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{{Infobox Individual
{{Infobox Individual
|image=
|image       = The Corsair (Old Friends).jpg
|name= The Corsair
|species     = Time Lord  
|alias=
|origin     = [[Gallifrey]]
|species= Time Lord
|first      = Old Friends (comic story)
|origin= [[Gallifrey]]
|appearances = [[COMIC]]: ''[[Alternating Current (comic story)|Alternating Current]]''
|actor= }}
}}{{Corsairs}}
'''The Corsair''' was a [[Time Lord]], described by the [[Eleventh Doctor]] as "one of the good ones". The Corsair took on different sexes throughout many incarnations. The Doctor noted that when the Corsair was female, "she was a bad girl."
The '''Sixth Corsair''' was an incarnation of the [[renegade Time Lord]] known as [[the Corsair]] who shared several out-of-sequence meetings with the [[Thirteenth Doctor]] and the rest of [[Team TARDIS]].


== Biography ==
== Biography ==
Based on the limited information available, it is not known whether The Corsair's initial incarnation was female or male.
[[File:The Doctor and the Corsair.jpg|thumb|left|The Corsair embraces the [[Thirteenth Doctor]] after deducing her identity. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Old Friends (comic story)|Old Friends]]'')]]
This incarnation of the Corsair stole the [[Gem of Niag]] from the [[Devivian]]s to return it to the people of [[Pppppppppppplun]] on the behalf of a third party who put out a Want Ad for her services, in actuality [[the Hoarder]]. She intentionally allowed the organ scan to detect her as an alien, in hopes of luring the Doctor. The [[Thirteenth Doctor]] was arrested instead of the Corsair because she had a similar [[binary vascular system]] and, along with her companions [[Graham O'Brien|Graham]], [[Yasmin Khan|Yaz]], and [[Ryan Sinclair|Ryan]], tracked down the Corsair to a pub on another planet with [[The Corsair's TARDIS|her TARDIS]].


The [[Fourth Doctor]] once said to [[Romana]] that he should meet up with the Corsair sometime; he described the Corsair as both male and female in the same sentence, implying one of his [[Regeneration|regenerations]] had already been female. ([[PROSE]]: ''[[Shada (novelisation)|Shada]]'')
At first, the Corsair didn't recognise the Doctor because of her new incarnation, and when the Doctor reminded the Corsair about one of their last encounters which saw them waking up drunk in a bank vault, the Corsair remarked that didn't narrow it down for her. After recognising the Doctor from her destroying the killgun of an alien, holding another at gunpoint, and fighting through a pub brawl with a sword, the Corsair explained her actions to the Doctor over tea, complimenting the Doctor's more heroic behaviour as something she was aspiring to. She then confessed that she needed the Doctor's help with a heist of sorts. After taking time to think over it, the Doctor agreed and asked about the job. The Corsair briefed them, the team infiltrated [[Raddplina]] to rescue a [[star whale]]. Once the whale was placed in a [[stellar net]] attached to [[the Doctor's TARDIS]], the Corsair insisted they left to escape guards, leaving the Doctor’s friends behind. They took the whale to the Hoarder, who revealed his true intent as a collector and had them imprisoned. The Corsair and the Doctor had a proper talk whilst in a cage, which the Doctor then revealed they could easily escape from using her sonic screwdriver. They returned to her TARDIS, with the Corsair taking care of some of Hoarder’s drones herself, and rescued the Doctor’s friends. The Doctor then contacted the [[Time Agency]] to arrest the Hoarder and free the whale, though the Corsair insisted her name was kept out of it as the Agency knew all about her. With the whale freed, the Doctor took the Corsair back to her TARDIS, advising her to find some friends to travel with, knowing her ultimate fate and privately hoping to not be the only one to remember her. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Old Friends (comic story)|Old Friends]]'')


The Corsair had the symbol of the [[Ouroboros]] [[tattoo]]ed on each of his or her incarnations and also imprinted on his [[hypercube]]. The final incarnation of the Corsair was described by [[Auntie (The Doctor's Wife)|Auntie]], a composite [[humanoid]] servant of [[House (The Doctor's Wife)|House]], as "a strapping big bloke." She was a good authority on the matter; after all, she had the Corsair's left arm stitched on to her torso in place of her own, while the other composite humanoid slave, "[[Uncle (The Doctor's Wife)|Uncle]]" received "the [[spine]] and the [[kidney]]s." The loss of these organs was presumably lethal, and the Corsair went the way of House's numerous other Time Lord victims.
The Corsair later reunited with Graham, Ryan and Yaz in [[2020]] whilst the Doctor had left them briefly to fix a problem in her timeline. She greeted the Doctor upon her return. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Alternating Current (comic story)|Alternating Current]]'')


The [[Eleventh Doctor]] discovered the Corsair's fate after being contacted by a [[hypercube]] and following its [[psychic]]ally encoded distress message to House. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Doctor's Wife (TV story)|The Doctor's Wife]]'')
== Appearance ==
This incarnation was a dark-haired woman with [[blue]] eyes. She wore a [[black]] vest, an [[ivory]] [[shirt]] with frilly sleeves, [[Emerald (colour)|emerald]] [[green]] [[breeches]], and black [[Boot|boots]]. Her [[Ouroboros tattoo]] was located on her left [[wrist]]. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Old Friends (comic story)|Old Friends]]'')


During one adventure, while pushing a heavy crate, the Eleventh Doctor said that if he kept up this habit, he would develop big arms like the Corsair. ([[GAME]]: ''[[The Eternity Clock (video game)|The Eternity Clock]]'')
=== Skills ===
This incarnation showed talents with thievery, and also proficient at [[Sword|sword fighting]], and wields a [[rapier]]. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Old Friends (comic story)|Old Friends]]'')


== Behind the scenes ==
== Behind the scenes ==
=== The Brilliant Book 2012 ===
[[File:The Corsair's Ouroboros tattoo Old Friends.jpg|thumb|The Corsair's [[Ouroboros tattoo]] on her left wrist. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Old Friends (comic story)|Old Friends]]'')]]The sixth incarnation of the Corsair, with her trademark tattoo on the left wrist, was one of those who did not previously appear in ''[[Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair (short story)|Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair]]''. [[Neil Gaiman]] confirmed on Tumblr that this incarnation was intended to be the Sixth Corsair, as confirmed by [[Jody Houser]] herself.<ref>https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1325637673508364293</ref> Although this is not explicitly stated in ''[[Old Friend (comic story)|Old Friend]]'', it can be deduced from narrative clues:
According to ''[[The Brilliant Book 2012]],'' a book that contains [[Tardis:Canon policy|non-narrative]] information, the Ouroboros tattoo trademark of the Corsair — a [[snake]] eating its own tail, symbolising eternity — moved around the Corsair's body with each regeneration. The largest of these was during the third incarnation in which a multi-coloured variant covered a third of the Corsair's back; the smallest was no bigger than a ten-pence coin on the fifth incarnation's upper thigh.
* The [[Seventh Corsair]] remembers her meetings with the Thirteenth Doctor in ''[[One Virtue, and a Thousand Crimes (short story)|One Virtue, and a Thousand Crimes]]'', placing ''Old Friends'' somewhere between the first and sixth incarnations of the Corsair;
* In ''[[Old Friends (comic story)|Old Friends]]'', the events during which the Doctor and the Corsair waking up in a bank vault and in jail are referenced as part of their past; ''Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair'' stated that those were among the Doctor's adventures with the [[Fourth Corsair|Fourth]], [[Fifth Corsair|Fifth]] and [[Eighth Corsair|Eighth]] Corsairs, thus making it impossible for the ''Old Friends'' Corsair to be the First, Second or Third Corsair;
* ''[[Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair (short story)|Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair]]'' gives tattoo placements other than the left wrist for the Fifth Corsair and Fourth Corsair, leaving only the Sixth Corsair as a possible identity for the ''Old Friends'' incarnation.


Amongst their missions for the Time Lords, the Corsair stole the [[Callisto Pulse]] from the Callistan Kleptocracy.
Artist [[Roberta Ingranata]] confirmed details from ''Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair'' influenced her work on this new incarnation in ''Old Friends''.<ref>https://twitter.com/Robbertopoli/status/1142438683217473537</ref> The Corsair's pirate ship TARDIS, not travelling with companions, the drinking with the Doctor, and waking up in a bank vault were acknowledged in the comic story. The Sixth Corsair was inspired by the actress {{w|Julianna Margulies}}.<ref>https://twitter.com/robbertopoli/status/1152277067121270784</ref>
 
Although she denied ever having fought the [[Dalek]]s, she was spotted in her seventh incarnation on Clarkor Nine when the Dalek scout ship arrived. It is highly likely that she was involved in those Daleks having their suction cups and [[manipulator arm]]s removed in the night and fused into a shape resembling a [[Skaro]]sian profanity. The Daleks departed shortly afterward.
 
He visited [[Earth]] several times. He was worshipped as a [[god]] by the Assyrians until he became bored and departed with the sacred temple [[cat]].
 
The Doctor and Corsair had many adventures together, getting drunk in the Corsair's fourth, fifth, and eighth incarnations. Each time, the Doctor swore never to do it again. Twice they woke up in jail and the other time they woke up in the vaults of the [[Bank of England]].
 
The Corsair was formally censured by the Time Lords after they may have been linked to the theft of the Portrait of Rassilon. This was overturned by [[Lord President|Lady President]] [[Flavia]], perhaps due to the Corsair's smile.
 
The Corsair's final adventure was when he was working on the Time Lords' Fourth Universal Survey. He was in his ninth incarnation when House killed him.<ref>[http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/post/30786184930/eleven-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the Neil Gaiman's Journal: Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair]</ref>
 
=== Other matters ===
* The Corsair was not the only Time Lord to bear a snake tattoo on his arm. Whereas the Corsair tattooed an ouroboros on each of his new bodies, [[the Doctor]]'s [[Third Doctor|third incarnation]] came with a tattoo of a snake in the shape of a question-mark on his right arm. It was actor [[Jon Pertwee]]'s own tattoo from his [[Royal Navy]] service during the [[Second World War]]. ([[TV]]: ''[[Spearhead from Space (TV story)|Spearhead From Space]]'')
* On his blog, ''[[The Doctor's Wife]]'' scriptwriter [[Neil Gaiman]] stated that before he began writing the first draft, he wanted to make sure the idea of the Corsair was okay with series [[show runner]] [[Steven Moffat]] before he became fixed in the story, so he sent him an email with a piece of dialogue between the Doctor and [[Amy Pond]] in which the Doctor discussed the Corsair. In this draft, the Doctor explained that the Corsair did not have a name and used to travel, exploring the limits of [[time]] and [[space]]. The Doctor said that when he was twelve he had asked the Corsair if he could travel with him and act as his "[[companion|assistant]]", but the Corsair had just laughed.
* Steven Moffat replied that he wanted the Corsair to be less like the Doctor because the Doctor "does what he does for reasons too vast and terrible to relate".<ref>[http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2011/06/fairly-humongous-doctor-who-q-mostly.html Neil Gaiman's Journal: A Fairly Humongous Doctor Who Q&A Mostly]</ref>
*According to Neil Gaiman, [[Russell T Davies]] liked the idea that the [[The Shopkeeper|Shopkeeper]] from [[Sarah Jane Adventures]] episode ''[[Lost in Time (TV story)|Lost in Time]]'' was actually the Time Lord known as The Corsair although no in-scene references have been made.
* The Corsair, being the first confirmed example of a Time Lord changing genders on regeneration, was frequently cited in media and online discussions in 2013 as to whether any future incarnation of the Doctor should be played by a female.


== Footnotes ==
== Footnotes ==
{{Reflist}}
{{reflist}}
{{Time Lords}}
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[[Category:Individual Time Lords]]
[[Category:Residents of Gallifrey]]
[[Category:Individual Gallifreyans]]
[[Category:Individual time travellers]]
[[Category:Time Lords with unknown names]]
[[Category:Thieves]]
[[Category:TARDIS pilots]]
[[Category:Time Lords who have been inside the Doctor's TARDIS]]
[[Category:Incarnations of the Corsair| 06]]

Latest revision as of 04:24, 10 October 2024

The Sixth Corsair was an incarnation of the renegade Time Lord known as the Corsair who shared several out-of-sequence meetings with the Thirteenth Doctor and the rest of Team TARDIS.

Biography[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Corsair embraces the Thirteenth Doctor after deducing her identity. (COMIC: Old Friends)

This incarnation of the Corsair stole the Gem of Niag from the Devivians to return it to the people of Pppppppppppplun on the behalf of a third party who put out a Want Ad for her services, in actuality the Hoarder. She intentionally allowed the organ scan to detect her as an alien, in hopes of luring the Doctor. The Thirteenth Doctor was arrested instead of the Corsair because she had a similar binary vascular system and, along with her companions Graham, Yaz, and Ryan, tracked down the Corsair to a pub on another planet with her TARDIS.

At first, the Corsair didn't recognise the Doctor because of her new incarnation, and when the Doctor reminded the Corsair about one of their last encounters which saw them waking up drunk in a bank vault, the Corsair remarked that didn't narrow it down for her. After recognising the Doctor from her destroying the killgun of an alien, holding another at gunpoint, and fighting through a pub brawl with a sword, the Corsair explained her actions to the Doctor over tea, complimenting the Doctor's more heroic behaviour as something she was aspiring to. She then confessed that she needed the Doctor's help with a heist of sorts. After taking time to think over it, the Doctor agreed and asked about the job. The Corsair briefed them, the team infiltrated Raddplina to rescue a star whale. Once the whale was placed in a stellar net attached to the Doctor's TARDIS, the Corsair insisted they left to escape guards, leaving the Doctor’s friends behind. They took the whale to the Hoarder, who revealed his true intent as a collector and had them imprisoned. The Corsair and the Doctor had a proper talk whilst in a cage, which the Doctor then revealed they could easily escape from using her sonic screwdriver. They returned to her TARDIS, with the Corsair taking care of some of Hoarder’s drones herself, and rescued the Doctor’s friends. The Doctor then contacted the Time Agency to arrest the Hoarder and free the whale, though the Corsair insisted her name was kept out of it as the Agency knew all about her. With the whale freed, the Doctor took the Corsair back to her TARDIS, advising her to find some friends to travel with, knowing her ultimate fate and privately hoping to not be the only one to remember her. (COMIC: Old Friends)

The Corsair later reunited with Graham, Ryan and Yaz in 2020 whilst the Doctor had left them briefly to fix a problem in her timeline. She greeted the Doctor upon her return. (COMIC: Alternating Current)

Appearance[[edit] | [edit source]]

This incarnation was a dark-haired woman with blue eyes. She wore a black vest, an ivory shirt with frilly sleeves, emerald green breeches, and black boots. Her Ouroboros tattoo was located on her left wrist. (COMIC: Old Friends)

Skills[[edit] | [edit source]]

This incarnation showed talents with thievery, and also proficient at sword fighting, and wields a rapier. (COMIC: Old Friends)

Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Corsair's Ouroboros tattoo on her left wrist. (COMIC: Old Friends)

The sixth incarnation of the Corsair, with her trademark tattoo on the left wrist, was one of those who did not previously appear in Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair. Neil Gaiman confirmed on Tumblr that this incarnation was intended to be the Sixth Corsair, as confirmed by Jody Houser herself.[1] Although this is not explicitly stated in Old Friend, it can be deduced from narrative clues:

  • The Seventh Corsair remembers her meetings with the Thirteenth Doctor in One Virtue, and a Thousand Crimes, placing Old Friends somewhere between the first and sixth incarnations of the Corsair;
  • In Old Friends, the events during which the Doctor and the Corsair waking up in a bank vault and in jail are referenced as part of their past; Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair stated that those were among the Doctor's adventures with the Fourth, Fifth and Eighth Corsairs, thus making it impossible for the Old Friends Corsair to be the First, Second or Third Corsair;
  • Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair gives tattoo placements other than the left wrist for the Fifth Corsair and Fourth Corsair, leaving only the Sixth Corsair as a possible identity for the Old Friends incarnation.

Artist Roberta Ingranata confirmed details from Eleven Things You Probably Didn't Know About the Corsair influenced her work on this new incarnation in Old Friends.[2] The Corsair's pirate ship TARDIS, not travelling with companions, the drinking with the Doctor, and waking up in a bank vault were acknowledged in the comic story. The Sixth Corsair was inspired by the actress Julianna Margulies.[3]

Footnotes[[edit] | [edit source]]

  1. ↑ https://twitter.com/neilhimself/status/1325637673508364293
  2. ↑ https://twitter.com/Robbertopoli/status/1142438683217473537
  3. ↑ https://twitter.com/robbertopoli/status/1152277067121270784
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