Talk:River Song

22 APRIL 2011
This section is a bit confusing. The alternative timeline for this date is mentioned first ("22 APRIL 2011") and then, in the "SILENCE IN AMERICA", there is another description of the events occurring with this date and the Doctor's death. I'm not sure how best to describe two different versions of what happened on this particular day at Lake Silencio but I think they should be closer together, in adjacent paragraphs. And then, at the end of the article, the section "ALTERNATE TIMELINE" repeats the version of events of "22 APRIL 2011".

Also, following these sections is "THE OPENING OF THE PANDORICA" when, in the Doctor's timeline, this event occurs before the events at Lake Silencio which is described earlier. Badwolff ☎  22:24, May 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * Umm, no? Why should it? It's like this because this the order this happened to River. She "kills" the Doctor, then her older self sees herself at the lakeside "killing" the Doctor while she stops Amy and Rory from interfering, and then she sees the Pandorica open. The Wedding of River Song even outright says that the River that isn't inside the astronaut suit is from the future relative to the one that is. -- Tybort (talk page) 22:35, May 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * Umm, then why is the alternative timeline presented both at the beginning and at the end of the article? Badwolff ☎  22:42, May 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * I wasn't really referring to the alternate timeline section when I said that. Just how River's life was ordered. I do see that alternate timeline does indeed repeat 22 April 2011 at least in part though. -- Tybort (talk page) 22:49, May 31, 2013 (UTC)

Aliases
Why have Mels and Melody Malone been removed from River's aliases? I can perhaps see why "Mels" is gone, since it's a nickname of Melody (and this wiki doesn't recognize the sources regarding "Zucker"), but there is an entire book where she goes by the alias Melody Malone for months while running the Angels Detective Agency in 1930s New York. It's not just a nickname or something she titled her in-universe book, she used it as an actual alias. Mewiet ☎  23:33, September 27, 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you provide the name of the book where this happens? Thanks. Shambala108 ☎  00:20, September 28, 2013 (UTC)
 * The Angel's Kiss: A Melody Malone Mystery. This is the only name she uses for herself in this book and instructs others to refer to her as it as well, even though she admits to the first Rock Railton copy that Malone isn't really her last name (and jokes that whether Melody is her first is complicated, but never offers him an alternative). There are several quotes I can provide if you need them. Mewiet ☎  16:10, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * No need for quotes, I checked the page and it seems reasonable as an alias. However, I checked the page history, and Melody Malone was removed, along with several other so-called aliases, by User:CzechOut. I think his reasoning was that Melody Pond is the "main" alias, as the infobox states, and that maybe he doesn't see Melody Malone as a main enough alias to qualify for the infobox. We'll probably want to get his input on whether this particular one can be added back. Shambala108 ☎  16:33, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking into this with me. The main infobox says "main aliases", hence my confusion. Since it was plural I figured it wasn't restricted to a single or topmost alias, but the most prominent aliases, if there should be more than one. I checked other pages for comparison (to see if they had been restricted to one as well) and noticed the Sarah Jane Smith page still lists multiple aliases under "main aliases," for example. (Granted, I'm not sure how prominently she used all of those aliases since I'm not nearly as familiar with her history in Classic Who and non-SJA TV spinoff media.) So that's why I was wondering why River's page had been restricted to only one alias. Since she's not referred to as anything other than Melody Malone for the entirety of a valid prose source, I feel like that one should qualify as a main alias. Mewiet ☎  18:30, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, first of all I wouldn't use other infoboxes as guides. The alias section of infoboxes is one of the most misused sections of the wiki. And the plural aliases allows for more than one, but doesn't require more than one.
 * So the main issue we have here is just how important/prominent/main the Melody Malone alias is. If it's only in one story, then it's pretty questionable, but I can ask Czechout what he thinks, since he's the one who removed it. I'll look into it and let you know. Shambala108 ☎  18:43, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, I didn't realize that about the infoboxes. I'll note that for future reference. (Or lack thereof, so to speak.) I really appreciate your help. Sometimes it seems like questions on the talk pages don't get noticed, so thank you! Mewiet ☎  18:48, September 29, 2013 (UTC)

Winter Frost Fair
According to the section "Return to Demons' Run", River went to the Frost Fair for her birthday with a Doctor. It happened after the battle of the Demons' Run, from her point of view, and before The Angels Take Manhattan, because she's still in jail, but have we got other information to put the event in that particular section, other than in "Undated events"? HarveyWallbanger ☎  15:02, December 15, 2013 (UTC)

Selfish?
The sentence " River was rather selfish since she was willing to sacrifice the entire Universe in order to protect the Doctor." seems rather problematic. She was trying to save both the Universe and the Doctor. Concerning how many times the doctor has saved the Universe, the Doctor's death is itself a threat to the Universe. Emmette Hernandez Coleman ☎  14:07, March 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * You're right, it's a violation of Tardis:Neutral point of view. Feel free to remove it, or I can get to it later. Shambala108 ☎  14:24, March 26, 2014 (UTC)

Added one word to intro
I changed the wording of the introduction slightly to read "third known incarnation." Upon reviewing the episodes we do not know for certain that the "astronaut child" incarnation was the first incarnation of River. We do not know that she regenerated into the Mels incarnation. The only direct link we know is from Mels to River. At no point is River referred to as a third incarnation. There is plenty of wiggle room for another incarnation of Melody to exist. For example (and this is pure speculation) we don't know that Kovarian didn't invoke a regeneration in Melody early on to confirm that she could regenerate. 68.146.52.234talk to me 15:08, May 27, 2014 (UTC)


 * I definitely agree with the idea of what you say, but the wording still needs to be tweaked. From the in-universe perspective, we can't really call something "unknown" or "unnamed", because in the majority of cases, someone in the DWU will know the information. In other words, we can't write as if it's from our perspective, but rather from those of the DWU. To make a messy comment more clear, I'll use your example. It's highly likely that Kovarian would know how many incarnations of River there are, so saying River is the "third known" contradicts the fact that someone else does know. And in fact, River probably knows how many incarnations she has had.


 * I hope this is clear. It's clear in my head but not so easy to put into words. At any rate, I agree that we have no guarantee that River is the third (unless someone can provide a valid source), but we need to change the wording. Shambala108 ☎  15:28, May 27, 2014 (UTC)

Major changes to the chronology
A pair of details in the chronological order of River's biography are not proper, to me.


 * The "Easter Island" and "Jim the Fish" adventures are *dated*: they happen
 * after First Night, when the Doctor explains to her how to use the diary
 * before The Impossible Astronaut, when River talks about them
 * So they should go in the "Imprisonment" subsection.


 * The two pieces of information in the "Return to the Battle of Demon's Run" section are *undated*. River visits Demon's Run:
 * after First Night (she has a vortex manipulator and she has visited the TARDIS, since she knows the Doctor's cot)
 * before the "birthday with Stevie Wonder" ->
 * The birthday was:
 * after Demons' Run
 * after the "Silence in America", or after the Pandorica (as suggested in your timeline): unless she's lying, she acknowledges she's already met her father before he knew her identity. (If she was lying, it's even worse: it's just after Demon's Run).
 * before Angels in Manhattan, since she's in jail.
 * So it's a fuzzy range of time: in the best case after "Silence in America" e before "A pardoned woman" (no indications about the Eternity Clock and the Byzantium), in the worst case between First Night (in "Imprisonment") and "A pardoned woman". They should go in the Undated events...

... unless I am missing something, and with River Song it is easy. That's why I am writing here! --HarveyWallbanger ☎  23:25, October 5, 2014 (UTC)

Appearing again
Does anyone know if she's ever going to appear again??? It was indicated that she only traveled with the 11th Doctor and has never been mentioned by the 12th Doctor. That final scene in Name of (how did she even appear psychically if she was just a computer program anyway???) felt like a final goodbye to her character but I can't find anything saying either way. I mean they COULD still bring her back as one of her past selves before her death but does anyone know if they're going to do that or not???--WarGrowlmon18 ☎  21:13, July 19, 2015 (UTC)


 * Whether or not she ever appears again, per Tardis:Spoiler policy, on this wiki we do not discuss anything about upcoming episodes. Shambala108 ☎  01:28, July 20, 2015 (UTC)

Soooo...
How long until someone locks down this page? lol OS25 (talk to me, baby.) 14:35, September 2, 2015 (UTC)

River's Sexuality
In Husbands of River Song, she was revealed to have had (at least) two wives, so please stop removing that fact from the page. She is bisexual, and I'm pretty sure Steven Moffat (or one of the writers) has said this in the interview. I'm bisexual, I really hate seeing this ignored because I was really happy to learn she was like me in terms of sexuality. 71.163.147.18talk to me 21:19, January 1, 2016 (UTC)

River's appearance in Journey's End
For some reason, although I've tried adding her appearance in Journey's End, somebody always removes it. I feel like (although her appearance was only in a flashback when Davros was asking the Doctor how many people had died in his name) this still counts as an appearance. Others who appeared in the same flashback, such as Chantho, Robert MacLeish, Colin Skinner and Ursula Blake, have had their appearance added to their list.

However, a great deal of other people, including Jabe, Lynda Moss, Astrid Peth and Luke Rattigan, have not had it added to their list of appearances.

Should "Professor" be part of the boldfaced lead and should River Song be put in quotations marks
Jack "BtR" Saxon has added the title "Professor" to the boldfaced lead and has removed quotation marks around the alias River Song. I believe such decisions regarding such a central character should be taken after a proper discussion in the community. I am starting this discussion now.

Regarding featuring "Professor" at the beginning of an article, the Wiki has been inconsistent. Jack Saxon suggests two examples: Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and John Benton, both of which are not very telling: the Brig is such an exception, down to The Brigadier redirect, that it can hardly be a template for anything; John Benton, on the other hand, has held a number of military ranks over his career and none of them is present at the beginning of his page. However, my own research shows that the honourific Professor has been used rather inconsistently. Here are three main trends: Unfortunately, I am not familiar with many of these characters, but it is my suspicion that most of them are only known in DWU at the time they are professors.
 * "Professor" at the beginning of the page (boldfaced): Winfold Hobbes, Eric Stahlman, George Litefoot, Grisenko, J. P. Kettlewell, Celeste Rivers, Rubeish, Gerald Peach, Stream, Alistair Gryffen, Aaron Copley, Archibald Angelchrist, Kellman, Brett, Logan, Peabody, Jackij, Kyle, Charles Kettering, Parsek, Wilberforce, Saurian, etc.;
 * "Professor" at the beginning of the page (not boldfaced): Frederick Marius, Richard Lazarus, Clifford Jones, Arthur Candy, Zaroff, Edward Travers, Rachel Jensen, Sarah Lasky, Hayter, Malcolm Taylor, Watkins, Wagg, Parry, Sondergaard, Bernard Quatermass, Herbert Clegg, Daniel Eldred, Webster, Patrick Trethui, etc.;
 * no "Professor" in any form at the beginning of the page for characters with professorial titles: Emile Moorhouse, Albert Smithe, Daniel Joyce, etc.

River Song is an alias that was given to River at birth. On the other hand, she only got the professorial title rather late in her adventures. Out of her 15 full-TV-episode appearances, she has only been a professor in 5 (by my quick and dirty count). Plus 5 audio stories. (I am not qualified to estimate the comic and prose stories.)

I find three problems with the current edition of the lead:
 * 1) It is not stated that River Song is an alias.
 * 2) River Song is not put in quotation marks as is common for assumed names.
 * 3) The title Professor given in the lead is only present in roughly half the TV/audio stories. It seems wrong to introduce a character by a title that has nothing to do with half the stories about her and that is neither her primary nor her constant characteristic. Amorkuz  ☎  13:32, May 11, 2016 (UTC)

A handful of River's husbands/spouses are already listed. Difficult to list them all as there are many. Should all the spouses of the Doctor be listed? he has many too.

New image


I'm proposing that this could be the new image for this page, I realize now that I have to ask here. HolmestoHomes ☎  19:25, January 13, 2017 (UTC)

p.s. I never said that the other image didn't suit the guidelines, I stated that this one did. HolmestoHomes ☎  19:27, January 13, 2017 (UTC)
 * Too flat. Because of the tint used to fit the mood, it all becomes one colour. OS25 (Talk) 16:37, June 7, 2017 (UTC)

"Spoilers"
I wonder whether it's really necessary for her to keep the Doctor in the dark about the future, or she does it mostly to tease him? Time paradoxes are different in nature: some are benign, while others are dangerous; what is the case there? --Jim Fruit ☎  16:25, June 7, 2017 (UTC)

Time Lord or Proto-Time Lord?
In the latest Diary Of River Song Set, River refers to herself and her siblings as “Proto-Time Lords”. Should this be reflected in the info box as it’s a more specific and accurate description of her species, especially seeing as she’s also made it clear in Doom Coalition that she’s not a Time Lord in the same sense as the Doctor and the other characters from Gallifrey. SarahJaneFan ☎  21:53, January 25, 2018 (UTC)
 * You could reference on the page that she says that, but I don't agree it would be okay to wholly replace "Time Lord" with "Proto-Time Lord" because in the same box set River also describes herself as "an embryonic Time Lord" and Lily says, "We're Time Lords, [River] told me." Not to mention a specific plot point in A Good Man Goes to War is that River has "human plus Time Lord" DNA. Since we consider all valid sources equally valid, we can't say that the proto-Time Lord comment overrides all the other references to her being a Time Lord, including from the very same box set release. Mewiet ☎  05:13, January 26, 2018 (UTC)

Infobox image
Just as the pages for the Doctor, the Master, the Eleven, Borusa, etc. have slideshows in their infoboxes showing their different incarnations, doesn't River deserve that too? -- Saxon (✉️) 14:51, February 3, 2020 (UTC)

Infobox changes needed.
The sibling category only allows ten siblings to be added. Could this be changed by an admin? River has an eleventh sibling O who cannot fit in her infobox. Xx-connor-xX ☎  22:46, April 4, 2020 (UTC)
 * Done. now allows for 12. 05:57, July 13, 2020 (UTC)

River remembered "The Year That Never Was"?
Firstly to make it clear this isn't me proposing she remembered it, she's already been placed in this category for some reason but I am rather doubtful of this. Is there some media stating this as fact? Currently there's no reference to it in her page as far as I can tell either, other than that she's been lumped into that category. QisMyName ☎  17:25, April 29, 2020 (UTC)
 * I was the one who added her to the category as she visited Jack Harkness on the Valiant in R&J (audio story) and was later shown to have memory of this. Xx-connor-xX ☎  18:39, April 29, 2020 (UTC)
 * When in the story is River aboard the Valiant? I didn't catch that. 07:35, April 30, 2020 (UTC)

Human vs Proto-Time Lord
In contrast with the discussion two years ago, as to whether she would be listed as both a "Proto-Time Lord" and a "Time Lord" or just a "Time Lord", a discussion has emerged over whether she should be listed as human as well as Proto-Time Lord. Three users were originally involved in this, but stopped before it became an edit war. The reasoning given is as follows:


 * added "human" to species. as stated in 'A Good Man Goes to War' she is Human + Time Lord


 * Proto-Time Lords are human, just with Time Lord qualities


 * The Proto-Time Lord has no reference to them being human at all - just a humanoid species category


 * This is most confusing; how can she be both human and a human descended species? Surely it is one or the other, not both


 * she is said to be human + time lord in 'A Good Man Goes to War'. why is that any less valid than the big finish explanation that she is Proto-Time Lord (which never said anything about being of human descent)

I then came back to this discussion after thinking about it two weeks later and reverted back to not having the human species listed. My reasoning was the following.


 * After thinking about this more, this is the right call, look at the Posthuman article, notable individuals, their species tags for precedence. Proto-Time Lord implies human(or at least homo genus). No need to have it twice.

It was then reverted with no reasoning. It's been three weeks since then, so I'm sure everyone is coming to this with a reasonable distance from the original events and the second round of events, so I'm starting an actual discussion about the topic. Should we treat "Proto-Time Lord" as implying "human" or do we add the human tag separately? I note for this discussion, as well as the arguments made prior, that the "Time Lord or Proto-Time Lord?" discussion was never resolved, but her species has been listed exclusively as "Proto-Time Lord" (+Data Ghost) since last February, when User:BananaClownMan did a multi day cleanup on the page. Najawin ☎  06:01, July 9, 2020 (UTC)


 * there was a large discussion about this on my talkpage so i would appreciate you not to keep accusing people of doing it without reason (when in doubt, ask!).


 * you say that "human" and "proto-time lord" go hand-in-hand like "posthuman", but that is not true in the slightest. there's nothing to suggest that only humans can be proto-time lords and therefore being part human needs specifying. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  07:41, July 11, 2020 (UTC)


 * Er. Subtle miscommunication, I said "It was then reverted with no reasoning" - as in, my edit was reverted and no reasoning was given. Not that there was no reason for them to revert it. Ostensibly I assume that every user of this wiki has a reason for the edits they make. And certainly the user could have already agreed with the reasons given in the prior exchange or your talk page (which I note for readers of this thread did not end in consensus but in "I'll have to listen to the audios again"). But the edit was simply a blank revert, is what I meant.


 * Now, as for the idea that "there's nothing to suggest that only humans can be proto-time lords", I direct you to Proto-Time Lord. They are all explicitly human descended beings. That is, as far as the wiki is concerned, part of the definition of the term (or to be technical, it's a consequence of the definition, in that the definition is River+clones of River). If that changes in the future, and we have beings in the future described as "Proto-Time Lords" because they can regenerate, we can modify her infobox. Though I note we have precedence for characters being able to regenerate and not being described in this way, see Regen-inf and The Witch's Familiar. Najawin ☎  07:57, July 11, 2020 (UTC)


 * the argument ‘’’against’’’ the change you made had already been made in several of the earlier edit summaries, the situation was extremely close to an edit war and your edit was (unintentionally I’m sure) adding to that. I can only assume that is why your edit was reverted by an admin.


 * however, there is nothing to suggest that only humans can be Proto-time lords. that would be like saying that only humans could be time agents if we don’t know any non-human time agents (hopefully we don’t or that would be a poor example). DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  11:32, July 11, 2020 (UTC)


 * As I said, "the user could have already agreed with the reasons given in the prior exchange [...] But the edit was simply a blank revert". And no, my contribution could not have possibly added to an "edit war situation". Edit wars occur when specific users do something over short periods of time. I was a new user who came to this after thinking about it for two weeks. Regardless, I'm not here to litigate the merits of the revert. I merely was explaining the context of the edit summaries for people reading this, and since there was miscommunication I had to explain.


 * As for the Time Agent example, I direct you to Time Agency. It is, indeed, the policy of this wiki that all Time Agents are human. So thank you for an example that proves my point, the wiki is pretty famous for not allowing us to talk about things past what is found in stories. See how in thread Thread:272817 we're discussing things based on this fact. Najawin ☎  19:15, July 11, 2020 (UTC)


 * nowhere does it say the time agency only employs human agents. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  21:38, July 11, 2020 (UTC)


 * "The Agency employed human Time Agents," - Explicitly specifying human. Until we're shown otherwise, all Time Agents are human. See also Tardis (The Zygon Isolation) for another article where the article does not say anything more than what is explicitly stated in the story in question. Najawin ☎  21:45, July 11, 2020 (UTC)


 * that is speculation. we can say that all members of LINDA were human, as we know all the members. we cannot say that the time agency *only* employs human time agents, as we do not know that. likewise, we cannot say that only humans can be proto-time lords when we do not know that as well. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  18:42, July 12, 2020 (UTC)
 * No, you have the issue of speculation precisely backwards. For this wiki, we state only the things that are stated in stories. That is to say, it has been stated that Proto-Time Lords are River + her clones. That is the definition of a Proto-Time Lord as far as this wiki is concerned. To think otherwise is what is speculation. (Let's note here that if we ever got another story using the term "Proto-Time Lord" we wouldn't need to use "according to one account" language, we'd just note that it refers to these other things as well. But according to the wiki as it currently stands, that's just not how things are.) Najawin ☎  20:08, July 12, 2020 (UTC)
 * the story only said that they are proto-time lords, not that they are the only proto-time lords (or the only ones that could become proto-time lords). by your logic we have to consider that every individual that is the only known character from their species as the last of their kind, which is ridiculous. simple fact is - proto-time lords have never been stated to be only humans, and so human should remain in river's infobox to specify. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  21:35, July 12, 2020 (UTC)

This is an obvious misunderstanding of the issue. If an amusing one. The story does not need to say they're the only Proto-Time Lords, nor anything similar. Rather, it must provide us with a notion of a species without any indication of further existence elsewhere. Which is exactly what it does. Then, from the perspective of this wiki, they are treated as the last of their kind or a unique being. And, surprise, there's ample precedent for this. See House (The Doctor's Wife). And there's also precedent for the sort of revision I'm saying would happen, of adding in new information as we get new information. The page Sentient star didn't exist before 2014, but at the same time the wiki covered Torajii but not Akhaten or Hyperion (species). Torajii's own article was rewritten slightly to better accommodate the fact that it was not "the" sentient star, but "a" sentient star.

So again, this criticism, that "human should remain to specify" only makes sense if we presuppose that "Proto-Time Lord" means "has some Time Lord traits but not all of them". But for the wiki it explicitly does not. That is you speculating. Proto-Time Lord is categorized as a human descended species. If the term is used again in a way consistent with your interpretation, which, I grant, is a reasonable interpretation based on English, things should change. But until then the information is just redundant. Najawin ☎  22:15, July 12, 2020 (UTC)


 * sentient star should have always existed, regardless if there was only one.


 * there is nothing to say that only humans can be proto-time lords, and regardless the "proto-time lords" is still one account. the other accounts say that she is human + time lord, and in the same story river and her siblings identify themselves as time-lords too. so technically all three should remain in her infobox, but i was willing to let "time lord" be replaced for "proto-time lord" but i am not willing to leave out "human". DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  22:46, July 12, 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't specifically disagree it should have existed, this seems a confusion yet again. My point is that in the absence of Akhaten, Torajii was treated by this wiki as the only sentient star, even if there wasn't a page for "sentient stars" specifically. It was only after we saw others that this was rectified. This is clear precedent for this issue. You can shout "there is nothing to say that only humans can be proto-time lords" until the cows come home, it's just not relevant to our discussion. Any understanding of "Proto-Time Lord" past what is listed in the story is speculation on your part. It's frustrating, I know, and I'm actually trying to get the policy changed to a limited extent (albeit, not as much as would be needed for this, the discussion began for something wholly unrelated), but to think that "Proto" means "primitive", and thus that "Proto-Time Lord" refers to someone with some of the properties of Time Lords but not all, falls under T:NO RW.


 * Similarly, to say other accounts say she's "human + time lord" as a separate race is a simple misunderstanding of the episode. It's talking about how her DNA has changed due to exposure to the Time Vortex not that she's literally half human half Time Lord like Allisheer St Marx. This makes it analogous to Posthuman. Najawin ☎  23:28, July 12, 2020 (UTC)


 * how many times will you accuse me of misinterpreting, or making an "obvious misunderstanding", before you realise that it is simply just a different view to yours and i could say that you're the one misinterpreting. Madame Vastra directly says that she is "human + timelord", interpreting that to "posthuman" is completely wrong. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  23:49, July 12, 2020 (UTC)


 * I'd call this a misinterpretation of what I said, but in this case it's just ignoring what I said. I said it's analogous to the situation I laid out above with Posthuman. I did not say she is a member of Posthumanity. But let's look at the transcript of the episode, shall we?


 * Look closer. Human plus. Specifically, human plus Time Lord.


 * But she's human. She's Amy and Rory's daughter. [Emphasis mine to note this is not an Allisheer St Marx situation]


 * You've told me about your people. They became what they did through prolonged exposure to the time vortex. The Untempered Schism. [Emphasis again mine]


 * Over billions of years. It didn't just happen.


 * [...]


 * But could the child have begun on the Tardis in flight, in the vortex. [Emphasis once again mine]


 * [...]


 * So, technically the first time they were on the Tardis together in this version of reality, was on their w


 * On their what?


 * On their wedding night.


 * So no, not an issue of disagreement. The episode is quite clear. She is not literally both human and Time Lord, she is descended from two humans and has some similarities in her DNA to a Time Lord thanks to exposure to the Time Vortex. The episode was incredibly specific about this fact. Najawin ☎  00:26, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * so......... human should be in her infobox. great! DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  00:34, July 13, 2020 (UTC)
 * No, the episode in question says "Human plus", a human descended species (namely, human with features similar to Time Lords). The Doctor rejects this idea because she's obviously not descended from a Time Lord, and then it's pointed out that the events that caused Time Lords to develop as they did were also applied to River. Making her, at the time of this episode, a unique, human descended species. This species was then given a name, Proto-Time Lord. No interpretation necessary. Najawin ☎  00:52, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * that's not true though, is it? if you have listened to the story, and i assume in good faith that you have, then you would know that river was genetically engineered into a proto-time lord by kovarian. she was not one at birth, or when these comments were made about her. so your connection between the two makes no sense to me. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  00:59, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * Well I did ignore the next part of the transcript:


 * It doesn't make sense. You can't just cook yourself a Time Lord.


 * Of course not. But you gave them one hell of a start, and they've been working very hard ever since.


 * Since I rather assumed we understood that these changes were accelerated (further strengthening the idea she's not strictly speaking human but is human descended). That would also be an assumption of good faith on my part, that we wouldn't be spending time on irrelevant details that don't change the meaning of our discussion. Najawin ☎  01:18, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * that reply added nothing to this conversation so i am struggling to respond. River was born human + time lord, and was genetically engineered into a proto-time lord. nothing about proto-time lords suggests that it is human only and therefore human should remain in the infobox. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  01:23, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * Imagine how I felt about your last response then. Regardless. We have a notion of Proto-Time Lord on this wiki. All of the entities that fit into this notion are human descended, homo genus. Thus being a Proto-Time Lord materially implies you are human as far as this wiki is concerned. To say otherwise is to assume that "Proto-Time Lord" refers to something other than what we have been told it refers to, based, I suspect, on linguistics. Which I note, you quite explicitly note you are doing on your talk page. "BUT my understanding of what a Proto-Time Lord is - simply someone that is not a full Time-Lord" - this is said nowhere in any valid source, it's fully speculation. Najawin ☎  01:35, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * i imagine you felt educated, as you clearly forgot (or didnt know) a major part of river's backstory and thought that "proto-time lord" referred to the species she was born as (and what the Doctor / Vastra were discussing) rather than what she became after Madame Koavrian's genetic engineering. we've not been told what proto-time lord means, but this account does not overrule other accounts that give her as being human plus timelord. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  01:42, July 13, 2020 (UTC)

Um. You might want to reread Vastra's quote there. Similarly, I already explained why it's a blatant misunderstanding of the episode to insist that she's human plus Time Lord. You've simply yet to refute that. This just isn't an Allisheer St Marx situation. It's a situation where a child of two humans evolved in a way similar to how Time Lords would. But evolving past how humans normally do is completely analogous to how we treat Posthumanity. Najawin ☎  01:56, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * you just keep repeating yourself, even when i have refuted your comments. Vastra clearly identifies her as being human + timelord, we do not have a name for this because proto-time lord was what Kovarian genetically engineered her to become, not what she was born as. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  02:02, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * I already explained how it is an abject misreading of the text to suggest Vastra is saying River is human + Time Lord in a literal sense. Similarly, do you know how genetic engineering works? Because it doesn't work how you seem to think it works. Indeed, while Proto-Time Lord does not note this, River Song does, in stating her embryonic DNA was harvested. Najawin ☎  02:16, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * then we're at a stalemate. you think ive misinterpreted, and i think you have. theres no need to keep going over the exact same points. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  02:19, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * Except I've explained how, and you've not. But I agree that we should probably wait for other people to weigh in. Perhaps even ask the people originally involved on their talk pages? Najawin ☎  02:23, July 13, 2020 (UTC)
 * i dont need to explain how, Vastra's comments are right there - she explicitly says that River is human + time lord, and as we do not know the term for that it always meant that we included both human and time lord in her infobox. this was only changed when the term "proto-time lord" was used, but this is what River became after being genetically engineered (and youre falling foul of T:NO RW by asking me if i know how genetic engineering works, as neither of us know how it works within the DWU).
 * this will be my last reply. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  02:28, July 13, 2020 (UTC)

This is a response of questionable literacy. And I mean that not in the sense of not being able to read, but in not understanding what the text is telling you. Vastra is quite clearly not saying that River is literally Human + Time Lord, this is not an Allisheer St Marx situation. The text is very clearly talking about parallel evolution due to exposure to the Time Vortex. There's no interpretation here, it's effectively sticking your head in the sand to maintain otherwise. (And to accuse me of falling afoul of T:NO RW when I quoted back the article agreeing with me from within the DWU has got to be the most absurd thing I have ever seen.) Najawin ☎  02:39, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * there's no way you can interpret "Human plus. Specifically, human plus Time Lord." as anything other than that. river is human plus time lord, and was genetically engineered (we dont know what that entails within the DWU) to become a proto-time lord. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  02:43, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * If that was all that was said, perhaps. Unfortunately, we also have the following quotes.


 * You've told me about your people. They became what they did through prolonged exposure to the time vortex. The Untempered Schism. [Emphasis yet again mine]


 * But could the child have begun on the Tardis in flight, in the vortex. [Emphasis continues to be mine]


 * Of course not. But you gave them one hell of a start, and they've been working very hard ever since.


 * As well as the fact that the other Proto-Time Lords were taken from River's embryonic DNA. These facts completely shift the narrative, and instead make clear that River is not "Human + Time Lord" but is instead special because of exposure to the Time Vortex, parallel evolution as a post human species, and that the genetic engineering took place as we would expect IRL. Najawin ☎  02:54, July 13, 2020 (UTC)
 * To be clear, we list Proto-Time Lord as a human-descended species because they are descended from River. I'm not actually sure the audio story definitively establishes that River is one, but her clones are identified this way. The implication is that this is the name Kovarian gives to River's special biology, as discussed in AGMGTW. I'm not sure it's definitionally true that all Proto-Time Lords are human, unless that's a term that can only apply to this batch of clones, plus probably their originator.


 * If there is any contradiction between sources, we should be listing "Human, Time Lord, Proto-Time Lord" to allow for what both sources are telling us. If it's simply a matter of the species being named afterwards in another source, just "Proto-Time Lord" is fine, if we're certain that she wasn't human before Kovarian's experiments. If there's been a change of species in her lifetime, both Human and Proto-Time Lord need to be listed. 04:23, July 13, 2020 (UTC)
 * Although if, as I suspect, Proto-Time Lords only applies to the clones created by Kovarian from River's embryonic DNA, then she should only be listed as human and Time Lord. We know that these clone batches were the result of her experiments and we know that she made some alterations at least to affect their behaviour. River was an earlier experiment, which failed in Kovarian's view. I suggest we re-listen to the audio stories in question for better context. 04:32, July 13, 2020 (UTC)
 * So to clarify, what I'm saying here is that Proto-Time Lord materially implies homo genus. The latter is not a logical consequence of the former. There's a massive distinction there. Everyone except DiSoRiEnTeD1 is saying there's no contradiction between sources and it's just a name being given. But alright, re-listen is where we stand. Najawin ☎  04:44, July 13, 2020 (UTC)


 * when i originally listened to the story in question what i took away was that River's clones were the "Proto-Time Lords" created based on River's DNA (named as they were prototypes of a Time Lord - River). River was born as Human + Time Lord, and after Kovarian's further experiments she was deemed as failed. Amusingly, i have just noticed that the Proto-Time Lord page also has this view - as River is not listed as a member, but rather as being "afflicted" with the group like Kovarian.


 * However, it was @SarahJaneFan (who indicated that she had listened to the story more recently and therefore had higher authority on the matter) that said both River and her clones were both referred to as "Proto-Time Lords". i accepted this, but still say that "Proto-Time Lord" does not indicated being part human and therefore human should be listed. DiSoRiEnTeD1 ☎  10:49, July 13, 2020 (UTC)
 * Note here that part human is not necessary, if they're a human descended species we're done. Posthuman is our precedent. As for the page itself, glancing at the edit history, I actually find it interesting, a fair amount of our "Proto-Time Lord" edit history has been done by one user, LapNiDal1. Who was responsible for this as well. No longer an active user, so can't consult with them. The perils of a volunteer run wiki. Najawin ☎  14:04, July 13, 2020 (UTC)