Howling:Moffat screwed up Silents

Moffat's introduction of the Silents (alien race) created the following troubling conflicts or unlikely scenarios: The Doctor has effectively caused a massive civil war on Earth for a reason that makes very little sense as there are plenty of parasite species everywhere. Moreover, this doesn't even account for minority cases like the blinds (who wouldn't see a sight of them but never made clear if they are also affected by Silents) or people with physical disabilities (would a guy with no limbs suddenly jump out from his wheel chair and start biting Silents, acting like some mad dog to a person viewing from another angle?). The repercussions are too great yet Moffat seem to downplay it too much that it hardly makes sense. Did Moffat screw this up bad? --222.166.181.177 14:10, November 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) Both Amy and Rory have never watched the moon landing? Aged Canton's presence when Amy and Rory first met him clearly indicates that Amy and Rory are on a timeline in which the footage has been tempered, yet Amy didn't went berserk and killed Silents.
 * 2) Why kill the Silents? There are many more parasitic species on Earth ranging from insects to bacteria, and you may even consider house cats parasitic, unless the Doctor has oddly suddenly became a racist, the Silents massacre is completely out of character.
 * 3) Silents can shoot lightning and humans can't, so unless we're in America, where most people are armed, whenever people see Silents and go berserk, the Silent(s) will either run or fry the humans into ashes. A lot more people should die around the world because of this and with (2) in mind, the Doctor has either became extremely stupid or, for some odd reason, decided to risk human to eraticate a specific parasite.
 * 4) Timecode. What happened to timecode in the videos? When all recording and copies of the landing has timecode error and the frames don't add up, isn't it obvious?
 * 5) When a person tries to kill a Silent, wouldn't the people around him who didn't see the Silent think the person went mad? Especially considering that the person will have amnesia afterward.
 * 6) Silents in countries with no television transmission at that time or the next few years afterward would have prevented the import of television or recordings. Plenty of countries except the States and the UK wouldn't have television transmissions or common playback devices at that time period. Many countries in Africa would have declared war on other parts of the world under the Silents' influence in an attempt to exterminate the hypnotized humans with Silent killing tendency.
 * 7) The poor who couldn't afford television would rebel against the rich and the government for the same reason in (6). Earth's humans would end up with a massive scale war divided by people hypnotized by the video and those who didn't until one party is all killed or the Silents effectively no longer on Earth.
 * 8) Bullets should have been flying everywhere in the states the moment the footage was shown, people would have been scared by this and a lot of innocent people would have been killed by accidents or the Silents.

Parts of the Silence rebellion are a bit unlikely, but all of your points can be explained. Blind people could still hear the Silence, but wouldn't kill them because they couldn't see them. People in wheel chairs would shoot the Silence if they had a gun or stab them or something if they are close enough, but they are only going to kill them in ways that they are capable of doing so. If a handicapped person is incapable of killing a Silence, they will not try.Icecreamdif talk to me 21:02, November 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) The few times that Amy and Rory saw the Silence, they had very little opportunity to attack before they forgot about them again. In the scene in the bathroom, Amy may have felt some desire to kill the Silence, but she was able to exercise self control having encountered aliens before, and knew that taking a photo and gathering intel on the Silence would help lead to their destruction.
 * 2) This is just speculation, but maybe the Doctor and friends decided to kill the Silence because they've seen the moon landing footage before. The Doctor saw it a few times when he was stranded in the 60s with Martha (and he'd probably seen it before anyway), so he subconsciously wanted to kill the Silence causing him to manipulate the Silence into creating the message in the first place. Even so, the Silence are a bit more manipulative than your average parasite. Humans can't even remember seeing them, and they are controlling every aspect of humanity, effectively turning all humans into slaves. We all know that the Doctor isn't a huge fan of slavery, and likely felt that humans were better off without the Silence controlling them.
 * 3) First of all, I live in America and I don't know anyone who carries a gun around with them, but you still have a point. Before the moon landing, the Silence only killed people who were either a threat to them, or who were bugging them while they were using the bathroom. There were few enough mysterious deaths that nobody noticed. The Silence don't want humanity to realise that there are countless mysterious deaths, and there lightning attack is pretty slow and inneffective. The Doctor and River were able to destroy a whole rooom full of Silence and noone was hit by the lightning. The Doctor didn't even have a real weapon. They may have killed a few, but they would have been outnumbered and died before they could do much damage.
 * 4) This one's really a minor error. The timecode probably includes the bit with the Silence, and people just assume that nothing particularly interesting happenned in those couple of seconds.
 * 5) If you were able to tell that somebody was beating a Silent to death, you would have to see the Silence. Otherwise it would look like they just walked across the room for no reason. The only ones who would look crazy would be the ones with the guns and, as you said, most people don't carry guns around with them.
 * 6) Many people without televisions wouldn't have tried to kill the Silence. Still, many people would have seen it on other's televisions, or listened to it on the radio. Also, don't forget about all those Magpie TVs that are floating around. Presumably the people who would have been involved with importing the TVs were conditioned to kill the Silence anyway. The Silence probably didn't consider it worth it to drive the whole planet into war. There real purpose on Earth was just to hide Melody for a while, so they probably decided it would be more efficient to lie low for a while than to cause a huge war.
 * 7) Same as (6). It just wouldn't be worth it for the Silence.
 * 8) Guns are really only popular in the crazy redneck areas and the South in America. People all over the country do own guns, but at most there would have been a few isolated incidents with people being wrongly accused of murder. Still, even in places like Texas, bullets wouldn't be flying everywhere. People would be shooting the Silence. That means that people are only shooting when they see a Silence, and for the most part the bullets would hit the Silence and people would forget about it.

This makes absolutely no sense, the subliminal message was to kill Silents on sight, not try to kill Silents if you can and don't bother if you can't or devise a plan to commit genocide on the Silents. Saying Amy can fight it with sheer will power is like saying the subliminal message never really fully worked in the first place. The Silents will go extinct if they didn't do something, so if this still isn't worth it for them to take action, I don't know what will. You obviously have no idea how many people outside of US and UK would not own a television set even by mid 70s. The timecode doesn't add up isn't a simple matter of people thinking a few seconds aren't interesting, the footage is used over and over again, television editors, etc will be jogging frame by frame, the timecode will jump in every single copy of the recording. To say that people would either not notice other people killing silents or would be involved is the same as saying that everyone would have seen the silent in the picnic and not Amy alone. --222.166.181.160 22:48, November 10, 2011 (UTC)

Well, if Amy had gotten up and attacked the Silence instead of just acting a bit weird, everyone would have noticed the Silence at the picnic. It's possible that River and the Doctor both knew exactly what she was talking about, but decided not to comment since they knew what had to happen. The subliminal message isn't mind control- it doesn't force you to do anything. If you see a Silence, then you're going to think "wow, I should really kill this thing on sight." If you're unable to do so, then you'll decide not to. If you see it shoot lightning out of its hand, and you have a friend who you know is good at stopping alien invasions, you can decide "Nah. As much as I want to kill this thing on sight, I'll just take a picture and show it to the Doctor later." The Doctor could have interpreted the phrase to mean that he should literally kill them all, which he attempted to accomplish by planting the suggestion in the first place. Even if only a handful of people in the entire world owned televisions and radios it wouldn't matter. In the short term, yes the Silence would be fine. However, a couple of decades later, when everyone owns a tv, and then even later when the internet is big, almost everyone will see it and will kill the Silence. Since their plans don't actually involve ruling the Earth, and they've already got that space suit they wanted, it's really more practical for them to just lay low and avoid humans instead of coming up with complicated plans to prevent the spread of television. Maybe there were some instances where people noticed other people killing Silence, where they somehow didn't see the Silence, and thought that they were crazy. There were already people who had gone due to the Silence, so a few more wouldn't make a huge difference. In the vast majority of cases though, if you are able to see that someone is attacking something you will be able to see what they are attacking. As for the timecode-maybe in the Whoniverse it's just considered one of those mysterious things. Nobody knows why it doesn't make sense since they forget whenever they find out, but it's not a big deal and they've just given up trying to figure it out.Icecreamdif talk to me 00:52, November 11, 2011 (UTC)

The message was, "You should kill us all on sight." "Should" not "will" or "must", so Icecreamdif is quite right that it won't (or wont't usually) produce a major conflict if killing is impossible or impractical at the time.

The first point about the timecode is that most people wouldn't be paying any attention to it, anyway. The second point is that the "memory-proof" nature of the Silents wouldn't work at all well unless it caused people to overlook inconsistencies. There are different types of forgetting. If you go into a shop (say) to buy something but can't remember what it was you intended to buy, you know there's something you've forgotten. On the other hand, if you agree to make a phone call but forget to do so, you may well not even be aware of having forgotten anything -- at least until someone (like the person you should have called) or something (like a note saying, "Phone Fred") reminds you. With the Silents, people forget so completely they're unaware of having forgotten. The exception, as in the case of the Doctor and his friends, is where they've reasoned out (in the absence of any Silents) that there must be something they've forgotten and then adopt measures to draw their attention to it when it happens again. The effect of the Silents operates similarly to hypnotism, which means a victim's subconscious is actively steering his/her mind away from possible reminders; it isn't a purely passive process. --89.241.69.214 23:40, November 11, 2011 (UTC)

Also, even videos and pictures of the silence can eventually be erased, it would just take a while. So eventually that footage of the silence would disappear, and only the generation that first saw the silence in the moon landings would be aware of the order. The time code would eventually even out. 94.72.209.209talk to me 16:13, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

The use of "should" is not just a suggestion. It is a clear order phrased in the subjunctive. "Should you see us, kill us." Boblipton talk to me 00:58, November 12, 2011 (UTC)
 * Even if it was meant to be taken that way the fact that is that since there is discussion about it not everyone would have interpreted it that way. Also out of the people who did interpret it as a suggestion doesn't mean they would carry it out, many people act against what they think they should do, so even if they thought they should kill the Silents doesn't guarantee they would. The Light6 talk to me 01:50, November 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * Yah, in Blighty where the subjunctive has been weakened. Sorry if that sounds slighting, but it's a fact of the way the two major dialects have evolved. Boblipton talk to me 02:05, November 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * Since we're being grammatical, the subjunctive "may be used for subjective, doubtful, hypothetical, or grammatically subordinate statements or questions" (from Dictionary.com). That leaves plenty of "wriggle room" for people. Anyway, Boblipton's rephrasing doesn't have the same meaning as the original. "Should you see us, kill us," means "Kill us if [or whenever] you see us." The original, "You should kill us all on sight," in its context meant, "It is in your best interests to kill us all on sight," and isn't a command at all. Taken out of its context (as it was, once the Doctor had inserted it into the Apollo 11 footage), it does sound like an instruction but it's still not a strong command. Nobody in the army (for example) would say, "You should open fire." They'd say, "Open fire!" One's advice, the other's an order. It's not only in British English that the subjunctive is weak, although the difference may be greater in British English. --89.241.69.17 05:29, November 12, 2011 (UTC)h


 * all i wanna know is that if humanity starts killing all the silents the what happens to the bodys? also the dea of "you should Kill us all on sight" is very good becuse i am a very against violence and if i was say hypnotysed into thinking i should kill all people with purple hair (using purple as an atempt to not be racist) i would not nessiseraly do it i may think i should but i may not for instance people think they should not steal yet they do it any way it is a sort of desision do i do it or not and back to the amy/rory not attacking silents i for one have not watched the moon landing and to be hounest aint that boverd so they could just be the same Whooligist talk to me 01:02, December 4, 2011 (UTC)

Most people have seen the clip at some point in their lives. I assume that even you saw it when you were watching the episode. Anyway, everyone would forget about the Silence's bodies as soon as they saw them, so they would just be left around to decompose, unless other Silence decided to dispose of their own dead.Icecreamdif talk to me 07:21, December 4, 2011 (UTC)

Also we don't know how many Silence there were. It could just have been one shipful. For all we know the gencide of the Silence could have been a simple job. Besides there are other weapons around. Who said you can't set upon them with Axes or Machetes? 178.78.81.210talk to me 13:52, January 3, 2012 (UTC) (I wrote this ages ago and forgot to sign it).

We don't, of course, know how many Silence there were but the Doctor and his companions encountered quite a large number of them in a fairly short time. That suggests more than "one shipful" -- or a pretty large ship.

Icecreamdif: You say, "everyone would forget about the Silence's bodies as soon as they saw them" but people forget when they look away, not while they're looking at the Silents. Is it not quite possible that people might clear up the corpses and then forget they'd done so? --2.96.26.35talk to me 15:06, December 23, 2011 (UTC)

Sure. That's very possible. They would be very confused afterwards, but it isn't unlikely.Icecreamdif talk to me 18:13, December 24, 2011 (UTC)

[I was reading up on this and this bit I'm about to say might be for a whole other discussion. All I have an opinion on is the assumption of how time works and how it relates to humans feeling the need to kill the Silence. I've always known Time in Doctor Who to... all be happneing at once. I'm not good at explaining how I see it. Anyway, Amy, Rory, River, and the Doctor all experienced the video and moon landing at that present point in time. If I understand Time correctly, then Amy had never seen that video in the 2000's. It seems to be that the things happening around the moon landing were not "fixed" points in time, therefore, they could be altered and that is exactly what happened. To me, Amy would have never felt the need to kill the Silence in the bathroom because at that point, she had never seen it. I see it now as Time changing and now everyone will see it for a quick second in videos of the landing. Amy, however, still saw it first in 1969 with the Doctor, not when she originally watched a moon landing video. It's all under the assumption she's seen a video in her past when growing up or something too.}

If I understand you correctly, then you are saying that time can be rewritten. When Amy saw the moon landing video growing up, there was no clip of a Silence in it, because she and the Doctor hadn't travelled back in time to put it there yet. Is that basically what you're saying? If so, then it is certainly possible. It is probably not a fixed point. However, keep in mind, that the events of those episodes do effect earlier episodes, particulaly regarding River's childhood, and Canton's arrival in 2011 suggests that the events of those episodes were always meant to happen. Of course, it's possible that they happenned differently befoee, or something.Icecreamdif talk to me 07:01, December 26, 2011 (UTC)

[That is exactly what I am saying. For the other comments, "wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff". I only pretend to know a little. In my head it works out some way that it all makes sense. Canton would have seen the video already when the Doctor was shot, therefore it could be said that the video with the Silence had already been broadcast, but in my mind, it could not have. Supposedly Time isn't cause and effect, and I think I get that slightly. I think I'm right in this thinking. Yes, Canton was there and him being there, one could assume that ll was meant to happen. But the Doctor planned the meeting and planted 1969 in everyone's head. The Doctor could have easily told Canton what was up and therefore Canton knew his past would be seeing the group, but he himself would not be anymore. I don't have much to say for River's part other than maybe she wasn't that important in relation to the Silence, and I hope by saying that I didn't miss something big int he episode.}

Don't forget to sign your comments by adding four ~s. Anyway, it wasn't just Canton. The fact that the Doctor knew that space 1969 was important meant that he had already been there. The fact that River had regenerated into the Alex Kingston version meant that Amy had shot her space suit. Time works very strangely and inconsistently in the Doctor Who Universe. Sometimes, as you say, time can be rewritten, and events that the Doctor manipulates haven't happenned yet until the Doctor manipulates them. Sometimes, events have already happenned a certain way, but the Doctor can change them. And, sometimes events have already happenned a certain way and cannot be changed. Based on the whole opening scene in Utah, I think we really do have to assume that the Doctor was "destined" to alter the recording, and any recordings in 2011 would have already had the Silence bit added in.Icecreamdif talk to me 07:49, December 26, 2011 (UTC)

"Time works very strangely and inconsistently in the Doctor Who Universe": Depends on your point of view. From an out-of-universe perspective, it consistently works the way the story needs it to. From an in-universe perspective, it seems inconsistent to the layman (almost everyone) but that doesn't need to mean it is inconsistent. In a field I've some experience of, software, there are some things laymen think will be very difficult or impossible to do that are, in fact, quite easy; there are other things that laymen think will be easy that are actually major problems or are effectively impossible. That's one reason big IT projects, especially big government IT projects, so often go badly wrong: the people commissioning the software don't understand how it works, demand what they fondly imagine is an easy change and won't allocate anything remotely like enough time or resources to making the change -- so it doesn't work. In-universe, time seems to be like that, too: baffling if you don't understand how it actually works (which we don't); obvious if you do (which the Doctor does -- usually). OK, that's a rationalisation of the real situation (the out-of-universe perspective) but it's an acceptable rationalisation because there are plenty of things in the real world that are like that. From experience, I know that trying to explain why something some civil servant thinks will be quick and easy will actually take thousands of programmer-hours is a nightmare and often comes down to saying: Spend four or five years studying the subject, then spend another decade or two getting experience of how it works and then you'll understand; otherwise, just take my word for it! No wonder the Doctor so often says, "I'll explain later," and then doesn't. --89.241.68.116talk to me 09:29, December 26, 2011 (UTC)

If the Doctor only said that regarding time, then I wouldn't mind. Anyway, we know that in-universe, time follows certain laws and rules, so some people like the Doctor are obviously able to figure it out. However we, and most of the universe(including the writers), are layman, and whichever way we look at it it is going to seem strange and inconsistent.Icecreamdif talk to me 17:07, December 26, 2011 (UTC)

On the subject of the Doctor being unreasonable to the silents, I think the paradox theory Icecreamdif made about the Doctor having already seen the footage his future self had tampered with makes the most sense. But since all paradoxes have to start somewhere, presumably the fight against the silence got so out of hand that the doctor had to massacre them as a last resort. Of course when that happened that must have started the paradox. The doctor massacring the silence a lot earlier in the timeline could potentially have saved many lives. 94.72.209.209talk to me 16:13, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

Paradoxes don't always have to start somewhere. It really depends how the laws of time are working on a given day of the week. The entire premise of Blink, for example, depends on a paradox with no beginning. That's why it's a paradox.Icecreamdif talk to me 08:39, December 30, 2011 (UTC)

Some Paradoxes, yes, but the one in TIA/DOTM probably started somewhere. It's possible the Weeping Angels in B with their feeding off potential days ability affected that part of the timeline and allowed a paradox to occur without being provoked. 94.72.209.160talk to me 23:19, December 30, 2011 (UTC)

Maybe. If Gallifrey hadn't been destroyed then perhaps I'd go attend the Academy and learn precisely how time and paradoxes work, but as it is, none of us can truly understand the laws of time. The paradox may have had a beginning, or it may not have, or I may have guessed wrong and its not really a paradox. We'll probably never get a real answer. Icecreamdif talk to me 08:44, December 31, 2011 (UTC)

Well the Doctor so far as I know did see the moon landings, and come to think of it I believe he did in Blink. So he will have seen the message. Of course maybe the Doctor was unaffected by the hypnosis and merely used the massacre thing to scare the Silence from the planet. That makes sense I suppose. 94.72.209.160talk to me 13:38, December 31, 2011 (UTC)

Also on the problem number 1 (why Amy didn't kill the silents) that was explained in Day of the Moon (but not directly). The Doctor said that eventually even photos and other depictions of the Silence eventually managed to erase themselves like memories did. So if Amy and Rory yad seen the moon landings (and we don't know that they did) then the footage of the silence would have erased itselfby the time they got chance to watch it. One problem no-one has mentioned yet - Amy noticed the silents ability to erase memories due to encounters with Joy. Surely at on point two human will have seen a silent and one of tgem will have worked out about the memory thing. Won't they too, have drawn or photographed a silent, and had evidence of their existence? Or were people who did this disintegrated on the spot? 94.72.209.160talk to me 13:46, December 31, 2011 (UTC)

well, it's not like they would be able to remember the picture after it's taken. amy didn't at first. and one would have to look away to draw a silent, so one would forget them before anything is drawn. Imamadmad talk to me 03:01, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

Well OK, maybe not draw, but if someone had set up a camera to take a picture and they saw a Silent, they could photograph it, then they'd forget about it, then they'd develop it, saw the Silent, ran off to tell someone, forgotten what they were doing, gone back inside, seen the photo, gone to tell someone, forget what they did, repeat this a few times and they'd eventually realise that the memory thing was effecting them, just like Amy, Rory and the Doctor did, and perhaps find a way to combat the memory-loss thing. We know it's possible to do this, because by the end of Day of the Moon, the Doctor, River, Amy and Rory seem completely immune to the silences powers. Of course chancesnare the Silent would think "this guy's going to cause us trouble" and zap them with a few million volts to make sure that didn't happen. 94.72.209.160talk to me 11:59, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind that this was the 60s, before everyone carried a camera around in their pocket with them. The Silence would just have to stay away from people who were taking pictures. That particular Silence may not have even known that camera phones would one day be developed, so didn't realize that Amy had taken a picture of him.Icecreamdif talk to me 20:18, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

Well to be honest it was only an example, but people could at least make an attempt to combat the forgetting thing. We know it's possible - a few conspiracy theorists managed it because they used the Silence as a basis for the belief in The Men in Black. 94.72.209.160talk to me 21:57, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

Did they use "the Silence as a basis for the belief in the Men in Black"? Didn't they use the Men in Black as a basis for the belief in the Men in Black? The MIB (working for the Alliance of Shades) are in the Whoniverse, too. --78.146.177.197talk to me 23:03, January 1, 2012 (UTC)

Who's to say that the Silence weren't the basis for the men in black and the men in black weren't the basis for the Alliance of Shades? Anyway, if someone heard about the men in black and saw a silent, they might assume it's the same thing and from then on the conspiracy might spark a few memories every time they heard it. 94.72.209.160talk to me 00:03, January 2, 2012 (UTC)

On problem 6, we don't know if the Silence had been located worldwide. We know they were in 1600s England, (The Gunpowder Plot) and we know they were in 1900s America, (TIA/DOTM) but we can't confirm they went anywhere else. My personal theory is that the Silence landed their ship in America God knows how long ago, knew they needed Humans to live there so they could hypnotise them in order to make their plan work, went to England and hypnotised more people to go to America, and after America was inhabited and had expanded, they were able to give the order for the Astronaut suit. Once the death order was broadcast, the Silence in America, and possibly a few still in England, may have attempted to leave the country but got caught trying to do so. I doubt there ability to "jump" between places instantly meant they could easily go overseas. 178.78.81.210talk to me 13:52, January 3, 2012 (UTC)

Problem 3: The Silence lightning power isn't that effective. It takes about ten seconds to reach full power and the aim isn't great. They might take out the odd few people but pretty soon mobs of angry humans would be upon them. Which brings me to another question. Why am I holding an axe that's covered in blood? 87.102.117.106talk to me 19:26, January 6, 2012 (UTC)

the question is, why would you have an axe near your computer? wich leads to a more practical question, how would people kill the silence on sight when most people don't carry weapons around with them? lets say i saw a silent. since i have no weapons or anything i can use as a weapon anywhere near me, would i try to strangle the silent or something? Imamadmad talk to me 01:51, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

Be sure to let us know what you did. Boblipton talk to me 02:07, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

Not having anything to use as a weapon nearby is pretty rare. The 2nd Doctor once came up with a clever plan (I think for dealing with a yeti): "Bung a rock at it." In cities, there's often the option of shoving the thing in front of a bus or lorry (truck). Not everyone would think of such things in time to do them, of course, but quite a few would. --78.146.183.1talk to me 02:10, January 7, 2012 (UTC)

ok, outside there are many things that could be used as weapons, but what about someone inside sitting at their computer desk or reading in bed or eating cerial etc. that greatly reduces the number of things to be used as weapons. Imamadmad talk to me 02:19, January 7, 2012 (UTC)