Scorpius
General Karen Brett is hailed as a hero on the return from her latest campaign in humanity’s war against its own android creations, but she only reluctantly accepts the accolades. She makes a public appearance with President Levinson, whose policies and war plan she disagrees with – she feels he isn’t taking an aggressive enough stance with the androids. During the meeting, a silver-clad figure teleports into the White House, assassinates the President, promises Brett that she will become the new President, and then vanishes again. She does indeed ascend to the Presidency, but she finds that once in office, even she can’t turn the tide of the war. She discovers a deeply buried secret project, code-named Scorpius, which Levinson made every attempt to erase from existence, even to conceal it from any successors to the presidency. She’s able to find out very little, but she finds out enough – Scorpius is somehow tied to the silver giant who gunned down Levinson in cold blood, and it could change humanity’s fortunes in the war. In fact, it could change humanity forever…
written by Nicholas Briggs
directed by Nicholas Briggs
music by Nicholas BriggsCast: Sarah Mowat (President Karen Brett), Mark McDonnell (Nash / Liam), Toby Longworth (President Levinson / Pilot / P.A. voice / Captain), Nicholas Briggs (Cyberman / Cyberplanner / Control / Reporter / Guard), Ian Brooker (Helliton / Hendry / Glaust / Karen’s Father / Guard in Karen’s quarters / Protester), Hannah Smith (Samantha / Computer), Barnaby Edwards (Paul / Comms / Security), Samantha Sanns (SSC Control / Comp / Helm / Operations Officer)
Notes: All four of the Cyberman plays were recorded live in studio, with the small cast doubling, tripling or quadrupling up on characters and sound effects mixed in or performed live; Nicholas Briggs did minimal overdubs to add more sound effects and the musical score. Sarah Mowat and Mark McDonnell previously starred in the first cycle of Dalek Empire audio plays, also written, directed and scored by Briggs. Nicholas Briggs has also provided “official” Cybermen voices, giving the Cybermen in the new TV series episodes Rise Of The Cybermen and The Age Of Steel a vocal treatment not unlike what is heard here; this episode’s Cyber-voices are based on the Troughton-era Cybermen heard in such episodes as Tomb Of The Cybermen, though the Cyberman design seen on the cover of all four Cyberman audios is the one introduced in the later Troughton story The Invasion. The Sword Of Orion incident and the android wars are holdovers from Briggs’ eighth Doctor audio story of the same name, which actually started out as an amateur audio production he wrote and starred in during the late 1980s.
LogBook entry by Earl Green
Commander Liam Barnaby, the commander in chief of all Earth forces, doesn’t like being left out of the loop – but he discovers that Paul Hunt, a mysterious figure with ties to Scorpius who predicted Karen Brett’s rise to the presidency before her predecessor was assassinated, has edged him out as the President’s closest advisor. Worse yet, when Barnaby decides to dig deeper, he finds that Hunt has covered his tracks well, even ordering some of Barnaby’s own people in the military to make it difficult for anyone to investigate him. Barnaby traces Hunt’s residence to a woman named Samantha, but after he questions her about Hunt’s background, Barnaby is called to account for his investigation by President Brett herself. That confrontation leads him to the inevitable conclusion that his military career is about to be ended for him, but when Cybermen come after him, Barnaby’s life may become as short as his career. Samantha helps him, and then reveals the truth: she’s an enemy android on a deep-cover assignment, and her mission has changed. Instead of destroying humanity, she’s trying to find a way to keep humanity from destroying itself – but she and Barnaby find that it may be too late. The Cyber conversions have begun in earnest on Earth.
Subjected to the first stage of Cyber conversion – a deadening of the human nervous system – Commander Barnaby is on the verge of finding out for himself what the Scorpius plan entails, and what President Brett’s new allies would turn humanity into. Also captured, the android agent Samantha isn’t succumbing to the process, but she realizes she has very little time to act. Needing Barnaby’s knowledge of the Cyberman-commandeered Earth ship they’re on, Samantha has for force the human’s animal instincts to the surface as best she can, enabling him to resist the conversion process. On Earth, President Brett goes public with the latest stage of Scorpius, but sugar-coats the facts, claiming that the Cybermen now patrolling the streets of Earth’s cities are volunteers who underwent rigorous training to serve as a new breed of advanced troops. Barnaby and Samantha manage to change their ship’s course, sending it into android space and then launching themselves to safety in an escape pod. But even after Barnaby helps android troops try to retake the Earth ship (and hopefully capture a Cyberman prisoner), the head of the androids’ war effort comes to a chilling conclusion: to win the war, the androids must deprive the Cybermen of the raw material for their conversion process – and to do that, humanity must be destroyed.
Both the androids and the Cybermen, led by the recently Cyber-converted Karen Brett, race to the planet Telos as the Cybermen’s plans for Earth and humanity come to a head. But both parties are in for a surprise – something has collided with Telos, leaving not a planet but an asteroid belt. The vault of the Cybermen’s tombs, however, survived intact and could still give the Cybermen the advantage. The androids, still only reluctantly trusting Barnaby to help them, decide to lay a trap – but the Cybermen decide to advance their plans even further, resulting in a fight to the death over the spaceborne vault. And even if Barnaby, Samantha and the others survive long enough to spring their trap, there’s still the Cyber occupation of Earth to contend with…