User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-24894325-20170121220436/@comment-24894325-20170123010034

original snarky reply Look. You believe the Ship is the Doctor's TARDIS, clearly. You've probably believed it for a long time, so it seems like the only possibility given the facts. But it's not.

For me there is more than one level of novelty here to get used to. Because I also have a complete picture of the part of the DWU I'm familiar with. Most writers I consume respect the main tenets, so I have this comfortable view over TV, books, comics, and audios that has painted a particular picture of what a TARDIS is. And what it is not. I've seen the difficulties the TARDIS has communicating with its passengers. I've seen it behaving like a dumb machine doing the Doctor's enemies' bidding. What I haven't seen is a humanoid TARDIS. And I'm asking myself: why is it a TARDIS? Can you enter it? Where is the door? Yes, you've mentioned already it was from EDA. But in AUDIO: Zagreus it is heavily implied that EDA happens in an alternative universe. There is a scene where the Doctor sees various versions of himself, including, I am told, the one from the EDA. So in my mind, these humanoid TARDISes are not necessarily on the same plain of reality that I'm interested in. I may be wrong here: never investigated it properly.

But now it turns out the TARDIS can just take over a human at will? Fine, let it be a sleeping human, they all still sleep from time to time. I can even grant that, in the timey-wimeyness of DWU, such things exist, or that such TARDISes exist. But that the Doctor's TARDIS can do that? And only did it once through all the scraps they've been in? Why would I believe that? Why would I want to believe that without explicit evidence?

I do not recognise this TARDIS's behaviour. I do not recognise its abilities. It is not called the TARDIS. Its pilot is not called the Doctor. Yes, he's called cuckoo. Hardly a unique characteristic. Yes, his female companion has an earpiece and pale skin. Yes, the pilot did something to the male companion. For every action, I'm pretty sure there dozens of stories in the DWU where this action is performed.

Of course, they are intended to be the Eight Doctor, his TARDIS, and his companions. But there were oh, so many very on the nose (sometimes literally) hints that were not allowed to be taken seriously until an independent verification. Those cases are much more clear-cut that the anonymous Ship with anonymous passengers meeting with Lolita who is not the Master's TARDIS and is the Ship's sister.
 * The Curator was clearly an incarnation of the Doctor, right? I mean we could see that! The Doctor could see that. The Curator said: "perhaps, you would be me". He pointed to his nose and said: "Who nose". But no, that wasn't enough. Until the Curator appeared in a timeline attack on the Eleventh Doctor in Titan comics, it was not sufficiently clear for this Wiki.
 * Osgood said her name was Petronella. The Doctor called her Petronella. Big Finish put Petronella in the cast. Doctor Who Legacy (invalid though they are) calls the character Petronella Osgood. It is still not sufficient for this Wiki.

So no, I am not convinced yet. Yes, there is a space for a productive discussion. And as CoT said on another thread, the standard solution is to merge things that are explicitly called by the same name in universe and create duplicate pages for things with hints but nothing definite. This is done for many Doctors from short stories, where hints are there but are insufficient to determine the incarnation. For me, there is nothing wrong with The Ship (Toy Story) with a BHS link to the Doctor's TARDIS and a BHS link in the opposite direction.

One final thought. There is, I imagine, tons of things to create and edit for the invalid-made-valid FP. Fleshing out all those pages is, perhaps, the best way of persuading me and other sceptics of your position. As the case of Petronella shows, this debate can last a long time. It would be a pity if some of FP material will hinge on the results of this debate. Wouldn't it be better to create pages first under non-controversial names, populate them and then come with a suggestion to merge or rename.

Incidentally, I'm pretty sure that the visibility of this new material would be much higher if it is on separate pages. People very rarely link to a specific section of a long page like The Doctor's TARDIS or Eighth Doctor. I'm not sure anyone actually reads the whole page of this size. So adding material about this short story there means, in a sense, burying it deep inside.