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Howling:River's Timeline in Light of TATM: Difference between revisions
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Howling:River's Timeline in Light of TATM (view source)
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, 2 October 2012The odds are good that history has changed.
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::70, "Do we know that River is _really_ a professor?": Only dialog. The same evidence we have for her being "Dr River Song", earlier in her timeline. The organisers of the expedition in ''Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead'' had included her because she was known to be the best in her field. She was "Professor River Song" to them & they were not the type of people to have done that without checking that she really was Professor River Song & really was the best in her field. There's absolutely no countervailing evidence that she '''isn't''' really a professor. The Library expedition wouldn't have accepted her as Professor River Song on the basis of a nickname (like Ace calling the Doctor "Professor"). They were legalistic & humourless -- the kind of people who'd require documentary proof of absolutely everything. In triplicate. --[[Special:Contributions/89.242.70.8|89.242.70.8]]<sup>[[User talk:89.242.70.8#top|talk to me]]</sup> 06:50, October 2, 2012 (UTC) | ::70, "Do we know that River is _really_ a professor?": Only dialog. The same evidence we have for her being "Dr River Song", earlier in her timeline. The organisers of the expedition in ''Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead'' had included her because she was known to be the best in her field. She was "Professor River Song" to them & they were not the type of people to have done that without checking that she really was Professor River Song & really was the best in her field. There's absolutely no countervailing evidence that she '''isn't''' really a professor. The Library expedition wouldn't have accepted her as Professor River Song on the basis of a nickname (like Ace calling the Doctor "Professor"). They were legalistic & humourless -- the kind of people who'd require documentary proof of absolutely everything. In triplicate. --[[Special:Contributions/89.242.70.8|89.242.70.8]]<sup>[[User talk:89.242.70.8#top|talk to me]]</sup> 06:50, October 2, 2012 (UTC) | ||
:::With how randomly time time travel works in ''Doctor Who'', I can't prove that the Doctor's erasure from public knowledge changed history, but it's strongly implied. Almost everyone seemed to know who he was before, and now almost nobody knows him. River gives this erasure as the reason she was pardoned; in the old timeline, when he was common knowledge, she couldn't have been pardoned for the same reason, and was unlikely to have been pardoned at all. Since she given 1200 consecutive life sentences, it's unlikely that short of an outright pardon she would've gotten out quickly, even with good behavior (and a prisoner who escapes as often as she did is not going to be let off for good behavior). In the new timeline, when she had no reason to stay in prison and they had no justification for keeping her, it's exceedingly unlikely she remained in Stormcage as long as she would have in a timeline when she was convicted of murdering a great hero and kept returning to her sentence just to make sure it was convincing. Absent further evidence, it's possible to argue that she spent the same amount of time in prison that she always had, but I think it's staggeringly unlikely. The way the dialogue was read, and the context it appeared in, signaled that River's history had become very different and the Doctor was somewhat surprised. Just be careful in treating previous stories as valid evidence in this debate. They aren't anymore. The odds are good that history has changed. -- [[User:Rowan Earthwood|Rowan Earthwood]] [[User talk:Rowan Earthwood|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 14:06, October 2, 2012 (UTC) | |||
