Compassion

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**"Compassion"** was the designation of a series of Remote operatives sequentially remembered from **Laura Tobin**, the fifth and last of which traveled with the Eighth Doctor and metamorphosed into a TARDIS.

## Biography

### Origin

Compassion was originally Laura Tobin, a woman living on a Remote colony on the planet Ordifica before evacuated to Anathema. Over the millennia, she was "remembered" using biomass inside the remembrance tanks, and, since she was noted for her sarcasm, this became a dominant trait in her remembered versions. leading the ironic use of "Compassion" as a name. (PROSE: *Of the City of the Saved...*)

After she met the Eighth Doctor on Earth, she traveled with him and Fitz (whom Laura Tobin had known). She also knew Kode, the remembered version of Fitz. (PROSE: *Interference - Book Two*)

As Compassion came from a media/signal orientated culture, she always wore an earpiece or receiver. To protect her from any "harmful" signals she might encounter during their travels, the Doctor interfaced her receiver with the TARDIS systems. (PROSE: *The Blue Angel*) This had unforeseen results, warping her biodata along Block Transfer Computations, culminating in her "rebirth" as the one and only Type 102 TARDIS. (PROSE: *The Shadows of Avalon*)

### Life as a TARDIS

With his own TARDIS apparently destroyed in a dimensional rift and the Time Lords seeking Compassion for breeding stock for their own sentient TARDISes, the Doctor and Fitz used Compassion to go on the run. (PROSE: *The Shadows of Avalon*) Compassion began referring to the Doctor as her "tenant." (PROSE: *The Fall of Yquatine*)

Afraid of being tracked down by the Time Lords, the Doctor purchased a randomiser on the planet Yquatine and installed it in Compassion without her permission. The installation and operation of the Randomiser caused her a great deal of pain, to the Doctor's horror, but her systems quickly integrated it and she was unable to remove it. She eventually forgave the Doctor for installing the device, an act which he convinced her was for her own protection. (PROSE: *The Fall of Yquatine*) Compassion came to be less concerned with her inability to control her destinations, finding the actual travel through the Time Vortex so exhilarating that the destination was unimportant. (PROSE: *Coldheart*)

Eventually, Compassion was drawn to Gallifrey by the presence of the Edifice just before the Faction Paradox attack and Gallifrey's destruction. Compassion finally rejected her randomiser, expelling its remains into the Edifice along with her occupants. After the destruction of Gallifrey, Compassion took the Doctor and the TARDIS — now totally drained of all its energy — to 19th century Earth, then took Fitz Kreiner to 2000 so he could meet the Doctor after the TARDIS had repaired itself. She left to explore the universe with a Gallifreyan technician, Nivet. (PROSE: *The Ancestor Cell*, *Escape Velocity*)

Few details were available of Compassion's later involvement in the War. What was known came largely from the unreliable and fictionalised accounts of her human companion Carmen Yeh. At some point during the War, Compassion reached an agreement with the Great Houses and the 103-form timeships were created. (PROSE: *The Book of the War*) The details of this remain shrouded in mystery, although the creation of Antipathy was known to have come about as an early failure.

In an attempt to provide a safe haven for humanity during the War, Compassion lodged herself between her universe and the next. By doing this she was able to change her interior dimensions to create the City of the Saved. (PROSE: *Of the City of the Saved...*)

## Appearance

Compassion had coppery-red hair and freckles. Once she became a TARDIS, though she was initially reluctant to explore this new ability, her appearance was a matter of whim. (PROSE: *The Fall of Yquatine*) Fitz later referred to a time when he and the Doctor travelled the universe in a "stroppy redhead". (PROSE: *EarthWorld*)

## Abilities

Once she became a TARDIS, Compassion's senses extended into other dimensions. She could generate a force field around her and deliver painful electric shocks if attacked. She once accidentally overloaded the brains of four humans trying to contact them via her telepathic circuits, temporarily disorienting them. (PROSE: *The Space Age*)

### TARDIS interior

As a TARDIS, Compassion's internal dimensions were mapped to her psychology, full of twisted forests (representing the state of emotion existing beyond the civilized self and Compassion's new awareness of her humanity) and dark, echoing spaces she forced the Doctor and Fitz to inhabit (the Doctor attributed this decision to her subconscious terror at what she had become "punishing" him and Fitz like a woman will scream abuse at the father of her child while giving birth).

When the Doctor and Fitz first entered Compassion, they found themselves in an ornate corridor decorated with portraits of the Doctor's friends, family and past selves in varying artistic styles, progressing to another corridor with doors leading off to Compassion's subconscious — with such contents as Awful Truths, Hopes for the Future and That Dream About Fitz, the last featuring Fitz's voice screaming about something — along with a narrow bridge over the dark chasm of her unconscious leading to the console.

Her console hovered over her subconscious blackness on a stone platform, the console itself being completely black and possessing harsher angles than the Doctor's original TARDIS, with a large crystal as its centre. The controls moved constantly, subject to how helpful Compassion felt towards the Doctor at the moment and her own uncertainty about what she had become. (PROSE: *The Shadows of Avalon*) Compassion used her newly found psychic abilities to influence Fitz's dreams; he admitted to suffering from nightmares when they travelled together, until they reached an understanding. (PROSE: *The Fall of Yquatine*)

## Behind the scenes

* Physically, a fictionalised version of Compassion evidently resembled the actress Nicole Kidman. (PROSE: *Interference - Book Two*) However, she was described as being "gerbil-faced and chubby". This description fluctuated throughout the series, with Fitz thinking her rather plain but with enough "curves" to make her appealing.
* Madame Xing in *Halflife* is strongly implied to be Compassion.

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