NOTES ON NOBODY’S CHILDREN
WARNING: This page contains substantial SPOILERS for Nobody’s Children.
NOTES ON THE INSTITUTE
Mr Szmyt and Ms Haddad’s unnamed Institute is new for this novella – although so deeply and obviously derivative that to use the word ‘new’ in this context will probably earn me warning points on my artistic licence.
They are, quite clearly, the Men in Black, though their ethos and methods have evolved over the six centuries separating Benny’s time from our own. The same’s true of their dress sense, which has become more archaic as the universe around them hurtles into the future. If shadowy governmental agencies devoted to silencing the truth about UFOs really existed, then they’d obviously be a deeply conservative bunch (not that this will come as news either, to anybody who’s ever watched The X-Files).
The Institute ties in with Earth’s politics in Benny’s time, which are explored more thoroughly in Joe Lidster’s audio drama The Final Amendment. Joe’s Earth President, Fiona Dickens, gets a namecheck in ‘Nursery Politics’, while the Draconian characters tut repeatedly about how xenophobic Earth’s becoming. Although I see the Institute as independent from the Presidency (in one of those ‘plausible deniability’ arrangements which viewers of The X-Files will again find hauntingly familiar), it clearly shares Dickens’ overall aims.
Incidentally, ‘Szmyt’ is Polish for ‘Smith’, whereas ‘Haddad’ by contrast is Turkish for ‘Smith’. On p261, Ms Haddad uses a Ferreira Protein Disperser. ‘Ferreira’, as you may have guessed, is Portuguese for ‘Smith’. I left myself with quite a few names still to choose from if I ever wrote another story featuring Institute agents.
As I say, the Institute has never appeared previously. Nonetheless, if you want to believe – as Isaac hints – that it’s the distant successor organisation of some other alien-hunting group in the wider Doctor Who continuity, then you’re free to do so. There’s no shortage of candidates, and it’s not as if anyone’s going to sue me for copyright infringement
(Touch wood.)
- Notes on Nobody’s Children.
- Back to Notes on the Draconians.
- Forward to Notes on Project Narcissus.
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