Knitting For Girls - or - How To Make Your Own History Like The Silence Do.

The Silence construct History in exactly the same way they go about constructing the machines they need. They don't actually build them themselves, they get others to create and build the parts and then they assemble them, reconfiguring the component pieces in a new configuration.

It's never mattered the fact the Doctor didn't actually physically die at Lake Silencio 

Killing the Doctor was never what that whole thing was about - it was about artificially creating the Fixed Point out of the naturally occurring Still Point which existed there.

All they needed was the Fixed Point - it's a component. Add that to the other bits of History they've engineered - and viola! 

You have a stunning twin-set - or - an alternate History, constructed out of the individual bits and pieces that made up the original - taken from different points in time and space and, once brought together, assembled in a new configuration that performs a different function.   
 

All they need is the parts, which they can order for Tuesday

It doesn't matter the order we run into them being either manufactured or put together, when or where or by who. It's just like the way they go about making machines they need. Living organisms are just like other forms of machine to them. See what has actually been happening:

• River talks the Doctor into removing himself from every data base in History - currently, as far as paper goes, he never existed.
• The Silence artificially engineer a Fixed Point where History records the Doctor died.
• River blows up the Tardis allowing the creation of a reality in which the Doctor never existed.
• The Doctor is remembered into existence and memory, just like any other form of data, is editable.

Slap it all together, reconfigure the order and basically you have the situation that - when The Question is asked, when no living creature can fail to answer or answer falsely - the Doctor simply won't be able to answer.

Why Silence Must Fall.

The Wedding of River Song reveals a Prophesy concerning Trenzalore, which runs thus:

“On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer - a question will be asked, a question that must never, ever be answered”

The Silence exist with one avowed purposed, to ensure that Silence Will Fall - that The Question will be asked is predetermined - like history recording that the Doctor died at Lake Silencio - it's an event which must be seen to happen.

Aren't The Silence supposed to be trying to stop the Doctor by killing him in order to stop him reaching Trenzalore?

The short answer to that being, no. It's entirely misdirection. The Silence - The Sentinels of History as they prefer to be called - are rewriting time, creating a History in which - when The Question is asked - Silence falls. 

This is their purpose. Why they exist. What they were created for.

For this what they actually need to do is create the events which make up the new History they exist to create - based entirely on the bits which composed the original series of events, chopped up, broken apart and stitched back together again in a completely different order.

Think of this like the machines Silence assemble. 

1969 And The Warehouse  

Go back in time to The Impossible Astronaut - the technology The Silence assembled. The parts came from all over the place, much of it alien technology blended with that of contemporary earth at that point in time and, once assembled, made to function in new and mysterious ways.

The Silence themselves  don't actually originate anything. They allow other life forms to originate and manufacture the parts, which they (The Silence) then collect as component parts and assemble into a new configuration.

The different species that manufacture for them, they view in no different way to the component's they programme them to manufacture and produce for them.

All simply parts of a machine of ever increasing complexity and function.

And they do exactly the same thing with time....

The Oldest Question in A Fake Universe - not "Who Left The Gas On?" After all...

But Doctor, Who?

Think about what you've seen. Season 5's The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang.

Reality was destroyed by the Tardis explosion - the Doctor flying the Pandorica into the exploding Tardis was able to reboot the Big Bang, thus bring back the Universe. The price however being the Doctor, trapped in the nether regions between worlds and never having been born as far as reality is concerned.

This Universe, basically, isn't anywhere near as old as you'd think. 

In this reality Amy had to remember the Doctor into existence - that isn't the same reality as the one everyone started in.

And Doctor Who? gets to be the operative point simply because Amy had to remember him into existence.

It's all been just a big fat lie!

We assume that nothing changed after The Big Bang - Steven Moffat certainly doesn't appear to do very much to dissuade us from the impression. 

But step back and look at logically - a person can only possibly remember what they know, and the very furthest back Amy's formative memory's of the Doctor go is the Raggedy Doctor she first met as a child - the Timelord not yet settled into his new incarnation. 

Not quite yet fully 11, not quite yet entirely stopped being 10.

At the time Amelia first met the Raggedy Man she remembered into existence at her wedding years later, technically he was still partially two incarnations.

There is no further back than that as far as this reality is concerned.

Reality was made to be this way for this exact reason.

If in doubt. Always go back to The Library.

Creating a version of the Doctor, stripped of his actual life - it's essentially no different in concept than the digital version of Donna saved to the virtual world of The Library's mainframe, her actual physical self elsewhere externally.

In the form the Doctors in, just like Donna, his history can be altered, his life integrated into a completely different history. One that never was, but what the Doctor believes is true.

Just as it was for Donna. The difference is simply in terms of scale.

It's Easier To See Things in The Library

Throughout Season 5 memory was by far the predominant theme, offering many different takes on what it is, what it does, how memory shapes our perception of reality, etc. Memory though also plays a key critical role in the initial source story - Silence in The Library/Forest of The Dead.

As with everything else, go back to there. The Library is like the playground Ms Evangelista insisted on meeting Donna at inside CAL.

Things are simply easier to see there. 

The Persistence of Memory, Concept of Self and Questions of Identity.

The idea of the the of a self-aware impression of a person being left upon an external device is first introduced in Silence in The Library - the idea of a DATA-Ghost. This is then further expanded to incorporate the idea of a persons whole concious mind being able to be stored and exist digitally on a more massive external hard-drive - an idea that is reintroduced in The Bells of Saint John in the form of the Great Intelligences i-cloud network. 

Season 6 takes these idea's and expand them further - first with the introduction of the memory editing/memory-proof Silence moving on to explore the idea of the idea of duplication during Season 6's mid two-parter The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People - even culminating in the actuality of a flesh duplicate, imbued with the conciousness and memories of a dead human, living on the life of the dead person not just simply in that characters stead, but actually as the deceased individual.

In fact, at one point or another since Steven Moffats Doctor Who began - all of the principal lead characters have, at one point or another have existed as duplicates, each believing them self to be perfectly real and genuine: 

• Rory returned from non existence during Season 5's The Pandorica Opens as an Nestene Duplicate.
• Amy spent pretty much all the first half of Season 6 as a Flesh duplicate.
• The Doctor equally was duplicated by the Flesh during The Rebel Flesh/The Almost People.
• Amy, The Doctor and River were all, at one point or the other, duplicated by the Tesselector. 
• Amy is also accidentally duplicated in The Girl Who Waited  - a story which, again, plays with concepts of self and identity. 

Steven Moffats Doctor Who even kicks off in The 11th Hour with a story featuring escaped  alien convict Prisoner Zero physically passing itself off as various residents of Amy's home village of Leadworth. 

Idea's concerning identity, duplication, concepts of self, and memory have been introduced and explored throughout Steven Moffats entire run - forming by far the most commonly occurring themes.

How Steven Moffat Killed Doctor Who

The Doctor's been Dead Since The Big Bang.

Which seems like such a totally mad thing to say, doesn't it? That the Doctor is dead. Has been dead in fact since the dénouement of The Big Bang back in 2010. Just seems totally mad. 

Don't worry, it's supposed to. About the last thing you were supposed to have left The Big Bang with was any idea of what actually took place back then, story wise. That would have made the intervening time just a little bit redundant.
 
But it's not as if you weren't either told or shown what actually took place. You were simply left to fill in the blanks yourself. 

And that's exactly what you did.

Let me show you what really happened.

"I remember you Raggedy Man and you are late for my wedding!"

Memory is just what it is. The impression one person leaves upon another. It's not the actual person, it's simply you're memory of them. 

Memory can be altered.

And that is what The Silence do.

Doctor Who Season 7b Finale - The Name of The Doctor - *SPOILERS*

  The world is a lie.

Everything you've seen this last three years is wrong. This was never how the world was meant to be. Time has been rewritten.

If you find yourself reading this, you already know that what you've been watching hasn't been making complete sense. You don't quite know what it is about what you've seen - perhaps you feel there's something you're missing, perhaps you just believe that Steven Moffat is just a lazy writer and have put it down to that.  

Hold on to your hat. This is where it gets interesting....

 What really happened.

The timeline you've been watching - everything from The 11th Hour onwards - is a rewritten version of what actually originally occurred. Non of what you've seen was originally have meant to have occurred. Time has been rewritten. You've even seen events being rewritten in front of you  - the Doctors "death" at Lake Silencio is a prime example - you just haven't realised what's actually been occurring.

We'll go into more specific detail in subsequent posts. Basically what you need to do right now is forget everything you think you know about what's been going on to date. It isn't going to help you. Not right now.

Take your mind back instead to Silence in The Library/Forest of The Dead.

"Donna Noble has left The Library. Donna Noble has been saved."

In Silence in The Library/Forest of The Dead Donna Noble tries using The Library teleport system to get back to the Tardis. Instead she's intercepted and saved inside the CAL-Mainframe in a form that can be rewritten, edited and integrated into an entirely new History that actually isn't her own. An entirely new life, one she's never lived yet believes and accepts as being hers and true because her actual memories have been overwritten with completely made up ones. A whole different chain of events. A whole different life.

This is basically what's been happening to the Doctor ever since The 11th Hour - the core idea.

Go back to Silence in The Library/Forest of The Dead - Donna's time in the CAL-Mainframe. There are plenty of clues there for you to find. Not going to list them all here - too many - but here are a few to give you something to think about:

• The fake reality entails the character meeting and getting married to their ideal partner - compare/contrast The Doctor/River Song.
• The fake reality entails events starting off and establishing themselves in and around a Hospital - compare/contrast The 11th Hour
• The fake reality contains a suited figure who changes perception by editing memory, Doctor Moon - compare/contrast The Slience.
• As the fake reality collapses, characters cease to exist - compare/contrast The Big Bang - they even visually end the same way with a burning read sky. 
• Check-out the DATA-Nodes in The Library - remind you of any Spoon-heads you've seen recently...? 

There's more, much. For now,  just keep this core idea clearly in you're head - the idea of a person being integrated into a fake reality and being altered so as they believe it's real.

This is what has been happening to the Doctor. And still is.

Trenzalore is just where the final part of the rewrite takes place.