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circular_time) wrote2015-07-30 05:37 pm
More Terminus Thoughts: or, What’s so special about Nyssa (really)
More Terminus thoughts.
Nyssa’s heartbreaking “parting in good faith” scene with Tegan and Five tends to make us forget the rest of Terminus, which, flawed as it was in directing, FX and pacing, told one of the more controversial and gritty stories in the history of Who up to that time.
So I want to expand a bit in the earlier Terminus meta I wrote. Because I’ve gotten a PMs challenging me to show Nyssa isn’t just a bland and forgettable character, and dammit, HERE IS AN EXAMPLE.
General Nyssa-is-awesome stuff: Less said about the damsel-in-distress, Nyssa’s Very Bad Day nightmare leading up to it the better, but as soon as she is cured and no longer sick with fever, she snaps back into Nyssa-mode and…
- …spouts a passionate speech about how the treatment could work, but the radiation therapy is probably introducing new cancers, so patients need longterm care and follow-up, so…. SCIENCE. Olvir can barely drag her out of the recovery room, because she’s so busy telling him how to make Terminus into an effective hospital. Okay, yes, that’s kind of boring, in the way that being an adult and competent and professional and saving thousands of lives WITH SCIENCE AND COMPASSION can be boring.
- She then intervenes to keep the Doctor from being shot (with Olvir’s help) and immediately starts her “how to Make Terminus Work” speech on the big scary dude in armor she punched out earlier (!), demanding the Garm be freed from his slavery so that he can help.
- When she finds out the dudes in armor are prisoners of the system too, she examines the drug that the company is using to keep them alive and keep them in thrall, announces it’s a crude compound and she could probably improve it (oh, you cocky scientist), and starts giving them orders: “Then help.”
- Here’s the thing I’d forgotten… the dudes in armor say that if they go along with her plan, the Terminus Corporation will send soldiers to stop her, and she basically says “Terminus has such an awful reputation they won’t come.” But she clearly just doesn’t give a damn; an armywill not stop her from helping these people.
It takes about ten minutes for Nyssa to get out of that cell and win the entire station over to her plans. The Doctor just tags along quietly at her elbow as an escort to keep anyone from stopping her before she’s finished fast-talking. “What do you think? You’re the expert,” he says to her, and off she goes.
Which is sweet, and it almost makes up for the first three fourths of the story in which Nyssa is uncharacteristically helpless (although one could justify a lot of that by pointing to all the horrible scary things that happened to her while terribly ill but anyway).
The other, far more serious and important thing is that this episode is so clearly a commentary on the AIDS epidemic and the way AIDS patients were being treated at the time. I had to go look up the exact timing, because it’s been so long. I just remember the hysteria and fear.
Early History of AIDs | US Timeline of AIDs
So. Terminus was broadcast in February 1983, presumably written and filmed at the end of 1982.
For context:
- AIDs started in the 70s, but it didn’t reach public consciousness for a while. Then, around 1981, when the medical community started to recognize it and news media began to report it, it was called “the gay plague” with much hate-filled homophobic moralizing about gays and divine retribution. Even the goddamn Lancet, the premiere medical journal, called it “gay compromise syndrome.”
- 1982 was the year AIDS hysteria began. We didn’t know what it was. There wasn’t even a name for it yet; the acronym “Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome” was decided at a conference in July 1982. It was hard to identify, because its chief characteristic was that it made victims vulnerable to other diseases, so different sufferers would exhibit the symptoms of whatever else was getting through their weakened immune systems. And then they died. And then more people died; the death rate was snowballing.
- In early 1983, the cause of AIDs was unknown. Landlords were evicting tenants with AIDS. People were scared of catching AIDS from AIDS victims on public transportation, in schools, in the workplace. AIDS victims were treated as pariahs, like lepers; the widespread fear was that contact with them would transmit the virus. Their caregivers were likewise shunned. AIDS patients were suffering and wasting away and dying, and oftentimes their own relatives wouldn’t go near them for fear of catching it. The reviled queer community was trying to take care of the victims that society was scared of and wanted to quarantine or possibly send to some other planet.
- In mid-1983, not too long after Terminus aired, scientists published the first papers tentatively identifying the virus that might be causing AIDS. It took more research to be sure. Imagine a nearly 100% fatal plague for which you don’t even know what is CAUSING it. This was reality, when this episode was broadcast.
- In 1987, Princess Diana was notable as the first “high profile celebrity figure” to be photographed touching, hugging, or holding hands with AIDS patients. I remember those pictures; I remember being impressed and thinking she was brave to do it. This was a huge deal. Whatever else you can say about her, she was an important advocate the battle to fight prejudice against AIDS victims, helping to combat the social stigma and prove to the general public that one couldn’t catch the disease from non-sexual physical contact.
Now look back at Terminus in 1983 as a parable for AIDS.
- It was a big deal that chaste, angelic Nyssa caught the disease. She was a victim. It could happen to someone like her.
- It was a terrifying story because it dramatized the fear of AIDS that was then running rampant in the real world. Nowadays Olvir’s hysterical “THIS IS A LEPER SHIP! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” cliffhanger seems completely over-the-top, but back then he was voicing an irrational fear that was being broadcast far and wide by the media and discussed around water coolers, conference rooms and dinner tables.
- Nyssa was staying behind to become a caregiver to
AIDSLazars’ patients, at a time when the real-world fear was that one could catch the disease from patients. - So think about her exchange with Tegan: “She’ll die here,” says Tegan, Nyssa doesn’t say, “Don’t worry, I’ve been cured (I think), so hopefully I’m now immune to it.” She says, “Not easily; like you, I’m indestructible,” which is of course a preposterous lie if you take her words literally. In fact, she’s whistling in the dark, saying, “I know I might, but I’ll try not to die,” much like a soldier going off to battle and promising her loved ones that she’ll survive.
This episode did not address homophobia at all. Nyssa came down with an immaculate case of Lazars, so much so that 30 years later we’re still trying to figure out how the hell she caught it when her friends didn’t. There was no sex involved apart from her wearing sexy underthings. But it would’ve caused a huge outcry if there had even a hint of talking about gay people on a kids show.
For many children, this was the first TV episode we ever saw that introduced us by proxy to the thing that the adults around us were getting scared about. And the message was: ”(1) AIDSLazars victims are people just like us, and anyone can catch it (2) we shouldn’t be banishing them from the community to protect ourselves (3) we should be HELPING THEM.”
Nyssa, who was introduced to us as a fairy princess and aristocrat’s daughter, becomes an icon of compassion and an outspoken advocate for a diseased, underserved population whose suffering is being compounded by the prejudice, hysteria, erasure and abuse of the larger population. (Like Di would a few years later, in an extremely obscure example of life imitating art.)
Which, honestly, is a pretty powerful way for a classic Who companion to leave the show.
no subject
Also, I don't think Lasarti was suppose to be human? Maybe he was but his culture of humans dropped surnames and had different first names? And hence Neeka and Adric Jr. having the last name of Traken. I've also seen an headcanon of them (or at least Neeka) being the result of Tegan\Nyssa, which may make sense. (Naming the son after Adric but not the daughter after Tegan?)
Though it's possible that Neeka was the name of someone in Lasarti's family. I think Lasarti himself was propably a native species from the planet him and Nyssa went to live in.
But yes, Nyssa rox. So do Adric and Tegan. = Adryssegan or "Fivey Era Trio".
(And I'm saying that as someone who knows most DW stuff through reading transcripts and wiki pages. I have seen less than 1% of canon.)
Also saying that as one of the few people who don't like Rose Tyler much. (at least as of when I'm writing this)
But having a 16 years old "space princess" (well high-class lady from a magitek planet where evil does'nt exist at all and everyone is wearing a sort-of uniform that looks somewhat medieval\fae-esque.) who wants her father to come back and gets taken by some weird entity (the Watcher) to see the alien who possessed her father's body, trying to overtake the universe destroying her alien planet in the process. She befriends the other aliens on board, does some science stuff, and grows up a bit. In Terminus, she may be even younger than 19. Romana is in her second (at least) incarnation (and also quite old), and Steven Taylor was a fully-grown man (and a spaceship pilot from the future).
Huzzah more geeking!
...and poor Peri; her fate was incredibly confusing and messy. But that's another story for another time.
Team Five is "my" TARDIS team, agewise, so I supposed it's inevitable that I got hooked on them thanks to Big Finish. Although it's only as an adult that I can appreciate Turlough properly, making me prefer 5/Tegan/Turlough/Nyssa over Adric's crew. But I loved them back in the day — apart from the fighting— and maybe now that Matthew's joined the Big Finish crew, we'll get more good Adric stories. There have been a few already.
You know, I could have sworn that Nyssa's son said he was half-human in Prisoners of Fate, but now that I've skimmed through that audio again *sniffle*, I can't find it anywhere. Examining the TARDIS crew, he remarks that Nyssa and Turlough are "non Terrestrial," i.e. not human, and that Tegan is human, but "if I didn't know better, I'd say that you were the product of an ancient civilization...it appears that you are in possession of a selection of immunities which we have since lost." That "we" sounds like he's including himself in humanity, but it's not certain.
I definitely share your headcanon about Zarat being Lasarti's home planet. Again, nobody comes out and says it, but we do know this much: Nyssa calls her husband "Professor Lasarti" in Heroes of Sontar, and the "Winter" story of Circular Time, Nyssa and Lasarti are living with baby Neeka on some unnamed planet, where Lasarti works at a university. In Prisoners of Fate, we learn they had a house on Zarat, where they raised their son Adric. It could have been a different planet, and they could have moved around. It might not have been Lasarti's homeworld. But I'd like to think she went to his home planet, after not having had a home for so long. Which doesn't contradict the suggestion that Lasarti's human, since the Earth Alliance had settled a good chunk of the galaxy in that century, including the colony where Adric Traken was working in Prisoners of Fate.
Nyssa's age wasn't made clear on the TV show, but for what it's worth, Sarah Sutton was 18 in Keeper of Traken, 19 during season 19, and turned 21 during the filming of Terminus. I heard there was some intention in the TV show to suggest she'd aged a bit during the Season 19/20 gap— her hair, her assertiveness, and her interactions with the Doctor were "aged up" a bit. Big Finish has made this more explicity by introducing the idea that Nyssa ages so slowly that she looks like a 50-year-old human in her 70s. They really needed to add the idea that she ages slowly, since by this time she and the Doctor have had an absolute minimum of two years travelling together during the gap between Season 19/20, when Tegan was back on Earth, probably more like three years. Just as well, as she matures so much over the course of those adventures— having her first love affair and experiment with sex is just not something I can see Season 19 Nyssa doing.
The headcanon about Neeka being Tegan and Nyssa's daughter is a sweet idea. I think Nyssa would've done some genetic engineering no matter what to make her genes compatible with anyone else's, and we've got the technology now to combine two eggs, so in theory that wouldn't make the job any more difficult. Three problems: (a) Nyssa left the TARDIS fairly abruptly and that doesn't seem like the time for her to ask for Tegan's DNA (b) Tegan doesn't know Nyssa had children, and I can't imagine Nyssa doing it without permission, and (c) there are various bits of evidence constraining Neeka's age to 20 or thereabouts when older!Nyssa's timeline crosses Tegan's again, which means Neeka was born about 30 years after younger!Nyssa said goodbye to Tegan on Terminus. Plus we've got the scene of Nyssa with her husband Lasarti looking over baby Neeka, and I can't imagine Nyssa would marry Lasarti and then have someone else's baby. At the very least, she would've told Tegan when they got back together.
Which is not to say there can't be some AU where Neeka was Tegan's daughter. I am all for AUs. I've entertained an AU in which older!Nyssa doesn't travel with the Doctor for very long and takes Tegan back with her to Zarat so that they and Lasarti live happily ever after. And I've suggested that Neeka could be a nickname for "Jovanka," used by Adric when he was a toddler because he had trouble saying his sister's name. (Although when I came to write my Nyssa novel I instead decided that Neeka was Lasarti's grandmother's name, but anyway).
I can't say much about Rose Tyler since I'm your exact opposite: I grew up watching classic Who but have only seen dribs and drabs of NuWho, so most of my knowledge of Rose is secondhand, through fandom or TARDIS Wikia! :)
Romana was young for a Time Lady, but boy howdy has she grown up in a hurry. (And the mention of Romana makes me wistful— technically, there is a chance that Nyssa and Romana might meet, although I think it more probable that Romana left e-space before Nyssa arrived).
...sorry for babbling at such length. I'm really pleased to see some Whovians coming out of the woodwork on Dreamwidth. Thank you for your comments! :)
Re: Huzzah more geeking!
2: Yeah, back then the TARDIS went where it wanted to. So once a companion saw their home spacetime period (or something resembling it) they went back home.
About Leela, maybe marrying Andred was'nt really what she wanted. Reading the transcript of "The Invasion of Time", Leela\Andred strikes me as an arranged political marriage (I think gallifreyan-on-gallifreyan marriages are arranged\political anyway). Leela spends the serial with Rodan and Andred with the Doctor - you may say that Leela was a Rodan companion and Andred was the Doctor's companion in that serial, in a way. Destiny might also have played a part in Leela\Andred marriage.
(And in fact, I think Leela\Rodan would make more sense than Leela\Andred as a romantic relationship, so would Andred\Fourth Doctor. Panromantic Pansexual Gallifreyans for the win!)
3: I haven't listened or read the transcripts of those audios, either, I read such on the TARDIS Wiki, where it listed "Dodo Taylor" under children and "Sida" under grandchildren.
4: Thinking of Peri makes me somewhat feel... well, her friends\acquaintances back at college - as well as her family - must think that Peri had drowned on Lanzarote's waters, right? Wonder if she likes being married to Yrcanos, if she misses Earth... Steven was already a spaceship pilot, the Sevateem propably won't care much about Leela's disappearance and think of it as a sacrifice to the gods, Romana was already a Timelady and eventually returned, Ace can always drop by in the rare times she want to. There's also Mel who was Glitz's companion, but she also managed to go back to Earth thanks to Ace, and they even run a charity together! I actually want Twelve to go back and get all the pre-Time War companions he can find! Or something along those lines. Maybe then he will regenerate into Thirteen who will be the LAST DOCTOR (like it's suppose to), who will sacrifice himself in the LAST EPISODE (in 2020) while Susan (regenerated or not) becomes basically the Doctor's heir, perhaps even inheriting the title!
5: It's "my" TARDIS Team, sort-of. (I changed my DW tumblr's name to Adryssegan) As someone who is much more a reader of DW forums and transcripts than one that actually watches it can have a "my TARDIS team". Well, I live in Italy, and Netflix has pratically taken everything away, I found the episodes on Dailymotion so may try to marathon Classic Who there. I did try long ago, watched Part 1 of "An Unearthly Child" and it took me like, a week to have any want\mojo to watch Part 2. I might try to marathon it when I really want it more. And this may change my opinions of various characters a little.
6: That sounds like Lasarti was human but from his time, our (and Tegan's) western civilization is an ancient civilization. Which makes sense. He has no surname and a given name that may be from the Terminus\Zarat civilization or even another planet. 36th Century, right?
And now you may ask about Vicki, Steven, Zoe, and Sara, who are from the future but all have surnames (Pallister, Taylor, Heriot and Kingdom respectively.) as well as presentdayish first names.
Well I like to think humans were the only Gallifreyanoid species to identify themselves with a family name. When they became a spacefaring species, they dropped the last names. Maybe some of the families that stayed on Earth kept their surnames. (I'm of the idea that Vislor Turlough and Astrid Peth just have two given names. And if Jovanka can be a surname in the 20th century then so can Cwej or Yvon or whatever. I'm pretty sure Sardick was a surname made up by and for the founders of that colony.)
Sara and Bret were both born in Central City (the south of England) and their mother gave them their father's earthly surnames. (In my headcanon, David Kingdom and Sara have the same father but diff. mothers, while Sara and Bret have the same mother but diff. fathers.) Vicki was from a rebuilt London (she and her father were colonists on Dido) Steven is from an "hiveblock" (apartment?) on Earth (exact place and date not given, but he has a British name and accent, he thinks of the 22th century as a far-off memory and Sara K from 4000 found his technology primitive. Perhaps\propably he's from about the same time period and place as Vicki.) and became a spaceship pilot. Zoe's from 2079 and was originally a kid in an Earth city taken away to work as a space station. (She also has an english surname and accent like Steven) http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/tardis/images/3/37/Zoescity.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20120719161119 The city looks a bit like it could be future London or something. Can you make anything? I can make "city with all kind of weird shaped buildings including a Dalek shaped one, on a river, with trees on one side and rocky hills on the other", but nothing else. Maybe it is'nt even a British city but American or Australian and she got the accent on the Wheel. (OR she could'nt remember her earth city well due to living in the Wheel, and her city looks much different.) If Heriot is her family's surname then she's likely of British descent.
BUT still, all the Companions seem to be part of basically the same civilization. (except for Susan, Katarina, Leela, Romana, Adric, Nyssa, and Turlough.)
About everyone else is british-y.(Tegan herself is Australian of half-Serbian half-British descent.) We really need more people from other countries, far-flung colonies, and suchs. Someone not raised in Europe\America\Australia of the 14-to-30th century.
So in short, Lasarti's an human from a culture in which they stopped using surnames and who considers our civilization ancient. While the futuristic companions have not because their families haven't dropped surnames yet.
7: Yeah, and by then the only humans with surnames would be the ones still on Earth. The last family on Earth was the O'Brien, of which the "last human" in the NuWho series would be a part of.
He's called Professor Lasarti because Lasarti is the given name and he has no surname not living on Earth.
8: I think Adric was about 15 (at least biologically) when he stowe away, then Nyssa was a lil older than Adric and was 16 when both her and Adric were on the TARDIS for the first time. They were propably both still 16 at the time of Adric's death, with Nyssa being almost 17. After Adric's death, Nyssa and the Doctor travelled for a while, until she was about 19, being almost 20 when she ends up on Terminus. 30 years later, she's already turned 70 when she starts travelling back with the Doctor, Tegan, and Turlough, being 73 by the time the old Nyssa stories end.
Turlough (and Astrid Peth) are both quite older, though. Turlough is played by a 23 year old actor but is much older than that chronologically. Astrid was a guest star cameo by a 39 years old Kylie Minogue, and might have been chronologically even slightly older than Turlough was.
9: Right. There are no other Trakenites anymore. Adric's an Alzarian, the Doctor a Gallifreyan, Turlough a Trionite, Tegan and the Terminus crewmen are human. Many of the people Nyssa meets are either humans or some other Gallifreyanoid species.
10: I think it was a WMG I found on TVtropes. Or somewhere else. I think it said that Nyssa took Tegan's DNA somewhere when they were travelling, and spliced Tegan's genetics with hers. Nyssa only met Tegan again when Nyssa's children were already teenagers, and older!Tegan thinks her travels with the Doctor were a dream. (well Fix with Sontarans was a shared dream of the Doctor and Tegan.) And the WMG also said Lasarti and Adric Traken were both holograms.
11: Yes, it's possible that with some alien cultures having two-part given names, and with the Earth Humans being the only Gallifreyanoids to use actual surnames, Nyssa decided to give her daughter the full name "Tegan Jovanka Traken" or something like that. (also Jovanka is more a given name than a surname) And "Tegan Jovanka" being too long of a given name and it became Neeka. But, I also like the idea she was named by Lasarti and with her being the first child, she was named a name of Lasarti's culture, which people in his family had. Or it could be a Trakenite name and after Nyssa's mom or grandmother or whoever. (Kassia was the stepmother, right?) Though I am also of the idea that Nyssa might not have had a mother and was'nt born in the natural way.
Nyssa never had a mother and was'nt born the "normal" way
Nyssa has a father and a stepmother and we presume her biological mother died, but what if that was not the case? Maybe Nyssa never had a mother, and Tremas was always a single dad. He had not met Kassia yet at the time, but he had been appointed as Consul of Traken and he needed an heir(ess) to continue the line but did not have romantic interest to anyone. So he went to a Keeper statue in a ceremony-type thing, praying for a child. Despite the appearances, Traken is actually a quite advanced civilization with biotech like Gallifrey's. So, Tremas inserted some of his "biodata" as well as other stuff (fruits, flowers, biotech jewels...) in the Keeper's "mouth" or in some semi-equivalent of the "Looms". The biodata stuff fermented, and one Trakenite day later, it had formed into a baby (or equivalent of some months to 1 years old...) who was then known as Nyssa. Yes. Trakenite elité often uses these biodata loom things to secure heirs. Considering the Fifth Doctor was the first person to become the Keeper of Traken, they may even be evolutionary descendants of the Looms. Propably the lower-class Trakenites (those not related to Keepers and Consuls) are the only ones to have kids the normal way.
Which I think for a world with no evil it may make sense.
12: I'm not your exact opposite, b\c I never even watched NuWho either, except for the very first two episodes of Season 1.
13: Romana was fresh-out of the Time Lord Academy, and so was Susan. They were chronologically much older than both Turlough and Astrid!
But yes, they could've meet. Maybe during the time period that the Doctor and Nyssa are travelling by themselves, they meet a Romana that's already returned to Gallifrey and became President. So they don't necessarily have to return to E-Space! Or maybe it's the Nyssa that's already left, that finds a renegade regeneration of Romana with her own TARDIS, and they time-travel together. Or maybe the future Romana ends up on Traken with an younger (12-14 y.o.) Nyssa, and they have adventures there. Or maybe it's the Tamm Romana at the academy, fiddling with time or whatever, and she ends up bumping into a post-Terminus Nyssa who ended up on Gallifrey by chance and Romana has to get her back, or maybe the academy Tamm Romana meets post-Terminus Nyssa on the spaceship or the planets where she raises her children. Or maybe both Nyssa and Romana are younger than their time as Companion, an academy!Tamm Romana and a little Nyssa still living on Traken, meeting by chance, or maybe an officialish meeting, or Romana going on a vacation or trip on Traken.... plenty of ways they could met! ;D
Re: Huzzah more geeking!
On the other hand, I'm afraid Leela really did fall in love, rushed and contrived as it was. The transcript doesn't really get across Louise Jameson's acting. When she reaches back and takes his hand, it reminds me of Eowyn and Faramir, except that Leela's the more assertive of the two. Much as I would have enjoyed Rodan/Leela, Andred really was important to her, as becomes clear in the Gallfirey spinoff series. Leela's determined to avenge his death, although in later years she's too busy being Romana's bodyguard. Mind you, there's some great shippy moments between President Romana and Leela... Spirit is amazing. :)
As far as I can tell, that WMG about Tegan and Nyssa and Lasarti and Adric Traken is contradicted by the actual audios. Rather disrespectfully, too! Some of the scenes with Lasarti and Adric Traken are heartbreaking and important; why would one want to dismiss them as holograms?
I'm also not really comfortable with contradicting the widely-held convention that's been around since the 80s, that Nyssa was Sarah Sutton's age when she started. I believe i've seen that in actual books of the period? I will have to keep an eye out for it; all my Doctor Who sourcebooks are pre-internet.
At the risk of sounding like a stalker fan, I've been hooked on Nyssa since I was 10 and Sarah Sutton was 19. In the past few years since I got hooked on Big Finish, I've listened or watched every single thing she's ever performed in that's still available, including non-Doctor-Who like Jarillion Mercy and Dark Shadows. I've posted long and short-form reviews of every one of her Nyssa audios as part of #trakenfest, which I threw on Tumblr last year to celebrate the character's final adventure. I have literally written the book, or at least a book, on her character, with about ten pages of footnotes detailing her biography from existing canonical references scattered across audios and TV. Last year, I made a 5000 mile journey to England to my very first Doctor Who convention (in my forties) to meet Sarah Sutton and give her a copy of the book. She's been kind enough to reply to a couple fan letters, although she is an immensely private person.
Anyway, that's why I'm a little... pedantic when it comes to the character of Nyssa. I'm trying to keep reminding myself that everyone's headcanon is equally valid, but oh, it's hard for me not to feel possessive about the character I've been writing and researching and discussing for years. But I also don't want to argue with a fellow fan. ;) We both love her, even if we see her differently.
The reason I say I want Nyssa and Romana to meet is because Nyssa remained behind in e-space. I don't want to spoil the epic e-space arc that concluded last March and left a die-hard trio of Nyssa fans drinking and watching the sunset in her honor ;). but alas, the chances are quite slim. It would be almost impossible for Romana to escape after that story concluded. I wish Romana could have met Nyssa before she died, and told the Doctor what happened to her. Let's just say that she was given nothing less than a heroic ride into the sunset in keeping with the rest of her tragic but noble-hearted life.
Nyssa may well have saved as many lives as the Master destroyed in Logopolis. Not least, of course, the Doctor's.
I don't get into the details of naming conventions too much; current, 21st-century Earth has all kinds of naming customs including parts of the world where only one name or many more are common, and it's absolutely par for the course in Doctor Who and other SF to have single names or multiple names or alien names or human-sounding names all mixed together. In a franchise that's been going on as long as DW has, it's inevitable.
Re: Huzzah more geeking!
2: Maybe it's a threesomey relationship or something like that. Leela grew up in a culture that may easily be polyromantic. (And even a savage would fall in love with someone she just met. Leela was'nt the brightest in the block, after all.)
3: It was propably someone like me, a Troper turned Classic Whovian who had never seen the audios or even the actual TV show.
4: I've read on a TARDIS Wikia answer page about who the youngest companion was, that Matthew Waterhouse played Adric as being 15, and when Adric and Nyssa were both companions (as in, while filming Keeper and Logopolis) Matthew and Sarah played them as being 16. Adric would have turned 16 anywhere from Warrior's Gate and Castrovalva (possibly earlier?). Adric is also slightly younger than Nyssa (biologically AND chronologically) but not by much. Less than 6 months and propably even less than a month. Or at least that's what I remember. Something like that. Adric is the youngest companion so he could'nt have been 17 or older since some companions are 16.
AND remind you we're talking about a show that started with a 28 years old played by a 40 years old, a 23 years old played by a 35 years old, and a Time Lady-passing-for 15 played by a 23 years old, as companions.
In the new series it started with a 19 years old played by a 23 years old as a companion, too.
5: Oh, I've been changing fave companions often. Polly&Ben, Dodo, Zoe, Nyssa, Peri, Charley, Vicki, Ace, Steven&HiFi, Ian&Babs... safe to say almost everyone has been a fave companion of mine at one point or another.
6: Maybe someday you will publish the book officially? ;) Or will that remain a fanfiction?
7: Wait, your name is "Ellen"? Can we be on first-name basis?
Also, Sarah seems to write like I think Nyssa would. Same for the other companion actresses who autographed your stuff, which makes me think, perhaps quite a few of the companions have about the personalities of their actors just like the Doctors.
8: I'll propably never met Sarah Sutton (or you, or any Companion\Doctor actor) in real life, as I live in Italy. But nothing says I could'nt move to England or even become a DW actress. Maybe, if my Whovianism persists enough...
But yes, you look like you could be a slightly shorter, larger, younger sister of Sarah's\Nyssa's. :) Even if you two act nothing alike.
9: My approach to most DW characters would be much different than normal since I got there from TVtropes.
10: Nyssa could return to N-Space, through. Heck, she could appear in the New Series, if Capaldi and Moffat both like her enough.
So yeah, Nyssa and Romana could met in N-Space, E-Space, Gallifrey, Traken, Earth, a TARDIS, a spaceship, a Multi-Doctor story, a "let's meet the Pre-timewar companions" story arc, an audio, a novel, a comic, a Classic Who remake, a 60th anniversary story, whatever. With Time Travel, anything is possible!
And even if Nyssa died in E-Space according to Big Finish, nothing says she cannot still be in N-Space in the New Series. Heck, it's quite possible that the Doctor will bump up into Romana and Nyssa together!
11: Nyssa saves a lot of lives, but well, she's a Trakenite, on her planet everyone is good and all lives are saved. (I also think she did'nt have a biological mother and Tremas made her through an asexual process in which he put biodatas and stuff into the Keeper so he could have an heir. AKA Nyssa's "mom" is a Keeper Statue and only the low class of Traken reproduces sexually. I put that on the Classic WHo WMG page, too.)
12: Yeah, not only artists only using one name, but a lot of countries that never used actual surnames, and others who only use patronymics. In the future, Earth colonized a lot of planets and stuff. So I bet most humans in the 41-to-51 centuries don't actually use English but a sort-of "space language", which the Terminus spaceship would use, while the families left on Earth are actually speaking English, if a "futuristic" one. (Which is what Vicki, Steven, and Sara K would have had as a first language.)
So yeah, Star Wars and Star Trek both have many species with many different name customs.
Also Vanilla and Fang from Final Fantasy, their surname (Oerba) is actually their hometown's name. Their middle names are clan names.
Heck, for all we know, aliens with completely different customs to ours will invade tomorrow, causing a war that will end in Earth becoming an alien colony, and many humans will adopt the alien's customs, and nobody would have an Anglophone name or accent by the time they film the Classic Who 100th Anniversary in 2063!