intuitive-revelations

[intuitive-revelations]

Random headcanon I came up with early this morning, because I’ve been thinking about Gallifreyan language recently:

The reason why so many Time Lord things are decorated with circular Gallifreyan, often too impractically to actually be read (eg. on the Moment), is because it’s a cultural touchstone that remains from pre-/early-Pythian Gallifrey’s use of magical runes and sigils.

Presumably it was more typically Old High Gallifreyan used in that time (though The Timeless Children does seemingly confirm circular Gallifreyan existed at least as far back as Rassilon's time, if not earlier), however. Twelve describes it as ‘the language of the Pythia’ in The Lost Magic, and as Eleven says in The Time of Angels:

ELEVEN: There were days, there were many days, these words could burn stars and raise up empires, and topple gods.

This is obviously very reminescent of the Carrionites' (themselves from the Dark Times too) "word-based science" from The Shakespeare Code:

MARTHA: What did you do? TEN: I named her. The power of a name. That's old magic. MARTHA: But there's no such thing as magic. TEN: Well, it's just a different sort of science. You lot, you chose mathematics. Given the right string of numbers, the right equation, you can split the atom. Carrionites use words instead.

In other words, while they probably weren't actually intended as such and may have their own specific meaning, whether they be poetry, namesakes, histories, instructions, whatever... these are basically protective wards:

[ID: Five screenshots of Circular Gallifreyan in New Who.

1. Rassilon's Inner High Council meeting in The End of Time Part 2. The table and headrests are inscribed with circular Gallifreyan.

2. The Moment in Day of the Doctor. Gallifreyan writing bends round the edges of the wooden frame.

3. The 'whirligig' rotar in Eleven's second TARDIS, inscribed with individual Gallifreyan symbols.

4. Set photo of the glowing Gallifreyan writing on the steps of Thirteen's TARDIS.

5. Tecteun's laboratory in The Timeless Children. Circular Gallifreyan lines the light above her, and a door in the background.]

As a side note - if they actually are kind-of intended as a form of protection, perhaps this is why we were only introduced to Circular Gallifreyan in New Who, despite it seemingly existing through Gallifreyan history. Because it was retroactively inserted into Gallifreyan culture as a form of defense during the War in Heaven / Last Great Time War?

Regardless, this also opens up questions how many other Time Lord traditions are holdovers from the Dark Times.

For example, who's to say that the renegade naming tradition didn't begin as a form of protection from hexes - either from hostile forces in the pre-anchoring universe, or from oppressive magic-users back on the homeworld? This may also be connected to the change in Gallifreyan name format before and after the Intuitive Revelation (eg. ancestral -sti and -sor names), though shifting power structures, gender roles etc. presumably played a role too.

Heck, is this one reason why Gallifrey's own name has changed over its history? From Jewel to Gallifrey in Rassilon's time to try and protect it from vengeful Pythian curses. From Gallifrey to just 'the Homeworld' in the War to protect it from new rituals of alternative histories and paradox?

#Doctor Who #Gallifrey #Gallifreyan #Circular Gallifreyan #The Pythia #DW Theory #DW Meta #Doctor Who EU

[intuitive-revelations]

With regards to that last edit and self-reblog, I have a genuine question for anyone who either uses a screen reader / other accessibility tools or is otherwise knowledgable about accessible posting:

If I were to make a similar 'web-weaving' post in the future, combining gifs and text (as I mentioned in the tags, I'll probably try and transcribe any book text directly in the future, rather than use screenshots), is there a preference for putting image descriptions after each gif, or grouping them together at the end, as with most gifsets?

On one hand, I suppose keeping image descriptions in proper order, especially if there's text segments in between images, would make parsing a post easier for those who need them. On the other hand, it can potentially be disruptive for readers regardless of ability (eg. if ALT text is used too and thus an image description, I assume, would appear twice in a row for screen reader users), and doesn't work great if there's more than one gif per line.

My guess is that the best compromise would be to include IDs at the end as with other gif-based posts, but make sure to also include ALT text description with each gif, so they can be used in order. However I did want to see if there's any preference or feedback regarding this?

#accessibility #certain musings

[intuitive-revelations]

Please feel free to reblog this version of the original post, with an image description written by @quailfence.

FLUXES [Celestis: Engineered Participants / Technologies] Example: "DOCTOR, The"

[Image description, courtesy of @quailfence: a series of pictures of text, alternated with screencaps and gifs from Doctor Who.

1: Text: Fluxes: [Celestis: Engineered Participants/Technology] Individuals transposed backwards in time but not too far in space, using a very high chaotic limiter setting and tied to their home period by a thread of biodata

2: The Eleventh Doctor stands in the future corpse of his TARDIS, looking and a pulsing stream of light that has replaced the console. He says, "That is the scar tissue of my journey through the universe. My path through time and space."

3: Text: He raised a finger. 'Look. There.

Now she could just make out the thread in the moonlight. It was just a faint reflection, maybe a foot or two long, about a metre off the ground. A taut strand of spiderweb hanging in the air, not attached to anything.

'What is it?' Fitz asked.

'It's only partially rotated into three dimensions,' he said. He pushed his finger right through the glimmering line, without affecting it. 'That's why it looks one- or two-dimensional. The rest is still perpendicular to what we can see - woven into higher space, or the time vortex…'

'Yes,' said Fitz, 'but what is it?' 'It's what your friend mistook for a ley line.' The Doctor was scuttling around the silver thread, peering at it from every angle, getting more and more agitated. 'It's part of the fabric of space-time itself. What DNA is to your genetic code, this stuff is to biodata. And it's all just exposed here now. Personality, history, memory, perception, all vulnerable…'

'I'm going to have to ask you again, aren't I?' said Fitz.

The Doctor said, 'It's me.'

4: The Fourteenth and Fifteenth doctors in the TARDIS. 14: "But you're fine?" 15: "I'm fine, because you fixed yourself. We're Time Lords, we're doing rehab out of order."

5: Text: The subject is turned loose in his or her own history, and the limiter setting allows tiny actions taken by the future version to have considerable effects on the past version. The biodata link then transfers these changes to the future version, which alters it, and thus alters the changes made to the past version. Therefore, the individual's history is kept constantly in flux.

6: The Fugitive Doctor says, "Let me take it from the top: Hello, I'm the Doctor."

7: Text: Let me finish. Think back to that time when you went to see your previous selves.

8: Ten, Eleven, and War talk to each other. Ten: "You're not actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?" Eleven: "We change history all the time. I'm suggesting far worse."

9: Text: 'Maybe there's no one home on Gallifrey,' said the boy softly. There was just the one of him.

The Doctor looked at him, cupping the small white cube in his hands. The boy said, Maybe they all left. Or maybe the whole planet's being destroyed, and undestroyed, and destroyed, and you just caught them at the wrong moment.

10: The TARDIS by the ruins of Gallifrey

11: Text: 'It's impossible,' said the Doctor. 'It's impossible for my people. Our past is unreachable. What's written can't be unwritten.'

'Who said your history can't change?'

Another boy answered, 'Someone from his history.'

And another: 'Maybe it's the second-biggest lie in Time Lord history.'

12: Dhawan!Master tells Thirteen, "You are the Timeless Child."

13: Thitreen stares at a ruined house. Swarm whispers in her ear and tells her, "All the memories you've lost, all the people you've been. It's all in there, contained within that house."

14: Text: And it was like the Doctor's home. As if his ship understood the loss of the House and had compensated to fill the emptiness. Shadowy corridors, alcoves and stairways, a secret at every turn. Like being in the Doctor's head. Like his life, for that matter, the details of which were strewn like flotsam across the floor.

15: Text: 'Sweet,' said the little boy. 'That's my favourite of your origin stories, too.'

The Doctor opened his eyes. He had been laughing, he realised, he felt that lightness in himself. The boys had all moved away, behind him, leaving him facing the empty dark of the warehouse.

'What do you mean?' he asked. His voice sounded very small.

'Is this the version where they banned all mention of his name, and yours, for consorting with aliens? Or the one where he got every record of himself deleted from the files?'

'Feel free to believe either of them,' snapped the Doctor, 'or both of them, or neither of them. If you're curious about my past, I want there to be as many wrong answers as possible.'

16: The Eighth Doctor tells someone, "I'm half human. On my mother's side."

17: Text: 'Well he's a hybrid, you know that. A Gallifreyan not born of Gallifreyan, the one who unites the two races and brings good old human niceness into their alien society. Aliens need that, y'know.'

'A human hybrid? She saw the contempt in his curling lip. 'Pseudoscientific nonsense. There's no evidence,' he repeated.

'He's allowed to be different. He's got a prophecy and everything.'

18: Lady Me says, "By your own reasoning, why couldn't the Hybrid be half Time Lord, half human?"

19: Text: Someone giggled. 'Let's play pin the tale on the donkey.'

'Maybe you didn't use to have a father.'

'Maybe you're living in the middle of a time war. Maybe there's an Enemy out there -'

The Doctor shouted, 'I'm not listening!'

'- who's rewriting you when you're not looking!'

'Maybe you weren't always half human.'

'But now you've become always half human.' 'Maybe you weren't always a Time Lord.'

But now you've always been a Time Lord.'

'Maybe you originally came from some planet in the forty-ninth century. Fleeing from the Enemy who'd overrun your home -'

'I said I'm not listening! Laa laa laa laa laa -'

'- and you've just been written and rewritten and overwritten, ever since.'

'Pin the tale!'

'How d'you know it's not true?'

'How could you know it's not true?'

The voices crowded in. 'How would you know, huh?'

'How would you know?'

'How would 'How would you 'How 'How would you know? you know? you know? know?'

'Why would I care?' shouted the Doctor.

The boy fell silent.

20: Lady Me asks, "Am I right? Is it true?" Twelve replies, "Does it matter?"

21: Text: However, the one group from the Homeworld which has excelled at flux-engineering is the Celestis.

22: Two asks the Time Lords, "Now then… what about me?"

23: Tecteun tells Thirteen, "Which is ehy we engineered the Fluyx: Shut the universe down and you within it."

24: Text: Even Mictlan itself can be considered a kind of enormous flux, an endlessly-shifting realm so cortosive to the rest of history that its heartland has to be kept on the outer skin of the universe

24: The Fourteenth Doctor tells Donna, "I invoked a supersition, at the edge of the universe, where the walls are thin and everything is possible."

25: The space station from Wild Blue Yonder

26: Text: There are suggestions of a stable middle-ground between the two fates, in which the physical matter of the flux is lost but the meaning of the subject/ victim is retained, a series of memetic connections with no flesh to support it. Yet this entity exists only on a purely theoretical level, relying on the perceptions of others to survive at all.

27: The Twelfth Doctor walks up to the TARDIS console. He says, "Can't wait to hear what I say." Glancing at the viewer, he adds, "I'm noting without an audience."

28: Text: You know what Sam represents. If a tree falls in a forest and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound? Stop me if I'm getting too abstract here, but if a Time Lord saves the world and nobody witnesses him doing it, does history care? She's your witness. The thing you need to make you whole.

29: The First Doctor looks at the viewer and says, "Incidentally, a Happy Christmas to all of you at home!" End description.]

[Plain text: Fluxes [Celestis: Engineered Participants / Technologies] Example: "Doctor, The". End plain text.]

@dw-described

#just been deepdiving accessbiility suggestions after seeing eir tags in the reblog #looking at stuff like use of plain text / not using readmores / in-post text being better than alt text etc. #a part of me questions the way use of in-post text lengthens the post #but i guess tumblr's long post cut-off feature reduces any negative impact from this #i've been on and off with them but will try to remember IDs more in the future #considering the length this comes to I think I'll also make sure to transcribe book extracts directly in the future? #so that it doesn't need to be doubled up on and only separate IDs for the gifs are needed #i was considering it in the op but didn't get round to it #i considered editing it now but figured i'd just stick with the ID at the end for now to avoid messing anything up with the content blocks

[intuitive-revelations]

While I've got critiques of a few choices (eg. bigeneration, the Season One reset), one thing I've got to commend RTD for is that the story arc of things getting "more supernatural" / the universe shifting from sci-fi to fantasy is actually a pretty perfect way of continuing the shows overall myth arcs without actually requiring knowing all the backstory.

Not only does this follow on from the Time Lords currently being gone again (which itself was kind of built up from the previous Gallifrey arcs and the Master's character development), but also is more or less exactly what the Ravagers wanted to do in Flux. They wanted to undo the Anchoring of the Thread, recontexualised in terms of the Division's universal interferenc. While time and its laws have somewhat stabilised for now, we are indeed now seeing Rassilon's laws of rationality starting to collapse. I would strongly argue this started even before the 60th anniversary, between the time loop in Eve of the Daleks and the constellations literally rearranging themselves in the sky in Legend of the Sea Devils.

Even outside of the shows main arcs, New Who has already dipped its toes into the concept that there are older creatures which don't necessarily run on science in the same way as everything else, or that are from outside the universe / incompatible with it. Primary examples being the Carrionites, Racnoss, the Beast and Abaddon, Weeping Angels, Solitract, arguably even The Timeless Child. The Dark Times have also been prominantly featured in stuff like the Time Lord Victorious series and Titan Comics.

We've also being seeing entities like Eternals gradually returning (Zellin, Rakaya, maybe Time) who were originally established as leaving the universe in the wake of the Time War in RTD's Series 1 backstory in the DW Annuals. We've even seen quite significant emphasis put on the Sisterhood of Karn and their connection to Gallifrey, something primarily developed in the EU with the Pythia lore, which also links into the likes of the Visionary in The End of Time.

All this being said, none of this backstory is (for now) important for new viewers to know. All they need to know is that Fourteen fucked up in Wild Blue Yonder, and now things which were once outside the universe, like the Toymaker, are starting to leak into it. They don't need to know, for example, that the TARDIS may only have been able to access edge of universe thanks to the scale of the Flux's destruction.

Ultimately this feels a lot like his approach with the Time War. While it was a logical conclusion to the classic series (hence why we get so many time wars / destructions of Gallifrey in the EU), with Genesis, Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks all particularly serving as build up for a Dalek attack on Gallifrey, and indeed were all included in said prior-mentioned DW Annual articles along with the tension de-escalating 'Act of Master Restitution', none of that was important for new viewers in 2005 to know.

This being said, I do suspect some past context will return in the future, just as it did over New Who. For example, we're bound to be reintroduced to the idea that the Time Lords established rationality in the universe, maybe name-checking the Division as part of their interference. I also stand by my previous theory that we're likely to eventually see Rassilon return after his exile in Hell Bent. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if he served as the face of an effort to bring back the Time Lords in some form, opening up questions of their oppressive history (expect the Timeless Child's trauma to be emphasised) and whether the universe is better off without its fantastical elements suppressed, even if this does open the universe up to the dangers he fought like the Vampires, Carrionites, Great Old Ones etc. (Particular emphasis on the last of these, given it's sort of implied the only reason eg. the Great Intelligence isn't a full-power Cthulhu Mythos Yog-Sothoth is because of the Anchoring.) Perhaps the Sisterhood of Karn's newfound influence on Gallifrey in the wake of the Time War and Lungbarrow could play a role here.

#Doctor Who #DW Theory #DW Meta #RTD #Fifteenth Doctor #The Time War #The Flux #The Anchoring of the Thread #Rassilon #Wild Blue Yonder #Doctor Who EU

[intuitive-revelations]

Ok, so what's the over/under on this being a tie in to Wild Blue Yonder?

It's funny, cos I wonder where the Tardis goes at random. Maybe it lands on some outcrop by the sea. And there's a tribe and they worship it for 100 years. Then they grow up and try to burn it. Then they get wise. They preserve it. Then they build a city all around it, till the Tardis is just a tiny little dot, surrounded by skyscrapers and monorails. Time passes and the city falls. It all gets swept away. And there's the Tardis… still on its outcrop… by the sea. She's the only thing I've got left.

Maybe a sequel episode where this indeed happened, and Fifteen and Ruby return to find a civilisation built from a history of worshipping the TARDIS?

#Doctor Who #DW Theory #DW Spoilers #Doctor Who Spoilers #Fifteenth Doctor #Ruby Sunday #Wild Blue Yonder

[intuitive-revelations]

Hello! I saw that your updated Fantasy-Style Gallifrey Map will be released soon with the Galliversary Zine. I think the updated map is breathtaking and I'd love to acquire a copy! However, I don't know if I can drop £55 for The Presidential Bundle. Will you be releasing/selling your map elsewhere in the future after the Pride & Politics Zine comes out?

Thanks!

To answer your question: maybe...? I had tried to offer the previous version of the map on Redbubble in the past but it quickly got blocked for whatever reason.

I don't have any plans to offer it again somewhere at the moment, but it might be something I consider in the future, once the zine is completely out?

I'd recommend getting the zine if you can though! While the print will only be in the Presidential or possibly Citadel bundles, there will also be a double-page spread version of the map in the zine. (It's in A4 instead of A3, but I made sure everything will be legible at the reduced size.)

#asks #heck I'd happily create and offer other 'infographic / map' style posters #(eg. that Skaro world map WIP) #if I finally got round to finding a place to do so #plus get enough time

[intuitive-revelations]

Hey look it's me!

I've posted these previews before, but in case anyone wants a bit of a closer look at the detailing on the map, around the Capitol and Mount Cadon:

⭐️ GALLIFREY POSTERS ⭐️

Today we’re highlighting these incredible A3 posters, ft. a map of central Gallifrey (designed by @intuitive-revelations) and the zine’s front and back cover art (designed by @joycieillustrations).

Get both of these beautiful posters with our Presidential Bundle, or get one randomly chosen poster with our Citadel Bundle!

Physical bundles are on sale through March 31.

ZINE SHOP

Boosty for Russian buyers

#Doctor Who #Gallifrey #Galliversary #Pride and Politics #Big Finish #Map #Reblogs #the maps a bit of a funny match with all of the beautiful character art in the zine #and not exclusively BF Gallifrey focused per say #but hey - why not #you can even track any travels outside the Capitol in the series and (if I've done my work right) they should match up to the Geography

[intuitive-revelations]

hiii do u still have any sources for the fluxes webweave from december? specifically the text twelfth from the bottom starting with "someone giggled"

Hi!

That quote is from 'Unnatural History' - the EDA by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman.

#asks

[intuitive-revelations]

Gallifrey Zine: Pre-Orders Open

In honor of the 20th anniversary of Big Finish’s Gallifrey audios, we are thrilled to present Pride & Politics: A Gallifrey Fanzine.

The zine features 100+ pages of new fanart and fanfiction, celebrating every series of the show!

ZINE SHOP

*If you are from Russia and are unable to buy via the main shop, you may purchase the zine through Boosty. (Please note that Boosty prices are slightly higher due to Boosty's higher processing fees.)

Our Terms of Service also apply to Boosty orders.

⭐️ Stretch Goals ⭐️

Sales of Academy, Heartshaven, Citadel, and Presidential bundles count towards our stretch goals!

⭐️ Promo Special ⭐️

If you reblog this post, retweet our Twitter thread, or share the link to our posts/store on another social media site, this Trey postcard will be added for free to each physical bundle in your order—yes, even the Academy bundle!

To claim this reward, please fill out THIS FORM, so we know which order is yours.

PRE-ORDERS CLOSE MARCH 31.

#hey look at that A3 map print in the presidential bundle 😉 #Galliversary #Pride and Politics #Big Finish #Gallifrey #Doctor Who #reblogs #a bit of an odd mismatch with the other awesome art granted #but hopefully that just makes it unique!

[intuitive-revelations]

Hey! So, following up on that last post, remember that Tolkien-style "Map of Central Gallifrey" I've posted in the past, mapping out the Capitol and Prydonia carefully based on analysing CGI screenshots, expanded universe quotes, extrapolating from tiny details etc.?

I made an updated and expanded version! It'll be available in @galliversary: "Pride and Politics" as a two-page spread within the zine, as well as a full print!

Along with some updates based on new sources (eg. DW: Flux), the map features new locations from the Gallifrey audio series like the Camp of the True Lords (Annihilation), the Anomaly Vault (Fractures), even House Witforge (Transference).

The new map also expands the mapped region to include more of Mancipia and the Lune Forest, as well as bits of Gin-Seng and Fettaris, along with an extra mini world map! This was similarly pulled together from all sorts of sources, ranging from Day of the Doctor CGI breakdowns, to the Seasons of War anthologies, to Eighth Doctor Time War audios, to that one book page in Good Omens.

Make sure to check it out! Preorders open in March.

#self reblog

[intuitive-revelations]

Hey! So, following up on that last post, remember that Tolkien-style "Map of Central Gallifrey" I've posted in the past, mapping out the Capitol and Prydonia carefully based on analysing CGI screenshots, expanded universe quotes, extrapolating from tiny details etc.?

I made an updated and expanded version! It'll be available in @galliversary: "Pride and Politics" as a two-page spread within the zine, as well as a full print!

Along with some updates based on new sources (eg. DW: Flux), the map features new locations from the Gallifrey audio series like the Camp of the True Lords (Annihilation), the Anomaly Vault (Fractures), even House Witforge (Transference).

The new map also expands the mapped region to include more of Mancipia and the Lune Forest, as well as bits of Gin-Seng and Fettaris, along with an extra mini world map! This was similarly pulled together from all sorts of sources, ranging from Day of the Doctor CGI breakdowns, to the Seasons of War anthologies, to Eighth Doctor Time War audios, to that one book page in Good Omens.

Make sure to check it out! Preorders open in March.

#Doctor Who #Doctor Who EU #Big Finish #Gallifrey #Galliversary #Pride and Politics #Maps

[intuitive-revelations]

⭐️ Celebrating 20 years of Gallifrey! ⭐️

Check out this fanzine’s amazing lineup—brand new art for every season of Gallifrey, plus eight new fics covering the many eras of the shows.

You won’t want to miss this one, so keep an eye out—it’s only one week til pre-orders!

Pre-Orders Open March 1.

#who's that at the top contributing a Map of Central Gallifrey...? 😉 #Galliversary #Pride and Politics #Gallifrey

[intuitive-revelations]

Rewatched Heaven Sent a couple weeks ago (I was flying back from a research conference in San Francisco, and British Airways had it available to watch, which was a pleasant surprise) and man, I've got to ramble a bit...

Something-something about how the Confession Dial is clearly pulling elements from the Doctor's childhood. This has been said before of course, but when you really pull everything together, it sure does paint a picture.

It's unclear whether this was the original intent for the soul-catching ritual (which is presumably what the dials are used for, making them a sort of Matrix data slice like Nethersphere), or something added by the Time Lords in corrupting it into a torture chamber, but it's there.

From the teleportation chamber loom...

...to the night sky being a 'burnt orange'...

...to the lilies flowers of remembrance for the lost dead...

...to sentient buildings...

...to that internal soup parallel, both alone in the dial and surrounded by their cousins at the barn...

...to the jars of dust.

And speaking of that "tall woman" in a "grey shawl", who is also oddly oversized, as if putting the Doctor in the perspective of a child,

and is explicitly a nightmare from the Doctor's childhood:

a woman who died, but seemingly passed away far quicker than anyone around her expected (and all the implications relating to that and connecting to the identity of the Hybrid)...

Finally, and this is definitely a stretch, but think back to the room numbers. The Doctor has to find room 12.

Fittingly. But if 12 corresponds to the Twelfth Doctor, then what about those other rooms...?

They must also correspond to incarnations, right? It's not like the God Complex - there was only ever one prisoner in the confession dial, after all.

Incarnations, numbering "a bit confused", in a fascimile of the Doctor's childhood home? Huh...

"Illogical house, a construction that makes no sense..."

#Doctor Who #Heaven Sent #Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible #Lungbarrow #Doctor Who: Flux #The Vanquishers #The Sensorites #Twelfth Doctor #Thirteenth Doctor #DW Meta #DW Theory #Long Post

[intuitive-revelations]

Things I was not expecting to happen today: have someone viewing my flat notice my Class: Ongoing poster and ask about it, having recognised the show. 🤨

#Class Ongoing #Doctor Who #BBC Class #Class DW #Class BBC #When I explained that it was a fan collaboration I started #he said he might look it up #so if you're reading this #hey!

[intuitive-revelations]

Just rediscovered your alternate cover art and wanted to say it's great stuff! Love that you used the audio Chris for Lungbarrow. Just wanted to say something because it was so amazing and well done [this is seven-times-champion but it's not my main so have to comment with this tumblr].

Thank you! God it's been a long time since I did those. I just looked it up and I did the first one all the way back in 2015. 😳

There's probably a lot of things I'd do differently if I did them nowadays, since there's a lot of editing stuff I've learned since then, but working on them was a fun way to practice using Photoshop! Hell, the All-Consuming Fire cover was even the first time I tried colourisation, which I've done quite a lot of since then.

#asks #replies #Alternate Cover

[intuitive-revelations]

Funnily enough this is kind-of the theory that The Gallifrey Chronicles (the reference book, not the EDA) came up with for regeneration! Suggesting it's caused by some sort of biological nanomachine, or artificial virus:

Of course, the nanomachines don't have to be mechanical - they could be biological, like some form of benign virus. In which case you might say we'd become infected with health.

The book also contains 'The Scrolls of Rassilon', a questionably historically-accurate account of the Time Lords' origins as written by Rassilon. In this account of the origin of regeneration it was developed not by Tecteun, but a biologist named Thremix under Rassilon's direction:

He proposed to develop a disease called immortality! 'Not a disease, exactly,' he corrected me in his nervous way when I laughed. 'A virus. It will live within the body, and breed. It will be specifically tied into the genes of the person it inhabits, and will constantly monitor that person's body, eliminating and repairing anything that goes wrong.'

The virus has a downside however, in that it may kill a significant percentage of its hosts upon infection. When discussing testing with a small sample before injecting it into compatible subjects, Thremix replies:

'You don't seem to grasp the problem fully', Thremix said, in some anguish. 'My process is a virus. I can't simply inject one person or another with it and leave it at that. It will breed like any normal virus and spread from person to person as contact is made. If even one person contracts the virus, within a month the entire planet would become infected.'

Ultimately, however, it turns out the virus is not quite as infectious as originally predicted, and would ultimately stop spreading from person to person after a year, and would only be able to be handed down genetically from then forwards.

There's more peculiar details too, in particular teasing explanations for stuff about Time Lords in the classic series - their comparative asexuality, gender balance, low population, the 12 regeneration limit etc. - without touching EU elements like looms, which hadn't been conceptualised at the time of the book's publication in 1991.

So I had this thought while stuck on the train.

What if the golden arton energy stuff that makes people regenerate, the thing from the metacrises, the Bad Wolf inside the TARDIS, and River, etc… what if that’s a parasite? A virus?

It gets into you via direct contact - when children are exposed to the time vortex, or can be passed down from parent to child.

What if it’s its own creature? An energy being. A jinn. Whatever. Either just having ended up here from The Nothingness, or deliberately self-sustaining and self-replicating. Not necessarily unlimited, depends on how much is in you, but nonetheless there.

That as a parasite it does require a measure of consent from the person it’s attached to - and who would give that up? Survivability, healing, everything about you better and more advanced.

So Donna and Rose really can fix the metacrises by going, ‘nope, fine as I am and loving this life now actually’. Expelling the parasite. And is potentially an explanation as to why it seems both like regeneration is forced, something a Time Lords’ cells do naturally (Heaven Sent), but also why it also seems to be overridden sometimes (with the Master choosing to die).

(And not that it needs fixing, but Eleven expected to die and was going to accept that, so depending on how it works for Patient Zero (*side eyes 11’s first episode and continues*) that could be a factor).

After all, what did Tecteun call the Doctor?

What if the Time Lords weren’t ‘special’, but infected. And what would it matter, if the parasite was helpful. Of course, if it’s the same thing that’s making the TARDIS not merely a machine, but alive…

#replies #Regeneration #The Gallifrey Chronicles #Rassilon #Thremix #Doctor Who EU #DW Theory #...what i would give to be able to write a DW spin-off about the origins of the Time Lords #combining all the contradictory lore (eg. Tecteun vs Thremix) into a multi-season series telling the story of Rassilon's rise and fall

[intuitive-revelations]

Some people have noticed and joked about the shirt change between these scenes but...

...what do you want to bet that the TARDIS departed and returned between the Doctor and Ruby entering the TARDIS?

Hence Fifteen's change in attitude between leaving vs opening the door and posing for Ruby. He's just had some time travelling alone, ala Eight's 4 year Radio Times gap with Sam, or Nine leaving then coming back for Rose.

#a “big finish gap” to paraphrase Moffat #Doctor Who #The Church on Ruby Road #Fifteenth Doctor #Ruby Sunday #DW Meta #DW Theory #DW Spoilers #Doctor Who Spoilers #(also fitting with Ruby having so many 'Sam meets Izzy meets Rose' vibes)