Where & When
The story starts on the planet Kembel, shortly after the events of Mission to the Unknown. The protagonists escape, not in the TARDIS, but a spaceship, and spend a short time on the nearby world of Desperus before heading off towards Earth, and then arriving on Mira, a more distant planet. The date is revealed to be the year 4000, which, as I noted in an earlier post, is probably during, or slightly before, the early years of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire (the one that enslaved the Ood).
Setting
The time travellers escape from Kembel on Chen’s Spar-740 spacecraft. This is described as a luxury, state-of-the-art personal spaceship, although supposedly with a low speed. We’re also told that the journey to Earth takes two days, so either Kembel is closer than we might think, or the speed expected of spacecraft in the 40th century is particularly high. Of course, the duration of the trip may be constrained by other factors if we move the story to a different setting, Traveller being an obvious case in point. This is, however, unlikely to make much difference so long as we keep the distance manageable.
We only see the control room of the spaceship, which doesn’t look especially luxurious, and the airlock that provides the main access point. Presumably, there are cabins and lounges elsewhere on the ship; since the airlock leads to a ground-level access ramp, these are likely on higher decks. The ship has a crew of two but is small enough to be operated by just one. The crew are similar-looking bald men who we don’t hear speak; they may be intended to be androids or subservient clones (in the modern series, they would probably be Ood).
We don’t see much of the planet Desperus since, for once, the protagonists are sensible enough not to travel any distance from their ship once they have landed and are interested only in repairing it so that they can leave as quickly as possible. The landing site is described as either a marsh or a swamp, with the visuals of the reconstruction opting for the latter. More broadly, we appear to be in dense temperate woodland, with a nearby cave that suggests some rocky cliffs or other outcrops. While the swamp water probably isn’t safe to drink, there is likely some fresh water nearby that’s at least tolerable, since the environment is obviously damp.
Desperus is described as a penal planet, a place of exile for serious criminals. We don’t know what sort of crimes are punished in this way, but they would have to be fairly serious ones, since the punishment is for life without hope of parole. We know this because there is no plausible mechanism by which convicts could be recovered again once their term is up – which also raises interesting questions of justice in the event that a conviction is later overturned. Desperus is stated to serve ‘the solar system’ although, as always, it’s not entirely clear that the writers meant this literally.
The process is that convicts are brought to the planet on prison ships, forcibly disembarked with few, if any, supplies, and then left behind when the ship leaves. There are no guards, and if there’s an orbital patrol stopping other ships from landing, it’s evidently not as effective as it’s supposed to be.
The planet’s name, almost certainly given to it after it became a penal colony, means ‘place of despair’ and the harsh conditions we see the convicts living in make this appropriate. In reality, if you leave a sufficient population of people on a habitable planet for long enough, they are going to develop some kind of basic civilisation, and that hasn’t happened here. That’s probably due to the population being very small, but you’d also need to keep it that way.
One way to do that would be to either send only one biological sex to Desperus, or to land men and women on different continents so that whatever society they construct never gets large enough to build ocean-going craft. However, in the serial, the community that we see consists of five men and two women, sheltering in a cave and living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. It’s possible that the authorities believe the population base is too small to be sustainable, but that seems a bit of a gamble with new convicts being delivered, so we’re left with the uncomfortable possibility that everyone here (or at least all those of one gender) has been forcibly sterilised.
On the other hand, if they’re not, the authorities are punishing future generations of children that will later be born on the planet, which is arguably worse. (Here, it’s worth noting that this didn’t apply to, say, Australian penal colonies in the 19th century, where the term was seven years, not life for you and all of your descendants.)
In addition to a complete lack of amenities or means of significant production, the planet also has hostile native life. All we see are the ‘screamers’, predatory bat-like creatures, large enough to kill a man, at least when they are flocking. There are, however, probably others, explaining why the planet was never developed for a more typical colony, given that it otherwise appears quite habitable.
From here, the story moves to Earth. Mavic Chen is described as ‘The Guardian of the Solar System’ a role that seems to be presidential. His main motivation in the story is gaining more control over the rest of the Milky Way, so while he may have some influence beyond our solar system, he has no direct rule over humanity’s extrasolar colonies. And we know those exist, since Desperus wouldn’t make much sense otherwise, there are freighters near Kembel, and such colonies existed in Vicki’s time, which was considerably earlier.Either Earth is a significant, but not dominant part of the Second Great and Bountiful Human Empire (making him something like the Mayor of London relative to the UK government), or it hasn’t formed yet… perhaps even being created after this story in response to his actions. Whether it’s the Empire or some alliance that evolved into the Empire, we’re told that the status quo at the time was established by the Non-Aggression Pact of 3975, providing some sort of peace among the various human states of the time.
He acts like a politician, and is treated as such by people on Earth, so he was probably elected to his post… although how fair such elections might have been is less apparent. For instance, it’s interesting to note that a central database contains genetic data on everyone in the solar system, which could be taken is implying an authoritarian streak to the society at the time.
The capital of Earth is named as ‘Central City’. In The Sensorites, Maitland states that the Central City of his time covers most of southern England and, even though we are over a thousand years later in this story, there’s no reason to assume that it isn’t the same place.
The protagonists make a landing at a research facility located in a restricted area close to, but outside of, Central City. This has enough security to send out an alert when somebody breaks in, but apparently not enough to deal with the problem themselves. It also doesn’t seem to have much in the way of staff, although this is probably more due to the expense of extras on the TV show than anything intentional. In a game, we would probably want to make this a more dramatic section, even before the SSS agents turn up, making the break-in a more significant element of the adventure.
The final planet we visit in this half of the story is Mira. This is stated to be closer to Kembel than to Earth, although it’s probably not on a straight line between the two. This means that the journey on the Dalek ship could be anything from a few hours to a couple of days, depending on how much of a diversion is involved and the relative speed of the ship compared with the Spar. It is, however, close enough to Earth to have been surveyed… even if the orbital survey missed something key that a landing probably wouldn’t have.
Mira is listed in Earth’s records as an uninhabited world devoid of any large animals. The area that we see is swampland, with thick reeds and scattered trees growing between muddy pools. It’s likely that the name ‘Mira’ is meant to invoke this mire, but it may be worth noting that it’s also the name of a real star – a red giant about 300 light-years from Earth.
If the planet is supposed to be orbiting that star, then Kembel cannot be more than 590 light-years or so from Earth, and is likely less, since it would be a big coincidence if the two were arranged in a straight line. That’s not even 1% of the galaxy's diameter, indicating that human colonisation may not extend very far in galactic terms by the year 4000. Of course, it may be that the name is a coincidence, in which case we could be as far away as we like.
On the other hand, whether 590 light-years is a long way depends on other details of the setting. For instance, traversing it would involve crossing 15 sectors in Traveller, which is twice the size of Known Space in that universe. In Star Trek, however, the Federation is stated to be 8,000 light-years across in the 24th century. So, take your pick; Mira (the real star) may be either too close or too far away for the planet of the Visians to be orbiting it.
Since the protagonists don’t spend much time on Mira, we can’t say a lot about it beyond the local environment of the landing site. The pools in the swamp are constantly bubbling, suggesting some particularly energetic algae or vegetation producing methane or some other (hopefully non-flammable) gas. While it appears to be night, the illumination is quite good, so there’s likely a sizable moon, but we have no hint as to what the day length might be. The planet is generally hospitable, and there’s no indication that it’s particularly hot at the landing site – although, again, it is night, so that may not mean much.
The dominant life form on the planet are the Visians, missed in the orbital survey because of their invisibility. This may be a common feature of life on the planet, since Earth thinks there are no large animals there at all, and the Visians must surely hunt something. We are told that they are eight feet (2.5 metres) tall, and their footprints indicate that they are bipedal and clawed. They are aggressive animals and implied to be predatory, perhaps not unlike the mugato from Star Trek, invisibility aside.
Scenario
In the story, the time travellers are forced to explore Kembel because one of their number is injured, and they hope to find somewhere with medical supplies. This is harder to justify in other genres, not least because of the difficulty in ensuring that someone is sufficiently injured, and the party doesn’t already have a medic with suitable equipment. In some settings, for instance, it’s likely that the PCs will already have access to library data telling them the planet is hostile. I’ve noted some possible motivations in the Mission to the Unknown post, and here, we can add the option that they are trying to find out what happened to Mark Cory – exactly as Bret Vyon is doing in the serial.
One of the curiosities in the story is that the representatives of the Outer Galactic powers are all visiting on their own. Chen has brought two crew on his ship, and the various aliens may have done the same, but there’s nobody else. Chen could hardly bring a squad of diplomats, because he’s working in secret, and is pretending to be on holiday, but you’d think he’d at least have a trusted bodyguard or the like. The others have fewer limitations, although the Daleks aren’t going to allow too much.
This may not make it much harder to infiltrate the city, since the Daleks (or their stand-ins) are defending it already, but it might discourage a quick assassination or the like, should the PCs move in that direction, and it allows for more variety in the story. Players may also find that it stretches credulity to have Chen simply leave the taranium core behind on the table when there’s a disruption, and this opens up the possibility of the PCs having to steal the thing from a vault or similar secure location.
It may also be hard to ensure that the PCs leave in Chen’s ship rather than whatever they came in, but so long as they can follow on with the scenario, it may not make much difference. This merely requires that they have a reason to want to, most obviously because the planet the Master Plan is aimed at defeating is one important to them.
The segment on Desperus also presents an issue in most games, since the ship only lands on it because the Daleks have a device that can take partial control of spacecraft from several light-years away. Such a thing is unlikely to exist in most games, and introducing one would at least raise the question of why it’s never mentioned again. (Players, unlike TV characters, are inclined to notice this sort of thing.) It could be that the ship has somehow been sabotaged before it leaves Kembel, but that may also be difficult to justify.
Perhaps the Daleks, or their allies, are able to get a shot off at the fleeing ship, damaging it so that it can only make it to the next star system before having to land for repairs. But another possibility is to have the PCs need to visit Desperus as part of the story. It’s entirely in keeping for Chen to have arranged for somebody who knows part of his plot to be framed and sent to the exile planet to get him out of the way. This could be a scientist or engineer who helped to obtain or refine the taranium, for instance, although other possibilities exist. The PCs, therefore, need to rescue him so that he can be a witness or otherwise help them foil Chen’s scheme.
Much the same applies to using Desperus, or a similar world, on its own. The Federation of Star Trek wouldn’t create such a place, but other races in that universe might well, and it’s completely plausible for the Imperium or the Galactic Empire. There are several reasons why the party might want to rescue someone from the planet, whether they have been framed or not. Another ship could also have crashed there, perhaps with something valuable on board; if it also had modern weapons, then the exiled criminals that the PCs face may now be better armed than three men with one knife between them.
One thing that would be less effective for most groups is to have the PCs exiled to Desperus themselves. Prison escape stories have a venerable history in SF RPGs, but Desperus is set up so that there isn’t any way to get off the planet without outside assistance. Having the party fight off hardened criminals and giant carnivorous bats is one thing, but if the larger plot is just them waiting to be picked up, the resolution may not be very satisfying.
Rules
We don’t really know enough about Desperus to say much about it as a planet. The gravity and atmosphere seem Earthlike, and there is enough vegetation to suggest a reasonable amount of water on the surface, but that’s about it. The story takes place at night, and there is no evidence of a moon, but that doesn’t prove there isn’t one – it could be below the horizon, or a small asteroid that’s barely visible from the surface. Or it could just be overcast. We can, however, make more reasonable assumptions about its society and culture – or lack thereof. In Traveller terms, for instance, it would have to be Red Zoned, as it wouldn’t work otherwise.
Bearing that in mind, a plausible Traveller UWP could be X-868300-0.
With the exception of the interstellar transporter, which is a prototype that may end up being abandoned, the technology of Earth at the time of the story appears to be fairly typical for a starfaring society. Steven, who himself served as an interstellar space pilot, remarks several times that the technology of the year 4000 is more advanced than his own, but FTL travel may be a new thing in his time. If so, this equates to a TL of 10 in GURPS, but it could be 13 or 14 in Traveller, and at least 7, perhaps 8, in Doctors & Daleks.
The SSS agents are armed with weapons that superficially resemble the laser carbines of Traveller and GURPS. These could easily be replaced with Gauss machine pistols, handheld phasers, heavy blaster pistols or whatever makes more sense in the relevant milieu.
The Spar-740 is an unarmed luxury spacecraft requiring only a small crew. In Traveller, that equates to a Y-class yacht, and it’s easy to imagine similar craft in other settings. Given that it is used by the Guardian of the Solar System, it probably has more than the usual defences; even if it isn’t armed, it may have enhanced shields or armour, defensive sandcasters, or simply high manoeuvrability to dodge in combat.
The one other special feature in the story is the taranium. This is said to be an incredibly rare material found only in the gassy depths of Uranus – it took 50 years to acquire one small canister of the stuff, although, to be fair, they were doing it in secret. It’s basically a MacGuffin, a substance capable of powering the time destructor, the details of which otherwise don’t matter. It’s only significant in rules terms because it glows brightly but isn’t radioactive or inherently dangerous. Anyone looking at the pure substance without appropriate protective equipment needs to make a saving throw of some kind to avoid being temporarily or permanently blinded – DEX is probably the best bet, to turn away or block the light fast enough not to be affected.
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