Howling:River's Timeline in Light of TATM: Difference between revisions
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:One thing worth mentioning about the "professor" thing: Do we know that River is _really_ a professor? After all, Professor Summerfield wasn't a real Professor, but later became a real Doctor. (If you don't know the novels, Benny was the witty archeologist companion from the future with a sketchy backstory, raised by foster parents, who spent a lot of time in prison; famous for her extensive diary, for sleeping with the Doctor, for meeting the 6th Doctor well after her travels with the 7th in her timeline, for getting her age set back a few years, and for being from two different centuries in a way that nobody ever made sense of…) --[[Special:Contributions/70.36.140.233|70.36.140.233]]<sup>[[User talk:70.36.140.233#top|talk to me]]</sup> 05:01, October 2, 2012 (UTC) | :One thing worth mentioning about the "professor" thing: Do we know that River is _really_ a professor? After all, Professor Summerfield wasn't a real Professor, but later became a real Doctor. (If you don't know the novels, Benny was the witty archeologist companion from the future with a sketchy backstory, raised by foster parents, who spent a lot of time in prison; famous for her extensive diary, for sleeping with the Doctor, for meeting the 6th Doctor well after her travels with the 7th in her timeline, for getting her age set back a few years, and for being from two different centuries in a way that nobody ever made sense of…) --[[Special:Contributions/70.36.140.233|70.36.140.233]]<sup>[[User talk:70.36.140.233#top|talk to me]]</sup> 05:01, October 2, 2012 (UTC) | ||
::Saghan, I wasn't having a go at you over the "she's done some sort of teaching" bit. If I seemed to be criticising you, it was unintentional. It was just that you reminded me of the difference between the US & UK use of the title "professor". Since the topic is River's timeline & that difference is important in working out her timeline, I thought I'd better explain it immediately. It means that the point you were making is substantially stronger than it would appear to someone who was thinking of the US meaning of "professor". To have reached that rank, River must have been out of prison for quite a long time -- long enough to have done major research, get it published, build up a strong academic reputation & (on the basis of that) be appointed to an important post with a university or similar academic institution. That would take years, which ties in with "pardoned ages ago". | |||
::Where you say "I believe the River we see in TATM is from much further ahead in her own timeline..." etc., I agree. As I said, the only other time River has appeared & been titled "Professor River Song" was at the end of her life. The River in ''The Angels...'' is almost certainly the 2nd-oldest we've seen in an episode so far (ignoring the DVD-only mini-episodes). She must be far further along her timeline than she was in the scene with the "first time/last time" kiss with the Doctor (so she presumably '''was''' wrong about it being the last time she'd get to kiss him). | |||
::I'm not sure the lack of "diary swapping" was for any reason except that there wasn't time for it. They were pretty busy throughout the episode, after all. There '''might''' be more to it than that but there doesn't have to be. The pace of events would be enough reason on its own. | |||
::Rowan Earthwood: You're right that whoever has been erasing information about the Doctor must have access to time travel. You're also right that Kate (& some others) would still remember because personal memories can't be hacked into & erased the way online data can be. You may be a bit too sweeping, though, when you say that River's timeline has changed drastically. We don't know how long she spent in prison. We never have, so it'd be difficult to tell if the length of time had changed (which might be why Moffat's never given us the numbers). We don't know River's aging rate but we have some pretty strong hints that it's not the normal human rate (& that's pretty variable, anyway), so we can't use that to work out how long she was in prison -- or to work out anything else, for that matter. | |||
::So far, we've got good evidence of the removal of information about the Doctor. I don't think we have the evidence to conclude that that's associated with changes in history. You say, "Instead of being paroled under the close watch of the Church, she [River] was pardoned outright" but there's so far no evidence of that. She could have been pardoned outright '''after''' (not instead of) being paroled. The only time we saw her on parole & supervised by the Church was in ''The Time of Angels/Flesh and Stone'' (& the brief scene at the end of ''The Wedding of River Song'', where she's "just climbed out of the ''Byzantium''"). In ''The Time of Angels'', she wasn't yet a professor -- the Doctor introduced her to Amy as "Professor River Song" & River said, "Oh! You mean I'm going to be a professor, someday." | |||
::There's no evidence (yet) for "It's not just that he isn't in databases - nobody knows him, not the Shadow Proclamation, not the Church, not the Headless Monks, not Torchwood (apart from people like Jack and Gwen who've met him)." What River said about her pardon was that she was in prison & the authorities suddenly found that they couldn't prove her supposed victim had ever existed. She did '''not''' say the authorities didn't know whose existence it was that they couldn't prove. She did '''not''' say the authorities suddenly found themselves with a prisoner whose crime was unknown to them. What she said demonstrated that they knew she was in prison for murder & they knew enough about who her supposed victim had been to be able to check & find they'd no records of him having existed. --[[Special:Contributions/89.242.70.8|89.242.70.8]]<sup>[[User talk:89.242.70.8#top|talk to me]]</sup> 06:28, October 2, 2012 (UTC) | |||
