From: ph9991_manfr@rivers.acc.uwrf.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.drwho
Subject: Re: The Doctor is...
Date: 9 Nov 92 01:49:09 GMT
Organization: University of Wisconsin - River Falls

> I haven't been following this thread, so perhaps it is a bad idea to jump
> in...but are you seriously suggesting that the Doctor and Rassilon may be
> the same person?
> 
> THIS IS RIDICULOUS!
> 
> I mean, really, one can carry this sort of speculation too far.  Rassilon
> and Omega are figures from Time Lord history.  There is too much evidence
> showing that the Doctor was in his first incarnation when Hartnell played
> him for him to be that old.  Time Lord history was already ancient when the
> Doctor appeared.  Not a chance!
> 
> Now I suppose you'll tell me that in a later incarnation, the Doc went back
> in time and became Rassilon, in a sort of historical fulfillment thing. 
> However, the TARDIS does have limits on its travel, and *cannot* function
> before a certain point in time.
> 
> Are you just tossing ideas around, or do you have some concrete reason to
> believe that the Doctor=Rassilon?  (Or =Omega?)
> 
> And why do half the people on this newsgroup believe that they are the
> Doctor?  Get a grip on reality please.
> 
> Drewcifer
> 

The basis of this argument, that the Doctor is Rassilon and/or Omega is
based on some non-canon but still highly interesting sources, Ben 
Aaronovitch's novel of "Remembrance of the Daleks" (the best Who novel ever,
BTW), and Marc Platt's New Adventure "Time's Crucible."
In each, we see some flashback scenes to the Time of Chaos as Rassilon
and Omega set about the detonation of the star that gives them the power
source for the time travel experiments.  
Also present in these scenes is a mysterious third figure called simply
"the other," who seems to actually have more authority than Rassilon does
at one point in "Remembrance" where he forbids something.

The implication seems to be that the Doctor is the other, but given the
other big leading on implication Aaronovitch fooled us with in that story,
it could easily be someone else.
How does the Doctor get there?  I agree when you say the Doctor can't be
that old (ten million years old, he'd have to be), thus if it is him, or
if he was there or even if he was just a witness to events, then perhaps
the Doctor travelled back in time to this point in Gallifreyan history.

You say this is normally impossible for a TARDIS, and I agree with that
too........
.....Ever wonder why the Doctor's TARDIS's guidance system is so wonky?  :)

Perhaps when he first left his normal time, he set about a first visit back
in time to Gallifrey's past and by doing that and setting in overrides on
the TARDIS's functions, he damaged the guidance system....
or alternatively, he bypassed the safeguards in a much more neat way, by
bypassing the Universe...say he managed to do on purpose what he did
accidentally in "Inferno," namely slip the TARDIS sideways in time,
then travel backwards in time in this other Universe, and slip sideways
back into this one again....
or perhaps he didn't come back into quite the right one, or perhaps his
interventions in Gallifrey's past (if any) caused even more timelines to
split off.......

By just a few paragraphs in a novel and a few lines in "Remembrance"
itself (TV version) and in "Silver Nemesis," suddenly a hell of a lot
of extremely interesting plot possibilities were opened up and really
did make this show "Doctor WHO" again.


Steven.K.Manfred