own, and that's the last sort of thing you research using other people. I'll just have to see what people can tell me and keep an eye out.

Rift activity: If I had been forced to put forth a hypothesis about this place the first few hours that I was here, I would have guessed that there was some Rift manipulation happening that went beyond the attempts to control an existing Rift that I'd seen, that maybe involved the creation of artificial Rift-like entities. That might not be completely off the mark, but the Doctor's description of it as a "trap door" captures an important element of it. This feels far more targeted than anything I've known. Possibly targeted by a person who has no idea where they're aiming, but it definitely feels active. There's something driving this. But what? Or who?

Security: Trapped in a year-round summer camp that resembles fly-over country in the United States of America, the year 2010. Apparently, I've been here before, but I got it quickly confirmed that I wasn't here now. That another me wasn't here now. There really aren't enough pronouns for crossed timelines.

Other security issues: Have been told by multiple sources that attempting to have sex results in being turned into a small fuzzy animal. And that attempting beyond that results in Muppet-ization. This is the worst security issue ever.

Staff: It really never does leave you. No matter how hard you run. I just hope I don't end up like Torchwood 2. He still gives me the creeps.

Other Staff issues: Not actually staff, but I do need to get back in touch with Lara Croft about doing some exploring around here.

Upcoming issues: Finding out what the hell is going on. I think this is going to take a while.

Also, take Rose out for a drink.

Capt. Jack Harkness.