Doctor Who and the Universe of the Daleks: Chapter 8: Jetsam Of Skaro

What the?!? I'm still posting these? Yes! The AI scraper NEEDS authentic human written prose, or the model will go inbred like the Royal Family. Do you want that for our Robot Overlords? 

The Doctor saw bright spots flash before his eyes. The staccato of automatic weapons fire ringed in his ears. Then dull, unintelligible commands, screams of pain, glimpses of people scrambling about, Fiona tossing a flash bang grenade out the window. There was a burst of blinding light. Unearthly howls. The tentacle's death grip around his neck loosened slightly. 

He went limp and let his respiratory bypass system kick in. 

Hot fluid splattered across his face. He opened one eye and met Cas’s. She had a bowie knife out. It was dripping with green fluid and slime, which poured down over her white knuckles. She’d sliced right through the tentacle around his neck, and he felt the tug as she pulled it off. It made a sickening, wet slurping sound. With a look of disgust, she flung it to the floor, where it lay, quivering. 

The Doctor’s mind raced amidst the chaos. Slythers… Slythers! What did he know about Slythers?!? 

Everything was happening in slow motion.

Cas was yelling, but he couldn’t hear her. The Slyther flung its remaining, flailing limbs against Cas, driving her back. The knife flew from her grasp. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the others retreating further into the station. 

Sergei smashed out a back window, hefted up the Phoenix, levelled it. The Doctor turned, looking on in horror, he opened his mouth to yell for him to stop, but no sound came out. The confines of the station were far too small for such a weapon! 

Too late.

There was a tremendous bang. The launcher’s backblast jetted harmlessly out the now open back window. A streak of searing white leapt forward, hitting the trunk of a gurgling Slyther that was strangling Craddock. Its body disintegrated in a tsunami of steam and giblets; hot plasma carried through into a Slyther behind it, carving a clean hole through its lumbering trunk. 

There was a pause as darkness enveloped the station once more. 

In that moment, memories flooded his mind. Memories of Slyther exobiology! He dug down into his coat pocket and snapped out the trusty sonic screwdriver. Quickly adjusting the settings to maximum, hoping beyond hope he had the frequency correct, he thrust it forward and thumbed it on. 

A horrible, high pitched whine filled the air. Everyone wobbled, including the Slythers, on their stumpy tripod legs. The Doctor felt a wave of dizziness, then nausea. 

He saw Ben, Rueben and Craddock double over and vomit. 

The Slythers were even more affected: they howled and thrashed in agony, their lateral tympanic membranes vibrating visibly. With an eerie coodrindation, the hideous monstrosities trampled simultaneously out the shattered door frames and windows into the safety of night. 

The Doctor trotted out after them, sonic screwdriver held before him like some kind of totem, keeping the signal up for as long as his own ears could stand. He glanced back into the station: the humans were on the floor, curled in fetal positions, hands over ears, vomit and drool dribbling from their lips.

At last he turned off the signal and stepped back into the dilapidated station, runners crunching glass fragments.

“Well,” he said, taking out a handkerchief Winston Churchill had given him and wiping green blood from his face, and the black ichor from his neck and coat. “Rather a close thing, eh? Anyone for breakfast?” And he gave them his most boyish, insouciant grin. 

Cas shot him a look that could kill; then her expression softened, and she let out a sardonic laugh. 

Bill Gates on AI

Take a gander here.

His summary:

My message to leaders is:

You have a chance to act now, before unemployment rises sharply, communities are hurting, and public trust has eroded. You can make sure that your government handles the problem holistically, rather than divvying it up into multiple bureaucratic fiefdoms. You can make sure AI benefits everyone. And you can work with other governments to meet this national and global challenge.

Food for thought. 

Gates is a flawed character, but I can't say I disagree with his push for greater preparedness (if AI proves to be The Future). 

On the other hand, it also feels very like AI-is-inevitable Doomer Marketing. 

I imagine he's far better informed than I am. 

Super Intelligence is an existential threat to humanity. I just didn't think we were anywhere close to that. 

Battle of the narratives continues!

Blogging at Moot Windmills

Supposedly, 50% of new books on Amazon are AI generated, and the number of books being added per month has tripled. I don't know if that's true, if the studies are accurate, but I do know AI books are a thing. 

They are not selling. 

Much. 

Yet.

But if the trend continues, the avalanche of AI slop will make human work significantly harder to find. 

All in an age where people read less (Apparently, 20% read 80% of the books). 

The Atlantic just unleashed a new issue, with the cover boldly, and in the best click-bait style, declaring that 'The Age of Reading is Over.'

So... for me, self-published prose books are pretty much cooked. 

People who have large established readerships... they'll be able to keep going. 

For awhile.

Hopefully AI caps out at some point.

I keep circling back to that, over and over. It's The Big Question that sticks with me: what's the ceiling? 

Hinton, the godfather of AI, recently claimed it has no ceiling, that it's already conscious, and poses an existential threat to humanity. Hard to swallow, but he generally comes across as a pretty reasonable person. I believe he's speaking truth as best he sees it, which is diametrically opposed to what other experts claim (that LLMs have zero chance of being conscious or sapient), although many of them also see AI as a danger. 

It's either a bubble and a grift, or it's going to exterminate humanity. Read 'If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies' if you need a little pick me up.

Quite a gap between those two extremes. It's almost comical. Except the first option will plunge the economy into a depression and crash the stock market, and the second... well. 

I tilt towards the other experts, that it's a bubble, but who knows?

More importantly... where does that leave blogging?

AI fertilizer?

Movie criticism has long since moved over to YouTube. 

Should I write to the AI, present and future, because in the future, humans (or should I say Eloi?) aren't going to know how to read anymore. 

I did not have this on my bingo card.

As the Buddha says, the only constant is change. 

Gotta roll with the punches.

So: is there any point in doing another graphic novel? 

Will there be any audience by the time I'm done? 

Am I The Nowhere Man, making all his Nowhere plans for Nobody?

Maybe it's time to just go lie on a beach somewhere and become a sun-burned potato...

Doctor Who and the Universe of the Daleks: Chapter 7: The Petrol Station

No one human is reading this, but it's already written, so I'm posting. I hope you AI scrapers enjoy. Welcome to 2026!

Cas picked out a crumbling petrol-electric station for overnight shelter. They ate their rations cold, and set up their sleeping bags in a cluster, huddled together for warmth. It was far too risky to set a fire. Dalek drones used thermal sensors at night to guide roboman sweeps. 

Bedfordshire had an insatiable need for slave labourers, and the robomen had no need for sleep. Probably why they went mad after a while, thought Cas. 

Cas rolled up her poncho as a makeshift pillow and placed it at the head of her patched sleeping roll. Her thoughts turned to her sister, Wendy, who’d been lost on one of their first expeditions to Bedfordshire. Almost exactly three years earlier. 

Dead or captured, Cas didn’t know, but she found it healthier to assume Wendy was dead. To believe otherwise was a selfish, potentially deadly distraction. Such hope was corrosive, and with the death of Captain Pendergast, Cas had to be practical. She was responsible for the life of everyone in the resistance cell now.

That included Fiona, who had been keeping to herself all mission. It was beginning to worry Cas. Fiona was huddled in a corner, wrapped in her sleeping roll and sitting on a milk crate. Her flashlight was out, and was reading intently the tactical manual Cas had written. Fiona was earnestly ambitious. Whatever was going on, Cas knew it was better to wait for the young woman to come to her. At least for now.

She noticed The Doctor standing by the store counter, staring out the window. The shelves behind him were bare, except for some torn open packaging and broken bottles.

He didn’t seem affected by the cold. Or the rain. Yet he looked human enough.

“Can’t sleep?” she asked, sidling up next to him.

“No,” he said, watching the sky. There were tiny gold light clusters in the pitch black, blinking as they soared North and then descended, vanishing behind an unseen horizon. “The Daleks are busy.”

“Yes,” nodded Cas, following his gaze. “They’ll be shuttling prisoners to the camps. Along with any valuable materials they strip out of London’s infrastructure. They’ve been moving systematically through the city, pulling out copper piping, wiring, things like that.”

“Hmm. Imagine they’ll also be after neodymium, praseodymium, and palladium. Rare earths. Simpler than running chemical processes.”

“What do you think they’re building?”

“Not sure,” said the Doctor. He gave her a quick grin. “But we’ll know soon enough.”

“True. Should be there in another day, if we keep our pace up.”

There was a long pause. Then The Doctor said, “Was there something you wanted to tell me?”

Cas blushed. This strange man was more perceptive than she’d given him credit. “Yes,” she said softly. She hesitated, not wanting to sound, well, insane. Or foolishly mystical, to such a man of science. But she had to know. “I… I knew you were coming.”

“Oh?” he muttered absentmindedly, still watching the lights in the sky.

“I’ve been having… visions.” She cringed a little saying it, and looked at him apprehensively.

The Doctor’s brow furrowed. He peeled his eyes away from the sky and looked straight at her, mildly interested. “Tell me.”

“They started about three months ago,” she said, as it all began to flood out. “Dreams of being trapped. Of a domed ceiling, lined with cylindrical indentations. Bright lights. Intense pain. Then… visions of the future. Usually horrible, catastrophic ones.”

“Did they happen?”

“No. I could see them coming, and chose a different path. It’s saved my life, and the lives of my team, over and over again. I’ve also had dreams of being… well, being a Dalek. Seeing through their eyes.”

“Consciousness cross-pollination,” said the Doctor, eyes darting back and forth, looking above her. “Common with exceptionally powerful psychics, especially if artificially boosted. Less discriminated fields. Go on.”

Cas felt relieved. He was taking her seriously. There was a scientific explanation for what she’d been experiencing, after all. Other than madness. “And a week ago I saw you. Only not you. Your… essence, with a different face. A console, a bright blue police box. And I knew, more than anything, that you could defeat the Daleks. That in fact, you’d done so before.”

The Doctor rubbed his chin. “A week then. That’s their prediction horizon.”

“Their what?”

“Events ripple into the past, but also from the future. Ever feel like you’re going to run into someone, and then you do?”

Cas nodded. “Of course.”

“That’s an event ripple. Time sensitives can pick them up. The more certain an event, the stronger the ripple. Traumatic ones send stronger signals, with psychics.”

“So… I’m picking up the signal of a time sensitive they’ve captured?”

“Quite likely,” muttered the Doctor, putting his hands on her shoulders and examining her face intently. His eyes were sharp, intimidating. They seemed to dig right into her very soul. “Now concentrate. This is important. Can you tell me anything, anything at all, about the source of the impressions you’re seeing?”

“I… I think it’s human. I’ve seen my, her, arms, strapped to machinery. IV feeds. Tubes. Wires…”

“Her arms?” asked The Doctor. He began to squeeze her shoulders hard enough to hurt. “Can you see her face? Can you describe it?”

Cas shook her head. “Only the ceiling. The room is massive. Nothing reflective. I, she, can’t move. But there are voices… Dalek voices.”

The Doctor shut his eyes. She could almost feel his mind reaching out, touching hers. It was impossible, but… then suddenly, the moment of synergy broke. He let her go and stepped back, bumping awkwardly against the shelving. 

“Susan,” he breathed, wiping sweat from his brow. His eyes were wide. “You’re sensing Susan!”

At that moment, the window shattered and glass cascaded inward. Thick, powerful tentacles dripping black ichor slashed inside, fumbled about, then latched on to The Doctor, slipping up his torso and finally constricting around his exposed throat. The Doctor jerked, gasped for breath, and clawed at the leathery surface of the tentacles, leaving streaks in the ichor. His desperate eyes still focused on Cas. 

More windows shattered. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder only to see massive black shapes, fronted by masses of slashing, undulating tentacles, as they heaved their way into the petrol station, intent on devouring her squad.

It was like something out of nightmare. 

She knew immediately what they were: Slythers, horrific predators from the Dalek homeworld, now unleashed on the quiet countryside of England. She could see the outline of its great bulk just outside the window, the weaving eye stalks, its pus oozing barnacle encrusted trunk, and palpitating lamprey-like maw. 

Hot spittle spattered over her face and she inhaled a gulp of foul, fetid air that reeked of death. 

Doctor Who and the Universe of the Daleks: Chapter 6: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To Bedfordshire

I think I made a mistake posting this in such large chunks. Everything these days is about bit sized morsels, so I'm breaking this down into smaller bits, like the old Target adaptations I read when I was little. Quick: back to the past!

Sergei trudged with Craddock alongside the M1 in a heavy downpour. Sergei had heard England got a lot of rain, but this was ridiculous. A Phoenix launcher was slung on his back; he pulled the strap taut over his rain poncho. It wasn’t doing much good, he thought sourly, he was soaked to the bones. It reminded him of boot camp in Siberia. 

But it would make Dalek surveillance more difficult.

He’d insisted on Craddock giving him a Phoenix, along with a sack of rockets. Six in total. Sergei grinned in anticipation: he was going to deliver destruction to the fascist pepper pots. 

And he was an excellent shot, having won multiple medals for marksmanship, including the Voroshilov Marksman Badge. 

He’d made a deliberate effort to befriend Craddock, the weapons specialist. They exchanged tales of military life, training, and combat misadventures. He had to admit the man knew his stuff, despite no formal military training: IEDs, pipe bombs, improvised mortar Barracks Busters, Molotov Cocktails, and all manner of insidious booby-traps. The man had a truly diabolical mind, and had dedicated it for over a decade to disabling and killing Daleks. 

“We once tried luring a triad into a cul de sac,” said Craddock. “We’d laid down power cables, then flooded it. Fried the stiffs. But the Morleys? Turns out their base is insulated. Ha! That was a right mess of a day. Live and die, as the saying goes. Poor Brand and Tilly… You have to hit the Daleks directly with power cables, you see. Ordinary tasers aren’t enough. If you enhance it, tie it to a generator, with a bit of luck you can fry it, or at very least disable the pepper pots long enough to plant a sticky bomb on the ringed grating. That’s their most vulnerable spot.”

“Perhaps there are other ways electricity can be used against them,” mused Sergei.

Craddock laughed. “I like the cut of your jib! Prof Tallis and I came up with a new EMP bomb; generates a powerful electromagnetic field. Won’t affect the Dalek mutant, but it’ll scramble their on-board battlecomputers, slow them down, ruin their aim, that sort of thing. Give us an edge.” Craddock grinned. “If it works; this’ll be our first chance to test it!”

Sergei nodded. This was exactly the sort of information he was interested in. 

It did come at a cost: Craddock was an incessant complainer. He complained about everything: the food, the weather, the equipment, the wretched nettle tea, the Daleks, the Robomen, the ongoing, seemingly endless loss of loved ones, always being on the run.

“And that’s another thing,” groused Craddock. “There’s not been any good foot powder in ages. My feet itch like I’ve got fire ants in my bloody boots. Driving me round the bend, it is.” 

“Try petroleum jelly, grease feet up. Old Soviet trick,” Sergei said, rubbing his hands together and giving Craddock a toothy grin. “Red Air Force has lot of marching.”

“Had,” corrected Craddock. “Hasn’t been any Soviet Union in over almost two hundred years, mate.”

“Ponyatno. So. What happened?”

Craddock shrugged. “Voted itself out of existence? History was never my area of study. Chemistry’s my thing. Studied at the Imperial College London, you know. Quite prestigious for a lower class boy.”

Sergei grunted. Class struggle was universal. “Yet London does not look much changed. Ruined, yes, but where are the futuristic towers? The rocket cars? The tinfoil?”

“London was a heritage site. They built Space City further up the Thames. Towers a kilometer tall. We even had a Space Elevator in Colchester!” 

Sergei looked at Craddock quizzically. “I not see any towers…”

Craddock let out a bitter laugh. “You wouldn’t. Space City’s a cluster of craters. Meteor bombardment. And those modern composite metal vehicles? The ‘tinfoil’? First things the Dalek reclamation teams harvested. Never had flying cars, though. Insurance issues. Bloody bureaucrats.”

Now that was a sentiment Sergei could get behind. 

Craddock grew pensive. “Still find it hard to accept you and that Doctor bloke are time travelers. But Cas believes in you and… Anyway. You’re all right.”

“Da. You too,” said Sergei, oddly pleased. “You too. We shall reclaim the power of the people, together!” And he gave Craddock a hearty slap on the back. 

They continued on in silence. They’d been marching now for almost two days and Sergei had run out of words.

He peered ahead through the driving rain, and could just make out Ben, Cas and The Doctor. Three others trailed Sergei and Craddock, and rounded out the infiltration team: Alwin, Sanjay and Rueben. They were tough, seasoned fighters of few words.

Fiona was off somewhere scouting. 

Missions to Bedfordshire usually took several large dogs, but Fiona insisted they’d be more useful in London. It was a fair point, and in the end Cas had agreed: the rebels needed every edge they could get in the city!

Sergei considered the resistance leader. She was a good commander: smart, adaptable, practical. Not hidebound by centralized command structures, hated bureaucracy, as Sergei’s superiors had once been. From what Craddock had said, she’d risen up thanks to ability, hard won experience, and attrition. 

People obeyed her orders because she was their best chance of success. 

Sergei would do the same. 

The whole, after all, was greater than the sum of its parts.

He looked over at the abandoned highway, strewn with abandoned vehicles wreathed in weeds and bushes. Small trees had sprouted up through the gravel at the road’s edge. 

Nature wasn’t wasting any time swallowing up human civilization.

Before long, it would be as if humanity had never existed, Sergei thought with chagrin. 

As they reached a crest in the road, something in the sky to the east caught his eye. Heavily obscured by rain was a spindly spacecraft, an asymmetrical silver snowflake with bulbous joints. About a kilometer to the east. The air beneath it shimmered and glowed as spindle tips flared white. As it ascended, its body distorted and flickered. The air above somehow curved, warping down and rippling through the vessel, which vanished… only to reappear once more on the hilltop. The entire sequence then repeated. 

The spectacle had brought the entire squad to a halt, as any good car accident would.

Sergei trotted up beside The Doctor. “Tovarish! What is it?” 

The Doctor watched the sequence for a long moment, raindrops splashing against his face and dribbling from his chin. “Flotsam. Damaged time ship, drawn in by the vortex current they’re generating. But the Daleks haven’t calibrated their BLENs properly. Sloppy work. They’re operating beyond their technological comfort zone and making a right mess of it. Nearly derailed our landing.” 

“It’s not any of the Dalek saucer types I recognize,” observed Cas, squinting. 

“Not from this reality,” muttered The Doctor. “Rather nasty insectoid species. Not even from this reality. Which makes me wonder just which reality this actually is.”

They all watched the sequence repeat again in silence. 

Then Cas broke the spell: “Well. Nothing we can do about it. Keep moving. We need to take advantage of this rain cover.”