Talk: Great Old One

Are they ever referred to as Old Ones?

I've written over at the H. P. Lovecraft article that "Old One" is used both in Doctor Who and by Lovecraft to mean both the Elder Things and the Great Old Ones (although its actually even worse than that with Lovecraft), however, is there actually any instance of Doctor Who using "Old Ones" to refer to the Great Old Ones?

It can't be All-Consuming Fire in which they're consistently "Great". In The Taking of Planet 5, Old Ones is used once to refer to the Elder Things (which aren't the same thing) and Compassion jokes that maybe the Doctor is a Great Old One on his mother's side. --Nyktimos 19:45, October 21, 2009 (UTC)

Not that I can think of off the top of my head. All-Consuming Fire is the one that leaps to mind, but as you say in that they're called the "Great Old Ones" even the opener of the article calls them the Great Old Ones and sometimes Old Ones.

I'm happy for this page to be moved to "Great Old Ones". --Tangerineduel 14:06, October 22, 2009 (UTC)

To be fair, I've made some minor edits to this page recently. The opener read the reverse since 2007. I had no doubt that if not the preferred term (if it is in fact, not the only term) across all the stories, Great Old Ones was at least the less generic of the two and the one that better matched current usage outside Doctor Who.

Shouldn't it also be in the singular? --Nyktimos 01:46, October 23, 2009 (UTC)

In the most recent Seventh Doctor audios (House of Blue Fire and the current trilogy) they're called the elder gods and not the great old ones. 219.90.151.24^{talk to me} 21:19, September 23, 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't the page name be changed as this is the title for them given 'on screen'? 182.239.158.47^{talk to me} 06:40, January 2, 2013 (UTC)

Here's a list of references to what they've been called

• White Darkness - Old Ones
• All-Consuming Fire - Great Old Ones
• Twilight of the Gods - Old Ones
• The Roof of the World - Great Old Ones
• Black and White and following audios - Elder Gods

Steed ☎ 04:32, June 14, 2015 (UTC)

• Millennial Rites - elder gods (spelled lower case in the book) ----Ebyabe (talk) 05:54, June 14, 2015 (UTC)

Time Lords

I read somewhere that the Old Ones were the Time Lords of the Pre-Universe who managed to shunt themselves to N-Space when the Pre-Universe was destroyed by the Gods of Ragnarok and somehow evolved into weird temporal entities. The source is www.meshyfish.com/~roo/docwho5a.html which cites its source as an authorised novel, but doesn't elaborate. Should we put this in somewhere, or is this an uncredible source? Bigredrabbit 09:41, August 6, 2011 (UTC)

I think I remember reading that on one of the Faction Paradox. If you can find it, that would work as a source. If not, you probably shouldn't add uncited information. -<Azes13 16:29, August 6, 2011 (UTC)

I'll look into it. Bigredrabbit 06:39, August 9, 2011 (UTC)

That was in Millennial Rites--109.246.111.246^{talk to me} 17:06, March 20, 2017 (UTC)

Naming Distinction and Designation

The novels brought these different enemies together and named them "Old Ones/Great Old Ones" before the audios started calling them "Elder Gods" but the designations are not universal: Fenric and the Gods of Ragnarok have been called both Old Ones and Elder Gods, whereas Moloch (who has only appeared in audios) is just an Elder God. Maybe when the Doctor says the Animus is one of the Lloigor, he's implying "Lloigor" is another name for the Old Ones. It also doesn't help that Christmas on a Rational Planet mentions "a handful of baby-godlings and great intelligences," implying there's more than one Intelligence (which I guess there is because it's a "multiversal imprint") or that the Celestial Toymaker is an Elder God who's one of the Guardians but is also a Toymaker. So Elder God does not need to be it's own page like Toymaker and Guardians of Time, but the various names should be noted on the page. Or does anyone else have an idea how to identify them? Steed ☎ 02:07, November 11, 2015 (UTC)

Sounds like we're dealing with more than one article here. You might want to start a thread at Board:The Panopticon to attract more attention from anyone familiar with these concepts. Shambala108 ☎ 02:21, November 11, 2015 (UTC)

The thing is, the audios make it particularly clear that the Doctor is referring to a bunch of Old Ones who play with space and time, manipulating events in order to win games amongst themselves. Whilst Old One is simply a shortening of Great Old One (like when the Doctor refers to the Mi'en Kalarash as "Kalarash", or the Gods of Ragnarok as "Ragnarok"), the phrase "Elder God" is never used synonymously with "Great Old One". It would be pure speculation to assume that beings like Cthulhu or Azathoth were also Elder Gods purely because they were individual Old Ones, and therefore also speculative to state that all Old Ones could be classified as Elder Gods. RogerAckroydLives ☎ 05:46, November 11, 2015 (UTC)

We have a list above of names and their sources. I understand the Old Ones and the Elder Gods seem different (and I think in the true mythos they have been made different) but this began when the novels seemed to establish various, previously unconnected beings (Fenric, Animus, Great Intelligence), as being "Old Ones," great or otherwise. (White Darkness, All-Consuming Fire) Later, this included the Celestial Toymaker and the Guardians of Time, (Divided Loyalties) and as of now, the term "Elder God" has been applied to entities like the Toymaker and Intelligence. (Black and White) Millennial Rites doesn't call them Old Ones but rather Transient Beings, but on page 133 is the line "I have uncovered all that remains of the dark science of the elder gods." Does this make the names synonymous since it kind of bridges the use of both terms? Steed ☎ 00:12, November 18, 2015 (UTC)

It is possible that the two terms are synonymous, but there are two clear periods, one in which they are referred to as Great Old Ones (from White Darkness to The Roof of the World) and then the later period when they are referred to as Elder Gods. If, for example, the upcoming audio adaptation of All-Consuming Fire referred to all of the Old Ones as Elder Gods, or explained that the two terms were synonymous, then we could easily recombine these two articles, something I have ensured by holding off making extensive changes to this article's structure, but in that case, it will almost definitely be necessary to rename this page Elder God as per our policies. RogerAckroydLives ☎ 03:12, November 18, 2015 (UTC)

Looking for appearances/mentions in Marvel Comics

Hi! I'm editing pages on the Great Old Ones (and the Cthulhu Mythos as a whole) on both the H.P. Lovecraft Wiki and the Marvel Database, and I was looking for Marvel Comics' (I don't read much comics from other large editors, and don't know how their multiverses interact with the Doctor) Doctor Who's mentions or appearances of such. So far, by luck and reading this (great) site, I've been able to find Yonder... The Yeti (comic story) and Business as Usual (comic story) (Nestene Intelligence and Great Intelligence), and I have yet read the adventures of the Celestial Toymaker. Is anyone aware of other Marvel Comics Doctor Who stories involved the GOO? Thanks in advance. Undoniel ☎ 12:33, November 6, 2020 (UTC)

I know this doesn't quite relate to what you asked, but it's worth noting that these stories didn't necessarily involve 'the Great Old Ones' as far as they were concerned. The Nestenes being depicted as the progeny of an Old One is a pretty late and obscure retcon, albeit one that no other account has actually bothered to contradict. And as for the Great Intelligence, there are a dozen different origin stories for it, only some of which allege that it's an Old One (and not always the same Old One at that).

As such, while unfamiliar with the policies of the Marvel Database, I'd perhaps caution you against ascribing Marvel-produced Who stories to the "feature Great Old Ones" category on the faith of retcons introduced in a variety of novels which I wouldn't have thought Marvel would give the time of day to.

Also and as a point of order, this would normally be a matter for Board:The Reference Desk, as opposed to a talk page. But I'll let it slide this once due to the Forums currently being incapacitated. --Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 12:53, November 6, 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick answer. Your answer is actually quite exactly what I wished to find (at least about the Nestene and Great Intelligence), thank you!

Considering the facts you've mentioned, I will indeed correct the relevant pages back the MD.

Duly noted, my bad! Undoniel ☎ 13:46, November 6, 2020 (UTC)