Well, after a delay of mere months, I'm ready with the long-
promised account of what *really* happened after the final
departure of Lady Amanda from the Third Pro-Fun Troll Hoedown, and
just how the Fifth Doctor's timeline ever got into such a state
that he ended up spending a significant slice of his life under the
amnesiac alias of Albert Campion!

Alas, it has been a while since the Hoedown. It is just possible
that the convolutions of the Campions' involvement in the story,
the Genesis of the Spamites, and the meddlings of Trader Grey and
Carrie in both, may be either unfamilar to the reader or have
passed by now into merciful oblivion. Therefore you may wish to
read this piece in its full context, which will involve you in the
happy project of re-reading the Hoedown (aka _Goodnight,
Sweetheart_) in whole or in part. Go on, you know you want to! It
presently lives at:

http://narm00.tripod.com/h3.html

where Imran Inayat is our generous host.

Alternatively, you may wish only for local context, in which case
this piece belongs in the thirty-first and final chapter of the
Hoedown. Episodes 1 and 2 of this posting are largely identical to
the corresponding sections of text therein. However, from the
point marked in the original by the following Public Service
Announcement:

>[Elsewhere, [POTENTIAL HOEDOWN SPOILER DELETED]'s posthumous
>paradox is being heroically thwarted by the Fifth and Eighth
>Doctors, Amanda, Trader Grey, and Carrie. Oh, yes it is! See the
>upcoming spinoff thread titled 'Time and the Campions' for the
>world-shaking, mind-shattering TRUTH!!!!! You'll be SHOCKED!!
>You'll be ROCKED!!! You'll be KISSING IN THE BACK ROW AND PAYING
>NO DISCERNABLE ATTENTION -- hey, that can't be
>right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

-- you may feel it right to hold onto your headgear... ;-)

Finally, you may just want to read the %$@£er already! For your
use in such an eventuality, a brief recap of relevant events
follows the succeeding spoiler space. Thanks are again due to Imran
for double-checking the accuracy of this outline: any mistakes
remaining, however, are mine and mine alone. Here goes, then:

S
P
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S
P
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F
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_
G
O
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N
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H
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,

S
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_

*WHAT HAS GONE BEFORE*

Eloise the Pro-Fun Troll has hosted the third of her legendary
Hoedowns, upon which a whole bunch of adwc-ers have converged with
no intention of confronting anything more sinister than Author
Gordon Dempster's birthday party. This is in blatant disregard of
the tradition by which the Hoedown crowd must inevitably save the
Universe from forces of unspeakable darkness and cosmic oy before
they get to roll home.

Such presumption soon receives its just reward, when the Hoedown is
infiltrated by a large and dopey device whose most obvious effect
is to zap unwary bystanders and drag things out of their
unconscious minds to afflict reality in general. Suffice it for
present purposes to say that the SKoLD (Some Kind of Large Device)
turns out to be infinitely more sinister than it appears, and to
play a central part in a plot by various and mutually double-
crossing forces of wickedness, vengefulness, perversity, annoyance,
and ultimate infinitely accurst primordial chaos. So no surprises
there, then!

Just as things really get rolling, the Grey Steward (my Author
Avatar, aka the People's Champion and the Man of Lead) turns up
with an urgent message for the Doctor. This message comes from
Carrie, an Artificial Intelligence from the mysterious City of
Dreams, who was revealed as Gray's Muse at the last Adrics
ceremony. Carrie has been investigating the origin of Evil Spam
itself, which she and Gray have narrowed down to the 1940s. They
have reason to believe that the Doctor may himself be involved in
that unholy genesis, though in what manner is anyone's guess.

Many and complicated adventures ensue, and the stakes rapidly reach
the point where it is debatable at best whether anyone gives a
flying squirrel about Spammy origins. Of these weighty matters I
here say nowt. However, matters are further complicated by the
result when the Steward finally delivers his message:

>"Begone!" she stormed, "beyond the raging tide!"

to the Fifth Doctor. The SKoLD zaps the Time Lord, and conjures
from his subconscious a petite redheaded beauty in mechanic's
overalls. This vision identifies herself as the Lady Amanda
Campion, and the Fifth Doctor as her husband Albert (the
adventurous and heroically irritating protagonist of numerous old-
school detective yarns by the late great Margery Allingham, played
in a semi-classic British TV series by Peter Davison). Even more
worryingly, Fifth agrees with her, and believes himself to be the
victim of traumatic amnesia through receiving one coshing too many.
It appears that 'Campion' has some recent history of such. It is
also evident that he and Amanda really do know each other exceeding
well, and are in fact devastatingly in love. Much confusion and
angst surrounds this apparently inexplicable and gratuitous
addition to the Hoedowners' problems.

As the main plotline gets deadlier and more intense, the whole
Campion question is repeatedly shoved aside in favour of more
urgent issues. One major obstacle is resolved by the now half-mad
Steward's sacrificing himself in a mystic ritual. Shortly after
Carrie's return from the 1940s, however, she is able to finagle the
magics involved, and sort-of resurrect him from his sort-of death.
He is reborn as the more urbane and mercantile Trader Grey, under
circumstances which also lead to Carrie's incarnation as a physical
lady.

The Campion-Doctor recognises her as 'Carrie Pariticek', a supposed
American Fifth Columnist who appeared to be one of his prime
antagonists in his attempt to foil a plot somehow involving Nazi
victory through unspecifiedly evil luncheon meat. It was during
this very adventure that he believes he received the concussion
that deprived him of his full memory. Carrie, however, thought
*he* (as the Doctor) was the one who was leading *her* the dance
for reasons unspecified, and she has no better clue about the true
nature of the Spamplot than he. The message that triggered his
reversion was simply an old private joke or shibboleth between the
two Campions, obtained from a future Amanda under colour of helping
find her missing husband. Carrie had expected it to elicit an
explanation, not a total personality rewrite!

Although it is becoming increasingly clear, even to the Campions,
that 'Albert' is a somewhat spurious persona with a number of
completely self-confected memories, it is anyone's guess how he got
into that state, or what the hell the Genesis of the Spamites was
actually about.

However, there are rather more pressing questions -- such as the
survival of Eloise's TARDIS Sweetheart, the Universe in general,
and so forth -- and so, once more, all and sundry are forced to
concentrate their full attentions on the increasingly hair-raising
main plot. Shit accordingly happens, some of it entailing as a
side-issue the historical corroboration of what we've already heard
from Carrie and the Campions.

As a more urgent matter, it becomes apparent that Nyarlathotep --
the Crawling Chaos, the messenger and soul of Cthulhu and all his
fellow-nasties out of that lad's Mythos -- is directly or indirectly
responsible for much of the aforesaid shit happening, and is liable
any moment now to take the opportunity to break through and devour
our reality. He manifests in his God-scaring aspect as Typhon the
Destroyer; but is harassed, bashed, and pulled a major fast one upon
by the Hoedowners. This leads to his prophesied destruction by means
of zaqqum-fruit (aka death-apples, something which is also sort-of
Trader Grey's fault in this context; don't ask!). And, very shortly
afterwards, the Hoedowners take full advantage of their various
reasons to celebrate.

But it has emerged from the foregoing that Nyarlathotep was also
somehow a driving force behind the Spamplot. It further seems that a
certain Jacket of Spectral Uncertainty, which was a tool of his before
becoming a reformed garment (*really* don't ask...), was rather
tastelessly worn by the 1940s Campion-Doctor during the events that
led up to his mysterious disappearance.

Could it be that the Campions represent a fallback paradox devised by
the Crawling Chaos, that may yet make the Good Guys'
victory didn't happen?!? Such, amongst the Doctors at any rate,
would seem to be the suspicion. The assorted *other* fallout of
recent events suffices to keep Eloise and most of her guests more
than busy with their own affairs. But to Amanda, the still-
unrepentantly-Albertine Fifth, and the other Doctors _en mob_, the
rspective geneses of Spam and Mr Campion are a matter of more than
mere life and death!

Now, if you will, read on...


Part One - Part Two - Part Three - Part Four - Part Five - Part Six

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