Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-1506468-20180414104725/@comment-28349479-20180417233759

For what it's worth, The Eyeless was the first Doctor Who book I ever read, and I've revisited it several times since then, so consider that a disclaimer.

Revanvolatrelundar wrote: Isn't this basically saying that the Doctor himself was completely separate from all parties involved, which would make it not about the Daleks and the Time Lords? The Daleks were fighting the Doctor as well, which would make only three "lots". Doesn't seem like the best example from the book to me. Au contraire, I think it's maybe the best example from the book. Let me restate what's going on in that quote: Alsa knows the Doctor's an alien, and she knows the Fortress is built by aliens, and she knows the aliens that built the fortress were fighting another group of aliens. Then she meets the Eyeless, which (by her count) is the fourth lot. But the Doctor tries to correct her, "[The Eyeless are the] third [lot], surely..." By his count, the Eyeless were only the third group of aliens involved in this particular adventure, which means he was mentally conflating two of the groups. This gives us three possibilities:
 * The Eyeless were one of the combatants in the war, so the Doctor wasn't counting them as a separate lot. This is ruled out pretty clearly by the events of the book, in which the Doctor is quite familiar with the events of the war and specifically states that the Eyeless weren't involved.
 * The two combatants in the war were one "lot". This is also ruled out pretty clearly, namely by the Doctor's explanation of how to use the weapon against an enemy.
 * By the process of elimination, that leaves us with the third explanation, that the Doctor was counting himself as a member of one of the other "lots" – not the Eyeless, so one of the sides in the war. This means that his lot, the Time Lords, are either the builders of the weapon, or the builders' enemy.
 * The main thing the Doctor says about the people who built the weapon is that "They are all dead, and there's a lot less of their planet left than there is of this one." And "that weapon was designed to use against an enemy with footholds in different galaxies."
 * Note that countless stories have shown us the Daleks' footholds in multiple galaxies – Dalek Empire, for an easy example – whereas the Time Lords generally never left Gallifrey all that much, before the war at least. Conversely, the Doctor reflects in The Eyeless itself on how all the Time Lords were killed at the end of the Time War.
 * This means that the Time Lords are the builders, and the Daleks are the builders' enemy. QED.

At the end of the quote, Alsa explains how she got her number, and rather than launching into an explanation about his true role in what happened to Arcopolis fifteen years ago, the Doctor shrugs it off and moves on with dealing with the emergency.

(I suppose it's also possible that the Doctor was just making a counting mistake, but if that were so, you'd expect it to have plot or character development implications in some way — otherwise, Parkin would've had no reason to include it! In contrast, my interpretation above does give it plot and character development implications, as I'll explain below.)

Revanvolatrelundar wrote: The part that strikes me is that Daleks are actually mentioned in the book, when he goes through recent memories he's had, including Racnoss, Lazarus, yada yada. My point here is that, if the Fortress and the weapon were meant to have been used against the Daleks, why wouldn't that just be mentioned? Yes, why indeed? Why did Parkin choose to explain the weapon's origin and purpose only through logical implication, rather than stating it outright? I'm sure we could come up with countless answers, and we may never know for sure, but I think it's a stylistic choice.

The entire book constantly tries to remind the reader about the Time War. It's one of the first events from the Doctor's past that Parkin mentions by name, on just page two; it's the subject of the Doctor's emotional breakdown in the Fortress, when surrounded by the ghosts; and that's not even mentioning the seemingly-random flashback to the destruction of Gallifrey, which — as you rightfully pointed out — is included in a way that makes it plausibly unrelated, but is undeniably a "Hey, remember what the Doctor did to the Time Lords?"

And these reminders are complemented by hints about the Doctor's greater role in the events on Arcopolis. It's right there at the climax of the novel itself:"The Eyeless looked down at the TARDIS key. The possibilities started to surge through its mind. It leapt for the Doctor, greedily gripping the lapels of the Doctor’s coat with a six-fingered hand, the Eyeless’ mind grabbing for the Doctor’s mind.

There was something he wasn’t saying, wasn’t there? His secret. That it was the Doctor who—

‘Oh, shut it,’ the Doctor snapped, shrugging off the grip of the glass hands. The psychic onslaught continued and for a moment, they were eye to eye. The bright green, unblinking, stolen eyes. The Doctor and the Eyeless both understood what had to happen next, and that it would soon all be over."

- The Eyeless Right after this, the Doctor and the Eyeless both lunge for the weapon; the Doctor gets to it first, and he uses it to destroy the Eyeless.

What is the Doctor's secret? What is it that he isn't telling Alsa and the rest? What is it that made the Eyeless decide it needed to kill the Doctor outright, instead of just taking the TARDIS key? That the Doctor was the one who ...? It's that he was the one who used the weapon in the first place, and I think that reading is more than supported by the story itself.

Overall, I'm really sorry that you didn't pick up on that element of the book during your readthrough! Completely understandable how you found it disappointing, in that light. I agree that Parkin could've been a hell of a lot more explicit with it, and for what it's worth he does make more of an effort to spell it out in AHistory (the relevant line being, "There is plenty of evidence that this was an incident during The Last Great Time War.") But I'm of the opinion that the way he built up the Time War as looming over the story, without ever explicitly stating it outright, made for a much more atmospheric and haunting environment, and the novel benefits as a result. That's just me, though.