Doctor Who: The End of Humanity
By Gareth Agnew
The far, far future. Out of the sky they came. Alien invaders. Evil looking black warships, unleashing death and destruction down onto the earth wherever they went. The devastation was almost absolute. The death toll was incalculable. The horror that this alien race had brought to bear was unbelievable. Practically nothing had survived. The planet was laid waste.
***
The TARDIS materialised in the middle of the ruined street, the door opened with a click, and the Doctor and his companion stepped out. They moved gingerly away from the TARDIS, stepping carefully among the rubble and twisted metal of the destroyed city.
"It all looks so eerily familiar," said Jo. "Just destroyed. Completely destroyed. I don't think I care for this future Doctor."
The Doctor stopped, and ran his fingers through his shock of white hair.
"The future is what the future is. I'm sorry Jo. It must be hard seeing what becomes of your own race like this. Do you realize the full potential of time-travel now?"
"Yes Doctor, I'm beginning to." replied Jo.
"Knowing the future. It can be so dangerous in the wrong hands. Like our friend the Master..."
"Or those people who think about going back in time to kill Hitler as a baby."
"Yes Jo."
They walked on, picking their way amongst the rubble, down to the river. Astonishingly there was one bridge still standing, and they were able to walk out, and watch the crystal clear river flowing gently beneath them. Two centuries without industrial pollution had seen to that.
"Why did they attack Doctor? What was the point?" asked Jo.
"Simple terror and destruction. They have no intention of colonizing the planets they destroy. They are depraved. Utterly heartless."
"I can hardly believe it. How could it have come to this?"
"I don't know Jo. I don't know."
With tears welling in her eyes, Jo followed the Doctor across the rest of the bridge.
On the other side, they came across a row of shops, windows gone, a few of the walls caved in, but otherwise remarkably intact. Jo imagined this place on a Sunday afternoon. People walking and chatting their way along the riverbank, ice cream in one hand, child's hand in the other. It would have been such a happy place, but not anymore. She leant across the remains of the wall at the edge of the river.
"Tell me its not true Doctor. This can't be what becomes of humanity."
"I'm sorry. I should never have shown you this. I don't come this far into the future very often. It's too depressing. Too disturbing."
Jo looked up to the sky. Dusk was falling and the first stars were coming out.
"Where is it Doctor?" asked Jo.
The Doctor pointed at a dim star, low on the northern horizon. "There."
Jo wept uncontrollably. She couldn't take it in. Humans had become the scum of the galaxy. They had become mass murderers and thieves, wiping out civilizations across hundreds of star-systems. Genocide after genocide. Death unbounded. War after bloody war had turned humans into the most evil race in the galaxy. From Centauri III the Sun was just a distant point of light in the night sky, and the Earth an invisible speck....