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.

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• Merry shows rather inaccurate information about the Old God and her role. She initially thinks its just to sing to him, but when she gets taken, she has no clue why. When the Doctor and Clara come to her rescue, Merry KNOWS THEN her role is to be a sacrifice, despite the fact she previously had no clue about it. Any ideas here?
• How does Clara suddenly knows how to fly the alien moped?

By watching the Doctor, or there were instructions.

The moped could have been physic. the culture's clearly telepathic, so the moped could have downloaded the instructions telepathically. Or maybe the Doctor did it himself via off-screen physic headbutt.

• 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).

The song is also arguably being used as encouragement for the Doctor. As for knowing the words, they did all seem to be singing along with Meri earlier as well, so presumably they know some of the songs/hymns.

• 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.

And they are referred to explicitly as planets in the episode, not asteroids. Maybe the rules are different in this alien environment, or undisclosed technology is in play.

This race has had interplanetary travel for apparently thousands (if not many more) years. Simple atmospheric force fields probably explains it.

• 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.

It should be noted that Akhaten was not a star; it was a planet. It's disappearance would not have had a (major) effect on the other seven planets in the system, although it should have effected the asteroids, unless they had some other means of generating artificial gravity (which is possible, given the moped).

Implosion is not the same as losing mass. As long as the mass of Akhaten is still there, the gravitational effects of an implosion should be negligible. The lack of heat and light would be a problem but not disasterous.

• 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.

There have been numerous occasions in the past where the TARDIS has not translated languages. Examples include the Judoon language, as well as uses of French and other non-English languages on some occasions, and also the "baby" language and the language of cats as evidenced in The Lodger and Closing Time.

I think it did translate for her, but not for us. That one time when she barked, the alien seemed to understand her.

• 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 change simply the leaf type.

• The sequences in which the Doctor is shown observing Clara as a child appear to contradict the prequel to The Bells of Saint John which has the Doctor interacting with Clara as a child, yet apparently oblivious as to her identity.

The Bells of St. John prequel happens when the Doctor is still looking for Clara. The encounters we see in Rings of Akhaten happen afterward when the Doctor has already found Clara for the third time and is now going back through her timeline.

He's not oblivious to her identity here. He only asked because it would look creepy if some random man knew this little girl's name.

• Does Doctor feeding Akhaten his memories mean that he actually lost these memories, like all the aliens lost the objects they sacrificed? He doesn't seem to suffer any kind of memory loss...

Then evidently, nope.

• The Doctor implies Akhaten is the largest creature he's ever seen, but would't Torajii be bigger, being a star?

Not necessarily. Stars and planets and other objects come in various sizes, and that's just the non-sentient ones. We're not sure of the relative sizes of these two. And, of course, there's also the possibility that he just wasn't thinking of the events of 42 at that particular moment.

• The Doctor says that the only thing of sentimental value he has on him is his sonic screwdriver. However minutes ago, during the ceremony, he was wearing Amy's reading glasses, which surely are of great sentimental value to him.

He most likely just wasn't thinking of the glasses. Intentionally or not, it did also serve as something of a "test of character" for Clara.

• Why is Merry shown as a small child during the events? If the Festival happens every thousand or so years, and Merry was chosen after the last Queen of Years died, surely she should be at least 1,000 years old.

We do not know her life expectancy, nor how fast she grows up. She could be both a child, and a thousand years old. Or, maybe not all Queens of Years die by being sacrificed, but of old age instead, if they're lucky enough not to be born at a time where they would have to take part in that ceremony.