Howling:The Voice in the TARDIS

The Howling → The Voice in the TARDIS

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In "the Pandorica Opens" back when the cracks were the big threat of the day, River is trapped on an exploding TARDIS. During this point, a voice warns "Silence Will Fall" just before everything gets kind of hectic. No one's made mention of that voice, not really in universe or out since then. Now that we've seen what might be the end of the Prophesy or at least the beginning of it, I think it bears wondering. WHO was that voice? Was it the Great Intelligence, falling back through the Doctor's Time Stream? Was it something else? Or will possible be left alone and never mentioned again? Vohn exel ☎ 06:49, June 13, 2013 (UTC)

Moffat confirmed in an interview it was the Silence that blow up the TARDIS. Why we don't know and it probably should have been shown in an episode. Either way we can assume the voice was the agent they sent to destroy the TARDIS. 82.19.216.220^{talk to me} 09:14, June 13, 2013 (UTC)

Oh, well, if Moffat said it in an interview, it must be true! It's not as if he ever lies about what's going on. (Enough of the sarcasm.) --89.241.67.154^{talk to me} 11:52, June 13, 2013 (UTC)

Yes indeed "Moffat said it in a interview", honestly. You're absolutely right he should have put it in the story, as far as the site's concerned and as a rule among fans about many shows, nothing anyone says about events in the story are true unless they are confirmed in the story. All the same can we have the interview please, seeing the context could help? Also it'll probably be worth listening to that voice referred to if it sounds like a "Silent" ie a potential "Silent" on the TARDIS then it would go a long way to confirming what Steven Moffat said. Have you done that or are you just taking it for granted when you make that "assumption"?DCT ☎ 12:19, June 13, 2013 (UTC)

Not only are out-of-universe statements by Moffat unreliable -- the man has openly said that he lies to preserve the surprises in his stories -- but also the fact that it hasn't been revealed in an episode means he (or another writer) could simply give a different explanation without needing to "explain away" any discrepancy. That's been done before & it was done by a writer far less deceptive than Moffat:

When he wrote Dragonfire, Ian Briggs had no idea who or what was responsible for the "time storm" that took Ace from Perivale to Ice World. He said so in a note on the script & pointed out that the writer of some future story would need to explain what had happened. As it turned out, that writer was himself & the future story was The Curse of Fenric, 2 years later. Because no explanation had been given in any episode, he wasn't obstructed by having anything to fit in with or to explain away.

Moffat, in The Snowmen, likewise had no contradictory explanation to fit in with or to explain away when, after over forty years, he showed us the origins of the Great Intelligence & let us know why it attacked the London Underground in The Web of Fear.

As long as there's been no in-universe explanation, a future writer (Moffat or another) can do with the TARDIS explosion, even after a delay of several decades, what Moffat did with the "Yetis in the Underground" incident: explain it retroactively. --89.241.67.154^{talk to me} 14:50, June 13, 2013 (UTC)

Except I'm less sure that Moffat genuinely doesn't know why the TARDIS exploded. He's running the show leading to 50th Anniversary and even if he hasn't got a clue or was thwarted somehow in explaining it I still think he wants us to think he knows. It's hard to understand why he would answer a question on the TARDIS explosion at the moment though it tells us very little whether or or it's true. We still really need the quote if it exists.DCT ☎ 16:33, June 13, 2013 (UTC)

The more we know in story the less the statement seems to make sense. Blowing up the Tardis to get the Daleks and Cybermen to put the Doctor in the Pandorica doesn't kill the Doctor, kills River rather than the Doctor in the exploding Tardis, and probably destroys the universe. That all seems not consistent with the stated goal of the Silence. Unless they somehow knew how it would all work out, and they risked the existence of the Universe to get Amy and Rory together to make Melody, in order to have a weapon to kill the Doctor later.

What could they fear as the danger of Trenzelore which would be worse than the destruction of the universe?Phil Stone ☎ 17:21, June 13, 2013 (UTC)

DCT: I wasn't saying that Moffat doesn't know. He may well do & intend to reveal it eventually. What I was saying is that, until it is revealed in an episode, what Moffat intended hasn't been fixed as what happened. I used Briggs as an illustration because, with him, we can be quite certain that what was eventually revealed wasn't what was initially intended -- because nothing was.

Whatever Moffat may or may not have intended when he wrote Series 5, as long as it hasn't been revealed in an episode, he's free to come up with a new explanation. If Moffat were to stumble under the wheels of a bus or get himself fired (or whatever) & another writer had to take over, that other writer would be free to come up with a new explanation. (I was 89 earlier.) --2.101.58.225^{talk to me} 18:54, June 13, 2013 (UTC)

I completely agree on that. Another example might turn out to be The Doctor Currently Living in Pete's World. RTD apparently shot a scene with the "two" Tennant Doctors with the meta-crisis version ending up with a piece of the Tardis he could grow into his own. But the scene was not shown. Now we have Tennant and Piper booked, and who/when are they, and do they have a Tardis? Moffet can confirm RTD's desire for Pete's World to have a Tardis, he can deny it, or he can ignore it by using an earlier Doctor and Rose from this world. Phil Stone ☎ 19:55, June 13, 2013 (UTC)

@89 - While Moffat didn't contradict anything "in an episode" when he gave the origin of the Great Intelligence, he seems to have contradicted "Whoniverse information", as prose or something said that the GI was from the Universe before this one as some supreme being of sorts. Now maybe this was his entrance into this Universe and a mind in a swarm of carnivorous snow was all that was left of his original form after the trip, but I don't know the precise details if such an arrival was described elsewhere off-screen.

@Phil Stone - Oh, and on the subject of why the Alliance and Silence's plans seemed to interfere, trapping the Doctor in the Pandorica when he was supposed to be in the exploding TARDIS, I think that the Silence set in motion a plan to kill the Doctor by destroying the TARDIS, retroactively causing the cracks in the Universe, which the Alliance responded to independently by locking the Doctor in the Pandorica to stop the TARDIS being piloted, not realizing that River could pilot it, thereby causing it to explode and causing the cracks. They were working separately without knowledge of the other's intentions or plan, and that just turned out to be what happened as a result. Remember, both the Doctor and the GI had to be at Trenzalore for the Silence's prophecy to come true, and of the two, the Silence decided to stupidly go after the Doctor, so they clearly aren't the best planners ever. (both above paragraphs are me) —BioniclesaurKing4t2 - "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically, . . . run." 01:19, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I like to think that River is the wrench in everyone's plans. The Alliance thought that the Doctor was the only one that could pilot the TARDIS, but they didn't know about River so their Pandorica plan failed. The Great Intelligence wanted to force the Doctor to say his name, but he didn't count on River knowing it as well and being on Trenzalore at that time. Likewise with the Silence, I believe that they wanted to destroy the TARDIS so that the Doctor would have died in the explosion as he would have presumably been the one piloting it, but River happened to be piloting it when they chose to blow it up. I don't think the cracks were an intended effect; the Silence probably just underestimated the damage that the explosion would have caused. As for the voice itself, my guess is that it was just an automated transmission or a recording or something along those lines. And frankly (and this isn't aimed at anyone in particular), I doubt that Moffat cares very much about whether or not we have an official in-show statement to back up our articles, so I think explaining outright that it was the Silence is not of great concern to him. The implication is certainly that it was them. Ensephylon ☎ 02:35, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

BioniclesaurKing4t2, "the Silence ... clearly aren't the best planners ever": I got that impression, too. It makes sense when you consider the abilities of the Silents. When you can usually get people to do what you want just by telling them to do it -- their post-hypnotic suggestion trick -- & nobody even knows you're there, most of the time, you don't have to be all that clever. --89.240.249.85^{talk to me} 04:50, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

@89 - Regardless of how effective their tricks are, they still should have been able to see that the GI would have been a much easier target, and not going after the Doctor would leave him free to keep saving the Universe, and they seemed to have the Universe's best interests in mind when they tried to stop every good thing the Doctor ever did from being wiped from existence by the GI entering his time stream...so instead they blew up the TARDIS and ended the Universe...see what I mean about the Silence and forethought? —BioniclesaurKing4t2 - "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically, . . . run." 04:57, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

Yes, they should have been able to see that. My point was that, because their tricks have been so effective, they've relied on them instead of thinking things through.

Also, we don't know sequence of events in their timeline. Blowing up the TARDIS may have been their first attempt to solve the problem, before they started to research the Doctor. If they knew little about him, it might seem to them that he'd be an easier target than a disembodied intelligence. It may only have been once that first attempt had backfired (& destroying the universe qualifies as a major backfire) that they started to research him & decided to create their "weapon" against him. Of course, by creating their "weapon" they threw a wooden shoe (sabot) into the works of their own first attempt, since River was the unexpected TARDIS pilot!

I've suspected for a long time that the Doctor will be the one who actually accomplishes the end result the Silence are aiming for (safeguarding the universe) & it'll turn out that the cack-handed efforts of the Silence are the main danger to it. That is, they're causing the problem by trying to solve the problem. --89.240.249.85^{talk to me} 06:19, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

P.S. Although the details will be radically different, that's a similar situation to Day of the Daleks, in which the guerillas' attempts to change history to prevent a Dalek conquest of Earth were what actually started the chain of events that led to the conquest. In that story, the (3rd) Doctor managed to break the causal loop. --89.240.254.222^{talk to me} 11:30, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

@BioniclesaurKing: That's assuming that they even know the GI will be asking the Question, or that one even can kill him. Plus, killing the GI wouldn't be a 100% guarantee that the Question would not be asked. Any evildoer can come to Trenzalore wanting access to the tomb and they'll ask the same Question, but (as far as the Silence knows) only one man knows the answer to that Question. Killing the Doctor ensures that his name never comes out; that the answer to the Question is "erased from the world before it can be spoken" just as the Doctor said. Ensephylon ☎ 12:01, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

But we can all still agree that going after the Doctor wasn't the smartest thing they could have done. They could simply have tried to divert or warn him, but I suppose religious radicals will do what religious radicals will do, and otherwise there wouldn't be an interesting story. —BioniclesaurKing4t2 - "Hello, I'm the Doctor. Basically, . . . run." 15:35, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

BioniclesaurKing4t2: These aren't just religious radicals; they're religious radicals accustomed to getting their own way very easily. Being religious radicals would tend to make them intolerant of opposition but these ones are also unused to having to deal with real opposition & therefore not particularly good at it. (I was 89 earlier.) --2.101.63.164^{talk to me} 17:31, June 14, 2013 (UTC)

For The Silence to know rather than just believe what the Prophecy means,and to whom it refers, they (or the Prophet)would have to come from the time after the Prophecy came to pass. But if that were the case, and it was all about the GI sabotaging the Doctor's timeline, then they would also know the attempt failed (unless they didn't know about Clara, and just blamed every bad thing that ever happened on the Doctor not saving the day (like Mels in History class.))

But someone coming from the future who also knows the past and future of the Silence might be able to convince them of the accuracy of a prophecy. He might even convince them that Earth is the promised land. And so he might be able to manipulate the Silence into dedicating themselves to a plan to kill the Doctor.

But that doesn't really answer either who the voice in the Tardis was, nor why apparent access to The Tardis wasn't utilized to kill the Doctor more directly. One answer may turn on something the Doctor said about the Silence. Namely that they dont make anything, they get others to act for them. Perhaps the idea was to get the "villians" to take care of the Doctor for the Silence, and since they had all failed in the past,tricking them into working together to achieve the goal of The Silence would be standard Silence strategy. Likewise, train Melody to kill the Doctor for them. And for all we know, get Rory and Amy together to make Melody.

The voice may not be an actual voice, but a voice in River's head, the result of her being trained by the Silence. "Silence will fall" might be the way they say that death is imminent, and faced with an exploding Tardis, that phrase might come to mind. A more extreme possibility would be that the explosion is River's fault, that even though she is conciously struggling to avert disaster, she has already subconciously sealed the Tardis's doom. Who besides the Doctor would know better than River how to do it? This would also solve the issue of access to the Tardis.

I am not convinced. Perhaps ther is no explanation for the voice. No explanation how someone could out do the "combined hordes of Ghengis Khan." But I suspect that if we ever learn who started the Silence on their quest, we will have more insight into the voice.Phil Stone ☎ 05:09, June 15, 2013 (UTC)

I continue to be amazed at how little credit members of this site give to The Silence. The "Silents" claim to have been guiding humanity since fire and the wheel and imply a hand in any and all major human discoveries and all to serve whatever they need. The Doctor may say that the Silents don't do anything for themselves but let's be honest the Doctor is no more immune to the effect of The Silence than anyone else. He can't remember then so whatever he says about the is an assumption and even Steven Moffat can't get around that. The Silents may have become hidden overseers over time but whatever the Silents want doing they must have the knowledge of how to make that into a possibility or else they're at a dead end.

Therefore either the Silents are super omniscient and just know everything or else they've already been through that journey and learned it all. They could do it all in principle they just can't or won't in practice. Either way we can not be dealing with foolish beings their degree of success tells against that.

Further whatever they do they do must serve the purposes of The Silence which appears to be preventing the Doctor answering the question on Trenzalore, therefore it's not unreasonable to imagine that all their engagements with humans are directed towards that goal however hard that is to conceive.

The Silence clearly has technology that far outstrips the best of human technology on Earth, yet the Doctor said that the only reason that human being decided to visit the moon in 1969 was because The Silence need a spacesuit. That suggest a spectacular lack of imaginative initiative on behalf of humanity. The Silence have actually interstellar travel and presumably time travel technology. Why do they need humans to make them a spacesuit, there must be loads available to them. And if they if they do need it made by humans why at that time? Isn't it just as likely humans decided to go to the moon in 1969 and the Silents decided to infiltrate the enterprise?

These beings are not stupid, if they did blow up the TARDIS it was no act of carelessness. The reason this failure to resolve the TARDIS explosion gets on people's nerves and tries their patience so much is that at the end of Series 5 was that the Dotor told Rory and Amy that the explosion of the TARDIS was a willful attack on space-time by an unknown agency by attacking it at its weakest point; which happened to be Amy and Rory's wedding day. Since then the Doctor seems to have forgotten he said that.

But the Pandorica is what interests me the most because it is most interest because although the allience may not have realized it putting the Doctor in the Pandorica meant that the one man who could save the universe was the only man who was protected from its destruction when it ended. Without the Doctor and the Pandorica, space-time could not have been saved.DCT ☎ 16:00, June 15, 2013 (UTC)

I don't see that the Silence would have known about events in The Name of The Doctor. We see the Silence active in the 51st century (assuming they have time travel technology) but I don't believe we are given a date for events on Trenzalore. It could be 100M years into the future long after the Silence have died out, we don't know. Badwolff ☎ 20:12, June 16, 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, on this matter, what we can't see about The Silence would fill several volumes. We know that somehow The Silence believe they know several details about the future of the Doctor that include a disaster they wish to avert when he answers a very important question on Trenzalore. The Silence must have a fair idea what they are trying to avert and the Doctor letting the Great Intelligence into his tomb doesn't seem to be it. It's hard to believe that The Silence don't have some form of time travel technology because they develop complex plans with the stages spread vastly over history. We know that somehow Melody Pond was stolen from Demon's Run in the future to 1969 Earth and she then escaped and found her own way to the future again but then was caught and brought back to shoot the Doctor and fulfill her purpose. The idea that The "Silents" don't have time travel seems thin. And if they do then the idea of them dying out really doesn't figure in the equation.DCT ☎ 15:23, June 17, 2013 (UTC)

DCT: 'The idea that The "Silents" don't have time travel seems thin.' Correct, especially as we've seen at least one timeship associated with them, in Day of the Moon, when, while rescuing Amy, the Doctor called it "Very Aickman Road." (He's referring back to The Lodger. The similar ship seen in that story may, as the Doctor suggested, have been the same ship, later in its own timeline, but that's not certain.) --89.242.67.102^{talk to me} 18:55, June 17, 2013 (UTC)

He may have meant simply that it was also a "Silent" ship, albeit a different one. Though I think it was suggested that it was a timeship. Other evidence of Silent time travel capability is the fact that they acquired River Song in the 52nd century on the day of her graduation, and either sent or took her to the 21st. Andbeonetraveler ☎ 21:30, June 17, 2013 (UTC)

Even apart from the ship, the Silence managed to get a child born in the 52nd century to 1960s Florida. They couldn't do that without access to time travel. --89.242.67.102^{talk to me} 22:35, June 17, 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm aware of the ship, of course, however I have absolutely no idea if the "Silents" use it for time travel or not. All the evidence is that they use something to do so but as they seem unwilling or unable to build their own technology whatever it is it will be made by someone else. Having said that when the Doctor made that statement about The Silence he clearly still thought of them as a species.DCT ☎ 13:04, June 18, 2013 (UTC)

Wow, I leave for a bit and this question REALLY takes off! I'd always assumed the "Makeshift TARDIS" the Doctor finds in the Lodger was for the Silents, but perhaps there's more going on here. Perhaps Moffat has plans beyond the Silents that go all the way back to the end of Series 5. I doubt it, but it would be awesome. Regardless, I hope that someday someone makes something of that voice in the TARDIS. I can accept that it was probably just a Silent, or even just a voice in River's head,but I'd much rather it be something else. Vohn exel ☎ 04:21, June 18, 2013 (UTC)

Even if it wasn't a Silent (& it didn't sound like one), it could easily have been one of their servants -- not Kovarian, obviously (voice was a bit deep), but someone in a similar position. However, the fact remains that we just don't know whose voice it was. --89.241.70.163^{talk to me} 02:27, June 21, 2013 (UTC)

It may not have even been a specific person's voice at all - it could have just been a synthesized transmission. Either way, it doesn't really matter. The voice was associated with the Silence and that's what's important. Ensephylon ☎ 04:03, June 21, 2013 (UTC)