Dimension (Another Day in the Desert)

**Desert dimensions** were created by Revir Ctharcourt and Mera Rakhal in order to help them train soldiers in preparation for their future war against the Temporal Intelligence Agency and campaign against the rest of the universe.

## Characteristics

With the landscape being nothing more than a barren red desert, with a wooden hut in the middle; the physics of the dimensions were set at a temporal grace - pausing all aging and ensuring that food, ammo and weapon stocks were replenished at the end of each cycle, so that the training never stopped due to a lack of resources. Furthermore, travelling to the very edges of the dimension - which resembled a glowing beigey-yellow wall, far out of view from the hut - led to the same secret base no matter which way you went; used as a starting point for the artificially grown creatures that were sent out throughout the day parts of the day/night cycle and utilised as target practice for the trainees.

Moving out of the base deposited the person to a random location on the dimension edge, adding to the random and unpredictable nature of the creatures. If a soldier was caught by a creature, then they were dragged away back to the base, when an automated process wiped their memories of where they went and used the cycle to transport them back into their beds come nightfall. (TV: *Another Day in the Desert*)

## History

This dimension was one of many established by Revir and Mera, built with the intent of being used to train vast numbers of trainee soldiers all at the same time. After escaping the Judoon's prison, Revir and Mera travelled back to their home planet of Tosan; where they secretly kidnapped many people who they believed whose disappearances wouldn't cause suspicion. With their memories wiped, they were moved to the dimensions to begin their training, with the entrances being located via portals at their lab in Renovix XI. (TV: *Embrace the Chaos*) They also all were dressed in armour made of Cyberman parts made in the lab by Lurala. (TV: *Fugitive of the Cybermen*)

An encoding signal transmitted across the dimension from the base kept the soldiers docile and unquestioning; they took shots at the creatures when they got closer, made friends with each other and did not stray more than 40 feet away from the hut. However, this had been programmed to only affect the soldiers by Revir and Mera, so that they did not fall under its control if they ever needed to visit the dimension - something the Seventeenth Doctor, Taylor and Luna took advantage of when they arrived there.

They had entered a portal in the lab, which dropped them just outside the hut. When the soldiers noticed them, they were soon dragged inside the hut in order to protect them - as the day was about to begin and the creatures were coming. The trio then met with the highest ranking officer there, Lieutenant Moerd Bosro, who explained all about what they did in the desert; but his armour and lack of concern over his inability to remember how they even got there worried them.

Once night came, the three travelled out across the land to find where the soldiers' enemies even came from - where they eventually reached the edge and passed through, materialising in the base where Revir and Mera were present, (TV: *Another Day in the Desert*) who had been the ones who opened the portal in the first place when fleeing from the Doctor and Cybermen (TV: *Fugitive of the Cybermen*) and were hiding away, while also checking on the progress of the training.

When the Doctor, Taylor and Luna's presence had been rumbled as they tried to sneak around whilst they searched for more clues towards the purpose of the dimension, Revir spawned creatures manually and changed their settings to be able to kill, setting them loose on the TARDIS team. As they ran away, they were forcibly split up by the location randomiser, but only managed to get back to the hut by the skin of their teeth. The soldiers helped them in trying to repel the attackers, but the Doctor had discovered from the secret base that the hut had a built-in fail-safe hidden in the basement, designed for easy access in case anything to do with the dimension went wrong and it needed to be quickly shut down.

Hacking into the computer that activated the fail-safe, the Doctor turned off the encoding signal and set the dimension to collapse, leading the soldiers out via the portal. However, Revir and Mera refused to leave, grabbing hold of Moerd who the Doctor was forced to leave behind so that he could escape the dimension with the others before it closed permanently. Taking the soldiers to a new home - as Tosan history thought them all dead - the Doctor, Taylor and Luna subquently believed the three who remained to be dead, under the assumption that Revir and Mera wanted to die, rather than suffer the consequences of a failed plan. (TV: *Another Day in the Desert*)

In reality, the fail-safe merely had a clause that transported all living beings inside the dimension into another if it closed, so that all the work conducted on the trainees didn't go to waste. The Doctor was originally unaware of this, until he met Revir and Mera again, believing the dimension he visited to have been the only one. (TV: *Embrace the Chaos*)