The GardenDespatches from The Satyrs’ Forest

Posts tagged as “fiction”

List of actors to have played Doctor Who

Author’s note: I first wrote up this wee bit of allohistorical silliness in March of this year, posting it a few places online, but never actually bothered on my own website until now. Enjoy.

  • Doctor Who?, on CBS
    • 1963–1966: Vincent Price (Doctor Who)
      First episode: “The Girl from Another World”
      Last episode: “Planet of the Daleks”
    • 1966–1967: Jack Nicholson (Doctor Who, Theta Sigma)
      First episode: “Planet of the Daleks”
  • Doctor Who and the Daleks, on CBS
    • 1967–1972: Jack Nicholson (Doctor Who, Theta Sigma)
      Last episode: “The Paradox Web”
  • Doctor Who: Alien Agent, on CBS
    • 1973–1975: David McCallum (Agent John Smith / Doctor Who, Theta Tau)
      First episode: “The Mannequin Men”
      Last episode: “Doctor Who’s Mind”
  • Doctor Who and the Cyber-Man, produced by New World Pictures
    • 1980: Clu Gulager (Doctor Who / “That existed?”)
  • Doctor Who, on UPN
    • 1986–1989: Kyle MacLachlan (The Doctor)
      First episode: “Pilot”
      Last episode: “The Deadly Assassin (Part 1)”
    • 1990–1993: Bruce Campbell (The Second Doctor)
      First episode: “The Deadly Assassin (Part 2)”
      Last episode: “The Edge of Time”
    • 1994–1998: John Rhys-Davies (The Third Doctor / The Professor)
      First episode: “For Want of a Nail”
      Last episode: “Seta (Part 2)”
    • 1999–2002: Kate Mulgrew (The Fourth Doctor)
      First episode: “Changes”
      Last episode: “Hourglass”
  • Doctor Who, on NBC
    • 2005–2011: Neil Patrick Harris (The Fifth Doctor)
      First episode: “The Interstellar Interruption”
      Last episode: “Paradise Lost”
    • 2012–2013: Donald Glover (The Sixth Doctor)
      First episode: “…We Have a Problem”
  • Doctor Who, on Blockbuster
    • 2014–2015: Donald Glover (The Sixth Doctor)
      Last episode: “The Three Doctors”
    • 2015–2019: Nathan Fillion (The Seventh Doctor)
      First episode: “The Three Doctors”
      Last episode: “World Enough and Time (Part 5)”
    • 2019–2023: Daniel Dae Kim (The Eighth Doctor)
      First episode: “Grandfather Clock”
      Last episode: “1963”

Season 26 of Doctor Who is slated for a release in the late summer of 2024, starring Matt Smith of TCM’s A Song of Ice and Fire.

Actors who played the Master include…

  • James Shigeta as “the Celestial Master”, a one-shot villain from the Price era who would reoccur as a trickster figure in army fatigues in Doctor Who and the Daleks
  • Robert Z’Dar as “the Master of Time”, a larger-than-life egomaniac who forced MacLachlan’s Doctor’s regeneration and would regularly clash with him in the “actionised” Campbell years
  • John Anderson as “Mr. Seta”, a master (heh) of disguise who was written as a throwback to the Alien Agent era
  • Christopher Walken as “Professor Tannhauser”, who, in the far future, devises an equation proving humanity can escape the end of the universe — a plan that NPH’s Fifth Doctor gladly assists in, until one of them realises just who the other is…
  • Lady Gaga as “Claire Oswald”, a companion throughout the first season of the Fillion era who always seems to know a bit more than she lets on

Looking at the Big Sky: the world in 2025

I was, tentatively, putting off finishing this until i’d gotten the relevant part of the main site in a working state. But, given that i’m rebuilding the whole thing from scratch, and i was itching to put it out there — behold! The world in 2025 of Looking at the Big Sky, a sci-fi alternate-history -type setting i’m working on. (It’s not particularly sci- at the moment, i’ll admit — this is just a stepping stone on the way to 2338.)

You can find the full resolution image here. Wordpress is just being something of a shit.

Back to the Future (2024)

POV: Robert Zemeckis just died and you are a cynical Universal exec with dollar signs in your eyes.

Back to the Future
A poster showing a DeLorean with the tagline “You're gonna see some serious stuff”.
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Joseph Kosinski
Screenplay by
Based on
Starring1
Music by
Production
companies
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release dates
  • June 7, 2022 (2022-05-27) (United States)
Running time
152 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $200 million[2]
Box office $985 million[3][4]
Sequels

The Saturnine Rites of the Cult of Phanes

Time travel is often thought of as a scientific affair, with precisely-calibrated equipment, sleek uniforms, and incomprehensible jargon. As any physicist can tell you, this is bullshit. It’s nonsense. It’s impossible. It’s a complete violation of the laws of physics.

…There’s a word for that, you know. It’s called magic.

The Saturnine Rites of the Cult of Phanes

The cult

Long ago, before the people of Greece knew alpha from omega, a priestly faun received a revelation. That faun’s name has been lost to time, but the cult he started, kicked out from his tribe for such incredible heresy, continued to grow in number well through the centuries, initiating hundreds into its mysteries — the mysteries of chronomancy.

The satyrs’ creed is simple: the Cultists of Phanes are to bring Bacchic joy and ecstasy to the people of the future, for our numbers are far greater than theirs, and they are to spread the word of peace and love. Many thousands of lives have been touched by them, and most will never even know it.

The physics of time travel

There is much disagreement even within the cult on the precise mechanics of chronomancy, but among its astrologers, a rough consensus had developed (prior to the return of Libanomene) on its approximate physics.

As Bill and Ted would put it, the clock is always running in San Dimas Delphi. The universe seems to have an unchanging “present”: while the future is fluid and can be changed as one likes, the past is set in stone, unchanging and unrachable.

The Saturnine Rites, as they are called, use magic to set a stable “anchor” from which our brave congregants are launched into the future. Once an anchor is set up, it takes far less effort for a chronomancer to return to whence they started; they need only perform a simple solo ritual with the materials strapped to their belt.

The rite

A solo traveller can accomplish hops of a few years by themself with a small stone circle and enough prayer, but serious business requires a serious ritual. The Great Saturnine Rite is the cult’s time-tested method of flinging their members up to a thousand olympiads into the future and bringing them back safely. It goes, roughly, as follows.

1. A circle of gypsum chalk — any material will do in a pinch, the closer to its natural form the better — is drawn on the ground in the form of a sigil, based by cult chronastrologers on the precise position of the stars and planets at any given time. (It often represents a date a precise amount of years in the future; this is not a physical limitation, merely something the cult likes to do to reduce the star-speyers’ workload.)

2. The ritual space is fumigated with lavender, rosemary, and cannabis, first introduced to the fauns by an uptime dealer, until the air is foggy and thick with smoke. This creates a trance-like effect once the already drunken fauns enter to begin the ritual proper; it is best done in a cave, building, or other enclosed space.

3. Our brave chronomancers enter, supplies and utility belt in hand. Due to the rite’s nature, they are always of an even number; the cult’s priests have attempted adaptations for one or three members, but they are far less effective. We will be assuming for the remainder of the description that there are only two within the circle.

4. The rest of the cult chants and dances in a ring around the circle, rhythmically howling and singing songs of praise, while the time-sailors within recite prayers and hymns to Gods whose names i am not party to.

5. With a toast to Dionysos, the two fauns within the circle eagerly drink up a small flask of hand sanitiser. This used to be a calyx-ful of wine, but modern advances in technology have allowed travellers to get far drunker, far faster. (The High Priest says He strongly approves.)

The Cult of Phanes are self-described “hippies” who eschew violence when out and about. The daggers they keep are blunted, used only to intimidate, and never to hurt. They keep bouquets of flowers in their hair, and preach a gospel of unity and equality. All this makes the final step of the ritual shocking to the unacquainted observer — but we must remember that much as they idealise peace and love, they are also an Orphic cult, one that deals in sacrifice and reincarnation.

6. The High Priest (or, if they will be tagging along for the ride, a priest of lower rank) hands one of the travellers a freshly sharpened scythe.

I am not a member of the cult myself, and this account is based only in the whispers i have heard from members in vino veritas; thus, i cannot attest to the precise meaning behind the rite. It seems to me to be derived from myths of Saturn, Dionysos, and (bemusingly) Mithras, but the cultists i have spoken to are all of the laity, and they have no more of a clue than i do.

7. In one fell swoop, one of the chronomancers slices the scythe through their hand and strikes the other with it in the calf. As drops of the two’s blood fall to the floor, the rite takes effect, transporting them and their belongings hundreds of years into the future. The only remnants are a blood-splattered scythe and a metallic taste in the air.

A few hours, days, or weeks later, the travellers materialise back in the circle, confident that they have successfully spread peace and love to the denizens of the future and ready to do it all over again.

The return of Libanomene

It is said that Hallowe’en is when the veil between spirit and matter is at its thinnest, and the same too goes for Saturnalia. Around the winter solstice, the fabric of time becomes far more susceptible to human (or satyr) intervention; far less work is needed to launch someone millennia into the future, or to send dozens of cultists on one trip. This is why Christmas (as we now know it) is such a wondrous time of the year. The troops in 1914, the warm family reunions, the children screaming with joy over their new gifts — all made possible, in some part, by the Cult’s activities.

But even in those weakened days, the laws of chronomancy held true, much to the chagrin of Phanes’ priests. The Gods are unchanging and eternal, exempt from our mortal notions of time; why, then, should prayer and magic be beholden to our earthly rules? It was by accident that, last year (1970 BCE to us uptimers), the cult discovered an exception.

It was high noon on midwinter’s day. The high priest Libanomene and their assistant Ombrosilphion were readying themselves for an expedition to gods-know-when, gods-know-why (the precise order of the day has been forgotten since), and as a ruddy scythe clattered to the floor, all seemed well. But, just as the cult’s other members were shuffling out the room to tend to other business, Libanomene returned to the circle in a state of frenzy, barely a few minutes after they had left. They claimed to have seen visions of a distant future, with their first and second eyes, no less, of dark golden clouds blotting out the sky, onyx-shard buildings cutting through, and — well, my drinking companion passed out before they could say what else was spoken of.

The priest’s assistant, however, was unaccounted for, and a search party set out. For days on end, they scoured Delphi’s hills and valleys, until they found the missing faun, battered, bruised, and broken-horned, in an ivy-covered ditch. Ombrosilphion was despatched back to the temple, wrapped in a woolen blanket, and fed a steaming bowl of soup. Once the trembling cultist mustered up the ability to speak, they revealed that they had been lying there, unsure of what had happened, for “seven days and seven nights”.

It had only been three days since the rite.