While the world burns under the Master’s rule, one woman walks the Earth, carrying the legend of a madman with a blue box — and the hope that stories can save the world.
Short Synopsis
After the Year That Never Was begins, Martha Jones is the last free human on a planet enslaved by the Master. Traveling the globe, she spreads tales of the Doctor — inspiring a revolution not with weapons, but with words. It’s Doctor Whomeets The Odyssey, if Odysseus wore Converse and the Sirens were Toclafane.
Extended Storyline
The year is wrong. The world is broken. The skies scream with laughter that isn’t human.
And the Doctor — the great, brilliant, impossible Doctor — is a frail old man locked in a cage.
Welcome to the Year That Never Was: 2008, as rewritten by Harold Saxon, a.k.a. The Master. Humanity is enslaved, cities burn, and the Toclafane — murderous metal spheres with the personalities of deranged children — patrol the skies. The Master rules from the Valiant, a flying fortress full of disco lighting, paranoia, and inappropriate dance music.
Down below, one woman walks alone.
Martha Jones, the Doctor’s steadfast companion, has a mission: travel the Earth, spread the word of the Doctor, and plant the seeds of hope that will one day topple the Master. Her only weapon is a story — and, fortunately, she’s got a lot of good ones.
That’s the framing device of The Story of Martha: as she journeys through shattered continents, avoiding Toclafane patrols and cults of despair, she meets pockets of survivors who ask her the same question — Who is the Doctor?
So Martha tells them. And through her, we get a collection of short adventures from before the Master’s reign: stories of alien worlds, monsters, and the Doctor’s brilliance and compassion. It’s a love letter to the character — and to Martha herself, who finally gets the epic she deserves.
Along the way, Martha encounters a world of broken faiths and new myths. There are humans who worship the Toclafane as gods, others who believe the Doctor is a vengeful spirit, and many who simply want to forget. But everywhere she goes, her words light sparks. She becomes the myth of the Doctor, the woman who walked the world and told stories that made people brave again.
Between these narrative campfires, we glimpse the darker reality: Martha narrowly escaping execution, bargaining with scavengers, stealing medicine for the dying, and wrestling with loneliness that would crush most people. Donna Noble might call her “a saint with good shoes.” The Doctor would just say, softly, “She’s brilliant.”
The smaller tales Martha tells include the Doctor rescuing a stranded alien queen on a desolate world, helping a dying civilization rebuild its sun, and talking down a warlord with nothing but tea and passive aggression. Each tale echoes what the Doctor means to her — hope, cleverness, and the courage to never give up.
Eventually, after months of hardship, Martha reaches London — the final piece of her journey. The Master’s followers capture her, but she’s ready. Her story has spread. When the Master demands to know what her grand plan was, she smiles. “I told people about the Doctor,” she says. “And they believed in him.”
It’s that faith — that shared story — that allows humanity to rise against its tormentor. And when the Doctor is restored, glowing with golden regeneration energy and righteous sass, it’s Martha’s long walk that made it possible.
When the year is undone and time resets, nobody remembers what she did. But Martha remembers. She says goodbye to the Doctor, choosing her own path at last — a hero not because of him, but because of her.
And somewhere in the universe, the Doctor tells someone about the woman who saved the world with nothing but her voice.