Rory the Roman

[ffutures]

I was just looking at the final episodes of the last season of Doctor Who and it occurred to me that Rory has the memories of spending 2000+ years as a Roman warrior, and may have possibly learned a little about being one. So, how good is he?

Poll Rory's Swordsmanship

I offer the idea to anyone who can use it.

Comments

[dandello]

I figure that with his job as a guard, he didn't have a lot of time to practice his swordsmanship.

[ffutures]

Endless time standing around bored? He has to do something to pass the time...

[dandello]

Very true - but then he'd have to find someone to practice against. So maybe he's better than adequate. Inigo Montoya spent time practicing somewhere... *grin*

[pbristow]

I reckon he *became* quite competent back in the first century CE, although being an immortal lump of plastic he didn't actually ever need to become better than that. But after the 1700s his sword skills become pretty superflous, and anyway, whatever *information* he remembers from that life, even if it includes skills/muscle memory, he's in a normal human body now. Do autons *have* muscle memory? If so, is it transferable to human muscles? Would the memory of how much/little effort an auton had to make to lift the thing bear any correlation to how much a human has to, for example? What about *which* muscles have to do which bits of the lifting/pulling/tilting/pushing?

So unless he's actually taken up sword practice again, his muscles won't be acclimatized to the moves. A bit like me and playing the piano, 20 years after I last tried in earnest: If he picked up a sword now assuming he'd be able to handle it properly, he'd probably only get out a few stuttering bars of chopsticks before getting chopped himself!

[ffutures]

Good point - but of course the script writers may see it differently.

[keristor]

Even if the memory is transferrable, the actual muscles won't have the ability unless they have been practiced. You may know what buttons to press, but if the hardware doesn't respond then nothing will happen. And if he hasn't done sword practice for a few years -- or decades or centuries, or maybe never in the human body -- no amount of memory is going to help except in remembering how to train. That latter can indeed be useful, but it will still need years of regular training to reach any peak he once had.

So I reckon he hasn't been doing it since he got back with Amy, he's had other distractions. So he's maybe a bit more proficient than I am (at least he remembers some of what he knew) but is basically barely adequate at actually doing it.

[ffutures]

Sounds plausible.

[liliaeth]

I'm gonna go with adequate, because I figure he made more use of his hand gun thingy,than a sword as the box's guard.

[ffutures]

Not so sure - we never saw him using it once he was guarding the box, and with all the centurion stories it seems more likely he stuck with the sword.

[pauldrye]

They lampshaded it in the opening two-parter this season, didn't they? Something about the Roman memories being like a door in his head that he doesn't open?

[ffutures]

They did.

[ffutures]

I've a feeling there may still be repercussions.

[armb]

He was an Auton, and as constructed beings maybe they are designed for stability and not being affected by experience.