Only Human

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Only Human
Doctor Who book

Series	New Series Adventures
Release number	5
Featuring	Ninth Doctor Rose, Captain Jack
Writer	Gareth Roberts
Publisher	BBC Books
ISBN	ISBN 0-563-48639-2
Set between	The Doctor Dances and Boom Town
Release date	September 2005
Preceded by	The Deviant Strain
Followed by	The Stealers of Dreams

Only Human is a BBC Books original novel written by Gareth Roberts and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Ninth Doctor, Rose Tyler and Captain Jack.

Like all Doctor Who spin-off media, its canonicity in relation to the television series is unclear.

1 Synopsis
2 Plot
3 Continuity
4 External links
- 4.1 Reviews

[edit] Synopsis

The presence of a Neanderthal on present-day Earth alerts the Doctor, Rose and Jack to the fact that someone is meddling with time. In order to learn the truth, they must travel back 28,000 years, where they meet humans of the past and future — and something far, far worse.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

A youth at a fancy dress party (dressed as a Roman soldier) sees a Neanderthal man. Thinking that he is in costume, he ignores him until the Neanderthal provokes him and starts a fight.

Meanwhile on the TARDIS, the Doctor, Rose and Captain Jack Harkness are setting off to Kegron Pluva (a planet with a very unusual ecosystem and season cycles) when a device in the TARDIS shows there is a temporal disturbance. Explaining that it is a "dirty rip engine" (an extremely primitive and dangerous form of time-travel) that is causing a disturbance, the Doctor pilots the TARDIS to Bromley. After landing, the team split up. Returning, Rose explains the trio that there was a caveman, and that he was in a nearby hospital.

Upon arriving, the trio soon realize that the army has closed off the hospital, with all of the staff and patients evacuating. A nurse explains that someone has the Ebola virus, but the Doctor quietly explains to Rose that the Ebola virus was cured in 2076, and there was no time-travel technology then.

After a trip to the TARDIS's cloakroom, the Doctor and Rose go into the hospital, after asking for Jack to provide them with a distraction (running naked through the crowd). After finding the room with the Neanderthal, the Doctor explains that he is Dr Table (the table being the first thing he noticed upon entering the room) and that he was an expert in the (imaginary) condition the Neanderthal has. He quickly hauls the man from the room on a trolley, with the help of Rose and a nurse called Weronika.

After getting the Neanderthal into the TARDIS, he explains that he is called Das. He says that he followed a man named Ka into a strange tree full of "made-things" and was somehow transported to 21st century Bromley.

Jack and the Doctor traces Das's origin to the 24th of May, 29,185 BC. But when the TARDIS attempts to go back to then, Das's begins to melt in a green pool of light. The Doctor halts the TARDIS, explaining that using rip-engines warp the cells or organic matter, and that a second trip would tear him apart. He tells Das that he must stay in the 21st century with Jack, while the Doctor and Rose travel to his time to track down the time travellers. Jack is reluctant to play babysitter but agrees.

The Doctor and Rose arrive to the time period and make contact with a research group from the future, although their attitude towards everything gives them pause. All the members of the research group are always content. The Doctor soon realizes who the scientists are. At some point in the future, a massive space battle will cause Earth to be hit with an EMP-like wave, knocking out all electronics and stopping progress in its tracks. The energy of the wave will take several centuries to fully dissipate. In the meantime, humanity will be forced to focus on non-electronic fields of science, like chemistry and biology. Eventually, the advances in the two fields will allow humans to fully map out the human body. In essence, doctors will act like mechanics - taking people apart and putting them back together with no ill effects. Even children will be able to perfom genetic experiments with ease. Nearly all humans will wear special devices that will allow them to suppress negative emotions, feeling content about everything.

The scientists show the Doctor their rip engine - a giant steam-powered device. Once they discovered time travel, they used it to back and study human development. He also discovers that things are not as they seem at the research base. People are disappearing, but nobody seems to care, save for one who refuses to wear the suppression device.

The Doctor and Rose leave the base and go to the Neanderthal tribe to tell them about Das. However, shortly after that, a band of humans attacks the village and takes Rose prisoner. Humans have hunted the Neanderthals to the brink of extinction (only one tribe remains). The elder of the human village wishes for Rose to marry her son. Rose manages to trick the guards and escape.

Meanwhile, the Doctor finds out that the woman in charge of the research base is breeding a new species, one meant to eliminate and replace the human race. She is convinced that humans are inferior creatures and that her Hy-Bractors will prove more resilient. These creatures are larger and more aggressive than humans. The reason scientists are disappearing is because the Hy-Bractors' creator is feeding her creatures. Eventually, she releases them from their cage and orders them to kill all humanoids save for themselves, her, and the Doctor.

None of the scientists fight or run as they are being killed and/or eaten. Once all of them are dead, the creatures leave for the nearby villages, killing nearly all Neanderthals. Rose, however, marries the human elder's son and orders the villagers to make peace with the few remaining Neanderthals and flee the village. The Doctor manages to overpower the Hy-Bractors' creator, who is holding him prisoner, but she escapes and, before he can stop her, activates the rip engine. Because she already used it once, her body disintegrates. The Doctor knows he has to stop the Hy-Bractors from destroying humanity, so he takes the woman's medical devices and begins to work on something to level the playing field. He manages to come up with a temporary modification to humans in a nick of time. The modification gives humans the ability to breathe fire, killing all but one Hy-Bractor. The Doctor tells it that his creator is dead and, therefore, it must listen to him. He orders the creature to stay with the humans and help them out any way it can. As the Doctor and Rose leave, humans are sitting by a fire with the Hy-Bractor and the few remaining Neanderthals and scientists.

Meanwhile, Jack is helping Das adjust to modern life. By the time the Doctor and Rose return, Das is sufficiently acclimated, has a job, and even finds a girlfriend who suits him. Somehow, he manages to find a woman who still has a few Neanderthal genes left from her ancestors who intermixed with humans. The novel ends with the TARDIS crew jumping forward several weeks to Das's wedding, followed by a similar account of a wedding back in prehistoric times between one of the scientists and the matriarch of the human tribe that had attempted to adopt Rose; the humans agree to allow the surviving Neanderthals to join their tribe..

[edit] Continuity

The Doctor states he has met Neanderthals before, a reference to the Seventh Doctor serial, Ghost Light which depicted a Neanderthal living in 19th Century England.
Jack indicates he has never visited Rose's time, which places this prior to the events of the televised episode Boom Town. The preceding novel, The Deviant Strain also take place before Boom Town, but the following book, The Stealers of Dreams takes place after the televised episode as it contains a reference to the events of Boom Town.
The novel makes extensive use of the TARDIS' ability to translate foreign languages into English, as both Neanderthals and cavemen are shown speaking not only literate English, but with 21st Century vernacular as well, although at one point it is revealed that the TARDIS has a "swear filter" (as explained by the Doctor) which substitutes the word "blinking" instead of an obscenity spoken by Nan.