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Post by charlesuirdhein on Nov 23, 2018 22:06:57 GMT
I'm a firm believer that the looms aren't mysterious, they're just technobabble laziness that diminishes the Doctor as a person, as a parent, as a grandparent, as someone who has those bonds and who understands those bonds well, even if they seldom speak of them. Thankfully this ridiculous idea has been ignored in the revived series. I'd sooner add half human on the maternal side to the Doctor's canon than this. Fair, but I also believe that one does not need to have blood ties in order to be considered family. Adopted children or children of surrogacies, as occurs in real life, are just as much loved as those born in the traditional manner. Oh that's very true, I agree wholeheartedly, but taking Lungbarrow, which I've read and despite issues with it I find it fascinating, it just throws looming in, boots out the canonical (well, established anyway) family bonds, and replaces them with...nothing? The Other? Susan-not-really-granddaughter? Love a lot of Platt's work but this is self indulgent nonsense. As my old dad would say "paper won't refuse ink". An actual attempt to explore the oddness of a people that have very very long lives, coupled with regeneration, how do they fit together as familial units, how do they work? This old man is that young woman's son, what's the etiquette? Let's not bother with that because that's hard, and looms aren't hard, they're hand waving. (A side issue/rant I've had for ages with the Gallifrey series is the actual government of it makes no sense at all. Does it work like city states? With the capitol as the capital and seat of government? I mean what the hell do they actually do? I mean I've seen better run and more functional student societies.)
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Post by Deleted on Nov 23, 2018 22:45:58 GMT
Fair, but I also believe that one does not need to have blood ties in order to be considered family. Adopted children or children of surrogacies, as occurs in real life, are just as much loved as those born in the traditional manner. Oh that's very true, I agree wholeheartedly, but taking Lungbarrow, which I've read and despite issues with it I find it fascinating, it just throws looming in, boots out the canonical (well, established anyway) family bonds, and replaces them with...nothing? The Other? Susan-not-really-granddaughter? Love a lot of Platt's work but this is self indulgent nonsense. As my old dad would say "paper won't refuse ink". An actual attempt to explore the oddness of a people that have very very long lives, coupled with regeneration, how do they fit together as familial units, how do they work? This old man is that young woman's son, what's the etiquette? Let's not bother with that because that's hard, and looms aren't hard, they're hand waving. (A side issue/rant I've had for ages with the Gallifrey series is the actual government of it makes no sense at all. Does it work like city states? With the capitol as the capital and seat of government? I mean what the hell do they actually do? I mean I've seen better run and more functional student societies.) I'll put the longstanding "Why not both?" theory in a link here and say that's pretty much where I stand in regards to the Doctor's heritage (it's so wonderfully convenient to have it finally written down ). The Doctor theorises that before regeneration, there was likely reincarnation, so it's not that far removed from say the Fifth Doctor inheriting something from his first incarnation. Adoptive granddaughter I think is the closest appropriate term. There's got to be a language that has a word for relatives from a former life somewhere on Earth. English isn't it, but it's got to exist somewhere... Oh, I think you can still broach that territory with the general structure of the Great Houses. It'd be a fascinating area to explore. Faction Paradox, again, goes into a bit of the squabbles between the Oldblood and Newblood Houses and the various unions and discords that emerge from the changes. There are protocols and customs, it can get pretty nasty at times depending on who comes from where doing what. It's just a pet theory, but I've always thought that some Time Lords sponsor uninitiated Gallifreyans in order to get them into the Academy. A leg-up if you're not in quite the right place at the right time. How its received ultimately depends on the standing of the nominee beforehand. (I think a lot of the High Council members we don't see do the actual work. I can confirm that there are/were other cities on Gallifrey, though they don't tend to be discussed much. This tackles what's been discussed about the general hierarchy of their government over the years. It's a great bit of documentation, but fair warning, it can be a bit of an eyeful on first viewing.)
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Post by tuigirl on Nov 24, 2018 10:46:29 GMT
At the risk of going way off-topic, I always thought it was a bit of a shame that some of the details from John M. Ford's The Final Reflection kind of got swept to the side in favour of later developments. The idea that the Klingons created half-human hybrids to better understand and fight their enemies has a certain appeal to it. I think they got off better in the grander scheme of things then Diane Duane's Rihannsu, though. They were never quite allowed to venture very far outside their Romulan box. Fair enough terms on the looms, I can understand not liking it for being uncanny. I'm a huge fan of non-static history in sci-fi, so I like the evolution of ideas as the Time Lords figure out what exactly they're all about at first. I find the purges and some of Gallifrey's earlier history have a bit of a precedent in what we've already seen on television. Things like the tampering with the Minyans in Underworld (back in the very early days of when they had a Gallifreyan Empire), the execution of Morbius and the use of the Death Zone as a public arena for entertainment. By the Doctor's time... I'd say they've knocked a lot of those old habits. They'd probably be a bit embarrassed to admit such a thing used to happen, to be honest. Faction Paradox definitely tries for a more menacing depiction of the Time Lords, but it gets very weird in order to do it. I'll give an example in... Drornid, the rival homeworld. In Shada, the Doctor says the Time Lords dealt with it by basically ignoring it until they came back into the fold. In The Book of the War, it's elaborated that their method of ignoring it was on par with the powers they demonstrated in The War Games -- they severed it from causal certainty and threw it out of history. The planet was ravaged by uncertainties and conflicting time zones until the rival President returned home. I've mixed feelings about the story itself, but The World Shapers has one of the best exchanges between two Time Lords come to intervene in the Doctor's actions. I think it sums up their philosophy quite nicely:Off Topic- I agree with you (having read the Rihannsu books). I am also a sucker for everything Klingon.
Bold- exactly. This is what I want to see. Not some incompetent caricature politic games in the Capitol. I want to see a nearly omnipotent, wise but very cold (bordering on heartless) race shaping the universe.
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Post by tuigirl on Nov 24, 2018 10:47:41 GMT
I'm a firm believer that the looms aren't mysterious, they're just technobabble laziness that diminishes the Doctor as a person, as a parent, as a grandparent, as someone who has those bonds and who understands those bonds well, even if they seldom speak of them. Thankfully this ridiculous idea has been ignored in the revived series. I'd sooner add half human on the maternal side to the Doctor's canon than this. Yes, EXACTLY.
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Post by tuigirl on Nov 24, 2018 10:55:42 GMT
An actual attempt to explore the oddness of a people that have very very long lives, coupled with regeneration, how do they fit together as familial units, how do they work? This old man is that young woman's son, what's the etiquette? Let's not bother with that because that's hard, and looms aren't hard, they're hand waving. (A side issue/rant I've had for ages with the Gallifrey series is t he actual government of it makes no sense at all. Does it work like city states? With the capitol as the capital and seat of government? I mean what the hell do they actually do? I mean I've seen better run and more functional student societies.) You bascially have laid your fingers exactly on my thoughts. I just did not express them very well. This is also what I am looking for. And I agree, this is very hard to do, and I guess only writers as good in world building as for example Tolkien could have pulled this off. Sadly, hardly any of the Doctor Who writers has ever reached that level.
Stuff like this would elevate the series background from acceptable technobabble and ridiculous political caricature to something truly unique and amazing.
As a bit of an off topic- none-the-less, there is some really good, borderline philosophical writing with great world buidling out there. My most favorite example are the New adventures of Benny with the Warner Doctor. This adds a great amount of depth to the Doctors character in that doomed universe, IMHO.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 24, 2018 13:25:33 GMT
At the risk of going way off-topic, I always thought it was a bit of a shame that some of the details from John M. Ford's The Final Reflection kind of got swept to the side in favour of later developments. The idea that the Klingons created half-human hybrids to better understand and fight their enemies has a certain appeal to it. I think they got off better in the grander scheme of things then Diane Duane's Rihannsu, though. They were never quite allowed to venture very far outside their Romulan box. Fair enough terms on the looms, I can understand not liking it for being uncanny. I'm a huge fan of non-static history in sci-fi, so I like the evolution of ideas as the Time Lords figure out what exactly they're all about at first. I find the purges and some of Gallifrey's earlier history have a bit of a precedent in what we've already seen on television. Things like the tampering with the Minyans in Underworld (back in the very early days of when they had a Gallifreyan Empire), the execution of Morbius and the use of the Death Zone as a public arena for entertainment. By the Doctor's time... I'd say they've knocked a lot of those old habits. They'd probably be a bit embarrassed to admit such a thing used to happen, to be honest. Faction Paradox definitely tries for a more menacing depiction of the Time Lords, but it gets very weird in order to do it. I'll give an example in... Drornid, the rival homeworld. In Shada, the Doctor says the Time Lords dealt with it by basically ignoring it until they came back into the fold. In The Book of the War, it's elaborated that their method of ignoring it was on par with the powers they demonstrated in The War Games -- they severed it from causal certainty and threw it out of history. The planet was ravaged by uncertainties and conflicting time zones until the rival President returned home. I've mixed feelings about the story itself, but The World Shapers has one of the best exchanges between two Time Lords come to intervene in the Doctor's actions. I think it sums up their philosophy quite nicely:Off Topic- I agree with you (having read the Rihannsu books). I am also a sucker for everything Klingon.
Bold- exactly. This is what I want to see. Not some incompetent caricature politic games in the Capitol. I want to see a nearly omnipotent, wise but very cold (bordering on heartless) race shaping the universe. Ahh, Qapla' Snap. Same thought. I like the idea of the Time Lords being not exactly apathetic, but very "big picture" focussed as a culture. A lot like Dr Manhattan from Watchmen, things are seen on a much broader scope. A character interpretation I had of Borusa was that one life didn't matter to him, but you could move the man to tears over a statistic because he could actually visualise it in a way human beings can't. We humans don't tend to worry about seconds passing because it's such a small measurement of time. For them, that same philosophy would apply to years. They've been and done everything that all the lesser species are currently involved in and, rather than being an active custodian race, they've decided to sit back and let the checks and balances put in at their establishment run in their place.
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Post by tuigirl on Nov 24, 2018 13:29:17 GMT
Off Topic- I agree with you (having read the Rihannsu books). I am also a sucker for everything Klingon.
Bold- exactly. This is what I want to see. Not some incompetent caricature politic games in the Capitol. I want to see a nearly omnipotent, wise but very cold (bordering on heartless) race shaping the universe. Ahh, Qapla' Snap. Same thought. I like the idea of the Time Lords being not exactly apathetic, but very "big picture" focussed as a culture. A lot like Dr Manhattan from Watchmen, things are seen on a much broader scope. A character interpretation I had of Borusa was that one life didn't matter to him, but you could move the man to tears over a statistic because he could actually visualise it in a way human beings can't. We humans don't tend to worry about seconds passing because it's such a small measurement of time. For them, that same philosophy would apply to years. They've been and done everything that all the lesser species are currently involved in and, rather than being an active custodian race, they've decided to sit back and let the checks and balances put in at their establishment run in their place. NuqneH!
Yep, agreed!
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Post by Ela on May 8, 2019 0:51:54 GMT
I thought the audio story was a nice adaptation of the admittedly very odd book. It got me interested enough in the back story to purchase The Infinity Doctors. The end of the book was dissatisfying, for me, and the alteration in the audio story pleased me.
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Post by xlozdob on Mar 12, 2020 17:17:42 GMT
Half-way through my first listen of this after the amazing S12 finale (also finally reading Lungbarrow). I haven't read the book, but I have to say the adaptation is shaping up to be quite a nice, gripping story.
I wanted to ask, when the Doctor and Patience talk about an incarnation of her husband with different coloured hair and beard, is that supposed to be a reference to the Douglas Camfield incarnation of the Doctor?
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Post by constonks on Mar 12, 2020 22:54:09 GMT
Half-way through my first listen of this after the amazing S12 finale (also finally reading Lungbarrow). I haven't read the book, but I have to say the adaptation is shaping up to be quite a nice, gripping story. I wanted to ask, when the Doctor and Patience talk about an incarnation of her husband with different coloured hair and beard, is that supposed to be a reference to the Douglas Camfield incarnation of the Doctor? That it is! Lance Parkin has said as much.
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Post by xlozdob on Mar 13, 2020 0:18:01 GMT
Half-way through my first listen of this after the amazing S12 finale (also finally reading Lungbarrow). I haven't read the book, but I have to say the adaptation is shaping up to be quite a nice, gripping story. I wanted to ask, when the Doctor and Patience talk about an incarnation of her husband with different coloured hair and beard, is that supposed to be a reference to the Douglas Camfield incarnation of the Doctor? That it is! Lance Parkin has said as much. Brilliant! Can't wait to see (hear) what other easter eggs they put in this incredible story. Also, I already wanted a Lungbarrow adaptation, but now I want it even more.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2020 7:08:54 GMT
That it is! Lance Parkin has said as much. Brilliant! Can't wait to see (hear) what other easter eggs they put in this incredible story. Also, I already wanted a Lungbarrow adaptation, but now I want it even more. I hadn’t read the original story but totally loved this adaptation in fact I loved all of the adaptations of the novels. in fact I may give it a relisten today.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2020 7:11:17 GMT
Just finished this one, too. I generally agree with the points made by slithe in the post above me. I also bought this one on a whim while on special, it never really interested me strongly in the past, since I was a bit apprehensive about the Gallifrey background... Anyways, the first episode starts really strong and sucked me in immediately. The story was well written and I was able to follow it without problems- I also have not read the book beforehand. All in all, this was an interesting and exciting story and I am happy all the companions were used equally and everybody gets a moment to shine. There are also some great humourous moments and I especially loved the ending scene with "codeword umbrella". I still am not a fan of showing the background of the Dooctor and details about Gallifrey. I hate the whole "looming" business. In my oppinion, these things should stay a mystery, and I like my timelords to be the mysterious and menacing aliens they are in the War Games. But that might just be me. And now? Given new revelations in the show what do you prefer?
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Post by tuigirl on Mar 13, 2020 8:24:46 GMT
Just finished this one, too. I generally agree with the points made by slithe in the post above me. I also bought this one on a whim while on special, it never really interested me strongly in the past, since I was a bit apprehensive about the Gallifrey background... Anyways, the first episode starts really strong and sucked me in immediately. The story was well written and I was able to follow it without problems- I also have not read the book beforehand. All in all, this was an interesting and exciting story and I am happy all the companions were used equally and everybody gets a moment to shine. There are also some great humourous moments and I especially loved the ending scene with "codeword umbrella". I still am not a fan of showing the background of the Dooctor and details about Gallifrey. I hate the whole "looming" business. In my oppinion, these things should stay a mystery, and I like my timelords to be the mysterious and menacing aliens they are in the War Games. But that might just be me. And now? Given new revelations in the show what do you prefer? I am still of the opinion the Doctor should remain a mysterious figure. The new revelations have not changed that. And I prefer they keep Gallifrey out of it, because since the War Games, the portrayal of the Time Lords has been "meh". I wonder how long Gallifrey will stay dead before someone (new or old show runner) finds a way to resurrect it?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2020 8:27:12 GMT
And now? Given new revelations in the show what do you prefer? I am still of the opinion the Doctor should remain a mysterious figure. The new revelations have not changed that. And I prefer they keep Gallifrey out of it, because since the War Games, the portrayal of the Time Lords has been "meh". I wonder how long Gallifrey will stay dead before someone (new or old show runner) finds a way to resurrect it?
I think they now have the scope that they do not have to resurrect it but hey whatever suits the storytelling am actually looking forward to getting to grips with Jodies latest series.
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Post by Timelord007 on Mar 13, 2020 12:12:46 GMT
Brilliant! Can't wait to see (hear) what other easter eggs they put in this incredible story. Also, I already wanted a Lungbarrow adaptation, but now I want it even more. I hadn’t read the original story but totally loved this adaptation in fact I loved all of the adaptations of the novels. in fact I may give it a relisten today. On my weekend listen list, great minds eh. Loved the novel adaptions especially Nightshade.
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Post by xlozdob on Mar 13, 2020 12:19:51 GMT
And now? Given new revelations in the show what do you prefer? I am still of the opinion the Doctor should remain a mysterious figure. The new revelations have not changed that. And I prefer they keep Gallifrey out of it, because since the War Games, the portrayal of the Time Lords has been "meh". I wonder how long Gallifrey will stay dead before someone (new or old show runner) finds a way to resurrect it?
I think the new revelations are more interesting than Lungbarrow precisely because of that. I am on the opposite camp here, I'm a sucker for anything and everything Gallifrey lore-related. And I think the new revelations could kinda work to reconcile exploring Gallifrey (even Ancient Gallifrey) and the Time Lords and keeping the Doctor a mysterious figure, if done right.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2020 12:58:54 GMT
I hadn’t read the original story but totally loved this adaptation in fact I loved all of the adaptations of the novels. in fact I may give it a relisten today. On my weekend listen list, great minds eh. Loved the novel adaptions especially Nightshade. Nightshade is the actual favourite too
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