Howling:The bodies of hundreds of Time Lords...

The Howling → The bodies of hundreds of Time Lords...

There be spoilers about un-released stories here.
Run back to the forums if you're scared.

In The Impossible Astronaut, River tells us that the body of a Time Lord is "a miracle", one that major empires would start wars to possess, if even one single cell survives. (And if you doubt her, read EDA: Alien Bodies.)

House had entire bodies of hundreds of Time Lords (as well as hundreds of dead TARDISes), and they're all still sitting there on his asteroid. Sure, it's in a bubble universe, but is that beyond the ability of those major empires to reach?

I'm not sure this is an intentional setup. For one thing, Gaiman wrote his episode for season 5, and it seems like that was almost certainly a plot point before he changed it for this season. For another, if the Moff plans to make something of the "even one cell" bit, the two other episodes both had someone (the Mermaid and the Flesh) take cell samples from the Doctor.

But still, it seems odd to make such a big deal about the idea of a dead Time Lord being worth so much, and then introduce hundreds of them just a few weeks later, if it doesn't mean anything.

And think about what we know of the finale, and remember how Alien Bodies paid off in Unnatural History.... --99.33.24.89 10:33, May 28, 2011 (UTC)

Doesn' t seem at all odd to me. When the TARDIS left the bubble universe, nobody else except House would have known the bubble even existed. The situation was very different in TIA where the rough location of the Doctor's body would have been known to the killer plus whoever was controlling them. 187.78.119.32 16:26, June 22, 2011 (UTC)

1: How are they going to get there? Even the Doctor, with a TARDIS has to use extremely large amounts of power to get there.

2: How are they going to find it? This universe is disjoint from ours and it requires a Hypercube that basically searches out the Doctor for him to even be aware of their existence.

3: It's just a tv show. Boblipton 12:47, May 28, 2011 (UTC)

With House gone, the planetoid was headed for absolute zero within 3 hours. We have the word of the TARDIS for that. Even if anyone could manage to get there, they'd find everything deep frozen -- really deep frozen! 89.242.77.101 13:33, May 28, 2011 (UTC)

1. There are races out there that have enough energy to destroy planets, tow them across the galaxy, create supernovas, etc. Maybe it would take them a whole fleet of ships carrying batteries to get a small party across, but if they're willing to go to intergalactic war to possibly recover one Time Lord body, I'm sure they'd be willing to spend the power.

2. How were they going to find the Doctor on earth?

3. Yeah, but it's a TV show that routinely sets things up for later.

@89: Absolute zero is a perfect way to preserve everything exactly as it is. How is that a problem? --99.33.24.89 18:56, May 28, 2011 (UTC)

Not a problem for preservation. A significant problem for retrieval. 2.96.18.149 17:55, June 1, 2011 (UTC)

How is it a problem for retrieval? Anyone with a good pair of mittens can pick up something at absolute zero. Of course they'd need a space suit to survive on the surface of the planetoid in the first place, but that's within the technological reach of mid-20th century humanity, let alone star-faring empires. And if you're worried about the need to chisel through frozen atmosphere to get to the bodies without too much damage, that's the kind of thing human archaeologists and paleontologists have been routinely doing for over a century.

Absolute zero is just a few degrees colder than empty space. We routinely create pockets of very near absolute zero (as in within a tiny fraction of a degree--probably closer to zero than the planetoid could ever get, given the amount of mass) in the lab, and manipulate things in those pockets. --99.8.228.227 02:39, June 5, 2011 (UTC)

"Of course they'd need a space suit to survive on the surface of the planetoid in the first place, but that's within the technological reach of mid-20th century humanity, let alone star-faring empires."

"Why did the human race suddenly decide to go to the Moon? Because the Silence needed a space suit." 14.202.32.28 18:04, June 20, 2011 (UTC)

To quote the introductory paragraph: "River tells us that the body of a Time Lord is 'a miracle'..." Yes, River tells us, to ensure the Doctor's body isn't available to anyone -- except it wasn't the Doctor's body; it was the Teselecta and the "cremation" was needed to ensure nobody realised that. As River also tells us, "The Doctor lies and so do I... Have to." In the circumstances, I don't incline to believe what she said in order to get the "body" cremated. (What some novel says is irrelevant; it's not part of the show's continuity.) In any case, the hundreds of bodies on House's asteroid had been there rather a long time at well above absolute zero, so wouldn't be in great condition -- and who knows they're there? The Doctor, the TARDIS, Amy and Rory. None of them is going to spread the word. --89.240.253.134 00:57, October 18, 2011 (UTC)

I may be incorrect but I got the impression that when they said that it was going to drop to absolute zero that they were referring to the heat death of the universe, as seen happening to the main universe in Utopia. Basically without House there the pocket universe was going to quickly run out of energy and go cold and taking all the matter with it too. Meaning there are no bodies because the entire pocket universe is gone. At least that was my impression. The Light6 ^{talk to me} 04:27, October 20, 2011 (UTC)

If that's what was meant (and you may be right), it could have been phrased better. At any rate, nobody seemed worried about the remains, either of Time Lord bodies or of TARDISes, being left there. That needn't mean they were all going to cease to exist; it could mean just that the bubble universe was soon going to be in a state that made it impractical or profitless to try to retrieve them. Perhaps they could only have been retrieved by someone whose technology was so advanced they'd have nothing to gain. Presumably, if the Time Lords (before the war) had learned of House and his bubble universe, they could have got the remains back -- but so what? The Time Lords already had everything that could be gained from the remains. If the situation was going to be, in effect, that the only people who could get the remains wouldn't need them, there wouldn't be a problem. --89.241.66.33 00:10, October 21, 2011 (UTC)