Millie Gibson as Ruby Sunday
Name:
Ruby Sunday
Species:
Human
Place of Origin:
First Mentioned:
First Day of the Doctor
First Seen In:
Other Appearances:
The Church on Ruby Road novelisation
Space Babies
The Devil’s Chord
Boom
73 Yards
Dot and Bubble
Rogue
The Legend of Ruby Sunday
Empire of Death
Joy to the World
Ruby Red
Caged
Lucky Day
Main Actor:
Millie Gibson
Abandoned as a baby by her mother, Ruby Sunday was soon adopted by Carla and raised alongside other children she fostered, developing a protective personality and changing the lives of Carla and Cherry — her grandmother — for the better. Upon her nineteenth birthday, she and the Fifteenth Doctor defeated the Goblin King and his goblins, preventing them from abducting and eating any more babies. She then joined the Fifteenth Doctor in the TARDIS, becoming his companion.
EARLY LIFE
Ruby was born approximately at 2PM on Christmas Eve 2004. Within the next few hours, her mother travelled to the church on Ruby Road, abandoning her outside the snowy building. The Fifteenth Doctor then arrived in his TARDIS, having travelled back from exactly nineteen years in the future to negate a cracked timeline where the Goblins stole Ruby before Carla could find her, and ate her. The Fifteenth Doctor was successful, and left baby Ruby to be found by Carla, restoring the original timeline. Carla then named baby Ruby after the road the church was located on. (The Church on Ruby Road)
MEETING THE FIFTEENTH DOCTOR
In 2023, her foster mother got a new foster baby. While her foster mother was out and she was left to look after her Some goblins capture the baby. Ruby climbs out of a window and stands on the roof of her house. She grabs a ladder floating in midair, as it drifts away from the house. The Doctor bounds over rooftops and chats to her. Then, he leaps and grabs the ladder, joining her. (The Church on Ruby Road)
EARLY TRAVELS
Her first trip in the TARDIS was 150 million years in the past of Earth, where she was worried about the Butterfly effect. This did briefly effect her, before The Doctor undid the effect and switched on the Butterfly compensation switch. The Doctor then asked her for a set of numbers, which he used as coordinates to travel to 21506. Here they discovered a space station piloted by babies. She told the babies a story whilst The Doctor investigated. She learnt from Jocelyn Sancerre that the babies where abandoned on space station, because there was a funding cut, but by law they couldn’t turn off the parthenogenesis machine, which disturbed her as the future wasn’t much different to her own. Trying to work out more about the Bogeyman, she was horrified that her story inspired one of the babies, Eric to be brave and try and stop the monster. She went to stop Jocelyn from evacuating the Bogeyman from the ship, removing The Doctor’s sonic screwdriver from the controls. (Space Babies)
Arriving atop the Jason Orange Plaza in Mancopolis 2424, The Doctor and Ruby dodged being run over by a tram, only to be arrested by the Care Force for being “tram raiders”. A weather orb, noticing they weren’t smiling, began raining on them. After stopping the orb, the mayor of the city, Mary Mulberry, communicated to them via the windows of a tower which also functioned as screens, believing them to be auditors sent by the Galactic Central Exchange; she ordered Zhi, one of the Care Force, to bring them to her, and, on the journey to the Mancopolis City Hall, she explained to them how Mayor Mulberry saved the city and its population after the 2399 Event.
Entering the Mayor’s office, the Mayor vocalised her belief that they had been a deliberate distraction to enable the Exchange to sneak an assault ship into the city, which she promptly had destroyed. She offered a negotiation, but, after realising they weren’t non-humans since they weren’t going shift into another form, she threatened to dismember one of them. As they tried to escape through a lift, she had the duo teleported to a dark space filled with “massive people-eating silkworms”. (Mancopolis)
The Doctor and Ruby travelled to Wonder Central, where they introduced themselves to an individual outside a shop and the portal to the Deep Space Zone. If the individual travelled to the zone, The Doctor and Ruby would be waiting, ready to help the individual search for stickers.
One such sticker depicted Ruby in front of the TARDIS, captioned “Time Will Tell”. (Wonder Chase)
Ruby and the Doctor followed a noise through the Time Vortex, leading them to Dick Turpin’s execution in 1739. As Dick was attempting to escape, Ruby was mistaken for a co-conspirator by local guards but was freed after The Doctor used psychic paper to convince them she was undercover royalty. (Untitled)
Following a distress signal to Lake Peipus in 1242, Ruby and the Doctor met Renevere Rentara and decided to help her avoid being forced to join the imminent battle by her sisters as per their family tradition. As they tried to help the siblings understand, they discovered an enemy of the Rentara, the Genetrix, was also on Earth and Ruby nearly fell victim to one of its kind controlling parasites until Ren intervened. As the parasite used its hosts to pursue them onto the frozen lake Ruby was pulled by it beneath the ice but broke free and was saved by The Doctor sinking the TARDIS so she could breath with its air bubble. After he swam down to use the ship against the Genetrix, she managed to swim to safety of the surface and was reunited with him after he defeated the parasite. (Ruby Red)
Ruby asked The Doctor to take her to see The Beatles record their first album, as she had grown up listening to them due to one of her mother’s girlfriends. She was disheartened to discover that the Beatles were making bad music, and learnt that all music was bad listening to Cilla Black and an orchestra record. She helped The Doctor investigate by interviewing John Lennon. The Doctor asked her to play one of her songs to give music to the world but this attracted the attention of Maestro. Ruby didn’t believe their power, but was proved this when The Doctor showed her a ruined 2024. She was snatched by Maestro, who was hopping to take her music for their own consumption, however they weren’t able to as the Carol of the Bells rang stopping this. Maestro sensed an old power of the Oldest One in her. Ruby then helped The Doctor in the music battle against them, but was trapped inside a cello. After Maestro was banished with the help of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Ruby joined The Doctor in singing and dancing with the locals. (The Devil’s Chord)
Hearing The Doctor singing The Skye Boat Song, she left the TARDIS to find him only to discover him having stepped on a landmine. He asked her to find something heavy to help him balance on the landmine better and trick its sensors. After being slightly distracted at this new planet, she found what she thought was an urn. They discovered that it contained the remains of John Francis Vater. They listen to his AI hologram, before his daughter, Splice Alison Vater came wanting to see where her father was. Ruby physically tried to stop her getting to close to The Doctor due to the danger, pulling her to the ground. When an ambulance came to assess the situation, sensing combat she took Mundy Flynn’s gun and started firing it indiscriminately. Mundy later asked her to shoot her on a low setting, but was shot fatally by Canterbury James Olliphant who miss-assessed the situation. The ambulance went to treat her, but discovering that Ruby wasn’t ordained stopped treatment. Olliphant tried to overwrite the systems to allow her to be treated. She was eventually treated when the AI of Vater stopped the war, and forced the Ambulance to treat her. (Boom)
The Doctor landed the TARDIS on the South Wales coast, and was delighted that he was in Wales. He started to tell Ruby that he loved the Welsh but started to warn her about Roger ap Gwilliam, before realising it was a spoiler for her immediate future. Not paying attention he nearly walked into a fairy circle but Ruby stopped him. He then told her to not interfere with it as to be respectful. (73 Yards)
She helped The Doctor investigate the man-traps in Finetime. She was able to get through to Lindy Pepper-Bean, and understanding social media more than The Doctor, knew how to talk to Lindy. She managed to persuade her to turn off the system briefly to show the danger she was in. (Dot and Bubble)
The Doctor and Ruby attended a party organised by the Duchess of Pemberton. He gave her a pair of psychic earrings to help her be proficient at the dances performed at the ball. She attracted the attention of the Duchess due to her manor. After initially finding Barton attractive, she pushed of his advances finding them rude and off-putting. Ruby followed him and Emily Beckett watching their conversation, before accidentally attracting their attention. She consoled Emily after Barton telling her that there was more to life than getting married. She helped in The Doctor’s and Rogue’s investigations. Emily tried to cosplay as her, but Ruby fought her off with dancing, agility, and books in the library. Ruby then played along with the farce the Chuldur family was doing, but this lead to The Doctor thinking she was dead. After she was caught in his trap for the Chuldur, she convinced The Doctor that she was still her which stopped him from activating the trap. She was rescued from the trap by Rogue, after seeing The Doctor kiss Rogue. She then asked The Doctor if he would be able to find Rogue in the dimension he was in. (Rogue)
Arriving in Copenhagen, The Doctor and Ruby were caught up in Snedronningen attacking Hans Christian Andersen, with Ruby being captured by her after jumping in her way to protect Hans’ child. Snedronningen took Ruby back to her realm to be one of her creatures, giving her wings to become a fairy. Ruby was horrified when Snedronningen showed her The Doctor seemingly being killed by tin soldiers after following her to Snedronningen‘s realm. (The Hans of Fear)
FINDING HER BIOLOGICAL MOTHER
She went with The Doctor to UNIT HQ, City of London to find more information about a woman they had seen through their travels. After Kate Stewart and Morris Gibbons told them about Susan Triad, she wondered if she might be Susan Foreman. She went with Rose Noble to collect a video tape of a CCTV footage from Ruby Road. Using UNIT’s time window they observed the events around Ruby’s mother to see if there was between connection to Susan and her mother. They weren’t able to see her mother’s face due to a glitch, but saw a strange cloud surround Colonel Winston Chidozie. She remained in UNIT when The Doctor went to confront Susan, but was told by The Doctor to return to the Time Window to protect her from the Manifestation of Sutekh. (The Legend of Ruby Sunday)
She kept watching the window projection until The Doctor and Mel returned. The Doctor asked her to remember the TARDIS to help the Remembered TARDIS solidify. She then escaped with Mel and the Doctor in the Remembered TARDIS, helping them to stabilise it. She then asked about Sutekh and the Doctor’s previous encounter. The Time Window then showed her memories of an undone timeline upon hearing that the perception field was 73 yards, including the interview between Amol Rajan and Roger ap Gwilliam. This helped The Doctor realise that they could use his DNA programme to find Ruby’s mother. She had the data with it on the screen from the remembered TARDIS, when Sutekh brought them back to UNIT HQ. She tricked him by smashing the screen stopping him from learning the identity of one of the people he couldn’t kill. UNIT was able to find out that Ruby’s mother was Louise Miller, and the Doctor helped her meet her. She started to form a bond with her and UNIT gave her the information on her father. The Doctor left her behind so that she could learn more, promising to return. (Empire of Death)
POST TARDIS TRAVELS
Ruby struggled after leaving The Doctor to adjust to normal life and kept in contact with UNIT. She eventually felt that she had some form of Post-traumatic stress from fighting gods. She learnt that Conrad Clark was looking for her as part of his podcast series and decided to allow him to interview her. After several dates, she started to trust Conrad and become relieved of her stress. Upon meeting his friends, she started to become worried when signs of a Shreek attack occurred. Eventually calling in UNIT, she learnt that Conrad was gaslighting her and using her to try and expose UNIT, as he was a conspiracy theorist. Her safety was threatened, with UNIT taking her family to a safehouse she was summoned to UNIT HQ tower. Shortly after it went into lockdown, and she learnt that Conrad has managed to use a mole inside UNIT to gain access. Watching Conrad still believe his lies and Kate Stewart set the Shreek loose on him, she eventually used a taser given to her by Shirley Anne Bingham to briefly incapacitate the creature. After the tension was eased, she confided with Kate that she needed to be somewhere new to recuperate. (Lucky Day)
LEGACY
After their first adventure together, the Fifteenth Doctor mentioned Ruby in his diary, writing about his first adventures. (First Day of the Doctor) The Doctor, early on, reflected on all the new things in his life, including his “new friends”. (Heroes of Time)
PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE
PERSONALITY
Ruby was protective of the children Carla fostered, acting as a supportive sibling figure. She instinctually sought to protect Lulubelle after the goblins kidnapped her, even when faced with precarious and life-threatening obstacles. She was also comfortable with her abandonment, embracing the term “foundling” upon Davina McCall’s usage of the term. However, she did seek out her biological mother, if only to understand the truth behind it all. However, when Davina’s search for Ruby’s family was in vain, Ruby expressed disappointment in having no other relatives. (The Church on Ruby Road)