ok um

[ysobel]

spoilers for the Dr Who 50th

I get how the "400 years in four seconds" trick with scanning the door worked -- the Doctors (8.5 and 10 at least) do not remember, but the sonic screwdriver doesn't forget.

But two things I don't get:

1) How did he have four hundred years to figure out the calculations for saving Gallifrey? To *think* about how he *might have* saved it, sure, but not how to work this specific multi-Tardis hijink.

2) How did he get his prior lives involved? Yes, it was fannishly awesome to have all of them swoop in -- even if some were sort of pastede on yey -- and "No, all *thirteen*" was amazing, but how did he work it, and how did he convince himselves to assemble in one place when that sort of breaks the rules, and how does he not remember having been part of it already argh?

Oh, and one more thing, related to etching a message in the Tower for modern day people to find:

3) How did Clara know that the numbers were the activation code for Jack's wrist thingamabob, and how did 11 know that *that* was what to write? Even if the "won't remember this" applies only to the saving of Gallifrey (so they remember most of the events up until they are in the shack ready to push the big red button) rather than to the whole event, that's a hell of a thing for 10 to have to remember to tell Clara in such a way that they both remember.

Wah, time travel makes my head hurt :)

Comments

[rainbow]

1) while we see the 3 doctors together at a single point as the war doctor starts the calculations, the screwdriver then goes on all his further adventures as 9, 10, and 11, computing all the while. war doctor is about 800; 11 is about 1200 by the time he's in that same room. and 10, i think, is 900 or so? so 10's screwdriver's been working on it for about 100 years when he checks and sees that it's still calculating. his screwdriver goes back with him to his other adventures and keeps computing int he background. 11 checks, and the computation has finally finished.

2) no idea, but i'm hoping we'll find out at christmas or next season. he doesn't remember it allfor the same reason 10 and war doctor won't remember the future and why 11, when he sees the hole in time in the museum suddenly "remember. sort of remember"s -- the memories won't stay because of the time lines are out of whack (whatever it is they say just before 10 leaves in his tardis, something like "you won't be able to hold on to the memory")

3) i suspect that's the doctor being scary brilliant. he knows jack's vortex manipulator is in the black archive, and (zygon) kate tells clara that the doctor knows it's there but won't give them the code. clara and kate heard elizabeth ordering the doctors taken to the tower, throw that time... thingy. he knows clara needs to find a way to get to him sans tardis, and he knows the v.m. is where she is, so getting the code to her is (to him, i'd bet) very obvious (which is why he pretty much ignores the others in favour of starting to write the code at once); i'm guessing he'd know kate would start looking at once.

i have no clue how clara knew the "it" they'd found was the activation code, though.

[rainbow]

(and did you notice the numbers? the time and date of the first broadcast in 63?)

[ysobel]

Re 1 -- but that was for the door, and that bit makes sense. For the "figuring out how the fuck to get all of Gallifrey into a stasis cube" bit at the end, they don't program anything into the screwdrivers, or even into the tardis, they just ... magically know it. And I don't get how.

[rainbow]

oh! i figured since they had all 13 doctors, that the first doctor had started the calculations on his sonic and that they'd finished in the intervening time.