WARNING! THERE MAY BE UNMARKED SPOILERS!
- "The Impossible Astronaut"
- "Let's Kill Hitler"
- "The Girl Who Waited"
- "The God Complex"
- "The Wedding of River Song"
- Or it will be saved until the BBC decides to end the show, possibly resulting in a massive breakage of the fourth wall.
- Almost. See above, it's essentially this reworded.
- That very question was asked back in Silver Nemesis (which also saw the Seventh Doctor wear a fez, oddly enough...). It wasn't answered, but it was hinted that the answer reached back to ancient times, and that there was something dark and terrible about it. Something about the Doctor not being what he claims to be.
- As the classic Who fans will know, these kinds of ideas were floated back in the Seventh Doctor's era as part of the (never completed) Cartmel Masterplan, with the idea that the Doctor's true identity was a dangerous and powerful secret. Between Executive Meddling and the cancellation, the Masterplan never reached is completion except in the Virgin New Adventures novels; the ultimate reveal was that the Doctor was a reincarnation of a figure from the dawn of Time Lord history, a contemporary of Rassilon and the true power behind the ancient Gallifreyan throne.
- It was asked a lot further back than "Silver Nemesis". Try "An Unearthly Child". It was first asked by Ian Chesterton.
- Actually, it was first asked by the Doctor himself. Ian, assuming from Susan's pseudonym that the Doctor's last name was Foreman, called him "Doctor Foreman". The Doctor paused and said to himself, "Eh, Doctor who? What's he talking about?"
- From Moffat's "The Girl in the Fireplace":Madame de Pompadour: Doctor... doctor who? It's more than just a secret, isn't it?
- Well, we do seem to be in the middle of a Moffat Masterplan...
- While it definitely seems like a good possibility, the Doctor himself asked it in the episode. Even if the below theory of it taking more then just words is accurate, it seems odd to reveal the matter of the question, and have someone ask it within 10 minutes of each other.
- So the answer is the Doctor's true name? No wonder he never tells anyone!
- Except River, the daughter of the one who will bring the silence. And, of course, there's only one time the Doctor ever would or could tell anyone his name... why that would bring Silence I have no idea.
- Confirmed!
- This would possibly also be a Stable Time Loop, since the Silence may have named themselves after the prophecy's mention of silence falling, based upon the assumption that they would make silence fall when (and if) the Question is asked by killing the Doctor.
- For one thing, it would be a nice setting for a big event if that were true. In addition, apparently if you translate each part of the name from various languages, it comes out as "Trains of [or behind] lore", suggesting that its some kind of hub, perhaps a grand train station where all history comes and leaves from.
- Sort of, but just for the Doctor. And it's the version of the TARDIS that's in Trenzalore, not Trenzalore itself.
- Not necessarily the eyepatch itself. If one wanted to remember the Silence, they would remove one of their eyes, hook it up to their brains wirelessly (or something), and keep it looking permanently at a Silent. You would be missing an eye, hence, eyepatch.
- Confirmed.
- Specifically, the eyepatches stimulate your memory functions so you remember them.
- Confirmed.
- The Silence is a religious organisation. Probably confirmed.
- So basically Kovarian is an Unwitting Pawn of the Silence.
- She's not an Unwitting Pawn. She's willingly working for them.
- Semi-Confirmed. They're trying to kill the Doctor to prevent him from allowing the Time Lords back into our universe, which would restart the Time War.
- Indeed. He was held captive there in "Day of the Moon" as a cover.
- Makes sense. The Time Lords have the DNA of two of them scanned by a loom to create a new one. Perhaps they were modified for the Time War to use one person and create a perfect copy. Someone like, say, The Doctor or The Master bites it, just use their DNA and bring them back. It could explain how they brought The Master back to life for the war, and why The Doctor now has hundreds of regenerations. They got tired of bringing him back. Plus, it seems that it's caused a bit of mental problems in the Gangers (the nicest of the humans became a giant bitch and the giant bitch became the nicest). Perhaps that's what caused the Time Lords to become so evil, the damage from repeated copying. Notice that The Doctor informs them that the Ganger's heart stopped. He was 100% human at that point. So it stands to reason that 11.5 (Goopy?) will end up fully Time Lord.
- The TARDIS can stablize the Flesh to prevent it from changing back to its goo-y form, which may be Fridge Brilliance it this was true, since it will help newly-born Time Lords to stabilize.
- Now I think of it, isn't the Doctor supposed to be the perfect genetic reincarnation of one of the first Time Lords? I think it was a novel, so dubious canonically, but if the real Doctor is a copy, what makes Copy Doctor a copy? Oh no now I have a headache.
- That was the point of the episode. For all intents and purposes, the Gangerdoctor is exactly the same man as the original Doctor in any way. There is no "clone" or "copy" of the Doctor, they are both, at the fundamental level, equal.
- I made this guess after the first episode, so it still wasn't certain if the Ganger Doctor was a clone or a 'real' Time Lord, but that makes even more sense. What are the chances humans have technology capable of creating whole Time Lords from scratch? That's something only the looms could do. A cheap copy that degrades maybe, but not a proper one.
- I thought it was scavenged from Sontaran tech. They created a clone Martha who required the actual Martha to be plugged in. Gangers could be a variation of this.
- Strax was once a famed Sontaran commander. However, he and his platoon ended up getting terribly sick, to the point of near-death. For Sontarans, this is the worst thing that could happen to you. Thankfully the Doctor came along and saved them all from death by illness. While punished by being made a nurse, Strax was spared from a much worse fate. The Doctor helped because he somehow became a Sontaran soldier.
- Vastra the Lesbian Silurian owes a debt due to the Doctor saving her group of Silurians, in a Victorian-esque variation of The Hungry Earth and Cold Blood. Jenny was outed, which must have went great in Victorian England. The Doctor stopped her from being lynched
- Jossed in part. Some, or even all, of Vastra's group of Silurians are stated to have been killed by the London Underground workers when she awoke.
- Dorium almost went bankrupt once, and very nearly lost everything. Thankfully the Doctor came and stopped this. Why? It involves a Vortex Manipulator, a chicken and a whole lot of cargo.
- Given that she's associated with the Silence, it's just as possible she's an indrocinated fanatic. Noting the Doctor is a good man could come from their post-hypnotic control being limited
- Impossible-there's no Foe Romance Subtext between Kovarian and the Doctor!
The Doctor will eventually have to reboot the Randomiser just so she'll go away and people will stop talking about her, already.
- She's already untrustworthy, a Child Soldier and very likely killed the Doctor. Take what you will from that.
- Plus she would have risked the whole of time and space just for him. The Doctor wasn't amused.
- She's both insane and sociopathic, but still claimed by some to be a Creator's Pet and Canon Sue. Take from that what you will.
- This one is Jossed, River was recently taken off the Creator's Pet page. She doesn't meet the criteria. River's also in the previews for season seven. Hopefully, she'll be in Doctor Who for a few years yet.
- She's already untrustworthy, a Child Soldier and very likely killed the Doctor. Take what you will from that.
- I see where you're going. There are also many parallels in term of character.
- Rory and Mickey are both the main companion's boyfriend, and looked down on. While Mickey remains looked down on and loses his girlfriend, Rory became total awesomeness and gets married to his girlfriend.
- Amy and Rose both can be jackasses to their boyfriends, and have a crush on the Doctor. While Rose chooses the Doctor and gets away with her treatment to Mickey, Amy chooses Rory, well, mostly and gets a lesson.
- The Ninth Doctor quickly falls for Rose Tyler, however the Eleventh Doctor was repusled by Amy's attempt at Glad-to-Be-Alive Sex, later trying to fix her and Rory's relationship. All three of them treat their male companion as the Nose, but 11 still likes the guy. Both are prime examples of The Woobie, however 10 over-indulges while 11 hides it. And they both have a plethora of horny fangirls.
- I see some Mickey-Rory parallels, but not enough to call Rory a Take That! to a writer and showrunner that MOFFAT LIKES. It was mostly Nine that derided Mickey. Who invited him onto the TARDIS again?
- Last time I checked, you can still criticise a writer you like if you feel it deserves criticism. Rory isn't a Take That! at Russel, but could still be partly a Take That! at some of his writing Moffat doesn't like.
- More like River's Valeyard. She is a time lord, and they bear a great resemblance, which they kept teasing. Only that arc is over, and nothing of the sort happened.
- Still, Kovarian probably has some relationship with the Doctor-the kind of vindictiveness she shows can't just be an impersonal grudge.
- “Question and the Answer are mutually exclusive. Knowledge of one logically precludes knowledge of the other. It is impossible that both can ever be known about the same Universe.”
- The question is already known in-universe. When they find out the answer the universe ends, and Silence falls.
- Ten: "There's only one reason I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could."
- Because River told him it to gain his trust, and he visibly reacted. And why would someone forgetful bury his name from the Carrionites and the Sibyllines? He's stated to be in his 1100s as of "Closing Time" (but in "The Impossible Astronaut"), but that's neither here nor there.
- Doctor Pond. He changed his name when he married River.
- Maybe taking the wife's name is Time Lord tradition. The Doctor referring to Rory as "Mister Pond" when he married Amy reflects this.
- I noticed that River married the Doctor on the day she was made a Doctor. So I think either this is an Incredibly Lame Pun or "Doctor Song" is the answer to the question...
- not answerable with words, but rather by the actions of the Doctor himself. Is he the healer? The warrior? His actions will decide that, not his words.
- actually the Doctor's name. Who knows, Moffat might fake us out by using the obvious solution. Reverse psychology and all.
- It's really his name, but he's been running from it all his life because off some Gallifreyen history thing. Maybe he's the reincarnation of Omega!
- not going to be said because the Doctor will regenerate just before being asked. Knowing the Question is coming, and that the answer is what sort of person he is, he will voluntarily regenerate. Then the dialogue will go:
- (Unknown): Doctor who?Twelfth Doctor: I really don't know yet. Am I ginger?
- Has a chance of being true. At the Fall of the Eleventh the question will be asked. Eleventh what? The Eleventh Doctor. Silence must fall. The Doctor must die. Nobody said anything about regeneration, did they?
- going to be revealed in the 50th Anniversary Special. Whatever it is, whatever the circumstances, and especially if the above is true and he regenerates, this Question should definitely be answered in the 50th Anniversary Special, preferably with as many Doctors present as possible.
- nonexistant, or at least ever-changing. Because he regenerates and changes.
- The TARDIS 'admin' password - which the Doctor set as his name. He thinks the only time he could only share it with someone is if he finds someone he trust with full control over the TARDIS (read: a Time Lord/Lady he comes to trust completely). When the answer is revealed on the Fields of Trenzalore, something uses it to blow up the TARDIS, leading to the cracks in time arc, the universe going boom, and silence falling.
- This troper is surprised no one thought of this yet. A name could only have this much weight if it is the name of someone great or terrible, or both. A name the Doctor is ashamed of, a name which the Doctor regrets ever having. A name that all the universe would recognize immediately. A name that would not only encourage him to run from his own people, but necessitate it. The name of a true madman. Rassilon.
- I just got fucking chills. Who are you, and can you go write for the show now??
- Apollo. Apollo is the god of healing and the chief god of the Oracle, while the Doctor has a name meaning "healer" and has travelled all across time, fitting the oracle part. At the same time, Apollo is a god of diseases, similar to how the Doctor leaves disaster among his wake. It's a good old Meaningful Name. Hey, the Master has one too: Koschei.
- "Hartnell." It would be a pretty nice tribute to the man who started it all.
- "Me" because of Exact Words.
- "Doctor River Song" because the question will be asked in response to a vague statement: "The Doctor will put an end to you!" "Ha, Doctor who?" "Doctor River Song". The Silents will then have on Oh, Crap! moment and be promptly shot down a cliff/well/hole because ''Silence must fall."
- "Doctor Rory Williams." Because "Doctor" means "a great warrior." And The Last Centurion is among the greatest of them all.
- "Hugh." Duh.
- " "
- Silence. This means that the Doctor's name has been hidden in plain sight in prophecies and whatnot, and that they actually refer to him and not the group of The Silence. And that word is only used when absolutely necessary (by River Song) as the closest personification to his name possible since the Doctor's actual, literal name is nothing (and thus, incomprehensible)... the true meaning of silence.
- This would actually fit in great with Eleven's characterization...
- It's so obvious. "No, just the Doctor."
- "Too soon" depends on how long Moffat keeps it hanging over our heads.
- The Question is referred to as the oldest question in the Universe, hidden in plain sight. Doctor Who? Perhaps it would have been better stated that it was the oldest question in the Whoniverse. And The Doctor knows a secret that must never be told that ties in with that question. The Reveal will be that this is all just a television show, and that when The Doctor reveals that to the world, the world must, of course, end.
- Every time this troper sees a bumper sticker that says "Jesus is the answer" she wonders what the question is. Now we know.
- Doctor Jesus... kinda has a ring to it.
- ...Doctor Horrible! Cue evil laugh, regeneration, and enter Neil Patrick Harris, the Twelfth Doctor.
- Doctor Forman
The most anticlimactic interpretation possible: when the question is asked, everybody will just shut up for a moment to hear the answer, ergo, silence will have fallen. Then the question will be answered and back to business.
- Dasacca M. E. Deus? Scade C. Amadeus?
- Daleks: "Doctor who?! Doctor who?!"The Doctor: "Fellas... You're never gonna stop asking."
- First appeared on television in the sixties? Check.
- Portrayed by lots of different actors with wildly varying portrayals? Check.
- (Usually) Hates guns? Check.
- Has a cool vehicle? Check.
- Also, it would explain why he'd never said it before: He can't, since it's trademark DC Comics.
The only time the question is explicitly quoted - at the end of The Wedding of River Song - Dorium repeats the words three times, placing particular emphasis on the final syllables "DOC - TOR - WHO". When the Doctor says it at the end of Asylum of the Daleks, he does so exactly the same way.
The repetitions and also the pronunciation of the last bit could have particular significance.
- In The Bells of St. John, the Doctor also goads Clara Oswald into asking the question three times.
It will become "Doctor <actual name of the Doctor>". Hence all the ominous predictions about the end of the universe: it's the end of a series and the beginning of another.Granted, it's not likely to happen, but I really expect something very meta as far as this answer is concerned. Right now this is all I can think of.
- ..."All of them", and then all previous Doctors will appear.
- The Silents' faces look like silly putty somebody dragged their fingers through. It could be the precursor or descendants of the Ood tentacles.
- The Ood were developing time travel technology when we last saw them, and somhow advancing way faster than they should. It was never explained. Perhaps they got as far as the Black TARDIS?
- There is a scary Ood in the trailer for "The Doctor's Wife". Eyes glowing green this time, almost creepier than red.
- The episode gives no connection to the Silence. The green-eyed Ood is possessed by a being from another universe.
- The Silents' sits even look like they're made from the same sort of material as the Ood's outfits.
- Fact is, no matter how much they were abused, the Ood are a scary looking people. And they have reason to be angry with humanity.
- The Silents'/Silence's anger seems more focused on the Doctor.
- So did the new 52 throw Mogo into another Universe and leave him insane?
- He's Mogo's Evil Twin.
- So did the new 52 throw Mogo into another Universe and leave him insane?
- Don't you mean Nestene? As in Auton-Nestenes? Vespene is sort of a gas....
- I think Rory would probably be sympathetic anyway; the only real difference between the situation he was in and that of the Gangers is that the original Rory wasn't around when he was an Auton.
- They wouldn't need to. Whenever you look away from a Silent, you forget. It'll be as if there wasn't any change to the moon landing video, and you will never know.Quite simply, The Silence may have used the same trick the Doctor did back in 1969... embed a hidden message into something that many, many people were sure to watch, telling them to submit and listen to whatever The Silence order them to and that this order supersedes all others now and forever (making the moon landing video useless).
- The Royal Wedding perhaps? 0.5 Billion? NO!! 2.5 Billion. The Doctor would have to wait a while to beat that!
- And after having seen the first episode of Season Six, this guess looks ever more plausible. The business suits, the tallness, the general creepiness, the fact that they mess with memories... It's almost like Moffat has been watching Marble Hornets and said "Yeah, that'd make a great villain!"
- The one few memories that exist of them are so faint and vague we incorporate them into stories. Creating the illusion that there is only one of them, when there are many identical and also the reason we most often depict the Slender Man as The Blank, because their face is too alien and horrifying for us to take in.
- Well, have you watched Edge of Destruction recently?
- Also worth noting is that at the end of "The Eleventh Hour," when Amy is looking at the TARDIS' interior for the first time, she looks toward the ceiling and starts to breathe shakily as if she's scared, and quickly turns around to the Doctor in response but playfully asks "Why me?" Perhaps she saw a Silent (they do hang from ceilings, after all) and meant to alert the Doctor but as soon as she turned around, she forgot about it. As for whether or not the Silent could have survived the TARDIS' explosion (as I'm almost certain that it would have been the one who altered the TARDIS so that it could be controlled and detonated remotely), that could really go either way (assuming that it didn't simply leave the TARDIS before it was set to explode). When Amy remembered the Doctor back into existence, the TARDIS appeared with him, so that would suggest that its recreation would be dependent on her memory. Silents edit themselves out of peoples' memories, so it may have inadvertently edited itself out of existence. However, the thought of it may have still been present in Amy's subconscious mind, and that may have been enough to restore it.
- Well, they mostly live underground, so it's doubtful that they are constantly active on the surface, but the point is that they've had an influence on humanity for all of Earth's history. And frankly, I wouldn't want to be out and about, looking as weird as I did all grey and tall and Scream-like, when some dictator in Germany is trying to kill everything that doesn't fit his mold of perfection.
- So the Silents only felt worried about appearing here? I still find it odd people wouldn't already attack them on sight.
- On that last bit, the Silents don't consciously erase peoples' memories; it's just a biological process. Still, it's been suggested that, after living with the Silents for so long, humanity has developed a subconscious awareness of them, so what Xerxes remembered could have just bled through via that awareness.
Wait, what was I saying? Nevermind...
- She just read it off his cot at the end of "A Good Man Goes To War".
- River is working for one of the Guardians, and she might possibly recruit Amy and Rory too.
- The Black Guardian made silence fall, and was probably the Man Behind the Man for the Alliance (the BG hates the Doctor too, so it'd be an ideal opportunity to get rid of him).
- That woman in white is the White Guardian, or one of her puppets.
- Of course, the Doctor will find out at some point, and when he does? Yeah, he's not gonna be happy, expecially if the Guardians DID cause the war. And even then, this is gonna get complicated, especially if the Guardians bring people back. Jenny, anyone? Or the Master? The Rani?
- If the Guardians inhabit Real Life, then the Eleventh Doctor did find out. He was happy about it until the Guardians told him things he did not want to hear.
The Silence tech that is remarkably similar to a TARDIS that enabled them to travel along 11’s (and who knows what other Doctor’s) timeline showed up first in The Lodger (5x11) and in The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon (6x01-02).
They obviously have the capability to Time Travel. But where did they get this tech? How would they have developed it? That’s where Omega comes in. Do you know of any other vengeful Time Lord who would want nothing better than to see those that betrayed him trapped in a closed-off reality just as he was? I can’t.
- A normal human pregnancy is nine months long. (Yes, I know River's a Half-Human Hybrid, but there's no evidence Amy's pregnancy was abnormally long or short.)
- At the beginning of "The Impossible Astronaut", it's mentioned that Amy and Rory have been back from their honeymoon for two months. We don't know exactly how long their honeymoon lasted. In the same episode, it's revealed that Amy suspects she's pregnant, but hasn't told Rory.
- There's a three-month Time Skip between "The Impossible Astronaut" and "Day of the Moon". At the end of the second episode, Amy and Rory set off with the Doctor again.
- What that means is that at the end of "Day of the Moon", it's about five months after the end of Amy and Rory's honeymoon. As far as we can tell, there's a San Dimas Time relationship between Amy's Flesh avatar and her real body. Therefore, the math works better if Amy got pregnant near the end of her honeymoon. If she'd gotten pregnant at the beginning, assuming the honeymoon was around the same length, she would have returned home visibly pregnant.
- The Doctor suggest that Amy was taken before America, and was already a Ganger in "The Impossible Astronaut"
Ace blow up the cyberfleet
Beyond the obvious fact that, morally, the only way that the technology would continue to be used, it also explains why, after being such a massive advocate for Gangers being individuals, the Doctor somewhat callously destroys Amy's Ganger; it was a later form of the technology, which wasn't individual.