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| The Web Planet |
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 Name: The Animus, AKA Lloigor
Format: Television
Show and Book
Time of Origin: Originally from the
universe prior to this one; the precise dates of its encounters
with The Doctor are unknown as they never occurred on a planet
inhabited by or in contact with humans.
Appearances: "The
Web Planet" and "Twilight
of the Gods"
Doctors: First
Doctor and Second
Doctor
Companions: Barbara
Wright, Ian
Chesterton, Vicki, Jamie McCrimmon and Victoria
Waterfield
History: Although it appeared in the television
series only once, the Animus has gone on to acquire a significant
popularity among fans, mainly due to the fact that The Doctor
has always faced it aided by aliens, with his only human allies
when confronting it being his current companions. The Animus
is one of the Great Old Ones, beings from the universe that existed
before this one who had escaped the destruction of that universe
by temporarily transferring themselves into another universe
that ended a few seconds after their one before returning to
this universe, subsequently acquiring incredible gravity-manipulating
powers due to the new laws of physics in this reality as opposed
to the universe that it had lived in before.
After
several centuries of presumably aimless wandering while it waited
for worlds to be created that it could use, the Animus eventually
settled on the distant planet Vortis - populated by the butterfly-like
Menoptera and the ant-like Zarbi -, Vortis having been created
as part of a scientific experiment by highly advanced beings
(Ironically, these beings were so advanced that Vortis was created
only by a couple of students rather than ‘adult’ members
of the species in question).
Having been introduced to the experiment in
the form of forbidden organic matter stolen from a teacher by
a student who had a long-time rivalry with Vortis’s original ‘creators’,
the Animus went on to become a powerful force on Vortis, although
it was never clear if even it was aware of the true nature of
the world it inhabited. Learning how to absorb and manipulate
isocryte - a rare element normally created in conditions of extreme
atomic stress such as collapsing stars, capable of generating
counter-gravitic waves when artificially stimulated while also
granting the Menoptera their ability to fly despite their size
after they ingested food that had been exposed to isocryte -,
the Animus used isocryte to draw spaceships and other orbital
bodies to it as part of its search for organic matter that it
could use as a slave labour force, relying on the more primitive
Zarbi to keep the Menoptera under control as it was able to control
them through contact with gold.
The
Animus’s domination over Vortis continued until
its use of isocryte drew the TARDIS down
to Vortis, resulting in the First
Doctor, Barbara
Wright, Ian
Chesterton and Vicki becoming
involved in Vortis’s affairs ("The
Web Planet"). While The Doctor and Ian searched
for the source of the distortion that had pulled them
to Vortis, Barbara fell under the Animus’s influence
due to a gold bracelet she had recently acquired in Rome
("The
Romans"), subsequently joining the Zarbi slaves
in ‘feeding’ the Animus while the TARDIS
was taken to the Animus. Although The Doctor and Ian
were able to track down the TARDIS - with Vicki still
inside the ship -, The Doctor was captured by the Animus,
leaving Ian to escape and rally the Menoptera against
the Zarbi and the Animus.
Realising that the Animus used gold as a focusing agent
for its control of others, The Doctor was able to device a means
of counteracting this force using his ring, allowing him to take
control of one of the Zarbi and escape with Vicki, reuniting
with Barbara after she shook off the Animus’s influence.
While The Doctor and Vicki confronted the Animus directly, Ian,
Barbara and the Menoptera sneaked up on it from outside and underneath,
Barbara destroying the Animus in a supreme effort of will despite
its mental powers using the Isop-trop device, a weapon devised
by the Menoptera over a prolonged period that generated radiation
deadly to the core of the Animus. With the Animus gone, The Doctor
and his companions departed, confident that peace would now return
to Vortis.
Although the Animus appeared to have been destroyed during this confrontation, a tendril of it was recovered by The Doctor's former friend The Master and the Ninth Doctor's renegade ex-companion Adam Mitchell ("The Long Game"), who used it as part of their plan against The Doctor. With Adam and The Master having created a portal to London in 1868, the surviving tendril was able to establish a 'nest' in the London Underground, subsequently gathering its forces by abducting students of biologist Thomas Huxley just as The Doctor was visiting one of his lectures ("Prisoners of Time"). Although the Animus was able to take control of Barbara and Vicki, along with most of Huxley's students, The Doctor, Ian and Huxley escaped its control, The Doctor distracting the Animus fragment long enough for Ian to find a disused train and ram it into the Animus before sending the Zarbi back to Vortis through the portal (Although the Animus still fulfilled Adam and The Master's intended purpose by allowing them to abduct Ian, Barbara and Vicki while The Doctor was distracted pondering how it had come to Earth in the first place, requiring him to join forces with his future selves to save his friends).
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Twilight of the Gods
(Christopher Bulis) |
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The Doctor eventually returned to Vortis in his second
incarnation, where he discovered that Vortis had drifted into
the Rhumon solar system, becoming a battleground for the current
civil war between two Rhumon forces in the form of the Imperial
and Republican forces - the Imperials worshiping the god Omnimon
and ruled by an emperor and aristocratic society while the Republicans
were a communist-based society based on elected leaders -, each
side seeking control of the planet for symbolic purposes, only
for the ships sent by both sides to crash-land on Vortis, subsequently
being plagued by strange occurrences as bodies began to vanish
from the battlefields and the ‘ghosts’ of deceased
soldiers seemed to appear to both sides. Having arrived on the
planet, The Doctor swiftly became outraged at the Rhumons’ use
of the Menoptera as slaves, resolving to help them against the
invaders while the Menoptera were pleasantly surprised at the
return of The Doctor, whose previous aid in the fight against
the Animus had now become legend on Vortis.
Although The Doctor, Jamie and Victoria were
able to convince the leaders of both sides to recognise the pointlessness
of their current struggle - Jamie scored a particular victory
when he forced some Rhumon soldiers to try and justify their
actions to a group of Menopteran children -, matters became complicated
when deceased Rhumon apparently rose from their graves to lead
their people to a distant island, the Imperial priest and the
Republican Morale and Discipline Officer seeing them as proof
of their respective faiths as they forced their people to dig
up the isocryte in the soil… only for the island to be
revealed as the ‘resting place’ for a new Animus.
Prior to its destruction at Barbara’s hands, the original
Animus had created a ‘seed’ of itself that retained
all of its predecessor’s memories even up to the moment
of death, this ‘seed’ remaining dormant for centuries
until it was able to use the buried Rhumon bodies - the Menoptera
burned their dead - as agents to gather the isocryte it needed.
Taking advantage of the priest’s regular prayers in front
of a gold statue dedicated to his god, and the Morale Officer’s
habit of regularly caressing confiscated gold medals because
it gave her pleasure, the Animus was able to take control of
them and influence them to provide it with the last of the isocryte
to restore itself to full power.
Although The Doctor was able to deduce the Animus’s
plan, he wasn’t in time for it to absorb enough isocryte
to manifest itself on a large scale once again, although the
Menopterans were able to rescue The Doctor and the Rhumon forces
before the Animus could absorb them. Taking advantage of the
Animus’s use of isocryte, The Doctor was able to take the
TARDIS almost directly to its core by disabling the temporal
circuits - the isocryte causing a distortion in hyperspace that
the TARDIS would be drawn to automatically - accompanied by Jamie,
Shallavar - the head of the Imperial faction on Vortis -, Draga
- the commander of the Republican forces - and Kristas - a leader
among the Menoptera -, with the intention of arming a nuclear
warhead and leaving it at the core of the Animus. However, instead
of materialising at the core of the Animus the TARDIS was instead
drawn to a control chamber at the core of Vortis itself, where
The Doctor learned the truth about Vortis, briefly devastating
Kristas at the false nature of his gods before he was reassured
that the idea of the gods remained even if they weren’t
what he had believed they were.
Although the ‘students’ who created Vortis
were unable to defeat the now-divided Animus - their teacher
being forced to retreat when it attempted to battle the Animus
directly -, with The Doctor’s attempt to use the control
chamber to trigger volcanoes simply encouraging the Animus to
master flight, he was able to devise a means of destroying the
Animus by using the communications unit devised by the students.
Since the communicator operated by generating images with tactile
force, The Doctor was able to generate giant-sized ‘illusions’ of
Jamie, Kristas, Shallvar and Draga, the illusions possessing
enough physical force to literally tear the Animus apart, destroying
it at last. As the teacher and its students departed, leaving
Vortis with enough energy to survive on its own, The Doctor and
his companions left as well, confident that Rhumon and Menoptera
would continue to grow and learn about themselves and the universe
together after collaborating against such a powerful foe.
It was recently stated that the Animus perished for good
in the Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks as
its Carsenome Walls fell into dust, but given the Animus’s
previously -displayed ability to escape destruction - particularly
when assuming that it was able to resurrect itself once again
after the events of "Twilight
of the Gods" in order for it to die in the Time War
in the first place -, it is uncertain whether this means it is
dead for good or if the potential still exists for it to return
in future. |
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| A Zarbi |
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| The Doctor Talking to the Animus |
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| The Animus |
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| A Menoptera |
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