I was born in the 49th century . . .

[senko]

Just browsing various things and was watching the film theory - can a timelord exist. The focus there is on whether or not a time lord would theoretically be possible in the real world but the thing I take away from it is that there's all these things that happen to humans (existing with 2 hearts, surviving low body temperatures, susan saying she was born in the 49th century) which got me musing that the biggest, darkest secret of Rassilon could be that Gallifreyans are really just one more offshoot of humanity. They evolved in the future to have 2 hearts, respiratory bypass and so on then went back in time in the early TARDIS's to become the oldest species in existence. Just a musing theory but there has been no other species (short of shapeshifters) that look so much like humans unless they evolved from them. Then I thought of the Titanic an entire ship + supporting infrastructure that primarily again look like humans . . . Mr Copper are you a lost descendent of future human time travellers?

[Stormcrow]

While I can't definitively say it's impossible, the commonly accepted notion to justify all those human-looking aliens is that the humanoid form is one of the most versatile, so parallel paths of evolution lead to it independently. It is, of course, just nonsense to explain why you've got human actors playing aliens that mysteriously look completely human.

There's a certain attraction to the idea that Time Lords are really just humans that further evolved and gained the ability to travel in time, then lost the knowledge of their origins. It's too convenient for me, though. It's better as one of those things you just don't think about too hard or you'll spoil it.

[misterharry]

Nov 26, 2019 14:03:07 GMT Stormcrow said:

While I can't definitively say it's impossible, the commonly accepted notion to justify all those human-looking aliens is that the humanoid form is one of the most versatile, so parallel paths of evolution lead to it independently. It is, of course, just nonsense to explain why you've got human actors playing aliens that mysteriously look completely human.

It's down to the Time Lords themselves. During the Dark Times when they fought the Vampires and the Racnoss and all the other monstrosities, they created a morphic field for the universe to make it more probable that the races that would evolve from that point on would be humanoid.

[Catsmate]

Nov 26, 2019 15:43:18 GMT misterharry said:

Nov 26, 2019 14:03:07 GMT Stormcrow said:

While I can't definitively say it's impossible, the commonly accepted notion to justify all those human-looking aliens is that the humanoid form is one of the most versatile, so parallel paths of evolution lead to it independently. It is, of course, just nonsense to explain why you've got human actors playing aliens that mysteriously look completely human.

It's down to the Time Lords themselves. During the Dark Times when they fought the Vampires and the Racnoss and all the other monstrosities, they created a morphic field for the universe to make it more probable that the races that would evolve from that point on would be humanoid.

That would be my take on it too. 
Pond: You look human.
Doctor¹⁰: No, you look Time Lord. We came first.

[misterharry]

Nov 27, 2019 8:52:54 GMT Catsmate said:

Nov 26, 2019 15:43:18 GMT misterharry said:

It's down to the Time Lords themselves. During the Dark Times when they fought the Vampires and the Racnoss and all the other monstrosities, they created a morphic field for the universe to make it more probable that the races that would evolve from that point on would be humanoid.

That would be my take on it too. 
Pond: You look human.
Doctor¹⁰: No, you look Time Lord. We came first.

Of course, that doesn't preclude Time Lords having evolved from humans. Humanity could have evolved into Time Lords who then went back to establish themselves in the distant past, where they set up the morphic field that determined that humans evolve in their image. It would be an interesting bootstrap paradox.

[Catsmate]

Nov 27, 2019 9:26:18 GMT misterharry said:

Nov 27, 2019 8:52:54 GMT Catsmate said:

That would be my take on it too. 
Pond: You look human.
Doctor¹⁰: No, you look Time Lord. We came first.

Of course, that doesn't preclude Time Lords having evolved from humans. Humanity could have evolved into Time Lords who then went back to establish themselves in the distant past, where they set up the morphic field that determined that humans evolve in their image. It would be an interesting bootstrap paradox.

That is an idea I've played with; Time Lords were not the first sentient race, but the last.
Evolving when the universe was growing dark and cold, with no other intelligent life and few habitable planets (most stars being white dwarfs). They explored and found only the remains of prior societies, expanding their knowledge until the mastered the most difficult feat; time travel. Rendered immensely difficult by the lack of plastcity in space-time they made the ultimate gamble and sent their whole society back in time hundreds of billions of years to when the universe was young, and energetic and full of potential. There to mold reality in their image.
Something the Time lords don't discuss.
In fact something most of them don't even know.

[senko]

I do like that idea and given the RPG and show's old timelord tech is beyond what current timelords are capable of it would fit with deliberately suppressed knowledge and information. They don't want their children to realize the truth so they hid it and as a result certain knowledge and technology was lost for a time.

[Catsmate]

Nov 27, 2019 19:24:27 GMT senko said:

I do like that idea and given the RPG and show's old timelord tech is beyond what current timelords are capable of it would fit with deliberately suppressed knowledge and information. They don't want their children to realize the truth so they hid it and as a result certain knowledge and technology was lost for a time.

Oh yes, it's quite possible to extend and alter the Time Lord mythos with this idea.

Rassilon, Omega et cetera were the brilliant, imaginative, minds responsible for the initial 'jump back' to the early days of the universe. The later generations had their real origin gradually modified, or perhaps some elements were lost in the battles with the other forces (Great Old Ones? Elder Gods?) who held sway in the early, chaotic days of the universe. Perhaps remnants of the previous universe who were banished by the Time Lords? 

• Quite possibly when adding certain traits (the Rassilon Imprimatur?) to the Gallifreyan biodata certain bits were edited out. This could be why most Time Lords seem quite happy with the near-stasis on Gallifrey.
• This might explain the interest in non-Gallifreyan Companions too; Time Lords realise they're lacking certain drives.

This could explain why Gallifrey stabilised within it's own star system, rather than creating an empire (or abandoning the one it had if some of the EU history of Gallifrey is accepted). Hiding behind the Transduction Barriers that protect its past history from alteration; the Time Lords know of their vulnerability. And that there are still things hiding out there.

• A little editing could replace the whole 'Great Vampire' trope with something more Lovecraftian; corruption of the biodata or morphogenic field rather than crude blood lust perhaps? And maybe link to a hidden cult on Gallifrey.

Of course with dimensional manipulation they don't actually need to expand beyond Gallifrey; with their techbase (even diminished) their star is more decorative than essential and Gallifrey no doubt has billions (if not trillions) of extensions into pocket dimensions (perhaps with their own, variant, physical laws) for living space, experimentation, production or confinement.

Present day Gallifrey is but a shadow of it's former glories; static and uninspiring, though immensely powerful.
Until someone wants to return to those glories of course. That never ends well.

• Though of course it provides excellent reasons for renegades.

There's also the concern about the effect of the existence of Time Lords on their future progenitors. Maybe that's where the ideas of the Master's Paradox Machine came from, and why a TARDIS could be so modified; the Lords of Time are attempting to avoid being edited from history when their ancestors finally come into existence by using the TARDISes to alter the nature of reality

This would also be linked with the presence of Ashildr at the end of time and the events of Utopia.


Any comments?

[senko]

I was thinking about Utopia myself and that possibly it was the first great leap into the uknown and that the master unaware of their own history was not only mucking about with human development but time lord. He thinks his paradox machine is allowing the last humans to eliminate their own ancestors without being erased but in actual fact his paradox machine is also keeping him and the doctor from being wiped from history as well. Utopia alone in the dark and the cold and the desperate human drive to survive in the end makes a leap into the past. A past where their child like killing is fun runs head on into the Carrionites, the Racnos, the great vampires and they have to change to abandon their child like mind set because this is a war and they need to strategize and plan to survive. A war where the first to change back are Rassilon and Omega and thus the rise of the time lords begins under a new sun. However those first time lords are ashamed of what they did because they're no longer a child and they know they're in the past and so they place the time locks and discourage their descendants from looking too far into the future where they might see their own past.

[da professor]

Nov 29, 2019 17:49:34 GMT senko said:

I was thinking about Utopia myself and that possibly it was the first great leap into the uknown and that the master unaware of their own history was not only mucking about with human development but time lord. He thinks his paradox machine is allowing the last humans to eliminate their own ancestors without being erased but in actual fact his paradox machine is also keeping him and the doctor from being wiped from history as well. Utopia alone in the dark and the cold and the desperate human drive to survive in the end makes a leap into the past. A past where their child like killing is fun runs head on into the Carrionites, the Racnos, the great vampires and they have to change to abandon their child like mind set because this is a war and they need to strategize and plan to survive. A war where the first to change back are Rassilon and Omega and thus the rise of the time lords begins under a new sun. However those first time lords are ashamed of what they did because they're no longer a child and they know they're in the past and so they place the time locks and discourage their descendants from looking too far into the future where they might see their own past.

Came here to say this /\

[Catsmate]

Nov 29, 2019 17:49:34 GMT senko said:

I was thinking about Utopia myself and that possibly it was the first great leap into the uknown and that the master unaware of their own history was not only mucking about with human development but time lord. He thinks his paradox machine is allowing the last humans to eliminate their own ancestors without being erased but in actual fact his paradox machine is also keeping him and the doctor from being wiped from history as well. Utopia alone in the dark and the cold and the desperate human drive to survive in the end makes a leap into the past. A past where their child like killing is fun runs head on into the Carrionites, the Racnos, the great vampires and they have to change to abandon their child like mind set because this is a war and they need to strategize and plan to survive. A war where the first to change back are Rassilon and Omega and thus the rise of the time lords begins under a new sun. However those first time lords are ashamed of what they did because they're no longer a child and they know they're in the past and so they place the time locks and discourage their descendants from looking too far into the future where they might see their own past.

Utopia annoys the physicist in me. One hundred trillion years is way longer than current projections expect the universe to last; more probably lifetimes are around fifty to one hundred billion years, if CDM is relatively scarce and universal expansion doesn't end.
This would be a dark place (literally, no visible stars) with energy, matter and entropy being mostly evenly spread; the Big Rip scenario.
If CDM is more common and expansion does eventually stop the universe dies in the Big Crunch of contraction, in around one hundred to one thousand billion years.

That said, the premise that the humans(?) of Malcassairo were the progenitors of the Time Lords is an interesting one andf I like your ideas.

[senko]

Well there were no stars in that future if I remember right.

Also would explain the tales of the Toclafane in Time Lord history as they usually only refer to actual creatures e.g. great vampires not to a boogy man. The last lingering tale of their origins is as a tale to scare children.

[Catsmate]

Dec 1, 2019 7:36:19 GMT senko said:

Well there were no stars in that future if I remember right.

Also would explain the tales of the Toclafane in Time Lord history as they usually only refer to actual creatures e.g. great vampires not to a boogy man. The last lingering tale of their origins is as a tale to scare children.

The lack of stars would suggest a Big Rip ending to the universe. It's still about a thousand times too long for the universe to last in such a scenario.
Oh well maybe Logopolis got it right.

[Stormcrow]

Nov 30, 2019 19:27:38 GMT Catsmate said:

Utopia annoys the physicist in me.

And you watch Doctor Who?

[Catsmate]

Dec 1, 2019 20:27:35 GMT Stormcrow said:

Nov 30, 2019 19:27:38 GMT Catsmate said:

Utopia annoys the physicist in me.

And you watch Doctor Who?

Yes, yes I do. I remember Ye Olde Days when there was at least some, slight, adherence to science. Occasionally...