Planet (The Bernard Shaw Society)

## Planet

A **planet** became the site of an unusual human society, ruled by the writings of George Bernard Shaw.

## History

When Earth was threatened by solar flares, Ireland constructed their own starship appropriately named *Starship Ireland* and set off into space to escape, intending to come back once the planet's living conditions were more suitable for humans again. The starship contained a complete database of Irish history, which also included the workings and writings of activist, George Bernard Shaw.

After many years and generations, a group of 24 people staged a mutiny on the starship due to their growing dissatisfaction with how the ship was being run; but they were quickly put down and expelled. They were shot out into space inside an escape pod, but flew through what the Twenty-First Doctor called a "memory field" which completely wiped all their memories and caused the escape pod to crash land on a random planet. For some reason, the pod contained a single video in its computer systems - a video of George Bernard Shaw outlining his preferred system of dealing with the human population.

Believing themselves to be the only surviving human society in the universe, these 24 people used the video to establish themselves a new society; one where every 5 to 7 years, all citizens were expected to justify their continued existence by how they benefit society. If they couldn't, they would simply be executed and be made more useful for their meat, bones and skin. Their entire legal system and culture had been built completely from that one video.

The Doctor and Ruben Gomez later passed through that same memory field, causing the Doctor's TARDIS to expell them out as it crashed onto the same planet in order to save their lives. They also lost their memories, but only in regards to how they had arrived there as the TARDIS had protected them from most of the blast. They were found by this society, who had reached the end of their cycle once more and were preparing to justify their existence.

Now seen as part of the society, the Doctor and Ruben were not exempt from having to take part in the justification. The Doctor easily passed due to her superior intelligence, but Ruben's main selling point of being investigative and analystical was denied; because crime was non-existent and there was no need for any kind of investigator. Ruben went on the run - which was deemed to be his execution as it was not believed that he would survive the wilds - whilst the Doctor blended into the society, trying to uncover the source of its creation; eventually being shown the video.

Ruben discovered the TARDIS which had landed right next the original escape pod, which he noticed came from *Starship Ireland*. He crept back and secretly took the Doctor to it, where she found evidence of it having passed through a memory field and ascertained that they had done the same. Although they could now leave as they knew where the TARDIS was, they felt like they needed to put things right.

These people were too far gone to integrate back into any normal human society, so the two instead filmed a new video, disguising themselves and then replaced the original Shaw video; having it act like it was the next step in Shaw's philosophy following completing the original task - promoting altruism. After hanging around for a while to make sure that the people took it seriously, the Doctor and Ruben left them to it. (TV: *The George Bernard Shaw Society*)