Seeing as the crack is altering time, does this mean that although what happens in the past cannot effect the present day, such as the current MS Doctor, as he states himself that as he is a time traveller the crack does not affect him or Amy and River. Does it then leave a possibility for any of the old doctors to of never got to the point of regenerating due to the crack affecting historical events?

This would surely leave an opportunity for an old Doc who has now not regenerated to reappear at some point in a future series.

Interesting theory. But I'm sure they'd say that being a time traveller means that your whole personal time-line is unaffected. So regardless of the fact that, lets say, Bob shot the Doctor causing him to regenerate, but then got wiped from existance, the Doctors regeneration would still have happened. Why? SM's genius one-liner..."Timey-Whimey..."

Have you been reading the plot of the aborted "The Dark Dimension" recently, where Tom Baker's Doctor is stopped from regenerating into Peter Davison so that they can explain why he has aged so much since the early 80's...

The 10-11 regeneration is already negated (Amy doesn't remember the Daleks, that means the Doctor didn't use up the spare hand because he wasn't exterminated by them in Journey's End, so 10 wouldn't need to complete the regeneration in End of Time), so it's a paradox already.

They were two separate regenerations. In JE, the Doctor syphoned off the regeneration energy into the spare hand - that was why and how it created the second Doctor (10.2). That was one regeneration (technically).

In EoT, the Doctor's regeneration was brought on by absorbing all the radiation to allow Wilf to go free. This was a second regeneration - completely unrelated to the one in JE. The only difference with what you were saying is that Rose would never have had the Doctor 10.2 to take with her, and there would still be the spare hand - which could feasibly have been used at the end of Eot instead.

So there could still be a paradox, but slightly different to yours...
Last edited by sebbie3000 : 05-05-2010 at 12:44

Its still unclear if the crack unwriting history actually changes all things from an event that is unwritten (if that makes sense). For people who remember the events, like the Doctor, they still happened.

Its very confusing.

Event A happens in the Doctor's time line, and the cause and effects of it are in place. But then the crack unwrites event A. But the effects of event A have already determined subsequent events for the Doctor that have not been removed by the crack. So it seems that there can be effects without a cause.

Must re-read by philosophy books on Causality.

And it's also unclear how much gets rewritten to account for the paradox - i.e. the same event occurring in slightly different ways.

I am a bit puzzled about this Crack thing.

We see three Clergy get too close to the crack. Ecah time, those remaining lose all memory of those disappeared. We are told that the crack erases people from time.

This means that the Angels which the Doctor dropped into the Crack never existed. Assuming those he met on Earth are different ones, it still means that River and the Clergy wouldn't go chasing after them any more.

What about any children the Clergymen might have had? Are they also erased fom Time?

Supposing a Clergyman had saved someone's life earlier. Now that said Clergyman never existed, then the saved person unsaved, i.e. dead?

Yeah, yeah, I know: WWTW.

!

I think you need to alter the thread title...

The Doctor used the duck pond analogy to clear this one up - the people of Leadworth knew the duck pond to be a duck pond, yet it had never been home to ducks (at least in Amy's memory - I know, don't go there...). This is the same for the activities surrounding the crack - they have been wiped from existence, but their actions are still evident.

It's a paradoxical cycle, but if you don't poke around in it too much, you'll not get the migraines...

*pops out to get some Migraleve*

*hands them out*