Around the console of the TARDIS, three people look at each other uncertainly: the blond voyager in Time and Space calling herself the Traveller, Doctor Stanley Newton of England, and Ms. Amanda Khabares, daughter of President Khabares of the star-spanning USA of the thirty-fourth century.

Trav tosses her hat onto the hat stand, as she steps back, and plops onto the beat up couch that's outside the ring of the control dais. "I was hoping we'd never have this conversation."

"There... was a war. It was between my people, the Time Lords, and a species called the Daleks. It was a war for all creation."

She sits up, and hides her face in her hands, sniffing. "We lost. Everyone - everyone lost."

She looks up at Amanda and Stanley, eyes red,as tears start to stream down. "I don't know if you ever have heard of Daleks, Amanda, but they're certainly in the old UNIT files. Things became so bad..." she pauses. "That the Doctor and I... put an end to it. We tried every other trick, every other idea. The war would have destroyed everything. We tried everything we could. Everything!" Her eyes look desperate and pleading as she looks at her companions.

She sits up. "There's more. You see, the Daleks... caught me. They did horrible things to my friends, and to me." Another long pause. "I... regenerated. I... gave up my old name. I became something as awful and evil as the Daleks. The Doctor had to stop me, several times. I did terrible, awful things."

"But, when the war came, they let me out. In exchange for my freedom, they let me loose on the Daleks. The Daleks were a species driven by hatred. Oh, but I taught them one other feeling. I taught them fear. Only the Doctor did they fear more. Oh, did I give those sons of bitches a taste of what they did to other people." Her face takes on an uncharacteristic, terrifying grimace.

"But, the Doctor and I - we ended it. We ended them. Not just the Daleks, the Time Lords too. Well, I mean, it was the Doctor who actually did the deed physically. But we laid out the plan, and did the deed. It was a choice between my people and the Daleks, and everyone else. Creation itself was at stake." As the tears stream down, she confesses, leaning forward on the couch - "Do you know the worst thing about it? The Doctor sent me away. To another universe I visited when I was younger. He died, and I lived, when I had no right to do so. I changed again - I became a human baby. I got to live an entire human lifetime. I married a great man, I had kids and grandkids, I was happy. How in the hell was that justice? After all I did? I changed there, again, and got this blond hair and skinny ass. I helped some people save that universe. I was mostly their chauffeur and tech support. We fought and yelled at each other. But, God, I miss them. This planet is home, but so was that one. Any my babies. I was even religious, catholic! They're all grown up and are safe, but they're my human children. I don't grow old, I *regenerate*. I already buried my husband! If I stayed, I would have drawn my enemies to them. I had to go. I had to go." Now she's openly sobbing.

"When...When I was bad, I asked Ru Zheng for help. I was desperate. The Master had fled. We were hemmed in on all the chronal fronts. Millions were dying every second. The Skaro Degradations, the Nightmare Child, The horrors of the Deathsmiths of Goth, The Horde of Travesties, the Could Have Been King with his army of meanwhiles and never weres. The war turned into hell. And... he was right! He was right. Oh god, he was right."

She stands up, and walks back to the control panel. "So, for some reason which escapes *my* understanding, I'm here. There is so much blood on both of my hands. I can never clean it off, I can never make it all right. But before I go, I can try to make it so that something like the Time War doesn't happen again. I mean, I can't stop people from being stupid or scared, but if I can show people that they can be smarter than the Daleks or my people were... maybe things can be just a little better. I would have used The Rod on *myself*, but the Doctor told me to protect this beautiful little planet. He loved you all *so much*."

"So. Well." She grabs some Kleenex. HONK. "I suppose that you'll all want to be dropped off. I was hoping this wouldn't come up, for a little while."

Stanley is just standing there, staying quiet. He looks at Amanda to see if she wants to say anything. After a long silence, he finally begins to speak, "I can't say I didn't suspect something like this already. Little hints here and there, people warning me about you. Couple of things you said before. But the... er... scale surprises me. Maybe scale is not the right word.. uhm..the severity. I am sorry you had to be part of that...I don't  really know what to say..."

He pauses to think about how he is going to formulate what he wants to say. "Don't take this the wrong way, but how long have we known each other? Not long enough for me to say that I know you very well. Part of me wants to believe that what you did, you did for a good reason or because you had no other choice. I really want to believe that. That makes it easier to just forget what you said and continue going on adventures with you."

Stanley looks away, "Maybe that's too easy...After all, we only get to hear your side of the story. I can see that you feel guilty and you try to make this universe better so maybe it doesn't matter. Something just doesn't feel right..."

"You said you hoped we'd never have this conversation. That...to me that displays a lack of trust and honesty. I understand this isn't something you tell someone the moment they step into the Tardis. I get that. But time and time again you tell me how dangerous it is going to be. That I am risking my life to help you... You never forced me to and you always gave a way out, I'll give you that. It was my own choice, but I trusted you with my life and there are going to be times when you have to trust me with your life. And you still weren't going to tell us. How did you want us to find out?" Stanley realises that he was actually getting angry.

He takes a moment to cool down a bit and tries to sound friendlier.

"You want to help your friend, right? I don't think it is wise for you to go into a war zone alone. Especially not with the information we now have. So, I am coming with you. Maybe I can help the monks deal with some of the injured and sick refugees."
This message was last edited by the player at 12:08, Sat 30 Nov 2013.

Amanda takes a step back from both the Traveller and Stanley before she answers.  "You know," she says, "it's funny, but after you left the first time, I was working with Marshal Ch'tesh to try to get UNIT rebuilt, and he kept talking about the way you'd done things like you were soft.  We've got kind of a rough-and-ready streak up in the 34th century, some of us.  That was before we started digging into the old UNIT files and found some of their intel on you."

Her ears twitch nervously as she focuses on the Traveller.  "Of course my dad sees things differently, always has.  When he looked at some of those old reports, he was wondering what happened to you, to change you.  I mean... look at when we stopped the Sisterhood.  Ch'tesh might have stopped them, once we knew who and what they were, but he would have done it with guns and casualties, and by locking the survivors up for good.  But you didn't, you tried making them into allies."

She steps a little closer to Stanley and folds her arms, still looking at Trav.  "So whatever you say that you've done, it seems to me like you're trying to be better.  I'm sure not going to walk away from someone who's trying to do that, not as long as you say you need my help."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:25, Sun 01 Dec 2013.

In reply to Stanley Newton (msg # 2):

She runs a hand through her hair. "Stan, when was the right time to talk about all of this? I didn't want to have to explain myself in a life or death situation, when you find out that the twee blond Time Lord you've been having all of these zany adventures with had been involved with all of this horror. I want to protect the two of you, Stan, from me. I suppose it's better that we have this talk now. I'd rather you didn't have to find out at all. Do you think I want to burden you with all of this? Stan, I used to be terrific at master plans and other evil mastermind bullshit. But now? I just make it up as I go along, like I always did. My secrets can hurt you, Stan. If you have any advice for how I can handle this down the road, I'm down." For all her power and granduer, Trav looks terribly vulnerable, right now.

When she sees her companions get apprehensive from her, she visibly cringes. It's plain that this must be hellish for her to go through.





Trav holds up her hand for a moment, like she wants to just touch them, to get some reassurance that she isn't a monster and doesn't deserve to be punished.

But then it drops to back down onto the TARDIS console.  "Allright then. Enough of me being a mopey debby downer. People need help at Farhaven, let's go." She throws down two levers, and the TARDIS begins to wheeze and groan.

An awkward hush fills the console room.  Only the hum of the TARDIS under everyone's feet and the motion of the time rotor breaks it up, until there's a ding! indicating that the ship has landed.

After Trav confirms their arrival at the Farhaven habitat, she and the others step out onto springy grass.  Despite the nervous tension, Stanley and Amanda have to stop for a moment just to take in the view.

Looking ahead from the doorway, it's almost like looking up a gently curving, grassy slope -- except that where a normal hill should crest and give way to the sky beyond, here it just keeps curving, up and over their heads -- distant, but not so very distant that it disappears from sight: partway up the arc, it cuts off into shadow, but even there they can see its shadowed outline, like the shaded part of a crescent Moon on a cold, clear night.

From their right beats the light from a cheery yellow sun, and they can see where the rim where the world ends: the sky there is a brilliant blue, dotted with flecks of cloud.  The left-hand view is dominated by the planet Arsuran that Farhaven orbits: it looks remarkably like photos Stanley has seen of the Earth from taken from space, except that the continental outlines are unfamiliar, and the greens of Earthly vegetation have been replaced by a rust-red color.   The scatter of light in the air on the planet-side paints a blue crescent that follows the arc of the habitat up until it fades into starlit black.

Part way up the curve of the ring, everyone can see what look like tilled fields and people working in them; farther still, there are a clustering of buildings and a larger object shining like metal.  To Trav, that looks like some sort of spaceship.

Trav locks the TARDIS. "Needless to say, be careful. We have no idea who we might be facing." She checks her pistols, making sure she has a full load of quantum charges.

Trav brings out her phone. She pings the number of the superphone that she gave to Zu Rheng all those years ago.

If there's no response, she points at the large structure. "Seems like our best bet, right?"

Stanley first looks up and then at the "edge of the world". The floating rocks on Arden were weird but somehow easier to grasp than this structure.

"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" he asks Amanda, "It has to be man-made, right?"

"We could also ask one of the people in the fields where we can find your friend." Stanley says whilst looking at the farmland up ahead.

"I've heard about theoretical designs for ring habitats before, Stanley.  I've never seen one, though -- you need really advanced engineering, even more advanced than the Martians'.  Well, advanced by my standards and yours, anyway.  We're a long way in the future."

New thread!  We'll come back to the TARDIS thread in the future.  For now, look at the Farhaven Habitat thread.

In reply to Amanda (msg # 8):

Trav smiles a bit. "Mankind achieves even greater things than this. Indomitable. Boobie was right - absolutely indomnitable."

Trav kicks back on the big overstuffed sofa, as Sweet Boy lazily spins in Temporal orbit, and the merry band plans their next move. It was a staycation for the gypsy band, although Trav has offered to drop off Sereth and Stanley at their respective homes for catching up with loved ones.

She's up in the observatory, eating from a Pringles can, as floating in holo glory are her notes. The two other locations that were recovered from the Mailman float in Gallifreyan time track notation.  They are highlighted in orange, while the time track leading back to 55 Million BC is in green, indicating that the issue is resolved. The orange issues have been forwarded to UNIT, the Time Agency and the Chamber, with a note that if it's too heavy to request aid from Trav.

Floating in the cloud around her as concerns are the two open CVEs that she's been using (one to M-Space, where she's been spending time with her Robotech friends(OOC - Fan fic stuff of mine that has no bearing on ATTT), another CVE that leads to the C-Space of Millenium and Paragon City (OOC - Champions online RP that has no impact on ATTT), and the sealed CVE that leads to R space and P space (OOC - Trav;s old Rifts and Phase World settings) The rest are clouds of space time with different galaxies, variant earths, eras, and timelines, Gallifreyan circles and characters floating as history flows, melts and splits naturally like bubbles in a frothy mix. It pleased Trav that history was naturally healing itself, despite the Time War, and that new history was brewing up. Chibi Trav swims in the pearlescant mix, doing backstrokes. Several gates to the 11 Day Empire are currently marked as inactive, ancient, dead, but Trav watches them out of a perverse habit. The once expansive timeweb of her old nemeses, the Krayloss Empire, stays dead and unused, scoured clean by the Deathsmiths of Goth in the last phases of the Time War.

A few clouds are brightly tagged. One is course the particular Earth that she and the Doctor look after, There are innumerable Earths, the universe being gigantic enough to support thousands of nearly identical ones with nearly identical histories. A particularly tight, tangled knot of space-time wraps around the planet.

Far up time, far past both New Galveston and 195th century Draconia, is the era of New Gehenna.It hangs in a baleful red, with question marks.

Off to the side is the Chamber of Unwrought Time. That particular space, rising up like a piece of museum like flotsam, piques Trav's curiosity fiercely.

Finally, at the bottom of the spinning time-space display are two large gaps - the ruined and dead Skaro - still in time-space, but now a lifeless, haunted ruin, and dead Gallifrey. The planet is now rocks and dust, the once mighty Eye of Harmony ripped out of the core of the world by the activation of the Time Lock, the source of Gallifrey's might now used to power it's prison and doom.

Every now and then Trav thinks to go back to Gallifrey and the Untempered Schism, the only surviving relic, or to look down into the Panopticon, where all those times she stood in passionate defense before the High Council of Earth and the weaker, more defenseless peoples. Now, there'd be a literal hole there, that would lead deep to the core of the planet. Or maybe walk one last time into Exigency tower. Heh, would Destri be there, ready to snap my neck, like all those other necks she snapped, at my orders?

Then, blinking on Earth, there is Montana, 1993.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:24, Wed 18 Mar 2015.

As Trav contemplates the spread of the continuum around her, the last of the locations she has been surveying -- the unprepossessing town of Livingston, Montana, that being the registered address on Phillipe's Montana driver's license -- winks off the display without fuss, fanfare, or any indicator of crisis.

A pringle drops off of Trav's lips as the town drops off of the display. "What?"

"Chibi! That town, there. What happened to it? It was there a moment ago!"

Trav immediately runs down the spiral staircase to the control room. If she wasn't looking at Livingston, Montana, at that moment, no one would have noticed.

Trav is at the control panel. She turns a flatscreen to her, and peers into the Vortex. What the hell is happening?

OOC: 12:16, Today: The Traveller rolled 17 using 2d6+12 with rolls of 2,3. Trav scanners - what happened to Livingston? TARDIS Awareness 4+Science 6+Science Capsule 2+2d6.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:36, Thu 19 Mar 2015.

"Huh? What's the rush?" Stanley is just entering the console room, as Trav hurries down the stairs and to the control panel.

Trav swallows the chip she had in her mouth. "The town where Phillipe was delivered? It disappeared. I was looking at it from the Time Vortex in the Observatory, and it disappeared. Whole towns don't just disappear, Stan. There's shenanigans going on. Get your bag ready, I may be throwing down the lever." She's twisting dials and tapping on two keyboards as she stares into the LCD display.
This message was last edited by the player at 20:44, Thu 19 Mar 2015.

"What town, where?  When?"  The holo-avatar sounds perplexed.  "There's nothing there but a stretch of Big Sky Country nothing.  Never has been!"

While the Observatory instruments are now telling Trav just that, she does remember the coordinates exactly.  There doesn't seem to be any high-energy interference, nor the complex spatio-temporal scarring that Trav would expect to see if the town had been D-Matted or otherwise taken out of time.  She'd say it was instrument failure, if it was any machine but her Sweet Boy telling her that.

OOC: If you decide that you're going to try to go there, you'll need to make a TARDIS piloting roll.

The Draconian frowned.

"With all due respect, could you be wrong?" He had not been paying attention to the display, or known what it showed anyway.

The Draconian, indeed, had been inspecting his blade for signs of wear and tear when it all happened. It was very important it was kept in immaculate condition - for the view of the thing, more than practical reasons.

Trav looks up. "Heya Sereth. Wouldnt be the first time. But I was looking right at the place and it disappeared. There's only one way to find out, hold onto your scales." Trav flips several switches, turns two cranks and works those Valkyrie transformation levers as she brings the TARDIS in for a landing - Livingston, Montana, Earth - Humanian era, 1993.

OOC:20:37, Today: The Traveller rolled 17 using 2d6+12 with rolls of 2,3. TARDIS Landing - Ingenuity+Transport+2D6.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:39, Fri 20 Mar 2015.

Trav notices the time trace veering off target as the TARDIS whirls past Hoboken, New Jersey in the late Fifties, and double-checks the settings, which she seems to have mis-entered.

She hastily corrects the mistake and puts the TARDIS back onto the proper heading in time for it to materialize on target, and it lands with its characteristic WHUMP! and ding!, but she remains unsettled.  Now she's positive that something or someone wants this time and place to be avoided and overlooked.

Since coming back to the talkiphone box, Smoke Alarm had watched Studio Ghibli movies in the rec room; Ponyo had had her screaming 'Ham!' over dinner. After, she'd visited the Us and gifted them the big gold bangle she'd swapped from the Silurian garbage-man. She got talky with them, show-and-telled them all about her adventures with the Silurians, and played with them for a bit. Afterward, she got herself lost-and-found in the carrydoors, following the winding and shifting maze, outlooking in all the funny rooms and eyespying things Traveller had probably forgotten since time start and picking through junk the Sweet Boy had jumbled together for her. Rooms full of lost socks, a museum with graffiti on the walls, a bubbling fountain she had a bath in. After the to-do with the Dalek pool cleaner, after making it unalive, she just wanted to walk away, to get lost and found again, to run and escape her shadow.

She didn't actually have a bedroom on the TARDIS yet, she didn't know she could get one. Instead she just walked until she felt yawny and it was time for lights-out. And then there would be a couch, or pile of cushions, or heap of old frock coats, that the Kang could lay in and make a nest and go sleep-tight. The Sweet Boy always provided.

After she awoke, she footed past a room filled with books – she thought it was a libbrarry. Books were good for starting fires, holding up wobbly tables, or smacking rats, but though the Kang didn't always understand the words on the pages, she knew they were important, that they show-and-telled old knowhow and stories, even if some were yawny. Finding some, she traced her finger along the pages, sounding out the letters and trying to match them to words she'd heard, to pictures on the page. Borrowing a few, from The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Where's My Cow? to the very heavy Running With Kangs: The Paradise Towers Expedition of 2587 (which had a picture of her on the cover, and there was a picture of Doctor Sam inside, so it must be good), she tracked back to the control room with the fish in the walls.

Though she wandered for hours, it only took tick-tocks to track back. The Kang could navigate the shifting internal architecture of a TARDIS with ease, especially as it shifted everything around for her. The Sweet Boy liked her, so willing to simply get lost inside and trust to the talkiphone box.

Smoke Alarm returned just as the talkiphone box landed, and she found her friends all busy-bees about something. Putting her books on a table, she outlooked about. 'Where are we?'
This message was last edited by the player at 01:55, Fri 01 May 2015.

Trav looks up from the console, looking worried, but with a smile for the Blue Kang. "Hey babe. We lost a town, and we have to find it. Someone's tried to hide it from me right when I was looking right at it, like a 3 card monte game. The nerve. And I am really good at 3 card monte." She's working the controls, setting them down for landing.

Trav hmphs. "Some Jackass is trying to tell me where I can and can not go. Me. me. I am the Traveller, not the Stay-at-home or the Couch Potato. Also, I was invited. If Fortuna didn't want me to see the beginning, she would have told me so."

She does brighten up when the Kang puts down onto the table those most precious of things - books. "You brought back treasure. Books are the most amazing thing. You have to show me when you found later. Books are wonderful! I love books - you can travel to places with books without moving. Books are miracles and awesome."

She runs down to the lab, and sees if the special project she was working on for Sereth is ready. "Sereth, since I knew we were heading here, I was working on something for you. But I have to test it. It's a refurbished fashion modulator. It's a holographic field that's normally used by 51st century super models, but I made some modifications. It will extrapoloate your body shape and translate it into what it would appear if you were homo sapiens. I know it's an indignity to bear a soft, pink skinned form, but remember that this is in service to the Draconian throne."

The device looks like a somewhat beat up Apple smart watch. Trav adjusts it, and proffers it to Sereth. Here's hope that it interfaces with his morphic field correctly.

OOC: This is standard Dr Who Kitbashing attempt. I'll spend a TARDIS SP for use of Resourceful pockets, and make an Ingenuity+Technology roll. Feel free to have it malfunction near microwaves and at other times that would be hilarious.
23:47, Today: The Traveller rolled 24 using 2d6+16 with rolls of 2,6. Ingenuity+Technology+Boffin+2d6.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:53, Fri 20 Mar 2015.

'You lost a town? With towers and everything?' Smoke Alarm was impressed, and also dismayed. How do you lose a whole town? 'But they're very big!' She thought about for a moment. 'Mayhaps we should outlook under the rug?'

She outlooked back to the books, the treasure. 'I did?' She hadn't seen many books in the Treasure of the Us, so mayhaps she should bring them. Mayhaps Possum Magic.

OOC: I'm gonna be a pain here; because Traveller isn't actually talking for the Draconian throne, and ask for a convince roll. Just to see where SEreth's head is at.

OOC: Trav thinks she is, because this concerns everything, and if Trav makes her point, Sereth will realize this. I'm throwing in an SP. Yeah, I know, PCs, but this shows that I am *not* applying the PC halo to Sereth. Presence+Convince+VOA+SP, down to 5.