Weeping Angels Question

[olegrand]

Since the Time Eater ability of Weeping Angels is said to apply to "living being", how would it work with artificial beings, like Androids, Daleks, Cybermen etc ? (I'm especially interested in the Android case, where "Android" means a fully self-aware human-like artificial construct). Would the ability throw them back in time like a living being or could there be some sort of malfunction / backfire ?

I know that, ultimately, each GM is free to make his own decisions but I'd really be interested in hearing other people's advice on this one...

[Rel Fexive]

Daleks and Cybermen are cyborgs, of course, so their organic elements could easily make them subject to that ability. Since they don't seem to have any kind of lifespan, though, making them effectively immortal (at least where ageing is concerned), I'm not sure how far back such beings would be thrown.

I know the rules say it's determined by a dice roll, but the idea is that someone is supposed to go back far enough so that their life will end when they again reach the date they were sent back, so the Angels can feed on the potential life "lost". At least, that was what they said in Blink. So how far back should an almost ageless being be sent? How far back do you send a Time Lord? I've always assumed the Doctor, being who he is, managed to 'hijack' Martha when she was zapped back.

As for synthetics like androids, I suspect the "living only" rule exists to explain why the Angels don't feed by sending cars, furniture or spaceships back in time; it has to be done on a complex, aware entity for it to work, which is why they don't feed on animals either. An android character (i.e. an artificial person rather than a walking appliance) should therefore be as much at risk as anyone else.

[olegrand]

Aug 5, 2012 16:35:27 GMT Rel Fexive said:

I know the rules say it's determined by a dice roll, but the idea is that someone is supposed to go back far enough so that their life will end when they again reach the date they were sent back, so the Angels can feed on the potential life

That's more or less what I had understood from BLINK... just to be clear, the idea is that if I'm sent back from, say, 1st August 2012, I'll my sent back version will die just before this date or on that very same date, so that paradox does not occur, right ? And the exact amount of time I'm thrown back would depend on my life-expectancy, so that if I'm, say, 25 in 2012 and my supposed life-expectancy is, say, 75, I would be thrown back 50 years, arriving in 1962. Did I get it right?

[Rel Fexive]

That's pretty much how it seemed to work in Blink, yes. This being Doctor Who, of course, that just means that's how it worked in that episode and that it can work differently in other stories.

[thecaptain]

The way I understand it is similar. However what I think you need to focus on is the "potential energy" part. I think these Lonely Assassins could theoretically take, say, a cat and feed on that energy because there is potential energy there. It's not as much as a human, but it's there. So the question is do they ( daleks, cyber men, androids, etc) have that potential? If its living in anyway, I say yes. Is it a lot to feed off of? Maybe not. So is it a computer generated android? Is it an android with a positronic brain( a la Data in star trek)?

[thecaptain]

I would g m it like this: if weeping angels are coming after the party ( for this say a human a timelord and an android), I believe it would head toward the timelord and human first ( more potential there). If the Angels got a hold of the android, i think they would feed on the energy and leave the android an empty shell.

Please keep in mind that Angels can also kill people by snapping their necks (flesh and stone). This is also, while unfortunate, an option.

[olegrand]

Aug 8, 2012 2:21:16 GMT thecaptain said:

So is it a computer generated android? Is it an android with a positronic brain( a la Data in star trek)?

A fully sentient and self-aware biomechanic replicant, who did not know she was an android (and still can't quite accept this fact).

[cal585]

Aug 5, 2012 18:03:54 GMT olegrand said:

That's more or less what I had understood from BLINK... just to be clear, the idea is that if I'm sent back from, say, 1st August 2012, I'll my sent back version will die just before this date or on that very same date, so that paradox does not occur, right ? And the exact amount of time I'm thrown back would depend on my life-expectancy, so that if I'm, say, 25 in 2012 and my supposed life-expectancy is, say, 75, I would be thrown back 50 years, arriving in 1962. Did I get it right?

On the other hand, when I watched it, I got the impression that the Doctor, Martha and Billy were all touched by the same Angel which is why they ended up at the same place at the same time. Because it's unlikely that Billy and Martha would both die at the same time and so be sent back together. Billy even outlived part of his life and if there was going to be a paradox, wouldn't it be from two of them co-existing rather than outliving the send back date? But there was no communication with his younger self or Sally, so no paradox was created.

I think that generally where you're sent is determined by the whims of the Angel and that they'd quite often be lazy and send people back to the same time. Though I'd allow for minor fluctuations of time travel, meaning the Doctor and Martha may have arrived a little while before Billy but I didn't get the impression that they'd been there too long.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, I just thought I'd put that out there.[/quote]

[thecaptain]

Yeah if the android is fully sentient I believe an Angel would try to feed on them. In turn, it is sentient and has eyes so it also has the ability to quantum lock the Angel and (depending on the specifications of the Android) doesn't need to blink. Could be useful...

[da professor]

It occurred to me that the 'potential energy' might refer to the individuals potential to change things. With humans and the Doctor, that's quite high. With daleks, since they're all the same, it would be lower. Your android, if a unique individual could have every bit as much potential as a human, but if it's a mass produced one of billions it might have less than a house cat.
Just an idea.

[Pertwee]

Remember , that potential energy in the case of a Time Lord could be on an incarnation by incarnation basis, so there's that, and immortals might gather 'potential energy' in discrete packets of time that represent an era of several decades at a stretch (in this case between 20 and 360 years), which keeps the whole thing manageable.

But in general, the reason I wrote the rule as it is because there was no real explanation to explain why the Doctor only went back as far as Martha and Billy, until Time of Angels, when it is pointed out that the ones in Blink were in a weakened state, scavengers (which might explain the lack of housecats or birds around the house).

So let's assume that for that 'adventure', the Angels have the special rule Weakened - An Angel will only score a Success on any Time Eater roll until they have recovered 6 Story Points and that the GM decided to use a set 'roll' of 5 so that he could keep everyone in the same time zone.

[olegrand]

Mmmh... I'm glad I started this thread. I find this discussion quite fascinating.

About the android, I had not thought of the possibility of having it (well, her, actually) the power of Never Blinking... but it's so logical, consistent and welcome !

I'm still mulling over my ideas for my Weeping Angels scenario... which may or may not end up being the same story as the "pseudo-Black Orchid" idea I mentioned in another thread.

[zebaroth]

what about johnny #5 from short circuit could a Weeping Angel send him back. and would he be able to
quantum lock the Angel by looking at it

[Pertwee]

I think the main problem that you have with robots and androids is the fact that Angels can interrupt the flow of electricity. An inactive robot isn't going to be observing anything.

[Rel Fexive]

My theory about the Doctor, Martha and Billy all ending up in roughly the same time - give or take a few months which I think they said in the episode - is that a) Martha and Billy could be about the same age, resulting in them both going to about the same time; and b) the Doctor, being the Doctor, kind of "stowed away" on Martha's "back jump" rather than being sent back on his own.

To be strictly honest, the Weeping Angels are the sort of thing I wouldn't give stats and rules for anyway.

[thecaptain]

I think everyone is mostly on point. As for the electrocuted android not stopping an Angel, I believe there is still a possibility. If the android is shocked and left with its eyes open it could be perceived by the Angel as looking at them. Remember amy in the forest? So, I think whether or not it tricks the Angel is up to the GM's ( or what we call in our game "Head Writer's") roll. If s/he rolls poorly the Angels are stone and so on....

[thecaptain]

... And that's me, stopping a conversation thread with a single post! Yay! No seriously, I hope I didn't scare everyone off...

[Rel Fexive]

I do that sometimes. It's a bit disturbing....

[thecaptain]

I can't wait for another Weeping Angels episode. There is just so much information we still need to know. Of course, it will raise more questions.

[Craig Oxbrow]

Don't expect too many answers. Here's Steven Moffat replying to a Weeping Angels question in an SFX interview about the new series:

"Have you got a mythology for them?"

Not really. I don't believe in any mythology that I've worked out as a backstory. It's not true until it's in the show. It's not true until the Doctor or someone has said it out loud.

And wouldn't it spoil it a bit if we absolutely knew what they were, and why they did it? I quite like their blank-faced ferocity. I would like to think that whatever the explanation for them might be is beyond human understanding.

[thecaptain]

Ahhh!* shakes fists in the air* MOFFAT!!!!!!!

[Curufea]

I'd expand "Potential Life Lost" to be less generic and more specific, which solves the question-

Call it - Changing the potential state of quantum universe creation. The theory that every choice we make, creates an additional universe where that choice was made differently. And every choice we make affects the time line.

So we're saying that for this usage of the word "Life" what the Doctor is really simplifying is "choices made that effect the time line".

So rather than "organic beings" I'd enlarge this to be "anything with free will" - ie any sentient life form.

This covers androids, Daleks and Cybermen (although the latter two have less free will than most sentients).

The choices made if they had stayed in the current time would have been different, and would effect history differently than they would if they were transferred to an earlier time. So much so, that due to their long lived nature - a Weeping Angel would get more food out of long lived sentients than any other sort - the problem probably is that they only have enough energy to transport someone back a short period of time (ie less than 100 years).

The reason why they don't transport robots, vehicles and buildings is that they don't have free will, their choices are predestined, no quantum universes are created and the disruption to the timeline will only be by the sentients that encounter the object, and they can't feed off those (because they don't know who they are, and it'd be very short lived reactions).

[caspiansk]

There's something of an in world reasoning at work to the Angel's feeding too.

The energy source of time travel is referred to as Artron Energy. It is "the energy of thought and perception - thus it is the very stuff of History itself. " www.whoniverse.net/tardis/artronenergy.php. Most humans don't have Artron energy - until they are transported through time even once.

Therefore, it is theoretically possible that the energy that the Weeping Angels feed on is actually Artron Energy.

Artron Energy is only generated by living, conscious beings. Animals don't count - only things that can conceptualize their environments. That means a True Android might be able to be fed upon, if it truly could conceptualize what travelling back through time meant.

[nintaku]

I'd like to point out that Sally Sparrow's friend, Kathy Nightingale, was sent back to 1920 and died in 1987, twenty years before she was sent back. So the Angels don't always send you back far enough to survive until around the time you were sent back. That's just a dramatic means of showing what happened (and sometimes a very good means of moving the plot forward). Kinda surprised Kathy wasn't brought up in this thread earlier, when discussing how far back they send you.

[olegrand]

Another question to my fellow DWAITAS GMs about using the Angels in play...

In your opinion, is there a way that a TARDIS could track the "time trail" or whatever left by someone sent back in time by an Angel, in order to rescue the victim from his "widdershin" exile?

[Escher]

Sept 30, 2013 13:48:05 GMT olegrand said:

Another question to my fellow DWAITAS GMs about using the Angels in play...

In your opinion, is there a way that a TARDIS could track the "time trail" or whatever left by someone sent back in time by an Angel, in order to rescue the victim from his "widdershin" exile?

I'd say a definite 'yes':

1. The Angels feed off the 'years the victim should have lived' so such a displacement should cause a sort of abnormal effect in the time stream. I think the TARDIS would simply just follow this trail.

2. 'Feel The Turn of the Universe' should also count, since the Doctor (or Time Lords) can feel anything that is inherently 'wrong' with time. Combined with the TARDIS scanners (and No.1 above) it should work.