The Battle of Giant's Causeway (audio story)

was the first story in Sontarans vs Rutans, produced by Big Finish Productions. It was written by Lizzie Hopley and featured Paul McGann as the Eighth Doctor, India Fisher as Charley Pollard and Conrad Westmaas as C'rizz.
It was released in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Sontarans and the first mention of Rutans.
== Publisher's summary ==
The war between the Sontarans and the Rutans has been going on for Millennia. And is likely to continue for millennia more.
A terrible conflict with no care for consequences or collateral damage. Billions have died with no end in sight. Its reach can encompass ancient Ireland and a forest world in the far future.
A temporal tidal wave leads the Doctor, Charley and C'rizz to the Giant's Causeway, Ireland 55BC, where the TARDIS drains of power and they encounter Sontarans who believe they’re Roman Legionnaires. What has caused this and what is the strange secret in the rocks?
== Plot ==
The TARDIS is pulled out of the Time Vortex by a temporal tidal wave and lands, dead or deliberately shut down to protect the Eye of Harmony, at the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, 55 BC. The Eighth Doctor, Charley and C'rizz head out in search of what has drained the TARDIS's power and find piles of Sontaran corpses dressed in the armour of Roman legionnaires with no obvious cause of death, indicating that the Celts are not responsible. C'rizz wanders off when he sees the injured Noorie watching them and assures her that he will not hurt her, but she is more concerned about the Sontarans approaching on horses.
A Sontaran introducing himself as General Ignatius Antias Salutio of the 14th Legion of Rome condemns the Doctor and Charley to death, but Charley pleads that they can help investigate the deaths of the Sontarans and Ignatius instead has them strapped to a mule to be taken to await Commander Caecilius Crassus Procullus's judgement at camp. The camp has been built around a receiver radiating chronon energy which could be responsible for the Sontarans believing that they fight for the Republic of Rome and having no knowledge of Sontar or the Kaveetch. Meeting Procullus, the Doctor and Charley notice the Sontarans using phrases with the three travellers used in the TARDIS.
Noorie keeps C'rizz from trying to rescue the Doctor and Charley and declares that it is her job to protect him as she believes him to be a man risen from the ocean to punish her mother Valmoira, who has been returning the dead to life. She takes C'rizz through the caves to her mother and the rest of the cult, but he is disturbed by creatures within the hexagonal rocks and follows her only because he could not find the way back out alone. Valmoira is intrigued to learn about the TARDIS and, sending Noorie away, reveals to C'rizz that she is not human and he shares that he is from another universe.
Salutio believes that no man should be left behind and, upon learning about C'rizz, agrees to go with the Doctor to recover him. Charley lets off a fragmentation grenade which the Sontarans were using as a paperweight so that the Doctor and Salutio can head back to the causeway, where Salutio experiences déjà vu upon seeing the TARDIS, the doors of which he feels as though he has flown through before. The Doctor has the TARDIS examine a sample of one of the hexagonal rocks and finds that it has been altered to replicate a biocompound used in farming on Ruta III, indicating that Rutans have crashed on Earth and that they are responsible for killing the Sontarans at the causeway.
The Doctor starts isolating pockets of energy that will prove harmful to Rutans and Salutio leaves the TARDIS to inform Procullus when he starts to remember that he is not really a Roman. C'rizz returns to the ship with the Celts so that the Doctor can help get Valmoira and the infant Rutans inside the hexagonal rocks off-world, but the Doctor is unsympathetic and many of the Celts reveal themselves to be Rutans as well when the Sontarans arrive to attack them. Charley is unsuccessful in her attempts to stop Procullus, who does not believe Salutio's claims about Rutans, and the Sontarans march upon the Rutans, the offspring of which begin emerging from the rocks prematurely because of them.
The Sontarans and Rutans do battle and Valmoira demands that the Doctor gives her the TARDIS, killing Noorie with bioelectricity which inadvertently explodes one of the hexagons and kills herself as well. The Doctor decides to send an energy surge from the recovering TARDIS through the rocks and sends Charley and C'rizz to get the Sontarans and the Celts away from the area before he does so. The explosion wipes out the Rutans and the Sontarans despite the latter being a safe distance away, something which, like the reason for the energy drain and the Sontarans' assimilation, the Doctor believes will remain a mystery.
== Cast ==
* The Doctor - Paul McGann
* Charley Pollard - India Fisher
* C'rizz - Conrad Westmaas
* General Ignatius Antias Salutio - John Banks
* Commander Caecilius Crassus Procullus - Dan Starkey
* Valmoira - Amanda Hurwitz
* Noorie - Michelle Fox
== Crew ==
* Cover Art - Sean Longmore
* Director - Ken Bentley
* Executive Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and Nicholas Briggs
* Music - Joe Kraemer
* Producer - David Richardson
* Script Editor - John Dorney
* Sound Design - David Roocroft
* Writer - Lizzie Hopley
* Senior Producer - John Ainsworth
* Sontarans created by Robert Holmes
== Worldbuilding ==
* The Irish believe in druids.
* Déjà vu is the feeling that one has experienced something before.
* The Sontarans' receiver radiates chronon energy.
* Procullus has a bath.
* Procullus eats grapes.
* A fragmentation grenade is used as a paperweight. The Doctor advises that it is not used as a stress ball.
* Procullus has drowned a soothsayer.
* The Sontarans eat potatoes, sheep and figs.
* The Doctor says that Salutio will become as pedantic as Borusa.
== Notes ==
* This story was recorded on 3 May 2023 at the Soundhouse.
== Continuity ==
* The Doctor asks Procullus if he has heard of the Kaveetch, the race who created the Sontarans and who appeared in .
== External links ==
== Footnotes ==
Category:Sontarans vs Rutans audio stories
Category:Eighth Doctor audio stories
Category:Charlotte Pollard audio stories
Category:Stories set in Ireland
Category:Sontaran audio stories
Category:Rutan Host audio stories
Category:2024 audio stories
Category:One part audio stories