Perhaps the energy we see being unleashed during regeneration is the Time Lords' actual form, kind of like the 'genie in the bottle' - the physical body is merely a vessel to allow interaction with the four more mundane dimensions of reality, whilst the energy form operates in the higher dimensions. Remember how Rassilon and the High Council in The End of Time readily planned to shuck their physical forms and ascend to a higher plane as beings of pure energy; maybe in evolutionary terms this is something the Time Lords should have done long ago, but due to the stultifying nature of their society, their development has been arrested.
Fan Theory: Can we discuss fan theories?
- Thread starter Gingerbread Demon
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If "every cell in the body" is destroyed and recreated by regeneration, then logically the mind must be temporarily stored somewhere other than the neural connections in the brain, as that is being smoothied. If we go with the "regen is nanotech" then the Doctor is uploaded to a nanotech "hive" whilst the body is rebuilt, hence the disconnect on redownload. As I've used it in my fanfics, it's like the same OS on a new motherboard and new PCI cards - the drivers either need updating or they won't work right.
So, yes, the Time Lords could upload themselves to the "cyberspace" of the universe. "Preserved in lattices of organised light" as the elders of the 2001 saga were, perhaps? Or keyed into the fabric of the quantum forces of reality? The novels made out that some of the more ancient races of the universe - the Guardians, the Nestenes, the Toymaker... were in fact Time Lords from the previous universe who had survived in such ways.
Perhaps that's one more thing that Time Lords have two of?
A backup brain, to hold all of the memories of that particular Time Lord, across all regenerations. It may not even be subject to the actual regeneration process itself. To ensure that any given Gallifreyan would always have access to their entire store of memories, regardless of which "version" they are on.
Kind of like a Trill symbiont. It passes from one host to the next, but each successive host can remember everything their previous "selves" did, thanks to it. With Time Lords, the backup brain would be just like that, except it doesn't leave the body.
How's this for a fan theory: Perhaps Time Lords are human, just their descendants? I mean, we don't know exactly where in the timeline Gallifrey's "present" is, do we?
Any physiological differences between a Gallifreyan and a human body can be explained by the passage of time.
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Possibly, but still risky if it's physical. Get shot in the backup brain (even if it's in the big toe)? Then shot in the hearts? Which brain takes preference? Oh, the big toe? Well, congrats, you're a vegetable.
I think there has to be an element of "survives every cell in the body burning" to it. The idea of "dies too quickly to regenerate" is still OK if the nanotech (or other process) needs a while to kick in.
I admit the nanotech argument does seem plausible, if only because we've see ways a Time Lord can be killed without being able to regenerate.
The Castellan in "The Five Doctors", for example. He didn't regenerate after being shot, did he?
The Castellan in "The Five Doctors", for example. He didn't regenerate after being shot, did he?
Well, it makes sense the Time Lords have ways of killing each other permanently.
How's this for a fan theory: Perhaps Time Lords are human, just their descendants? I mean, we don't know exactly where in the timeline Gallifrey's "present" is, do we?
IIRC, this was hinted at in the early Hartnell stories. He was from the far future and was not an alien. What you write might have been the early intention, although it was never concretely stated.
Another bit from the Virgin books: never stated, but in the writer's guide, I think: the Time Lords are descended from humans who fled the end of the universe by travelling back to settle Gallifrey at the dawn of time.Perhaps that's one more thing that Time Lords have two of?
A backup brain, to hold all of the memories of that particular Time Lord, across all regenerations. It may not even be subject to the actual regeneration process itself. To ensure that any given Gallifreyan would always have access to their entire store of memories, regardless of which "version" they are on.
Kind of like a Trill symbiont. It passes from one host to the next, but each successive host can remember everything their previous "selves" did, thanks to it. With Time Lords, the backup brain would be just like that, except it doesn't leave the body.
How's this for a fan theory: Perhaps Time Lords are human, just their descendants? I mean, we don't know exactly where in the timeline Gallifrey's "present" is, do we?
13 grandmothers?
13 regenerations of the same woman, or two women??
No, not two.
13 grandmothers means that you need 4 timelords to make make one baby. Well that's 16 grandmothers, but if they are regenerating into different genders, and only chose to see the the childlike Doctor intermittently, or not at all, or they were dead by the time the Doctor was born...
It takes four of them to make one baby.
13 regenerations of the same woman, or two women??
No, not two.
13 grandmothers means that you need 4 timelords to make make one baby. Well that's 16 grandmothers, but if they are regenerating into different genders, and only chose to see the the childlike Doctor intermittently, or not at all, or they were dead by the time the Doctor was born...
It takes four of them to make one baby.
The Andorian Mating Crisis All Over Again!
I seem to recall this popping up somewhere recently. A Big Finish audio? It wasn't confirmed but it was presented....
I seem to recall this popping up somewhere recently. A Big Finish audio? It wasn't confirmed but it was presented....
And THEN there's the whole "City of the Saved" thing....
I've also thought about this. Been working on a "not-Doctor Who" game where this is part of what happens.
Random theory: Given the sheer quantity of time travel and temporal intervention in the Doctor Who universe, history is always in flux, albeit anchored by certain apparent (and possibly random) fixed points in time — and even those can be changed; it’s just a really bad idea, according to the “Web of Time” conceptual model adhered to by the Time Lords (and almost no one else).
Because the Doctor’s personal experience has become spread over such a large expanse of ever-changing time and space, hir own subjective timeline has grown more than a bit fluid — to the point that even hir own past is forever changing and expanding. As the Doctor says at some point in a novel I shall never write, “Why, I remember new things that didn’t used to have happened to me all the time!”
Because the Doctor’s personal experience has become spread over such a large expanse of ever-changing time and space, hir own subjective timeline has grown more than a bit fluid — to the point that even hir own past is forever changing and expanding. As the Doctor says at some point in a novel I shall never write, “Why, I remember new things that didn’t used to have happened to me all the time!”
^That's pretty much canon at this point. There were some DVD-exclusive minisodes made during the Eleventh Doctor years, and there was a running gag where Amy kept trying to ask him a question and being interrupted, and when she finally cornered him (in "Good Night"), she wanted to ask about how it was weird that she could remember both versions of her life, with and without parents, at once. As the Doctor explained;
"The thing is, Amy, everyone's memory is a mess. Life is a mess. Everyone's got memories of a holiday they couldn't have been on or a party they never went to, or met someone for the first time and felt like they've known them all their lives. Time is being rewritten all around us, every day. People think their memories are bad, but their memories are fine. The past is really like that."
Amy, of course, thought that was preposterous, so the Doctor proved his point by going to the time Amy was saddest in her life and having her soften the blow for her past self, so she could experience her memory rewriting right as it was being set up to happen.
Moffat also explored the idea in his "Day of the Doctor" novelization, which I can't recommend highly enough, where there's a scene which we see from the Doctor's perspective all three times he lived through it, and there's a teeny difference every time from how it happened before.
Which gave to my theory, which may well have been intentionally implied, but there's no way to say it outright within the fiction without getting overcomplicated; in "Silence in the Library" River remembered doing the Crash of the Byzantium and the Picnic at Asgard with the Tenth Doctor because, at the time, she had, but later, the Tenth Doctor resolved to avoid River whenever possible (also something that happened in the "Day" novelization), and those encounters ended up being delayed for him.
And, of course, we also saw time not being a strict progression of cause and effect (hmm) in "A Christmas Carol."
"The thing is, Amy, everyone's memory is a mess. Life is a mess. Everyone's got memories of a holiday they couldn't have been on or a party they never went to, or met someone for the first time and felt like they've known them all their lives. Time is being rewritten all around us, every day. People think their memories are bad, but their memories are fine. The past is really like that."
Amy, of course, thought that was preposterous, so the Doctor proved his point by going to the time Amy was saddest in her life and having her soften the blow for her past self, so she could experience her memory rewriting right as it was being set up to happen.
Moffat also explored the idea in his "Day of the Doctor" novelization, which I can't recommend highly enough, where there's a scene which we see from the Doctor's perspective all three times he lived through it, and there's a teeny difference every time from how it happened before.
Which gave to my theory, which may well have been intentionally implied, but there's no way to say it outright within the fiction without getting overcomplicated; in "Silence in the Library" River remembered doing the Crash of the Byzantium and the Picnic at Asgard with the Tenth Doctor because, at the time, she had, but later, the Tenth Doctor resolved to avoid River whenever possible (also something that happened in the "Day" novelization), and those encounters ended up being delayed for him.
And, of course, we also saw time not being a strict progression of cause and effect (hmm) in "A Christmas Carol."
OR...............
How about this?
The Doctor is always fixing things and changing history but what if it's the Doctor that is the real villain?
How about this?
The Doctor is always fixing things and changing history but what if it's the Doctor that is the real villain?
Which works beautifully with Lawrence Miles, Lance Parkin and Kate Orman's "The Doctor is both half-human and full-Gallifreyan & Loom-born and natural born" stuff from their Seventh and Eighth Doctor novels, Faction Paradox novels, Cold Fusion, The Infinity Doctors, the Tenth Doctor novel The Eyeless and their charity short stories. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey and all that.
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This is why Atlantis had three different contradictory fates, and they all happened! Just not at the same time, and not necessarily in order.
Ah, loom people. I like Loom people, they believe in the looms.
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