Talk:Rory Williams (Auton)

Premature
Um, aren't we jumping the gun a tad? I mean, sittin' here prior to the airing of The Big Bang, it certainly seems possible to me that Rory was an Auton all along, from our very first meeting with him in The Eleventh Hour. I wouldn't link too much to this article over the next week, cause it's certainly possible right now that it could be merged with Rory Williams.  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍ 03:51, June 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * There's also the epistemological question of whether this Auton we saw has the actual soul of Rory Williams, or whether he's even real. I mean, if he's a actual creation of the Nestene Consciousness, but with the soul of the real Rory Williams, then he is, for all intents and purposes, the real Rory Williams. And if he's just the creation of Amy's mind, he's not real in any sense and therefore doesn't deserve his own article. In any event, development and use of this article should be forgone for the next week until we know better what we're dealing with. Please remember that if ultimately it proves more logical to just merge this with Rory Williams, someone actually has to do that work. Don't create a mess that simply has to be cleaned up later.  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍ 03:56, June 20, 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Rory and Amy played games concerning the "raggady Doctor" when "we (they) were kids." Would an auton be able to grow in a plastic equivalent to that of human biology?--Hawki 10:38, June 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * Logically, if the Autons can create replicas this sophisticated, it would certainly be possible for them to create the illusion of biological maturation. Now, of course, The Big Bang might come and wash this theory away, but even if it does, we're still left with the philosophical question of what makes a person "real". Personally, I think that even if this body is shown to be unremarkably Auton, the soul inside is still Rory. Unless, of course, Moffat decides to suggest that, as a part of the Alliance, the Nestene borrowed tech from the Zygons which kept the real Rory in a chamber somewhere, feeding the Auton replica his psyche . . .  Czech Out  ☎ | ✍ 16:34, June 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * There does seem to be a bit too much guesswork. This Rory may indeed be the miracle that the Doctor said he was. His conciouness (or soul) really did transfer to a suitable host that happened to be made by the Nestine. There seems no reason to put the effort in to make a real Rory so why is he there in the first place? His body can be explained as happy accident becasue there happened to be a photograph of him in Roman costume. His mind though? Why bother with that? I'd wait until his story is finally resolved. Jack Chilli.
 * But there is no such thing as a soul... 71.161.229.247 19:50, June 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * Whoever you are, in such matters (which do not have to do with the article), keep your opinion to yourself. If you think that death means the complete end of your being, fine. But for all intents and purposes in the Doctor Who universe there is no evidence people lack souls.
 * And CzechOut, all that is just speculation which is not what wikis are for. Remember, only facts not speculation Darkraider09 17:37, June 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * I got the impression from The Big Bang that, for all intents and purposes, the Doctor considered Auton-Rory to be the real Rory stuffed into an Auton body. He even says something to the effect that the Nestenes only intended to copy his mind, but because of the circumstances surrounding Amy, they ended up getting his heart and soul as well. Or something like that. Chenrezi 01:32, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Just saw that scene now. That's just what the Doctor said. Auton Rory has the real Rory's heart and soul due to the circumstance surrounding Amy, which the Nestene did not predict. --Samoth 09:02, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Companion
Is it safe to call Auton Rory a companion then? 19:09, June 26, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess Darkraider09 02:45, June 27, 2010 (UTC)

Merging
This should be merged with the main Rory page since it was shown that the Auton was the real Rory and not a duplicate. Wollstone 02:30, June 27, 2010 (UTC) I just rewatched the part after the Doctor tested Auton Rory. I think he basicaly said its not the real Rory: something about how the Nestenes got a memory imprint off of Amy of Rory or something but due to that crack in the wall and its affects on her got more than they bargined for: Rory's heart as well. I think this Rory is basicaly more of a clone of the real Rory possesing his personality and memories but isn't him. Think the clone of Beckett in Stargate Atlantis.--WarGrowlmon18 01:33, June 28, 2010 (UTC) I just rewatched the whole thing and its not clear that Rory has the Auton's memories. He comments about forgetting the Doctor but he knew him as his real self and about the Doctor saving the universe but he could've infered that or Amy could've told him. There's nothing there that really indicates he has this copy's memories.--WarGrowlmon18 04:50, June 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * No, its just a copy with Rory's memories and personality. Note how he still has his Auton gun in 1996 and that immortality. Perhaps somehow Amy's remembering transfered some of the real Rory into his duplicate as she has that recall power, but that's it, he's still just an Auton.--WarGrowlmon18 03:42, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * I disagree, the Doctor tests the Auton to see if he's just duplicate and when Rory strikes out in defense of Amy the Doctor acknowledges him as the real Rory Williams. If he weren't the real Rory trapped inside an Auton then there would be no reason for him to recall his time spent as the Auton. Wollstone 03:45, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Maybe when Amy finally recalled the real Rory his soul and mind came back and merged with his duplicate. He was probably just a normal Auton up until that point with Rory's memories. I think the Doctor did say something about her bringing Rory back when he was about to use the Pandorica to reset the universe, something about her doing that when explaning why she needed to remember her parents and Rory, but this duplicate was at the very least just an Auton for awhile, probably right up until she remembered Rory. It is still a seperate entity because of that, because it was just an Auton at least at first. We also have no proof if its the real Rory trapped in an Auton body or not. Not unless the Doctor outright said it and I don't think he did.--WarGrowlmon18 03:53, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * That doesn't make sense of his behavior before she recalled Rory though. He was clearly Rory Williams before then. Wollstone 04:04, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * He had Rory's memories and was some kind of sleeper agent who was used to get to the Doctor. He just acted like Rory, he wasn't him. I mean if you're gonna create a perfect copy of someone as part of a trap you gotta make them seem like the person you want them to be. After Amy remembered him, that's presumably when the real Rory merged with him instead of coming back as himself. Maybe because he was dead when he was erased Rory didn't come back in his own body or because there was a duplicate body.--WarGrowlmon18 04:10, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well yes, he was a sleeper agent, but as the Doctor said the Nesteene didn't expect that the duplicate would acquire Rory's soul, which essentially makes him Rory and not a duplicate. He was Rory trapped inside and over time his soul managed to overpower the software programming. This is why Rory remembers being the Auton, because he was trapped inside of it. Wollstone 04:33, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * I think he was always the real Rory. The duplicate was created from Amy's memory, and because it was her memories, Rory's soul was pulled along for the ride. As for why he shot Amy: Hardware issues. You can put whatever software (soul) into a system you want, but it'll still have to deal with the hardware specifications and limitations, which in this case have a remote control and "serve the Nestene" features. As the Doctor said, the Nestene got more than it bargained for, which would imply that the soul was around from the start. So I think they should be merged; Same person, different vessel. -  I. Am. Excalibur-117  -(talk • contribs) 14:00, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * Soul ≠ Memories. memories change/etc. Auton Rory didn't want to shot amy because that how Rory would have acted and Amy knows that. It could been taping on the real rory but i don't think was same person. Their really need to be a clear separation from the two (eg Bad Wolf and Bad Wolf in Rose).
 * Look at it this way: If you take a person's soul, complete with mind and memories, and put it into say... a robotic body, would you say its the same person? -  I. Am. Excalibur-117  -(talk • contribs) 15:17, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * I've gotta agree with Excalibur. Sabre Knight 19:46, June 27, 2010 (UTC)
 * The soul is essentially who a person is and you're taking into account that the human Rory at the end of the episode remembered being an Auton. Wollstone 05:38, June 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Interesting point was made at the Discontinuity forum for The Big Bang: Rory didn't vanish or turn to stone with the rest of the Alliance when their home worlds ceased to exist. My thought on this is that he was considered 'of Earth' on some deep level, and so continued to exist as long as Earth did, even as the other Autons did not. Wibbly-Wobbly 05:30, June 29, 2010 (UTC)
 * That still does not account for the rebooted Rory Williams retaining the Auton's memories. So let's face it, they were the same person, not two separate Rorys. Wollstone 05:34, June 28, 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is. He says right after he is shown regaining his memories, "I was plastic." He would have no way of immediately knowing that if he wasn't the Auton. Wollstone 04:56, June 29, 2010 (UTC)

Psychic Imprint and Auton Rory's memory
The Doctor and River discuss that Auton Rory, along with the entire Roman/Pandorica scenario were obtained from a psychic imprint of Amy's memories left at her house. There's a few possibilities here:
 * 1) The Nestene Consciousness took their imprint 'before' Rory was wiped from existence. 'Before' is slippery here, considering he never existed, but they could have taken their scan and been well-away across time while the version of the universe that contained Rory still existed, and then as time-travellers could still remember him like Amy remembered the clerks after he was removed from time.


 * 2) Psychic scans may be able to read the shape of the rips left by things that have been removed. It's not like the time fields made clean cuts with clean revisions. Amy's parents never existed, but she still did - the Angels never existed but Father Octavian didn't come back to life. A sloppy form of deletion could leave a Rory-shaped hole since events didn't sensically fill in the gaps.

But, whichever theory (or other theory) you use, how could Auton Rory remember real Rory's death? There were literally 2 minutes between his death and deletion. The Nestene Consciousness would literally have to have been there in 2020 watching at the time of his death to get that info. Even with time-travel immunity and not belonging to Rory's world, coming by the Silurian caves even moments later to scan would have yielded only a Rory-less universe (well, maybe a Rory-shaped gap under theory 2, but I like that one less). Actually, that gives me a possible 3rd:


 * 3) Objects in Amy's room appeared to exhibit pre-knowledge of some events she was going to go through in Season 5. There may have been a great deal of non-linear information flow through the crack in her room, leading to a very complex temporal imprint being left which could have included the psychic residue of events in Amy's life from the time she was with Rory in the TARDIS (the cracks did originate from the TARDIS after Rory's death, after all, and we know the engagement ring survived in the TARDIS). Wibbly-Wobbly 04:01, June 29, 2010 (UTC)