# Talk:Silurian and Sea Devil

Technically, Silurians aren't "alien", not in the sense that the word is used in the category, to mean extraterrestrial races. Silurians are native to Earth, just not human.

While it's true that in The Sea Devils the Doctor says that they should have been better called Eocenes, that doesn't seem very more plausible than the Silurian era. After all, it's clearly shown that they were contemporary with Dinosaurs. --MockTurtle 17:04, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Well, obviously in the Whoniverse, dinosaurs existed during the Eocene era! :) I realize this - paleontology and/or geology were never the writers' strong suit. Just going by what the series is saying. -khaosworks 17:56, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Or that the Doctor got it wrong himself! Timrollpickering 20:13, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't want to seem like I'm making a fuss, but why was my statement that Scales of Injustice attempted to deal with the inconsistancies between the seventies stories and Warriors removed? Daibhid C 21:48, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure when or why the comment you're referring to was removed, but the article currently states (in the "Overview" section, right above the spoiler notice),
"The spin-off novel Scales of Injustice by Gary Russell and the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip Final Genesis explain the discrepancy by stating that Silurians of differing appearance belonged to different sub-species. The cover artwork of Scales of Injustice even portrays a hybrid Silurian with features intermediate between their aquatic cousins the Sea Devils and one of the Silurians seen in Warriors."
I'd hazard that either your contribution was moved in a rewrite, or removed because it was considered redundant with this.  Or something like that.  Anyway, the info is in the article now. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:10, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
Um, not quite. The difference of appearance is covered, but that was only part of it. As the bit on Warriors says "They also referred to a previous encounter with the Doctor, but the terms used did not match the earlier stories." Scales was written to be the encounter they were talking about.  Daibhid C 15:09, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Ah!  Sorry, I didn't get what you were talking about.  Looks like K. has fixed it now. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 20:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
I wasn't being clear. So it's probably for the best that my original peice has been replaced, since I think I used the same phrasing...Daibhid C 21:46, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
Sorry, it gets worse. Note my comments on the Old Silurian's Pangaea Earth globe, which would place them at c 250 million years before the present day- except that the extinction of the dinosaurs occurred seventy million years ago...
Calibanu (talk) 03:39, 29 September 2009 (UTC)User Calibanu

Without resorting to OR, can we say something about the fact that Homo reptilia is clearly an inappropriate taxonomic name for this species? Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 21:21, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we can without resorting to OR, but there's nothing in the story that suggests it is categorically intended in the context of being a taxonomic name. Other than the form being similar no reason to think so, plus good reason to believe it is not, considering to be considered a taxonomic name it would need to be published and meet with consensus amongst the scientific community, or a ruling by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. There's nowhere in any of these stories where such a public scientific discussion of their existence would be possible, and even then exceptions can be made by the commission to the code of zoological nomenclature, I mean it's not likely they would make such an exception, but being fictional the entire scenario is hypothetical by it's very nature. And there's plenty of Latin phrases and names which exist in the English language without being scientific terms. Also we saw some of them in Roman times at the end of the season, maybe some Romans simply called them lizard men in their native tongue, or the name comes from the New Roman Empire in the year 12005. The possibilities are endless so I don't think we can leap to the conclusion that it is impossible, when it's presented as being plausible within the show, that's the only context that matters.121.74.4.3 (talk) 03:53, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

The Sea Devils are a one-episode cousin of the Silurians. When the Doctor describes the "Earth Reptiles", he lists Sea Devil as one set of names for the same thing. The current BBC website lists the Sea Devils as an appearance of the Silurians. From a real-world perspective, as the evolution/history of a concept-of-monster, they should be mentioned as part of the Silurian fictional species' real-world development. Furthermore, as if this needed any more evidence, the latest Silurian episodes showed that the wider "species" has many forms and shapes. (On TARDIS Wikia, by all means, they should be separate articles, but not on Wikipedia.)~ZytheTalk to me! 14:22, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes but already the information on the Sea Devil article is much big. If we were to add that tp the Silurian article, then we'd make that one too big. Plus to say when ever a Sea Devil is present in a story, it's always directed as a Sea Devil and only the mention of it being related to a Silurian is made. --Victory93 (talk) 23:38, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
No. They could both be reduced to about six paragraphs in total, to be honest. and only the mention of it being related to a Silurian is made: yes, they are part of the same ongoing alien/plot device/character trope within a fictional universe. What we need is to keep the article at "Silurian (Doctor Who)" and only bold Silurian and Sea Devils in the lead, break the structure of the article down into ==Appearances==/===Television===/===Literature===/===Audio drama===, a bit like the layout of Jack Harkness . The infobox can actually serve its purpose, by listing the alternate names "Eocene", "Homo reptilia" and "Earth Reptiles".~ZytheTalk to me! 00:43, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
Agree with the merge proposal as it is mentioned more than once that they are part of the same species. It should be noted that, to date, they have appeared in one story of six episodes and another of four for a total of ten episodes all together, not one as mentioned above. MarnetteD | Talk 14:35, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
Also agree. They're fundamentally the same species and even refer to each other as such in their joint appearance in Warriors of the Deep. Alzarian16 (talk) 15:58, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

This article seems to me, and I've been watching Dr Who since the first, to be sufficiently self documenting. There are references to TV programs throughout. What do you want, copies of the scripts? Lin (talk) 08:29, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm just wondering, since the opening paragraphs describe three different appearances of the Silurians, if it would make sense to do a collage in the vein of that at the Master and Doctor articles (or even the one on the Predator article) comparing the different appearances. Now I think about it, something like at the Xindi article is probably more in line with what I'm thinking of:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/29/Xindi-Species.JPG
I'm not sure if such an image should include the alternative Silurian appearance in Warriors of the Deep or not (I think the Sea Devils are also somewhat different), but considering this article seems to be covering all the reptile men sub-species I think it makes sense to, at least somewhere in the article, pictorially represent these different sub-species. Comics (talk) 11:09, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

I was a bit confused by this article - my understanding of the 2010 series is that the Silurians were the same, it just implied that in Old-Who, the Silurians were shown as wearing helments, whereas in New-Who, we see the Silurians both with their helmets on (looking like 70s/80s Silurians), and with helmets off, looking "homo reptilia". To me this implies that they always looked like this, just under their masks. I'm watching "Warriors of the Deep" right now, in which the Silurians have a flashing light on their head, and never move their mouths. That's consistent with a helmet imho - even in the Whoniverse I can't imagine a species evolving to have a flashing light in their skull. Either way, the inference in this article is entirely unsourced so it seems like the opinion of the writer to me.Gymnophoria (talk) 21:02, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

I'd say it's debatable as to whether what you're suggesting is OR, since it's entirely likely that the production team just couldn't pull off something 'alien' without sacrificing the ability of the actor to move their lips. I think Davros almost had this problem too in some episodes. If I recall as well, the episodes had a much lower budget back then and some of the funds for that episode would have gone into the sets and the (failed) Myrka creature. I'm pretty sure as well that the flashing light is actually a third eye that can be used by the Silurians for hypnosis (this is present in their first appearance, Doctor Who and the Silurians, but might have been completely missed by the team working on Warriors of the Deep). As it is I'm trying to find an appropriate quote from in-universe, but most quote sites seem to favour the ones about 'last of my species' and stuff like that. Has anyone got the episode to probably help with a better wording? Comics (talk) 23:36, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Ha, the "Myrka" is just embarassing! Particularly the scene where Doctor Solow apparently gets killed by flashing lights when attempting to karate kick a green pantomime horse! No wonder Peter Davison resigned. Gymnophoria (talk) 19:46, 25 September 2011 (UTC)
Apparently he was impressed by the quality of some scripts in that season (mostly Caves of Androzani though lol) and regretted choosing to resign. Doubt he was talking about this one though. Still, you get my point about production values? Comics (talk) 21:41, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Aren't the Silurians affliated with the Sea Devils and the Alliance? This is what I heard. But User:Zythe reverted my edit. Are they or are they not affliated with them? 90.193.177.35 (talk) 16:08, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

Because a field exists doesn't mean it should be used. It's stupid. For one thing, the article subsumes Sea Devils. The other thing would be the Alliance are a one-episode plot element and hardly a defining attribute of the character. Don't put anything into the infobox you wouldn't give its own sentence to in the lead. Zythe (talk) 18:43, 26 September 2011 (UTC)
It's kind of like saying that the Daleks are affiliated with that one guy who appeared in Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks and the Special Weapons Daleks. A better case is they're affiliated with Davros. If the Alliance reappears in a major way I think Zythe might be more willing to accept it's an established and important affiliation for the characters, but as such it's more like the Silurians just appeared because they had the costumes around (cynical and out-of-universe, but the Silurian's didn't have any lines if I recall correctly). Comics (talk) 23:58, 26 September 2011 (UTC)

I understand that our former lead image, for some reason, is on Commons and caught in a deletion debate because Commons isn't for copyrighted TV screenshots. I uploaded a collage I put together of the Silurians and their cousins over the years and added that as the lead image; is that okay, or should I play around with it a little bit more? I think it's a little better than what we had, since it shows the Sea Devils and cuts down on how many images we need to use in the article, but if anyone has concerns about showing the Warriors of the Deep versions I'm more than happy to cut those out. Also, if you have a better wording for the caption go ahead and edit it - I'm not sure how good it is myself, but it was the best I could come up with at the time. Comics (talk) 07:41, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

The collage contained the deleted image (which is still not okay to use, even within a larger image) and was not fair use, because it contained too many pictures.Zythe (talk) 12:21, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
Okay, it's just my understanding was that the problem with the other image was where it was located (Wikipedia Commons, for free use pictures - see above) and not so much the fact it wasn't free use (since any images are going to be copyright since it's a TV series). Comics (talk) 12:40, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
That was the issue, but fair use was another one I could see with having that other picture...Zythe (talk) 18:28, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
I believe that a collage of some sort with at least the Classic Series Silurians, Sea Devils and new series Silurians would be useful and could be covered under fair use if it's used to support the lead's commentary that there have been different versions of the Silurians over the years. I obviously don't have the consensus, but just expressing I think an image might be useful for that. Comics (talk) 20:55, 29 September 2011 (UTC)

Is the name based on the real life Silurian period starting 443 Mya?  If so, is there any documented source? Jimw338 (talk) 21:46, 12 November 2017 (UTC)