| The Doctor says: "Well, you know that I don't really have a choice."
But before he can say any more, redhaired Betty butts in. "Look," she says
to the Doctor, "I'd really like to know what is going on here. Maybe you
understood all that, but is there any chance of anyone giving an explanation
at a level that I can understand?"
Rule 1 smiles. "I think we owe you - and your companions - that much,"
he says, "so let's try to dot some 'i's and cross some 't's, shall we.
First, then, you need to understand that my colleague and I are part of
what you might call the celestial bureaucracy. To keep this universe -
and indeed all the other universes - running smoothly it is necessary that
what you might call the four primal forces of Good and Evil, Order and
Chaos should be kept in some sort of balance within it. The Rules, of which
I am one, have the task of ensuring that sufficient Order is maintained;
the Agents, to which my friend there belongs, do the same for Chaos; the
Angels look after Good; and the Demons oversee Evil. You might think that
the Rules and the Agents would be at each others' throats, but in fact
we recognise that the others have their necessary place in the Grand Design,
and we actually get along pretty well. All of us - Rules, Agents, Angels
and Demons - work for an all-powerful god or gods. I have to be rather
coy about that, and can't say any more, as we wish members of all religions
to be able to believe that their faith is the true one.
"I said 'all the other universes' earlier. From your brief time on Terra
Prime you will already be familiar with the concept of people who are analogs
of other people, and who come from worlds that are closer or more distant
analogs of this Terra. The same concept applies to the universe as a whole.
This universe has many analogs, some very similar to this one and some
that would seem very strange to you, where the very laws of physics are
radically different. In many of the analog universes there are analogs
of your own Earth, and on many of those analog Earths will be found analogs
of you.
"Now, as a result of meddling by the version of the Master to whom this
TARDIS belonged, and who is now dead, three things happened. First, two
versions of Earth were dragged out of their original universes and finished
up in this one, rather than merely having an explosion that would put an
end to human life as those universes' Masters intended. I'm afraid there's
nothing to be done to undo that, but rest assured that their inhabitants
are unharmed. More seriously - from our viewpoint - the stability of the
two universes that those Earths came from has been upset, and needs to
be restored. That is where we hope that the Doctor comes in, and I'll return
to that shortly.
"The third thing that happened is that those instances of the Doctors'
TARDISs that had been on - or at least in the vicinity of - those two Earths
finished up here, that is within the interior of this TARDIS. One
is in the kitchen and one in the bathroom, to be precise. They've been
prevented from rematerialising, however, until we've finished this discussion,
as there's going to be a lot of confusion for a while when their occupants
appear: two more Doctors, two more Masters, ditto for each version of Betty,
and ditto for Stacy. Only one Melissa, though, as the other had a rather
strange experience that led to her arriving here first in the form of an
elf. The people from those TARDISs, and the TARDISs themselves, are going
to be stuck in this universe now, I'm afraid.
"Now I'll go back to the point about the disrupted stability of the
two universes those two Earths were snatched from. As far as we are concerned,
that is the significant issue. We want those universes' stability restored,
but we can't do it ourselves, even though it would be a simple thing for
us to do. The reason why is basically political. We would be seen in certain
quarters as exceeding our authority. However, it is accepted that we may
ask a third party to be our champion, to use an old term, and do the job
for us. The Doctor - this Doctor - is the one we'd like to do it. He will
need to be given the power to move between universes to do the job. One
good thing about that is that he will thus be enabled to save the version
of Earth that Betty 2 comes from - which is still in its original universe
and is where you were last. The downside is that once our champion he has
to always be our champion, at our call for any task that we might
need him to do. But for the rest of the time, he will be able to go on
much as before, only in multiple universes instead of just one. Which is
why he will need a helper, for whom we suggest Romana, to look after his
'home' universe. Oh, and as our champion he will live effectively for ever...
-
 "Any
questions?"
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