22 KiB
[R][WIP][BST] Playing around with Doctor Who Time War ratfic: Ch1 finished; feedback? Ideas?
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/2bz40l/rwipbst_playing_around_with_doctor_who_time_war/
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Score: 9
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Created: 2014-07-28T19:57:07
Post:
For the last year I've been entertaining the idea of writing a rationalist fanfic of the Time War from Doctor Who. I was having a lot of difficulty with the worldbuilding, but thanks to some help (from 4chan/tv/ of all places), I've gotten around to taking a stab at Chapter One. It's a short thing, less than two thousand words; the tentative title is "Healer of All Wounds". You can read it here.
So, /r/rational, here's where you can help me out. Did you like it? Comments, complaints, critiques? Where would you go from here? Are there any parts of the Doctor Who universe you'd like to see explored? Any and all feedback is requested. Thanks in advance!
Comments:
u/Integrated_Delusions [+5] The Flying Kiwi (24 minutes later)
Which Doctor is this going to be based around, and how much lore from either series (old and new) are you planning on using? Will I understand everything if I haven't seen the early stuff? Will I be able to follow along anyways?
"They tried to impose their homeworld from Dronid." I think something's wrong with this sentence. I don't know what's going on here.
As for stuff I would like to see, in S02E03 (new series) "School Reunion," the plot revolves around the Skasis Paradigm, which is essentially a theory of everything that grants people godhood. I've always headcanoned that the Doctor first learned of this in the Time War, and things went horribly wrong when people tried to abuse it. Just a thought.
All that aside, so far so good. I'd read more of it.
u/None [+6] (48 minutes later)
Which Doctor is this going to be based around, and how much lore from either series (old and new) are you planning on using? Will I understand everything if I haven't seen the early stuff? Will I be able to follow along anyways?
A modified kind of Eighth Doctor, just because he's the one in the Time War (era). Since the crash went differently, there's no War Doctor. I plan to pick and choose from the lore, since there's just so much. But no, I don't plan on leaving anything unexplained. (Even if it means introducing a companion.) Someone with no knowledge of the show should be able to follow along.
"They tried to impose their homeworld from Dronid." I think something's wrong with this sentence. I don't know what's going on here.
An explanation of the mechanics of time travel, and therefore homeworlds etc, will come in a later chapter. Right now, it's fine if it's technobabble.
the Skasis Paradigm
Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that! Around March abouts, Dropbox synched wrong with my writing app and I lost all my work on worldbuilding, which was a huge setback... But yes, I remember the Skasis Paradigm was something I'd written on. And ... Block Transfer Computation? Thanks for reminding me!
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Oh, and for God's sakes, portray humans as having developed some form of transhumanism at some point. Having the Doctor run around with biological superintelligence and regeneration while humans lumber around being slow, dumb, and mortal is just embarrassing.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Yes, definitely. He'll be primarily interacting with 1990s or modern Earth, but I've planned for some … fuckery involving the Roman Empire and the Third Reich. And god knows what they've been up to.
u/Zephyr1011 [+4] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (22 hours later)
If the Doctor Who universe is going to be given a rational treatment, you'll need to wildly diverge from canon with respect to the strategies the Time Lords use. The Time Lords are a Type IV Kardashev Civilisation, given their access to incredible technology such as TARDIS'. If they are going to put themselves in personal danger, like the Doctor does, then they are going to be easily capable of creating personal equipment, like an invulnerable personal shield, and far better weapons than a sonic screwdriver. The Doctor's TARDIS alone seems easily capable of creating things like that, despite not specialising in creating things, and yet he goes out with little protection, leading to him being captured on a regular basis in canon, and in your first chapter where he is grievously injured.
The scene in that teaser video the BBC released before the 50th anniversary, about a foot soldier fighting in the Time War, would never happen because with access to the powers to the Time Lords have, you don't fight wars with foot soldiers. Even with a soldier based strategy, you would use invulnerable robots, not mortal soldiers. Civilian targets wouldn't need to be defended when you can just evacuate them all with a TARDIS to literally anywhere else in time and space.
Fighting a war changes completely with access to just teleportation, let alone time travel. Incidentally, you will need to make some forms of rules about sending information to past selves, because otherwise fighting a war becomes completely futile, as everyone hears the enemies plans before they are implemented
u/abstractwhiz [+3] Friendly Eldritch Abomination (a day later)
This. Much as I love DW, I don't think there's anyway to make an honest rational fic out of it without totally changing everything to the point that it bears no resemblance to the original at all.
For example, you'll very likely have to change the fact that Time Lords are essentially humans with some extra organs and undefined temporal sensitivity. I can't imagine how any Type IV civilization would still view meatbodies as a sensible idea.
So the Doctor goes from being a smart quirky alien dude to a quirky postbiological superintelligence. This kinda makes any plots with human companions boring, because it would be like taking your pet ant along to save the world. :(
Then again, the Doctor lies, so...
u/None [+3] (a day later)
For example, you'll very likely have to change the fact that Time Lords are essentially humans with some extra organs and undefined temporal sensitivity. I can't imagine how any Type IV civilization would still view meatbodies as a sensible idea.
The Doctor and most of the Time Lords will be meat bodies, but there's a very good reason (or at least I think so) that I can't reveal without revealing a major plot point.
On that note, any other specific complaints about Doctor Who canon you have that maybe I haven't considered? This is a [BST] thread, after all.
u/abstractwhiz [+1] Friendly Eldritch Abomination (a day later)
Aha, a secret plot point! Excellent.
I'll have to go think about canon for a bit. My major objections have already been brought up by other people, but perhaps I can think of something else. :P
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Okay! I just want to make sure I don't miss anything.
u/autowikibot [+2] (22 hours later)
#####
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#### Section 14. Type IV of article Kardashev scale:
A Type Ⅳ civilization extracts energy, information, and raw materials from all possible galaxies; it is effectively immortal and omnipotent with universal-scale influence, possessing the ability of theoretical time travel and instantaneous matter-energy transformation and teleportation (their apparent abilities may include moving entire asteroid belts and stars, creating alternate timelines, and affecting universal states of nature such as the gravitational constant); in fiction, these civilizations may be perceived as omnipresent/omnipotent gods:
^Interesting: ^The ^Kardashev ^Scale ^(album) ^| ^Dyson ^sphere ^| ^Nikolai ^Kardashev ^| ^Greydon ^Square
^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+cjb80ge) ^or [^delete](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&message=%2Bdelete+cjb80ge)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| ^(FAQs) ^| ^Mods ^| ^Magic ^Words
u/None [+1] (a day later)
If the Doctor Who universe is going to be given a rational treatment, you'll need to wildly diverge from canon with respect to the strategies the Time Lords use.
Out of curiosity, what in your opinion are the strategies Time Lords use in canon? Especially in Doctor Who, the word is kinda meaningless, so I'm wondering if you're including the EDA, Big Finish Audios, and Faction Paradox in that assessment.
As for the rest of the post, I plan to have most of it covered or rendered irrelevant, so that'll be taken care of.
u/MadScientist14159 [+1] WIP: Sodium Hypochlorite (Rational Bleach) Eventually. Maybe. (a day later)
I think by this point the Daleks must also have had Time Vortex technology, otherwise nothing makes sense because the Timelords insta win.
In which case, evacuation becomes slightly more difficult. The Daleks can chase the evacuees.
u/Zephyr1011 [+1] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (a day later)
Do the Daleks have the ability to track teleportation? And if they can teleport, why not just teleport straight in around the sky trenches?
u/MadScientist14159 [+1] WIP: Sodium Hypochlorite (Rational Bleach) Eventually. Maybe. (a day later)
probably
magical defensesTimelord anti-teleportation fields
u/Zephyr1011 [+1] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (a day later)
Why not just evacuate somewhere and raise anti-teleportation shields?
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Guys. Guys. There's one fundamental assumption you're ignoring.
u/Zephyr1011 [+1] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (a day later)
Which is...?
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Teleportation! There's no teleportation in this universe. And yes, I did make a TARDIS that makes this work. Warp is a thing, via Alcubierre drives, but there's no instant teleportation. Time travel comes with extreme moral ramifications, and also involves a bit of getting lost, so that stops most people from exploiting it carelessly. Maybe I'll make a worldbuilding post about the fic later.
u/Zephyr1011 [+1] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (a day later)
But, at the beginning of the chapter you wrote, does the TARDIS not teleport in? Anyway, that's a massive divergence from canon, but I guess it does remove many of the obvious stupid actions of the Time Lords
u/None [+1] (a day later)
There's a distinct difference between teleportation and traveling during time travel. During time travel, the entire universe is kinda built around you; this is the multiple-timelines interpretation of time travel. But there's some mess involving Gallifrey, so it retains coherence. I'll get to that later.
ETA link
u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (a day later)
Just travel forwards in time by 1 unit of Planck time. It is essentially indistinguishable from teleportation
u/None [+1] (a day later)
Well, yeah. Because it is teleportation. You didn't look at the link.
You can go back in time whenever you like.
Every time you go back in time, you create an entirely new timeline.
If you go forwards in time, you stay in your current timeline.
I'm sorry; when I think of "time travel", I automatically think of backwards time travel, since that's the only challenging part. I'm using different definitions. My mistake.
u/Zephyr1011 [+1] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (a day later)
Then go back in time one unit of Planck time. It will create a new and identical timeline to the old. And enables you to teleport.
u/None [+1] (a day later)
You've not teleported; you've traveled to another timeline. The old one still exists.
In Doctor Who canon, one of the core elements is the importance of GMT – that is, Gallifrey Mean Time. See this thread for an explanation. I've incorporated that part of canon into my cosmology; thankfully, the multiple timeline theory relieves some of the paradoxes.
This is through the concept of homeworlds: Gallifrey is the homeworld of the universe / collection of timelines / "cluster. All the Everett branches and universes that have been time-travelled into existence are sort of condensed at Gallifrey. There are various smaller, localized homeworlds, but Gallifrey dwarfs them all. As such, one can travel between different timelines through homeworlds, so if you time travel away from a conflict, you can be tracked and followed. This also means time travel physically doesn't work in homeworlds; they can only be traveled to through space.
The Enemy, on that note, is the civilization of the homeworld of another cluster, and is trying to incorporate the Gallifrey Cluster into theirs. If they succeeded, Gallifrey would be unwritten from time, replaced by the Enemy homeworld. And that's the essence of the Time War in a nutshell.
u/MadScientist14159 [+1] WIP: Sodium Hypochlorite (Rational Bleach) Eventually. Maybe. (a day later)
The Daleks teleport to one microsecond before they put up the field.
The reason they can't do that in the sky trenches is because shut up.
(Really though, I can't think with the sort of twisty logic that this scale of time travel bullshittery requires to strategize against.)
u/Zephyr1011 [+2] Potentially Unfriendly Aspiring Divinity (a day later)
Well, the point is kinda moot, as each side has more than enough power to completely annihilate the other, so they would never be stupid enough to go to war in the first place. Doesn't the Doctor at one point use his TARDIS to make a star go supernova in order to talk to Rose while she's in Rose's World? When you have that kind of power, you can just destroy every star system of your opponent. They don't need to invade Gallifrey when they can make its star go supernova
u/asent963 [+2] (22 hours later)
TARDIS. Remote. Control! So many episodes could've been easily ended if only he'd bothered to get one. It should be standard issue for the Time War anyway.
u/None [+1] (12 hours later)
DIS GON B GUD.
Your writing style works quite well for Doctor Who, and you've already picked up the knack of immediately murdering a character and starting a war in the cold-open just to drive conflict.
Good job!
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
Thanks, EB!
u/TimTravel [+1] (13 hours later)
Somewhat relevant, extremely long-winded.
TL;DR: In order for the story to not be arbitrary, you have to very carefully define to yourself the mechanics of how time travel works. It is surprisingly difficult to do so. I'm 60% sure the model I described there makes the universe conspire to prevent all time travel, but it's better than any of the others I've seen. I started programming a simulation of an extremely simple universe containing time travel under this model to test it but I gave up when real life kept me too busy.
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
I think I'll be following Sam Hughes' many-timelines interpretation, but to make it so all timelines are somehow collected/connected, I'll be making some modifications. Or, should I say, the Time Lords will be ...
u/VorpalAuroch [+0] Life before Death (5 hours later)
It's interesting so far. There's a few huge unanswered background questions which are introduced pretty smoothly, which is well done.
Things that are less clear: Wait, the Time War is being started by someone from outside the cluster? Isn't it against the Daleks? Galactic cluster? Time cluster? What cluster? What is up with the surgical bot, and why should we care? Should we care that it's a Neurosurgeon? Should we care why it's unresponsive? This part is not very smooth and is an unsatisfying place to break off.
u/None [+2] (5 hours later)
Wait, the Time War is being started by someone from outside the cluster? Isn't it against the Daleks? Galactic cluster? Time cluster? What cluster?
I decided the Daleks needed an upgrade, to be feasible challengers of the Time Lords. An explanation of time travel, homeworlds, and the hypertime clusters will come in a latter chapter, after the companion is introduced.
What is up with the surgical bot, and why should we care? Should we care that it's a Neurosurgeon? Should we care why it's unresponsive? This part is not very smooth and is an unsatisfying place to break off.
Agreed. I really didn't know where to go from there; I think I might hack the conversation between the Doctor and the Great Mother to include more exposition.
As for the Neurosurgeon bot, I suppose I didn't make that clear enough. It may or may not become important later on down the road. And if it doesn't, I'll chop it. Either way, that reveal (that the surgery bot sitting by the Doctor's hospital bed was a neurosurgeon) needs serious editing, for clarity and nonstupidity (there's no good reason for it to not respond to the first request).
Thanks for your response, VA!
u/VorpalAuroch [+2] Life before Death (7 hours later)
I'm glad you appreciated it. For a bit more:
Particularly for the Daleks/opponents, if you can't make it clear pretty early in the story, it might be better to have a brief introduction in medias res where you have enough throwaway lines to make broad strokes clear before jumping back to the beginning. I think if there's one thing that invested fans and people with no knowledge of the show would both find confusing, it's that the Doctor is fighting a war and it's against neither the Daleks nor the Cybermen.
And when I say early in the story, if you're three chapters or 10K words in and you haven't explained that, I think you'd have problems.
If you do go with in medias res, it's obviously pretty easy to jump back to this as 'the beginning', since it's when he first finds out the war exists.
u/None [+1] (8 hours later)
Particularly for the Daleks/opponents, if you can't make it clear pretty early in the story, it might be better to have a brief introduction in medias res where you have enough throwaway lines to make broad strokes clear before jumping back to the beginning. I think if there's one thing that invested fans and people with no knowledge of the show would both find confusing, it's that the Doctor is fighting a war and it's against neither the Daleks nor the Cybermen.
Noted. This is going to be a little difficult, given that, in this story, the Daleks are from outside of the Doctor's / Time Lord's universe, and nobody has any sort of clue as to what they are until much later. (The one difficulty of writing fanfic - everyone already knows what's what. This would be perfectly fine in a regular story, but since most of the readers are already going to know who / what the Time Lords' opponents in the Time War are, it's all kboshed. Why am I putting this in a Doctor Who setting again?)
I think I'll be able to work around that, though, by not having the Doctor directly interact with the Daleks until their identity is established (or pretty close to established, at least). It's going to be very much a Time Lords vs Daleks war, not a Doctor vs Daleks war. If that makes sense.
Bleagh, I'll reread your comment tomorrow and see what I can come up with then.
u/VorpalAuroch [+1] Life before Death (10 hours later)
That makes a lot of sense. As a totally side thing, you might find this interesting. It's an outline for a potential season plotline that ends with the return of the Time Lords and the beginning of the Second Great Time War, and plays with some similar ideas.
u/None [+1] (18 hours later)
Good read; interesting ideas ... Thanks!
u/None [+1] (12 hours later)
Why am I putting this in a Doctor Who setting again?
Because Doctor Who is one of the biggest, weirdest, most varied fictional universes available, where anything can happen and probably will. It is very well fun-optimized.