Warriors' Gate

Dear Gary—

“You can’t get worse than the back of beyond.” The back of beyond is where the Doctor, Romana, Adric, and K9 find themselves, lost in E-Space with the TARDIS registering zero coordinates (“Ponder on that”) and outside the TARDIS doors nothing but a blank, stark white world of nothingness caught “between the striations of the continuum.”

In walks Biroc, a time sensitive Tharil, “a sort of leonine mesomorph” who is of a race that uses its “power for those who travel on the time winds.”

Biroc: “The shadow of my past and of your future.”

Doctor: “The shadow of his past . . .”

Romana: “And of our future.”

Biroc leads them to the gateway. “There are three physical gateways and the three are one.”

If none of it makes any sense, Gary, well, that’s Warriors’ Gate for you. Lots of interesting concepts floating around that are difficult to pin down.

“Oh, gobbledygook.”

That’s where the equally stranded space crew is so brilliant. All of these fascinating details of time winds and gateways and striations and past and future, and then you have the ordinary voice of Everyman cutting through it all and grounding us in the every day. The mundane, blasé world of a weary space crew as they apathetically go through their routines, more interested in their lunch than in the terribly real danger that surrounds them.

The very nature of their business (slave trading) has jaded them. Their casual callousness is horrifying and humorous in turns. The goldbricking duo Aldo and Royce, the grim realists Lane and Packard, the sneering cynic Sagan, and the marvelously mad Rorvik; each one is fully realized and enriches our story.

“It’ll all end in tears, mark my words.”

This crushing sense of doom pervades Warriors’ Gate, as it has since the TARDIS initially entered E-Space. First the stagnation of the starliner in Full Circle, then the devolving society in State of Decay. Now, as the TARDIS stands at the brink of the gateway, the very dimensions are contracting around them: “Imminent danger of mathematical vanishing.”

A layer of oppressive paralysis permeates our story and our marooned crew gives in to it while their captain (Rorvik) fights a futile battle against it.

After hearing a rundown of all the damage to his ship (“Well of course we’ve got damage! How bad?”) Rorvik turns to Packard for his report on the instrumentation.  “What do you want me to say?” a resigned Packard shrugs as he gestures to the blown out equipment before them. Rorvik continues beating his head against this brick wall, however, and with each defeat he becomes more determined and more maniacal.

Bragging on his crew: “These are the lads with all the answers.” Seeking confirmation: “Isn’t that right lads?” Tepid response. He doesn’t give up.  “Isn’t that right lads!” he demands.

Trying to get things done: “Now listen, I’m only going to say this once.” Explaining the peril they face: “Listen!” Outlining his plan: “Will you listen when I’m talking!” His crew more interested in their sandwiches.  He gets out his blaster: “This is very serious. We are in a terminal situation. A dead end.”

His attempts with the Doctor are equally frustrating. “I don’t believe you and neither do my men. Do you, men?” Lackluster agreement. (“A hungry bunch.”)

The MZ doesn’t work; he goes for the back blast. “Don’t give up lads.” Against all warnings (“The back blast backlash will bounce back and destroy everything.”). He proceeds with his plans. “I say it’s the only way out of here.”

And then the full blown meltdown:

“Run, Doctor. Scurry off back to your blue box. You’re like all the rest. Lizards when there’s a man’s work to be done. I’m sick of your kind. Faint-hearted, do-nothing, lily-livered deadweights. This is the end for all of you! I’m finally getting something done!”

It is a thing of beauty to behold.

For all of his determined scurrying, Rorvik’s crew is more on the right track: “Do nothing, if it’s the right sort of nothing.” They have the “do nothing” part down pat. They just don’t have the “right sort of nothing” hammered out yet.

The Doctor is close to it when he first arrives with his I-Ching theory (“I don’t know what I’m doing; I’m just following intuition.”), and at least this sets Adric harmlessly off on his own coin-tossing path through the story. The Doctor and Romana, too, go off in pursuits of their own.

“What if the Doctor and I went different ways?”

Romana has her own path to follow. She has to be her own Romana. “It’s all going to be fine,” she tells Adric. “I’m fully qualified.” And so when Rorvik, Packard, and Lane show up at the TARDIS (Lane: “It’s a ship.” Packard: “What, for midgets?” Lane: “Or a coffin for a very large man.”) Romana follows them back to their disabled ship to find out what they are up to. What she finds is the disturbing truth that they are slave traders, profiting on the sale of Tharils to serve as navigators of the time winds.

It is disturbing, and the banal brutality of it all is driven home when they seize Romana in the belief that she too can serve as a time navigator.

Packard: “Are you sure she’s a time sensitive?”

Rorvik: “No.”

Packard: “Oh. Because if she isn’t, she’ll be burned to a frazzle.”

Lane: “That’s how you tell.”

Romana survives the ordeal and is freed by a Tharil. She is first hand witness to the Tharil present.

“The weak enslave themselves, Doctor. You and I know that.” A sentence bridging Tharil past and present. While Romana has found the present, the Doctor discovers the past.

“The masters descended out of the air riding the winds and took men as their prize, growing powerful on their stolen labors and their looted skills.”

The Doctor has found the great banquet hall; he has found the mirror; he has found the Gundan.

“We are Gundan. We exist to kill. Slaves made the Gundan to kill the brutes who rule.”

It is a vicious cycle. “The weak enslave themselves.” Once the enslavers, now the enslaved. “So you’re the masters the Gundan spoke of?” Tharils feasting on their plunder served by the slaves stolen out of time and space. “They’re only people.”

Disturbing truths, past and present. The enslavers and the enslaved. “The weak enslave themselves.”

So what of the future?

“The shadow of my past and of your future.” Romana’s future.  “A moment to choose.”

Choosing to remain in E-Space, Romana offers her services to Biroc and the newly freed Tharils off of the stranded ship to liberate all Tharils enslaved throughout E-Space. K9 remains as well. Damaged by the time winds, K9 can only exist unharmed behind the mirrors.

“That’s something we’ve got to do, don’t you think?” While I admire Romana’s decision, I have to question, why the Tharils? Of all the slaves in all the worlds, why the Tharils? Because they were there, I suppose. They were there and she was there and it was the “moment to choose.” She didn’t want to go back to the boring life of Gallifrey, and so she chose. “Why believe Biroc?” Adric asked at the beginning. “Because he was running,” Romana replied. To the runner goes the victory, I guess. Another time, another place, another runner . . . .

Rorvik has destroyed his ship and crew in his mad moment of backlash. Romana and K9 have departed.  (“Will Romana be all right?” “All right? She’ll be superb.”) The Doctor and Adric remain. “Do nothing.” The way out of E-Space. “Nothing. Well, that’s something.”

“Do nothing, if it’s the right sort of nothing.” Warriors’ Gate is just the right sort of nothing, and that’s something.

Here’s hoping this little bit of nothing reaches you, Gary. As the Doctor would say, “One good solid hope is worth a cartload of certainties.”