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The Marshal is the main antagonist of "The Mutants", the 4th serial of the 9th season of the British sci-fi television series Doctor Who.
He was portrayed by Paul Whitsun-Jones.
Biography[]
The Marshal of Solos was an agent of the 30th Century Earth Empire who ruled over the planet Solos. The Marshal ruled from Skybase One, a space station in the planet's atmosphere, as the poisonous atmosphere of Solos made it impossible for humans to go outside without a gas mask. The Marshal was obsessed with colonizing Solos to make it habitable to humans, overseeing experiments by Professor Jaeger to alter Solos' atmosphere to be breathable by humans but not by the native Solonians, who the Marshal hated and kept segregated from their human overlords. Jaeger's experiments altered the planet's natural order to the point that the Solonians began prematurely mutating into the next stage in their evolutionary chain, insectoid beings which the humans termed "Mutts". The Marshal hated the Mutts, although he was not aware of their true origin, and began a campaign to wipe them out, ordering that all Solonians in the process of mutating should be shot on sight. He often personally hunted and killed Mutts for sport, with the reluctant assistance of his aides Stubbs and Cotton.
Towards the end of the Earth Empire's reign, the Marshal was told by the Earth administrator that Solos was about to be granted independence as its colonisation was no longer sustainable. The Marshal's requests for more time to colonize the planet to be more habitable to humans were rejected as this would require genocide of the natives. To avoid this, the Marshal convinced loyalist Varan to help him assassinate the administrator before he could make the announcement at an upcoming conference. Shortly before the assassination, the time traveller known as the Doctor and his companion Jo Grant were detained by Skybase security on suspicion of sabotage while carrying a message pod containing evidence of the true nature of the Mutts and the Marshal, paranoid that they were sent to investigate him, and ordered them taken away.
At the conference, Varan's son Vorn shot the administrator during his speech before he could make his announcement. The Marshal assumed control and ordered the arrest of Solonian independence leader Ky, who had been arguing with the administrator before he was shot, but he managed to escape with Jo as a hostage. To cover his tracks, the Marshal killed Vorn when he came to collect his reward and ordered Varan shot as a Mutt. Meanwhile, he put the Doctor and Jaeger to work trying to open the message pod, which led Jaeger to the realization that particle reversal could be used to terraform Solos into becoming more habitable to humans.
The Doctor was sent to help Stubbs capture Varan, but when they found him he revealed the truth about the administrator's assassination, prompting them to lie that he was dead when in reality he was still on Skybase. The Marshal then had the Doctor begin working with Jaeger on their plan to terraform Solos, revealing that the Marshal's plan was to detonate ionisation rockets in the atmosphere, which would both create a barrier against the ultraviolet rays that caused the poison mists and render the planet uninhabitable to Solonians. The Doctor objected to this plan and convinced Jaeger to experiment with particle reversal instead, only to use this as a pretext to escape with Varan and look for Ky and Jo. Angered, the Marshal overruled Jaeger's requests that he be allowed to do further research into particle reversal and ordered that he go ahead with their more genocidal original plan.
The Marshal managed to track down the Doctor and Varan, who by this point had met up with Ky, cornering them in a cave system. He sent Stubbs and Cotton to deal with them, but upon overhearing them greeting the Doctor on his radio he realized they had betrayed him and sealed off the cave before pumping gas in to kill them all. They were saved by Professor Sondergaard, a scientist working with the Solonians who had already saved Jo, who revealed the true cause of the mutations with help from the information in the Doctor's message pod. The Doctor and Sondergaard then went to Skybase to stop the launch of the missiles, while Varan separately led a group of Solonian insurgents to attack Skybase after taking Jo, Ky, Stubbs and Cotton as hostages. Meanwhile, the Marshal was informed that an official from Earth would soon be arriving to investigate his activities, forcing him to accelerate the launch of the missiles. He was interrupted by the arrival of Varan's insurgents and led his men in repelling the attack, accidentally tearing the hull open with his reckless firing and flushing Varan out into space.
The Marshal was then informed by Jaeger that due to his unreasonable timetable the rockets had not been checked properly and none of them had exploded in the atmosphere, instead hitting the planet's surface and beginning the process of rendering it uninhabitable to any life. The Doctor arrived at Skybase soon after and the Marshal, now believing him to be working for the investigator, ordered him to help Jaeger use particle reversal to undo the damage. While this was going on, Varan's hostages got free and attempted to contact the investigator to inform him of the Marshal's crimes, but he intervened and shot Stubbs dead before using the others as bargaining chips to force the Doctor to terraform the planet further, which was prevented by the arrival of the investigator.
During the investigator's hearing, the Marshal imprisoned Jo and the others in a thaesium chamber that would flood with radiation when the investigator's ship refuelled to force the Doctor to testify for him, but they managed to escape using the fuel probe. The Doctor then accused the Marshal and Jaeger of genocide and called Sondergaard to corroborate his story, but the hearing was interrupted by a Mutt which followed Sondergaard to Skybase and was killed by the Marshal. In the confusion all the captives escaped except Ky and Cotton, who the Marshal ordered thrown back in the thaesium chamber despite radiation being at a a fatal level. This backfired when prolonged exposure to the radiation caused Ky to evolve first into a Mutt, and then into an angel-like being, the next step in the evolutionary chain. Meanwhile, the Marshal ordered the Doctor to complete the terraforming process, boasting to the investigator that he would turn Solos into a "New Earth". However, the Doctor had sabotaged the machine, which exploded and killed Jaeger when activated. The fully-evolved Ky then burst in and used his newly-found powers to disintegrate the Marshal for his crimes against the Solonians.
