intuitive-revelations - Tumblr blog

[intuitive-revelations]

heck yeah

I got the Top 4.47% on this English Vocabulary test

[intuitive-revelations]

I'm not really a DoctorRose shipper, but here's a very unlikely but still technically possible thought:

If, per The Legend of Ruby Sunday, Susan really is the daughter of a future child of the Doctor...

...and her original name really is "Arkytior", ie. the Gallifreyan equivalent of "Rose"...

...there's an argument to be made that, like Rose Temple-Noble (ironically, herself arguably a relative of the Doctor in a roundabout way, via the metacrisis), Susan might have been originally named after Rose Tyler.

[intuitive-revelations]

#love this #the doppler effect bit is backwards tho (via @octospiders)

True! I meant more just the colour theming of the 2005-2010 vortex, which used blue to symbolise the past and red to symbolise travelling to the future regardless of the direction the vortex visibly flowed. This always seemed to evoke the Dopper effect to me, and I've seen other people suggest the same thing. TBH I didn't think about whether it literally applied to the direction of the vortex's flow in the Gate/Schism when I said that! Whoops...

I've seen some try to justify the theming as time flowing towards the future, and thus away from the present, so being red-shifted, and vice versa for the past, though unfortunately this does clash with the 'canon' description of time flowing through the gate in Lungbarrow, so it doesn't quite come together nicely.

Sadly they didn't really continue with it in the Moffat Era. That being said, we only saw Eleven's first vortex a couple of times in-universe, so it's hard to tell - the appearance in The Pandorica Opens doesn't really seem to fit though, since river is travelling from 102 AD to 1996 and it still looks blue, though maybe that's because it's the 'absolute' past and not based on the TARDIS's direction of travel? I guess that would make sense with the Gate too?

They did allegedly do a similar thing with Eleven's bowtie though, in series 5 at least, where it would be blue in episodes set in the past and red in the future. "Present day" episodes it could be either or. Only exception again is The Pandorica Opens, weirdly, with the Doctor being mostly in 102 AD but wearing red. Maybe when he and Amy visited Planet One it was technically in the future, and he kept it the same after that.

Bizarrely, this might actually have also originated from Lungbarrow! When Ace is transducted while time-hopping, we get the following line:

Thin streaks of light began coursing along the tunnel boundaries. Red to come, blue behind.

It's not clear if we're looking at the vortex here, given Ace was already in a golden vortex of some sort before she was transducted (though maybe that was some sort of protective shielding, given she loses consciousness when she's pulled out). In physical space, this seems to reverse the Doppler effect as well, but if you read 'to come' and 'behind' temporally, it very much matches what we see in the RTD vortex.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I've been thinking a lot about the exact chronology of ancient Gallifrey, and specifically I've put a lot of attention on the Caldera and the Citadel, plus related things like the Eye of Harmony, the Crevasse of Memories That Will Be, the Untempered Schism etc.

All these things seem to be located in the same place on Gallifrey, albeit some at different times, and often overlap in nature. After some thinking, I think I've worked how everything goes together, as well as the order of events. At some point I want to create a fully history, but for the sake of this we'll focus primarily on the subjects above, with some other major events sprinkled in for context.

A Very Brief History of the Capitol

[ID: Surviving parts of the old Capitol, in an illustration from Lungbarrow. Crystal-like towers and walkways stand over a waterfall. The TARDIS, in pyramid form, dematerialises.]

Pythian Era - The capital city is built near the Mountains of Solace and Solitude (likely, in antiquity, a stronghold against the Gin-Seng cats to the south). Beneath the Pythia's temple, in the centre of the city, is the Cavern of Prophecy. Within the cave is a deep, deep opening known as the Crevasse of Memories That Will Be, which holds, in the astral plane, something known as the Gate of the Future, a tear into the time vortex far greater than the similar natural rifts that occur elsewhere on Gallifrey. Time flows out from it, from the future, to the past Gallifrey. In times of meditation, the Pythia sits in a hanging cage above the Crevasse, breathing in the rising vapours, which aid her in her clairvoyance.

[ID: Gif edit made by me, featuring the last Pythia sat in a small cage slowly swinging in a chasm as a mist slowly rises around her.]

The Intuitive Revelation - The Neotechnologists, led by Rassilon, bring a revolution. The Pythia curses Gallifrey with sterility and cuts the ropes holding her cage, falling into the abyss. The Gate of the Future inverts, forming the Gate of the Past. Visibly, the Doppler-effect like colouring of the vortex changes - no longer red, flowing towards the viewer, but blue and flowing away. Ttime from the new future flowing into the chaotic past.

The new government take control of the Capitol. A new age of space exploration arises, with the Shobogans taking on the name, for now, of "Space Lords". One of these first individual explorers, semi-authorised predecessors to future Time Lord renegades, is a woman named Tecteun.

The First Attempt - The stellar engineers, including Rassilon and Omega, make their first attempt at capturing the energy of a collapsing star, recieving the energy on Gallifrey using an obelisk, like that later used to channel energy from the Eye of Harmony, in the middle of the city, using the nature of the Crevasse.

The experiment is a catastrophic failure. A hole is punctured into the Spiral Yssgaroth, unleashing Vampires through openings throughout the universe, fracturing out from the experiment.

[ID: From The Book of the War, an illustration of the "Eyes of the Yssgaroth", human-like eyeballs looking through holes punctured into spacetime.]

Part of the Old Capitol is destroyed in a great blast, destroying the Cavern of Prophecy and opening up the Crevasse, leaving a giant crater: the Caldera. It is likely that many are killed. Left behind in the middle of the crater, is the Gate of the Past, now manifest in the physical world: an open gap in reality. In this form, it becomes known as the Untempered Schism.

(I also suspect this is when Rassilon is forced to regenerate for the first time, to the shock of on-lookers, having secretly previously recieved Tecteun's genetic modifications - I plan to expand on this theory in a future post.)

The Vampire War / Rebuilding of the Capitol - The exact circumstances of the experiment are covered up. Rassilon, leaving to fight the Vampire hoard, swears Omega to secrecy regarding the project during the Arcalian High Council's investigation.

[ID: A gif, rotating around the Citadel is constructed over the Caldera, from part of the (likely partially-symbolic) time-lapse in The Timeless Children.]

Though some of the city survives, including parts of the Pythian temple, a new colossal city-complex begins construction in the place of the old one, suspended over the Caldera, the centrepiece of the new Capitol: the Citadel. It is built as a defensive structure, both for the war, and to protect the new, growing elite, surrounded by a great circular wall named "Rassilon's Rampart". The "core" of the structure, on which the towers rest, reaches down deep into Caldera and the deeper Crevasse.

Meanwhile the Untempered Schism is taken out of the city by those fearing further destruction, to a place in the nearby hills that will one day be known as the Weeping Field, where prospective Time Academy students are initiated.

[ID: The Untempered Schism in the Doctor's time, as seen in The Sound of Drums. It sits in a stone frame on red grass, with the Seal of Rassilon in front of it, and flames on either side. Within it, the blue "past" variant of the RTD1-era time vortex flows away from the viewer. The Citadel's lights are visible in the background.]

(Side note: it's possible the Untempered Schism's 'ring' is deliberately designed to evoke the Caldera. Note how it's lined with pieces sticking out. Look a bit like the battlements on Rassilon's Rampart, don't they? Surrounding the hole into the vortex just as they surround the crater.)

The Anchoring of the Thread - Several centuries later, once the Vampires are more or less defeated, Rassilon returns home. He coups Pandak I, forcing him to resign, and takes the Presidency.

By now the Citadel is more or less completed, though for the next few centuries it still lacks its characteristic dome, likely added during a later founding conflict.

[ID: Gallifrey, around the time the first TARDISes are grown, from The Lost Dimension. In the background past a small outsider village is the Citadel, new and gleaming, but undomed.]

The Triumvirate retry their experiment at Qqaba / Polyphilos, attempting to capture the collapsed star. When the experiment goes wrong once more, Omega's ship falls inside, as spacetime threatens to crack open again. With temporal energy flowing though him (a la the Bad Wolf), Rassilon reshapes the laws of physics, forming an event horizon, and black holes as we know them.

The black hole is dimensionally captured and suspended in the moment it collapses and the event horizon is formed, creating the Eye of Harmony, controlled using the Obelisk of Rassilon storied in the Panopticon Vaults. Meanwhile, the black hole itself is suspended within the temporal singularity of the Caldera, deep below the Citadel.

Harnessing the power of the Eye and the Caldera rift, Rassilon "anchors" chronology around Gallifrey, creating the Web of Time and placing it under the control of the Gallifreyans, now Time Lords.

Future Developments - Over the years, many changes come to Rassilon's Gallifrey.

Over the years, the more and more of the old city is replaced with new towers, forming the new Capitol around a now domed Citadel. Interweaved with these buildings over 28 square miles is much of the new Time Academy, such that the Academy is sometimes considered a whole city itself annexed to the Citadel.

While the remnants of the Pythian Temple are eventually torched by Rassilon, hunting down dissenters, many old buildings remain intact. These continue to be inhabited far into the future, in a community known as "Low Town" or the "Lower Len", as opposed to the "upper" city above. Shanties surround the surviving buildings, some climbing up Rassilon's Rampart. The Pythia

Another such community is based around the "Old Harbour", whcih once sat on the coast of the now recessed Sea of Time. Nowadays, it likely sits on the shore of the small (possibly designed) lakes near the Capitol, where streams from the mountains presumably once drained directly into the sea.

[ID: From Hell Bent: a screencap as Rassilon turns from looking out the window from an Inner Council chamber high above the Capitol. In the background can be seen some lakes between the mountains, with some signs of what might be buildings on their shores.]

(Side note: I reckon this shot above might actually give us a glimpse of Old Harbour. I might just be imagining things, but there's some small features around and on the lakes I reckon could be docks or buildings? Interestingly, this also comes as Rassilon asks about the Cloister Bells ringing, and Old Habour is well known for the bells in its clocktower, which might explain why Rassilon was looking out at it from the window.)

In the space around the Eye in the Caldera, the Cloisters, the core of the APC net and later the Matrix, is constructed. The structure itself is, externally at least, relatively small, but it generates an entire 'micro-universe' on the Astral plane once accessed by the Pythia. Indeed, just as the Crevasse once allowed the meditating Pythia to see the future, so does the Matrix create its own prophecies.

[ID: From Hell Bent, the Doctor and Ohila converse in the entranceway to the Cloisters, a dark space with glowing optic fibres running across cobwebbed columns.]

In the Matrix is a "womb-like" null-space is where most TARDISes are grown, taking advantages of the Caldera's spatio-temporal properties. Budding within the Citadel Cloisters, a TARDIS's "Cloister Room" is one of the first parts to grow.

By the time of the Time War, though possibly earlier, the sealed Caldera also forms the resting site for many dying Battle TARDISes, the Under Croft, where they presumably decay and fertilise the growth of new time ships.

[intuitive-revelations]

As I've mentioned in a previous post, I've been thinking a lot about the exact chronology of ancient Gallifrey, and specifically I've put a lot of attention on the Caldera and the Citadel, plus related things like the Eye of Harmony, the Crevasse of Memories That Will Be, the Untempered Schism etc.

All these things seem to be located in the same place on Gallifrey, albeit some at different times, and often overlap in nature. After some thinking, I think I've worked how everything goes together, as well as the order of events. At some point I want to create a fully history, but for the sake of this we'll focus primarily on the subjects above, with some other major events sprinkled in for context.

A Very Brief History of the Capitol

[ID: Surviving parts of the old Capitol, in an illustration from Lungbarrow. Crystal-like towers and walkways stand over a waterfall. The TARDIS, in pyramid form, dematerialises.]

Pythian Era - The capital city is built near the Mountains of Solace and Solitude (likely, in antiquity, a stronghold against the Gin-Seng cats to the south). Beneath the Pythia's temple, in the centre of the city, is the Cavern of Prophecy. Within the cave is a deep, deep opening known as the Crevasse of Memories That Will Be, which holds, in the astral plane, something known as the Gate of the Future, a tear into the time vortex far greater than the similar natural rifts that occur elsewhere on Gallifrey. Time flows out from it, from the future, to the past Gallifrey. In times of meditation, the Pythia sits in a hanging cage above the Crevasse, breathing in the rising vapours, which aid her in her clairvoyance.

[ID: Gif edit made by me, featuring the last Pythia sat in a small cage slowly swinging in a chasm as a mist slowly rises around her.]

The Intuitive Revelation - The Neotechnologists, led by Rassilon, bring a revolution. The Pythia curses Gallifrey with sterility and cuts the ropes holding her cage, falling into the abyss. The Gate of the Future inverts, forming the Gate of the Past. Visibly, the Doppler-effect like colouring of the vortex changes - no longer red, flowing towards the viewer, but blue and flowing away (ironically directionally the reverse of the real Doppler effect). Time from the new future flowing into the chaotic past.

The new government take control of the Capitol. A new age of space exploration arises, with the Shobogans taking on the name, for now, of "Space Lords". One of these first individual explorers, semi-authorised predecessors to future Time Lord renegades, is a woman named Tecteun.

The First Attempt - The stellar engineers, including Rassilon and Omega, make their first attempt at capturing the energy of a collapsing star, recieving the energy on Gallifrey using an obelisk, like that later used to channel energy from the Eye of Harmony, in the middle of the city, using the nature of the Crevasse.

The experiment is a catastrophic failure. A hole is punctured into the Spiral Yssgaroth, unleashing Vampires through openings throughout the universe, fracturing out from the experiment.

[ID: From The Book of the War, an illustration of the "Eyes of the Yssgaroth", human-like eyeballs looking through holes punctured into spacetime.]

Part of the Old Capitol is destroyed in a great blast, destroying the Cavern of Prophecy and opening up the Crevasse, leaving a giant crater: the Caldera. It is likely that many are killed. Left behind in the middle of the crater, is the Gate of the Past, now manifest in the physical world: an open gap in reality. In this form, it becomes known as the Untempered Schism.

(I also suspect this is when Rassilon is forced to regenerate for the first time, to the shock of on-lookers, having secretly previously recieved Tecteun's genetic modifications - I plan to expand on this theory in a future post.)

The Vampire War / Rebuilding of the Capitol - The exact circumstances of the experiment are covered up. Rassilon, leaving to fight the Vampire hoard, swears Omega to secrecy regarding the project during the Arcalian High Council's investigation.

[ID: A gif, rotating around the Citadel is constructed over the Caldera, from part of the (likely partially-symbolic) time-lapse in The Timeless Children.]

Though some of the city survives, including parts of the Pythian temple, a new colossal city-complex begins construction in the place of the old one, suspended over the Caldera, the centrepiece of the new Capitol: the Citadel. It is built as a defensive structure, both for the war, and to protect the new, growing elite, surrounded by a great circular wall named "Rassilon's Rampart". The "core" of the structure, on which the towers rest, reaches down deep into Caldera and the deeper Crevasse.

Meanwhile the Untempered Schism is taken out of the city by those fearing further destruction, to a place in the nearby hills that will one day be known as the Weeping Field, where prospective Time Academy students are initiated.

[ID: The Untempered Schism in the Doctor's time, as seen in The Sound of Drums. It sits in a stone frame on red grass, with the Seal of Rassilon in front of it, and flames on either side. Within it, the blue "past" variant of the RTD1-era time vortex flows away from the viewer. The Citadel's lights are visible in the background.]

(Side note: it's possible the Untempered Schism's 'ring' is deliberately designed to evoke the Caldera. Note how it's lined with pieces sticking out. Look a bit like the battlements on Rassilon's Rampart, don't they? Surrounding the hole into the vortex just as they surround the crater.)

The Anchoring of the Thread - Several centuries later, once the Vampires are more or less defeated, Rassilon returns home. He coups Pandak I, forcing him to resign, and takes the Presidency.

By now the Citadel is more or less completed, though for the next few centuries it still lacks its characteristic dome, likely added during a later founding conflict.

[ID: Gallifrey, around the time the first TARDISes are grown, from The Lost Dimension. In the background past a small outsider village is the Citadel, new and gleaming, but undomed.]

The Triumvirate retry their experiment at Qqaba / Polyphilos, attempting to capture the collapsed star. When the experiment goes wrong once more, Omega's ship falls inside, as spacetime threatens to crack open again. With temporal energy flowing though him (a la the Bad Wolf), Rassilon reshapes the laws of physics, forming an event horizon, and black holes as we know them.

The black hole is dimensionally captured and suspended in the moment it collapses and the event horizon is formed, creating the Eye of Harmony, controlled using the Obelisk of Rassilon storied in the Panopticon Vaults. Meanwhile, the black hole itself is suspended within the temporal singularity of the Caldera, deep below the Citadel.

Harnessing the power of the Eye and the Caldera rift, Rassilon "anchors" chronology around Gallifrey, creating the Web of Time and placing it under the control of the Gallifreyans, now Time Lords.

Future Developments - Over the years, many changes come to Rassilon's Gallifrey.

Over the years, the more and more of the old city is replaced with new towers, forming the new Capitol around a now domed Citadel. Interweaved with these buildings over 28 square miles is much of the new Time Academy, such that the Academy is sometimes considered a whole city itself annexed to the Citadel.

While the remnants of the Pythian Temple are eventually torched by Rassilon, hunting down dissenters, many old buildings remain intact. These continue to be inhabited far into the future, in a community known as "Low Town" or the "Lower Len", as opposed to the "upper" city above. Shanties surround the surviving buildings, some climbing up Rassilon's Rampart.

Another such community is based around the "Old Harbour", whcih once sat on the coast of the now recessed Sea of Time. Nowadays, it likely sits on the shore of the small (possibly designed) lakes near the Capitol, where streams from the mountains presumably once drained directly into the sea.

[ID: From Hell Bent: a screencap as Rassilon turns from looking out the window from an Inner Council chamber high above the Capitol. In the background can be seen some lakes between the mountains, with some signs of what might be buildings on their shores.]

(Side note: I reckon this shot above might actually give us a glimpse of Old Harbour. I might just be imagining things, but there's some small features around and on the lakes I reckon could be docks or buildings? Interestingly, this also comes as Rassilon asks about the Cloister Bells ringing, and Old Habour is well known for the bells in its clocktower, which might explain why Rassilon was looking out at it from the window.)

In the space around the Eye in the Caldera, the Cloisters, the core of the APC net and later the Matrix, are constructed. The structure itself is, externally at least, relatively small, but it generates an entire 'micro-universe' on the Astral plane once accessed by the Pythia. Indeed, just as the Crevasse once allowed the meditating Pythia to see the future, so does the Matrix create its own prophecies.

[ID: From Hell Bent, the Doctor and Ohila converse in the entranceway to the Cloisters, a dark space with glowing optic fibres running across cobwebbed columns.]

In the Matrix is a "womb-like" null-space is where most TARDISes are grown, taking advantages of the Caldera's spatio-temporal properties. Budding within the Citadel Cloisters, a TARDIS's "Cloister Room" is one of the first parts to grow.

By the time of the Time War, though possibly earlier, the sealed Caldera also forms the resting site for many dying Battle TARDISes, the Under Croft, where they presumably decay and fertilise the growth of new time ships.

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After a few years of part-time supporting-artist-ing in Cardiff I finally get a DW-related casting enquiry... a month after I moved away. 🙃

[intuitive-revelations]

Help my family. War is devastating. There is nothing left to live. No schools, no universities, no home, and no dreams. All dreams have been shattered. I hope for help before it is too late

Just found this lost in my askbox from a few weeks ago. For anyone who's able to donate, this seems to be a verified fundraiser.

[intuitive-revelations]

Fun thing I just discovered while researching something.

You know how I have sometimes suggested that "Jewel" (from Return of the Daleks - and more recently Good Omens S1, thanks to a VFX artist copying and pasting from TARDIS wiki) is actually the original, Pythian name of Gallifrey, maybe in Old High Gallifreyan?

Originally, this was just a canon-welding theory, trying to explain the different name-styles for planets in Gallifrey's planetary system:

Rassilonian: Gallifrey, Polarfrey, Pazithi Gallifreya Pythian: Jewel, Karn, Tersurus, Pazithi (no Gallifreya)

With "-frey" possibly being a suffix meaning something similar to 'world'/'people', with Gallifrey possibly translating either to "shadow-people/world" (a la the 'they that walk in the shadows' literal translation) or simply 'homeworld'. Thus maybe Karn might have a similar, alternative name that fell to the wayside because of the Sisterhood's continued habitation - something like "kalafrey" (based on 'kalarash', the Old High Gallifreyan word for 'fire', and Lungbarrow's description of 'firey' Karn)?

Regardless, there wasn't really any evidence for this, with it just being an extrapolation partially inspired by Gallifrey's copyright-free renaming in Faction Paradox.

Well, turns out there is a little bit of evidence, if you take the Doctor's probably metaphorical words literally...

From "Old Girl", a Titan Comics Tenth Doctor story:

[ID: The Tenth Doctor and Cindy overlook a scene on Ancient Gallifrey, where Shayde-like "Time Sentinels" throw time-sensitive Gallifreyans into the Untempered Schism.

Doctor: It's a naturally-occuring rift, a window into the time vortex... the Untempered Schism. This is where Time Lord Novices are initiated...

Cindy: Time Lords...? What? Is this your homeworld?

Doctor: Gallifrey, yes. Before it was Gallifrey.

Doctor: In the deep distant past, before the Time War, before Rassilon and his Black Scrolls, before time travel was even invented. Rifts like this schism occur naturally here... Exposure is said to have influenced Gallifreyan evolution... It's what makes some of us into time sensitives.

Cindy: Okay, not from around here, but that doesn't look like an average initiation ceremony.]

...

"Gallifrey, yes. Before it was Gallifrey"

(using the comic text bolding)

Maybe... when it was "Jewel"?

The scene is also explicitly set pre-Rassilon and before the invention of time travel. How much earlier, is less clear, as there's a few continuity curiosities it raises, such as the Untempered Schism being described as "naturally occurring", going against "Tempered"'s linking of it to the Caldera.

Speaking of which, we also see a city that looks a lot like the Citadel, albeit without a dome. It also still has aircars flying around it, suggesting we're not too far in the past. the area around it also a lot more grassy than we're used to, though we can put this down to the increasing dryness of the planet over the years (see Old Habour and the draining of the Sea of Life).

He later mentions that they're in the Dark Times, "millions, billions of years before [his] time, before even the Time Lords". The dating isn't particularly helpful, between it's vaguery and how inconsistent writers are with Time Lord civilisation's age, but it does at least line up ok with even the most extreme ages we've been given ("a billion years of Time Lord history" - from Rassilon in The End of Time, which I far prefer over the mere millennia or even "centuries" given by Legacy of Gallifrey and some Big Finish stories).

While I'm still trying to deduce exactly when this is and if this city is the Citadel itself (in the middle of the building time-lapse in The Timeless Children) or just a reused design for the Pythian capital, which potentially has big implications for the history of the Caldera, the Schism, the Vampire War etc., it does at least line up with my Jewel-renaming theory, if we do indeed take "before it was Gallifrey" literally...

[intuitive-revelations]

I misspelt "non-diegetic" first time round, so please reblog this version. 😅

Parallels

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Parallels

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Going back to the 'I thought it was non-diegetic' thing in The Devil's Chord, it is interesting to think about how many musical elements in Doctor Who we know really are non-diegetic.

The 'four-beat' baseline variation of the theme tune is implicitly connected to the Master's drums, or at least a Time Lord heartbeat. Same goes, of course, for whenever the four drums are featured in the Master's themes (eg. The Master Vainglorious).

One could thus argue the the more 'swinging' baseline ("[da-]dun da-dun") is a Time Lord heartbeat too, just with the hearts in a different phase (the Doctor's?). I think there's actually a good argument for this just based on the muted trumpets at the beginning of The Master Vainglorious, which plays both: first a 4-beat, then a swinged 3-beat, like it's alternating between the Master's heartbeat and the Doctor's heartbeat, immediately followed by a call and response section:

Clara's theme is of course written by Twelve, based on his remaining memories of her.

The theme tune melody itself ("doo-wee-oo") has appeared a few times not just as Incidental music (Logopolis, The Timeless Children), but in-universe too. Obviously this happened in The Devil's Chord, but it also appears in the first episode of K9, where a small piece of it exists within K9's damaged memory:

(While not an in-universe example, it is worth noting that the theme tune melody also appears in River's theme, specifically the end of songs like "Melody Pond", which played in the cliffhangers to Day of the Moon and A Good Man Goes to War.)

One maybe lesser known example: "The Doctor's Theme" (ie. the primary theme for the Ninth and Tenth Doctors) was jokingly referred to by production (including RTD and Phil Collinson) as "Flavia's Theme", based on the idea it was sung by Flavia and echoes through the time vortex.

The Songs of Captivity and Freedom, heard first in Planet of the Ood, but again later during Journey's End, are sung by the Ood.

Similarly Vale Decem, itself containing the Doctor's/Flavia's theme, is also sung by them.

In retrospect, Ood Sigma's line during Ten's regeneration about how "this song is ending, but the story never ends" kinda overlaps with all that stuff I posted recently about 'time tracks' in meta-time doesn't it? With the idea that a period of (meta-)time can be a song, with meta-time progressing along time tracks like grooves on a record, that can be accidentally skipped across or back. Add in all that stuff about how "time is memory and memory is time" in The Legend of Ruby Sunday, and how "maybe [memories] become songs" in Hell Bent, and a theme starts to develop.

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One more random idea that came to mind, but I'm posting in a seperate reblog because it's largely disconnected to the above (apologies for the spam!).

I thought that Sutekh's suddenly increased power might have been somehow related to his Osiran life being just one incarnation of a greater being, a bit like the Doctor's hypothetical connections to the Red Guardian, Other, Timeless Child etc., with Sutekh having recently awaken to his true power. Based on the voice actor and parallels, it's possible therefore he could in a sense be a reincarnation of the Beast, for example.

The explanation in the episode is a bit simpler, of course, suggesting the power probably emerged from a combination of being weaved into the TARDIS and observing the vortex, a bit like the Bad Wolf, the Master's drums, or various other time-related entities.

(Side note: does the description of him being 'weaved' into the TARDIS feel a bit interesting to anyone else, considering that Sutekh once had a new body formed from an "Osiran Loom"? Maybe this was possible for exactly this reason, with his body being composed of threads of biodata in the same way loomed Time Lords are?)

But I've also realised a possibly more interesting, abeit not mutually exclusive explanation...

As I've mentioned a little bit in recent weeks, the Lovecraft-like Great Old Ones of the Doctor Who universe are generally beings from previous universes who, upon exposure to completely different laws of physics, evolved into powerful eldritch creatures in ours. In fact, I personally like to theorise that when they first entered the universe in the Dark Times, beings like the Great Intelligence / Yog-Sothoth really were as powerful as described in Lovecraftian lore, but were then weakened into their Whoniverse selves by the Anchoring of the Thread, which changed the universe's physics once again.

But remember, what I've been banging on about since Flux? While the Ravagers weren't entirely successful in freeing time, we have seen the universe's rationality continue to seep away. This was happening already, with stuff like the constellation moving in Legend of the Sea Devils, but Fourteen's trick in Wild Blue Yonder seems to have accidentally accelerated the process.

So, if the universe's laws of physics are changing once again, potentially reverting to those that allowed Mythos-like abominations and creatures like the Kotturuh (from Time Lord Victorious - who allegedly themselves gave Sutekh his power!), perhaps it's not that suprising that we're seeing some god-like ephermals like Sutekh increasing in strength too...

While the difference in scale isn't really big enough to fully explain it, part of me is so desperate to somehow connect Sutekh's "evolution into a Titan" with the TARDIS police box's gradual increase in size over the years, if he really has been attached to it for so long, in the same way people have joked about him shrinking with it in Flatline.

If Sutekh did change size with the TARDIS it also has potentially quite horrifying implications for the size-leaked TARDIS in The Name of the Doctor.

If he was indeed there, then I wonder what became of Sutekh in this time track...?

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Actually, thinking about my own tags just now...

#tbh i'm still sceptical of Sutekh really having been travelling along for so long#after all we never get a specific point at which he joined#(and in fact didn't the CGI show the current TARDIS in the vortex?)#but it is still implied to have been ever since Pyramids

I wonder if this is a sign that, while Sutekh has "always been there", he actually only recently became "always there" in meta-time?

To clarify, by meta-time, I mean the sort of higher dimensional time that Time Lords and time travellers in general tend to follow as history is changed from time track to time track, effectively a perpendicular direction to time that is distinct from simple parallel universes, abeit looking very similar at first glance. The term has actually been used in DW before, though I did not intend to reference that when writing this! This is also why I really liked that 'higher-dimensional time' mention with the UNIT Time Window.

(Part of me also likes to think that this might have been what Susan meant when she said she couldn't understand a 4D spacetime to Ian in An Unearthly Child, as it lacked a fifth dimension of 'space' - with 'space' actually being her slightly bungled 1960s English School translation / simplification of an idea similar to parallel universes. As a member of the Great Houses, the idea of time being linear rather than multi-dimensional is literally contradictory to her own life experiences.)

In a sense, this really is also a "meta" time, as we generally follow along with it as viewers (which I guess kinda works with some of the 'TV' theorising?). When we see a retcon in the show (for example, the constant changes to the time vortex, including those edits made to Pyramids of Mars) this indicates that history has been changed somehow, evolving into a new timeline.

Perhaps Sutekh only was able to combine himself with the TARDIS quite recently from the Doctor / show's perspective (most likely around Wild Blue Yonder, based on Susan Twist's appearances, the TARDIS groaning noise, opening the universe up more to magic and superstition etc.) but at least some point after the new title sequence was introduced). However, because he wove himself "into the fabric of the TARDIS itself", and the TARDIS experiences time non-linearly, he thus retroactively became part of it through its entire history, albeit only on the latest time track?

While the difference in scale isn't really big enough to fully explain it, part of me is so desperate to somehow connect Sutekh's "evolution into a Titan" with the TARDIS police box's gradual increase in size over the years, if he really has been attached to it for so long, in the same way people have joked about him shrinking with it in Flatline.

If Sutekh did change size with the TARDIS it also has potentially quite horrifying implications for the size-leaked TARDIS in The Name of the Doctor.

If he was indeed there, then I wonder what became of Sutekh in this time track...?

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While the difference in scale isn't really big enough to fully explain it, part of me is so desperate to somehow connect Sutekh's "evolution into a Titan" with the TARDIS police box's gradual increase in size over the years, if he really has been attached to it for so long, in the same way people have joked about him shrinking with it in Flatline.

If Sutekh did change size with the TARDIS it also has potentially quite horrifying implications for the size-leaked TARDIS in The Name of the Doctor.

If he was indeed there, then I wonder what became of Sutekh in this time track...?

[intuitive-revelations]

If we're talking about Missy's daughter, I guess now's a good time to mention this RTD-illustrated poem, which I only came back across today.

"This illustration arose because of a conversation between Steven Moffat and Russell T Davies. The joke plan follows that Moffat would have ended his era of Doctor Who on a cliffhanger in which Missy told the Saxon Master and the Twelfth Doctor that she was pregnant."

I think it would be fitting with The Themes if when Missy referred to “her daughter” that one time, the daughter in question is indeed the Doctor’s, and because of all the emotional turmoil surrounding that he just dissociated that fact straight out of his mind.

[intuitive-revelations]

Resharing this in light of the confirmation last episode that Roger ap Gwilliam a) is still part of history, and b) was overthrown. It's very likely, based on the timeline above, that the latter was Learman's coup.

Based on which stories she appeared/was referenced in (Time of the Daleks and Trading Futures), this might also suggest that the Doctor Fifteen mentions, who was there in 2046 and later at ap Gwilliam's overthrowing, is quite likely to have been Eight.

The near future in the Doctor Who universe sure gets dire doesn't it? Especially if Mad Jack / Roger ap Gwilliam is still part of history.

I thought I'd have a bit of fun listing things out, combining as many sources as possible. Turns out he fits in shockingly well with what we know. There's a lot missing here or cut out, and for obvious reasons it's very UK / Europe focused, but nonetheless:

[ID: Scene from The Christmas Invasion showing Harriet Jones on BBC News. The news ticker reads "PM HEALTH SCARE", "Unfit for duty?", and references a "SECRET GOVERNMENT MOLE" and a quote: "BLOOD ON [HER HANDS]".]

2006-2021 (obviously the past now, but still noting for the resulting temporal and political butterfly effect) - In the original timeline, Harriet Jones remains Prime Minister for 3 consecutive terms, presumably 15 years assuming no snap election was called, referred to as a 'golden age' [World War Three]. The Tenth Doctor deliberately changes history to cause her deposal [The Christmas Invasion], leading to numerous disastrous terms in the meantime, including those of Harold Saxon [The Sound of Drums et al.], Brian Green (who tried to appease the 456) [Children of Earth], Boris Johnson (an auton host of the Nestene Consciousness) [Rose (novelisation)], and Jo Patterson (responsible for deploying cloned Dalek defence drones in the UK's streets) [Revolution of the Daleks].

[ID: Scene from Revolution of the Daleks. A 'defence drone' Dalek is used to support anti-riot police in a test, dispersing protestors with mock tear gas.]

2010s-2030s - The European Union gradually integrates further, eventually becoming the European Zone / Eurozone, a global superpower which competes with the USA through the 21st century. The UK eventually forms part of the bloc [Trading Futures].

It's likely that Harriet Jones's deposal led to this and related events being delayed or erased, with Brexit (driven by, among others, one of Jones's successors in the new timeline) reducing european unity. Most notably, Ramón Salamander's rise to power occurs now not in the 2010s [The Enemy of the World], but in the 2030s [Doctor Who and the Enemy of the World]. There are other events that are seemingly delayed by ~20 years by changes to the timeline, including future events like the dictatorship of Mariah Learman [The Time of the Daleks, Trading Futures], and yet also possibly past events like the death of Queen Elizabeth II [Battlefield, The Longest Night et al.], which may suggest something else (eg. the Time War) may be responsible.

~2030 - During a time of rising global tensions [73 Yards], Ramón Salamander convinces a group of scientists in an underground shelter endurance experiment that nuclear war has broken out on the surface. They are convinced to generate artificial "natural" disasters to fight back against the enemy. Between this and ongoing climate change, several global food sources collapse as a result, including Canada and Ukraine's corn and flour production [The Enemy of the World].

2031 - Tensions culminate in the "Great Russian War". Despite posturing, not a single nuclear weapon is fired, at least by NATO [73 Yards]. This may be later considered World War III [Trading Futures].

~2032-2035 - Following the war, tensions rise again, now between the Eurozone and the USA [Trading Futures], possibly in reaction to actions (or lack thereof?) taken by NATO during the war [73 Yards]. Both send separate peacekeeping forces to conflict in North Africa. Meanwhile, Italy is engaged in civil war [Trading Futures].

[ID: Scene from The Enemy of the World, showing Ramón Salamander.]

Over the decade, Ramón Salamander rises in power in the World Zone Authority, using his patented "Sun Store" satellite technology to aid the growth of crops by controlling sunlight over agricultural regions. In the background, he murders and blackmails officials to place loyalists into powerful positions, with the goal of ruling over the World Zone Authority as a dictator. Salamander's treachery is later discovered and he disappears [The Enemy of the World].

2037 - 2042 - Several militia declare wars of Independence from the USA. Notably, Phoenix, Arizona is destroyed in a terrorist attack. While the country largely persists after the conflicts, some territories seem to successfully secede - with, for example, a Montana Republic seemingly being in existence in 2054 [Alien Bodies].

2038 - The World Zones Accord is signed. This is later considered to have reduced the United Nations to a 'joke' compared with the World Zone Authority [Alien Bodies]. Given the extensive power it gives to the WZA, this was likely originally part of Salamander's plan, but due to his disappearance he is not around to reap the rewards [The Enemy of the World].

2039 - A group of Mexican astronauts studying minerals on the Moon go missing [Kill the Moon].

~2030s - 2040s - The Earth begins to experience major climate change effects, including "appalling storm conditions" which harm agriculture [The Waters of Mars]. The ice caps melt and flood much of the Earth [K9] with nations like the Netherlands ending up entirely flooded [St Anthony's Fire]. Some regions experience corrosive acid rain [Cat's Cradle: War Head, Strange Loops]. One summer sees Britain experience a 22 week drought. At this time, the Eurozone closes its borders to millions of North African and Baltic Sea refugees [Hothouse]. This time period may be known as the "Oil Apocalypse" [The Waters of Mars].

[ID: Scene from K9 Episode 13: Aeolian. Big Ben stands in the middle of a colossal storm of wind and rain.]

With Earth's ecosystems collapsing [Davros], humanity begin to realise it's facing extinction [The Waters of Mars]. An artificial cooling agent is spread in the atmosphere to semi-successfully combat the effects, but leads to dramatic side-effects, including freezing some areas of the globe. This is known as the "Great Cataclysm" [K9].

2041 - A three-human team, including Adelaide Brooke, lands on Mars for the first time [The Waters of Mars]. However, with this accomplishment, and increasing turbulence on Earth, Humanity gradually loses interest in space exploration [Kill the Moon].

Before 2045 - Around this time, the UK falls into a dictatorship ruled by the "Director", head of a military council that has allegedly (secretly?) controlled the government since 2028 [Britain Protests]. It is possible that this Director was previously the "Minister of War" for previous governments [Before the Flood].

2045 - The World Zones Authority evolves into a World Government, with Nikita Bandranaik being elected President. The UK is not part of the organisation [This is 2065].

2046-2050s - The Director is overthrown [Down with the Director] and the rest of the government "collapses in shame" [73 Yards]. Some of the revolutionaries celebrate now being "masters of [their] own country" [Down with the Director]. Despite the hopes of the World Government for international integration, this nationalistic streak continues.

[ID: Scene from 73 Yards. Roger ap Gwilliam, with an Albion Party ribbon on his chest declares victory on BBC News, live from Kennington High in London. Headline reads "LANDSLIDE VICTORY FOR ALBION PARTY: Majority of 92 predicted. Roger ap Gwilliam declared Prime Minister."]

Roger ap Gwilliam is elected Prime Minister, with the far-right nationalistic Albion Party gaining a majority of 92 MPs [73 Yards]. While his government does take the step to officially join the World Government senate [Down with the Director], he seeks greater independence from other nations. One of his first actions is to expand the UK's nuclear arsenal, purchasing missiles from Pakistan and withdrawing from NATO. In his term, the world is brought to the brink of nuclear war [73 Yards], likely in the pre-2050s "Euro Wars" [The Time of the Daleks].

In this time, the "Department", a (private?) multinational security organisation is born, based primarily in the UK. They gain broad powers, which they use to control populations with propaganda and use of "CCPC"s: robotic law enforcement notorious for their surveillance and brutality. Despite its recent revolution, the country is rendered practically a police state [K9].

[ID: Scene from K9 Episode 1: Regeneration. CCPCs, hulking police robots, march down a dark alley.]

2049 - The Moon starts to dramatically gain mass, causing massive tides on the Earth, flooding entire cities. In a last ditch at survival, humanity plans to try and destroy the Moon using an array of nuclear bombs. Despite the people of Earth being offered the vote on what to do by turning off their lights, it appears the decision is made on a national level, with lights going off grid-by-grid. Nonetheless, the Moon is allowed to hatch, leaving behind a new less massive egg "moon" with minimal further destruction [Kill the Moon].

[ID: Scene from Kill the Moon. The Moon hatches in the background, as the TARDIS stands by the sea.]

Humanity's interest in space exploration returns [Kill the Moon], starting a new space race. Among these projects, Australia begins constucting a space elevator, Spain a project called "SpaceLink", while Germany and Russia each begin a series of new Moon missions. The Philippines are rumoured to be planning their own landing on Mars [The Waters of Mars].

~2050 - The UK Government (ap Gwilliam's?) is couped once more, by General Mariah Learman. With the King's permission, elections are suspended for at least a couple years, with her ruling over a "benevolent dictatorship". She is later abducted and forcibly mutated by the Daleks [The Time of the Daleks]. Despite the previous description, her promotion of Shakespeare in schools is remembered as the only good thing about her rule [Trading Futures]. (Note: As mentioned prior, it's likely that Learman's rule may have been delayed as Salamander's was. This is suggested by the mention of her in Trading Futures, set seemingly ~2030s or earlier, despite The Time of the Daleks taking place around the 2050s.)

~2050s - The Gravitron is built on the new Moon. This is used to artificially control the tides and weather [The Moonbase]. It likely also is intended to study and monitor the new Moon for future changes [Kill the Moon].

[ID: Scene from The Moonbase, giving an external shot of the base.]

2058 - 2059 - Bowie Base One is established: humanity's first colony on another planet and an international collaboration between the UK, USA, Russia, Germany, Turkey, South Korea, Lithuania, Australia, and Pakistan. One year later, it is mysteriously destroyed in a deliberately triggered nuclear explosion. In the original timeline, there were no survivors. However, after the interference of the Time Lord Victorious, the true story is eventually told on Earth. Regardless "a veil of darkness" sweeps over the planet over the next few years. [The Waters of Mars], as international tensions heat up once more... [Total Eclipse of the Heart].

[ID: Scene from The Waters of Mars, showing an internet news website. Various articles appear focused on the Bowie Base One incident, including "SURVIVORS STORY - BROOKE SAVED EARTH", "THE MYTHICAL DOCTOR", "BROOKE'S HEROIC ACTIONS SAVE EARTH", and "HOW THE COUPLE ESCAPED MARS". The feature image shows the two survivors: Yuri Kerenski and Mia Bennett.]

2060s - The "Great War" breaks out on Earth, involving every country on Earth. This is likely World War IV. Details are vague, but it ultimately ends in a ceasefire, when it's realised the conflict is risking Earth's habitability [Total Eclipse of the Heart].

[intuitive-revelations]

Hmmm....

Thematically i kind of liked that.

But man that plot was... not good.

[intuitive-revelations]

Some notes on Tales of the TARDIS: The Pyramids of Mars (some finale trailer spoilers included)

We don't get as much interesting stuff in the framing device here, for obvious reasons, but there's still some stuff to talk about.

Surprised they still used the stock backgroud / TARDIS cgi for this Tales of the TARDIS episode. I would have thought they would have something new/more specific to the next episode.

I'm very interested in the decision to have Fifteen and Ruby here. Out of universe I get it, what with Elisabeth Sladen being gone, and who knows if Tom would have able/willing to do something with a different actor (and who would you bring in even if he were? Luke?). But the in-universe placement is interesting. I would have assumed it was just a framing device, but we know we're going to see the Memory TARDIS in the finale. I'm guessing there will be a scene with them in the Memory TARDIS where Fifteen briefly explains what Sutekh is, and the Tales of the TARDIS bookends will basically be a deleted scene that fits into that?

There's actually some evidence for this. As we zoom in, the TARDIS doors seem to be open, which might fit with those trailer scenes of the Doctor looking out at Earth, plus the one of him screaming. However, Mel was there in the trailer, so I'm guessing we're going to be in and out of the Memory TARDIS quite a bit next episode.

I noticed those subtle camera glances from Ncuti as he's talking about Four and Sarah Jane :)

People have already commented on it, but I like the anti-colonialist reframing of the story.

As for the omnibus story itself, the editing was generally good. I don't know the original serial enough to spot everything they did, but I did kinda miss the Victoria reference at the beginning.

Interesting decision to replace the Time Corridor effects with the modern Time Vortex. Kinda makes sense in some ways, plus probably helps explain how Sutekh ends up in the Void without needing other stories. Super missed opportunity not using the graphics from the Season promo photos though, which people pointed out as being very reminiscent of the time tunnel.

As someone always eager, usually in vain, for 'canon' to fit together, I'm super intrigued by the mention of Sutekh having "evolved into a Titan" since Pyramids. (Interestingly, the iPlayer titles capitalised this. I found it a bit interesting, since in the context of gods, it immediately bring to mind Greek mythology, but that would be an odd choice to combine with the Egyptian/Christian inspired Sutekh.)

(Actually small critique of the iPlayer subtitling. I don't really need accessibility features, but had them on as I didn't want to miss anything. The new Doctor Who content has made some big bounds with accessibility, with the BSL and audio description options, but I was a bit disappointed with some of the subtitling line changes from the actual spoken words, even if I get why some lines might have been changed for clarity from Four's meandering language. It had quite a big effect on the dialogue though, in some places. I can see what people on here mean when they advocate for accurate subtitling.)

Anyway, back to the evolution thing. I hope this might be explained or eluded to next episode, given the decision to re-air an episode with such a distinctly different Sutekh.

Between the time tunnel leading to the far future, plus the fact he originates from the Dark Times, maybe the idea of him being the 'oldest one' isn't as crazy as I thought? After all, beings like the Toymaker, if they are the 'Time Lords' of the previous universe, are presumably only around 14 billion years old in the present day, if their original species had lifespans similar to the current Time Lords.

That being said, Four says he 'lived for 7000 years'. No idea if that's about his lifetime up until this point, or how long the Doctor thinks Sutekh survived in the Time Tunnel. If the prior, it's possible it doesn't include his time imprisoned. If the latter, maybe that's how long he was stuck in the tunnel before he escaped to the Void, with his disappearance causing the Doctor to assume he died?

Meanwhile, maybe the "Mother/Father/Other" thing is more about taking that kind of role in providing understanding of N-Space to the Great Old Ones, like in the Titan Comics storyline, than an actual parental connection? I don't know, that one's going to both me if we don't get more information tonight...

The only other possibility, which admittedly I kind of like, is that Sutekh is somehow an incarnation of The Beast (in the same way the Doctor might be the Other/Red Guardian), who really is old enough to be such a thing. If so, maybe he's awakened to that power/knowledge since last we saw him?