Melody Pond (The Impossible Astronaut)
In her first incarnation, Melody Pond was abducted shortly after birth by Madame Kovarian. Trained by the Silence to be the perfect assassin for the Doctor, she'd eventually encounter the Eleventh Doctor while trapped inside an augmented astronaut suit.
Biography
Conception and gestation
Melody Pond was conceived soon after her parents' wedding, aboard the Doctor's TARDIS while transiting the Time Vortex. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) Melody's mother, Amy Pond, remained unaware that she was pregnant for a while, (TV: The Almost People) and continued enjoying her honeymoon. (TV: A Christmas Carol)
Amy was kidnapped and replaced with a living flesh doppelgänger during or shortly after her honeymoon. The ganger functioned as an avatar through which Amy perceived existence as if she was present in place of the Ganger. (TV: The Almost People) In reality, Amy was taken to a church marine base on the Demons Run asteroid in the 52nd century to gestate Melody. Through some combination of the circumstances of her conception in the vortex, plus interference by the Silence, Melody developed Time Lord characteristics, including regeneration. (TV: A Good Man Goes To War)
Madame Kovarian harvested Melody's embryonic DNA in order to clone more children like her. This resulted in the creation of River's clones, the Proto-Time Lords. The clones referred to one another as siblings. The first batch consisted of seven clones named Lake, Rindle, Tarn, Wadi, Creek, Stream, and Beck. (AUDIO: The Lady in the Lake) The second batch of clones included Brooke, H-One, H-Two, and O. (AUDIO: My Dinner with Andrew, The Furies) Like River, the clones had two hearts and the ability to regenerate; however, the exact amount of regenerations each of them had was random. (AUDIO: The Lady in the Lake)
Birth
Delivered by Kovarian, (TV: The Almost People) Melody was born on Demons Run. (TV: A Good Man Goes To War) She was named after Amy and Rory's childhood friend, Mels Zucker. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler) Amy insisted using her maiden surname, Pond, for Melody. Amy opined that "Melody Williams" was a name of a geography teacher, whereas "Melody Pond" evoked a superhero. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) Kovarian placed a neural block on Melody as a failsafe to ensure that Melody would never be able to kill her, even if she wanted to. (AUDIO: The Furies)
Within a month, Melody was replaced with a ganger and taken away from her mother by Madame Kovarian to the 20th century, to be reared to kill the Doctor. (TV: Day of the Moon, The Almost People, A Good Man Goes to War) She was chosen for this task because of her conception in the Time Vortex. This gave her the potential for great strength and regeneration, to pilot the TARDIS and understand complex principles of time and space. (TV: The Time of Angels, Day of the Moon, A Good Man Goes to War, The Wedding of River Song) It was through her ganger avatar that Melody first met her father, Rory Williams, and the Eleventh Doctor. When Melody's connection to her ganger was severed, her ganger liquefied, while her father and the Doctor's allies fought to protect her from the Headless Monks. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
Raised by the Silence
While she grew up, Melody was trained by the Silence to be the perfect assassin for the Doctor, though she would be unable to properly remember this part of her life due to their memory-erasing powers. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler) Her first words were "Kill Doctor". She was taught to use a throwing star at ten paces before she even knew how to pace, her first steps were towards a box of grenades, and she was given nunchucks for her third birthday.
As a little girl, Melody was kept isolated in "the Nightmare Room" on Demons Run. The room contained clockwork toys, a jack-in-the-box, teddy bears, and a door with a force field on it. Kovarian told Melody bedtime stories and one of Kovarian's favourites was about the Furies. Just prior to being transferred to the Graystark Hall Orphanage, there was an incident where Melody's teddy bears were disembowelled, which Kovarian blamed on Melody. Kovarian gave Melody nightmares and was also the one to put her back to bed when she woke up afraid of the very same nightmares. (AUDIO: The Furies)
Escaping the Silence
Melody was later transferred to Graystark Hall in 1969 Florida under heavy security (TV: Day of the Moon) and forced into an Apollo astronaut suit that the Silence upgraded with alien technology. The suit could move autonomously and would insert Melody into itself both for control and to provide sustenance. The suit's artificial intelligence and communication faculties automatically put the frightened Melody in contact with the highest authority it could find: President Richard Nixon, at whatever telephone was closest to him at a given moment. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut) Melody repeatedly rang Nixon, trying to warn him about the Silents (WC: Prequel (The Impossible Astronaut)), asking for help and describing how the "spaceman" was going to "eat" her, but not knowing what help she needed or where precisely she was. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
These telephone calls led to her first physical meeting with the Eleventh Doctor since her birth, in a warehouse in Florida near Cape Kennedy. She approached the Doctor whilst in the space suit, prompting her mother to shoot at her in fear of the Doctor's impending death. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut) The suit's visor was damaged, but Melody was unharmed. (TV: Day of the Moon)
She returned to Graystark three months later, to find her mother in her room. Melody begged her for help, but Amy, originating from a point in time before Melody's birth, was confused because of a picture of herself with Melody as a baby. With the arrival of the Silents, Melody forced her way out of the suit and fled, though she lingered long enough to catch a glimpse of the Doctor once more. (TV: Day of the Moon)
Six months later, Melody had made her way to New York City and developed a terminal illness, but knew she could "fix it" by regenerating. She was living homeless in an alley when she finally succumbed to her ailment in January 1970, and regenerated (TV: Day of the Moon) into the body of a toddler. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
Personality
Melody was shy, innocent and terrified of the "monsters" who had trapped her in the spacesuit. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
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