One potential answer is there in your questions. River was a sleeper agent, psychologically and physiologically conditioned by the Silence, to kill the Doctor. The Tardis blew up when River was in there on her own. Now, I'm not saying that River was a knowing assassin, but it's not impossible that she was the unwitting means by which a disruptive technology was brought aboard the Tardis. I still think it's unlikely that the Silence knew the consequences of their actions, especially given it was the cracks resulting from their plans that caused the message from Gallifrey that made them so nervous in the first place.

The simplest answer....

We know that the Silents (the race of creatures) were attempting to build a Tardis but we never learned WHY. How about - they just wanted to work out the controls and circuits so they could sabotage the Doctor's Tardis.

In other words, Silents could have been coming and going with the Doctor and/or River for hundreds of years. For all we know, there's been a whole family of Silents living in the Tardis since it landed in the scrapyard all those years ago.

It's not that big a stretch to suggest that there was one in there with River and the voice we heard didn't come from any radio or loud-speaker.

That's a reasonable option - although you would think River would have reacted in some way, had a creature been present. Of course she would have forgotten immediately afterwards, but you think there would be evidence of action.

Counter to that idea, although in real-life terms only, Moffat probably hadn't thought of the Silent creatures at that stage in the story, whereas he had an idea of where the River story was going. Not enough evidence to credit either theory as the truth, though.

We know why they built a Time Machine.

To travel from the Future (period of time the Siege of Trenzalore was happening) to the Past so they could stop the Doctor ever getting to Trenzalore.


The Ship the Doctor found in The Lodger was no doubt abandoned due to it's Pilot being killed by someone acting under the Apollo Landing Hypnosis.

So have you forgotten the Silence (the race, not the group) who were forgotten as soon as you look away from them. Very easy for them to just waltz in wherever they want to be, as they would be forgotten about as soon as they left your eyesight.

And as for your other point - also very very wrong. Every companion so far in New Who has been taught to fly the TARDIS. It's not some Timelord thing - it's a somewhat sentient spaceship whose capabilities can be learned. That has been shown numerous times on the show - so many times I can't believe you don't remember it. River just got taught how to do it well.

I think you've missed the main point of the Silents. They'd been on Earth for as long as humans have existed. We've "not seen" them billions of times - so not seeing one in the Tardis is not just irrelevant, it's normal. Within the DW universe, they have always been around - probably in every episode.

I can't agree with your suggestion that Moffat didn't already have a fairly solid idea of what the Silents were about - he referenced them throughout the previous series. It's possible that the physical design wasn't done until later but he clearly knew there was an "invisible" enemy trying to destroy the Doctor and the Tardis.

We know that "The Silence" was behind the exploding Tardis and we know that the Silents are their priests and we know that Silents have at least some knowledge of the workings of a Tardis - so it makes perfect sense that one of them walked in and nobbled the Tardis - possibly right under the Doctor's nose.

Quite the opposite - precisely because we always forget about them, every time we see them would be a fresh revelation.


He referenced "silence" as a mysterious thing that was going to happen, but made no allusions as to whether they were a group, a species, an event, etc. There are only two times that I can think of we had references to an identifiable silence - firstly to the cracks and related destruction of the universe, and the second was a reference as a "what" rather than a "who". It seems fairly clear that Steven hadn't decided who the threat was going to be yet.



If nothing else, if Steven had already thought of the species, and decided they were physically present, it might have been a nice touch for River to notice a tally mark appear on her skin without explanation at that point, or at least a scorch mark from her gun on the wall. But then, that's just hindsight talking.

You're completely missing the point - if there was a Silent in the console room in that scene - YOU will never remember seeing it.

That's not a facetious point - WE - the audience - have been seeing Silents since the show began - we just forget that we've seen them.

That's the "joke" Moffat played on us as viewers - he didn't "create" the Silent - he just informed us that they exist and always had.

No, I think you're missing my point. I will never remember seeing it - but that doesn't mean I won't react to seeing it. Whether it be by River marking her arm to prove that something was there, or the Doctor and Churchill realising that they've been running and a gun has been fired.

What I'm saying is that the Silence don't have the power to sneak on board a ship without being seen - if River saw something she thought was a threat, she would shoot them. She's had no problem doing that since.

And absolutely NO-ONE ever shot one or reacted to one before "The Impossible Astronaut" - you therefore have to either say that they didn't exist until they were written (and remain in our universe) or you have to accept that -for whatever reason- we - the entire human race, including River Song - never reacted in the way you are insisting she would - cos that's what we've seen, read and heard in every DW source ever.

Fact is, if you accept the Silents, you have to accept that they have always been around but have never caused ANY reaction in anyone until the first time they were spotted by "Amy" -and bear in mind that the Amy who saw them wasn't actually the real Amy. It was only after that "Amygoo" reported seeing a Silent that ANYONE became aware of them. Prior to that, not one person had ever shot at or so much as blinked at the sight of a Silent.

No. They ruled by post-hypnotic suggestion, not by virtue of people ignoring them. People would have reacted to them all the time - exactly as Amy did, or any of the other characters - they just didn't know why. That time you walked into the kitchen and couldn't remember why? That time you had a panic attack for no reason? Even if you did shoot one, you wouldn't remember that you had.

There is no evidence a Silence was in the Tardis just before it exploded, just as there's no evidence there wasn't. My point was that, had Moffat decided the nature of the Silence, he would have added some hint in one of the scenes. A noise, a mark, a smoking gun. As it stands, we can retcon it in our heads so that either there was a Silent there to do the deed (and surely the Tardis security systems would have objected to that), or River did it because of her conditioning, or River did it because a Silent had planted a post-hypnotic suggestion that she doesn't remember - perhaps the most satisfying option. But they're all hypothetical.

He did - he made it clear that something "unseen" affected the Tardis and he'd made it clear that the Doctor was dealing with something so odd that even he had no idea what it was.

Regardless - not once in the entire history of Doctor Who did ANYONE ever show ANY reaction UNTIL Amygoo outed them. You're not saying why River Song should react in a "post-Amygoo" fashion in a "pre-Amygoo" encounter.

River wouldn't have blown herself up. Must have been a silent or someone doing their bidding.

Yes. Because Moffat hadn't invented them yet. That's my whole point. River couldn't have a reaction scene at that point because nobody had decided that they were a thing at all. Your assertion that no-one has ever shown any reaction is demonstrably false - firstly, because Amy did react to it - she can't be the only person that they've revealed themselves to. Secondly, because their hypnotic suggestion, the only thing that allows them to get things done, is only implantable while you're looking at them. And thirdly, because Renfrew drew graffiti saying "Leave Me Alone" and "Get Out Now" over the walls to try and send himself a message.


You're not saying why you think those are two different things. She's River Song, and she's seen a big monster inside the Tardis either planting a bomb or trying to order her to do so. She would pull her gun out, no question. Even if a filmed reaction was merely a hint at a moment of forgetfulness, that would at least have clued the viewer into the fact that something was going on. So, either it didn't happen, or Moffat hadn't decided that that was how the Silents worked.

The Silents work by hypnotic suggestion, and River has been psychologically conditioned to carry out the work of the organisation The Silence, with the aim of killing the Doctor. Regardless of her rebellion against that conditioning, it's not unreasonable to consider it a possibility. There is no actual tangible evidence of that at all, though.

That doesn't work cos you're forgetting that River's timeline is effectively reversed.

The River in the exploding Tardis comes from a point in her life that is AFTER she has already helped to fake The Doctor's death in Utah - she escaped from prison to be there.

She had already broken her programming by then - in fact, although the Doctor (and we) didn't know it, she was already his devoted wife.

Well, that doesn't necessarily mean that she's not susceptible to Silent suggestion any more.

But actually, that's a good point that lends more credence to the idea that she should have reacted to seeing a Silent in the TARDIS. From her timeline, that scene happens long after she shot a whole roomful of them in Day of the Moon, after their break out and destruction the alternate timeline of their wedding, and certainly after Amy brought them to the team's attention. If there was a Silent, it couldn't just walk in, as River would have shot it on sight if she saw one messing around with important controls. So it would have had the same challenges as any other species.

Yes it does - she was completely freed once the Silence believed the Doctor was dead. They didn't discover the truth until years after River Song was dead.

And you're flogging a dead horse on the "she would have seen a Silent" idea. ABSOLUTELY NO-ONE - EVER - reacted to a Silent - NOT EVER - until Amygoo - a non-human - spotted the one by the lake.

It may have been later on for River but it was EARLIER for the Silents - and in an exploding Tardis in a collapsed universe where an Auton could be "human" and a Dalek could beg for mercy.

We KNOW that Silents have always been there and we KNOW that not one single person EVER reacted to them AT ALL before Utah and the day of the Doctor's death.

The logical answer is that they changed their behaviour on the day the Doctor died - which was not only AFTER Big Bang 2 for the Silence, it was also in a different reality from Big Bang 2.

You just need to accept that NO-ONE ever reacted to a Silent before Utah - otherwise it trashes the idea that they've always been on Earth and messing with our minds. In DW, they didn't suddenly appear in an episode - that's merely the first time in history that anyone showed ANY reaction to them - saw them, did a double-take - anything.

No, you have absolutely no basis on which to suppose this. All evidence is to the contrary - the Silents could not achieve any control over the Earth without the humans having seen them, and forgotten. Renfrew is an example of this. He was certainly aware of them, even if he couldn't remember that he was. I fail to see how Amy's body being made of Flesh or flesh has any impact on the situation.


How can that possibly have any impact? Are you saying that the Silents were actually literally invisible, until the point that they decided to reveal themselves to Amy? Because that's clearly not the case.


No, it's the first time the audience have been shown their existence. It's not like there's a dozen Silents in every room right now, most people would presumably live their whole lives without even encountering one.

There has to a be a reason that there's absolutely no reported sightingt or any sign of any influence until we first see one in the desert in Utah.

The boring explanation is that Moffat only just invented them.

The in-universe answer is that they were always there but never noticed.

You are assuming that the ONLY way they could control minds was to allow themselves to be seen and then erase the MEMORY of their existence - but we were told and shown that their abilities far exceed that. The answer - the one that doesn't requiret he audience to be conned - is that the Silents previously used MIND control rather than memory wiping.

As for why they changed that tactic...

There were four people on that beach in Utah - both the Doctor and River were actually from he future and both Amy and Rory had their memories altered due to their proximity to the cracks and their time with the Doctor - plus that "Amy" was actually a Fleshie connected to the real Amy who was being held by The Silence and would almost certainly have learned of the existence of the Silents. In short, that was a unique group of people - including THREE WHO ALREADY KNEW THE SILENTS EXIST.

And you're missing vital points - like the fact that we SAW Silents IN THE WHITE HOUSE - and not a single one of the highly trained, paranoid US secret service agents pulled their guns or even blinked.

You have to accept that the ONLY reason people started even seeing the Silents is that three people WHO ALREADY KNEW THEY EXIST outed them and made it impossible for them to remain a secret.

And then the BIG reason - the Silents WANTED TO BE SEEN - because that was part of the trap being set for the Doctor.

There's a scene in The Lodger where Amy reacts, twice, to something completely unseen to us. She even seems about to call out to someone/thing before being distracted on the phone by the Doctor (I can't get the references on iPlayer, as I'm on a work computer, but I'll try later...).

I'd like to think that Minky is right, and that Moff had already worked out, at that point, what the Silents were. And that could be the point at which the Silence planted the bomb - after all, they were right next to the Silents' proto-TARDIS, and the Doc's TARDIS was already on the fritz, so probably wouldn't necessarily deal with an intruder (besides, all references to them - be they written, recorded or imaged - disappear, so surely they'd be able to slip past all manner of alarm systems...).


There's one small thing wrong with that - the River in the TARDIS was the post-"You should shoot us all on sight"-moon landing mash up. Although that denouement had yet to be written, River would have been conditioned, the same as everyone else, to shoot the Silents on sight. So johnny is right in suggesting that there should have been some evidence (he's also probably right that River would have, regardless of the level of threat the Silent seems to show - something new and uninvited would appear every time she saw it - it's an automatic threat).

But as I pointed out above, there's perhaps no real reason to believe that the Silent was actually in the TARDIS at that particular time. It's only me picking up on what could have been nothing (but should have been something, in my view!)...

No, the in-universe answer is that they were always noticed, but never remembered. I didn't say it was a good answer, but it was the one we were given. Seriously, this is not the most unbelievable part of the story.

Invent your own answers based on things unseen if you like, but given what we know and have been told by the writers on-screen, River in the Tardis would have known about the Silence, seen any potential Silent if it was in the open, known it was a threat and done something about it. The Silence have many agents, and many means of subterfuge.

The only UNSEEN thing is the UNSEEN reaction of anyone in 50 years of Doctor Who. Noting the ABSENCE of something is a recognised part of the the scientific method - there was no reaction and we KNOW the Silents existed therefore they did not rely on MEMORY WIPING until very recently - they used MIND CONTROL. (And we KNOW that their mind control abilities are not limited to memory wiping).

And you still can't explain how a Silent could stand in the Oval office and not be shot until AFTER the Doctor outed them. The one we saw was in full view of at least three people who did not react to it until AFTER they were told they existed.

But the Silent itself wouldn't have been - so it would have been using MIND CONTROL rather than MEMORY WIPING - it may simply make people believe they are seeing a speck of dust.

They started using memory wiping on the day they assisted in killing the Doctor - it may be that they HAD TO drop their usual level of mind control in order to fully influence River or they may have assumed their mission was over and dropped the mind control - the memory wiping appeares to have been instinctual and uncontrolled given that even their allies needed tech to work with them .

Whatever the reason, it makes absolute sense - in fact the only sense - to say that they don't ONLY use memory wiping and relied on a more complete form of mind control to remain invisible before that date in Utah.

Think about it - the memory wipe is no good for avoiding conflict ON SIGHT yet they did exactly that for thousands of years - through multiple wars and as we saw, in America during the Cold War. There's no way that they could achieve that unless they were LITERALLY unseeable as opposed to quickly forgettable. They were INVISIBLE until they no longer needed to be.

That you need to explain this probably suggests the series failed in explaining it well and, more importantly, in proper context. Such a large, important mystery was explained very briefly in a random conversation 3 years later so it's no surprise that many people didn't pick up on it. In my mind that's just SM tidying up loose ends rather than it being a planned out conclusion to an interesting mystery.

And that sums up New Who, both RTD and SM eras. Lots of interesting and clever ideas but often badly resolved (in my opinion obviously ). That's why I'm not on the speculation thread about who "Missy" is. I'm certain its an unguessable identity because mysteries in the show are rarely foreshadowed or require large leaps of logic to get to the answer.

That said, I am enjoying the Moff era way more than the RTD era. I just wish the mysteries were more satisfying.