How the Time Lords got the power of regeneration, and what they did with it

[capri0mni]

At first, I was going to write this as an essay, with citations of lines and details from the classic televised series, and post it to A Teaspoon and an Open Mind. But finding (and keeping track) of all those details was getting to be a real headache. Then, I thought I'd write it as fiction, but in the form of an essay (actually, as an article by a writer of unknown alien species for the Scientific Andromedan magazine), and post it to Teaspoon in the "Other Eras" section. But even I was having trouble swallowing all the techonabble, and I rapidly lost enthusiasm for the project.

I still think my idea is a good one, though, and I do want to "get it out there," and pin it down before I forget it. I'm also eager to argue about discuss it with fellow fanwakers friends. Maybe I could even figure out how to write that "article" without $15 words every three lines (hey, I'm free to dream, aren't I?).

I haven't updated my LJ friends groups in ages, so I'm not sure which of you are DW fans or not. So I'll just put it under a cut, 'kay?


First, a few assumptions about the nature of the universe in general:

• Einstien was right about the speed of light. Live with it.


• Life may be everywhere in the universe, but living things that give a flying whatsit about "first contact" are probably extremely rare -- and seperated by very great distances.


• Once upon a time, every "great, advanced, alien species" started out just as bumbling and confused as we.

This means:

• The earliest interstellar explorers had to travel thousands of years before stumbling across a planet with life they'd want to talk to.


• Therefore, they could not travel alone, unless they wanted their "first contact" to be as a corpse; the earliest starships were more like traveling mini-planets -- it was actually their grandchildren and great-children who got to say: "Take me to your leader."


• This changes as technology improves, and traveling speeds approach the speed of light -- 'cause when that happens, time slows down, and the starship crewmembers can reach their destination within their own lifetimes.


• This is yayful, but several thousand years are still passing on the planet back home. That little fact makes it hard to maintain trading deals and political alliences.

There are a few possible solutions to this (and very likely, they're all out there -- more than one way to swing a cat):

• Forget the home planet, and start your own civilization aboard your nearly-light-speed-traveling mini-planet; all the really interesting, powerful people are out here among the stars, anyway.


• Find a way to shorten the distance you have to travel; develop technology to generate wormholes, or figure out how to tesseract safely.


• Develop time travel. A thousand years have gone by since you set out? No problem. All you have to do is travel back in time 999.5 years, and hey presto! You're home in time to join the family for Harvestfest dinner.

We know which option the Gallifreyans chose, don't we? But:

• That traveling back 999.5 years was the goal. They didn't get there in one big step.


• In the meantime, old habits die hard. The earliest versions of these time traveling starships were still mini-planets, with large crews of people who were still (gasp!) having sex and making babies.


• At this point, time travel technology was still experimental. The consequences of time paradoxes are not yet understood, so no one bothers to shield against them.


• Developing feotuses are super-sensitive to environmental condistions. This includes the pressence of time paradoxes.


• This probably resulted in some ...interesting... mutations. Many were probably fatal.


• But not all paradoxes would have been obvious. In fact, in some babies, the side-effects were hidden inside the nuclei of their cells -- multiple coils of DNA, each one, ever so slightly different from its partner.

You see where I'm going with this, don't you?

• The surviving kids of these first generations grow up to be super sensitive to time, thanks to the fact that their brains delevoped while traveling through it.


• They therefore tend to gravitate toward the temporal engineering professions, and time travel technology improves exponentially as their designs are implemented. They're also the first to be chosen as crewmembers for these ships, 'cause, you know, they can actually feel where they're going.


• Old habits are still dying hard, and there are still large crews, and the crewmembers are still having sex -- not only to propogate the species, but because sex is fun.


• Thus, their super strange, super secret multiple DNA coils are passed on, and reinforced, among them. And this DNA strangeness is not passed on, so much, among the Gallifreyan people that remain planetside.


• And just when you expect these time-space traveling people to die, something really wierd happens: they don't; their cells just swap out the primary genetic patterning for the pattern in one of the "paradox" DNA coils, and they start over.

It doesn't take very long before:

• The travelers realize: "Hey! We're practically immortal, barring accidents, and we can manipulate history, if we want. We've got the power!" Some of them go back and establish themselves as the ruling class of Gallifrey, call themselves "Time Lords", and set up their own Accademy.


• One student at this Accademy is remarkably clever. His name is Rassilon, and he is very good at designing time traveling ships -- ones that can even be piloted solo.


• Unfortuately, he is also a megalomaniac, and one day, he gets his best bud, Omega, drunk, and convinces him to join him on his new, solo time-ship (no witnesses), for a little fun playing with history. He goes so far back in time that he sets himself as the Marty-Stu of his own planet's history. He gives Omega a key role in that history, and makes sure he's a hero, too... but then, he makes sure that Omega gets trapped in an alternate universe, and can't come back to contradict Rassilon's version of reality.


• He even names that special, knotty, paradoxical, Time Lord DNA the "Rassilon Imprimature" (cheeky!).


• But he knows that "practically immortal" is not the same as immortal, so he gets to work ensuring that the history he's set in motion doesn't skip the groove. He invents the Matrix, which connects all Time Lord knowledge from the past, and the Coronet of Rassilon, which enables him control the minds of living Time Lords, telepathically.


• He also makes sure that no TARDIS can go back in time before its own origin, which prevents anyone from the future following his time trail, and discovering the truth, ensuring his future status as almost-God.


• He may also have something to do with the creation of the Looms, to ensure that the power of regeneration is tightly controlled...or he may not. My theory is fuzzy on that point.


• In any case, future generations of Time Lords devolop sophisticated gene-altering technologies, and figure out how to manipulate regeneration cycles -- forcing premature regeneration as a punishment, and granting extra regenerations as a reward. They can even grant regenerations to those who weren't necessarily born with a "Rassilon Imprimature" (say for anyone who is graduates from the Accademy). This blurs the lines between the classes, considerably, but doesn't erase them, and being a Time Lord still gives someone considerable power and status, compared to an "ordinary" Gallifreyan.

And that's the world the Doctor was born (or loomed) into. There's a secondary part to my theory, which has been floating around my head, that when the Doctor said his mother was "human" he meant a non-regenerating Gallifreyan woman. But that's a distant secondary...


[Cross-Posted to curse_of_meta)

Comments

[warinbabylon.livejournal.com]

Extremely interesting. I love theory based upon the developing feotuses in a time traveling environment. This makes a great deal of sense to me. And takes into account the dynamics of a bottlenecked population existence and curve. All around, a very interesting and thought provoking essay.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Thank you. The idea started stirring around in my brain many years ago... sometime after the TVM, probably. I think it was n reaction to that half-human comment, and why that was impossible, genetically speaking.

When I started lurking on RADW, in 1999, Lungbarrow was still the big thing in the Doctor's over-arching story. And all the arguments in those threads seemed to center on the question of: "Is the Doctor fully alien, or is he sexual?" Which, since this theory was already bouncing around in my head, was like asking: "Is the sky blue, or are you wearing a red shirt?"

One thing my theory does not take into account is why, of all the civilizations that choose some sort of time travel to solve the problem of interstellar distances, only the Gallifreyans evolve the ability to regenerate. It could be that:

• The Gallifreyans just got luckier than all the others, and the ratio between babies with fatal mutations remained low enough, compared to to those who could survive and regenerate, and they survived over many generations, when others did not.


• Gallifreyan time travel technology was unique; all the other solutions depended on transmat-type devices, which avoided paradoxes.


• There are other regenerating species out there, but they never got a tv show...

[warinbabylon.livejournal.com]

LOL. The last one is priceless.

Seriously though, it's a wonderful foray into exoevolution theories. Of course, it relies on the fact that other competing (and I say that lightly) genetic mutations within each generation were as equally likely of not being acted upon by the forces that be as those mutations that you have chosen for in the theory.

Still, as it is only presented in a single situation (a single population is being observed here) as opposed to a larger picture (several populations at once) the theory does well to explain.

Brava.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

, it relies on the fact that other competing (and I say that lightly) genetic mutations within each generation were as equally likely of not being acted upon by the forces that be as those mutations that you have chosen for in the theory.

Hmmm? What? I'll have to think about that, a while...

(a single population is being observed here)

Yeah. If I tried to think about many planets' civilizations at once, my head might explode... ;-)

[warinbabylon.livejournal.com]

Heh. Still...it's excellent.

[pedanther]

And, while I have the book out:

Gallifrey is a temporal anomaly [...] It exists not only in the Universe of N-Space, but also within its own exclusive time stream. Long before the Time Lords came to power, the ancient Gallifreyans had a sensitivity towards time and its movement.

-Lungbarrow, chapter 17

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Aha, yes. That ties in to what I was sort of thinking, regarding Gallifrey's location near the center of the galaxy (which is probably rare, for life-supporting planets), as I spelled out more thoroughly in my reply to narm00, below.

[calapine.livejournal.com]

Oooh, fascinating theory, yes. *nods*

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

:::Claps hands:::

Yay! My theory earned a pretty Second Doctor icon!

yay. Thank you. *smiles*

Made change -- here's the original:

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

When I woke up this morning, I realized that this point makes little sense:

• Unfortuately, he is also a megalomaniac, and one day, he sneaks off in his solo time-ship (no witnesses). He goes so far back in time that he sets himself as the Marty-Stu of his own planet's history. He gives a key role to his best bud, Omega, and makes sure he's a hero, too... but then, he makes sure that Omega gets trapped in an alternate universe, and can't come back to contradict Rassilon's version of reality.

I shall go back and change it, and keep this here for anyone who wants to compare...

[narm00.livejournal.com]

Hm. This works for a universe in which faster-than-light travel is impossible without wormholes.

The thing is, that's not the Doctor's universe. In the Doctor's universe, hyperspace is a reality, and achievable by humanity within the next few centuries (cf. The Stones of Blood and Nightmare of Eden for examples).

There are also /teleporting/ species, who can hop from world to world - the Kitlings and Cheetah People of Survival, for example.

So, if FTL travel is a reality in the Doctor's universe, then that alters the assumptions about travel times - we don't know how long FTL travel takes, after all, only that it must be /faster/ than lightspeed.

So if the assumption about Einstein being right is incorrect as regards the Doctor's cosmos, then the question that arises is: did the Gallifreyans ever develop FTL? It /could/ be 'no' - that is, that their tech took an alternate route, and would leave the above set of hypotheses intact. It could, however, be 'yes' - which means designing a new theory based on /that/.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

The thing is, that's not the Doctor's universe. In the Doctor's universe, hyperspace is a reality, and achievable by humanity within the next few centuries (cf. The Stones of Blood and Nightmare of Eden for examples).

But hyperspace, as such, has nothing to do with lightspeed. Hyperspace is a reality in this universe, too. But we still cannot travel FTL.

Everything I've read on the subject (Which, granted, is just a drop in the bucket, compared to what's out there), has defined "Hyperspace" as anything greater than 3-d space, nothing more, and according to Einstien's theory, lightspeed is constant in all the dimensions.

Now, Hyperspace is shaped differently than ordinary space, so anyone traveling through it can take advantage of that fact and travel a shorter distance, but still at STL speeds.

To give a very simple example: imagine yourself on a sphere, and you want to get to a point on the opposite side. It would take you much less time to travel through the space in the center of the sphere than it would to travel across the surface, all while maintaining a constant speed.

Considering that the curvature of hyperspace dimensions is probably a lot funkier than a simple sphere, a determined interstellar traveler could probably find a very short shortcut. That's what wormhole technology is (theoretically) all about.

[narm00.livejournal.com]

Mm.

You're making the assumption that the Gallifreyans went from generation ships straight to time-travel... which /isn't/ necessarily a given. If they developed hyperspace tech somewhere along the line, then that assumption no longer applies - ie, no generation ships, so generations don't grow up in a temporal environment.

There's another question that may be linked into this: what, exactly, /is/ Gallifrey's relationship with time, and how did it come about? The TV series identifies Gallifrey's 'present' relative to Earth as being variously in the far past, the present, or the future. Did the Time Lords engineer this, or was it innate to Gallifrey - that is, could Gallifrey itself be the special temporal environment the Gallifreyans lived in?

(And if so, how did it end up in that situation?)

If we knew that any of Gallifrey's /other/ native species were temporally unusual, then that would suggest it was the environment. Unfortunately... we don't, which leaves it open either way.

We don't know much, if anything, about Gallifreyan tech before the Time Lords came along. The Time Scoop /may/ have been pre-Time Lord, but the legends conflict. They mastered transmat tech, however, when the Universe was half its current size ('Genesis of the Daleks'). Doesn't tell us what spacefaring technology they used it with...

On a related note, I know of only /one/ story in the body of Who lore that explores what the Gallifreyans were like before they became the Time Lords - Marc Platt's Virgin NA 'Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible'.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

You're making the assumption that the Gallifreyans went from generation ships straight to time-travel... which /isn't/ necessarily a given.

No, it's not... But I'm using human science as my example. Once a critical mass of scientists accepted the idea of time travel as a viable solution, any other ideas (such as wormholes) would be seen as "fringe," and not get enough resources to be experimented on in any meaningful way. (Yes, I know: The Time Lords aren't human. But you can only draw on what you're familiar with.)

There's another question that may be linked into this: what, exactly, /is/ Gallifrey's relationship with time, and how did it come about?

I've actually thought about this, too. The online episode guides on BBC's Doctor Who site include the sidebar entries from The Discontinuity Guide. And according to this (http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/episodeguide/locationofgallifrey.shtml) passage, Gallifrey is at the core of this galaxy.

Since the core has a dense population of older, more massive stars, including black holes, and since we know that time acts very strangely (from our perspective) in such an environment, than there likely is something environmentally unique to the planet itself. My own feeling is that this is why perhaps Gallifreyans thought to experiment with time travel while other cultures did not -- they lived in a place where time experiments were easier to conduct.

As for the enviromental impact on other Gallifreyan species... we'll never know for certain. We didn't get much biology in the classic series. ;-) But perhaps, even without evolving the ability to regenerate naturally, Gallifrayen creatures' DNA evolved to be more resiliant in the present of time paradoxes, so that multiple, paradoxical dna strands could coexist in the travelers' cells without catastrophic consequences.

:::Shrug::: :::Smile:::

[adrian-middle.livejournal.com]

FTL speeds *are* possible in the real universe. They just can't be harnessed, and the waves or particles which travel equally can't be detected. This is because they are weakly interacting.

They would be theoretical if it weren't for recent experiments where the transition from sublight to weakly interacting has been observed (eg. accelerating sound waves through glass beads in water).

[rob-t-firefly.livejournal.com]

That's a well-written and thoughtful take on the matter! It also feels nicer to think about than the nanobot theories regarding regeneration.

If you haven't yet, I highly recommend checking out the BF audio "Omega." Lots of interesting background on Rassilon and Omega in those early days is given, which would fit in quite nicely with your theories.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

It also feels nicer to think about than the nanobot theories regarding regeneration.

Yeah... all of the "Regeneration is super advanced technology" theories just feel ...hollow... to me. I want my Time Lords to be part of a living, vibrant, universe.

And I will look for "Omega". Nice to know it fits, rather than contradicts, my theory. When I started poking around in DW canon before I wrote this, I was expecting to find details that would put my theory in an alternate universe. Instead, I found stuff that backed me up (such as the "Rassilon Imprimature"). Of course, Rassilon had to come out something of a cad... oh, well.

[adrian-middle.livejournal.com]

There was a fun theory put forward by Gary Russell way back in DWM #100 and perpetuatred in the BF audio Seasons of Fear.

This suggested that prolonged exposure to black hole radiation (ie. Hawking Radiation) had unexpected side-effects, and that as the planet's foremost solar engineer, Rassilon was the first to succumb, publicly rejuvenating his tired old body at a time when his political power was being challenged. This 'miracle' saved his career, and he set about investigating it to share with his people.

OK - these aren't the real side-effects of Hawking Radiation, but without creating a singularity and exposing humans to its energies we could never be 100% certain (thus, despite being utter bollocks, its unproven bollocks).

My take is that the whole setting a black hole under the Panopticon was why the Gallifreyans were practically immortal and could rejuvenate. Instead of replicating his ability, Rassilon set about controlling it, using all the science and technology at his disposal to limit the ability and claim credit at the same time.

John Peel's Gallifrey Chronicles had a chap called Thremix commissioned by Rassilon to create an Immortality Virus. More likely it was the first in a whole series of projects aimed to control the process, turning biodata, nanites, the 12-regeneration limit, the need to adopt new forms etc. etc. into lies for children.

[drox.livejournal.com]

There's a secondary part to my theory, which has been floating around my head, that when the Doctor said his mother was "human" he meant a non-regenerating Gallifreyan woman.

That segues neatly into one of *my* pet theories (more of a pet retcon, 'cause I really wish they'd left that "half human" remark on the cutting room floor) that the bit about "half human on his mother's side" might have meant the Time Lords had gone and introduced some human DNA into the works when Our Hero was loomed.

Why? Well, maybe they were tired of being sterile, and thought that creating half-human hybrids would fix that little problem. Humans being such randy bastards an' all.

Why on his "mother's side"? Well, Eight seems to remember his father, and if dad was Gallifreyan and Junior is half-human, that leaves mom. Apparently he didn't remember looms until later...

Of course this hypothesis leaves us with a Doctor who was supposed to have grown up to be some sort of intergalactic stud-muffin. Didn't quite work out that way though, did it except in some fan fiction. No wonder his people were so disappointed in him!

[pedanther]

Paul Gadzikowski has done an irregular series of fanfics based on more-or-less this premise, although with two significant differences. One is that it was not an official Time Lord attempt, but a secret solo project by the Doctor's father, who got well and truly busted when the Time Lords found out; the other is that he wasn't exactly sure which traits the Time Lords needed, so the Doctor has a whole passel of (mostly unidentified) half-brothers and -sisters, each of whom is a different species. (The story about the Master's mother is quite amusing.)

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

That segues neatly into one of *my* pet theories (more of a pet retcon, 'cause I really wish they'd left that "half human" remark on the cutting room floor) that the bit about "half human on his mother's side" might have meant the Time Lords had gone and introduced some human DNA into the works when Our Hero was loomed.

Well, I despise the idea of looms with something nearing passion, even more than I hate the half-human thing (and I agree with you about the cutting room floor).

When I was still hanging out in RADW, a poster by the nickname "Nyctolops" and I worked out another theory:

That since Eight regenerated inside the storage units of a morgue (which, for him, is a very alien environment), he became half-human during that regeneration.

Our theory was this: After his first regeneration, the Doctor explains that "it's part of the TARDIS, without it, I couldn't survive."

So Nyctolops and I figured that maybe the TARDIS stores the correct cellular patterning for the Doctor in its system, somehow, and while his molecules are all in flux, these pattern-codes act as a sort of template to make sure all goes smoothly. And this is why the regeneration from 4 to 5 went all dodgy, since it started out in the open, some distance away from the TARDIS, and, perhaps why Romana's regeneration was so mutable -- her cellular pattern wasn't stored on the Doctor's TARDIS (that thought just occurred to me this moment).

Since Eight's regeneration occured while he was surrounded by human bodies, his molecules and cells mimicked some of the human genetic patterning -- starting with his mitochondrial DNA; mitochondria provide the energy for all other cellular processes (so it would make sense that they'd renew themselves first), and are only inherited from the mother.

So, if a genetic sequencer got a look at Eight's DNA, he would a) be shocked at its wierdness, and b) assume that he at least had a human mother. And that same person would not come to same conclusion after looking at Seven's DNA...

[drox.livejournal.com]

That works too, esp. if you loathe the idea of looms.

I don't, probably because it's one of the few things that marks Time Lords out as really *alien*. In most other ways they're very much (too much IMHO) like humans.

Definitely liking the part about the morgue/freezer messing up the regen. I'd add having to go it alone as another contributing factor. And the anaesthetic, which I believe was mentioned in the TVM. In my version, any/all of those things might have conspired to cause all the latent human bits in his DNA to start expressing themselves.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

it's one of the few things that marks Time Lords out as really *alien*. In most other ways they're very much (too much IMHO) like humans.

Well, except for the fact that they have two hearts, a lower core body temperature, their pulminary system has a "Bypass" capability (in case there are toxins in the atmosphere), aspirin is a deadly toxin to them, and, they, er... regenerate.

They seem to look just like us. But I'm sticking with my theory that we only think they look like us, due to the fact that we just can't see in five dimensions, they way they can. If we could, we'd clearly see the row of stegastaurus-like spines running down their backs, the gill-like things behind their ears, and the short little antennae sticking out of the tops of their heads.

I posted my thoughts on that, here (Don't know if you'd seen it or not): Being blind doesn't make you invisible (http://www.livejournal.com/users/capriuni/124738.html)

[drox.livejournal.com]

...the row of stegastaurus-like spines running down their backs...

Heatsinks, right? 'Cause how else do they maintain that low body temperature while running around in greatcoats and scarves and such?

And here I was thinking it was just some really efficient heat-exchange going on in their lungs.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Heatsinks, right?

Wouldn't heatsinks raise their body temperature?

Besides: not sure whether if they're really more like stegasaurus plates or a stickleback (http://www.biomescenter.com/images/ID/three-spine%20stickleback.jpg)'s spines.

And, actually, I was thinking more along the lines of a temporal "keel," to help them keep their balance in temporal storms ("ordinary" Gallifreyans may need this, too, if their planet's natural state has must temporal instability).

[drox.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't heatsinks raise their body temperature?

Don't think so. I'm thinking of the heatsinks that are used for keeping microchips cool. Or the way elephants use their ears as heatsinks to prevent overheating in the hot tropical sun. Both involve a structure with a large surface area (relative to volume) to dissipate heat.

Stegosaurus plates have that kind of structure, so that's where my mind went.

If these structures protrude into a higher dimension, perhaps they'd have a dual purpose. If they're used for "balance" in time storms or some such, one would think their owners would have to have rather precise control over their placement. Wouldn't want to have your plates or spines or whatever out of alignment when a time-wind gust comes along. Might get blown all the way into next week! :-)