What If... the Doctor's moral compass had never formed? (Part 1)

Well, it is the 60th anniversary and there's no way I'm gonna finish (or even start, in some cases) the stories I wanted to do to celebrate. Blame real life, it happens.

However, I do have enough time to shoot the breeze and talk about a continuation of a What If? scenario that I've already done - namely a universe where Ian and Barbara never investigated their strange pupil Susan Foreman. That's right, this is technically "What If Ian and Barbara never investigated Susan?" Part 5, but I decided to spin it off into its own for reasons that will become clear soon enough.

Spoilers for Classic Who below the cut. You've been warned!

So, when we last left Susan and the Doctor, they had aided several of the Doctor's multiversal counterparts in defeating the Time Lord Victorious. From their perspective, however, they had just left Shoreditch following a Dalek civil war spilled out over the Earth in an attempt to control the Hand of Omega, which the Doctor tricked Davros into using as he did in the OT. Unlike the OT, the Doctor doesn't destroy Skaro as he does not yet know of its existence in this timeline. More on that later.

The Doctor and Susan have said their goodbyes to Ian, Barbara, and the burgeoning UNIT and have headed off once more into space and time. So what happens to them after this? Well, beyond the Time Lord Victorious events, they get up to quite a lot as you might imagine. Dealing with Marco Polo, some Aztecs, and others. Eventually, they partake in the quest for the Keys of Marinus, which does not end as it does in broadcast. 

Indeed, without the influence of Ian and Barbara on him - and with only Susan acting as a bit of a morality chain - the Doctor is far more willing to kill to achieve his ends and in ways that one might call unnecessary. The Voord, for example, are not just exposed but are completely wiped out. The Doctor personally executes Yartek. The slaves end up taking control of the Consciousness of Marinus, Altos and Sabetha poised to essentially become unopposed gods with its powers of law and order. Susan finds this mildly worrisome, but the Doctor is uninterested.

Eventually, bumbling around time and space, the two end up on Earth in the 22nd century, where they run into a familiar foe: the Daleks. The Doctor gets taken aboard their ship while Susan falls in with the Resistance that has been fighting the Daleks for almost a decade now. Susan finds herself being drawn to a resistance fighter named David. Using some of her knowledge gathered from the Shoreditch incident about the Daleks, Susan is able to help the Resistance improve their weaponry.

The Doctor, meanwhile, learns of the Dalek plan to hollow out the Earth and turn it into a battle station to traverse across the universe. Doing what he can to sabotage them, he narrowly escapes extermination at their hands (or so it would seem) and finds his way back to Susan. Using the radio signal sabotage, the Doctor is able to convert the Robomen over to their side and the Dalek fleet is destroyed by the bomb... which, due to the Doctor not taking safety precautions, consumes a good bit of London and makes a volcano erupt in England.

The world is, arguably, in even worse shape than it is in the broadcast episode following these events. The Daleks and Robomen are gone, but the world is still in ruins and arguably worse with the death toll in the hundreds of millions. At last, Susan confronts her grandfather over the immoral acts he's been committing. She mentions things like the Zarbi, the Sensorites, and even the incident in hunting the Keys of Marinus that still haunts her. When it becomes clear through their conversation that the Doctor won't change, Susan angrily throws her TARDIS key at her grandfather and leaves with David. Despite his protests, she does not turn back and soon enough he leaves in the TARDIS with her last words "Don't come back." echoing in his ears.

It is in the TARDIS that a familiar energy begins to glow all about the Doctor's body. It seems that he didn't quite escape extermination and was merely holding back the act of his first regeneration. He sets the TARDIS off to travel... and finds himself consumed by fire that transforms him into a new man.

...yep. I'm going there.

Rather than the lovable, often goofy Patrick Troughton, we instead have Peter Cushing stepping into the role of the Second Doctor. Not too dissimilar from the First Doctor, fitting in more with the idea of regeneration as a "renewal" rather than a full on change of character for the Doctor. However, the Doctor now recovers from a truth that cripples him greatly - he died alone in his TARDIS, rejected by the only family he had left, dozens of years and millions of light years from his own planet and people. He tells himself that he must mend his ways. 

His first opportunity arrives when he arrives on Dido and ends up rescuing Vicki O'Brien from the natives. In this timeline, being a bit more physically able, it is the Doctor who kills the Sandbeast after assuming that it's a threat. Bennett's gambit is revealed and, rather than being killed by the native Didoians, the Doctor allows him to fall off of a cliff. Vicki ends up joining the Doctor on his travels, finding a bit of a kindred spirit in him in that both are profoundly lonely and have no reason to stay where they are.

The two partake in a few adventures through space and time, finding themselves in a Space Museum or upon an Ark in space, Vicki stepping into Susan's former role as a sort of morality chain for the Doctor to keep him from using darker methods and entertaining his darker impulses. The Doctor, wary of the perception of him after Susan's departure, is more susceptible to Vicki's guidance and suggestions, but it is clear that the poor girl is very much out of her depth at trying to teach the Doctor to not be as cruel and murderous.

Eventually, a chase through space with the Daleks tailing them leaves them to gain the company of Steven Taylor and Sara Kingdom, a woman who claims to have met the Doctor before but who has no recollection of her. Despite the risk to the flow of the timeline, the Doctor allows Sara to join him, Susan, and Steven onboard the TARDIS.

This leads into this timeline's version of The Daleks. The TARDIS, either by accident or design, brings the TARDIS crew to Skaro to avoid the Daleks. Given that it is far enough back in the time stream, the Daleks actually do break off pursuit - since, as established, even they aren't crazy enough to threaten their own existence. The Doctor is happy with this... until the events of the episode happen, the Doctor learning about his enemies, but finding these Daleks to be even weaker than the ones encountered on Earth in the 22nd century and vastly weaker than those who attacked Shoreditch.

In this version, the Thals are guarding a bunker - the reason why has been lost to them for many, many generations. However, they call it "The Tomb of Vro", which is not familiar to any of them. However, during a trip inside of it (after a Dalek gets in), they discover that it is a laboratory of some kind. Separated from the group at one point, Vicki brushes the dust off of a sign to reveal a "D", "A", and "S" on a sign by a pod... in pretty much the exact place you would expect to find them given who is inside. However, at the end of the episode, the Tomb's entrance is collapsed.

In the end, the Thals have won the day (for now) and the TARDIS crew leaves. The Doctor laments having to once more kill off the Daleks, but Vicki reminds him that the threat of them would have harmed so many others. For once, the harsher methods were justified. Sara, having been fighting the Daleks in the future, agrees wholeheartedly. The Doctor tells them to not celebrate so much: this is the past of the Daleks, so there must be other pockets of them out there somewhere so they can appear in 1963 Shoreditch and then again in the 22nd century. Not to mention the thousands of years in the future that is Steven and Sara's times. Indeed, the Doctor is correct. Within the Tomb of Vro, the pod that was seen earlier begins to power down and slowly open...

After a few other scattered adventures here and there, the Doctor is forced to cross paths with a foe that he hadn't been expecting... the Meddling Monk. As in the broadcast debut episode, the Monk is trying to change the course of the Battle of Hastings. The TARDIS crew becomes involved in events, which happen a lot faster than in the broadcast episode for a simple reason: Sara Kingdom has guns.

The plot goes much as seen, just at a faster rate. At the end, the Doctor tries to reason with the Monk and get him to come with them - being an exile from their homeworld himself, but the Monk refuses. His plans are ruined and his TARDIS is shrunk beyond its use, leaving him trapped in 1066 (or so it would seem). To add insult to injury, though, Sara shoots him through one of his hearts claiming that she "knows what he'll do" and that she's disgusted by it. However, after she and the others have left, the Monk begins to regenerate...

...and that's where we're going to leave it off for the time being. The Doctor has led quite a life since leaving Shoreditch following the Dalek invasion in '63, regenerating and finding himself alone for a while. Will his companions be sticking with him? When will the TARDIS team meet Sara Kingdom in the right order? What did the Monk do that was so bad that it disgusted Sara?

Find out when we continue this What If? scenario another day!