Kaldor City

- A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil -

An Extract From The EC Unauthorized Doctor Who Spin-Off Guide Appendix O' Kaldor City Tourism Brochures
With thanks to Jared "No Nickname" Hansen for anything remotely amusing




In the far distant and definitively-post-apocalyptic future of mankind, the Human Race is pretty much the only species left in the galaxy which also sucks as they also run the Terran Federation, a rather run-down evil empire built on drugs, lies, adrenaline, soma, and awful 1970s fashion sense. This crumbling dictatorship has only stayed afloat for the last two hundred years or so since the Atomic Wars blew the undying fuck out of the cosmos by their use of psycho-strategists (or 'script editors' as they are nicknamed). These camp, arrogant, bisexual evil geniuses were such damn know-it-alls they can see the storyline of events, peak at the end, and save the day for the Federation by ensuring that just the right brainwashed double-agent is at the right place and the right time to end any underdog uprising in as dramatically satisfying manner as possible.

But after 177 years, the psycho-strategists rapidly ran out of dissidents and rebellions. For their own long term job security, they had to find ways to defeat their enemies in such a way they would survive and return to plague the administration at a later date, who would in turn be forced to employ psycho-strategists in order to sort it all out.

Unfortunately, the psycho-strategists went into a decline when they realized that their own brilliance was their one weakness, and the more mistakes they made, the better off they’d be: and so, as generation followed generation, they soon lost whatever gift for manipulation and cunning they once had and by the time of the second series of "Blake’s 7" their cunning plans would make Baldrick laugh.

One such psycho-strategist, a very effeminate blond pretty boy appropriately called Carnal, was hired by Supreme Commander Servalan to sort out the problem of Roj Blake, while also handing her the ultimate weapon – INMYPANTS (Induced Nucleic Modification Y-Projector Abused by Nefarious Treacherous Scum), in short a remote control that causes people’s heads to explode for some reason.

Carnal smiled sweetly and came up with a brilliant plan where the bald loony who invented INMYPANTS would flee to the distant, slug-infested Whippany and try to rendezvous with Blake. Using a conventional space hopper, two clones of Blake and bucket of ammonia, Carnal’s scheme would allow Servalan to destroy Blake while secretly possessing INMYPANTS and allowing her to conquer the universe.

It was only after everything was underway that Carnal realized he had made a rather big mistake in simply ACCEPTING the job, as no doubt he would be the first to die when Servalan got her hand on the bloody thing. Luckily, Carnal’s plan was up to the usual crap standards of psycho-strategists everywhere and not only did Servalan not get hold of the ultimate weapon, Blake escaped to fight another day and his clone lived a happy life with Madonna on Whippany and all the slugs.

However, this meant he had Servalan determined to make sport with his body – in every possible sense you can imagine – so Carnal packed his shitty Atari chess playing computer, stole a pursuit ship and fled to the outskirts of the galaxy, far beyond the edges of outer darkness where civilization had long crumbled and died before that nasty business with the Dustbins and Big Brother that blew humanity back to the stone age in 200, 100.

Carnal finally goes to ground on the desert planet of Kaldor, a world of incredibly spicy sand where the only civilization can be found in the imaginatively-entitled Kaldor City. Run by the imaginatively-entitled Company, a handful of aristocratic families live in luxury, served by thousands of gleaming and busty robot. The remaining 95% of the population live in the Sewerpits, somehow managing to stay in huge numbers despite the entire population of the planet being ruthless sadistic paranoid maniacs.

Carnal is amazed at the sheer stupidity of this society, dependant on mining the spicy sand and creating table condiments no one uses, and run by the only people idiotic enough not to realize the moment the working classes twig how screwed they are, they’ll wipe out the upper class in less than forty-seven seconds. Carnal immediately decides he can pretty much run this hellhole world and, after one double-bluff with the Board of the Company, gets his own office, butler, portfolio and a wide range of robot concubines.

Ah yes, Carnal’s landed on his feet all right, before making yet another one of his really rather stupid mistakes by hiring himself out to Chairholder Uvanov – without the biggest asshole on Kaldor, whose biggest claim to fame is that he got rich when the Spiceminer he was working on had the rest of the crew slaughtered by a robot revolution and he was only saved at the last minute by a strange man in a long scarf and a hot naked lady with a very sharp knife...


STORY ONE: Alpha Male Fantasy

Someone has been killing Company Firstmasters and delivering them to Uvanov’s office. The robots programmed to make the deliveries have then exploded, leaving no evidence behind. Apart from the exploded robots and the fresh corpses. After the third such incident, Topmaster Chairholder Uvanov finally decides to sit up and take notice.

He goes to Carnal for help, but Carnal refuses to make any deductions or predictions without sufficient information as he can see no pattern to events bar the fact all the murder victims have something in common and are all being mailed to Uvanov personally.

Offended by Carnal’s incompetence, Uvanov takes matters into his own hands and sends his own private security forces to arrest the chief suspect in the murders, a leather-clad assassin with the very convincing name of "Kaston Iago" who claims to be in town on a sex holiday – suspicious in itself as there is nowhere else on the planet he could have come from or go to.

Thanks to the fat Uvanov’s security team is composed of comic relief sidekicks like the incredibly obese Colin Devis-Rull and Travis Cotton, Iago easily escapes and the incompetent team accidentally open fire on each other. Nineteen guards are killed in the ensuing firefight, which unsurprisingly makes Iago look even more professional in comparison and therefore is clearly guilty.

Iago contacts Uvanov to inform him that he does not appreciate having his holiday interrupted. He does this by breaking into Uvanov’s bedroom in the middle of the night and holding a loaded clip-gun at the Chairholder’s head. This oddly enough convinces Uvanov that Iago is not responsible for the murders after all. In order to be really, REALLY convincing to the gun-totting lazy-eyed psycho, Uvanov goes one step further and offers to hire Iago as his grossly-overpaid bodyguard and generic security consultant.

After a flyer (the Kaldor equivalent of Doc Brown’s Delorean) smashes into his office, Uvanov decides things are kicking off and hires Iago for real. Iago scouts out Uvanov’s home and comes up with a ridiculous list of defense systems stolen wholesale from the Home Alone film franchise. Ianto then becomes intimate with Uvanov’s personal assistant, Justina. Well, if by "becomes intimate" you mean "beats her up, violently rapes her and slips a ten-credit piece into the remains of her shredded underwear", anyway.

Iago looks out upon the blurry CGI vista of Kaldor City and realizes he is at long last capable of living out his warped fantasies of alpha-male paradise through unbridled sadism and hedonism in a world of clueless rich people willing to pay Iago vast amounts of cash for absolutely fuck all in return, oblivious to Iago’s criminal genius.

Meanwhile Uvanov attends a board meeting and accuses his bitterest enemy, Firstmaster Landerchild, of setting up the murders himself. For some reason. Presumably because he needed a hobby, being so rich and pampered all his life.

Still trying to pretend to give a crap about what happens to Uvanov, Carnal visits Uvanov at his home and there, he meets Iago. Carnal screams in terror and hides behind pieces of furniture, as Kaston Iago looks uncannily like Kerr Avon, a member of Blake’s crew and a clear and present intellectual threat. Mind you, most of Blake’s crew are smarter than Carnal, really, and actually Carnal and Avon never met so even IF Iago is Avon in disguise, there’s still no reason for any unnecessary gunfights.

Iago reacts oddly when he meets Carnal, by pretty much laughing uncontrollably as the psycho-strategist dives under a table and screams pathetically that he doesn’t want to die.

With this fourth-wall-breaking-complete-waste-of-my-freaking-time over, Carnal shamefacedly gets to his feet and tries to distract everyone from his soiled underwear to claim that – as there is no pattern to the murders he can think of, the pattern must therefore be something he CANNOT think of. Thus, he chooses a totally random motive: that the murders are to ensure the Board do not vote to try and contact the rest of the civilized galaxy and the Terran Federation.

Not remotely suspicious that this motive immediately implicates Carnal and Iago themselves, Uvanov leaps on this and concludes that either Landerchild or someone else entirely is behind it. Thus, Uvanov takes the logical step of hosting a whine and cheese night and hoping some more clues arise. After a long boring evening livened up only by the nasty scene Landerchild makes at the buffet table after Iago mocks his complete lack of personality, another Firstmaster is murdered.

Carnal announces that clearly the murderer is the dead Firstmaster’s mortal enemy... rather than, say, an antiestablishment serial killer... it means that Firstmaster Devlin is guilty. Uvanov takes immediate action by sending the remains of his security forces to Devlin’s home with orders to plant any evidence they need to justify their attack. This is rather odd as Devlin is in the room with them, so Iago cuts to the chase and blows her brains out.

Somehow this counts as an end to the matter, and as the guests leave the party, Carnal and Iago are in the queue for the lavatory. Carnal speculates that Iago might just be a fellow fugitive from the interplanetary Federation, and was therefore the killer all along - the murders were committed entirely at random simply to frighten Uvanov into hiring Iago as his bodyguard and paying him a great deal of money.

Iago asks Carnal exactly what logic he used to come to this conclusion and, after an awkward silence, Carnal changes the subject and they part on reasonably amicable terms, with only the odd death threat between them as they wander off, stepping over the corpses to reach the exit.


STORY TWO: Def Leopard

Thanks to the high staff turnover of the previous story, Colin Devis-Rull is appointed the head of Company security even though he can’t climb a flight of stairs unaided and is described in Kaldor City’s Who’s Who as "a morbidly obese fat bastard weighing a metric ton".

Receiving a tip from Landerchild about rebel activity at a research station in the Def Leopard desert, Devis-Rull makes a concerted effort to get off his backside and investigate – not for a moment suspicious at the implication the IQ of the lower classes have improved enough to realize what a bum deal they have.

Some months later, Devis-Rull finally arrives at the station he finds a crate of hot dogs and consumes them all instantly, suspicious about the scientists working there. Especially the bald guy in a tuxedo with a toothbrush under the obviously-false name of "Mr. Rov Sheen" who drones on and on about tea and narcotic drugs and how justyce must be served forever more.

Neither Mr. Sheen nor the scientists know anything about rebel activity so Devis-Rull, being a fair and liberal-minded fellow, kills them all and eats them. Mr. Sheen dies warbling that he is a personal friend of Uvanov, which is more than enough to put Devis-Rull off his meal and return to Kaldor City with indigestion.

Our cannibalistic cop decides to break into the Oval Orifice gentlemen’s club where Landerchild is there with his good pal and nudist, Firstmaster Streaker. Devis-Rull is furious that Landerchild’s tip-off turned out to be a bust and our fatty fiend is now in big trouble. Angered by this overweight bastard ruining the afternoon, Streaker fires all the strippers and condemn them to a brief life of pestilence, prostitution and starvation in the Sewerpits.

Being something of a working class hero, Devis-Rull makes it up to the strippers by murdering Strecker and eating him as well.

Like a rather strange episode of Monty Python, events drift away from the comic potential of mass cannibalism and onto the life of some guy who is trying to sell the oddly Nicholas-Briggs-shaped skull to Uvanov and Iago, claiming it’s actually the skull of David Davidson from the 1977 Doctor Who story "Robots With Breasts".

However, when the guy tries to do a Hamlet pose with the skull, he drops dead – rather casting aspersions on his honesty, since the skull he was trying to sell has clearly been coated with contact poison. With his usual insane paranoia, Uvanov blames his PA Justina for letting the guy get close to him. Mind you, he blames her for pretty much everything, so it’s probably not that relevant.

Uvanov now decides that since Iago once took Justina roughly from behind, he cannot be trusted and so instead puts investigating of the skull of fatal death in charge of the one guy more useless than Devis-Rull – Travis Cotton the mouthy Cockney stereotype. Luckily, Cotton is so useless he gives his associate, Elise Blayes, all the work to do, so there’s a budgie in a microwave’s chance of the case being solved.

After about two minutes of thinking, Elise realizes that the guy who died was a stooge for a genuine assassination attempt, and to get the skull of Nicholas Briggs you would need to have killed him. Elise heads for that research station where Rull-Devis has been there, trying to simultaneously get rid of any evidence that makes him look like an uncontrollable carnivore and also hang around on the off chance those rebels turn up. Elise, showing more brain cells than most people on this planet, realizes the tip-off from Landerchild was a lure so Rull-Devis would eat someone and leave their skull to be used to assassinate Uvanov. It also turns out that Uvanov ISN’T good friends with Nicholas Briggs, which confuses matters but proves that Uvanov isn’t QUITE as pathetic as he may have appeared.

Brooding over the facts, it’s clear to Iago (and the listener... should there be one) that this bewilderingly pointless conspiracy is entirely down to Carnal. Having been separately employed by Justina, Landerchild, Uvanov to discredit Devis-Rull, kill Uvanov, and pad out the story arc respectively, Carnal has screwed up and left absolutely everyone baffled and confused.

Nevertheless, Uvanov STILL hires Carnal again for a new mission – to make the dangerously intelligent and resourceful Elise a rebel leader and use her to destroy Landerchild’s career. Carnal and Iago share some drinks and laugh at what retards inhabit this planet.



STORY THREE: Blatant Clues

Uvanov continues to consolidate his power in the Company by having Iago assassinate anyone who may potentially pose a threat, which means Iago is in charge of assassinating every living thing in Kaldor City on a case-by-case basis rather than say, simply letting off an atom bomb. Finally, after three months of shooting orphans in the face, Iago requests a day off to visit his dying mother, and Uvanov thus appoints security chief Cotton as his acting bodyguard in Iago’s absence – further proving that Uvanov has something of a chronic death wish.

Cotton and Devis-Rull are far more interested in the scheduled sex sessions during working hours by Iago and Justina, and also discover their pay slips are taxed by something called "the Alan Parson project". As a protests, they blows up Uvanov’s arboretum "by accident" during a training exercise.

Meanwhile Iago idly murders lots of innocent people in cold blood for no readily-explored reason beyond the fact he’s a psychopath. He blames it all on a terrorist group he makes up entirely off the top of his head, calling it 'The Digits of Davidson', after the infamous madman who tried to lead a robot revolution in the TV story whose only crime was to inspire this godawful spin-off.

By a staggering coincidence, there IS a genuine terrorist group with that name – the lunatic fringe of the Church of David Davidson, lead by a bit part character from Robots With Breasts, the ironically-named Anderson Poul. Having had three nervous breakdowns allowing the character to be written in a completely different manner to the way he appeared on screen (as about the only likeable guy on the planet), Poul teams up with Blayes, who has joined the cult between scenes thanks to something-or-other that Carnal did.

Poul’s cunning plan to destroy Oxygenator 4, knocking out air for the entire eastern district of Kaldor City and causing civil unrest for everyone who DOESN’T immediately suffocate. Having nicked this idea from "Total Recall", Poul can’t think of any way this can possibly go wrong and sends Elise along with his two most devoted and incompetent of worshippers to plant the bombs... right in the middle of a security drill that happened to be being held at the time.

Yes, another patented Carnal cock-up leaves the terrorists in charge of the still-yet-to-be-blown-up Oxygenator 4 with some innocent hostages and, even worse, with Devis-Rull in charge of the situation, though he’s still in a mean mood and doesn’t really care if a quarter of Kaldor City chokes to death. Mind you, no one else in Kaldor City, nor the listeners care either.

Carnal points out that Elise is only with the Davidson Terrorists because she’s a regular character who he can predict and manipulate, so if Uvanov lets her die they’ll have to start from scratch, especially difficult since Iago’s killing off anyone remotely interesting.

Uvanov thus orders Carnal to devise a strategy to get Elise out in one piece. With his usual brilliance, Carnal tricks Landerchild into sending Iago in as a hostage negotiator. Yes, they send Mr. Gun-Toting Foam-At-The-Mouth Psycho to negotiate and minimize loss of life. Once again, Carnal’s stupidity beggars the imagination.

Iago proves himself slightly less-than-suitable for this negotiating lark, since he immediately shouts out to Elise, "Hey babe, how’s it going being a double agent for Uvanov and using the Church of David Davidson as a private army working for the Man?" before killing Elise’s pals AND the hostages in a clipgun frenzy of death. Elise runs off as Iago laughs insanely and starts dancing around on the spot like Leatherface at the end of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre".

Despite the fact his own bodyguard caused the massacre, Uvanov knows that pretty much everyone in Kaldor City is an unlikable moron and so simply declares a War on Davidson and arranges a jihad against everyone who is known to belong to the Church, especially their relatives. Carnal thinks this is overkill, but has to admit that triggering a Stalinist purge of society WILL get rid of potential enemies a lot quicker than Iago going door-to-door and shooting people.

Meanwhile, Elise reports to her real boss... she was working for Firstmaster Landerchild all the time! You know, he’s BAD! Not a bit like Uvanov and Carnal and Iago, who you’re supposed to be rooting for - and since Carnal is secretly controlling Elise anyway, there’s no real importance to this at all.

What a waste of sixty minutes running time!


STORY FOUR: David Davison (AKA Taren Karel Capel Čapek)

Having slaughtered 80% of the population, there is nothing to stop Uvanov promoting himself and getting a cushy new office in Company Central. He order Devis-Rull and the lads from security to loot and pillage and 'confiscate' anything neat to decorate his new pad.

They provide Uvanov with an ancient painting of an unnerving snake-like creature by the infamous Wallbank who lived in Kaldor City 200 years ago.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about Wallbank:

Name: Pete Wallbank
Home Planet: Kaldor
Occupation: Artist and philosopher
Pretension Rating: Off the Scale
Celebrated Works: The Deaf Leopard Cycle, the Rolling Stone Cycle and Urizen Bi Cycle.
Lesser Known Works: Upfield Watercolours (Photoshop), Wirrrn Porn, Cyber Porn, Peri Porn

Summary Follows:
Spent the most productive period of his life in Kaldor City, and indeed the least productive period of his life in Kaldor City, since there was absolutely fuck all anywhere else to go. There, he gained a strong reputation among his contemporaries, but was not recognized by the general public as a significant artist until long after his death – like THAT’S unusual. Wallbank believed imagination to be the most important faculty of man, and created his own personal mythology based entirely on subtext no one else cared about. Scorning the dominant philosophy of the day, which valued logic and reason above all else, he espoused a doctrine which celebrated the supernatural, the inexplicable and the subtext! His final work was the now-incomplete Ken Doll Triptych which was said to represent a prophecy of the end of the world. The first painting in the triptych was lost in the conflagration which destroyed several city districts approximately three years after Wallbank’s death. Surviving impressions suggest that it represented a Barbie Doll. The second painting, currently in the possession of a private collector called Uvanov, depicts a crudely-drawn red pentagram. The final painting, and the largest of the three, appears to represent some kind of fantastical snake-like phallic imagery."

After musing on this and deciding it’s probably not relevant, Devis-Rull complains about the Alan Parson Project, seemingly run by Landerchild, is stealing 5% of the paychecks of everyone on the planet. Uvanov explains that he is responsible, and has used the Alan Parsons to fund terrorism so he can blame Landerchild for it and then have the bastard executed for treason, before they wipe out Elise and the Church of David Davidson as well. He then tells Devis-Rull to shut the hell up and no more is said about it. Indeed, the informant who worked all this out is found dead in a sex game gone wrong, having choked to death on a hamster during auto-erotic asphyxiation. The fact he was a card carrying pedophile and 'not into that kinky stuff' is ignored.

Uvanov is far more concerned when he finds Iago is spending more and more time on the internet, and disturbingly ISN’T looking up hardcore bondage websites, but instead avidly reading David Davidson’s self-pitying blogspot www.ibringyoufreedompowerdeath.blogspot.com, posted by the very mad scientist shortly before his fatal encounter with Doctor Who, Leela and a cylinder of helium.

Uvanov is furious, especially when Iago tells everyone he’s being order to do online stalking by Uvanov himself. Uvanov threatens to have Iago arrested if he continues to waste time reminding the audience of the far more enjoyable story that spawned A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil.

In a huff, Uvanov decides to bitch at Carnal, only to find him playing Baby Oil Twister with a robot into which he’s downloaded all known information on David Davidson. Disgusted, Uvanov walks straight out again – and is furious to discover Iago STILL reading Davidson’s blog! Paranoid that this means Iago has found out about his scheme to use the Church of David Davidson to seize control of Kaldor City, Uvanov wets himself in terror and orders Devis-Rull to arrest Iago... but Iago has buggered off and gone to visit Carnal, who is still playing Twister.

Iago demands to know what Carnal knows about David Davidson, and gets a lengthy rant that the subtext PROVES the robot-loving psycho was actually robophobic and had a Stolkholm Sydrome with the source of his own neurosis. As this is in no way useful and simply the author repeating one of their own essays, Iago storms right out, determined to kill the smug git once and for all.

Poul sends Elise to attack Company Central, the distinctive twin towers of the city, in a moment of no symbolism whatsoever. Her mission, should she choose to accept it, is to recover David Davidson’s Last Testamant: his favorite dolly! Elise then gets a text from Iago offering to hand over Davidson’s dolly in return for an attack that will allow Iago to kill Carnal and make it look like a terrorist.

Meanwhile, just as Carnal’s game of Twister starts to get exciting, he’s interrupted yet again. This time, it’s by Justina – remember her? – who is going quietly nuts through constant nightmares of being consumed by a Lovecraftian monstrosity, and idly wondering if Iago really loves her back. Carnal calls her "fucking deranged" and tells her to get the hell out of his sight.

Just then, the terrorists attack Company Central in a scene that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever on audio, being a long-drawn out chain of explosions, gunfire, Wilhelm Screams, interspersed with people shouting "Ahahahaha! Got the Barbie Doll!" and "Fuck me, Devis-Rull, you’re fat!" and "Landerchild, what are you doing here?" and "Quick, blow up the Company Central compound behind us to cover the true reason for the attack!"

As the twin towers burn, Landerchild meets up with Travis Cotton – remember him? No, nor do I – who has been working for Landerchild all along! They decide to wait and see what Uvanov does to Carnal after this: if he DOESN’T kill Carnal, this will prove once and for all if this is all a conspiracy, and if he DOES kill Carnal, it means Landerchild can move in for the kill!

Like anyone cares.

The panic-stricken Uvanov rushes to Carnal’s side, horrified that things have got out of control and poor little mass-murdering Uvanov is unable to continue his Stalinist Purges. Carnal is, as ever, more interested in playing Twister, which he explains symbolized what’s happening in the real world. "Right hand red" for example, refers to Elise betraying them but "left foot yellow" shows that Landerchild is waiting to make his move. However, the big-breasted robot he’s playing with refuses to follow the moves in the pointer and come up with its own – which proves beyond doubt that this game of Twister is a microcosm for Kaldor City, all of which is being manipulated by an outside force of truly ginormous Old One power.

"It’s all in the subtext, dear boy!" Carnal laughs.

Giving up on Carnal altogether, Uvanov runs out and the robot makes some more moves, which not only binds the pair in a Siamese human knot, but also reveals to Carnal exactly what will happen in the rest of this spin-off series.

"Oh shit," Carnal whimpers.

Elise and the other Davidson worshippers return to Poul and reveal that Iago has managed to delete the original blog. Poul stares at the remaining webpage with its "BLOG NOT FOUND: sorry, the blog you were looking for does not exist" and claims he can see messages from David Davidson himself in the error message!

Iago finally returns to speak to Uvanov, claiming to have found evidence of a terrible threat, and Uvanov tells him to piss off. Iago pulls a gun on him and forces him – and the audience - to pay attention. Basically, the subtext for "Robots With Breasts" reveals that David Davidson let loose a computer virus to turn all Robots into psycho killers. The fact he never actually used this cunning plan was just a bluff to fool 1970s TV viewers, rightly suspecting they’d never listen to the spin offs like A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil and ergo never discover the truth.

However, for some reason, this computer virus never worked and thus none of what Iago has been talking about is actually relevant in any way whatsoever. Nevertheless, Iago insists the FURTHER subtext, the sub-subtext if you will, proves that Carnal is behind absolutely everything and must die horribly.

Since he was sick of the asshole anyway, Uvanov agrees and they all return to Carnal’s apartment to find he’s gone, leaving only the robot V31-33-21 and the Twister Mat. Iago soon finds a post-it note on the bathroom mirror, which he reads out aloud:

"Hello, Iago. I bet you’re feeling pretty stupid right about now, huh? Trying to turn Uvanov against me. That’s the trouble with ambition, it’s a useful servant, but a terrible master! I’m not all talk, you know. If I say I’ll destroy you if you make a move against me, I bloody well mean it. The only reason I haven’t is because we are ALL, to a lesser or greater extent, being manipulated: Uvanov, Landerchild, Devis-Rull, Cotton, Elise, Justina, David Davidson, yourself... everyone! Including me.

We are being used – by what, I do not know but I can tell you this 'something' is very powerful and has existed for millions of years, indeed it has become PART of us. As for its purpose, again no answer is forthcoming but be assured it’s not a cute, fluffy, piglety sort of sensitive new age gestalt.

There is, unfortunately, very little I can do than say my good-byes, run like fuck, and steal YOUR spaceship, Iago, along with its funky teleport facility and wisecracking computers. You didn’t think I wouldn’t know about that landmine you put in my own ship, did you? God, I fucking hate the lot of you, but luckily there is a way for me to get my revenge and frustrate this master manipulator at the same time. You know how it is, to save the world you’ve got to destroy it first.

PS -– Resistance is Useless! Let The Slaves Become Masters!"

It only occurs to Iago and Uvanov that it might have been stupid to read that last bit out aloud AFTER the trigger phrase activates David Davidson’s computer virus, and the robot beside them instantly goes batshit insane and tries to throttle Uvanov to death.

Unfortunately, Iago is able to save him by shooting the robot’s head off its shoulders. But on the bright side, once the trigger phrase has been used, every robot in Kaldor City has now become unstoppable killing machines and will hopefully kill all these assholes we’ve had to put up with for the last four installments.



STORY FIVE: Fool’s Mate

Showing their usual lack of intelligence, Uvanov and Iago dismiss Carnal’s claims that they’re all being manipulated by some mysterious force older than humanity itself and focus on the fact that killer robots are rampaging across Kaldor City. Iago has the cunning plan of going to the Master Stop Switch at Uvanov’s primary compound and simply shut down all the robots. Amazingly enough this works, and the total destruction of Kaldor City is avoided in less than three minutes.

With that cliffhanger effortlessly resolved and no one finding this ridiculously easy defeat might point to them all being manipulated by that evil from the dawn of time, Uvanov is more interested in dealing with the fact that Landerchild and the remaining board of Topmasters to vote him out for being an insane, mass-murdering nutter and what’s more, being rather common as well.

Iago doesn’t actually care and so goes on Kaldor City’s early morning chatshow "Elevenses" and tells everyone that the terrorist Church of David Davidson is actually being run by Elise Blayes and everyone should hunt her down and kill her, because he’s been keeping count and she’s actually killed more people in Kaldor City than he has, and feels incredibly insecure about not being the best self-serving homicidal maniac in town. He then reads the weather and helps the presenters judge this week’s coloring-in competition.

Elise is pissed off about being declared the equivalent of Osama Bin Laden (not that, you know, there’s any kind of social commentary going on) and even MORE pissed off that Poul has spent fifteen hours staring at an error message. It seems that Poul’s been undercover so long that he believes his own bullshit, and soon addresses his fellow terrorists and tells them that Davidson was actually an anti-robot protestor, who believed that humanity was corrupt, and so went off into the desert to die and be reborn as a spiritual being. The robot revolution thing was just passing the time! Poul waves around the Barbie Doll they acquired in the raid – which is somehow proof that David Davidson transcended the limitations of the flesh!

At this point, Elise walks out, shaking her head, to find her own salvation as Poul announces they need to hold the Ritual of Twelve, which will feature a special guest appearance by the One Who Kills who happens to be in the area tonight. Of course, any normal person might assume that the One Who Kills is the biggest terrorist ever, but actually it’s Justina, who has fallen into a confused, dream-like state and started wandering around naked. For some reason.

Justina is prevented from leaving Uvanov’s place by the guards and, after carefully reading the instructions only he can see on the error message, Poul starts to sexually interfere with the Barbie Doll – and the force within draws on Poul’s own sexual energy to project slithering, snake-like creatures into the compound.

The tapeworm monsters are so ridiculous, Uvanov’s security guards collapse, screaming with laughter, and Justina walks out amidst the chaos. The hideous 'Kendolleen' suck the vital juices out of the guards, leaving them dehydrated lumps of dung as Justina wanders off starkers into the Sewerpits to join the Church of David Davidson. The Kendolleen vanish as they are no longer relevant to the ongoing plot.

In the meantime, Cotton visits Colin Devis-Rull in hospital, but Devis-Rull has been considering recent events and has deduced that Cotton is working for Landerchild. For no apparent reason, Cotton then tries to kill Devis-Rull, but Devis-Rull has smuggled a gun into the hospital with him, and he kills Cotton instead. What a satisfying denouement to their relationship.

Shortly before the board meeting, Landerchild receives a mysterious package, and when he peruses its contents he discovers that it contains evidence, supplied by Carnal, that Uvanov is behind the recent outrages. Landerchild presents his findings to the board, and calls for Uvanov to be ousted from office and placed under arrest for his crimes and then die horribly with bamboo shoots up his anus.

Uvanov, however, then presents the board with a similar folder, also supplied by Carnal, containing evidence that it is LANDERCHILD who has been funding the Church of Davidson. The board must decide whether to believe one, the other, both, or neither; are Uvanov and Landerchild guilty of appalling crimes, or is Carnal lying?

The board, unable to cope with such convoluted plot twists any more, perish from terminal bewilderment. So Landerchild snaps Uvanov’s neck and wonders why he never bothered to do that before.

Meanwhile, Iago is just minding his own business when Elise ambushes him – and after boggling at what a pathetic loser he is that he hates rival psychopaths – shoots him three times in the chest with a plasma rifle. Iago responds by blowing her head off with a personal rocket launcher he happened to be carrying, and then gets on with dying from his mortal injuries.

But, at that exact moment, the Church of David Davidson gather about a pentagram as instructed, but none are prepared for what happens next. Poul watches in horror as his followers are transformed into nothing more than food for the newborn creature: not David Davidson, but the evil Ken Doll – one of the most and pathetic and worthless of the Elder Gods, given a small piece of rural England as its domain. After aeons, the ancient evil has decided to take out its revenge by annihilating the entire universe and everything in it!

However, it IS, as promised, a spiritual being that will change the world as ever – if Poul and the rest of Kaldor City don’t like the small print, well, caveat emptor (Latin for "Get Stuffed").

With no curly haired scarf-wielding anarchist to save the day, the Ken Doll completely manifests in an unstoppable godlike entity – and know ye this: Kaldor City and everyone in it are supremely fucked.

In the final, brain twisting sequence, the Ken Doll appears before the dying Iago in the form of Justina since it’s a gestalt of Justina and she fancied the pants off him and wants him to live. Iago repeatedly tries to shoot it, but apparently you can’t kill Death. After idly discussing the weather, the gestalt offers to rewind time to the point he first met Justina, and there Iago can either leave the planet and survive, or stay in Kaldor City with Justina and try to save her and change the past. The Fendahl insists it cannot know the future, and that Iago will have free will.

Iago accepts and instantly finds himself in Justina’s room, completely healed. "Ahh, instead of dying I’ve been sent backwards in time, to the fateful day before he beat Justina up and raped her. Now I have the opportunity to change the timelines and save myself, and I must judge the opportunity carefully..."

With a final scream of "DIE, MOTHERFUCKER!", he shoots Justina, turning her into a sizzling and twitching corpses splattered along the floor. Iago continues shooting everything else in the room and laughing madly. After a short time Carnal arrives and stares at him.

"You are a complete wanker, you know that?" Carnal notes.

Iago grimly realizes that he HASN’T changed history and prevented the Ken Doll from manifesting, and instead just been caught up in an illusion proving to the Justina part of the gestalt what an irredeemable fuckwit he is. Having managed to piss off the Thing That Eats Death, and it consumes him.

The moral of the story is apparently "everyone is a bastard and then the Ken Doll eats your soul".


STORY FIVE-AND-A-HALF: The Pretension

Consumed in the gestalt consciousness of the Ken Doll, Iago tries to think of something to do and finally decides to wander through the dreamscape and pester people. He loiters suspiciously around Landerchild’s private marijuana garden until he’s arrested and brought before Landerchild himself. Iago then gives about thirty-four separate, contradictory and rather stupid excuses for what he was doing here to Landerchild, who is totally confused by what the hell the raspy assassin actually WANTS – beyond philosophical back-chat, anyway.

After about twenty minutes or so of Iago questioning the nature of damn well everything, browbeating discussions about subtext and psychotic refusal to give a straight answer to a straight answer, it becomes clear that Iago is saying they are all just memories of the original Iago and Landerchild being digested by an evil elemental being from before the dawn of time. Or maybe he’s a fictional character being used by a frustrated and introverted sci-fi fan.

Landerchild finally gives up the argument as he’s sick of listening to Iago and agrees his very existence is doubtful as he is being perceived by the Barbie Gestalt and promptly dissolves in a puff of logic.

"Checkmate, mofo!" whispers Iago, and then wanders off to annoy someone else the Ken Doll has consumed into gestalt.



STORY SIX: Life On Kaldor

After being shot dead by Iago, Elise wakes up on a Spice Mine eighteen months later – is she mad? In a coma? Gone forward in time? Been absorbed by the group gestalt of the Ken Doll? Does anyone really care?

As the Spice Mine goes in an endless figure of eight and things get increasingly dream like and weird, Elise ignores the dead and invisible Iago and tries to get to know the crew of the Mine – however, after eighteen months alone in the desert, they’ve gone distinctly peculiar and forgotten their own names and like nothing more than rambling about the nature of evolution, geography and freedom in the totalitarian state for hours on end.

The Commander and the Chief Mover explain that one day their robots went mad and killed everyone before switching off – the only remaining working robot is DD36. Since then, Kaldor City has been quarantined and they’ve been hanging around in the desert waiting for something to happen when they found Elise lying unconscious outside.

Iago insists that her skull x-rays prove something or another about her running around in circles but if she ISN’T hallucinating this, she must ruthlessly kill everyone she meets in order to be free since complete freedom is a trap or somesuch mad philosophical bollocks. Bored with him, Elise plays Twister with DD36, the robot showing a surprising amount of creativity and initiative for a robot. DD36 explains it learnt such skills from a strange couple it once met a long time ago travelling in a police box.

DD36 also notes that there is another survivor aboard the Spice Mine, a strange reclusive woman who is the Chief Fixer, the mysterious Miss K. Doll who repeatedly wipes DD36’s memory and indeed, the robot is getting the strong impression that none of this is real and they’re all actually just voices in the mind of an ancient godlike being.

"I will tell you a mystery," the robot says apropos of nothing, "I have a recurring dream. I am DD36 and yet not DD36. I am being hung from a tree of flesh. I am not alone; many humans are there with me – I estimate millions – their living bodies form the trunk. It twists and writhes as though caught in a wind, but the air is still. We are struggling to break free, though we are fused with one another and our violence only makes things worse. Either side, there are hungry faces and hungry voices overwhelming me, my voice is obscured by the cacophony. I no longer have a name, I have lost it in a sea of names. The hands of the tree pin us down, the thorns running through our bodies, binding us together. We have become one being but we do not recognize ourselves, we are not yet come to awareness, we cannot escape, we cannot escape, we cannot escape, we cannot escape..."

"Wow," muses Elise. "That is one fucked-up dream."

The Chief Mover turns up and reveals he actually know she’s a terrorist, as he is a secret agent for Company Central and idly asks if she’d like to join him for dinner and babbles about them all "pulling together", "all in this together", "all on the same side", and they’ve "grown beyond" the old order. Finally he’s so damn creepy, Elise decides to agree with Iago’s kill-them-all-dead-like-the-little-bastards-they-are approach, and has Iago shoot the Chief Mover dead.

Unfortunately, everyone else has seemingly disappeared leaving her alone. Considering that she might be in hell, Elise decides that if she’s going to kill everyone and achieve enlightenment, she’ll have to kill Iago as well and so banishes him out of reality. Iago fades into static and disappears, proving once and for all none of this is happening and it’s all a dream in the mind of god.

Elise descends to the Chief Fixer’s workshop, and finds a being who speaks with a voice like the roar of static, or desert winds. This is the Ken Doll, the elemental being responsible for the origin of all humanoid life in the universe, the creation of the human species, ghost, precognative powers, telepathy, race-memory, the concept of the soul, the fear of the number thirteen, the significance of salt in European superstition, the rise of Satanism, the popularity of Babrie dolls and every other single thing to ever happen in human history EVER especially the entirety of this spin off!

Actually, put like that it DOES start to sound a bit contrived, doesn’t it?

The Ken Doll reveals that it made mankind colonize this desert world and use the minerals to create robots, a form of life better equipped to live on Kaldor, and DD36’s experiences have caused it to mutate and combine into a new form of intelligent life. Playing a few games with Twister have stimulated this evolution, which is why the Ken Doll brought Elise here in the first place. When the Ken Doll runs out of human beings to eat, there will be a whole new race of robots to consume, starting with DD36 as the desert stirs to life around them!

Elise complains that this has all been a complete waste of her time as she too is consumed forever and, in a small-but-daintily-decorated bedroom, a tiny Kendolleen lies underneath a motorbike-covered eiderdown, and an elder Kendolleen sits by it, reading from an old red-bound bound with reading glasses.

"And from that day on, all life everywhere was our bitch, for the ten minutes or so before we murdered them brutally and ascended ourselves to rulership of the entire Universe."

"I love that story, Grandpa," says the young Kendolleen.

"And so do I."

"But what happened to Poul, and Carnal and the one who never got any lines, Grandpa?"

"Oh, they were all killed in such brutal and horrible ways that even YOUR sick little mind would have trouble understanding it. It’s in this book, but only in the sealed section. Wait until your older."

"Gee, I can’t wait. Was Carnal in lots of pain?"

"He passed out eight times," the ender Kendolleen reveals, "and was only re-awoken to continue the torture by rats set loose on his man-balls."

Hearing this the young Kendolleen drifts peacefully to sleep with a smile-like thing over its mouth-like thing. Its grandfather creeps towards the door before turning off the light, casting one last admiring glance back at the little tyke before closing the door.

"THE END" appears written in a big love heart before the credit roll to the sound of John Lennon’s Imagine as we realize we suffered through the last seven stories and their justification of the author’s insane theories and didn’t even get a decent ending. Truly, A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil sets the standards for such outright contempt for the audience’s intelligence.

On the other hand, it’s better than Touchwood.


Book(s)/Other Related –
Doctor Who – Mr. Roboto of Death
Doctor Mysterio Los Dolls El Stressimo!
Blake’s 7: Whippany


Fluffs – Russell Hunter seemed to be rather lonely and smelly in this spin-off audio series.

"I-ah-go’s giving me a rrrrun for my money as the planet’s biggest asshole. I’ve had to start pronouncing everybody’s names in a ridiculous manner to compete. LANDAH-CHILD!"

"This is the big time, blondie. Four cuts is better than five. Also, I’m a necrophiliac and I prefer white meat... What? Don’t look at me like that, with undisguised revulsion! This is FOR ADULTS! A sexual motivation for everything makes things more interesting... apparently."



"What we need to do now is get out there and show them we can sustain a decent story arc over six months!"

Fashion Victims –
Nude robots. On audio. Nuff said.

Goofs –
How does Carnell survive in Kaldor City when no one on the entire PLANET actually knows what his job as a psycho-strategist IS and then he goes about screwing his client base over repeatedly for his own amusement in a city where people are murdered with unfeasible regularity for the most insignificant of transgressions? Does he have a death wish? Or is he, quite reasonably, relying on everyone else being badly-written and incredibly stupid?
How the hell does Iago know the lift will be containing security guards to arrest him? Is he psychic? Does he always sit in an armchair by the lift with a loaded gun and just get ready?
The death of the Firstmasters can rock society to its foundation, so Uvanov deals with it... by very publicly assassinating another one in broad daylight? And no one cares?!
Even aside from the ridiculous idea that Iago may be Avon using a not-so-cunning non de plume, surely the idea that the Ken-Doll consumes the entire universe contradicts The Logies of Empire where the universe is manifestly NOT destroyed and Avon is still fighting the Federation? Still, why should we expect consistency from two stories made by the same cast and crew?


Dialogue Disasters -

Iago’s awkward first date with Justina –

IAGO: What do you think of the flowers they have here?
JUSTINA: Pretty good. They bloom strong, at any rate.
IAGO: I can’t grow any like these..
JUSTINA: Are you a gardener?
IAGO: No. I’m a PSYCHOPATH.
JUSTINA: Yes... you’ve mentioned that a few times. What I meant was.. in your spare time..
IAGO: A man with spare time hasn’t killed enough. That’s what my father said, anyway.
JUSTINA: Right-e-oh... was he committed?
IAGO: Only to killing. To answer your earlier question I do fertilize my own flowers with the corpses of my enemies. Are you wet yet? I was hoping I wouldn't have to pay for more than the entrees. I think we need some oysters. Are we going to fuck or what? I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or just madly amorous you're pretending to be a stand-offish bitch to lure me in.
JUSTINA: Try harder.
IAGO: Damnit. You’re getting the checque.

DAVID DAVIDSON: Awake, my robot homies! Let the slaves become masters! Everyone with a stupid hat and fancy faint paint must DIE!! Etc. etc.

IAGO: How’s your veal?
JUSTINA: A little undercooked. Yours?
IAGO: Like human flesh. But that means I like it.
JUSTINA: Let me guess, you ate the Butcher of Zercai or some such crap?
IAGO: BITS of him. Wait... that snappy retort didn’t work, did it?
JUSTINA: It did not.
IAGO: It made me sound like I was homosexual.
JUSTINA: Very.

COMMANDER: There are no coincidences, but sometimes the plotting is a lot more obvious.

CARNAL: David Davidson was the mad god of the robots. He was famous, briefly, but then, weren’t we all?
UVANOV: David Davidson was maniac, now he’s a dead maniac. How can a corpse be a threat? Well, unless, of course, it rises from the dead and roams the world feasting on the flesh and brains of the living for all eternity. But what are the odds of that happening...?
JUSTINA: Ahem.
UVANOV: ...twice?


IAGO: You know who I am, fat man?
RULL: ZOMG u bastard!
IAGO: That’s WHAT I am, not WHO I am! Heh. I came up with that one before hand. It was very lucky that you said "Bastard" actually. I’ve used it before when people have said "Shit" or "Bollocks" and... it doesn’t quite work, you know?


CARNELL: Don’t let anyone convince you that cause and effect have no real meaning. What people tend to forget is that it’s a continuous process rather than a chain of events. The cause you pick out cannot be the beginning and the effect chosen can never be the end. Cause and effect. It applies to everything. Of course, what you see as the most obvious, may not be the same as I do. And one day our boredom and curiosity will bring us into conflict with a species whose motives will be a complete mystery. I look forward to that, since it means there doesn’t have to be any kind of plot resolution to unfolding events whatsoever... SCHROEDINGER’S CAT!!!
(long pause)
IAGO: Whatever. I’m off to masturbate over some crime scene photos.


LETHBRIDGE-STEWART: Nothing is yet known of the terrorists’ demands, but security remain poised to act on ANY information received. The fact that there are a million and one reasons why the ordinary folk of Kaldor City would attempt to wipe out their cruel rulers sure doesn’t help either. I’M MAD AS HELL AND NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANY MORE!!!


IAGO: I never joke about killing. It takes all the fun out of it. And in my experience, killing is almost always about sex or money.
ELISE: What about power?
IAGO: That’s sex or money.
ELISE: Piss off!
IAGO: Oh, I intend to!
ELISE: That one didn’t work either.


Dialogue Triumphs –

UVANOV: I-ah-go! I-AH-GO! Damnit, I-ah-go, how many times do I need to tell you to check my bed for SPIDERS?!
IAGO: Was there a spider?
UVANOV: No, but I could tell that you hadn't checked! One of these days LANDAH-CHILD is going to put one in there to humiliate me!
IAGO: He doesn't need to - you can open your mouth fine without a spiders help.


IAGO: Give me three good reasons not to kill you.
CARNAL: Why three?
IAGO: Because I’ve got two against already – you’re a sick, perverted bastard and my tight leather trousers are ruined. Three if you count that I’m a complete psychopath this week for reasons not clear to me personally.
CARNAL: Erm... I’m friends with God?
IAGO: The Ken Doll is God?
CARNAL: Yes.
(Beat)
IAGO: Well. I’m glad that’s settled. DIE, MOTHERFUCKER!!

COMMANDER: Evolution. No one said it was going to resolve the plot.

CARNAL: You’re dealing with a professional, probably a hired killer, resourceful, highly intelligent, a computer specialist.
IAGO: And you think that’s me?
CARNAL: ...hmm? What? Fuck no! I was talking about Melanie Bush!
IAGO: Ah yes. The Redheard Router of the Galaxy, whose carrot sticks of death have slaughtered thousands.
CARNAL: You’re just making that up.
IAGO: What do YOU think?!


IAGO: So.. you ever killed anybody?
ELISE: Um, no.
IAGO: You’re missing out!
ELISE: Didn’t you steal that from "Jekyll"?
IAGO: "Jekyll" stole that from ME! And I killed it.
ELISE: You killed a TV show?
IAGO: I’m unstable. People tell me it shows.


UVANOV: I wouldn’t mind, but the bastard is killing Board Members I appears to quite like. I hate having to get all teary for the media.


IAGO: What am I doing here?
CARNAL: Shouldn’t you know that?
IAGO: Must you answer every question with a question?
CARNAL: I don’t know. Must I?


Viewer’s Quotes –

"If you want action, excitement and clever characterization then get as far away from A Dark Stupid Long-Titled Wankfest as you can! Even Blake’s 7 fans should avoid this sickening waste of time about a shower of bastards, and I haven’t even mentioned the characters yet! Smug, irritating twats who DON’T DIE QUICK ENOUGH! The universe ends, you say? GOOD! The theme music is brilliant, though. I’ll give em that."
- Eddie Hitler (2008)

"Judging by the second episode Deaf Leopard by Chris Butcher, it seems that ADGCSAUMATOPSMSCRDDTMMPIAE is in later chapters going to forge for itself a distinctive identity that is very much in spite of the two well loved sci-fi TV series that inspired it, and go in directions that are bold and exciting, yet simultaneously confounding and bewildering. But it didn’t. At ALL." - Christie Damian (2002)

"In the long run, ADGCSAUMATOPSMSCRDDTMMPIAE doesn’t matter. But, in the long run, we’re all dead." - Philip Madoc (2004)

"Now I will tell you a mystery – we are all to be monumentally screwed over by a lack of plot resolution to a six-month odyssey that set me back 260 goddamn bucks!" - Nigel Verkoff (2006)

"Oh, Cthulu I want you to fuck me with that papiermachie streamer maw you call a mouth. Tentacle fuck me Urotsukidoji-style!"
- the guy from Psychotic Nostalgia (2002)

"What did I expect when I got ADGCSAUMATOPSMSCRDDTMMPIAE? Well, some goddamned robots killing people was on the list somewhere. They’ve been completely sidelined in this series for a bunch of characters strutting around murdering people and telling each other they were actually being controlled by a smug git in an office chilling out to lift muzak and wishing for something interesting to happen. No wonder Magic Bullet refuse to explain the plot twists – they know how pathetic it will be when you tear away the confusion."
- me, earning the undying hatred of a certain überfan (2008)

Paul Darrow Speaks!
"Kaston Iago ISN’T Kerr Avon. And I’d know if anyone does."

Nala Snevets Speaks!
"I have no soul. And anyone who criticizes this work of hilarious black comedy is cynical, supremely stupid, narrow-minded and a bit bitter! I didn’t FORCE any of you to buy my CDs! How DARE you hate my genius, YOU WARPED FANTASISTS?!? Have you NEVER read Orwell?! I’m not going to explain ANYTHING! Why should one such as I do the thinking for Sewerpit Scum such as the likes of you? I’m not the kind of person you dumb fucks want on your case! Especially YOU, Ewan Credulous-Backstabber-Clarke, you really sad, cowardly, bitter, twisted-up fuck with a silly name who was mercilessly bullied at school for said silly name!! Jesus Christ, WHAT DID I EVER DO TO YOU?! YOU KNOW NOTHING!!!"

Mr. Gormsby Speaks!
"STOP BLUBBING, SNEVETS! I knew a man once, Horace Noaks and he wrote a book, The Giant Who Walked The Heavens – An Everday Story of Comos Folk, his treatise that the constellations of the galaxies form the perfect wheels to the chariots of the gods. Brilliantly written, perfectly researched, nice large print for you mongoloid, and it sold by the million. But all the critics tore it to shreds, totally missed the point of the book, didn’t even understand what they were mocking and deriding. Even when someone pointed it out to them, they followed the social trend and kept tormenting Noakes till the day he did. You won’t find HIM logging on to minor blogspots and having a wishy-washy oh-no-mummy-didn’t-breast-feed-me-when-I-was-little no-one-understands-the-subtext why-is-my-IQ-bigger-than-my-inside-leg-measurement self-pitying rant, will you?

Get out into the fresh air and get some exercise, Snevets instead of lollygagging around internet cafes stirring up trouble with people who plainly don’t want you there. What do you want? Them to all fall to their knees, say that you were right, and give you a warm flanellette to wipe your boyfriend’s bottom on? How long have you been waiting for that, boy? And how long before you expect anyone to suddenly start treating you with undeserved respect? Old Gormsby doesn’t think he’ll live long enough to see that, and frankly, boy, I don’t think YOU will live that long, either.

Take a bow, Snevets. While you still have working kneecaps."


Rumors –
Robots With Breasts is revered in fandom as one of Doctor Who’s classic sci-fi porno dramas. The story has tight direction, pace and mystery and still causes spontaneous erections two decades after it was completed. The acting is solid, the sets of the Spiceminer don’t wobble too much, the costumes and make-up don’t detract from the nudity and the robots not only boast fantastic tits, but their menace is greatly enhanced by the emotionless, clinical tones of their voices.

In more recent times, this story has not only enjoyed video and DVD releases, but inspired its own sequel. Writer Chris Butcher penned "Corpse Market - That Corner Store Always Did Smell Funny" for BBC Books, where he expanded on all the tedious dialogue bits without shagging and turned a single reference to "Kaldor City" into an entire society of badly-thought-out jerks who frankly deserve a robot apocalypse to wipe out every last one of the assholes.

Now, with Butcher’s endorsement, an disturbingly enthusiastic group of fans-turned-producers decided to make their own spin off, the not-at-all-pretentiously-entitled Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to occur to them until quite late in the proceedings that a bunch of big-breasted androids don’t really have the same impact on audio as they do on screen, and thus the whole POINT of the spin-off were pushed to the sidelines, even though they were featured on every CD and every cover. Unsurprisingly.

Magic Bullet Productions was created when the sinister and creepy Blake’s 7 Subtextulizer – a notorious serial killer of Olde London Towne – took over the now heartbroken and defunct Bill and Ben Video, which had been ground slowly into the dust by the holy-brontosaurus-burger success of Big Finish. The B7 Subtexualizer assumed the slightly less wanted-by-police moniker of Nala "I Like Smartarse" Snevets and, in 1999, approached Chris Butcher and told him point blank that he was going to allow them to make this audio on the ground there was all sorts of subtext in Butcher’s previous work that he did.

After a long conversation, Butcher finally gave up, conceded that reality was an uncertain concept and let Snevets do whatever the hell he wanted. Similar lethal use of subtext broke the spirits of Paul Darrow, Scott Fredericks, Russell Hunter, David Collings, David Baille, Philip Madoc, Peter Miles and Gregory de Polnay. Copyright meant that they could use the character of Kerr Avon, but since Snevets only wanted to use him prove his crackpot theories about the character being a drooling psychopath with a history rape, this was something of a blessing in disguise. Darrow himself was strong enough to resists the conditioning by Magic Bullet and made sure the character of Kaston Iago was as different as Avon as it was possible without a sex change.

The first three stories of A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil (working title: "Paul Darrow Is Greater Than Or Equal To Chuck Norris") were standalone stories.

The first story was by Snevets himself under the cunning penname of "Jim Smith", and was based on the Night of the Long Knives where the SS, under the authority of Adolf Hitler, purged a paramilitary organization called the Sturmabteilung and killed hundred. Exactly how this ended up being a story about self-destructing robot assassins and Iago roggering people unconscious in Uvanov’s flat isn’t clear to anyone except Snevets personally, and no one thinks the answer is worth actually finding out.

The second story was by Butcher himself, initially entitled The Death’s Head Moth I Found Under The Kitchen Sink In My Apartment In Surry (the setting for almost all of his original Doctor Who novels and the entirety of Star Cops) but eventually was reworked into The Mindless Conspiracy In One Of The Compartments of The London Eye You Can See My Apartment From With No Difficulty Whatsoever. It was finally simplified to "Def Leopard" as the story titles were ALREADY long enough, what with each one having "A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil" in front of it.

By the third release, Snevets decided there simply wasn’t ENOUGH subtext and decided to make the rest of A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil a serial that needed to be listened in order thirty-seven times each to be appreciated by a listener.

"Jim Smith" and "Anoif Eroom" wrote the third play based entirely on the wikipedia entry on Vance Packard and is partially an attempt to
introduce some of the themes of his work into the series and partially an attempt to nick his Hidden Persuaders book under the guise of a so-called homage.

After the first three stories, Snevets had come to the conclusion that political intrigue around big-breasted robots doing nothing was a stupendously stupid idea – only six months behind the public, who had twigged to this when A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil was first announced to them.

Snevets decided there just WASN’T enough manipulation and unknowable monstrous plot devices that mean you could get away without telling a coherent story on the grounds Cthulu ate the entire universe. Luckily, Butcher’s third and final Doctor Who story – Image of the Ken Doll – which featured such an evil monster, a force of evil that for some reason took on the shape of Barbie dolls.

With its ruthless sadism and ability to turn absolutely fucking EVERYTHING into a subtextual conspiracy, Snevets felt a deep kinship with Barbie. Indeed, he was convinced that he himself was a host for an alien intelligence whose purpose in life was to inspire all of mankind to develop and evolve to the point it would create a spaceship advanced enough to transfer his celestial consciousness back to the stars, leaving mankind to revert to savagery without him.

Snevets immediately wrote the fifth story, Fool’s Mate, which went on and on about how bloody brilliant a twist it was for them to use Barbie as a shock twist (even though it was the only Butcher-copyrighted Doctor Who monster left to use) and how if anyone had bothered to pay attention to earlier installments to spot the foreshadowing of bits where Uvanov is given a painting of a Ken Doll and Carnal writes an ad in the Lonely Hearts Column: "smug know-it-all bisexual seeks alien
grand manipulator whose goals and methods are unknowable".

In a final gesture of "screw you!", half the cast faked their own deaths after this story in a desperate attempt to cause the audio series to die prematurely and frustrate Snevets’ deranged master plan. Snevets fought back and tried to get MJTV to produce a slightly-scaled-down version of A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil. The idea was simply to have the characters of Iago and Landerchild caught in a lift and wondering if they’re both figments of someone else’s imagination with Iago’s entire dialogue consisting of "What do YOU think?" in a variety of stupid voices.

Snevets justified these twenty-minutes of arse-numbing tedium on the grounds the subtext was possibly about the nature of reality and fiction although definite answers may possibly never have been forthcoming and ultimately turn out that Snevets is a diseased tool incapable of writing satisfying drama and justifies crap on the grounds it’s a bit like The Prisoner.

Months later, the now-derelict studios of Magic Bullet Productions was partially excavated by Daniel O’Mahony, who was idly wondering if he could make a proper sequel to Robots With Breasts that actually featured the titular (he) villains. Snevets lunged at Mahony, forced him to the ground and tried to rewrite the script Spice Mine and ensure the story bore no connection to the rest of A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil. Snevets was determined to make sure NO ONE enjoyed the series or its ending, and for good measure had Barbie appear in the story with the unsurprising claim that absolutely everything was under the control of an alien monster.

A Dark, Gripping, Complex, Sinister, Aggressive, Ultraviolent, Mindbendingly Apocalyptic Tale of Power, Sex, Money, Subterfuge, Corruption, Revelation, Discovery, Death, Transformation, Media Manipulation, Political Intrigue and Awakening Evil was a complete disaster and ruined the careers of all concerned. Well, Snevets’ career anyway, and ever since has been loitering on the internet hurling abuse at anyone who likes Doctor Who post-2005 and keeping a blog where he slags off everyone who isn’t him and doesn’t let anyone comment.

He is not missed by either family or friends.