@figs999 - actually this isn't true. You're talking about John Reed who found that in Heim's original equations. But the Heim theory group sent Reed updated equations and on Sep 4, 2007, Reed posted that the updated 1989 formulas do not use any baked in constants at all.
I've been writing a science fiction novel with Heim Theory as its one thing that everything else extrapolates from. Been working on it for a year. Don't know when it will be done, but there is a lot of fun stuff in the history of Heim Theory that is also worked into the story.
Maybe Moffats "new companion" means THIS series? Picture Alex Kingston's name appearing in the opening credits.
For next year, River becoming the main companion would make sense, but would every episode of Alex Kingston be overdose? Or are we talking a different incarnation of River?
For next year, River becoming the main companion would make sense, but would every episode of Alex Kingston be overdose? Or are we talking a different incarnation of River?
@ditikos: Got it in one. When Rory asks the Doctor: "Do you have a room?" it is obvious that in all this time together they've probably very very rarely seen him outside of the console room, and never in some kind of personal room. The Doctor doesn't respond to the question and at the time he is hanging under the central console - the implication is most definitely that THIS is his room. I think there may have been some prior comment in the series that he doesn't need to sleep or anything like that, and if he does take catnaps I picture him simply dozing in a chair in the console room.
@Annalee: Ah, yes, the poor lamb - so cute and yet so tasty. I've always joked that God must hate lambs because it seems so cruel to make them taste so good.
@Andrew Bates - I expect the original idea was that she had met others... but I have a feeling they'll be modifying that and her story will probably be wrapped up before we get another Doctor. Just a feeling.
Holy cow, I knew it was Morgan Sheppard (loved him in so many other shows, Max Headroom, Babylon 5, etc) but I never made the connection! During the show I thought: wow, Romo Lampkin's voice really sounds like Morgan Sheppard's voice! But I had no idea they were father and son. Awesome!
OK, I have a theory about what we're going to see the rest of the season. Tell me what you think. This is just a theory, and even I'm not convinced it is going to happen, but I think it is a possibility, anyway.
We start of with a Doctor around 200 years in the future, right? We see some adventures apparently on his own, but we don't know if they are adventures of the current Doctor during his few months away from Amy and Rory, or if they are adventures of the future Doctor. I'm guessing adventures of the future Doctor.
We have a ticking clock - there are 200 years until the Doctor's death, which seems like a while, long enough to figure everything out. But my theory is that we will see multiple opportunities for the Doctor to go off on his own sans companions during this year, to have these adventures, and to meet up with River Song at other points in her timeline to have various standalone adventures not in the current arc (e.g. "Easter Island" and "Jim the Fish" among others). I don't actually think we'll see these adventures, but they'll be implied. There have been rare occasions during the show's history where the Doctor has been without companions and more adventures could be implied to have happened (for example, with the 4th Doctor between Sarah Jane and Leela, in fact in the "Face of Evil" we explicitly learn about a visit the 4th Doctor made to Leela's ancestors and it is far enough back in time that he mostly forgets it until the end) but I think this year we're going to see that happen... during the year the Doctor WILL age those 200 years and the ticking clock will be ticking very fast indeed from our point of view.
The other thing this would allow us to do is give the Doctor and River enough time together for their relationship to really start being believable. I've always liked the concept, but I've felt since they introduced River that it would be really difficult to pull it off. She can't just be another Martha with a pining for the Doctor that is never satisfied. She's it, she's The One. But how do you write a relationship like that where everyone in the audience believes that she's someone he would really fall in love with? I had kind of thought that the only way for it to be believable was to have their relationship happen mostly offscreen and leave it up to our imaginations. It's also implied that they have spent a LOT of time together. There's just no practical way they'll ever be able to show that. And there's the fact that Alex Kingston is getting older not younger so they won't be able to keep this storyline going for years and years to come... I have a feeling they'll be finishing it if not this year then within the next year or two, and the only way to squeeze in all the time they need together to fulfill the narrative is to have it happen offscreen.
As I've stated elsewhere in this thread, I don't think that River and the Doctor are meeting completely in reverse, it is just a general trend. I think her diary (and the one we see the future Doctor carrying) is an indicator that they meet out-of-order, not in reverse-order. If they met just in reverse-order she wouldn't really need a diary. She'd just know that each time she meets him, he's one adventure further back that she's already experienced and that all of the adventures he's already had with her she knows nothing about. I just really wish they would have implied that Tennant's Doctor met with her a few more times before the end.
We start of with a Doctor around 200 years in the future, right? We see some adventures apparently on his own, but we don't know if they are adventures of the current Doctor during his few months away from Amy and Rory, or if they are adventures of the future Doctor. I'm guessing adventures of the future Doctor.
We have a ticking clock - there are 200 years until the Doctor's death, which seems like a while, long enough to figure everything out. But my theory is that we will see multiple opportunities for the Doctor to go off on his own sans companions during this year, to have these adventures, and to meet up with River Song at other points in her timeline to have various standalone adventures not in the current arc (e.g. "Easter Island" and "Jim the Fish" among others). I don't actually think we'll see these adventures, but they'll be implied. There have been rare occasions during the show's history where the Doctor has been without companions and more adventures could be implied to have happened (for example, with the 4th Doctor between Sarah Jane and Leela, in fact in the "Face of Evil" we explicitly learn about a visit the 4th Doctor made to Leela's ancestors and it is far enough back in time that he mostly forgets it until the end) but I think this year we're going to see that happen... during the year the Doctor WILL age those 200 years and the ticking clock will be ticking very fast indeed from our point of view.
The other thing this would allow us to do is give the Doctor and River enough time together for their relationship to really start being believable. I've always liked the concept, but I've felt since they introduced River that it would be really difficult to pull it off. She can't just be another Martha with a pining for the Doctor that is never satisfied. She's it, she's The One. But how do you write a relationship like that where everyone in the audience believes that she's someone he would really fall in love with? I had kind of thought that the only way for it to be believable was to have their relationship happen mostly offscreen and leave it up to our imaginations. It's also implied that they have spent a LOT of time together. There's just no practical way they'll ever be able to show that. And there's the fact that Alex Kingston is getting older not younger so they won't be able to keep this storyline going for years and years to come... I have a feeling they'll be finishing it if not this year then within the next year or two, and the only way to squeeze in all the time they need together to fulfill the narrative is to have it happen offscreen.
As I've stated elsewhere in this thread, I don't think that River and the Doctor are meeting completely in reverse, it is just a general trend. I think her diary (and the one we see the future Doctor carrying) is an indicator that they meet out-of-order, not in reverse-order. If they met just in reverse-order she wouldn't really need a diary. She'd just know that each time she meets him, he's one adventure further back that she's already experienced and that all of the adventures he's already had with her she knows nothing about. I just really wish they would have implied that Tennant's Doctor met with her a few more times before the end.
@Pessimippopotamus - I agree. I wish that during Tennant's last few episodes, since they knew he was going to be leaving, they had at least hinted that between episodes he had met River a few times more. But when he meets her as Matt Smith for the first time, I think it is fairly obviously implied that this is just his second time.
@StickFigureNinja - Yep, this. It is more of a trend than an absolute rule. There's definitely the case of her next-to-last meeting with him (for her, the one right before Silence in the Library), but also having the diaries really helps when you're meeting out-of-order instead of in reverse-order. If they were always meeting in reverse-order, it would be fairly obvious to her that each time she meets the Doctor he'll be one adventure further behind and no real diary is necessary.
That's the one. They banned the sonic in the original series because it made solving technical problems too easy. They brought it back in the new series for PRECISELY the same reason. For good or for ill, the new show isn't supposed to have the same formula as the old show, and its priorities in story telling are a little different.
I'm going to guess that Sardicktown is on the planet Sto. Maybe years after "Voyage of the Damned" and the local population has adopted Christmas.
The other side of alien conspiracy theories:
[dissimulationdisco.blogspot.com]
[dissimulationdisco.blogspot.com]
Tripods was great. I have the whole thing (sadly only 2 of the 3 books were ever made) and rewatched it recently... much of it still holds up just fine, although there is a bit too much padding. Still great, though. The Tripod hunting call is still scary.
Another interesting thing is that, under Special Relativity, FTL travel always implies time travel. A lot of people don't always get this because to explain it you have to understand Lorentz transformations. Since moving at any velocity changes your own axes on a spacetime diagram, it is possible to do all sorts of odd things if you can travel outside of your lightcone. This is a great page for explaining it: [www.theculture.org] - That being said, just because causality violations appear to be allowed when you combine FTL and Special Relativity doesn't mean that FTL is impossible. For example, the universe may have a post-selection bias. This isn't really what physically happens with post-selection, but I think it is an easy way to picture it: imagine that you travel to the past and kill your grandfather. Because of the paradox (how can you travel back in time if you've never been born?) you're effectively destroying time and space... the universe will never have existed at all. So, since the universe obviously DOES exist, you simply cannot kill your grandfather - if you try, all sorts of odd coincidences will happen such as the gun jamming, or whatever (or, if you do, he wasn't actually your grandfather after all). This kind of time travel is paradox-free and might be able to coexist with Special Relativity and FTL.
@The Hoon Dynasty (RexMaximus): You know that whenever tourists finally get to the moon, that because of Shep, golf will be the official sport of the moon. I've actually thought a little about that recently - how would you have to change the sport to be effective? Course design would be challenging - everywhere is a sand trap! Moon buggies are a necessity - given the length of shots you need a quick way around. White balls are right out - they'd be too hard to find. Maybe orange? Balls would probably also need some kind of beacon in them, and you'd carry along a directional finder of some sort. Every shot is longer, including the putting at the end, which may change things as well - after all, you might be putting without even being able to see the hole! Maybe the holes have to be larger? Somehow that seems like cheating, though...
@atreides78: Oh, absolutely. I wasn't trying to say that Ben & Jerry's today just uses simple ingredients... only saying that's how they started out. But I bet you could make s'mores ice cream yourself that would taste just as good or better using only simple natural ingredients... it might just be really time consuming making the chocolate, marshmellows and graham crackers from scratch! And while it would be natural, of course it would still be bad for you!
@atreides78: I know that was just a joke, but I do feel compelled to point out that if you make your own ice cream from scratch it can both be all natural and taste awesome. The interesting this is that this was how Ben & Jerry started out (according to their ice cream recipe book) - just with an ice cream maker machine and simple ingredients. But I guess scaling up to global distribution (and much larger quantities) just doesn't work with sugar, cream, and eggs.
Perfect post-apocalypse car, no? Well, except for the obvious security issues.
When it first opened (how many years ago? 10? 15? not sure) it was kind of interesting. As far as "theme" restaurants go, its food was pretty good - better than Planet Hollywood, the Hard Rock Cafe, etc - but that's not saying too much. The most recent time I went (6 or 7 years ago), it was mostly kids (I recall it being mostly adults when I went soon after it opened, with kind of a Cirque-du-Soleil atmosphere) and the food had gone way downhill. Probably still better than Planet Hollywood and Hard Rock, but again, not saying much there.
