Howling:What did the silence mean when they said Amy would bring the silence?

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In day of the moon, one of the silent says to amy "you are Amelia pond, we do you great honour, you will bring the silence. But you're part will soon be over". I thought they wanted to prevent the silence of the universe from happening i.e. Name of the doctor. --Coop3 ☎ 20:22, July 1, 2013 (UTC)

Presumably, that Silent was referring to Amy giving birth to River Song, the Silence's weapon to kill the Doctor. "Silence will fall" doesn't refer to the end of the universe, it refers to the Doctor dying before he can answer the Question. It is not a prophecy; rather, it is the Silence's mission statement, or their response to the actual prophecy which says that the Question must never be answered. Since they don't want the Question to be answered, they have attempted to kill the Doctor before he can get to Trenzalore so that the Question can only be met with his "silence" (as a dead man cannot answer a question). Therefore, in saying that Amy would "bring the silence," it most likely meant that she would be the means through which the Silence obtained their assassin who would (ideally) kill the Doctor at Lake Silencio and ensure his silence. Ensephylon ☎ 23:00, July 1, 2013 (UTC)

It is both the mission statemend and a prophecy. Their mission is in response to the prophecy. Whosethebestwho ☎ 02:30, July 2, 2013 (UTC)

"Silence will fall" isn't a prophecy. Your description of it as a response to the prophecy is spot-on, but it is not itself a prophecy; at least no more than "I will come back tomorrow" or "I will make a sandwich for lunch" is. For the sake of general clarification, the original prophecy says that "on the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the eleventh, when no living creature may speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked; a question that must never, ever be answered: Doctor Who?" Ensephylon ☎ 03:20, July 2, 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that's the prophecy. We call it the prophecy and will certainly continue to do so because it's all we've got but it lacks certain key requisites that would actually make it the prophecy. I discuss this briefly in a response to the events of Trenzalore debate (which is now nearly finished and I hope will be posted soon) but for the purposes of this I'll try to show what I mean by putting it to the seven questions test.

"On the Fields of Trenzalore, at the Fall of the Eleventh,

"When no living creature can speak falsely or fail to answer,

"A question will be asked,

"A question that never, ever be answered..."

The test: Who? - Unidentifield. The prophecy tells us neither who the question is asked by or who it it asked to at the time.

What? - A question will be asked. I doubt the "never be answered" it lacks objectivity for a prophecy. Who says it must never be answered.

Why? Goodness knows. One of the most important elements is how this detail has been held back.

Where? - On the Fields of Trenzalore. At last a detail we actually have.

When? - Another one we have. When no living creature can speak falsely on fail to answer. That's the clearest detail of the of.

Which? - The eleventh. The Fall of the Eleventh. The eleventh what isn't given despite there being a very popular guess.

How? - No idea. There is no question bigger than this. If the prophecy really is as described above then we need to know "how?"

We need to know how a series of events can converge on Trenzalore at a certain point and cause the Doctor to speak a disaster into the universe. But at the same time how is that the prophecy. The question I deliberately left out because despite its importance it was always kept that little bit separate from the prophecy in The Wedding Of River Song. Much of this I touch on it the other post I'm working on.

Here the matter is how we get from the prophecy as described above to The Silence attempting to murder the Doctor. How we get to "Doctor Who?" being the olest question in the universe from what is written above. These are key details in the story and the prophecy as given doesn't explain them. It does explain why The Silence are so scared and desperate how they know, even if the question is part of the prophecy, that "Doctor Who?" refers to the Doctor and how they know that unles the stop him he'll be there to answer it. The prophecy doesn't give that information. So what are they acting on?

On the matter of the original question "what did The Silence mean...?" that's harder to answer. According to the Doctor Who encyclopedia The Silence "allegedly experience all of time at once" that would essentially make them transcendental beings although that is not entirely confirmed in the show. The DW encyclopedia may not be taken as official but that isn't the point here, rather the point is the use of the term "allegedly" without identifying who is alleging this.

According the the BBC website for Doctor Who the "Silents" are telepathic. While also unconfirmed there is suggestive evidence for this in how the Slents behave, particularly in that they appear to act collectively but are never observed talking to each other. There are details in the show that suggests they may be telekinetic as well.

One ability we know Silent to possess though is memory proofing. The is useful for Steven Moffat as it means he can keep details about The Silence thin on the ground. Several, mutually exclusive, theories about The Silence can be entertained without contradicting the story even if the contradict each other. Such as the ones discussed next.

The memory proofing of The Silence seems to be a natural and incredibly advanced perception filter. Perception filters haven't been used much recently but three out of the four times they have appeared under Steven Moffat's tenure have been in the series 5 episodes that were used to covertly introduced The Silence (The Eleventh Hour, Vampires of Venice, The Lodger).

On the matter of the original question and if we ignore the idea that The Silence are transcendental we are back o the matter of Silents in time zone a (in this case 1969) in contact with and co-operating with Silents from time zones b, c, d, etc. At least some of these Silents are trying to create a fixed point on the shores of Lake Silencio in which the Doctor is killed and their problem is solved. The 1969 Silents appear to be co-operating in part of this plan but they may be in the dark as to how well the plan is succeeding or indeed that the fixed point is created. When the Silent says "your part will soon be over" how mch time is "soon" for a Silent?

The Silents of '69 have captured a Ganger of Amy, but maybe they don't know it's a Ganger because the other Silents haven't told them. We have absolutely no way to tell one group of Silents apart from another. What if they're in competition with each other? What if the Silents of 1969 don't know that the fixed point is made and the Doctor death is assured elsewhere. The silent that tells Amy she will "bring the silence" simply means they expect that the Doctor will come to rescue her, they'll kill him, silence will fall? It didn't work out like that but they may have believed it.DCT ☎ 16:18, July 4, 2013 (UTC)

We need to be a bit careful when presenting the idea of the "fall of The Silence" it's very exciting to think that's where Moffat is going, but not what the story currently supports.DCT ☎ 14:45, July 5, 2013 (UTC)