Talk:Afterlife

Artificial Afterlives

Shouldn't the article at least mention artificial mind-upload based afterlives such as the Matrix for Time Lords, the Testimony for humans, and, of course, the Nethersphere? Hell, Dark Water implies that legends of the afterlife all through the universe are at least partially attributable to the Nethersphere… surely that's noteworthy. But as not a single such reference is present in the article, I'd like to be sure before i make the edit. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 21:56, August 12, 2018 (UTC)

Nethersphere is mentioned in the following passage: "Seb described the Nethersphere to CSO Matthew as having a range of names, including the afterlife and the Promised Land. (TV: The Caretaker)". Various "mind-upload based afterlives" should have their own pages, where it can be freely commented about their relationship to the mythical/mystical true "Afterlife" described on this page. However, the two should not be mixed. And too many stories dealt with afterlife in too many ways for any one of them to be giving the true origin of the mythical afterlife. This article, thus, requires no emphasis on any artificial "afterlife" in particular. Amorkuz ☎ 22:51, August 12, 2018 (UTC)

What I was thinking was more along the lines of a paragraph explaining that there were many artificial afterlives over the years, some explicitly going on to feed legends of the Afterlife in general; and possibly suggesting that some accounts imply such afterlives were the only truly existing ones and the rest was myth.

I was certainly not advocating that the article lean towards the idea in particular that the Nethersphere or the Testimony or any other such faux-afterlife is the source of the legends; but the possibility is raised in-universe and it seems worthwhile to mention it.

There's clearly something to it as well, if I may go on a tangent — one delving in complicated ethical problems about the nature of self, of course. Rassilon was brough 'back to life', back to a body, from his imprint in the Matrix, and from then on no one questions that this is the “real” Rassilon, resurrected, not just a doppelgänger. Yet if the Afterlife works as it is described in the Ghosts audiostory this page draws from, does that means that the original Rassilon's "soul" had moved on the moment his original body had died? There are many other such issues lying in the corners of the DWU. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 23:01, August 12, 2018 (UTC)

Any explicit in-universe link from an artificial storage facility to the concept of afterlife is certainly a fair game for putting on the page. Such link is already present for Nethersphere. For other hard-drive based "afterlives", where it is missing, feel free to add it.

On the other hand, in order to generalise these isolated links to one connection, an in-universe evidence would be required. "Possibly suggesting" is a qualifier for speculation. We need to hear it from the Doctor to put it on the page.

It is little wonder that different stories contradict each other. That's the nature of DWU. We even have a proof that afterlife exists. Katarina visits one version of it in Katarina in the Underworld. Alas, this does not imply that afterlife is universally built according to the ancient Greek myths. It's just one of the versions. Similarly, each new Nethersphere proves nothing about afterlife in general, other than DW writers feeling freedom to choose their favourite version of afterlife for each story separately. Amorkuz ☎ 23:24, August 12, 2018 (UTC)

Hm… I don't know if I got anything literal for the Testimony — though I'd consider Testimony-Bill's insistance that she's the same being as the deceased Bill to be one such link, albeit implicit — but I'm sure there's something out there about the Matrix.

I haven't the means to check the exact quotes, but when explaining what it is to Clara in Hell Bent, doesn't the Doctor say something to the effect that it is the "Heaven and Hell of the Time Lords", home to "ghosts" and "guarded by more ghosts"? And again, there's the "Rassilon the Resurrected" business where restoring Rassilon from his Matrix back-up counts as a legendary resurrection.

And it would legitimately surprise me if none of the novels and audiobooks involving the Matrix ever described it at something like "the afterlife of the Time Lords". I don't have any solid evidence of that, but I'd bet on it, and I'd further wager that someone more expanded-universe-savvy than me could dig it up.

…And yes, of course sources will contradict each other. I'm well aware of that. I just, as a fan, enjoy the challenge of fitting it all together, and was musing about that as a self-declared tangent. (To my headcanon, for example, there is no reason the Underworld from that short story couldn't be yet another mind-upload-based hologram — of which there are many overlapping versions because many philanthropists, and a few villains, have had the same idea over time and the means to implement it.)--Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 23:30, August 12, 2018 (UTC)