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capri0mniI was going to wait until we were closer to the actual start, but that was before I committed to being preoccupied by Other Ideas in July... So, to get all those distracting Fannish!Thoughts (or some of the biggest ones) out of my head, I'll just put this here:
On A Time Lord's "Personality Change" upon Regenerating:
A fortnight shy of nine years ago, I wrote up a theoretical evolutionary-biological explanation for how Timelords got the power to regenerate (it actually began floating around my head soon after the TVM, though, as an argument against taking that "half-human" line on face value). Anyway, this past winter, I started meditating on how Timelords seem to be different people after regenerating, I continued with the idea that the process is biologically driven, and is a natural consequence of evolutionary pressures. ...
I figure that as a survival mechanism, it is likely regeneration (fairly often) was something that happened in response to an environmental catastrophe (climate change due to an asteroid strike, alien viruses spreading through the population, etc). In Any Case, a regenerating Timelord will likely be facing a rather different world from the one s/he grew up in (even if s/he is regenerating due to old age), and must have a brain flexible enough to quickly learn all the things necessary to survive.
So two things need to happen: Preservation of long-term knowledge and memories, and rapid growth of new synapses, in order to acquire new knowledge as quickly as possible. I figure the first is done through a sort of "Defragging" process as happens on a hard drive, where memories are shifted around to different parts of the brain. This would lead the newly regenerated Timelord to feel as though s/he were a different person from who they used to be -- at least at the start, until the old memories get accommodated in relationship to newer memories (fMRIs in humans have shown that each individual stores different sorts of memories in different parts of the brain -- each of us does so differently from other people, but it's always consistent for ourselves). Second, the newly regenerated brain would revert to a biologically child-like state. Making the analogy to human brains again (for sake of argument, consider the similarities in the brains of the two species a case of convergent evolution), humans' synaptic connections expand rapidly until about age four, and then start contracting, as the kidling focuses in on favorite things and skills. A year-old child will see no problem eating sour pickles with chocolate sauce (or fish fingers with custard), but a five year old will probably think that's gross... unless pickles with chocolate are a family favorite served on special holidays. Instead of taking years, though, this expansion and contraction happens over the course of a couple of days or weeks, as the Timelord settles into his or her new life.
That "Roman Candle / Flair Effect" in New-Who Regenerations:
As you can probably guess, given everything above, I am rather annoyed by the whole "Regeneration Energy" thing. When Nine regenerated into Ten(1), I thought we were seeing the violent expulsion of Time Vortex energy from his body, and I thought: "That's a bit much... but okay." But then, it kept happening... And then there was River "giving her regeneration energy" to the Doctor, to save him. It's a nice, poetic gesture. But regeneration is not like recharging your cell phone, for frog's sake! (unintentional pun on 'cell' is unintentional).
However, since the events in Night of the Doctor, I can partially console myself with making up a new head!canon that the energy flair overflow is a side effect of Eight taking the Sisterhood of Karn's Elixir to make it through the regeneration into The Warrior (ymv, but I prefer that to "The War Doctor," since he chose to drop the Doctor identity completely).
Speaking of...
Speaking of making up Head!Canon to fix the wrongness of televised canon, I've seen it mentioned (in various places around YouTube) that the whole half-human thing has been 'officially discredited.' Just out of curiosity, does anyone reading this know what that means? How, when, and by whom?
[ETA: More thoughts, that I don't really want to create a whole new entry for]
Not specifically Doctor Who, but some closely related stuff:
You know how, in popular science documentaries about Einstein and spacetime, at some point the presenter will say: "Although there's nothing in the laws of physics that says travel backward through time is impossible, how come, if it were possible, we never see time travelers from the future?
I heard that again the other day, in that Brian Greene Nova episode I linked to... And it occurred to me that these script writers don't think like fiction writers. Or they could easily come up with reasons why, even if it were possible, it would not be popular.
I mean, if you think dealing with security screenings just to travel from one continent to another on the same day are a hassle, imagine the restrictions and special clearances you'd have to get to go back in time. Not only would governments be paranoid about rebel factions trying to rewrite history, you'd have centers for disease control in a panic, too. What if a time traveler went back in time and brought back a deadly virus, and restarted a plague epidemic?!
So Yeah... I don't think time travel will ever be a touristy lark. There may be a few highly specialized, and trained professionals. But they'd also be well-trained to be invisible to the natives....
---
And, just for fun: Here's a bit of interplanetary science news, including a bit about a new tool for directly viewing exoplanets (at least, ones about the size of Jupiter): The First Star Within a Star.
Enjoy!
On A Time Lord's "Personality Change" upon Regenerating:
A fortnight shy of nine years ago, I wrote up a theoretical evolutionary-biological explanation for how Timelords got the power to regenerate (it actually began floating around my head soon after the TVM, though, as an argument against taking that "half-human" line on face value). Anyway, this past winter, I started meditating on how Timelords seem to be different people after regenerating, I continued with the idea that the process is biologically driven, and is a natural consequence of evolutionary pressures. ...
I figure that as a survival mechanism, it is likely regeneration (fairly often) was something that happened in response to an environmental catastrophe (climate change due to an asteroid strike, alien viruses spreading through the population, etc). In Any Case, a regenerating Timelord will likely be facing a rather different world from the one s/he grew up in (even if s/he is regenerating due to old age), and must have a brain flexible enough to quickly learn all the things necessary to survive.
So two things need to happen: Preservation of long-term knowledge and memories, and rapid growth of new synapses, in order to acquire new knowledge as quickly as possible. I figure the first is done through a sort of "Defragging" process as happens on a hard drive, where memories are shifted around to different parts of the brain. This would lead the newly regenerated Timelord to feel as though s/he were a different person from who they used to be -- at least at the start, until the old memories get accommodated in relationship to newer memories (fMRIs in humans have shown that each individual stores different sorts of memories in different parts of the brain -- each of us does so differently from other people, but it's always consistent for ourselves). Second, the newly regenerated brain would revert to a biologically child-like state. Making the analogy to human brains again (for sake of argument, consider the similarities in the brains of the two species a case of convergent evolution), humans' synaptic connections expand rapidly until about age four, and then start contracting, as the kidling focuses in on favorite things and skills. A year-old child will see no problem eating sour pickles with chocolate sauce (or fish fingers with custard), but a five year old will probably think that's gross... unless pickles with chocolate are a family favorite served on special holidays. Instead of taking years, though, this expansion and contraction happens over the course of a couple of days or weeks, as the Timelord settles into his or her new life.
That "Roman Candle / Flair Effect" in New-Who Regenerations:
As you can probably guess, given everything above, I am rather annoyed by the whole "Regeneration Energy" thing. When Nine regenerated into Ten(1), I thought we were seeing the violent expulsion of Time Vortex energy from his body, and I thought: "That's a bit much... but okay." But then, it kept happening... And then there was River "giving her regeneration energy" to the Doctor, to save him. It's a nice, poetic gesture. But regeneration is not like recharging your cell phone, for frog's sake! (unintentional pun on 'cell' is unintentional).
However, since the events in Night of the Doctor, I can partially console myself with making up a new head!canon that the energy flair overflow is a side effect of Eight taking the Sisterhood of Karn's Elixir to make it through the regeneration into The Warrior (ymv, but I prefer that to "The War Doctor," since he chose to drop the Doctor identity completely).
Speaking of...
Speaking of making up Head!Canon to fix the wrongness of televised canon, I've seen it mentioned (in various places around YouTube) that the whole half-human thing has been 'officially discredited.' Just out of curiosity, does anyone reading this know what that means? How, when, and by whom?
[ETA: More thoughts, that I don't really want to create a whole new entry for]
Not specifically Doctor Who, but some closely related stuff:
You know how, in popular science documentaries about Einstein and spacetime, at some point the presenter will say: "Although there's nothing in the laws of physics that says travel backward through time is impossible, how come, if it were possible, we never see time travelers from the future?
I heard that again the other day, in that Brian Greene Nova episode I linked to... And it occurred to me that these script writers don't think like fiction writers. Or they could easily come up with reasons why, even if it were possible, it would not be popular.
I mean, if you think dealing with security screenings just to travel from one continent to another on the same day are a hassle, imagine the restrictions and special clearances you'd have to get to go back in time. Not only would governments be paranoid about rebel factions trying to rewrite history, you'd have centers for disease control in a panic, too. What if a time traveler went back in time and brought back a deadly virus, and restarted a plague epidemic?!
So Yeah... I don't think time travel will ever be a touristy lark. There may be a few highly specialized, and trained professionals. But they'd also be well-trained to be invisible to the natives....
---
And, just for fun: Here's a bit of interplanetary science news, including a bit about a new tool for directly viewing exoplanets (at least, ones about the size of Jupiter): The First Star Within a Star.
Enjoy!
