Mini-Series: Episode 3... and REGENERATION!

Part Three: Becoming Harry

Weston-Super-Mare, October 1964. How could history possibly run astray here and now? As Mods and Rockers prepare for a new, supposedly epic (but potentially tragic) beach battle, Lady Penelope once again tries to preserve the continuum, as her game of cat-and-mouse (or is blindman’s bluff?) with the mystifying Quantum Archangel accelerates toward its ominous end, culminating in an impossible revelation, a fateful decision… and a regeneration!

 

Talk about unexpected developments. 

Sometimes, the best laid plans of mice, men and GMs will simply go awry. But as far as RPGs is concerned (and especially with games like DW), my philosophy is to go with the flow rather than try to shoehorn or railroad things back as they were supposed to run – or, more correctly, as you first thought they would run. This glorious narrative uncertainty is, after all, one of the joys of game-mastering and often leads to golden moments of inspiration and improvisation which, in the end, make the story better, greater and, in the best cases, deeper. 

This is precisely what happened yesterday evening.

As you may recall, the current, six-part miniseries was centered on the conundrum of the so-called Quantum Archangel, an elusive temporal entity which seemed to follow (or rather precede) Penelope and Harry in their travels, creating divergence points in the continuum and apparently feeding off the “unfulfilled possibilities” released by Penelope’s action to mend history back into shape. It was not the first history-altering entity the Time Lady had encountered (far from it!) but it was the first time that said entity did nothing to prevent her from opposing its actions, actually expecting her to circumvent, repair and defuse its attempts to stir history astray – acting more like some sort of personal temporal parasite or ransom hacker than as an antagonist per se.

This weird cat-and-mouse / blind man’s bluff game was supposed to run throughout the six parts of the mini-series, reaching the following conclusion in its final episode.

The big revelation was that the Quantum Archangel was actually one of Abraxas-Harry’s future selves – a version of him which had rejected the whole “incarnation experience” and re-ascended to a kind of disembodied, super-Weeping Angel status (just like when Abraxas was created as a result of Penelope’s continuum-mending back in season 17). 

Manipulating its own timeline to create temporal incidents, potential paradoxes and divergence points, its goal was to force its hypothetical existence into full reality – a potential future trying to gain supremacy over all others as the only possible fate, Singularity-style.

Faced with this vertiginous truth, Penelope would, basically, have had two possible choices. 

The first choice would be to let the Archangel have what it wanted, resulting in the destruction of Harry’s body and awakening humanity and in the (re)birth of a unique, possibly Kronos-like entity (probably not a good idea, then). 

The second possibility was to use the TARDIS’ Chameleon Ark to fully turn Harry into a mortal human being, complete with his own past, present and future (and no memories of having ever been something else, of meeting Penelope or of travelling in the TARDIS), and release him somewhere in history to live his own life, unaware of the larger universe with its time travellers, cosmic entities and quantum uncertainties…

So what happened yesterday evening? 

Well, to cut a long story short, Penelope got to the truth far earlier than I had planned. Fortunately, as the scenario was unfolding, I sensed that we would Get to the Point before the story was finished, allowing me to GWTF (Go With The Flow) and improvise a proper final act. 

Since everything was suddenly falling into place, there was no point in delaying the inevitable or diluting the storyline – so the best option was to end the episode as grandly as possible. Penelope’s realization of the impossible truth was followed by the very emotional decision to bid Harry farewell. The scene where she put him in the Chameleon Arch to erase all traces of his former existence and turn him into a mere (but so human!) mortal was a grand moment of drama – and I’m ever so grateful for having such a talented player!

But there was, of course, the problem of dealing with the extracted part of Abraxas’ being – the timey-wimey, cosmic part that made him a quantum hazard (and a potential successor to Kronos) in the first place. Its power was such that Penelope’s trusty Time Lord fob watch could not be expected to hold it for more than a few minutes. With the help of Nim (her TARDIS’ resident spirit / ghost-in-the-machine), Penelope managed to use the Zero Room as a possibility-void environment where the chaotic energy of the entity could dissolve and fade away without affecting the continuum or the rest of the TARDIS…

It was this delicate operation that resulted in Penelope’s regeneration. This event was more or less in the cards, as a possible (but by no means predestined) consequence of the mini-series’ climax – but the moment had clearly come. The heart-wrenching farewell to Harry (who started his new life on the beach of Weston-Super-Mare, in October 1964…) felt like a necessary but abrupt end – and the feel of the unfolding story demanded that this end gave way to a new beginning.

Enter Lady Penelope’s eighth incarnation:

(Yes, this is Rebecca Hall in The Awakening)

The remaining three episodes will obviously focus on the aftermath of Lady Penelope’s regeneration and her new incarnation’s first adventures in time and space. During our post-game debrief, Sylvie decided that her newly-regenerated character felt quite melancholic (as opposed to bouncy and buoyant) and needed a pause, a short break among friends in a quiet place – so the only thing I currently know about our next episode is that it will be set in contemporary Shetland, where Penelope made some good friends during her seventh incarnation.

And we also decided that the mini-series needed a new title. Initially, I had planned to call “Avatars in Time and Space” (since it was all about two different avatars of the same entity – Harry and the Quantum Archangel) but it is now – far more aptly – titled “Changing Times”.

I hope I’ll be able to cook up episode 4 for next Saturday… Countdown started!  Stay tuned!