"Keep looking up."

"How cool is that!?"

Bill Nye, CEO of The Planetary Society

I've been a member of the Planetary Society for almost five years now.  I make a modest monthly contribution, I own a couple of themed t-shirts, and I receive the weekly Downlink update in my IN box every Friday, but to be honest, I haven't really felt connected.  To be fair, that's my fault - there are occasionally local activities that I could attend, but I'm a bit too introverted to feel comfortable with that sort of thing. 

However, in one of those odd silver-lining pandemic moments, tonight I had the pleasure of sitting in on the Planetary Society 2020 Impact Report meeting.  Under normal circumstances, that would have required a plane ticket and a hotel stay, but, as with the Game of Thrones FX session that I attended last March, this time it was bare feet and a comfortable chair in my spare bedroom.

In attendance at the e-meeting were Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Vaughn, Chief Advocate Casey Dreier, Chief Scientist Bruce Betts, Planetary Radio podcast host Mat Kaplan, Chief Executive Officer Bill Nye, and newly elected* Society President and Professor of Planetary Science at Caltech, Bethany Ehlmann. 

As always, Bill Nye was an exuberant and energetic presence, but the new President was impressively excited and pasionate as well, and her position at Caltech gives her an unexpected sort of Big Bang Theory street cred - it's not hard to imagine her doing a cameo if the show was still in production.

The session had a sort of cheerfully casual feeling to it - the new president seemed to have set up her laptop in the corner of her living room. and dogs barked in the background while Chief Scientist Bruce Betts discussed some of the Society's accomplishments in 2020. 

I'm impressed by the manner in which the Planetary Society is spending my modest monthly contribution (and the contributions of over 50,000 other members around the world).  

The mission of the Planetary Society is to "empower the world’s citizens to advance space science and exploration".  This goal is accomplished through a combination of education, advocacy, collaboration and invention.  The Society's crowdfunded Lightsail 2 spacecraft is a primary example:  as its name suggests, it's a proof of concept orbiter that relies on photonic energy for propulsion - more poetically, it flies on the wind from the Sun.  Lightsail 2 successfully celebrated a year in orbit in June, and is now on an extended mission to provide more data on the practical aspects of solar sailing technology.   

The Society also provided seed money for projects like the PlanetVac, an elegantly simple low-cost sampling technology designed to be mounted on exploratory spacecraft.  The system uses a blast of compressed gas to blow material from the surface into a collecting cylinder mounted on the ship's landing leg.

Other projects funded by the Society are the "100 Planets" exoplanet search, and the Shoemaker Near Earth Object Grant, which funds advanced amateur astronomers* in searching for previously undiscovered asteroids and plotting their courses to determine if there's a possibility of an impact with Earth.

The Society also advanced its overall goal of being influential, of speaking on behalf of science and space exploration in the areas of government advocacy and policy, conducting more than 300 phone and web meetings with NASA, Congress, the Pentagon, and international space agencies over the course of 2020.  On the public front, it expanded its mission of inspiring and informing through an expanded website offering, the weekly Downlink newsletter, and virtual events like this one.

I'm pleased to be a member of the Planetary Society - as Bill Nye commented, we have to keep looking up, and it's obvious that the Society is dedicated to advancing and supporting the exploration of space in a way that would make founder Carl Sagan proud.

However, I have one critical comment - not necessarily a complaint, let's say a question of suitable accessories.  Bill, seriously, you need a more appropriate coffee cup for on-screen appearances - based on the logo on the bottom, it was a London Underground souvenir, and really, something more, I don't know, cosmic would seem to be in order.  My NASA mug was a birthday gift from the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York, but you're much much better connected than I am - I bet NASA would just give you one.

- Sid

* The new president wryly observed that the Society had "witnessed a peaceful transition of power with a free and fair election."  Yes, she's looking at you, Donald.

**It's made clear that the people involved are "amateurs" in the same sense that Olympic competitors are. 

Victorious II: Big Finish.

"No no, not JUST the Doctor, I'm entirely the Doctor, there's no 'just' about it, I am exceptionally the Doctor!"

The Doctor, Genetics of the Daleks

For Christmas this year, shipping issues resulted in my friend Colin sending me an Indigo gift certificate and the suggestion that he had wanted to buy me some Doctor Who books from the Time Lord Victorious series.  Intrigued by the idea of looking at some Doctor Who content from outside the series, I placed an order with Indigo, but was then faced with the inevitable shipping delay - the wheels grind slowly but presumably exceeding fine, as the proverb goes.

However, the Time Lord Victorious story is not just about the printed word:  the event takes place across a wide range of media, including audio books.

I've never been a big fan of audio books as a genre, but I have enjoyed a few audio dramas in the past - coincidentally, the Torchwood Golden Age BBC Audio performance from 2009 - so I decided to took a look, or more accurately give a listen, to Genetics of the Daleks, one of the Time Lord Victorious audio plays available from Big Finish Productions.

Big Finish produces a wide selection of audio books primarily based on science-fiction television series such as Space: 1999, Blake's 7, The Prisoner, Terrahawks, Captain Scarlet, Star Trek, and, of course, Doctor Who.  The Doctor Who catalog also includes stories featuring noteworthy characters from the Doctor's universe, such as River Song, The Master (and Missy), the 10th Doctor's daughter/clone Jenny, Lady Christina de Souza, the cat burglar from the 2009 Easter episode, as well as Torchwood and UNIT stories.

In the case of Genetics of the Daleks, the story itself was very much conventional Doctor Who fare: a starship with a small crew isolated in space, a Dalek assumed to be harmless who is anything but, and an unexpected appearance of a blue police box, but I quite enjoyed it.  I had expected an audio book, but Genetics of the Daleks is what I would consider to be an audio drama - a radio play, in the parlance of my youth, very well produced, and broken down into convenient seven to ten minute episodes.  I was also charmed to discover that Tom Baker, one of the best loved and most popular of the Doctors from the series, provided the voice of the Doctor for the audio production. 

Baker is not the only retired Doctor to return as a voice for Big Finish:  classic Doctors such as Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Paul McGann are also involved, along with companions such as Nicola Bryant, Sarah Sutton, Bonnie Langford, and Sophie Aldred.  Most recently, the 9th Doctor, Christoper Eccleston, has joined the group, which is welcome news to those of us who felt that one season of Mr. Eccleston's performance as the Doctor really wasn't enough. Overall, I think this is a brilliant idea - time may have its way with our bodies, but I would need to do an actual real-time comparison to see whether or not Tom Baker's distinctive tones have changed that much over time. To my ear, it's very much the Doctor I remember from the episodes.

Individual audio books range from about $3.00 to $20 CAD - Genetics of the Daleks costs $7.99, with a run time of 66 minutes - and there are collections that cost up to $30.   Considering that Amazon's Audible™ audio books cost as much as actual hardcovers, Big Finish's pricing seems reasonable.  To be fair, you're not getting the same duration, but where else are you going to hear Tom Baker introduce himself as the Doctor one more time?

- Sid

 

P. S. I almost forgot what brought us here: the story's connection to Time Lord Victorious was quite brief, a passing mention as to the Doctor's future in a dark place, made by the damaged Dalek who is picked up by the ship's crew.  However, as when the series features a theme that runs through an entire season, sometimes the hints are quite subtle - remember all the background Bad Wolf graffiti from 2005?

Victorious I: Surprise!

Saw some Doctor Who books here that I thought you might like including the Time Lord Victorious. They also have a second release in January. Unfortunately I couldn't buy the items then have them shipped to you so we'll have to do it this way. Enjoy!

- Colin

Dear Colin:

Thank you for the Chapters/Indigo Christmas gift certificate!  (Are there still Chapters, or are they all Indigos?)  How odd that they would be unable to deliver to an alternate address, no offense to Indigo but I can't help but think that the last 10 months would have created some flexibility on the shipping front.

Regardless, I’m happy to make my own selections based on your suggestion about the Time Lord Victorious event. 

Like so many other franchises, the Doctor Who series is enhanced and extended by a wide selection of  additional content in other media such as novels or comic books.  It’s an interesting area for me to explore –  by and large, I don't own a lot of novelizations or adaptations, with a few exceptions like the Star Trek story collections that I purchased in 29 Palms last year.

I’ve been casually aware of Time Lord Victorious, a wide-ranging Doctor Who story set in the Dark Times at the start of the universe.  The storyline is taking place in every media format except on the actual series itself:*  books, computer games, graphic novels, short stories, comics, audio plays, T-shirts, YouTube™ videos, escape rooms, and including the immersive Time Fracture event that's been rescheduled to start next spring.  (Hopefully the delay won't cause narrative gaps.)

Some searching on the internet revealed that the primary Time Lord Victorious story line concentrates on the popular 10th Doctor, but also involves the 8th and 9th Doctors, and features appearances by the 13th and 4th Doctors.  Rather like the reboot tradition of having a plot thread that carries through an entire season and then finds resolution in the final episode, the various media will address different aspects of the story, with a culminating novel that wraps things up.

 

 

Armed with the results of my research (and your gift certificate), I went to the Indigo web site and searched for “Doctor Who”.  After being momentarily distracted by the unexpected red herring of Doctors Who Kill, I was presented with the full range of Doctor Who purchasing options. 

 

As per your e-mail, Time Lord Victorious is a work in progress.  The Defender of the Daleks graphic novel was available, as was The Knight, The Fool and The Dead novel, but the sequel, All Flesh is Grass, wasn't going to be available until the new year.  Regardless, I couldn't think of any reason not to pre-order it - the first time I've ever pre-ordered a book.  And, to fill out the budget and continue my research into the extended Doctor Who universe, I ordered a pair of unrelated Doctor Who novels: Engines of War, featuring the War Doctor, and Combat Magicks, the 13th Doctor story that caught my attention (albeit not in a good way) during a walk through Indigo last fall.

 

And now we wait...
 

Thank you again, and merry Christmas!

- Sid

*At least, not part of the actual series as far as I know.  I have no idea what’s queued up for this year’s holiday special or the upcoming 13th season.