Braxiatel - The New and Missing Adventures

The New and Missing Adventures

Braxiatel, a Time Lord, first appeared in the novel Theatre of War by Justin Richards, although the Fourth Doctor's companion Romana mentions the Braxiatel Collection in passing in the 1979 television serial City of Death. In terms of the Doctor's timeline, their first portrayed meeting was in the Virgin Missing Adventures First Doctor novel The Empire of Glass by Andy Lane, although they already knew each other. Braxiatel met the Seventh Doctor in Theatre of War and was also at the wedding of Bernice "Benny" Summerfield and Jason Kane in Happy Endings by Paul Cornell.

The Braxiatel Collection — renowned for being one of the greatest art galleries in the galaxy — was founded by Irving Braxiatel and located on an asteroid which Braxiatel was rumoured to have won by playing cards. It had extensive archaeological libraries which could be used by Braxiatel's permission. Braxiatel's collection of books contained every book banned by the Catholic church; he most likely acquired these from the Library of St. John the Beheaded in England, which he founded (as mentioned at the end of The Empire of Glass). The Library of St. John was featured in the New Adventure All-Consuming Fire by Andy Lane and the Missing Adventure Millennial Rites by Craig Hinton.

In The Empire of Glass, Braxiatel became involved with galactic politics. He organised the Armageddon Convention, which he tried to get the Doctor to chair, but by mistake his agents brought a physically similar man. The Convention was not particularly successful, although we know that it did outlaw the use of cyberbombs (Revenge of the Cybermen). Braxiatel decided to go back to collecting.

At some point, Braxiatel became the head of the Department of Theatrology at St. Oscar's University on Dellah. After Benny obtained a post at the archaeology department in 2593, the pair of them became entangled in many adventures. After the destruction of the planet Dellah, Braxiatel invited Benny to join him at the Braxiatel Collection.

The Bernice Summerfield novel Tears of the Oracle by Justin Richards suggests that Braxiatel is the Doctor's brother and the fact he had left Gallifrey and gone out into the universe was one of the factors that motivated the Doctor to leave. Certainly in the short story "Be Forgot" the Doctor leaves Braxiatel a Christmas present of a pair of socks, signed 'Thete', indicating that their relationship goes back to the days on Gallifrey when the Doctor was called Theta Sigma. In the audio play 100, the Sixth Doctor comments that "Brax" was always the sensible one. How this fits with novels such as Lungbarrow, which establishes that the Time Lords are sterile and do not have conventional families, but are created by genetic looms, is unclear. Braxiatel is certainly not one of the Doctor's 45 cousins that appear in that book. It is possible that he is another son of the Doctor's Gallifreyian father and human mother mentioned in the telemovie, although the Eighth Doctor's half-human status is itself a muddy issue.