Far future Torchwood dream
Oct. 4th, 2020 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI dreamt that I woke up in a space colony where they explained we had been cryo preserved and now they'd fixed us up to optimal health and woken us up. Owen Harper woke up with me, but his memories only went up to being shot, not all the undead bit, so I already knew things were a bit suspicious. So we poked around the place together.
It seemed pleasant and British and a bit bleak, but then the sky went a strange dark orange, and when it went back to normal the landscape looked different. Not much different. But you could swear you could see the trees growing, if you blinked.
We wandered until we found an Out Of Bounds, which is always interesting, but we also found a big bald bloke in the weirdest charity shop set of clothes. And then the sky did the thing again and the big bald bloke was still there, but wearing different boots. And the boots did not fit.
So we figured out the sky blinking was a temporal effect where the colony was being held still but the planet kept fast forwarding, so the terraforming was advancing by leaps and bounds, which was great. But anyone who was Out Of Bounds at the time had to survive on their own. Which was not great. And anyone who was somehow overlapping the boundary? Messy. So the big bloke had been settling some scores and acquiring new boots.
But that was where we found Jack, who had never found an Out of Bounds marker he didnt have to poke at, and who was not amenable to ageing to death. So now we had a team of three and the big bloke had a Problem. Sorted.
And then it was night, even from the colony's point of view, and we could look up at the stars and see the most stupendous glowing lights. A weird twisted nebula, not just right on our doorstep, but reaching right towards us. It turned out to be what happened when the Rift passed through specifically ionized gases, or some more sci fi weirdness in that cloud. Here was a visual on a complexly fractal 4 dimensional object. And it wasn't changing aspect towards us as we orbited, it was like Cardiff, one 'end' staying anchored in place.
And right in the center of the colony, the glow, and the Rift?
Was the giant communications base.
It looked very sci fi, big dish, pointy nozzle, very prominent.
So we figured out what had happened:
the first blink in time was a coincidence. an accident caused solely by the Rift.
But because we blinked we were behind on our communications, so the tower lit right up.
It wasn't using radio waves or anything simple like that, it was all something something quantum something something entanglement. The kind of high tech the translators have problems with. It made the messages effectively instantaneous by doing something with them that excited the temporal energies in the Rift.
Every time we got mail we set off the Rift, which backed up the mail again.
And we tried to override it, but there was this one big angry signal built right in, and that was the one that told our sponsors we hadnt been paying them back yet.
Debt was stealing years from us, and the stolen years created more debt.
So I, as a Torchwood operative, had a Cunning Plan.
I paid it all off, with an accound that prooooobably didn't strictly speaking exist, and I definitely hadn't been authorised to use for some centuries, but, key thing, was not on the planet with us. So when the bank wanted to argue about it, they wouldn't have to keep using our beacon to do it. Problem solved, time stable for who hours at a time, day progressing like it should do.
Owen and I exiled from the colony, which at that stage of terraforming was like a death sentence they didnt want to own up to. Rude.
So we very visibly left town, and then climbed up a hill around the back, the sort of steep climb that needs you to hold on to roots and scramble, and once we were at the top, we were at the biggest private estate on the planet.
Where we met Mycroft Holmes.
And Ianto Jones.
Who had been helping us sort it all out all along, but much more diplomatically.
... no I don't know what Mycroft was doing there, I'm sure he had a plan but he hadn't felt like sharing it.
So *then* the tenth Doctor turned up to pick Jack up, because his timeline was making everything extra squirelly since he was supposed to be in the 21st century, and Jack obviously didnt want to go without Ianto, but there was an entire planet to look after right here and more waves of colonists due to arrive and we'd pretty much just invested Torchwood in the colony's future? So we wanted to stay and sort things out.
Sad Jack.
But then someone who was travelling with the Doctor had a whispered word with Jack. Someone all wearing black and with his face covered. ... basically Malcolm Merlyn style, but, you know, dream, not evil. And then Jack looked all complicted but agreed to go back with the Doctor.
... the rest of us gave the Doctor a shopping list. If he happened to be passing again. Just, like, apples and bananas and pears to plant, not these weird future foods, and possibly chocolate? And... he said he'd see what he could do but he escape pretty sharpish.
So then we're three Torchwood agents on a planet with precisely one town, with a giant archive of data from humanity's many experiences among the stars, but not many actual people, most of them annoyed with us.
Pretty grim.
But then! Mystery guy unwrapped his face and (surprise) was Jack Harkness! Only older and tireder and so forth. He'd got there the long way. And he hugged Ianto and they had private things to say and it was all very emotional and cool.
And I was happy, because Owen. So I think between that and the computer banking trick I might have been dreaming as Toshiko? Then they're matched sets.
Future Jack knew more what was going on and who was arriving with the next colony ship, and he was all, don't worry, it's going to be great.
Plus now we knew how to trigger the rift on purpose terraforming got a lot easier, given that none of us revivals had anyone on the outside we actually wanted to stay in contact with. Just seed things and blink a few seasons.
... I'm sure that would go Torchwood wrong in many interesting ways.
It was a rather excellent setup
and an excuse for any kind of denial based mass xover
because if they can bring back Torchwood they can bring back anyone.
In the DW 'verse we even have excuses for how
with copied memories and cloned bodies.
And potential for angst based on being copies, but honestly, I liked the happily ever after effect in the dream.
So that was a pretty nice day.
It seemed pleasant and British and a bit bleak, but then the sky went a strange dark orange, and when it went back to normal the landscape looked different. Not much different. But you could swear you could see the trees growing, if you blinked.
We wandered until we found an Out Of Bounds, which is always interesting, but we also found a big bald bloke in the weirdest charity shop set of clothes. And then the sky did the thing again and the big bald bloke was still there, but wearing different boots. And the boots did not fit.
So we figured out the sky blinking was a temporal effect where the colony was being held still but the planet kept fast forwarding, so the terraforming was advancing by leaps and bounds, which was great. But anyone who was Out Of Bounds at the time had to survive on their own. Which was not great. And anyone who was somehow overlapping the boundary? Messy. So the big bloke had been settling some scores and acquiring new boots.
But that was where we found Jack, who had never found an Out of Bounds marker he didnt have to poke at, and who was not amenable to ageing to death. So now we had a team of three and the big bloke had a Problem. Sorted.
And then it was night, even from the colony's point of view, and we could look up at the stars and see the most stupendous glowing lights. A weird twisted nebula, not just right on our doorstep, but reaching right towards us. It turned out to be what happened when the Rift passed through specifically ionized gases, or some more sci fi weirdness in that cloud. Here was a visual on a complexly fractal 4 dimensional object. And it wasn't changing aspect towards us as we orbited, it was like Cardiff, one 'end' staying anchored in place.
And right in the center of the colony, the glow, and the Rift?
Was the giant communications base.
It looked very sci fi, big dish, pointy nozzle, very prominent.
So we figured out what had happened:
the first blink in time was a coincidence. an accident caused solely by the Rift.
But because we blinked we were behind on our communications, so the tower lit right up.
It wasn't using radio waves or anything simple like that, it was all something something quantum something something entanglement. The kind of high tech the translators have problems with. It made the messages effectively instantaneous by doing something with them that excited the temporal energies in the Rift.
Every time we got mail we set off the Rift, which backed up the mail again.
And we tried to override it, but there was this one big angry signal built right in, and that was the one that told our sponsors we hadnt been paying them back yet.
Debt was stealing years from us, and the stolen years created more debt.
So I, as a Torchwood operative, had a Cunning Plan.
I paid it all off, with an accound that prooooobably didn't strictly speaking exist, and I definitely hadn't been authorised to use for some centuries, but, key thing, was not on the planet with us. So when the bank wanted to argue about it, they wouldn't have to keep using our beacon to do it. Problem solved, time stable for who hours at a time, day progressing like it should do.
Owen and I exiled from the colony, which at that stage of terraforming was like a death sentence they didnt want to own up to. Rude.
So we very visibly left town, and then climbed up a hill around the back, the sort of steep climb that needs you to hold on to roots and scramble, and once we were at the top, we were at the biggest private estate on the planet.
Where we met Mycroft Holmes.
And Ianto Jones.
Who had been helping us sort it all out all along, but much more diplomatically.
... no I don't know what Mycroft was doing there, I'm sure he had a plan but he hadn't felt like sharing it.
So *then* the tenth Doctor turned up to pick Jack up, because his timeline was making everything extra squirelly since he was supposed to be in the 21st century, and Jack obviously didnt want to go without Ianto, but there was an entire planet to look after right here and more waves of colonists due to arrive and we'd pretty much just invested Torchwood in the colony's future? So we wanted to stay and sort things out.
Sad Jack.
But then someone who was travelling with the Doctor had a whispered word with Jack. Someone all wearing black and with his face covered. ... basically Malcolm Merlyn style, but, you know, dream, not evil. And then Jack looked all complicted but agreed to go back with the Doctor.
... the rest of us gave the Doctor a shopping list. If he happened to be passing again. Just, like, apples and bananas and pears to plant, not these weird future foods, and possibly chocolate? And... he said he'd see what he could do but he escape pretty sharpish.
So then we're three Torchwood agents on a planet with precisely one town, with a giant archive of data from humanity's many experiences among the stars, but not many actual people, most of them annoyed with us.
Pretty grim.
But then! Mystery guy unwrapped his face and (surprise) was Jack Harkness! Only older and tireder and so forth. He'd got there the long way. And he hugged Ianto and they had private things to say and it was all very emotional and cool.
And I was happy, because Owen. So I think between that and the computer banking trick I might have been dreaming as Toshiko? Then they're matched sets.
Future Jack knew more what was going on and who was arriving with the next colony ship, and he was all, don't worry, it's going to be great.
Plus now we knew how to trigger the rift on purpose terraforming got a lot easier, given that none of us revivals had anyone on the outside we actually wanted to stay in contact with. Just seed things and blink a few seasons.
... I'm sure that would go Torchwood wrong in many interesting ways.
It was a rather excellent setup
and an excuse for any kind of denial based mass xover
because if they can bring back Torchwood they can bring back anyone.
In the DW 'verse we even have excuses for how
with copied memories and cloned bodies.
And potential for angst based on being copies, but honestly, I liked the happily ever after effect in the dream.
So that was a pretty nice day.