How To Know It's A Duck Pond....

When there aren't any Ducks.

Memory and experience. You know what a Duck Pond is, you've met one before. Doesn't matter if there aren't any Ducks in it at any given point. The point is - it being what it is isn't conditional on the presence of Ducks.

A Duck Pond simply is what it is and you know that. If the answer was conditional on what you're eyes told you - then you would probably be lead astray. 

Use your heart and your head, in other words. Don't be confused by what your eyes show you - the eye knows nothing. Only what it sees.

What's wrong with this picture?

Everything. Everything there could possibly be to be wrong. There it is. In triplicate. This isn't real. It isn't what happened. The Doctor is simply a good man often faced with impossible choices. But this....

This is his nightmare. All it is. What he fears the truth of himself. What he fears the sum of his life adds up to.

It's not the actual thing.

Use your heart and your head. Trust your instincts. Non of what you see here happened in the future.

  

Season 7 Finale Spoiler Summery

• The last 3 years have all been a lie - Time has been rewritten. 
• In a timeline we haven't been shown directly but this one has been created to overwrite, in order to prevent something from stealing the Tardis the Doctor was forced to blow the ship up, killing his long term companion Clara Oswald in the process and trapping himself inside a time-loop forever watching her die. Not to be cheated of its prize the villain uses the moments left to it to use the Tardis to re-write time, rewriting the Timelords History in the process so as - in this reality (the one we've seen) the villain wins and the Doctor will never have been able to destroyed the Tardis.
• The Silence are not an alien species - they're biological off-shoots of the Tardis own Architectural Reconfiguration system - it's why they are memory proof. They're literally built out of Tardis.
• River Song cheated her death in the Library a bit like the Doctor cheated his death at lake Silencio.Though the Library version of River was wholly flesh and blood, she was literally the equivalent of a River Song wearing a River Song suit. The real River was stored in the Data-stick
• Clara is the Doctors original companion from the other timeline. In that reality he never crash-landed in Leadworth shortly after regenerating, never travelled with Amy Pond. Clara has always been his companion since his 11th incarnation began.
• The reason there are so many Clara's is that the original Clara was trapped in the Tardis Library when the Doctor blew up the ship - the Tardis was trying to save her but had nowhere onboard to send her so it tried to send her somewhere safe off-ship, most probably where-ever the Doctor is. Unfortunately, an exploding Tardis exists at all points in time and space simultaneously.
• The message Run You Cleaver Boy and Remember was implanted into Clara's data-pattern saved by the Tardis by the digital version of River uploaded into CAL.
•  The Doctors past has been radically re-written from the original - the consequences of that carry over to the Anniversary Special.
• Pretty much everything you think you know is a lie.

I hope that helps. Probably won't leading up to the finale, but when look back you'll see where it all occurred.

More to follow concerning the Anniversary, soon.

RED.

Trenzalore - The Doctors Very Own Room 101

"Imagine you were dying. Imagine you were afraid and a long way from home and in terrible pain. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse, you looked up and saw the face of the Devil himself.... "

You were given the bones of the idea behind Trenzalore in last weeks Nightmare in Silver - the character of Porridge.
 
Imagine a man so sick, broken, beaten, disgusted and so completely horrified at what he'd had to do that all he wants is to not have to be him any more and is reduced to such a state he'd be prepared to give his very soul to the Devil should the Devil came along and offered to take it all away and make it all so it never was...
 
That's what Trenzalore is, this what Trenzalore is for. It's a place designed to break the Doctor. Make him no longer want to be him

 Basically, Trenzalore is the Doctors own personal Room 101 made entirely out of his worst nightmares and fears.

You've met the idea of an external personalisation of the Doctors own subconscious fear, loathing and paranoia before - the Dream Lord in Season 5's Amy's Choice.  

Amy's Choice - introduces this fundamental idea of there existing two worlds, two realities and having to choose between each. 

As stated previously, and something if you're reading before The Name of The Doctor airs, something you're going to have to take on faith - this entire reality we've seen since The 11th Hour is fake - it's a rewritten version of a completely different timeline one in which the Doctor never crash-landed in Leadworth, Clara's always been his companion since his 11th incarnation began and nobody has ever heard of River Song.

In that reality something hostile took over the Tardis - the Doctor was left with no other choice than to blow-up the ship. Clara wasn't with him in the main control room when he activated the self-destruct, she was trapped in the Tardis Library - he could see her on the monitor.

After the ship blew the main control room was ejected into a timeloop in the hope of protecting the pilot, the Tardis equivalent of deploying an airbag - and for the rest of forever that's all that version of the Doctor ever got to see - him killing Clara, over and over and over.

Of course - in practice - Clara wasn't actually killed. The Tardis did what it could to try and save her, couldn't send her anywhere safe on the ship - tried instead sending her safe off-ship. Safety being where ever the Doctor is.

During a Tardis explosion the event happens in all points of time and space simultaneously - Clara was consequently sent to safety many, many, many times over, throughout.    

The villain, not about to be thwarted, still had control of what remained of the Tardis and - even though there existed no more forward - realised it could still use it to rewrite the past so as it becomes possible for it to win.

The rest, as you've aleady seen, is rewritten History.

The only obstacle that remains is preventing the Tardis self-destruct sequence being initiated: hence, The Fall of The 11th.

The Doctor has to be broken down, rewritten, changed so radically he becomes unrecognisable as who he truly is and, thus, unable to initiate the Tardis self-destruct.

For this he has to be made to not want to be him any more - the man he see's in the mirror.

As Amy's Choice disclosed, the Doctor doesn't like himself very much at all - he see's himself as loathsome, small, manipulative, and worse - he gets people killed and doesn't care. He loathes himself because it's genuinely what he believes true about himself. River even comments about this in Forest of The Dead - there he stands in a room surrounded by the people who's lives he managed to save yet all he registers as him seeing are the ones he failed to save.

The point of Trenzalore is to grind the Doctor down, force him to not simply see but accept as absolute truth that he is a total monster - one the Universe would be better off without and - in so accepting - he ceases to be who he is. Ceases to continue to want to be. 

Allows himself to be rewritten - wants it. Embraces the entire idea.

This is the Fall of The 11th.

Once rewritten,  he can no longer initialise the Tardis self-destruct - Silence falls when the Question is asked.

 See - The Secret of The Doctors Name

 

 

The Return of River Song - *Spoilers, Sweety. Spoilers*

Run: "You Cleaver Boy" and Remember

River Song ended her days as data saved to a memory stick, uploaded into the computer mainframe of The Library, CAL. She came from a book, The Legend of Pandora's Box - Pandora herself made flesh. Where else would such a fabulous creation end her days, if not in a Library. Neither truly alive nor truly dead, as fiction tends to be.

I could wax lyrical about Steven Moffats genius in creating River. Given half the chance, I probably will. But. of course. You're not in this for the analysis. You're here for what's next...

*Spoilers*

You know that, when River died in The Library, there were literally two River Songs there that day. Three, if you count the Data version saved to the suit she was wearing. But it was the one smuggled into the Library inside the Sonic Screwdriver the future Doctor gave her that was uploaded into the mainframe.
 
That should have tipped you off somewhat - the fact that River had been wearing a suit and there was a Data version of her quite clearly saved on it - four green bars. But the Doctor ignored that and instead had to run to try and save the secret version hidden where only he'd realise it would be.

The late Professor River Song, I presume

Steven Moffat allows us to make an assumption. He allows us to presume that the version of River uploaded into CAL in The Library is the same version of River Song that died in front of the Doctors eyes. It's an easy assumption to make at the time, but see it for what it actually is. 

An assumption.

The River Song that died in the Library wasn't the true River Song - think of this a lot like the idea of the Doctor facing his own death wearing a Doctor Suit.

That isn't to say the River that died in The Library was a robot or anything - she wasn't, she was a flesh and blood woman - but that was the River Song the Silence created doing what the Silence created her to do. A puppet. No fate of her own except that prescribed by her narrative template. Pandora was created as a weapon of revenge against a Titan who angered a God and River was cast in that exact same mold - she never even got to choose who she would fall in love with. That was written into her - transcribed from her mother Amy's childhood feelings and fantasy's about what she'd be like as an adult, travelling in the Tardis with the Raggedy Doctor whom she married, in her childhood imagination.

The River that killed herself in The Library acted out of purely selfish instinct, a puppet Pandora doing what she was designed to do - River Song the actual person was better than that, deserved to be - but that was a life her creators The Silence would forever deny her, never allow her to become in life.

Not whilst the Silence existed.

Rivers death in the Library was simply the fate written for her by The Silence - their version of events. Their version of History - exactly like the Doctors death at Lake Silencio. 

Yes. You were hood winked. Principally with the exact same trick the Doctor used in The Wedding of River Song. River Song faced her death in the Library wearing the flesh and blood equivalent of a River Song suit.

The real River Song was uploaded as data into CAL.

CAL is simply an artificial reality created within the furthest reaches of a artificial reality created out of an exploding Tardis - the entire reality CAL exists in is fake, artificial. 

River existing as data simply gives her access to the system creating the whole thing.

Even though the Doctor has erased himself from every data base as if he never existed, River Song remembers him. River Song knows who the Doctor truly is. 

River Song knows the Doctors name.

When the Tardis was exploding in the original Timeline it was in the process of trying to transport Clara somewhere safe - she too at that point existed as data, River was simply able to access her data-pattern and install a message: "You Cleaver Boy" is the data-file title River is squirrelled away somewhere safe under a name the system would overlook. Run is simply an instruction.

Remember - is the whole point.

The Doctor may not be able to answer The Question when asked - but River can. 

River initialised the Tardis's self-destruct system once already - The Pandorica Opens.The Silence even spliced a chunk of the Doctors own DNA into her so as the Tardis would recognise her as an authorised user - it's why she pilots the ship better than him, can read and write High Galifreyian, etc. 

This way we see Rivers death in the Library in its fuller context - the woman that went back, though reduced to little more than the puppet she was created to be - before going knew what lay ahead. She had her memory wiped, this one last time of her own choosing.

She faced her fate knowing what the outcome would be, even though that knowledge would be erased, the digital version of her smuggled in knew that - and knew it all along.

In the end, River cheated the Silence.

In the end, The Library wasn't how River Song got to die - it was how River Song finally got a shot at being able to truly live for the first time.

The Secret of The Doctors Name - *Spoiler*

There isn't one.

This entire three year arc boils down to a very simple premise - the baddie uses the Tardis to travel back into the Doctors past and rewrite history so that, this time around, the villain wins.

See previous post - Clara 

You were shown what the actual secret was in Saturdays Nightmare in Silver -  basically the Doctors true name is simply the order verification code required by a Tardis when an authorised pilot instigates a core overload - self-destruct. Similar to the security measure used on the planet-bomb in the previous episode.

The Doctor can't access it himself, the informations memory-locked under normal circumstances and can only be accessed by him under this exact circumstance via telepathic-circuit - it's a Galifreyian fail-safe measure. Hence his line to River in Forest of The Dead and the look of incredulous shock on his face:

The Doctor: River you know my name. You whispered my name in my ear. There's only one way I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could.  

So, why all the fuss?

In the original timeline - the one this has been created to overwrite - the Doctor blew up the Tardis rather than allow it to remain in enemy hands. The enemy uses the same machine in the moments it has left to travel back and rewrite time.

When one rewrites time one can only rewrite what originally happened by changing and re-purposing the original events to yield different outcomes - see  Knitting For Girls -  being as the whole point for the villain is to undo the Tardis's destruction it basically needs the Doctor to fail to be able to complete the Tardis self-destruct protocol and blow the ship up.

He has to fall silent when asked for the answer for the order verification code.

This was why the Silence were created, why everything else you've seen has happened: silence must fall when The Question that no living creature can fail to answer or answer false is asked.

To these ends the Doctors entire past has been rewritten - you'll have noted that, as Season 7 has progressed, there have been continual references to the Doctors past occurring. Everyone tends to put it down to it being simply just fan-nods to the upcoming 50th Anniversary the season finale leads into - narratively though its actually the Doctors own memories of himself being accessed, read, taken out of their original contexts and put back together again in an entirely different order.

The Doctors own History is being rewritten - he's literally being forged into being a different man.

This Doctor, the one that's been created in this rewritten-reality, never actually existed. A man who never lived never had a name. When the question is asked he has to answer true - and, from the perspective of the new History created for him, he will be.

The actual fact though is this whole deal is exactly the same as Donna after having been integrated into The Library Mainframe. The life she believed she had and was living was false.

To gain insight into the truth, in the original source story, Donna Noble required the perspective of someone dead who could see the world clearly for what it truly was. To those ends.

Welcome back, River Song...

 

Clara.

I'm going to try now and tell you what really happened in the only way it can - with one of those typically brilliant Steven Moffat twists - what really happened can only be told as a story.

 And so, boys and girls. If you're sitting comfortably.... 

Once Upon A Time  

There was a hansom Timelord who travelled through Time & Space in a Box. He didn't travel alone, he had an intelligent and very pretty companion to keep him company. Clara, with whom he'd shared many, many incredible adventures. There was no such place as Leadworth and neither had ever heard of River Song.

So many incredibly small minded, miserable farts at Gallifrey Base were so happy about living in that world, really. You have no idea.

Then one day the unthinkable happened. Steven Moffat taking over was just coincidence. 

Something hostile over ran the Tardis. Totally. Seized it in a grip it would never let go of and left the Doctor with no choice at all. Non-what-so-ever. He couldn't allow the Tardis to fall into the wrong hands, not knowing what this creature would do with it if not stopped there and then.

Rather than allow that to happen the Timelord did the only thing he could do and blew up the ship.

Clara was trapped in the Tardis Library. 

If a non-belligerent life form is detected in a room about to be deleted the Tardis tries to deposit it in the Main Control Room - but during a self-destruct the Main Control Room is ejected into a time-loop in order to try an preserve the life of the pilot. The Tardis scooped her up easily enough, but had nowhere on board the ship to send her - so it tried sending her off-ship, somewhere safe.

An exploding Tardis exists in all points of time and space. 

She was basically sent everywhere. Endless duplication. 

The original Doctor got to watch her die (or so he believed) on the Control Room monitor -  over and over, forever. 

And that was how things ended. 

Or at least, that's how they would have ended, if what had taken over the Tardis hadn't stepped in. It wasn't about to let the Timelord cheat it out of its prize. Not when it had come so close.

In the Library was a book, the original of this:

In the fraction of a second it took to absorb the content it immediately acquired the knowledge it needed about how to use a Tardis to rewrite time, even if all the time there is is just one single moment - a time machine can use it.

It viewed itself a God. An angry one, cheated. In this new History he wasn't just going to kill the Timelord this time around. That would be a kindness. No. This book was more fitting. This book described how a true God extracts revenge:

And so this was how River Song was originally conceived and came to be - Pandora and all she entailed made real. 

"Trust you to fall in love with a woman from a book" Rory Williams would joke in the reality that would be created as the Doctor sat in the park with him and Amy that last time reading Melody Malone, neither realising how literal and true that statement was or could possibly be. 

River was created as a weapon to extract revenge. 

But what the mind that created her never considered, being the God that it is, that the woman it created to extract revenge for it might also have idea's of extracting revenge for herself - and everyone she loved.

Of course, I could tell you more.

But spoilers, sweety. Spoilers....

If you're ever lost or in doubt - Go back to The Library. The answers are all there.

 

What Are The Silence - *Spoiler*

Every thing You Could Possibly Want, And Worse.

Living metal. Bespoke engineering. Whatever machine you require, this system will build it.

Tardis Architectural Reconfiguration System. It reconstructs particles to your needs. A machine that makes machines out of the Tardis's basic genetic material.

It's why The Silence are memory proof - perception filter technology is hard-wired into the very fabric of a Tardis's basic material. Even a Tardis key has enough of the capability in it to have allowed the Doctor to construct perception filters for himself and his comrades in the past.

The Silence are basically biological off-shoots of the Tardis's own technology.

When the Universe was rebooted - it was rebooted out of an exploding Tardis. The resultant Universe and, consequently, reality produced has Tardis technology built into its very fabric on a fundamental level.

The actual internal dimensions of a Tardis are infinite, as established in Journey To The Centre of The Tardis - there are no limits to how much and what a Tardis's Architectural Reconfiguration System can produce. 

Whatever system you require. This system will build it.

It doesn't distinguish between machine and living - it's both. Doesn't distinguish between fact and fiction, dreams and reality, imagination and memory, myth - to it, it's all data. All equally as valid. Code.

Code. To be assembled and reconfigured - no different from particles - and used to build other machines which in turn build other machines, recursively.

It's primary function is to build Tardis. 

And now you know how Amy was able to remember the Doctor into existence.

Her Raggedy Doctor and his mad blue box.