Howling:Abbadon and Miracle Day

I was looking at the Abbadon page on the wiki and thought of something. What if Abbadon had broken free from the rift during the Miracle? We know he absorbs life. We also know that Miracle immortality was not forever, because eventually there would be nothing left to still be alive. So what if a miraclised human stepped in Abbadon's shadow? He could absorb their life energy and that should technically kill them - but it's Miracle Day - so nobody can die. Would they die, or would they die but somehow be alive? 94.72.209.160talk to me 17:52, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

It would probably be pretty much the same as burning them. They would technically still be alive, but they would be so far into category 1 that they might as well be dead.Icecreamdif talk to me 20:02, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

But burning on Miracle Day DID cause death. Presumably because every single cell in the body is completely necrotised and the mysterious connection that all the particles in the body retain due to the Miracle is broken. My best guess about what would happen if Abbadon devoured someone on Miracle Day is that he would get the life energy but they would still be alive. They'd have no life left - but the body would still be going. 94.72.209.160talk to me 21:37, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that it was ever confirmed one way or the other, but since Angelo was stated to be the first death since miracle day it seems more likely that, since death was impossible, the burned category 1s were still alive even though they were just ash.Icecreamdif talk to me 23:15, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

RTD hinted that disintegrating the body entirely caused death, and Jane Espenson later confirmed that incineration caused death on her Twitter account. 94.72.209.160talk to me 00:34, January 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * even if it doesn't cause death as Icecreamdif said, if you are completely disintegrated, your neurons do not connect together nor do they connect to a brain so there's no senses of any sort and your brain is merely small disconnected pieces, each incapable of self awareness, there is no conscious you; you are dead. --05:25, January 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * if trees can somehow have a soul which doesn't connect to their bodies, then i think humans would be able to have one (or some other sort of conciousness) outside their bodies after they had burned. i mean, if all in universe sources state that people can't die no matter what state their bodies are in, their consiousness might be separate from their bodies like the trees in doctor widow and the wardrobe which might be how they stay alive. Imamadmad talk to me 07:49, January 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * were they life energy or actual consciousnesses in the Christmas special? I do not object the idea completely since it was said that the Timelords would have became a being of pure consciousness if they suceeded. But was it really a simple matter of the morphic field keeping them biologically alive? Moreover, is the being alive if it's not biologically alive or biologically conscious? Since the same could be said if the humans were biologically dead and some sort of soul continue to exist regardless. --222.166.181.160talk to me 07:59, January 2, 2012 (UTC)

Either way, if you believe in souls, it would still have to use a brain. With a brain thats been fried to dust whatever conciousness remained it would have no memories or feelings. In the case of Abbadon it's likely all the conscience, or soul if you like, would be removed because that's exactly what Abbadon took from the body. 178.78.81.210talk to me 11:10, January 2, 2012 (UTC)

It's an assumption that "if you believe in souls, it would still have to use a brain". However, humans can be unconscious (and we all are, from time to time). If we have souls, having a soul cannot be incompatible with being unconscious. Whoever it was contributed at 05:25, January 2, 2012 is on treacherous ground with "there is no conscious you; you are dead" -- not being conscious is very definitely not the same as being dead!

94, "RTD hinted that disintegrating the body entirely caused death..." etc.: The Miracle operated via the morphic field. It's related to form (that's what "morphic" means), so destroy the form and the field loses its effect. Alter the form enough and it should do the same. The question is: Form at what level? It can't be gross form, or losing limbs would be enough. It's more likely to be at a microscopic level, hence the need for total disintegration. Nonetheless, it's quite consistent to say that complete incineration, which does destroy the form at the microscopic level, would remove the person from the scope of the Miracle. --2.96.23.109talk to me 11:58, January 2, 2012 (UTC)

uh...I think you took the sentence out of context, the sentence clearly said "if you are completely disintegrated, your neurons do not connect together nor do they connect to a brain so there's no senses of any sort and your brain is merely small disconnected pieces, each incapable of self awareness, there is no conscious you; you are dead". The sentence is saying if you have no biological signs, no senses, no self awareness, and no consciousness, then calling yourself alive is much like saying ghosts exist and ghosts are alive. I doubt it is reasonable to call a being that's not biologically alive, alive. --222.166.181.4talk to me 13:13, January 2, 2012 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by "biological". In the Whoniverse, at least, the Time Lords intended and expected to be alive (in some sense) as beings of "consciousness alone" (The End of Time). However, the main point was that "disintegrating the body entirely caused death" fits with the idea of the morphic field. --2.96.23.109talk to me 14:01, January 2, 2012 (UTC)

The patients weren't just particlised... the actual particles they were seperated into were completely necrotised, so basically "deadened" if that's a word which it probably isn't. 178.78.81.210talk to me 14:03, January 2, 2012 (UTC)

Just going by what we were told in the show, people couldn't die. Death was simply impossible. Even if the person was simply ash that couldn't think, feel, or do anything, they were, in some sense, still alive. Otherwise, nobody would have said that Angelo was the first person to die, and people who wanted to die would burn themselves instead of just category oneing themselves by jumping off buildings.Icecreamdif talk to me 21:16, January 2, 2012 (UTC)

Well inineration was still quite a slow death, and miraclised humans would have been alive and burning for slightly longer than incinerated mortals would be. But the reason noone said it in the show was because nobody knew. We know because it's been confirmed out of universe. Potentially some scientists in universe discovered that burmed cells perished, and the givernment decided that would be a good way to dispose of cat 1s. Read the Miracle Day page on the wiki, because it mentions incineration somewhere. I suppose Angelo was the first person to die from what they knew, but I doubt Torchwood or the CIA did experiments to check if incineration "did the job". 178.78.81.210talk to me 22:40, January 2, 2012 (UTC)


 * well, Icecreamdif, in what sense were they alive then? --222.166.181.28talk to me 04:49, January 3, 2012 (UTC)

I have no idea what sense they were alive in, but what I do know is that death was impossible. Life in the Whoniverse is far more complicated than in the real world, and death is not a fixed concept. As has been stated, the Time Lords believed that it was possible to ascend to a state of pure consciousness, so perhaps it was something like that but while brain dead. It is unlikely that there were actually any scientific experiments to determine whether or not incinerating people actually killed them. There reasoning was almost certainly that burning them got rid of the bodies, and therefore they didn't have to deal with the cat-1s anymore.Icecreamdif talk to me 08:50, January 3, 2012 (UTC)

It was rather obvious that the people making the decisions were unconcerned with scientific, philosophical or ethical issues surrounding the question "Are they really dead?" All the decision-makers were interested in was "Are they out of the way?" -- and, as an excuse, if not as a genuine concern, "Are they hygenic?" --89.241.68.183talk to me 13:31, January 3, 2012 (UTC)

1. I didn't confirm any scientists did experiment on it, I just said in passing. 2. Bear in mind that the scientists and the government will have considered that one day their bodies would have to be disposed of too. If I were one of those people makimg the decisions I'd quite like to make sure I got a good deal. For instance, their were other easier options. Why not just bury them alive, like we used to do with corpses, and not have to bother with taking them to a camp? Yes the Government and Scientists didn't give a Damn about the patients, but they will have considered what was going to happen to them when they were a shrivelled, aged, living corpse. 178.78.81.210talk to me 14:04, January 3, 2012 (UTC)

Point 1 is fair enough. Point 2, though, isn't. First, the people involved would only consider their own disposal if they thought there was a real risk of becoming cat-1s and "it won't happen to me" is a very common self-delusion. Second, even if they did take a longer view, recognising that old age (if nothing else) would eventually reduce them to cat-1s, they'd quite likely regard the camps, etc. as an interim measure until things could be reorganised -- by them and in their interests. "By the time it affects me, we'll have a better way of dealing with it" is another common self-delusion. Third, many of them would be thinking "I'd better go along with it for now, so it doesn't happen to me until I've got myself into a position where I'm safe." (The self-delusion there is believing that it's ever possible to be safe, which it isn't.) That's something totalitarian governments use as routine and it can work for a very, very long time. "Why not just bury them alive...?" Simple: The risk that relatives would try to dig them up again. Incineration avoids that because there's nothing physical left that relatives could try to retrieve (apart from shapeless, unidentifiable ashes). --2.96.24.121talk to me 17:59, January 3, 2012 (UTC)

Mind you, it's entirely possible that the ones making the decisions were told they would get a fairer treatment. We saw in Children of Earth that when the human race had to give away most of its children, the ones deciding which children to give away were told their children would be safe. Of course they could be lying through their backside and throw you in an incinerator anyway. 77.86.108.251talk to me 19:13, January 3, 2012 (UTC)

"I have no idea what sense they were alive in, but what I do know is that death was impossible. "' 


 * How do you know death were impossible?--222.166.181.20talk to me 21:13, January 3, 2012 (UTC)


 * it was stated a number of times in the show. Imamadmad talk to me 01:43, January 4, 2012 (UTC)


 * Just because the characters believe death were impossible, that doesn't really mean it is. Doctor believed Jack couldn't possibly die immediately after the Bad Wolf's intervention, but Jack could in Miracle Day. Doctor believe Melody couldn't be anything but a normal human, and she wasn't. Doctors believed the Miracle was extra-terrestrial in nature. The list goes on and on. If they were very clear about the concept of life and death, would they still have called the guy caught in explosion "undying". --222.166.181.143talk to me 05:26, January 4, 2012 (UTC)


 * ok then, we won't believe anything said by anyone ever again incase it isn't true. that would make for a rather boring show. Imamadmad talk to me 05:43, January 4, 2012 (UTC)

222: I'll just point out that Jack can die, but one day he WILL come back to life. Even in Miracle Day's case his remains would have floated from out of the morphic field once the Earth was destroyed a few billion years later and he would be immortised again. 77.86.108.251talk to me 11:27, January 4, 2012 (UTC)


 * This just says that you shouldn't take the word of characters who don't know what they are saying and denies what we saw. Just because humans didn't have any clear understanding about what's happening, that's far from rational to assume that people burned down to ashes with no nervous system and functioning brain have disembodied souls that would be considered alive. --222.166.181.122talk to me 14:56, January 4, 2012 (UTC)

My guess is that for a person to still be alive on MD, they must have at least one functioning cell. The Suicide Bomber might have had one unfried cell, Ellis Hartley Monroe might have had one unsquished cell, but the patients in a module, all their cells were destroyed. 77.86.108.251talk to me 15:17, January 4, 2012 (UTC)

Earlier on in the discussion some of you were contemplating that the conciousness might have somehow been left with the remains of the bodies despite said remains being very damaged. Could that possibly mean that if you dropped a reality bomb on some miraclised humans, they would become beings of pure conciousness, just like the time lords belived would happen to them in "The End Of Time"? 87.102.117.106talk to me 17:06, January 6, 2012 (UTC)

Probably not. At least not in the same way. The "reality bomb" would have "unglued" all matter -- and presumably antimatter, too -- but there would still have been a universe, with time, space and (because they'd been protected from the "reality bomb") Daleks. The Time Lords intended to bring the universe, including time, to a complete end. They never explained how they expected/intended to "ascend" to become "beings of consciousness alone" but they would have been freed from "cause and effect", as Rassilon said. After the "reality bomb", there would still have been the possibility that matter etc. could have re-formed (if the "reality bomb" emission had been switched off). Because time was still running, change was still possible. Eventually, the Daleks could have had something worth ruling. Admittedly, "eventually" would probably mean a very, very, very long time. After the Time Lords' "Ultimate Sanction", no change would have been possible because there would have been no time in which change could occur. The difference would be rather academic from our (human) point of view -- either way, we'd cease to exist -- but the Time Lords' plans were much more drastic than those of the Daleks. Davros was exaggerating that "reality itself" would have been destroyed by his bomb, but it would have been by the "Ultimate Sanction". --78.146.183.1talk to me 22:03, January 6, 2012 (UTC)

So if we are to assume that a person's conciousness remains with them whatever happens to the body, would they just become "ghosts" if their body was turned to nothing? I think the earlier suggestion about conciousness' remaining with the body is very unlikely, and besides, Jane Espenson has CONFIRMED that incineration was enough to cause death on MD. 87.102.117.106talk to me 22:23, January 6, 2012 (UTC)

Although I'd not usually be inclined to rely on "out of universe" explanations, what Jane Espenson is reported to have said (I've not heard her for myself) does agree with the idea of the morphic field, as has been said above (see contributions from January 2). The point made there is that burning changed the remains so much the morphic field and, therefore, the Miracle no longer applied to them. --78.146.183.1talk to me 23:10, January 6, 2012 (UTC)

Guys, the only reason that incineration causing death was confirmed out of universe was that there was no way they could have confirmed it in TCOL without ruining the ending. So you're basically denying something that is definitely true.

So going back on the question, what about Abbadon's shadow falling over a miraclised human? 87.102.117.106talk to me 23:34, January 6, 2012 (UTC)

My guess is that Abbadon would absorb all their potential days, but they would not die so he could take in more potential days, and they would basically be an all you can eat buffet, just like Jack. If Abbadon carried on for long enough he would overfeed on life energy and die, and the miraclised human would be perfectly okay, possibly not even category one. 87.102.117.106talk to me 18:21, January 12, 2012 (UTC)