A Good Man Goes to War: Melody Pond & Schroedinger's DNA

[bystander_3]

WARNING: Spoilers for A Good Man Goes To War !

ALSO WARNING: Long, rambling essay ahead!

Comments

[bystander_3]

I'm glad it was helpful! I'm a little flustered by the science compliment and feel maybe I should include a disclaimer that the science is based on what I distantly remember from school, so it might not be 100% accurate, but it's certainly close enough to serve as a metaphor.

I too was bugged by little things about the episode and had to niggle with it mentally until I came to an interpretation that I liked. On the whole, I love the reveal, though.

[farsh_nuke]

I think regeneration comes through time travel because time brings with it energy, a whole hunking lot of it and sort of simultaneously juxtaposes the old and young you against each other, creating a paradox, which quantum mechanics alleviates by having you absorb it into your timeline, into your body.

[bystander_3]

I like it! It works and it sounds like much along the same lines as I was thinking with overlapping timelines.

[bystander_3]

"The TARDIS did it" is probably still the simplest and most elegant solution to the question of how River ended up with Time Lord DNA and I think I've seen fan fiction based on exactly that premise. I guess my brain is seeking an alternate explanation that doesn't make Team Tardis's family tree more recursively tangled than it alread is, what with the Doctor being Amy's fairy godfather at the same time that Amy is the Doctor's mother-in-law.

I think I will sleep better at night if I can come up with a logical scenario where River isn't effectively the product of a Amy/Rory/TARDIS threesome.

[bystander_3]

Ah-ha! Now, there is a metaphor that I like better as it makes me much less squeamish.

[bystander_3]

I think the TARDIS is very, very non-linear. She's definitely an "everything happening at once" sort of gal. I also think she's extremely vague on human relationships and etiquette and mostly leaves that for the Doctor to figure out. The human-TARDIS meta-crisis in Bad Wolf thought "Oh, I'll bring Jack back to life! This will be great! What could possibly go wrong?", so her track record for thinking through the implications of her help from a linear human perspective is... not very good. So, I suppose she could be responsible.

I may have to write that fic now. :)

[farsh_nuke]

Um the bad wolf was not the tardis, the badwolf was rose with the energy of the tardis, big difference.

[bystander_3]

Oh, I know, I just meant that Bad Wolf was Rose with the TARDIS's knowledge flowing through her head in much the same way that the DoctorDonna was Donna with a Time Lord's knowledge flowing through her head.

[siouxieq]

To continue the wave particle metaphor : it wasn't just one crack in time, they were always talking about cracks (as plural). This could emulate the two slit experiment and Melody could be an interference pattern, each new regeneration a dark patch between the light.

I knew that degree in Physics would come in handy for something impotent one day :)

[bystander_3]

Wow! You've just blown my mind! Regenerations as the banded interference pattern created by the overlap of two waves: that makes a strange sort of sense (at least as much sense as my brain has ever been able to grasp of how quantum mechanics works in the real world.)

I can see it!

Surely, you mean "something important" rather than "something impotent", right? ...Right? (wink) ;-)

[siouxieq]

Yes that was important not impotent. It's interesting how iPad/iPod/iPhone iOS autocorrects and sometimes makes just as much sense as what you wanted to say.

There are lots of quantum mechanics parallels in Dr Who and although there is a lot of pseudo science used, some of the higher level physics is quite accurate.