Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Rings of Akhaten

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This page is for discussing the ways in which The Rings of Akhaten doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

Remember, this is a forum, so civil discussion is encouraged. However, please do not sign your posts. Also, keep all posts about the same continuity error under the same bullet point. You can add a new point by typing:

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... and so on. 

• How does Clara suddenly knows how to fly the alien moped?

By watching the Doctor, or there were instructions.

• Why exactly do all the aliens suddenly starting singing wake up, when the old god is awoken, what exact purpose does it serve? And how do they suddenly all know it?

I think that it can be attributed to some kind of telepathic field. Queen was shown as possessing remarkable psychic skills (holding Clara with her mind).

• How can the song travel through space to the old god in the first place? And how come they can hear each other so well, on different asteroids, despite being at least several miles apart?

Possibly their voices were amplified, and heard through an air corridor?

Or the song was partially psychic in nature ?

It doesn't take very advanced technology to accomplish that. Radio, or something similar, would do.

• How were the aliens, the Doctor and Clara on the asteroids able to breath in space?? And how were the Doctor and Clara able to breath when they were on the moped??

Asteroid field could have an atmosphere - natural or artifical. It's not impossible. The moped could have it's own micro atmosphere.

• At the end of the episode, the Doctor causes the God Aakhaten to implode. But weren't the asteroids in orbit around it?? Surely they are now just drifting endlessly through space??? What about the 7 planets that assumedly orbit this star? The star would have been the center of gravity, heat and light for those 7 planets- what happens to those planets without the star?

In the universe we know, Information travels with the speed of light. The Star/Planet (The Doctor says both) is probably a brown dwarf, which is a mixture of planet and star. Maybe it is even a mixture of red dwarf and brown dwarf. The Rings have a certain distance to the star. So when the star explodes, the information needs some time to reach the rings, maybe 1 minute. In contrast to this, the Doctor can immediately see the star implode, which should normally take also 1 minute. So for a small time the rings stay stable, but then they drift away in a straight line, from where they have been. What the people of the asteroids do then is not mentioned. They will probably flee.

• What happened to translation circuit ? Is it not working for Clara because "Tardis doesn't like her" or (more probable) just because they wanted to show how "alien" alien marketplace was ? It worked for human-like aliens then. Behavior of translation circuit in this episode was very erratic at best...

The exact rules for the translation circuit have never been established, it seems to stop working when ever the Doctor wants to show off his Omni-lingual skills, when ever he speaks any language no one can understand him who doesn't also speak that language.

The fact that the TARDIS doesn't seem to like her may also very well contribute to it.

• Why was the leaf in this episode different? Was it just a production error or was it intentional. In Doctor Who, everything happens for a reason and this does seem rather obvious an error to make.

This is more the topic of a form post, not a discontinuity. Its probably an error, it seems a bit insignificant to simply the leaf type.