Partisans

Gallifrey: Time War #2.2

Released: 20 March 2019

Listened: 5/21/21

The way to avoid this set getting completely bogged down in Gallifreyan politics is to introduce an away mission and a third party. In this case, it’s the planet Ysalus, which is rich in the fuel the Daleks need for their time machines. It’s been a non-entity up until now, but there’s a world war at some point in its history, which can be influenced. If the more brutal side wins, eventually the people react to that and form a pacifistic world government. If the other side wins, the brutal side launches a final strike that wipes out all life on the planet. Romana favors the pacifistic government, and sends Narvin and Eris to ensure that, while Rassilon sends an agent to ensure all life is wiped out. (I’m not sure why that hurts the Dalek plans; maybe it destroys the resource they need.) They don’t spend much time on Narvin having to help the brutal side, which seems like an interesting dilemma, because he never gets that far. Instead, he’s pretty ineffectual while Rassilon’s agent walks all over him with her plan, mostly because Narvin can’t bring himself to completely mistrust another Time Lord, or tolerate seeing one hurt. Which is kind, but he is supposed to be cunning and duplicitous, so. Eris, for his part, is almost completely idealistic, and decries what both sides are trying to do, and even Narvin’s stop-gap solution. One wonders how he joined the CIA at all, or if there’s more going on. The politics are actually reasonable this time, with Romana and her War Council counterpart doing the dance of warning each other off while each pretending they know nothing about the covert mission. Una McCormack has created some decent moral dilemmas here, as we actually see the Time Lords doing despicable things in the war, instead of being told about them in vague generalities. Probably the best story of the Time War series so far.