Post by Brambleshadow on Aug 14, 2017 16:42:59 GMT -5
River Song is not a Time Lord. She's part timeship.
Now, before y'all go biting my head off, hear me out.
Most people say that River is a Time Lord because
However...
[/li][li]Since River has never been to Gallifrey, nor attended the Academy—she can’t since as of the time she first appeared in s4 and throughout her appearances in s5 - s7 Gallifrey had been destroyed in the Last Great Time War and the War itself was timelocked so no being could get in or out via-timetravel—she has not obtained the rank of Time Lord nor a TARDIS.
[/li]
If you want to talk more about humans with knowledge of temporal mechanics, look no further than Faction Paradox. Most of the Faction's members are human or from post-humanity (one Little Brother/Cousin is a Cyberman, IIRC—the Faction recruits from all sorts of races). Their founder was Grandfather Paradox, the former voodoo priest of the House of Lungbarrow (an Oldblood House in the Prydonian Chapter). Godfather Morlock often conducts experiments while studying a dead individual’s biodata (and therefore personal timestream) (The Eleven-Day Empire). The Faction themselves have a biodata virus that latches onto the victim and changes their timeline without the victim being aware so that they become a servant of Paradox before they even contracted the virus (Interference; The Book of the War). Cousin Justine, though human, is considered to be human-plus by biodata security scanners (Alien Bodies) primarily due to being with the Family. She also has witch-blood: “a term, normally derogatory, used in relation to the members of the lesser species [aka ‘humanity and any other species who are not on the level of the Time Lords/Gallifreyans’] who possess inherently time-active biodata. They have a natural, untrained ability to interact with the deep-level processes of Time (or, as Faction Paradox would put it, to interact with the loa), a raw instinct for temporal tampering which makes them both important and dangerous. They perceive, if vaguely, the histories etched into the biodata of those around them; the rules of causality bend, or even break, in their presence; lives are rewritten; they can even lose their shadows.
“They’re hybrids, their blood containing biodata which should only exist in members of the Great Houses [Time Lords], though only to a limited extent. This isn’t a common phenomenon, although most individuals with witch-blood draw attention to themselves through their almost unconscious use of their prescient abilities” (The Book of the War).
Back on the Rassilon Imprimatur/symbiotic nuclei for a moment: It does make its recipients more than ordinary Gallifreyans, to the point that they're considered a sub-species or a separate species altogether. However...
Now, onto River being part-timeship.
She has been stated to be a “Child of the TARDIS” and was conceived and gestated while the TARDIS was in flight in the Time Vortex. She was also experimented on by the Silence and Madame Kovarian. Being a “child of the TARDIS” makes her part-timeship—and it is stated that this was what gave her her regenerative abilities along with everything else. The TARDIS meddled. It’s what she does (i.e. Compassion aka Laura Tobin; Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf; Fitz Kreiner; you could also add Sam Jones in here as well). Also, the TARDIS has bonded with Chang Lee, Dr. Grace Halloway, Rose Tyler, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, and Clara Oswald (after she got over her dislike of Clara). In the Classic series, Susan, Adric, Nyssa, and other companions were allowed to help pilot the TARDIS. So, simply emotionally bonding with and piloting a TARDIS does not a Time Lord make. (The symbiotic nuclei that enables a Time Lord pilot to bond with their TARDIS, is also meant to give a Time Lord total control over their TARDIS, allowing them to pilot the TT-Capsule purely through a symbiotic/telepathic bond [Interference]. The Doctor doesn’t because they prefer flying their TARDIS manually and they don’t want her feeling like she’s a slave.)
Technically, all of this would make River Song a Type 102 TARDIS—and she is not the first human/TARDIS hybrid.
Compassion, one of Eight’s companions in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels (actually one of many clones of a woman named Laura Tobin—it’s complicated), becomes the first-ever human/TARDIS hybrid and designated the Type 102 TARDIS. See, Compassion was a member of the Remote—part of a colonial experiment by Faction Paradox—and her brain was wired to receive signals (like from TV and radio broadcasts). Being part of the Remote and being exposed to Eight’s TARDIS for so long slowly turned her into a TARDIS. The Time Lords also eventually captured her and used her to breed a new type of TARDIS: the Type 103 (103-form timeships in Faction Paradox-speak), which were fully humanoid in appearance. (These were Time Lords from Gallifrey’s future, who were involved in a 50-year-long time war with the Enemy by that point—yes, this is the Second War in Heaven.)
(Also, the Time Lords themselves in the Doom Coalition audios say that River is not a Time Lord, but a hybrid—though they don't say what she's a hybrid of. I would say, from an in-universe perspective, that they know more about what makes a Time Lord than a Silurian and a cult of creepy alien priests whose only exposure to the Time Lords is a renegade whose biodata is an absolute mess and the only one in existence after both a. committing double genocide to end the Last Great Time War and b. rebooting the universe.)
(Also also, the Doctor isn't entirely Gallifreyan either, but that's another topic entirely.)
Now, before y'all go biting my head off, hear me out.
Most people say that River is a Time Lord because
- she has the ability to regenerate, two hearts (AUDIOs: The Eye of the Storm, Songs of Love), and a respiratory bypass system
that she has little to no experience using - she can read and write in Old High Gallifreyan without the help of the TARDIS' translation circuits (never mind the fact the TARDIS doesn't translate Gallifreyan anyway). (Also, Old High Gallifreyan was a dead language by the Doctor's time (The Five Doctors, 1983)
- and she can fly the Doctor's Type 40 TT-Capsule better than the TARDIS's own symbiotically- and telepathically-linked pilot
However...
- Time Lord/Lady is a rank given to the elite of Gallifreyan society—and Gallifreyans that have gone through and graduated from the Academy.
- Not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords and have the ability to regenerate.“Not all Gallifreyans are Time Lords, Sarah. The Time Lords are just the elite of the planet’s society. The creme de la creme. Or so they say.” —Third Doctor, Interference
- “A Good Man Goes To War” even flat-out states that River has mostly human DNA.
- It was Vastra (a Silurian) who first said that baby!River had part-Time Lord DNA—and Vastra's only experience with the Time Lords was the Doctor: a renegade, the only survivor of the Last Great Time War (the Master was gone by that point back into the timelock), and (if you take the Cartmel Masterplan into effect and/or the fact their biodata is a complete and total mess at this point anyway) is not entirely Gallifreyan in the first place (okay, yes, this time they were Loomed into a Gallifreyan body, but before then??? the Other is strongly implied to be Not Gallifreyan). (Also, is it ever explained how Vastra knows what Gallifreyan TNA looks like? I mean, their blood doesn't even look like blood under a microscope.)
- The Silence' only exposure to the Time Lords was also the Doctor, hence Eleven's question of "What would they want with a Time Lord? What for?" and Vastra's response is along the lines of "They've seen you."
- Back during the Dark Times there was a war with the Great Vampires. Rassilon stole regeneration from them (one legend has it that Rassilon was actually turned into a vampire [Goth Opera], but that’s another post entirely).
- During the time Rassilon introduced the regeneration technology, he was rebuilding the Gallifreyan genome after wiping out the indigenous Gallifreyans. He also created looms as a means for them to… reproduce, for lack of a better term, and declared that only the loom-born would receive the gift of regeneration and be able to become Time Lords.
- Additionally, back in the early days regeneration was only granted to Gallifreyan priests and the Time Lords (Interference).
- Rassilon also declared womb-born Gallifreyans’ existence illegal and would have the parents executed—or have the child executed after the mother was presumably hidden away in secret or abducted so that a “feasible extraction” would be held at the proper time. (Aka Gallifreyan society is incredibly dystopian and why would the Doctor even want to live there (they don’t).)
- This also makes them more than ordinary Gallifreyans (or, after Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar’s reforms so that non-Gallifreyans could enter the Academy and train to become Time Lords [i.e. Ace McShane, K-9], whatever species they came from).
- It’s not just any Gallifreyan that is allowed into the Academy. Typically, inductees into the Academy are from one of the Great Houses (i.e. House Lungbarrow or House Dvora) and are Loomed into those Houses from the get-go. (Of course, being from one of these Houses doesn’t always mean that an inductee will successfully pass their Time Lord initiation—the ones that are deemed failures will be reassigned to the House Military [i.e. Deeptree or Redlooms].) (The Great Houses are also separated into Oldblood and Newblood categories: the Doctor, for example, is an Oldblood; Romana and the Master are Newbloods.)
[/li][li]Since River has never been to Gallifrey, nor attended the Academy—she can’t since as of the time she first appeared in s4 and throughout her appearances in s5 - s7 Gallifrey had been destroyed in the Last Great Time War and the War itself was timelocked so no being could get in or out via-timetravel—she has not obtained the rank of Time Lord nor a TARDIS.
[/li]
- And despite her piloting abilities with the Doctor’s TARDIS and her knowledge of the Doctor’s timeline (they are meeting in a backwards manner, after all), River hasn’t shown any instances that she’s time-aware (that is, able to see and sense timelines) so much as time-active (that is, able to travel in time).
- Her knowledge of temporal mechanics is shared by Jack Harkness due to his past as a Time Agent (and Jack is 100% human despite being an immortal living fixed point). Jack was also able to work advanced technology and help the Doctor with their TARDIS (Boom Town)—again, despite being 100% human.
If you want to talk more about humans with knowledge of temporal mechanics, look no further than Faction Paradox. Most of the Faction's members are human or from post-humanity (one Little Brother/Cousin is a Cyberman, IIRC—the Faction recruits from all sorts of races). Their founder was Grandfather Paradox, the former voodoo priest of the House of Lungbarrow (an Oldblood House in the Prydonian Chapter). Godfather Morlock often conducts experiments while studying a dead individual’s biodata (and therefore personal timestream) (The Eleven-Day Empire). The Faction themselves have a biodata virus that latches onto the victim and changes their timeline without the victim being aware so that they become a servant of Paradox before they even contracted the virus (Interference; The Book of the War). Cousin Justine, though human, is considered to be human-plus by biodata security scanners (Alien Bodies) primarily due to being with the Family. She also has witch-blood: “a term, normally derogatory, used in relation to the members of the lesser species [aka ‘humanity and any other species who are not on the level of the Time Lords/Gallifreyans’] who possess inherently time-active biodata. They have a natural, untrained ability to interact with the deep-level processes of Time (or, as Faction Paradox would put it, to interact with the loa), a raw instinct for temporal tampering which makes them both important and dangerous. They perceive, if vaguely, the histories etched into the biodata of those around them; the rules of causality bend, or even break, in their presence; lives are rewritten; they can even lose their shadows.
“They’re hybrids, their blood containing biodata which should only exist in members of the Great Houses [Time Lords], though only to a limited extent. This isn’t a common phenomenon, although most individuals with witch-blood draw attention to themselves through their almost unconscious use of their prescient abilities” (The Book of the War).
Back on the Rassilon Imprimatur/symbiotic nuclei for a moment: It does make its recipients more than ordinary Gallifreyans, to the point that they're considered a sub-species or a separate species altogether. However...
The [Time Lords] are barely a “species” at all. “Species” suggests something genetic, something evolutionary, but even today it remains unclear whether evolution would even exist in its present form without [the Time Lords] at its root point. The[y]…have acted as anchors on the superstructure of history…since time immemorial. [Time Lords] are a meta-culture. They existed before any other surviving life, and therefore had, according to their own protocols, the divine right to adjust the structural history of the early universe. Their own ideas, their own needs and vested interests, primed the continuum long before any other witnesses…were in existence to argue the point.
It’s long been held that [the Time Lords] may well have been responsible for many of the physical laws of the universe as they’re now known, but even that misses the point. The[y] are those physical laws. The laws are extensions of their own selves, of their identities and of their culture.
—The Book of the War
It’s long been held that [the Time Lords] may well have been responsible for many of the physical laws of the universe as they’re now known, but even that misses the point. The[y] are those physical laws. The laws are extensions of their own selves, of their identities and of their culture.
—The Book of the War
Now, onto River being part-timeship.
She has been stated to be a “Child of the TARDIS” and was conceived and gestated while the TARDIS was in flight in the Time Vortex. She was also experimented on by the Silence and Madame Kovarian. Being a “child of the TARDIS” makes her part-timeship—and it is stated that this was what gave her her regenerative abilities along with everything else. The TARDIS meddled. It’s what she does (i.e. Compassion aka Laura Tobin; Rose Tyler/Bad Wolf; Fitz Kreiner; you could also add Sam Jones in here as well). Also, the TARDIS has bonded with Chang Lee, Dr. Grace Halloway, Rose Tyler, Donna Noble, Martha Jones, and Clara Oswald (after she got over her dislike of Clara). In the Classic series, Susan, Adric, Nyssa, and other companions were allowed to help pilot the TARDIS. So, simply emotionally bonding with and piloting a TARDIS does not a Time Lord make. (The symbiotic nuclei that enables a Time Lord pilot to bond with their TARDIS, is also meant to give a Time Lord total control over their TARDIS, allowing them to pilot the TT-Capsule purely through a symbiotic/telepathic bond [Interference]. The Doctor doesn’t because they prefer flying their TARDIS manually and they don’t want her feeling like she’s a slave.)
Technically, all of this would make River Song a Type 102 TARDIS—and she is not the first human/TARDIS hybrid.
Compassion, one of Eight’s companions in the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels (actually one of many clones of a woman named Laura Tobin—it’s complicated), becomes the first-ever human/TARDIS hybrid and designated the Type 102 TARDIS. See, Compassion was a member of the Remote—part of a colonial experiment by Faction Paradox—and her brain was wired to receive signals (like from TV and radio broadcasts). Being part of the Remote and being exposed to Eight’s TARDIS for so long slowly turned her into a TARDIS. The Time Lords also eventually captured her and used her to breed a new type of TARDIS: the Type 103 (103-form timeships in Faction Paradox-speak), which were fully humanoid in appearance. (These were Time Lords from Gallifrey’s future, who were involved in a 50-year-long time war with the Enemy by that point—yes, this is the Second War in Heaven.)
(Also, the Time Lords themselves in the Doom Coalition audios say that River is not a Time Lord, but a hybrid—though they don't say what she's a hybrid of. I would say, from an in-universe perspective, that they know more about what makes a Time Lord than a Silurian and a cult of creepy alien priests whose only exposure to the Time Lords is a renegade whose biodata is an absolute mess and the only one in existence after both a. committing double genocide to end the Last Great Time War and b. rebooting the universe.)