solas
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 97
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Post by solas on Sept 12, 2016 16:23:11 GMT
Hi everyone.
I imagine like most people there's some concern or confusion after Hell Bent and the return of Gallifrey as to just what happens next with the Time Lords. As I recall from the episode, Gallifrey could be billions of years in the future and displaced, but they're clearly shown in possession of all their technological ability and power.
Yes, the Doctor does effectively exile the High Council and the aged Rassilon away, but that just makes them potential future antagonists.
So the question for me at least becomes....what to do about their return in a game and generally speaking?
It's been a while since my original watching of the episode, so I may be forgetting some key component of the story that neutralizes the Time Lords' influence here (such as their temporal location being fixed for instance) but it still remains a concern.
Thoughts/opinions/comments?
S.
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Post by Marnal on Sept 13, 2016 1:49:00 GMT
I got the distinct impression that they are hiding at the end of the Universe / History. So it seems unlikely that they are going to be very active in history [assuming they want the rest of the universe/history to think they are still dead].
Its also worth noting that last time we saw the Time Lords [the story "The End of Time"] the Time Lords were trying to destroy the universe so that they could ascend to the next one. They we see them again and they are sitting around and waiting 'shortly' before the final destruction of the Universe. The implication seems to be that they are still fullfilling the Final Sanction, but rather then destroy the Universe they went forward in time and are going to wait till it dies of 'old age.'
The PCs in my Dr Who game have yet to discover that Gallifrey is hiding out at the end of History. So they are still enthusiastically trying to build a new generation of Time Lords [with a new Eye of Harmony].
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solas
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 97
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Post by solas on Sept 13, 2016 8:13:54 GMT
Interesting thoughts.
But I'm troubled by that...because prior to the end of the Time War, they were clearly out of control and pretty much amoral. Presuming they're at the end of the universe by choice...what's changed?
Did they learn somehow by the Doctor's act of saving them all? Because locking him in a Confession Dial for four billion years doesn't seem to suggest ANYTHING has changed at all.
My own pet theory (and this reminds me I need to watch Hell Bent again) is that their technology is dying as well, as surprisingly well preserved as they are. All their great weapons are spent (even the Moment) and while they can do things such as isolate Clara from the moment of her death, they're possibly spent as a species.
I'd always thought the Ood and the way they seemed in symbiosis with Time were the next step forward, but of course that also leads to thoughts of just how many Daleks are still out there, too.
S.
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Post by olegrand on Sept 13, 2016 8:53:42 GMT
Interesting thread. For all the reasons detailed below, I decided NOT TO integrate the whole "do you know what? Gallifrey was not destroyed after all!" concept in the continuity of my campaign (which had already drifted away from the official TV continuity right after the 10th Doctor era, so it was quite an easy move), focusing instead on the attempts of a handful of surviving Time Lords (including the Doctor) to build some sort of "new Gallifrey", without repeating the errors of the past - and I never had to regret this decision... I think that the first thing to acknowledge here is the persistent manner in which the Steven Moffat-era wreaks havoc on the continuity of new-Who, as established in the Russell T. Davies era. Having Gallifrey saved / hidden away whatever by all the Doctors during the 50th anniversary episode was perceived as a very clever continuity stunt by some - but IMHO, it was a very bad idea. Why? Because it erases the biggest, most character-defining feature in the personal history of the Ninth Doctor and beyond (i.e. Gallifrey lost forever, last of my kind etc.) - and by doing so, it not only damages the internal consistency / continuity of the show, by retroactively destroying much of the tension of the truly remarkable 9th and 10th Doctor seasons, it also tones down in a very disappointing manner the darker aspects AND the overall dramatic force of the show itself. If the greatest event of the Time War can be changed (or done away with) with a few tricks of screenplay legerdemain and (pun intended) heavy-handed retcon, then how can we feel concerned (dramatically speaking) by all these other catastrophes that the Doctor will be averting in his further adventures? That being said, bringing back Gallifrey into the Whoniverse could at least have been made interesting if it had been the starting point of some even bigger event, with cosmic consequences etc. But when we finally got to the end of the very dreary Heaven Sent / Hellbent storyline, the resurrected Time Lords were reduced to a bunch of pathetic bad losers, without any real feeling of grandeur, omniscience and Time Lord-ness. All this for this? What was the point of this story? What did it achieve in terms of drama and continuity? Just compare the return of Rassilon and his cronies in "The End of Time" with the one in "Hell Bent" - as far as I'm concerned, the comparison is pretty merciless... I really believe that the showrunner has no clear idea of what he'll do with the Time Lords, now that he has brought them back from oblivion - as the lack of clearly identifiable story focus in Heaven Sent / Hell Bent (as opposed to "let's have the Time Lords bother the Doctor and let's have the Doctor shows Rassilon who's the real boss out there" idea) demonstrated. (End of Rant)
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Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Sept 13, 2016 9:37:13 GMT
I got the distinct impression that they are hiding at the end of the Universe / History. So it seems unlikely that they are going to be very active in history [assuming they want the rest of the universe/history to think they are still dead]. Or, and I'm just throwing this out as an idea, the Time Lords are returning to their original home in time.
After all the entire mythos of Gallifrey could be a carefully constructed fake; it seems to be generally believed that the Time Lords were one of the first sentient species in the universe, warred with various others for control, created a great empire, developed time travel and isolated themselves behind the Transduction Barrier to prevent tampering with their past. But what if this is a Really Big Lie? It doesn't mesh with (for example) the Minyans who were uplifted by the Time Lords in a manner showing a surprising level of immaturity; did they really not forsee the obvious consequences of their efforts. And the Time Lords has developed bodily regeneration and TARDISs by that time so it was after their supposed isolation.
- Of course Minyos could simply have been a trivial experiment gone wrong.
What if Gallifrey, instead of being one of the first planets to develop intelligent life was actually one of the last? Perhaps fifty billion years in the future1 when stars are few and very far between and the sky is utterly black, as even the light from distant stars doesn't reach observers. Gallifrey happened near the very end, in the last fifty million years, when galaxies had long since ceased to exist2 and even stars are rare. They evolved and explored in an era when, even with faster-tha-light travel, interstellar journeys were long and there was little reason to travel; life was rare, intelligent life even more so though the universe was dotted with the occasional remnants of civilisation from earlier and more hospitable eras. Finally the Gallifreyans developed time travel and decided on the Great Leap; they would move their entire civilisation, planet and star, back in time and remake the universe to suit themselves. In an effort of stellar engineering that took most of the energy available to their entire civilisation that's what they did, emerging sixty billion years in their past, when the universe was young and full of possibilities...
Alternatively maybe there is sufficient CDM to prevent the Big Rip and the universe is doomed to die in the 'Big Crunch'3 If expansion doesn't continue unabated then eventually a balance point will be passed and contraction begins; at some point the universe stops expanding and gravity will start to pull everything back together again. It's not known when this will happen, but it's likely to be in the region of one hundred billion to one trillion years from now. Now a contracting universe is interesting, especially with regard to time travel as one understanding of the so-called 'arrow of time' is that it points in the direction of increasing entropy. When the universe is expanding things become more disordered, entropy increases, and time runs forward. But, when the universe contracts, and everything contracts back together again, things will become less disordered, entropy decreases, and, so the theory goes, time will run backwards4.
Thankfully this probably isn't correct; we now believe that entropy isn't directly linked to the arrow of time and anyway entropy will probably continue to increase in a contracting universe, so even in the era of contraction time will flow (more-or-less) normally5. For most of this era the universe will behave pretty much as it did in the era of expansion, for billions of years. However eventually things will get interesting, depending on the speed of contraction and how far your are from the Big Crunch.
As the end of the universe approaches the sky will begin to warm up, as the cosmic background radiation (the "afterglow" of the Big Bang) increases. Nearer the end galaxies cease to exist, merging into one huge mass of stars, a violent place full of energy and frequent collisions between stars. Soon planets become too hot for most life, as radiative cooling into space can't happen. As contraction continues even space becomes red hot, the universe is simply too small for stars to radiate the energy of their fusion reactions, and stellar explosions are common as the balance between electromagnetic and gravitational forces is disrupted. Soon stars don't exist as individual objects and space is filled with energetic plasma. All that's left are black holes (and possibly some very well shielded artefacts). Even collisions between black holes are now common, rupturing space itself with massive bursts of gravity. In the last few minutes the universe is a mirror image of the time just after the Big Bang, matter doesn't exist in the forms known today, free quarks and other exotica are common and soon all that exists is a 'quark soup'. This survives briefly before being compressed into a point of infinite density, the Final Singularity, perhaps ready to expand again6.
A Gallifrey born in the last billion years would probably be doomed, unless they rapidly developed the technology to stave off the effects of the final contraction. Or unless they went back in time...
1. This assumes the 'Big Rip' model of cosmology is correct and there isn't sufficient mass in the universe to prevent expansion continuing ad infinitum. This seems quite probably by out current knowledge, there'd nbeed to be over one hundred times as much mass as can currently detect to prevent the Big Rip scenario' out best current model indicates that Cold Dark Matter is only about ten times as massive as baryonic matter.
2. Unless, as some have postulated, there is a fifth fundamental force that operates only significantly at the level of galaxies/galactic clusters.
3. This is the favoured belief amongst cosmologists at the moment.
4. This does mean just what it says; inversion of causality, death precedes birth, objects 'unbreak' et ectera. What this might mean for time travellers from the era of expansion is a very interesting question. Possibky in the sense that energetically smashing lumps of matter and anti-matter together is "very interesting"...
5. But no-one's sure so feel free to invoke anti-time in your game if you want to.
6. Referred to as the Pulsating Steady State model though it's not popular anymore. Fed Hoyle was an enthusiast of this concept.
Its also worth noting that last time we saw the Time Lords [the story "The End of Time"] the Time Lords were trying to destroy the universe so that they could ascend to the next one. They we see them again and they are sitting around and waiting 'shortly' before the final destruction of the Universe. The implication seems to be that they are still fullfilling the Final Sanction, but rather then destroy the Universe they went forward in time and are going to wait till it dies of 'old age.' This rather reminds me of one of my favourite bits of the Who mythos; the idea that something survived the previous universe7, perhaps by side-stepping into an adjacent universe. First alluded to in Terminus (especially the novelisation which also lacks the distraction of Nyssa's undressing) and further developed in several of the EU novels (like White Darkness) which brought in Lovecraftian elements. Maybe the Time Lords were trying to copy this feat and move on.
Maybe the Time Lords from the previous universe tried this, and succeeded. Bound by different physical laws they could be the Eternals, Players, Guardians and other godlike entities of the Whoniverse.
7. This of course assumes a cyclical Big Bang/Big Crunch model of time as postulated by Hoyle.
The PCs in my Dr Who game have yet to discover that Gallifrey is hiding out at the end of History. So they are still enthusiastically trying to build a new generation of Time Lords [with a new Eye of Harmony]. Competition, always a good source of conflict.Interesting thoughts. But I'm troubled by that...because prior to the end of the Time War, they were clearly out of control and pretty much amoral. Presuming they're at the end of the universe by choice...what's changed? Desperation? They lost and know this, so they're going to change the rules. See my suggestion about the previous universe.Did they learn somehow by the Doctor's act of saving them all? Because locking him in a Confession Dial for four billion years doesn't seem to suggest ANYTHING has changed at all. Yeah, I'm not a believer in post-War Gallifrey being a particularly nice place.My own pet theory (and this reminds me I need to watch Hell Bent again) is that their technology is dying as well, as surprisingly well preserved as they are. All their great weapons are spent (even the Moment) and while they can do things such as isolate Clara from the moment of her death, they're possibly spent as a species. Well if they're stuck near the Big Crunch/Rip they may simply lack the resources or be bound by different physical laws tooI'd always thought the Ood and the way they seemed in symbiosis with Time were the next step forward, but of course that also leads to thoughts of just how many Daleks are still out there, too. S. I like that! The Ood as the inheritors of Gallifrey, it definitely has possibilities. Maybe the players are the ones who have to make the choice between Gallifrey and the Oodsphere.
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Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Sept 13, 2016 9:51:29 GMT
Interesting thread. For all the reasons detailed below, I decided NOT TO integrate the whole "do you know what? Gallifrey was not destroyed after all!" concept in the continuity of my campaign (which had already drifted away from the official TV continuity) right after the 10th Doctor era, so it was quite an easy move), focusing instead on the attempts of a handful of surviving Time Lords (including the Doctor) to build some sort of "new Gallifrey", without repeating the errors of the past - and I never had to regret this decision... Agreed. I'd simply drop Gallifrey completely (though I'm not a far of the who "Time War" bit anyway and don't use it). I'd actually go a bit further and eliminate the Daleks too; while they're the iconic Who monster eliminating them allows for more variety and more space for new creations. Who'd fill the space left by the Daleks? Maybe the Dominators/Krotons/Rill are bigger players. Likewise what happens to replace Gallifrey as the hyperpower in the background? Something like the Time Masters perhaps? Or simply file off the serial numbers and have the Omnitrope using Chronarchs. Or have a group of factions vying for control, with the PCs in the middle.
I think that the first thing to acknowledge here is the persistent manner in which the Steven Moffat-era wreaks havoc on the continuity of new-Who, as established in the Russell T. Davies era. By having Gallifrey saved / hidden away whatever by all the Doctors during the 50th anniversary episode was perceived as a very clever continuity stunt by some - but IMHO, it was a very bad idea. Agreed. It seems to be down to the egos of the producers and their desire to mark their territory.Why? Because it erases the biggest, most character-defining feature in the personal history of the Ninth Doctor and beyond (i.e. Gallifrey lost forever, last of my kind etc.) - and by doing so, it not only damages the internal consistency / continuity of the show, byretroactively destroying much of the tension of the truly remarkable 9th and 10th Doctor seasons, it also tones down in a very disappointing manner the darker aspects AND the overall dramatic force of the show itself. If the greatest event of the Time War can be changed (or done away with) with a few tricks of screenplay legerdemain and (pun intended) heav-handed retcon, then how can we feel concerned (dramatically speaking) by all these other catastrophes that the Doctor will be averting in his further adventures? That being said, bringing back Gallifrey into the Whoniverse could at least have been made interesting if it had been the starting point of some even bigger event, with cosmic consequences etc. But when we finally got to the end of the very dreary Heaven Sent / Hellbent storyline, the resurrected Time Lords were reduced to a bunch of pathetic bad losers, without any real feeling of grandeur, omniscience and Time Lord-ness. Absolutely.All this for this? What was the point of this story? What did it achieve in terms of drama and continuity? Just compare the return of Rassilon and his cronies in "The End of Time" with the one in "Hell Bent" - as far as my concerned, the comparison is pretty merciless... I really believe that the showrunner has no clear idea of what he'll do with the Time Lords, now that he has brought them back from oblivion - as the lack of clearly identifiable story focus in Heaven Sent / Hell Bent (as opposed to "let's have the Time Lords bother the Doctor and let's have the Doctor shows Rassilon who's the real boss out there" idea) demonstrated. (End of Rant) Yep, very indicative of a lack of proper planning.
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Post by senko on Sept 13, 2016 10:36:53 GMT
Maybe its just me but the explanation seems fairly simple. Huge chunks of time and space were time locked during that last war at the end of which the doctor did something with Gallifrey. It seemed he was sealing it in artwork but hellbet does kind of contradict that. Still all you need to make it sort of work is have moving an entire planet from point A to point B even with their technology be badly damaging to the planet unless done right (see what happened to earth in the original series when the moved it). So they have two options really . . .
1) Return Gallifrey to its original place. 2) Return Gallifrey to another place.
The problem with Gallifrey going home is that you had 12 version of a rather unique TARDIS backed up by their ultimate weapon throwing them out of it and locking the time period. Even with their technology they can't break back into that timezone without a similar level of power and right now they can't muster that since (a) the moment has a mind of its own and no reason to help and (b) they had it made clear at Trenzalore if Gallifrey comes back obviously (manages to return to its proper time) the whole universe will unite against them and reignite a time war they barely survived last time.
So they move with option B bringing it back somewhere else however to do that without destroying Gallifrey they need a way to target another location which was provided by a manipulated time lord and a phsyical link in the white star diamond. Problem is they have neither of those around to lock onto and pull them back plus they found out Rassilon was a raving madman (see my theory on that in another thread) and it would have still wound up destroying the universe along with them.
Basically right now they can't get back but they do have time to recover, create more Gallifreyans, develop more weapons and come up with a new plan to return without triggering a second time war.
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solas
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 97
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Post by solas on Sept 13, 2016 15:49:32 GMT
I'd always thought the Ood and the way they seemed in symbiosis with Time were the next step forward, but of course that also leads to thoughts of just how many Daleks are still out there, too. S. I like that! The Ood as the inheritors of Gallifrey, it definitely has possibilities. Maybe the players are the ones who have to make the choice between Gallifrey and the Oodsphere.
[/quote] Not meaning to remove most of your excellent post (the reasoning of which I totally applaud, by the way) but I wanted to address the fallout more of what's happened rather than the whys and wherefores. Thankfully as GM's and storytellers, we can arbitrarily decide just how much influence the Time Lords have in this situation. For the purposes of my story (and I'll mention the Ood in a moment again), I never wanted to have the show cross over with the game unless I absolutely have to. The Doctor is just too overpowering as a figure to effectively be in a game, and I firmly put him in the category of 'NPC guest star'. I'm more inclined to use someone like Romana, and have the inheritors of the Doctor's legacy of heroism and sacrifice. And that's where I come back to the Ood. Until the 50th anniversary, I was deeply interested in the ramifications and consequences of just what the Time War would do in order to have Time 'heal' or rewrite itself. If anything, the Doctor does far more damage than he prevents in that regard to me. So a lot of my stories have revolved around the Time Lords enacting several plots to destroy him. The latest has been trying to bring back the Great Vampires; when I read about them again in the Fourth Doctor Sourcebook, I loved how they were written as a true threat to the Time Lords in their early days; so now they're being 'forced' back into history, and in the course of the players stopping this from happening, they learn about the Time War itself.... I also did want to move on from the Time War entirely and the Ood with an apparently symbiotic and harmonious relationship to time (I was struck how in The End of Time the Doctor mentions their accelerated development but that is never referenced again, something I was always sad about) struck me as time 'righting' itself by having a race ascend to the original non-interfering ethos the Time Lords once had. Naturally now the undoing of that has muddied those waters greatly. One thing I wrote that I thought was a logical consequence was the re-emergence of Donna's Time Lord knowledge but only in her future descendants. I came up with the concept of 'The Lords of Time', where a people descended from her memories with this racial memory that wasn't theirs and a skewed, corrupted view of the universe came into being, and I have them as potential recurring antagonists. Eventually I'd like to address the Time Lords themselves, hence the questions I started asking to begin with. I think the consistent theme I see here is that the Time Lords are spent or unable to continue as they were....but I think that'd make for a great story where the players meet this dead and dying race and learn the history that brings them to that place. And ideally they might be charged with helping the Doctor manage in a universe where there are still Daleks and Cybermen (though nowhere near their former glory) and even help the Ood move forward..... So thank you for all the feedback and thoughts, and I'd greatly appreciate you and anyone else touching on my thoughts here. S.
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solas
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 97
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Post by solas on Sept 13, 2016 15:55:39 GMT
Maybe its just me but the explanation seems fairly simple. Huge chunks of time and space were time locked during that last war at the end of which the doctor did something with Gallifrey. It seemed he was sealing it in artwork but hellbet does kind of contradict that. Still all you need to make it sort of work is have moving an entire planet from point A to point B even with their technology be badly damaging to the planet unless done right (see what happened to earth in the original series when the moved it). So they have two options really . . . 1) Return Gallifrey to its original place. 2) Return Gallifrey to another place. The problem with Gallifrey going home is that you had 12 version of a rather unique TARDIS backed up by their ultimate weapon throwing them out of it and locking the time period. Even with their technology they can't break back into that timezone without a similar level of power and right now they can't muster that since (a) the moment has a mind of its own and no reason to help and (b) they had it made clear at Trenzalore if Gallifrey comes back obviously (manages to return to its proper time) the whole universe will unite against them and reignite a time war they barely survived last time. So they move with option B bringing it back somewhere else however to do that without destroying Gallifrey they need a way to target another location which was provided by a manipulated time lord and a phsyical link in the white star diamond. Problem is they have neither of those around to lock onto and pull them back plus they found out Rassilon was a raving madman (see my theory on that in another thread) and it would have still wound up destroying the universe along with them. Basically right now they can't get back but they do have time to recover, create more Gallifreyans, develop more weapons and come up with a new plan to return without triggering a second time war. That dovetails back into my original questioning and thinking about all this, though. Do the Time Lords want to reassert themselves? It seems like with the Doctor forcibly exiling the High Council and the aged Rassilon (though they could easily come back) the people of Gallifrey are done with war and wanting any sort of conflict anymore....but by the end of Hell Bent, the Doctor's on the run again..... So I'm still not sure what their motivation and intentions are. S.
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Post by Marnal on Sept 13, 2016 19:16:15 GMT
solas said "prior to the end of the Time War, they were clearly out of control and pretty much amoral. Presuming they're at the end of the universe by choice...what's changed?"
My theories answer some of the questions, but not all of them. Its really a lot of guess work until we get more details about how Gallifrey escaped. The Doctor CLAIMS the Time Lords have learned their lessons and are now peaceful in "Time of the Doctor" but there is exactly ZERO evidence to support this claim. Being trapped in a split second of time means that, by definition, they can't change their POV. As far as they are concerned they just voted to destroy the Universe and the Doctor just betrayed them all and cast them back into hell.
We don't know how the Time Lords get from trapped in a second to living at the end of the Universe. Presumably Missy is involved.
Its worth noting that this is the same point in history where the Master chose to hide out when he fled the Time War. The end of the Universe seems to be far away from the parts of history that matter [to the Daleks or the Time Lords]. It might also be fairly defensible as they can spot the Daleks coming a trillion years before they get there. In "Hell Bent" the leadership seems to be quite afraid of the Doctor.
"My own pet theory (and this reminds me I need to watch Hell Bent again) is that their technology is dying as well, as surprisingly well preserved as they are. All their great weapons are spent (even the Moment) and while they can do things such as isolate Clara from the moment of her death, they're possibly spent as a species."
This would fit with the idea that they've given up on this universe and want to 'regenerate' the universe and themselves into a new form.
"I'd always thought the Ood and the way they seemed in symbiosis with Time were the next step forward..."
According to the novels the Time Lords symbiotic nuclei connect them the Vortex and each Time Lord/TARDIS serves as a minor tack protecting and holding history in place. Part of the reason the Time Lords are so stagnant is that changing themselves could change the history that they are attached too.
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Post by Marnal on Sept 13, 2016 19:27:04 GMT
olegrand said "I think that the first thing to acknowledge here is the persistent manner in which the Steven Moffat-era wreaks havoc on the continuity of new-Who, as established in the Russell T. Davies era."
Mind you every producer does that. RT Davies wreaked havoc on the continuity of the previous showrunners. Patrick Troughten wreaked more havoc on the show than anyone else in the franchise! Its just the way the show has always worked.
"Why? Because it erases the biggest, most character-defining feature in the personal history of the Ninth Doctor and beyond (i.e. Gallifrey lost forever, last of my kind etc.)"
Gallifrey was always going to come back sooner or later. The only questions was when.
"...and by doing so, it not only damages the internal consistency / continuity of the show, by retroactively destroying much of the tension of the truly remarkable 9th and 10th Doctor seasons, it also tones down in a very disappointing manner the darker aspects AND the overall dramatic force of the show itself."
You could say much the same about the first regeneration or the events of "War Games."
"But when we finally got to the end of the very dreary Heaven Sent / Hellbent storyline, the resurrected Time Lords were reduced to a bunch of pathetic bad losers, without any real feeling of grandeur, omniscience and Time Lord-ness."
So just like the Time Lords in the classic series then?
"All this for this? What was the point of this story? What did it achieve in terms of drama and continuity?"
I'll agree with you there. I have no problems with breaking continuity, but it should be done to tell a story! And the events of "Hell Bent" make it feel like we all missed the episode where the Time Lords make their shocking return.
"I really believe that the showrunner has no clear idea of what he'll do with the Time Lords, now that he has brought them back from oblivion - as the lack of clearly identifiable story focus in Heaven Sent / Hell Bent"
Things do sort of feel that way. Which is odd for Mr Over-Plan-Moffat.
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Post by Marnal on Sept 13, 2016 19:38:10 GMT
Catsmate said "Or, and I'm just throwing this out as an idea, the Time Lords are returning to their original home in time."
Its worth noting that in "Frontios" its stated that TARDISes are prohibited from traveling much past the final destruction of the Earth. So this theory would place Gallifrey's present at a point in time that was off limits to the Doctor and other Time Lords in the classic era of the show.
"Finally the Gallifreyans developed time travel and decided on the Great Leap; they would move their entire civilisation, planet and star, back in time and remake the universe to suit themselves."
Given that several sources state they came to be in the past [and none state that they are from that far in the future], isn't it MORE likely that they used their great power to travel forward?
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Post by Marnal on Sept 13, 2016 19:42:08 GMT
Catsmate "This rather reminds me of one of my favourite bits of the Who mythos; the idea that something survived the previous universe7, perhaps by side-stepping into an adjacent universe. ... Maybe the Time Lords from the previous universe tried this, and succeeded. Bound by different physical laws they could be the Eternals, Players, Guardians and other godlike entities of the Whoniverse."
Its pretty much explicitly stated in the novels that Guardians, and other Great Old Ones were the Lords of Time from the previous Universe. One source even states that it was a war with that Universe's analogue of the Daleks that led to the destruction of the previous Universe. So there is a hell of a lot of symmetry in the event of "The End of Time."
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Post by Marnal on Sept 13, 2016 19:45:12 GMT
senko said "...they had it made clear at Trenzalore if Gallifrey comes back obviously (manages to return to its proper time) the whole universe will unite against them and reignite a time war they barely survived last time."
That's my thought on WHY they are hiding. The don't want a Dalek led alliance coming after them.
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Post by Marnal on Sept 13, 2016 19:49:54 GMT
solas said "...a lot of my stories have revolved around the Time Lords enacting several plots to destroy him. The latest has been trying to bring back the Great Vampires; when I read about them again in the Fourth Doctor Sourcebook, I loved how they were written as a true threat to the Time Lords in their early days; so now they're being 'forced' back into history..."
Isn't that like releasing an engineered super plague to assassinate one person?!! And isn't it likely to cause way more damage to history than the Doctor ever did?
"That dovetails back into my original questioning and thinking about all this, though. Do the Time Lords want to reassert themselves?"
When we saw the Time Lords in End of Time they explicit no interest in this Universe and its people. In "Time of the Doctor" they were only interested in making sure it was safe to leave their micro-second bolt-hole. They don't seem to care to much about the Universe in "Hell Bent" either and are only worried about preventing the Hybrid from destroying them.
So yes, there's a very good case to be made for the Time Lords not having any interest in re-asserting themselves in THIS universe.
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Post by Stormcrow on Sept 13, 2016 20:59:30 GMT
olegrand said "I think that the first thing to acknowledge here is the persistent manner in which the Steven Moffat-era wreaks havoc on the continuity of new-Who, as established in the Russell T. Davies era."Mind you every producer does that. RT Davies wreaked havoc on the continuity of the previous showrunners. Not really. When the series was new, it was unknown whether it was a reboot or a continuation, and RTD wouldn't say. The show very carefully avoided being either. We didn't even hear the name Gallifrey until the second Christmas special. We didn't see any images of the Doctor's previous faces until "Human Nature," and then it was only a quick, unexplained flash. The whole point was obviously to enable the writers to tell new stories, not regurgitate old ones. The idea of the Time War puts the old series firmly "over there" and out of the way without denying or contradicting it. (When RTD was about to leave he obviously loosened up and started throwing old-series stuff into the specials, like Davros and Rassilon.) There was no continuity-wrecking, just an evolution. Moffat, on the other hand, simply disregarded most of the five years of RTD continuity, mangling it whenever it suited him.
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Post by Marnal on Sept 13, 2016 22:21:55 GMT
RT Davis destroyed Gallifrey and the Daleks and brought them back only to kill them off each time. How is that not mangling the continuity of the classic series?
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Post by Stormcrow on Sept 13, 2016 23:00:06 GMT
Mangling continuity involves contradicting it or retro-fitting details that change the meaning, but not the outward appearance, of continuity elements. RTD simply said: And then there was a Time War, and then Gallifrey and the Daleks were destroyed, but then we learn there were Dalek survivors, then we learn the Time Lords are trying to escape their failure (which they don't do). Some of RTD's later plot elements change some of his previous plot elements, but these were obviously set up to do just that, and he doesn't contradict the original show.
Moffat, on the other hand, tore up the series assumptions. The Time Lords never, in fact, died. Clara Oswald has visited the Doctor in all his previous lifetimes, and even set him on the path to flee Gallifrey in the first place. Time Lords now change sex when they regenerate, which was never actually wrong, but it's clearly something Moffat has always wanted (e.g., "The Curse of Fatal Death"). Now Davros has freakin' EYES, for crying out loud! The guy just doesn't know when he's crossing the line.
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solas
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 97
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Post by solas on Sept 14, 2016 5:00:03 GMT
solas said "...a lot of my stories have revolved around the Time Lords enacting several plots to destroy him. The latest has been trying to bring back the Great Vampires; when I read about them again in the Fourth Doctor Sourcebook, I loved how they were written as a true threat to the Time Lords in their early days; so now they're being 'forced' back into history..."Isn't that like releasing an engineered super plague to assassinate one person?!! And isn't it likely to cause way more damage to history than the Doctor ever did? "That dovetails back into my original questioning and thinking about all this, though. Do the Time Lords want to reassert themselves?"When we saw the Time Lords in End of Time they explicit no interest in this Universe and its people. In "Time of the Doctor" they were only interested in making sure it was safe to leave their micro-second bolt-hole. They don't seem to care to much about the Universe in "Hell Bent" either and are only worried about preventing the Hybrid from destroying them. So yes, there's a very good case to be made for the Time Lords not having any interest in re-asserting themselves in THIS universe. Oh, it is....but because I'm having my players stop it before it truly spreads (because in my reasoning, the Time Lords can only do bits and pieces and only so many times before the Time War engulfs them properly to the point they can't do anything anymore. I think it's in keeping with the desperate, deranged nature of the Time Lords that late into the Time War to try something so radical and stupid. Once they (hopefully) fail, then we can get into that story about dealing with the aftermath. Yeah, I'm hoping that's the case, though for my own satisfaction, I wouldn't mind seeing them gone again in one sense as I suppose their reappearance fell a bit flat to me after the buildup the 50th set up. I wanted it to be this big story thing and it wasn't so much.....
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Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Sept 14, 2016 10:29:03 GMT
Catsmate "This rather reminds me of one of my favourite bits of the Who mythos; the idea that something survived the previous universe7, perhaps by side-stepping into an adjacent universe. ... Maybe the Time Lords from the previous universe tried this, and succeeded. Bound by different physical laws they could be the Eternals, Players, Guardians and other godlike entities of the Whoniverse."Its pretty much explicitly stated in the novels that Guardians, and other Great Old Ones were the Lords of Time from the previous Universe. One source even states that it was a war with that Universe's analogue of the Daleks that led to the destruction of the previous Universe. So there is a hell of a lot of symmetry in the event of "The End of Time." Really? I must have missed an explicit acknowledgement of that, but I abandoned the novels after the BBC took them back.
I do like the parallels of this universe's Time Lords fighting those from the previous universe and eventually plaguing those in the next universe.
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Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Sept 14, 2016 10:30:18 GMT
Catsmate said "Or, and I'm just throwing this out as an idea, the Time Lords are returning to their original home in time."Its worth noting that in "Frontios" its stated that TARDISes are prohibited from traveling much past the final destruction of the Earth. So this theory would place Gallifrey's present at a point in time that was off limits to the Doctor and other Time Lords in the classic era of the show. "Finally the Gallifreyans developed time travel and decided on the Great Leap; they would move their entire civilisation, planet and star, back in time and remake the universe to suit themselves."Given that several sources state they came to be in the past [and none state that they are from that far in the future], isn't it MORE likely that they used their great power to travel forward? Oh I agree it's a major departure from canon. Perhaps useful in a game that's deliberately changing the background.
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Catsmate
13th Incarnation
No longer living in a bad adaption of "A Journal of the Plague Year".
Posts: 3,730
Favourite Doctors: Thirteen, Six, Five, Two, Eight, Twelve, Nine, One, Eleven..
Traits: Eccentric, Insatiable Curiousity.
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Post by Catsmate on Sept 14, 2016 10:42:20 GMT
I'd always thought the Ood and the way they seemed in symbiosis with Time were the next step forward, but of course that also leads to thoughts of just how many Daleks are still out there, too. S. I like that! The Ood as the inheritors of Gallifrey, it definitely has possibilities. Maybe the players are the ones who have to make the choice between Gallifrey and the Oodsphere.
Not meaning to remove most of your excellent post (the reasoning of which I totally applaud, by the way) but I wanted to address the fallout more of what's happened rather than the whys and wherefores. Thankfully as GM's and storytellers, we can arbitrarily decide just how much influence the Time Lords have in this situation. For the purposes of my story (and I'll mention the Ood in a moment again), I never wanted to have the show cross over with the game unless I absolutely have to. The Doctor is just too overpowering as a figure to effectively be in a game, and I firmly put him in the category of 'NPC guest star'. I'm more inclined to use someone like Romana, and have the inheritors of the Doctor's legacy of heroism and sacrifice. And that's where I come back to the Ood. Until the 50th anniversary, I was deeply interested in the ramifications and consequences of just what the Time War would do in order to have Time 'heal' or rewrite itself. If anything, the Doctor does far more damage than he prevents in that regard to me. So a lot of my stories have revolved around the Time Lords enacting several plots to destroy him. The latest has been trying to bring back the Great Vampires; when I read about them again in the Fourth Doctor Sourcebook, I loved how they were written as a true threat to the Time Lords in their early days; so now they're being 'forced' back into history, and in the course of the players stopping this from happening, they learn about the Time War itself.... I also did want to move on from the Time War entirely and the Ood with an apparently symbiotic and harmonious relationship to time (I was struck how in The End of Time the Doctor mentions their accelerated development but that is never referenced again, something I was always sad about) struck me as time 'righting' itself by having a race ascend to the original non-interfering ethos the Time Lords once had. Naturally now the undoing of that has muddied those waters greatly. One thing I wrote that I thought was a logical consequence was the re-emergence of Donna's Time Lord knowledge but only in her future descendants. I came up with the concept of 'The Lords of Time', where a people descended from her memories with this racial memory that wasn't theirs and a skewed, corrupted view of the universe came into being, and I have them as potential recurring antagonists. Eventually I'd like to address the Time Lords themselves, hence the questions I started asking to begin with. I think the consistent theme I see here is that the Time Lords are spent or unable to continue as they were....but I think that'd make for a great story where the players meet this dead and dying race and learn the history that brings them to that place. And ideally they might be charged with helping the Doctor manage in a universe where there are still Daleks and Cybermen (though nowhere near their former glory) and even help the Ood move forward..... So thank you for all the feedback and thoughts, and I'd greatly appreciate you and anyone else touching on my thoughts here. S. I agree about not having the Doctor, or equivalent Time Lords, appear much or be used as PCs.
And the ramifications of the damage to reality caused by the Time War are fascinating; right back in Rose we saw the Nestene displaced by it's effects, but what about (say) the Dalek Invasion of Earth? Did that happen? Or was it washed away by the flow of the new timestream?
The idea of Donna (or as you suggest a descendant) coming back as a 'Scion of Gallifrey' is interesting. Maybe she teams up with Ashildr, Jenny and Clara? Or her bloodline helps/plagues humanity over the generations with moments of unstable brilliance. Perhaps some of Kadiatu's genemods come from Donna?
Your ideas about the Time Lords being an almost irrelevant 'elder race' are excellent; it's be a different style of game but an interesting one. What happens without them? Does time travel become more common without their intervention?
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Post by olegrand on Sept 14, 2016 12:08:30 GMT
Not really. When the series was new, it was unknown whether it was a reboot or a continuation, and RTD wouldn't say. The show very carefully avoided being either. We didn't even hear the name Gallifrey until the second Christmas special. I agree that season one carefully avoided excessive name-dropping and continuity references... however, the dialogs of some 9th Doctor stories are quite explicit about Gallifrey (or "the Doctor's world" if you will) having been destroyed during the Time War: just re-watch "Dalek"... and the Doctor's comments in "World War Three" or "Aliens of London" about his former UNIT days are clearly a reference to his Third incarnation - but, yes it was purposefully made implicit so that newcomers to the show did not feel swamped in fan references. On a more general level, I never said that Steven Moffat was the first showrunner to destroy / disregard / retcon / reboot the continuity established by his predecessors - and yes, DW has always done this, right from the first "regeneration" (or was it a "rejuvenation")... I merely stated that the whoniverse-as-rebooted-by-RTD was far more self-consistent and interesting (IMHO) than the Moffat one (as an aside, one of my favorite authors is Alan Moore, who has "wreaked havoc" on almost every continuity he inherited (e.g; Miracleman, Captain Britain, Swamp Thing, Supreme etc.)... but has done it with sheer genius. My main gripe with all the 11th / 12th Doctor continuity elements is a 100% subjective one - I just LOVED the RTD era and cannot help but feel the show has been rolling downhill after his departure (while still including some truly remarkable episodes, of couse). (And don't get me started on River Song )
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solas
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 97
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Post by solas on Sept 14, 2016 17:00:28 GMT
Not meaning to remove most of your excellent post (the reasoning of which I totally applaud, by the way) but I wanted to address the fallout more of what's happened rather than the whys and wherefores. Thankfully as GM's and storytellers, we can arbitrarily decide just how much influence the Time Lords have in this situation. For the purposes of my story (and I'll mention the Ood in a moment again), I never wanted to have the show cross over with the game unless I absolutely have to. The Doctor is just too overpowering as a figure to effectively be in a game, and I firmly put him in the category of 'NPC guest star'. I'm more inclined to use someone like Romana, and have the inheritors of the Doctor's legacy of heroism and sacrifice. And that's where I come back to the Ood. Until the 50th anniversary, I was deeply interested in the ramifications and consequences of just what the Time War would do in order to have Time 'heal' or rewrite itself. If anything, the Doctor does far more damage than he prevents in that regard to me. So a lot of my stories have revolved around the Time Lords enacting several plots to destroy him. The latest has been trying to bring back the Great Vampires; when I read about them again in the Fourth Doctor Sourcebook, I loved how they were written as a true threat to the Time Lords in their early days; so now they're being 'forced' back into history, and in the course of the players stopping this from happening, they learn about the Time War itself.... I also did want to move on from the Time War entirely and the Ood with an apparently symbiotic and harmonious relationship to time (I was struck how in The End of Time the Doctor mentions their accelerated development but that is never referenced again, something I was always sad about) struck me as time 'righting' itself by having a race ascend to the original non-interfering ethos the Time Lords once had. Naturally now the undoing of that has muddied those waters greatly. One thing I wrote that I thought was a logical consequence was the re-emergence of Donna's Time Lord knowledge but only in her future descendants. I came up with the concept of 'The Lords of Time', where a people descended from her memories with this racial memory that wasn't theirs and a skewed, corrupted view of the universe came into being, and I have them as potential recurring antagonists. Eventually I'd like to address the Time Lords themselves, hence the questions I started asking to begin with. I think the consistent theme I see here is that the Time Lords are spent or unable to continue as they were....but I think that'd make for a great story where the players meet this dead and dying race and learn the history that brings them to that place. And ideally they might be charged with helping the Doctor manage in a universe where there are still Daleks and Cybermen (though nowhere near their former glory) and even help the Ood move forward..... So thank you for all the feedback and thoughts, and I'd greatly appreciate you and anyone else touching on my thoughts here. S. I agree about not having the Doctor, or equivalent Time Lords, appear much or be used as PCs.
And the ramifications of the damage to reality caused by the Time War are fascinating; right back in Rose we saw the Nestene displaced by it's effects, but what about (say) the Dalek Invasion of Earth? Did that happen? Or was it washed away by the flow of the new timestream?
The idea of Donna (or as you suggest a descendant) coming back as a 'Scion of Gallifrey' is interesting. Maybe she teams up with Ashildr, Jenny and Clara? Or her bloodline helps/plagues humanity over the generations with moments of unstable brilliance. Perhaps some of Kadiatu's genemods come from Donna?
Your ideas about the Time Lords being an almost irrelevant 'elder race' are excellent; it's be a different style of game but an interesting one. What happens without them? Does time travel become more common without their intervention?
I think all of the questions you're asking are ones I want to answer at some point or another; I'd like to have some serious thoughts about just what got done or undone thanks to the Time War (even if the Moment didn't wipe them from history, there's still staggering amounts of damage done that Time would want to restructure)....I can very easily forsee a storyline where you hit the major beats of what precipitates the Time War and having the players either ensure that they happen (thus keeping Time stable) or changing it (it's a huge call to have the players effectively rewrite canon of Doctor Who, but these are the stars of your show....if anyone gets to make that call, shouldn't it be them?) The Lords of Time (and I have a full writeup on them should you be interested, descended from the Great House of the Noble Temple (yes, using her married name too) are ones I'd like to replace the Time Lords as this not infinitely powerful and more on par greater enemy for the players. Donna herself would be problematic to come back unless she had her DNA rewritten to be Gallifreyan....which is the only way I can think of that this would work. Seeing as I adapt Blake's Seven into my continuity, I do see elements of the Federation having being influenced by them, and it should be a lasting legacy of the Doctor's damage to the timestream. The only one I'd use out of the characters you mentioned would be Jenny; Ashildir is ridiculously old, even by Doctor Who standards, which means she can do everything and know everything, and Clara...I think Clara became almost a Mary Sue herself. So you have there two effective immortals zooming about in a TARDIS. I could just see lecturing coming from the both of them based on their experiences both with and without the Doctor; I think if anything I'd have a story where Clara accepts her mortality and goes to Gallifrey to die, and teaches Ashildir something about said mortality in the process. Jenny is a prime Scion of Gallifrey and in a lot of ways is everything the Doctor wants to be. And she's young, not educated in Gallifreyan ways and would fit incredibly well into the narrative. I think regarding time travel overall, the players should be the next step forward or more accurately sideways for the Time Lords; I had an ancient star-creature prophicize 'The First and the Last', meaning the first of a new group of people (the Scions of Gallifrey, able to time travel but imbued with more human moralities) and the Last (being survivors like the Doctor, what's left of Gallifrey, the Master, et al). I think by virtue of the players existing, you have to move the universe away from being so Doctor-centric. I couldn't as a Whovian wipe out the Daleks, but you could in a sense reset them to their older selves to make them more of another on-par enem for players. And another strong branch of that story would include understanding and possibly helping the Ood to this more preeminent position where they create civilization itself by symbiosis to Time itself, so that they grow at fantastic rates, but totally bonded to and part of the Vortex, something that changes organically and grows, instead of being imposed upon as it was by the Time Lords.
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Post by senko on Sept 14, 2016 17:40:35 GMT
Your ideas about the Time Lords being an almost irrelevant 'elder race' are excellent; it's be a different style of game but an interesting one. What happens without them? Does time travel become more common without their intervention?
There was one book (cold fusion I think?) where there was an alternate time line in which the time lords died before they really got going (early TARDIS experiment gone badly wrong) and as a result there was a universe ruled by the time lords. Another race using that name who policed the universe far more actively wiping out any species they deemed inapropriate. Humanity was one and was obliterated for being too warlike resulting in an insectile species evolving from the worlds they'd have settled instead. Ashilder has that established loss of memory thing going to keep her being overpowerd Clara is definately a Mary Sue and an annoying one for me. Jenny could be an interesting companion though. I feel the Ood are a bit overvalued and will probably rapid-evolve to some higher plane vanishing from history rather than becoming anything major but that's just me. As for your first and last that could work with my character quite well. One of the early experiments in regen-infini turned into a Scion of Gallifrey but not exposed to the drugs that caused them to regenerate into more warlike forms. Released along with others as a control batch to observe long term effects of the process for problems. You could quite easily have a group of them running around loose since Gallifrey's removal from time meant that there was nobody to implement the planned removal of them after the time war. They wouldn't even have to all be humans as every species tested for the process had a control batch let loose with a TARDIS since if they went too far that individual could be erased retroactively at any time and if the whole group suddenly developed problems after a few centuries/regenerations they'd know in time to deal with the more dangerous combat models.
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solas
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 97
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Post by solas on Sept 15, 2016 15:38:38 GMT
Your ideas about the Time Lords being an almost irrelevant 'elder race' are excellent; it's be a different style of game but an interesting one. What happens without them? Does time travel become more common without their intervention?
There was one book (cold fusion I think?) where there was an alternate time line in which the time lords died before they really got going (early TARDIS experiment gone badly wrong) and as a result there was a universe ruled by the time lords. Another race using that name who policed the universe far more actively wiping out any species they deemed inapropriate. Humanity was one and was obliterated for being too warlike resulting in an insectile species evolving from the worlds they'd have settled instead. Ashilder has that established loss of memory thing going to keep her being overpowerd Clara is definately a Mary Sue and an annoying one for me. Jenny could be an interesting companion though. I feel the Ood are a bit overvalued and will probably rapid-evolve to some higher plane vanishing from history rather than becoming anything major but that's just me. As for your first and last that could work with my character quite well. One of the early experiments in regen-infini turned into a Scion of Gallifrey but not exposed to the drugs that caused them to regenerate into more warlike forms. Released along with others as a control batch to observe long term effects of the process for problems. You could quite easily have a group of them running around loose since Gallifrey's removal from time meant that there was nobody to implement the planned removal of them after the time war. They wouldn't even have to all be humans as every species tested for the process had a control batch let loose with a TARDIS since if they went too far that individual could be erased retroactively at any time and if the whole group suddenly developed problems after a few centuries/regenerations they'd know in time to deal with the more dangerous combat models. Mm. I hadn't really gone back and looked at the Doctor's Daughter for more ideas simply because Davies seemed to not have any interest in picking the story back up (or perhaps intended to and thought it might be awkward because the 'Father/Daughter' dynamic was definitely NOT so between the actors concerned.... I do like this unchecked group from regen-infi, but I confess I'm not very familiar with that at all. I could however splice that into the Lords of Time because in many ways they are the worst of what the Doctor/Donna was and I want to explore the consequences of the Doctor's actions rather than have him being the Doctor is the thing that somehow absolves him. He is the 'Good Man', but he's also dangerously amoral at times, or more selfishly concerned with his companions and not his longer-term actions. I still like the Ood being in some sort of position to refer to as I can use them cryptically and they specifically never ever want to get involved, and they just won't. They're too Ood for that. But I do want them to see time, and reflect time and meditate upon time and it gives me as a writer the chance to play with a view on seeing that which isn't an enforced one like it was for the Doctor and the Master and all the others. What if it was just...who you were and you shared it with all your species? But as much as I do want them to encounter the Doctor, I also want to establish a setting that doesn't always require him to be present.
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Post by Marnal on Sept 15, 2016 18:19:48 GMT
Stormcrow said "Mangling continuity involves contradicting it or retro-fitting details that change the meaning, but not the outward appearance, of continuity elements."Oh you mean Ret-cons. I love those! The best thing about franchises is that you can add a new story whose events and implications tweak the context and subtext of numerous other stories all around it. Love charting the ripples and re-watching/reading old stories made fresh again but the new context they sit in. And ret-cons tend to provide the ripples that travel the farthest, so they tend to be the most fascinating. Yes there are bad retcons that hurt the franchise, but there are also good ones that enhance it. And both types are intriguing to watch and follow. The Time Lords were ALWAYS going to come back at some point. And I thought that "Day of the Doctor" handled things excellently - its one of my favorite stories. The tragedy of the 9th and 10th Doctors has been re-contextualized as something similar to the tragedy of Donna where the Doctor doesn't realize what he's lost. Unfortunately "Hell Bent" feels like someone turned over two pages at once, but hopefully the story that fills in the gap [and make no mistake there will be one, in one media form or another] will show a missing page that's worth the wait. To tell the writers of Dr Who that they can't do temporal ret-cons to the show's history is more absurd then saying that they can't write any stories about the Daleks.
"Moffat, on the other hand, tore up the series assumptions."
"The Tenth Planet, War Games, Genesis of the Daleks, Brain of Morbius, Deadly Assassin, Mawadryn Undead, and Remembrance of the Daleks" [to name just a few] all tore up the series assumptions. And that's virtually a list of my favorite classic era stories. You can hate a particular ret-con but to say the writers shouldn't be allowed to make them is to take away one of the best things about the series.
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Post by olegrand on Sept 15, 2016 19:47:20 GMT
"The Tenth Planet, War Games, Genesis of the Daleks, Brain of Morbius, Deadly Assassin, Mawadryn Undead, and Remembrance of the Daleks" [to name just a few] all tore up the series assumptions. And that's virtually a list of my favorite classic era stories. You can hate a particular ret-con but to say the writers shouldn't be allowed to make them is to take away one of the best things about the series. Indeed - ultimately, it all boils down to dramatic quality, relevance and what we could call the "awe factor", as opposed to some kind of "legitimacy". There's nothing wrong with retcons and "game-changers" per se - but if they are clumsy or pointless, it becomes another matter entirely. As far as I'm concerned, I would really like to see more DRAMA in the forthcoming episodes, as opposed to pointless obligatory continuity stunts...
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Post by senko on Sept 16, 2016 7:22:36 GMT
I do like this unchecked group from regen-infi, but I confess I'm not very familiar with that at all. I could however splice that into the Lords of Time because in many ways they are the worst of what the Doctor/Donna was and I want to explore the consequences of the Doctor's actions rather than have him being the Doctor is the thing that somehow absolves him. He is the 'Good Man', but he's also dangerously amoral at times, or more selfishly concerned with his companions and not his longer-term actions. To be honest I'm not sure there's much out there about the regen-infini at all (or the rest of the time war) everything I know is from posts on this site by someone else. I wove together my character from that on the basis (given the whole doctor-donna thing) there had to have been experiments to make a working model. So there was the first series of tests (where they mostly burnt out and died horribly) before they cracked making other species able to bear the imprinteur of Rassilon (scion of gallifrey). Most of whome went into the second series of tests (where they also mostly died horribly) till they cracked the right sequence of drugs to make them regenerate into more combat deadly beings rather than as a new body of their species. Those drugs and techniques were used to create the regen-infini armies. However there is that small group who survived the first series of tests but weren't subjected to the second (which the character I refered to is in) that got a basic crash course in Gallifreyan knowledge minus a few key elements (like where Gallifrey actually is or the experiments/results they were subjected to to find how to get them able to become a Scion), handed a TARDIS that is generally old and obsolete (my character got lucky there innocent whistling) and were let out to roam around the galaxy so they could observe for long term mental and physical effects just to ensure their soldiers weren't going to do something nasty a few regenerations in or if they lived too much longer than their species normally did.
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solas
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 97
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Post by solas on Sept 16, 2016 14:08:05 GMT
I do like this unchecked group from regen-infi, but I confess I'm not very familiar with that at all. I could however splice that into the Lords of Time because in many ways they are the worst of what the Doctor/Donna was and I want to explore the consequences of the Doctor's actions rather than have him being the Doctor is the thing that somehow absolves him. He is the 'Good Man', but he's also dangerously amoral at times, or more selfishly concerned with his companions and not his longer-term actions. To be honest I'm not sure there's much out there about the regen-infini at all (or the rest of the time war) everything I know is from posts on this site by someone else. I wove together my character from that on the basis (given the whole doctor-donna thing) there had to have been experiments to make a working model. So there was the first series of tests (where they mostly burnt out and died horribly) before they cracked making other species able to bear the imprinteur of Rassilon (scion of gallifrey). Most of whome went into the second series of tests (where they also mostly died horribly) till they cracked the right sequence of drugs to make them regenerate into more combat deadly beings rather than as a new body of their species. Those drugs and techniques were used to create the regen-infini armies. However there is that small group who survived the first series of tests but weren't subjected to the second (which the character I refered to is in) that got a basic crash course in Gallifreyan knowledge minus a few key elements (like where Gallifrey actually is or the experiments/results they were subjected to to find how to get them able to become a Scion), handed a TARDIS that is generally old and obsolete (my character got lucky there innocent whistling) and were let out to roam around the galaxy so they could observe for long term mental and physical effects just to ensure their soldiers weren't going to do something nasty a few regenerations in or if they lived too much longer than their species normally did. Hm. A really interesting idea. Did you write this up or is that just the story brief with Scion of Gallifrey attached?
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