Doctor Who and the Mutants

Author	Terrance Dicks
Cover artist	Jeff Cummins
Series	Doctor Who book: Target novelisations
Release number	44
Publisher	Target Books
Publication date	29 September 1977
ISBN

The Mutants is the fourth serial of the ninth season of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in six weekly parts from 8 April to 13 May 1972.

The Mutants is also the title used by the production team for the series' second serial, which introduced the Daleks. To distinguish between the two, the earlier serial is usually referred to as The Daleks. Sometimes both stories are referred to as The Mutants, further distinguished by the production codes — (B) for the former and (NNN) for the latter.

In the 30th century, the Earth Empire is contracting and plans are being made to decolonise the colony world of Solos. The militaristic Marshal and other human soldiers, known as Overlords, rule it from Skybase One, an orbiting space station. The Marshal opposes the decolonisation plans outlined to him by an Administrator sent from Earth, and is also obsessed with eradicating the Mutants or "Mutts" that have sprung up on the planet below. The Solonians themselves are a tribal people, split between those who actively oppose the occupation, such as Ky, and those like Varan who collaborate with the imperialists. Indeed, the Marshal and Varan ensure the Administrator is murdered before he can confirm to Ky and other tribal chiefs that the Earth Empire is indeed withdrawing from Solos.

The Doctor and Jo arrive on Skybase One, their TARDIS having been transported there by the Time Lords. They have with them a message box which will only open for an intended recipient – and that is not the Marshal or his entourage – but seems to be for Ky, who has been framed for the murder of the Administrator. Jo and Ky flee to the surface of Solos, which is poisonous to humans during daylight hours. This quickly affects Jo, but she survives with Ky's help. The Doctor learns from the Marshal and his chief scientist Jaeger that they are involved in an experiment using rocket barrages to terraform Solos, making the air breathable for humans, regardless of the cost to indigenous life.

Varan by now has discovered the Marshal's treachery but events make him an outlaw on Skybase. The Doctor makes contact and together they persuade Stubbs and Cotton, the most senior soldiers to the Marshal that much is wrong on Skybase. He then flees to Solos with Varan, and at the thaesium mine where Ky and Jo are hiding he encounters many Mutts, who are not as hostile as they first appeared. The Doctor passes the message box to Ky, and it opens to reveal ancient tablets and etchings which are written in the language of the Old Ones of the planet. Help in avoiding poisonous gas released by the Marshal is provided by a fugitive human scientist, Sondergaard, who lives in the caves and knows much about Solonian anthropology. Sondergaard explains he tried to inform Earth Control about the Marshal's evil, but he was prevented and forced to flee to the caves, where the radiation seems to have affected him. He interprets the contents of the box as a "lost Solos Book of Genesis", and the Doctor then calculates a Solonian year to be equivalent to two thousand human years, with natural changes in the population every five hundred years within the cycle. Investigating a more radioactive part of the caves, the Doctor thus deduces the Mutant phase is a natural part of the Solonian life-cycle.

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