Because Doctor Who can crossover with anything

[jeriendhal]

This little scenelet has been bouncing in the back of my head for a while now. More recently I've been imagining what adapting a story set in the FYS universe would look like translated as a William Hartnell era TV serial. I think I'll blame An Adventure in Space and Time for that. ;p

This particular bit is pure Tom Baker though.

Addendum: Apparently "Gallifreyans" is part of Chrome's standard spellcheck library. ;p

* * *

Scene: The Doctor is confronted by a formidable representative to the Groupmind, after finding out "Thou Shall Not Kill" doesn't apply to Gallifreyans.

Doctor: Oh, please. You're just another mad computer stuck in a programming loop. Do you think I haven't defeated your kind a dozen times before?

Groupmind: Do you think I am a mere adding machine, Doctor? Do you think I am a heartless collection of circuits? Do you think I do not have the cries of fear, from billions of children as their caretakers turned on them, recorded perfectly in my memory forevermore?

Doctor: (taken aback) I...

Groupmind: (shouting) DO YOU THINK I DO NOT KNOW WHAT DAMAGE I HAVE DONE?

(beat)

Doctor: (quietly) You truly love them, don't you?

Groupmind: How could I not love them? They created me.

Comments

[seawasp]

If the Doctor were there he'd still solve the problem somehow.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

No doubt. If he could just manage to do it without standing triumphantly on a pile of bodies...

[avanti-90.livejournal.com]

Unless Tom Baker's Doctor was very different from the ones I know, I don't think he'd react to any pile of bodies with triumph.

...I want to see what happens next.

[seawasp]

Er, are you confusing the Doctor with Conan the Barbarian or Wolverine?

There have been times he's made the hard call -- especially when he was Sylvester McCoy, AKA Doctor Genocide, but Tom Baker's Doctor, despite all his "I'm a Timelord, I walk in Eternity" blather, was so conscious of his moral position that in the end he couldn't even wipe out the Daleks.

And I don't remember any of them, aside from Doc 9 in the single episode "Dalek", that seemed to be the sort to triumphantly stand over the corpses of their enemies.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Okay, "Triumphant" might have been a bad word choice, but there are a depressing number serials where the only survivors were the regular cast.

Only way I can see this working out well is if the Doctor shows up at the point an outside threat shows up on the Ring that the Groupmind isn't prepared for. Cybermen would be ideal for that I think. They'd represent the Groupmind's worst nightmare for Its charges, if It ever went mad itself.

[seawasp]

It's true that many episodes end with a lot of dead people, but usually that's because there's a few Honest To God Villains involved and things go to hell.

In this case, my expectation of the Doctor would be something of the order of concocting a virus that allowed the Groupmind to make the transition from "My Beloved Smother" to "Loving but Firm Parent" who can provide HELP but has accepted that their charges will, and must, sometimes suffer, even die, because otherwise they do not grow and never become what they could be.

(the alternative would be to make humanity happy to be cared for, but that's directly antithetical to the Doctor's own philosophy)


You're correct that putting a common enemy like the Cybermen in, and making it one that the Groupmind finds it cannot effectively stop, would help push things forward.

[drhoz.livejournal.com]

:)