This is the next crossover fanfic in my WhoSliders v1 fan-series featuring Doctor Who (the Fifth Doctor – played by Peter Davison in the classic BBC tv series) and the Sliders.
Story (C) 2003-2020 Mr SciRev.
For the Dr Who Timeline Related to this Fanfic, or to read what happened just before this fanfic, please see Who Sliders 8
You should read my fanfic Who:1999 to read about when the 8th Doctor went to Moonbase Alpha (Space:1999 crossover).
What you need to know:
“The Doctor is a Time Lord – a time-traveller from the alien world called Gallifrey who travels in space and time thanks to his TARDIS which looks like a police box, bigger inside than outside. When the Doctor is severely injured or even killed, he will regenerate into a new appearance and body. He is currently in his fifth incarnation (4th regeneration). His thirteenth will be the last.
The Sliders have developed a technique called Sliding which allows them to go to different dimensions or parallel universes, but will they ever find the way to their home universe?
The Doctor with his companions – currently an australian hostess named Tegan, young irritating genius Adric, alien orphan and technological expert Nyssa and the Sliders – is on a crusade to champion the cause of the innocent, the helpless and the powerless throughout the whole multiverse of multiple universes. The Doctor’s alteration to the Sliders’ timeline has resulted in multiple changes across various multiverse timelines in hypertime. Fixing these holes is an important task of the Doctor which has been sanctioned by an angel of God called the White Guardian.”
The White Guardian had made it perfectly clear. He had drawn a picture which was quite bleak. The Doctor’s future 8th self was (Time Lord tenses can go crazy) apparently amnesiac and had convinced himself that he must destroy all (collapsing) parallel timelines apart from his own. The Doctor – in his current 5th self – had to go to Earth-616, in the X-Men’s universe – Universe-616 or Marvel Universe – where he had faced the Mara for the second time. He would have to stop his future self from countless genocide which would result from the merging or destroying of various parallel worlds. His future self saw the X-Men and other mutants as simply anomalies which needed to be rewritten out of history. The future Doctor believed there was just one true history and he was more than ready to just happily wipe out all the others which differed from his own. It was interesting to see that his current enemy Sabbath shared a similar belief but the Doctor didn’t see this clearly from his point of view.
Dr Daniel Jackson had been inside the TARDIS before. But he kept feeling a sense of awe every time he went inside it. There were art galleries, even a museum, which Daniel had really enjoyed seeing. The Doctor even had some artifacts from the Ancients – well the TARDIS was the same thing practically – and he was allowing Daniel to study them. Daniel had expressed an interest in joining the Doctor on this parallel universe adventure. It was not the first time that he had been to an alternate reality. The first time was by accident, when he touched a mirror on P3R-233 and found himself in an alterate universe where the Goa’uld were preparing to launch an all out attack on Earth. One which would be devastating. He still felt bad that he could not do anything to save that earth, though it was not his earth.
General Hammond gave his permission for Daniel to take leave from SG-1. Hammond was not the type to make a fuss over something like that. The Doctor insisted that the Sliders and the other companions not accompany him, the SGC complex was safer according to him and back at Cheyenne Mountain, SG-1’s base, there was work to do to preparing against a possible Kromagg-Goa’uld attack. The Doctor told Daniel that the destination was Haifa, Israel, in the past.
The TARDIS materialised, humming softly, against a background which was strangely familiar to the Doctor. Outside of the TARDIS were Charles Xavier and Magneto, then friends. Friends who would in the future become nothing less than enemies.
‘Erik – Magneto – is an Auschwitz survivor. That’s where his rage comes from’, the Doctor explained.
‘Interesting’ Daniel said while looking at the viewscreen. ‘So these guys are.. mutants, is that what you said they were called?’
‘Yes. Probably the first two mutants. They will become enemies. Xavier – he still has hair at this point in time – is going to set up the X-Men team and Magneto, well he is going to try to take over the world to remake it in his image. He wants — no will want — Homo Superior ie Mutants to take over the world before Homo Sapiens destroys Homo Superior.’
Erik Magnus Lensherr, Magneto’s real name, was working in a psychiatric hospital, where he met Charles Xavier. Here they would prevent Baron Wolfgang Strucker and his HYDRA agents from obtaining a large cache of Nazi gold. Here they would find out that the other was a mutant. Not any longer, if the 8th Doctor would have his way.
Another TARDIS materialised close to the scene. It was the same TARDIS, but one which went through some very hard days. It was the 8th Doctor who stepped out of this TARDIS. He looked around and saw his ‘anomalies’ – Magneto and Xavier. Since they did not exist in his timeline, he had to ‘correct’ them.
He looked hard at Magneto. ‘Pure evil, indeed. Plus a set of monstrous genes.’
He turned to look at the other character. ‘A good person who shouldn’t exist.’
He brought out an instrument which measured the temporal difference. Was he able to use it? Could he understand it, given his memory loss? Once it confirmed the divergence, he could take action and correct the timeline.
Would removing Xavier and Magneto be enough? No, he would have to take care of all mutants. And superheroes. Nasty timeline, this one.
Daniel was itching to get in the action even though it usually would be Jack, Sam or Teal’c who would do this. But he could not stand to see innocents die, whether human or mutant. It caused a feeling inside of him, in his very soul and heart. Daniel opened the TARDIS doors even though the Doctor told him to wait. Why? Why wait? The Doctor could not believe what he was seeing, that’s why he said ‘wait’.
What the 5th Doctor could not do, Daniel could. Daniel went up to the 8th Doctor before he could do anything to Magneto and Xavier. He told him that what he was doing was completely wrong. That he had travelled with him in his 5th incarnation. That the parallel timelines were meant to be and meant to be different. What gave him the right to do what he was doing, playing God with other people’s lives. When he used to help other people, not remove them from existence. Daniel carried a Zat-Gun on him, one of those handy Goa’uld weapons, just in case the Doctor.
In a quick move, Daniel zatted the 8th Doctor. The Doctor fell down, stunned by the weapon. The swift charge would restore his memory, he hoped. SG-1 had experienced this on a previous occasion. But which occasion was it?
Tommy Levinson who had been brainwashed by the Goa’uld Seth, was present when SG-1 were caught infiltrating Seth’s Compound. Tommy was then ordered to kill SG-1. After being shot with a Zat-Gun Tommy regained control of his mind and helped SG-1 evacuate the other followers of Seth.
That was what he hoped. When the 8th Doctor came to, he found the 5th Doctor and Daniel next to him. He noticed the 5th Doctor as somebody familiar but he could not place him…himself… This was himself! His 5th incarnation! He was a Time Lord! Zatted when he was about to do something important, like when he was on the ISC space station Nerva, the space Ark in the far future. He was about to do something importantly stupid. What was he doing? This was wrong. He remembered his past on Gallifrey now, basically everything that happened to him except for the destruction of Gallifrey. What had happened to Gallifrey? It had been eradicated from its timeline, it never existed! He was a paradox then! He told the 5th Doctor about this. How he felt he had to be responsible somehow. Perhaps this would change things. Change the Doctor’s own timeline (not that he had not done this kind of thing before to his timeline and to other timelines – the Sliders’ for example). He remembered being told by the White Guardian to go and protect this timeline. He remembered meeting himself, seeing himself zatted. Slowly his memories of the final fight with the time terrorist faction known as Faction Paradox, resulting in the elimination of the Faction from the timeline but also in the destruction of Gallifrey, came back to him. He had to tell this to the Doctor, to himself! But would the 5th Doctor be under the influence of the Paradox virus? Could he risk leaking the information and altering his timeline but making things even worse? He had to. He assumed the Faction had been completely eradicated – they never existed at all – so there should be no risk there. He told himself what he had done. There was no real choice here.
The 5th Doctor was shocked at the news of what had happened. No, what would happen to his homeworld and he would be the one to do it. He promised he would make a difference. Gallifrey would survive somehow, even at the cost of losing the 8th Doctor’s post-Gallifrey universe. A universe without Gallifrey having ever existed would never have to exist. Gallifrey would still exist, meeting its end at the time it was supposed to, but NOT before! And Gallifrey was more than the place where it was, more than the planet. It was its people, a proud civilisation which lasted 20,000 centuries! He would find a way to save the Time Lords, somehow, he thought. But would this decision be the one which would eventually condemn the Time Lords?
“You have done a great difference today,” a voice said.
“White Guardian!” the 5th Doctor looked at the figure which materialised.
“It is time for you to leave, Doctor. The fifth one I mean.”
Suddenly a dimensional-spatial portal appeared out of nowhere. “Go through it now. I will explain later.”
“What about the TARDIS?” the Doctor complained. “We can’t leave it here or we’ll be stranded. We should use it to go where we need to go.”
“There is no time for that. I’ll bring it for you later.”
“Doctor, do you think the X-Men’s history will be unchanged? Wonder where we’ll end up this time..” Daniel mumbled as he went through the portal.
“I think so… The answer to your second question is, I don’t know!”
The Doctor and Daniel exited the portal on the other side. Daniel looked back and noted that they had materialised through a Stargate! But in this dimension or timeline, did the Ancients build the Stargates? Come to think about it, were they in the same dimension, or some other one?
Daniel looked ahead of them and saw…. the dusty surface of the moon. All cratered and grey. But.. how were they breathing? They didn’t wear any spacesuits, and the moon doesn’t have any atmosphere.
Daniel began to panic, but the Doctor calmed him. It was likely that they were inside a huge transparent and crystalline moon-dome with a breathable oxygen atmosphere. It was not a small area, but it must have covered enough for them to walk and find a moonbase building.
Once they approached the building, the two could see some small craft flying towards them.
“We’ve been detected. Let’s see what the welcome party looks like”, the Doctor said. He noted that the craft could enter the dome by some unknown mechanism.
The craft landed down on the moon’s surface, within the dome, bringing up lots of moondust in the process. Daniel coughed twice. He suffered allergy to dust and this wasn’t helping him. The pilot got down from the craft. The Doctor recognised him immediately.
“Alan! Alan Carter! This is A-Space then! Universe-700.”
The Doctor felt somewhat confused now. He couldn’t explain it.
Carter approached the Doctor and Daniel Jackson. “Who are you?”
“You’ve been here before, Doctor? How come he doesn’t know you?” Daniel asked.
“Something’s wrong. I remember being here yet I know I never was here in my past.” the Doctor explained, only succeeding in confusing Daniel even further.
“Deja’ vu?”
“Not quite. It must be related to my eight self we met before.”
“I said, who are you? Quit the chit-chat!”
“I am the Doctor, this is Dr Daniel Jackson. You are Alan Carter.”
“How do you know my name – we never met before.”
“It’s difficult to explain. I’m not certain. I have a memory of meeting you but it isn’t mine. Only it is mine, but more precisely of my future self.”
Alan escorted the pair to the Command Center within moon base Alpha.
“I am John Koenig, Commander of Moonbase Alpha. It is you, Doctor! You have returned to us at last!” Koenig looked towards the Doctor!
“So you remember me?” the Doctor was surprised at this. Actually he was surprised that he seemed to have a deja’ vu feeling about this.
“Of course I do. You have regenerated again, I see. Alan was being treated for some injuries when you were here the last time. That’s why he doesn’t remember you.”
“What year is this?” Daniel asked.
“2003. Where is your TARDIS, Doctor?”
“So we’re in the same year,” Daniel said.
“We left the TARDIS on Earth-616, the earth of a parallel universe” the Doctor explained.
“What? How are you going to take us back to earth, then, without the TARDIS?”
“I’m waiting for the White Guardian to bring it here.”
“Can’t say I’ve heard of him. We’ve met so many aliens – Zennites, Kaldorians, Brennites, Darians, Atherians and Archanons. But never a White Guardian. Ah here’s Maya.” Koenig looked towards the alien who entered the room. Maya was from the planet Psychon which had been destroyed after the humans of moonbase alpha arrived there. If only her father had not been so terrible, he would have survived and she would not have become an orphan, she thought. Lost in these thoughts, she had not noticed the arrival of these new strangers.
“An alien aboard Moonbase Alpha?” the Doctor went towards Maya, “How do you do?”
“Not bad, thank you.” was the Psychon’s answer. She didn’t look exactly human, due to her thick and oddly looking eyebrows. “From Psychon, I’ve been told.”
“Do you know of my people, whether any have survived.. its destruction?”
“Not in this universe. I have never been to Psychon on my universe, if it exists there.”
“You could take me back in time. I could see my loved ones again. Please, Doctor!” Maya began crying. Emotions which had been locked away, now were released.
“Well, I could in theory. But are you sure this would be good for you? And I don’t even have my TARDIS at present. Everything has its time…”
“Toni told me I’d enjoy talking about temporal anomalies with you. Instead I’m weeping like an immature child.”
“Don’t worry. It’s only natural”, Daniel said. “Koenig mentioned Earth – why is it difficult to go there? Don’t you have some spacecraft?”
“You see, Daniel, this moon got catapulted away from Earth. We’re millions of light-years away!”
“Doctor, I’ll take you to your quarters.” Koenig said.
Once they had arrived in the Doctor’s quarters, Koenig left them and took the travel tube once more.
Alone, the Doctor told Daniel how all the Alphans had not been wearing watches and how all digital screens were not working correctly.
The Doctor explained that they were being deceived. This was not really happening. This was like a shared dream, unless Daniel was a dream character only in the Doctor’s dream.
This was a smoke-screen. “But the White Guardian brought us here.” Daniel said.
“Yes, unless that was part of the deception. Or he wants us to uncover the deception.”
“Who could be deceiving us?” Daniel asked.
“The Black Guardian perhaps. The Kromagg-Goa’ulds perhaps. The Cybermen perhaps.”
“Or someone else entirely.”
“That is correct.”
“Can’t we just wake ourselves up?” Daniel asked.
“We can try. Close your eyes, Daniel.”
Daniel closed his eyes and then saw…
They were in Cheyenne Mountain, in sickbay. General Hammond was there, as was Dr Janet Fraiser. He spoke:
“The two of you came back through the gate and fainted. You’ve been in sickbay ever since.”
“Wrong!” the Doctor replied.
“What are you on about, Doctor?” asked an angry Hammond.
“This is a false awakening, Daniel. This isn’t really Hammond.” the Doctor said.
“How can you be sure?” Daniel asked.
“I’ll tell you later on,” he replied. “Let’s really wake up. Lie down on the floor and act uninterested in whatever’s going on.”
“What?” said a confused Daniel, while he began to lay down on the floor.
Hammond called for Janet, who would check them. Or check their sanity, in any case.
The Doctor grinned, and tried to pass his right hand through his left hand. It passed easily. Daniel was going to feel sick when he saw this. The Doctor was certain they were dreaming now. He also tried to pass his hand through the wall, just as easy. Suddenly his appearance changed to that of his fourth persona, i.e. his previous regeneration. He had woolly hair, and was wearing a coat and a long multicoloured scarf.
Daniel said “so we have been dreaming — forced to dream — since the moment we passed through the Stargate.”
“That is correct.”
The Doctor began to fly, or float. Daniel soon began to do the same. “Once you know you are dreaming, this happens most of the time”, the Doctor explained. Hammond, or the dream equivalent of Hammond, looked at them in amazement. He was going to sound the alarm. Major Carter came in, as did Jack. The Doctor said to Hammond “become a rabbit!” and he became one!
“This is fun!” Daniel said. “But let’s try to wake up once more.”
“Let’s stay on the floor once more.” the Doctor said.
Soon, they woke up for real. They were on some planet just outside the Stargate. They must have become unconscious once they passed through it. The TARDIS was here, too, probably brought by the White Guardian. Then they had really met the Guardian.
The planet was uninhabited, so they took off in the TARDIS and returned to Cheyenne Mountain in the Doctor’s parallel universe (Universe-777, on Earth-777 obviously).
The questions remained: who or what had made them dream, and why? The Guardian said he would explain later, but when?
NEXT: The Doctor meets Gabriel Law (from the movie THE ONE – starring Jet Lee). Will Law join the Sliders?
The music plays in the TARDIS as the Doctor and Daniel return:
Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test, and don’t ask why.
It’s not a question, but a lesson learned in Time.
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the Time of your life.
So take the photographs, and still frames in your mind.
Hang it on a shelf in good health and good time.
For what it’s worth, it was worth all the while.
I hope you had the time of your life.
It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right.
I hope you had the Time of your life.
I hope you had the Time of your life.
EPILOGUE
Daniel: Doctor, I’m thinking that time travel/parallel universe (right, sliding) intervention is basically wrong. It’s altering existing history, every time.
Doctor: Not if the intervention was already part of the right timeline.
Daniel: Who can say what’s the right one. You, me, who?
Doctor: The White Guardian, because he’s an angel of God, and He knows what’s the right timeline for EVERY universe including OURS.
Daniel: Gives me a headache. You’re right, though.
THE END…
Continued in the next Fanfic Who Sliders 10 “LAW AND SLIDERS”.
All Marks are owned by their owners.
Doctor Who, Tegan, Nyssa, Adric, The White Guardian are the BBC’s
The Sliders, the Kromaggs are Fox/Universal/Sci-Fi Channel’s
The Tok’ra, the Ancients and Stargate SG-1 (including DR DANIEL JACKSON) are the property of Stargate (II) Productions, Showtime/Viacom, MGM/UA,Double Secret Productions and Gekko Productions.
The X-Men, Earth-616 are Marvel’s
Space:1999,Koenig,Maya, are Carlton’s
This fanfic is for entertainment purposes only and no money exchanged hands. No copyright infringement is intended. The original characters, situations and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted or printed elsewhere without the consent of the author.
AUTHOR NOTES
UPDATE: I now think that the world the Doctor and Dr Jackson end on is the same one essentially we see in the Stargate Atlantis episode HOME, even though did I wrote it beforehand.. Hammond in that episode reminded me of my fake/dream Hammond too.. Too bad they didn’t change him into a rabbit! 🙂
Dr Jackson actually slid for the first time in the 1st season Stargate SG-1 episode THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD, when he went ‘through’ a ‘dimensional mirror’. This mirror was seen later on the show and it was destroyed on Earth-777.
ZAT-GUN EFFECT ON MEMORY:
Taken from the Stargate SG-1 episode in season 3 called SETH.
Theory on the Doctor and the Other: Rassion, Omega and that OTHER Guy (link is down).
Not sure where this quote is from but it influenced this fanfic for sure.
Yes, the current set up of the Doctor, Fitz and Anji being “lost” in alternate time lines was set up in Time Zero. I just read Reckless Engineering and Loving the Alien back to back and they do seem to contradict each other. In the EDAs the Doctor says that there is only one true timeline and any alternates will clog up the Vortex and destroy the universe — that’s universe and not multiverse, by the way. In Loving the Alien the Doctor says that the muliverse is composed on an infinite number of alternate timelines lying side by side and everything works smoothly as long as no one attempts to cross from one timeline to another. When the walls between the universes are breached, things start to fall apart and the multiverse is threatened. It looks to me as if these two situations are incompatible.
Regarding the 1st Destruction of Gallifrey (in the BBC books), someone asked HAS GALLIFREY UNHAPPENED (REMOVED FROM THE TIMELINE COMPLETELY, OR NOT?) or was it simply DESTROYED AT A POINT IN TIME?
Jon Blum wrote this on Usenet:
It is the case that it’s directly established that Fitz thought Gallifrey had unhappened in “Escape Velocity”. It’s also established in “Trading Futures” that by now Fitz isn’t so certain what happened to Gallifrey anymore. So it hasn’t clearly contradicted the assertion — but it’s clearly contradicted the clarity of the assertion. If that makes sense. 🙂 Regards, Jon Blum
My conclusion then is that it still exists in the past prior to the destruction time.
Thus this fic becomes possible and attempts a change in what happened to Gallifrey.
UPDATE: The new Doctor Who series makes it clear that Gallifrey has been destroyed in ANOTHER Time War after it was restored post-Ancestor Cell (i.e not by the Doctor’s pulling a lever in the Ancestor Cell book). Thus it confirms that this fic has succeeded in “changing” the 8th Doctor’s history! It seems that things didn’t happen like they were portrayed in the BBC books after all (RTD has said the books are not canon). Gallifrey has still been destroyed by the Doctor, yet I’d say there is hope.. Also, Lance Parkin’s BBC novel ‘THE GALLIFREY CHRONICLES’ makes it clear that Gallifrey has NOT unhappened! In other words, the destruction of Gallifrey was NOT retroactive at all (unlike what some are posting in rec.arts.drwho). It still existed in its timeline up to the point where it was destroyed (8th doctor’s present) and the temporal explosion makes it very difficult or practically impossible to go back in its timeline. The book also says the 9th Doctor had THREE incarnations. Some think this refers to the REG version of the 9th Doctor, the Rowan Atkinson version, and of course Christopher Eccleston. Of course for it to have all happened in the fiction, the Doctor would have to have retrogenerated (unlikely assumption)!
ISC – International Space Command ran Snowcap Base in the ‘Tenth Planet’ around 1986, the Moonbase in ‘The Moonbase’ around 2070, and it is presumed Nerva Beacon Space Station around 2875 from ‘Revenge of the Cybermen’.
Maya’s father – Used to be played by Brian Blessed in Space:1999. Brian Blessed was a Doctor Who actor too – he appeared in the Trial of a Timelord arc.
Toni Verdeschi – I spell Toni this way (rather than Tony Verdeschi) because (1) he is supposed to be italian and (2) he was credited that way on the italian version of Space:1999, i.e. Spazio 1999. I did this in my other crossover fic too for the same reasons.
Lyrics – Taken from the Green Day song ‘Time of your life’. This song was played in a recent Doctor Who documentary created by UK GOLD.
2011 edit – There’s a connection of course with X-MEN: FIRST CLASS which goes back to these events too.. now I haven’t seen that movie yet.