Roz Forrester

Roslyn Sarah Inyathi Forrester, usually just known as Roz Forrester, is a fictional character from the Virgin New Adventures range of spin-offs based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who.

Her first appearance was in the novel Original Sin by Andy Lane, with her adjudicator partner Chris Cwej. Adjudicators are the police force of 30th century Earth (which was at that time divided into the Overcity and the Undercity) and its extended empire (in the serial Colony in Space The Master posed as an Adjudicator). Roz was born in 2935 to a rich family on Jupiter's moon Io and was of pure African Xhosa stock (according to family legend the Forresters are descended from Nelson Mandela, but this is not the case). As a child she lived through a period known as the Wars of Acquisition before joining the Adjudicators to fight for justice.

She and Chris were investigating a murder case in Undercity in the year 2975 when they encountered the Seventh Doctor and Benny. It was revealed that Roz had killed her former Adjudicator partner, Fenn Martle, when she discovered he had been taking bribes. Her memory of this event had been manipulated by Tobias Vaughn, so that she believed Martle had been killed by an alien. This led to her having strong xenophobic feelings, which the Doctor managed to temper but not completely remove.

When first travelling in the TARDIS, Roz continued to wear her adjudicator armour, in contrast to the no guns approach of the Doctor and Benny. She eventually takes the body armour off for Benny's wedding in Happy Endings, never managing to put it back on and loses her gun in a river in Budapest. Whilst working undercover in France during World War I, in Toy Soldiers, Roz was shocked to encounter racist attitudes directed at herself.

Whilst visiting the Dyson sphere, known as The World, despite initially mistrusting the utopian atmosphere, Roz entered another relationship with one of the People, called feLixi. She also became something a cult figure among the inhabitants of The World (known as The People), after she threw up over an alien life that resembled a cockroach whilst they were sharing a meal at a party. However, she eventually realised feLixi was responsible for the murder of an artificial intelligence drone (and was also feeding her a mood enhancing drink called Flashback, to make her feel more vulnerable) and reported him for the crime, for which the punishment in The World's society is social exclusion. Roz felt feLixi had used her, despite his protests that he genuinely loved her. He later sent her a note at Bernice Summerfield's wedding, but Roz did not read it. During time spent in 1940s Britain during the events of Just War, Roz fell in love with Lieutenant George Reed. He proposed to her; however, she decided not to stay in the 1940s with him. She kept the engagement ring and the wedding dress.

Roz distrusts and quite possibly fears telepaths and is very protective of her privacy. In Christmas on a Rational Planet, Roz became stranded in New York State in December 1799 and had to pose as a fortune teller. One of her customers was a gentleman called Samuel Lincoln, whom she mistakenly believed to be Abraham Lincoln's father. Realising such an action would change history and therefore alert the Doctor to her whereabouts, Roz decided to assassinate him. Thankfully, the Doctor arrived in time to stop her. In this story, a genetic copy of Roz was also created from her ID implant, which the real Roz eventually killed.

Roz and Chris meet the Fifth Doctor and his companions in the novel Cold Fusion.

Roz and Chris travelled with the Doctor for many adventures and while their relationship was strictly platonic, she did kiss him in The Death of Art. Trying to locate an N-form, the TARDIS eventually brought them back to their own timezone, where Roz eventually joined her sister Leabie's revolution against the Earth Empire, but because he was facing a greater threat from outside time, the Doctor knew he wouldn't be able to help her. Refusing to stand on the sidelines while others died, she was killed leading an assault on the stronghold of Duke Walid, the Earth Emperor who was being controlled by the Psionic Brotherhood. Roz was buried in the Umtata Reclamation Zone in Africa, wrapped in a prepared animal skin called a kaross. Roz's death shocked the Doctor so much he had a heart attack in one of his hearts.

A twenty-year-old Roz, who has been pulled out of her time stream, appears in the Bernice Summerfield novel Oblivion, where she helped Chris, Benny and Jason Kane defeat the mysterious artefact, known as the Egg. At the end of the novel she is returned to her correct timeline, with no memory of events. Decalog 4, a short story collection from Virgin Publishing, chronicled the history of the Forrester family over a time span of 1000 years.

References

• I Who, Lars Pearson

External links

• Roz Forrester on Tardis Data Core, an external wiki