Kane
Name: Kane
Format: Television show
Time of Origin: Proammon, left the planet three thousand years before he encountered The Doctor on Svartos at an unspecified date in the future.
Appearances: “Dragonfire”
Doctors: Seventh Doctor
Companions: Melanie Bush, Ace and Sabalom Glitz
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An interesting detail to note about Kane is that, while an extremely long-lived being who talked about large-scale conquest, his ambitions extended no further than a desire for revenge for crimes that were committed against him centuries ago, making him a relatively small-minded adversary.
According to a recording that the Doctor discovered, Kane originally came from the planet Proammon, an ice planet populated by a human-like species who existed in cold temperatures. While Kane was capable of existing in temperatures that could be tolerated by humans, he had to return to his personal chambers when his body temperature rose beyond a certain level, direct exposure to any form of sunlight would apparently be fatal to him, and one touch from him could kill a human in seconds. A notorious criminal, along with his lover Xana, Kane was eventually captured by the Proammon authorities, with Xana committing suicide to escape prosecution (Kane reflected at one point that she had been killed trying to escape arrest, but it is unclear whether he or the recording The Doctor and his companions discovered was lying).
Having been exiled from Proammon for his crimes, Kane was sent to the planet Svartos, which had a permanently frozen dark side where he could survive in relative ‘comfort’. To ensure that he remained in prison, the power source of the ship that brought him to Svartos was relocated to a heat-generating android, the creature forming the basis of later legends that there was a dragon on Svartos guarding an ancient treasure (Really the creature’s power source). Over the centuries, Kane was able to use his immobilised ship to set himself as a trading post known as Iceworld, recruiting teams of mercenaries and ‘branding’ them with an ice-cold mark, using cryogenics to wipe the memories of all but his more skilled operatives to ensure their loyalty.
Kane
Kane
This status quo continued until the Seventh Doctor and Mel arrived on Svartos to satisfy The Doctor’s curiosity about the dragon, swiftly encountering their old ‘ally’ Sabalom Glitz and temporally-displaced waitress Ace. Using a map that Glitz had acquired in a card game, The Doctor was able to trace the location of the creature, unaware that Kane had ensured that Glitz would acquire the map so that he could do Kane’s work for him. Despite interference from Kane’s mercenaries, The Doctor, Glitz, Mel and Ace were eventually able to find the dragon, which revealed its true purpose by saving them from Kane’s mercenaries and providing them with a holographic recording detailing Kane’s history and its role in his imprisonment.
Realising that the ship’s star charts were out of date, The Doctor headed back to the TARDIS with Ace and Mel to analyse his own records, unaware that Kane had sent his mercenaries after the dragon while also driving the current visitors to Iceworld onto Glitz’s ship, subsequently destroying it to avoid having to deal with them after he achieved his goal. With the creature having been damaged by the mercenaries’ assault, The Doctor took the Dragonfire power crystal from its head, trading it with Kane for Ace’s safety.
However, as Kane prepared to depart for Proammon in the now-reactivated Iceworld, The Doctor challenged him to examine his now-updated star chats – the ship having been unable to do such a thing itself while it was deprived of power -, revealing what The Doctor had already discovered; Proammon’s sun had collapsed a thousand years after Kane was exiled, leaving him with no home planet and nobody to avenge himself against. Outraged at having been deprived of his vengeance, Kane lowered the ship’s shields and exposed himself to sunlight, melting into nothing with a defiant scream of rage, left with nothing to sustain himself now that his opportunity for revenge was gone.
