Mission to Magnus

Mission to Magnus is a story originally written to be part of the unfilmed 1986 season of Doctor Who. It was novelised by its scriptwriter Philip Martin, who had previously written the television stories Vengeance on Varos and Mindwarp. The story is set after another unfilmed story, The Nightmare Fair. A novelisation of the story was published by Target Books in 1990 as the third volume of its Missing Episodes series. A Big Finish audio adaptation of the story was published in 2009. Synopsis The Doctor is tricked by his old Gallifreyan school bully Anzor and becomes involved with a conflict on the planet Magnus. There, a virus in the planet's atmosphere has made the surface lethal to men, and the predominantly female society is led by Madamme Rana Zandusia. She believes that their neighboring planet Salvak has found a cure to the virus and will use it to invade and take over their planet. At the urging of Sil, who seeks commercial opportunity from any outcome of this conflict, Rana called for a Time Lord envoy, Anzor, to allow them to use time travel, prevent Salvak from developing the antidote, and save their planet. Recognising that the women of Magnus have powerful telepathic abilities that could allow them to discover the secrets of time travel, the Doctor tricks Anzor to depart in his TARDIS, allowing himself and Peri to handle the situation. Separately, the Doctor and Peri learn from a group of boys, part of Magnus' breeding program and led by Vion, that there is a prophecy of a revelation that will change Magnus' society for the better, heralded by the Doctor's arrival.