Strax is at it again...

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by Lonemagpie, Dec 19, 2013.

  1. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    How would he know? Nobody survived to tell about it except the Doctor and Leela, and it's not something the Doctor would brag about. (Oh, and Leela would dispute the "single-handedly.")
     
  2. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

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    Yeah, but the point being he's the only one who doesn't count that incarnation, so Strax, like the Timeys, Daleks, etc, *should*.
     
  3. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Except we don't really know they don't. Like I said, this Doctor hasn't really been called "the Eleventh Doctor" consistently in-story. "The Fall of the Eleventh" is pretty much the only reference, aside from a bit in "The Lodger" where the Doctor implicitly referred to himself as "Eleventh." And the prophecy could have been shaped by how he sees himself -- especially if it was meant for his ears.

    Okay, we've seen various montages of the Doctor's faces that didn't include Hurt, in the Cybermen database from "The Next Doctor" and the big eye-ship database from "The Eleventh Hour." But then, in previous series we've also seen alien databases that only included the Doctor's first few incarnations, even though logically his future incarnations should've been known as well given how much he travels back and forth in time. So alien databases cannot be assumed to be complete.

    And we've seen the Doctor delete records of his existence. The Ninth Doctor created a virus to delete references to him from Earth's databases, and the Eleventh Doctor spent much of the last season trying to erase knowledge of himself from the universe. Maybe he'd done it before. He wanted to forget the War Doctor, to efface that incarnation from his memory, so maybe he tried to wipe the universe's memory of him as well. Or it could be that most people who encountered the War Doctor never realized he was the Doctor, because he didn't go by that name. Maybe only the Time Lords knew it. (Although come to think of it, the police-box shell of the TARDIS would've been kind of a giveaway. I wonder why the WD never changed it.)
     
  4. Guy Gardener

    Guy Gardener Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    In the lap of squalor I assure you.
    Because 6 poured a litre of fizzy pop into the chameleon circuit and then kicked it.

    "CHAMELEON CIRCUIT NO MORE!"
     
  5. Lonemagpie

    Lonemagpie Writer Admiral

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    Who says she'd let him?
     
  6. Starkers

    Starkers Admiral Admiral

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    Fair point
     
  7. diankra

    diankra Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yes, there is a 'big' plot hole in The Next Doctor now, as you'd think Hurt would get the most attention in the Dalek infostamp data, given that he fought the Time War against them,yet he's not there.
    Ah, maybe he was so important they put the info on him into a seperate file, and the one we saw was just the 'Btw, he has other incarnations' footnote!
     
  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^That was a Cyberman infostamp, actually.
     
  9. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Which leads to the implication that Hurt's Doctor never encountered the Cybermen. :)
     
  10. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    But does it mean Capaldi's and all subsequent Doctors never encountered the Cybermen either?

    This is the problem with a time-travel series. The villains always have information about the Doctor's incarnations based only on the real-world history of the series, rather than the in-universe chronology. For instance, the Cybermen in "Earthshock," set in the early 26th century, inexplicably have footage of the Fourth Doctor from "Revenge of the Cybermen," set in the 29th century; but they don't have footage of the Sixth Doctor's 1985 encounter in "Attack of the Cybermen" or the Seventh's 1988 encounter in "Silver Nemesis." So the in-universe chronology is, by necessity, inconsistent.

    Heck, "The Next Doctor" was set in the 19th century. Chronologically, it's the earliest of all the Cyberman stories up to that point -- so really the Cybermen shouldn't have data on any of the Doctors yet, except maybe the Eleventh, whom they encountered in Roman Britain in "The Pandorica Opens." But then, why would they have been part of the coalition against the Doctor when, chronologically, they'd never encountered him before?

    So ultimately one can't take these things too literally. The only explanations are metatextual -- the characters know what the audience knows. In any story, the universe is populated only by the Doctors that have existed onscreen up to that point. Well, with two canonical exceptions that I can think of: "Battlefield," in which the Doctor learned a future incarnation of his would be Merlin in an alternate reality (actually the Eighth, according to a Peter David story in Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership), and "The Day of the Doctor," in which we catch a glimpse of Peter Capaldi. (And kinda sorta "Logopolis" with the Watcher, but since Davison debuts in the same story, it doesn't really count.)
     
  11. diankra

    diankra Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    It was a Cyberman infostamp, but the dialogue says they got it off the Daleks somehow while in the void. Though that is just the Doctor's guess, so he might be wrong.
     
  12. DWF

    DWF Admiral Admiral

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    But the knowledge of the Doctor was stolen from the Daleks.

     
  13. Sketcher

    Sketcher Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Considering the void Daleks were in a prison ship, maybe their data is from an early period in the war when the Doctor was still in his eighth incarnation. And, um, maybe they got 9 and 10's faces from the internet during the Battle of Canary Wharf. Works right? Sort of?
     
  14. Emperor-Tiberius

    Emperor-Tiberius Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Obviously they would have, though, if Earthshock was filmed after those said stories. Not to mention the numerous audio adventures that featured them.

    That being said... wouldn't it have been cool for a special editiion to include said images? The Cybermen wouldn't care about the numbering after all.

    Yeah, but wasn't The Next Doctor forgotten (if not outright retconned out of existence) by the whole crack-in-the-wall/big bang 2 event?

    Plus, I always thought those Cybermen were the remnants of Pete's World, that came to this world to re-inforce themselves. Sorta like Smiley visiting DS9 from the Mirror Universe to get some technical help for their resistance. Same with the Pandorica Cybermen.

    Furthermore, the earliest, Mondas Cyberman appearance in the canon is actually in 1873, in the Silver Turk. :)

    You're overthinking this. The references aren't there due to those stories not having been filmed or even thought of by then. Not because continuity wasn't on-point.

    Really, for a franchise that doesn't have a strict continuity policy (wisely), it has managed to do a pretty spot-on job. And again, Big Finish has helped enormously in that direction.

    Is it too late for that to be adapted into an audio story? :D
     
  15. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    That's beside the point. The issue isn't what's later known about its events, the issue is what the characters in that story know about other events. As far as the Cybermen in that story were concerned, most or all of their encounters with the Doctor hadn't happened yet.


    The canonicity of prose or audio adventures is ambiguous at best.


    No, my whole point is that other people are overthinking this, that it's a waste of time to try to concoct in-universe rationalizations for the series' approach to what characters know or don't know about the Doctor's various incarnations, because the only explanation is that the stories can only use the Doctors that existed at the time they were written. So there's no sense trying to concoct some handwave for why the infostamp didn't contain the War Doctor, any more than there is for handwaving why Borusa didn't kidnap McGann or Tennant in "The Five Doctors." I'm making the same point you are, so I don't know why you think you're arguing with me.
     
  16. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Unfortunately there's still the problem that their image of Tennant comes from an episode after Doomsday (Voyage of the Damned).
     
  17. The Wormhole

    The Wormhole Fleet Admiral Admiral

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  18. Timelord Victorious

    Timelord Victorious Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Confronting Vastra and Jenny with a Missile-toe! LMAO
    Boy is Strax in for a shock! :guffaw:
     
  19. Saul

    Saul Vice Admiral Admiral

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    As for the dalek/cyber infostamp.
    I think that because the Daleks are at the level of the Timelords they share the same timeline as in what they do outside their timeline to others doesn't effect them but events relating to each other are on the same level. Like the Doctors personal timeline. He can see others futures but not his own. Same goes for the Daleks.

    I think you're missing the point of the internet, fandom and BBS boards.
     
  20. DWF

    DWF Admiral Admiral

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    If you're going to continue to split hairs, the Cybermen in The Next Doctor were the ones from Pete's world in the alternate reality. The real Mondasian Cybermen weren't to show up again til Closing Time.