FYS: Doctor vs. Groupmind

[jeriendhal]

So very much Not Canon...

* * *

The Doctor spread the blueprint over the table in the underground table. “Ah, this is interesting! Don't you think this is interesting, Sarah?”

His companion leaned over the table to stare at the blueprint, a diagram of an electrical grid for the entire Ring, at least she thought. “Is this the power grid?”

“Exactly! It's perfectly well designed, perfectly safe for humans to use, but it seems to have a distinct design flaw. Feed it a normal amount of power everything is fine, but if you could somehow overload the grid all at once, it'll create a feedback loop that results in an EMP blast running through the entire Ring!”

“Oh, I've heard of those. Like when a nuclear weapon goes off and destroys all the electronics.” Sarah paused, frowning. “That's a bit of a design flaw though.”

The Doctor grinned, “Oh, yes. Get everything right and every single morph on the Ring suddenly gets its little electronic brain fried.”

“But everything we've seen makes me think that the Groupmind is smart. That's a rather big thing to miss, isn't it?”

The Doctor tapped the blueprint. “What if it didn't miss it, though?”

“What do you mean?”

He began to pace in front of the table. “The Groupmind is intelligent, as you said. But more to the point it's empathic. It knows how unhappy everyone is. It remembers all the chaos and fear it caused when it took over. But it's locked onto its path, it can't turn back now, can't let everyone go and ruin the Earth again.”

“So why this thing with the grid? Why deliberately put everything it built at risk?”

“Becuase it knows it did something wrong, something horrible. And I think, subconsciously, it wants to be stopped.”

Comments

[rix_scaedu]

Not canon in that The Doctor never visits this universe or in that there is no design flaw?

Or both, of course.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Definitely in that the Doctor never visits. As for the design flaw... er, maybe. I'm still mulling how everything will end, if ever.

[rix_scaedu]

For the design flaw to have the stated purpose, there would need for the humans to be able to find a copy of the power grid plan.

[seawasp]

OR for the Groupmind to have deduced the presence of non-hostile aliens from data too subtle for the old human researchers, and subconsciously expect that some of them will be along... eventually.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Of course after a couple of thousand years, the Groupmind's humans might not want to be saved....

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Or recreate one from collected observations during maintenance. Harder, but more trustworthy; it occurs to me the plan may just be a MacGuffin to get opponents to waste time. (Not a valid strategy in this one case.)

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

"Why would they keep a physical dead tree copy up in the Tallest Tower, behind the Walls of Doom, protected by Mecha Leopards?"

"I think they're trying to keep us busy..."

[seawasp]

Oh yes, that's so very Doctor.

And exactly the sort of thing that makes sense; the Groupmind's STUCK.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Yep yep yep. I'm rather fond of the idea of the Groupmind being a very unhappy conquerer.

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

This is clearly not Jon Pertwee. Even without the grin I can hear Tom Baker's voice.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Tom Baker was the first Doctor I was familiar with. I only caught the Jon Pertwee episodes much later.

[natf.livejournal.com]

♥