Adric

[PSA: this application/info is literally as old as it's dated, and I have not rewritten it since then.]

The Character
Character Name: Adric
Character Journal: badgeformaths
Canon: Doctor Who
Age: 19
From When?: Wandering around the freighter with the Doctor, in Earthshock


Abilities/Powers:
Math
Extreme mathematical skills -- he could calculate things even the Doctor couldn't, and for example accurately tell the square root of 3,69873 without pausing to think. Which lets him do...

Block Transfer Computations
The Whoniverse equivalent of reality warping/manipulation. BTC is using math and willpower alone to create, alter or remove spacetime events. He did on one occasion create an entire small city/castle, with its architecture and inhabitants (several dozens individuals, with memories and free will) -- and with spatial displacement: If you tried to exit the city to the north, you would only enter it from the south. However, it does take concentration not only to create it, but also to keep it existing, particularly if it's complex. Changing something is not that hard, but removing something (particularly if you want to remove it from history completely) is much more difficult. You also can't do it unless you have something magnifying your will -- unless you're 12 or more people.

Alzarian biology
Nothing spectacular, but he heals at a much faster rate than humans. A deep cut would heal completely in a few hours, and a broken bone in about a week. He's therefore less likely to die from things like blood loss, because his wounds would close up much quicker. It would still hurt like hell, though, and he can't regrow limbs.

His biology is actually vastly different than that of a humans -- even his cell structure. Alzarian bodies are somewhat stronger and faster than a human's, though not by much, but they also need to eat more than a human (and Adric has an extra healthy appetite). Their heart is on the right side instead of left.

He also has a much more adaptive biology. He'll probably never get altitude sickness for example, and this combined with his accelerated healing makes him very resistant to heat, coldness, illness, allergies, poisoning, etc... Though nowhere near invulnerable. Just a bit tougher to kill than most humans.

Various
He's very good with technology and devices, particularly computers, recognising, understanding and using it, putting it together or taking it apart. He can assist in flying the TARDIS, use the console, and calculate coordinates. He's also accumulated random thieving skills thanks to his brother -- he's very good at lock-picking, some hacking, and concealing things up his sleeves. And doing small magic tricks. He's also skilled with a knife, particularly throwing it (as he once did at a vampire). Being evolved from a semi-aquatic species, he's also very comfortable in the water, and in nature in general, used to living in a marsh and forest. Oh, and he always has perfect hair.



Appearance:
Adric is an alien, but he's humanoid (or rather, Terradonian-like) and there's no way of identifying him as non-human based on appearance alone. He looks young for his age (late teens), short and wiry, with a boyish face and impish smile. He has thick black hair, slanted dark eyes, a wonderful snub nose, soft skin and lips. All of this gives him an overall somewhat effeminate appearance, although you wouldn't mistake him for a girl. He more or less always wears his uniform from back home; green shirt and trousers, green boots, and a yellow tie-around vest. He also wears a gold star badge for mathematical excellence, and the Outler woven marsh reed belt that used to belong to his brother.. He's around 5'5" tall, adding to his young appearance. He speaks very proper, clear BBC English. Or, well, technically he speaks Alzarian or whatever his people speak, but anyone else would hear the Queen's English. He sometimes has a tendency to talk with his hands. When he gets really angry, it's hard to tell on his face, but amusement or disapproval shows up much more easily. Not to mention pouting. Although when the situation requires it, it's not hard for him to conjure up a charming smile.



Personality:
Adric's main characteristics is his intelligence, curiosity, and his eagerness to prove himself. Modesty is not his strong point, as he is very aware of how clever he is. This, coupled with relative immaturity, can often make him come off as rather arrogant and brash, but he's usually able to back it up, being a quick learner with a brilliant mathematical mind. He's quick to question how and why things are the way they are. However, he himself often lies and occasionally steals, being a bit of a mendacious magpie, often collecting souvenirs from his trips.

Like any young person, he can be very headstrong and argumentative, and he's still very much of a teenager, with much angst, and always in trouble. He worried whether Nyssa and Tegan liked him, if he fit in with the group, and was never really sure of himself outside of the academics, especially because of his sheltered education and his clumsiness. However, he usually covers it up with bravado, or false innocence and naivety, particularly in the face of danger. Speaking of danger, he can be a terrible judge of character, occasionally manipulated into helping the wrong side. He doesn't always think things through, and often gets in trouble because of it. He means well, though sometimes he can get a bit self-centered.

At his worst, particularly if he's feeling ignored or sidelined, he can become resentful, insensitive, impatient, rash, petulant, and downright rude if it's really bad. At his best, he is brilliant, intensely brave and self-sacrificing, hard-working, loyal and kind. He always tries to help rather than keep out of trouble, and he's extremely protective of his friends, always putting their safety before of his own. He is usually cheerful and eager to explore, and has a rather sarcastic sense of humour which comes out every once in a while. He also had a way with charm when it came to the Doctor and Nyssa, though not so much with Tegan. In general, he tends to like to hang out with people who don't conform to rules and labels. He's definitely a non-conformist -- even within a non-conformist group.

Being from a very different and rather sheltered culture (and indeed a different universe), and having only been to Earth briefly, he's rather foreign to Earth customs, culture and history, and the most random things can surprise and confuse him. For example, he does know what pizza is, or trains, but he tends to grasp things very quickly. There's also often miscommunication because of this:
- They do it standing on their heads.
- Not with a computer?
- ...'Standing on their heads' is an expression, Adric.

His biggest insecurity is that he's not needed or wanted, which is probably a result of being an orphan and being treated like he's in the way most of the time. No one cared when he left the Starliner to go live with his brother -- the only one he felt like he mattered to was his brother, and even he wanted Adric to go back to the Starliner. On some level, Adric knows it was just because his brother wanted him to be safe, but these are not things you think rationally about.

After his brother died, he latched onto the Doctor, initially only as a way out of there, but eventually as the father-figure he so desperately needed. The Doctor also made him actually feel helpful and needed -- that is, until Tegan and Nyssa joined them, and the Doctor regenerated. Suddenly, Adric felt sidelined, and his insecurities showed more clearly, often acting as a bit of brat towards the people he counted as his friends. What he fears most of all is that his friends will leave him, cast him aside -- it goes so far that he actually decides to leave, rather than wait for what he sees as inevitable, just so it will have been his choice.



History:
Adric is an Alzarian, a small but sustainable civilisation of a humanoid race descended from Marshmen (semi-aquatic, noncivilised humanoids), born on the planet of Alzarius (which has one sun but no moon), in the E-Space universe, which is much smaller than ours, and thus has less stars. Every 50 years another planet would draw Alzarius away from its sun, and Mistfall would occur, where Marshmen would rise from the swamps and the Alzarians shut themselves inside.

The Alzarians lived in touch with nature, collecting their food from the forest and marshes, but also lived inside a grounded Terradonian Starliner, surrounded by technology, and led by three Deciders. They had higher education, but did not have such things as mass media, popular entertainment, or fashion (as they mostly wore uniform-like clothing). They favoured academic excellence above all else, but were in many ways very naive and sheltered.


Adric's parents were killed in a forest fire when he was one year old, and he and his brother Varsh (three and a half years older than Adric) were raised by friends of the family in the Starliner, though they never felt they could properly express themselves to anyone but each other. Adric looked up to Varsh, who was very protective of Adric. Adric quickly proved to have optimistic brashness and enormous intellectual curiosity, and was ranked as an Elite and awarded a badge for mathematical excellence, one of the keenest minds of the community, whereas Varsh left the Starliner and eventually became the leader of the Outlers.

Adric was a non-conformist and didn't like authority, and was even an outsider among the Outlers. Like Varsh, he wanted to be free of strictures, and confronted this by being the best in all academic areas he endeavored in, though he also learned to lie and steal. At 16, he tried to get Varsh to let him join the Outlers, but his efforts were interrupted by Mistfall and the Marshmen rising from the swamps -- and pulling the First Decider down into the swamps, right from Adric's grip.

Stunned, Adric stumbled into a giant blue box, what he would later learn was a space/timeship called the TARDIS, and met a time traveler named the Doctor, and his companions Romana and the robot dog K9, who had ended up in E-Space by mistake. Adric eventually aided the Doctor in trying to figure out the mystery of the Starliner and the attacking Marshmen, but during these events, Varsh was attacked trying to protect Adric and the Starliner. Adric tried but failed to save him, and this hit him hard. With nothing left for him there, an orphan bored of his life and hungry for adventure, Adric stowed away on the Doctor's TARDIS after events had been resolved.


On their first stop, Adric ended up almost being made into a vampire, and he unsuccessfully tried to save Romana from being sacrificed, but they were both rescued by the Doctor, who told Adric he'd be taking him straight back to the Starliner. However, he didn't exactly do that -- in fact, over two months passed with them travelling, until the TARDIS was hijacked and ended up by the gateway between E-Space and N-Space -- the Doctor's own universe. Romana and K9 remained in E-Space, while Adric went with the Doctor, and the Doctor's view of his responsibility towards Adric changed a little. Rather than take him back home where he would just resume his life as a criminal orphan, wouldn't it be better to give him some education, reform, and an expansion of his moral horizon?

Adric and the Doctor traveled as mentor and apprentice for a while, and Adric quickly grasped the TARDIS controls and was able to assist the Doctor in flying and navigating, a feat few companions managed. However, Adric was not always entirely trustworthy, occasionally misled by the false promises of villains, particularly those he saw intelligence in. However, he always came through in the end, and occasionally just played along with the enemy to bide his time until he could help the Doctor.


Their first stop in the Doctor's home universe was Traken, (theoretically) a place of universal harmony, where they met the sweet Nyssa, and the not so sweet Master. Unwilling to go back to Gallifrey, his own planet, for their next stop (despite Adric wanting to see it), the Doctor decided to show Adric his home-away-from-home instead: Earth. While they were landed in 1981 London, unbeknownst to the Doctor and Adric, an young earthwoman named Tegan stumbled into and got lost inside the TARDIS. A little more drama later (including Adric throwing a bicycle on a policeman), they went to Logopolis with Tegan still lost onboard. After she stumbled into the console room and introductions were made, Tegan tagged along, since they had already kidnapped her to an alien planet, although she wasn't much help. And Adric got to learn about Block Transfer Computations -- creating or changing objects and modeling reality by pure mathematics.

They also met both Nyssa and the Master again here, and Adric repeatedly tried to thwart the Master, but to no avail. The Master even mind-controlled Nyssa to strangle Adric, just for fun, though let him go in time. After they made it back to the TARDIS, Adric watched helplessly with Nyssa as the Master's works, messing with the Block Transfer Computations that held the universe together, wiped out Nyssa's home planet, Traken. However, by this point the Master had very nearly doomed the entire universe, and agreed to cooperate with the Doctor to save it. (What's the fun of being evil if you don't have a universe to mess up, after all?) Adric briefly flew the TARDIS, back to earth, and they distracted the guards while the Doctor tried to correct things, but was double-crossed by the Master. The Doctor still managed to save the universe from both destruction and the Master, but fell off a radio tower, one of his more lame deaths, and with his companions watching, regenerated into his fifth body.

Adric, Tegan and Nyssa helped the new Doctor escape from the guards and back into the TARDIS. Adric watched the newly regenerated and therefore highly unstable (and somewhat amnesiac) Doctor to make sure he was alright, following him around -- until Adric himself was snatched right out of the TARDIS by the Master. For several days, he was kept tied up, while the Master forced Adric to use his mathematical mind to do BTC and create an elaborate trap for the Doctor. However, Adric managed to warn Nyssa and Tegan about the trap, while pretending to cooperate with the Master.

Adric continued to resist the Master, trying to save his friends, new and old, but the Master tortured Adric and made him build the city of Castrovalva using BTC, and then lead the TARDIS there. However, Adric also created images of himself to watch and make the sure the recovering Doctor was safe, and warned Nyssa that the Doctor must not leave Castrovalva -- but the Doctor then finally remembered Adric. He insisted they rescue Adric immediately, only to discover that they too were trapped, the area looping in on itself. Through the Doctor's efforts, Adric was eventually freed, but without his constant calculations, the city began to fold in on itself -- but as he created it, he knew the way out. He lead everyone to safety, and Castrovalva disappeared, letting them return to the TARDIS with a brand new and now healthy Doctor.


Adric, Nyssa and Tegan continued to travel with the fifth Doctor, and Adric no longer really had the role of the Doctor's apprentice, as the new and younger regeneration rarely found time to really explain things to Adric. Often frustrated by his clumsiness, and fiercely competitive, Adric struggled to find a useful role with the others and often felt sidelined. He constantly bickered with Tegan (though he still considered her a friend), although he did develop a good friendship with Nyssa, and they often worked together with bio-electronics and chemistry. During these travels, he met (among other things) Urbankans, the Mara (which possessed Tegan), Terileptils, androids, and lastly Cybermen. They also went to England in 1666, 1925, 1981 and 2526, and Adric gained some familiarity with earth customs (and their food) through his travels. In 1925, Adric watched the Doctor play cricket (and was utterly confused), and they attended a fancy dress ball (and solved a murder).

Fed up with feeling insecure and ignored by the Doctor, Adric announced to him that he wanted to go home to the Starliner. This ignited a massive row between the two of them, shouting through the TARDIS corridors, with the Doctor saying it was far too dangerous to go back to E-Space, and Adric insisting he had the mathematical skills to plot a safe course. While Adric worked on the calculations, the Doctor stormed off and Nyssa and Tegan followed to talk some sense into him -- and then the three of them almost got killed by androids, which just shows you shouldn't go wandering around dark caves looking at dinosaur bones when you should be making up with your friend. Adric discovered, though, and distracted the androids long enough for his friends to gain the upper hand, and then helped the Doctor disarm a ticking bomb left by the androids. The Doctor thanked Adric for his bravery ("All part of the daily routine," Adric answered), and said that if they could plot a course, the Doctor would take him home -- Adric showed him that he'd already done so, while the rest were running around almost getting themselved killed. They apologised to each other, and Adric admitted that of course he didn't want to go home (to the Doctor's obvious relief), as there's nothing there for him anymore, and he enjoyed the excitement of their travels.


They then all went off to a freighter spaceship to find out who were controlling the androids, and quickly discovered the Cybermen, who had programmed the freighter to crash into the Earth and destroy it. The Cyber-Leader ordered the Doctor and Tegan back to the TARDIS, but for Adric to stay, as they had no need for him. The Doctor objected, saying he wouldn't leave without Adric, but when the Cyber-Leader threatened to kill Tegan, Adric told the Doctor to go, saying he would find his own way. They shook hands and said goodbye and good luck, and Adric was left on the freighter with a few others, where he tried to override the controls and try to bring the ship out of warp.

Unknown to Adric, the ship jumped into a time warp (It's just a jump to the left!) and went 65 million years back in time -- the crew decided it's time to abandon ship, but Adric was determined to break the logic codes. He was literally dragged into an escape pod by the crew, but at the last second, he jumped out to continue his efforts of saving the Earth. He almost succeeded, when a dying Cyberman destroyed the controls. Adric uttered his last words: "Now I'll never know if I was right." and watched, clutching his brother's belt, as the Earth got closer.

Having overcome the Cybermen, but with a damaged TARDIS, the Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan watched helplessly as the freighter smashed into Earth with a massive explosion, killing Adric, and wiping out, not the humans as Adric thought, but the dinosaurs.



Special Notes:
He's the Doctor's youngest companion ever. Also, the only regular companion to die in the televised series, and Adric's loss affected the Doctor deeply. Especially considering he traveled with the Doctor for around three years, and died while trying to save the Earth (a planet he had only been to a few times), in a situation he would never be in if not for the Doctor -- not to mention Nyssa and Tegan begging the Doctor to go back in time and save him. Adric's name is the last thing the Fifth Doctor says before regenerating.