It’s no wonder The Battle Of Ranskoor Av Kolos was a weird episode - hard to follow, too much information for the story it was telling, bit all over the place. Because it wasn’t trying to tell just one story. It’s telling three. One past, one present, one future.
It contains meta for every plot point so far, and what look like considerable signposts for what’s to come next.
If you wondered why it seemed so shallow on the surface - to the point where it is titled for The Battle Of Ranskoor Av Kolos, which we get almost no information on, and yet the people in the text are the ones who keep asking about that - then stick around.
The Battle Of Ranskoor Av Kolos is the codebreaker for Thirteen’s era.
We’re going to go along at a fair clip, but hopefully because it involves so much of the episode, there’s enough context in to jog your memories of the episode if they were as ropey as mine were. I’m assuming knowledge/fair understanding of media analysis, and hopefully links to other relevant metas where they’d be too long to get into will cover the rest.
We meet Tzim-Sha determined to rise in the ranks, and stealing a person. Ends up in control of a planet and the remains of a limited-in-number race who do his work for him and see him as the Creator. (Tzim-Sha is a Rassilon mirror - this is important throughout)
Tzim-Sha using Sniperbots. Just robots. Boring.
(The Lone Cyberman and the Cyberium AI. Tecteun=Rassilon=Ashad meta. )
((When we first met him, he had his own independently acting data collector and conveyer, that he eventually initiated a data transfer with and caused it to put everything it had learned, into him. His plan involves taking people, who are left on the cusp between life and death, put in machines. (The Lone Cyberman and the Cyberium AI))
Paltraki, separated from his three crewmates, memories gone. Doesn’t even remember his real name. He could’ve left any time, but didn’t. (Paltraki is a Doctor mirror).
“What did you take?” “Not take. Recover.” Paltraki doesn’t know/remember what’s in the special thing that he and others worked so hard to get. He knows he’s not supposed to let it fall into enemy hands...but his crew, his friends, are being threatened. (The Lone Cyberman and Cyberium AI plot)
The Planet gives off psychotropic waves to keep people away, but the element seems under-utilised in the story. (We’ll come back to that).
Everyone else passed by the cries for help.
(The Timeless Child(ren))
The Doctor attaches two grenades to the cube. (Mirrors the Master and the TCE’d Lone Cyberman with the dark twist that someone did blow it up and effectively destroy the remains of a planet that time)
Tzim-Sha got blown up but survived after a fashion. (future Tectuen=Rassilon=Ashad meta - no-one thinks the Lone Cyberman is actually dead)
“The Ux? As in the duo-species, only ever two of you? Lifespans of millennia?” (The Timeless Children, plural)
“Only found on three planets in the whole universe?” (Now isn’t that a weird and unnecessary addition. A lot of meta possibilities in that. Starting with: The Timeless Child and the boy on the cliff, Martin!Doctor and ??? The Doctor and the Master.)
One is following the will of the Creator. The other is being tortured.
(The Timeless Child(ren))
“Wait. Is this yours, this building? Is it true about the Ux? Faith-driven dimensional engineers. Is that why the building feels alive?” (What Are TARDISes meta)
Yaz: Do you have a home [on your planet]?
Paltraki: Beautiful home. Some land, and animals. Too many facts coming back. It's like a flood. I don't know what's important, or... We were the last fleet. When the others didn't come back, they sent for us.
(Feels like how the Doctor will regain bits of memories)
Paltraki was sent by The Congress of the Nine Planets in response to the atrocities. (The Alliance)
The Doctor: Why do you call him the Creator?
Andinio: Our faith is handed down. The Creator is the cornerstone.
(The Legends of Rassilon)
“But I've got so many questions, Andinio. Because there's a battlefield outside where many people died, but you're no warrior. And your words are certain, but your eyes are full of doubt.”
(The Timeless Child(ren))
There are literal codebreakers.
(Like Steganography and The Ireland Metaphor, the text is telling you to meta this)
They only came to rescue two people, but there are dozens of bodies in the pods. Thirty. (The Timeless Child - more bodies than imagined)
It’s been three thousand four hundred and seven years since Tzim-Sha saw the Doctor “banishing me across the universe to this desolate rock for the rest of my existence”. Later in the episode: “Even in exile, I shall lead.” (Meta 1: The last thing the Doctor linearly did with Rassilon was banish him. Meta 2: The Master or Matrix says Tecteun was adventuring but her story and other meta fits much better with someone trying to find a way to save her dwindling race - perhaps previous experiments got her banished, because the next lines are: )
The Doctor: “But you got more than you could possibly have wished for. The Ux.”
Tzim-Sha: “The universe provides.”
The Doctor: “You wanted to be a leader. Now you're worshipped as a false god. Why all the ships outside? What have you made them do?”
(The Timeless Child(ren))
Tzim-Sha: “I carry the entire hive knowledge of the Stenza civilisation within me.” (The Lone Cyberman and the Cyberium AI. Tecteun=Rassilon=Ashad)
The Doctor: “When you say revenge, revenge on who?”
Tzim-Sha: “You, Doctor.”
The Doctor: “Oh, no. Don't put this on me.”
Tzim-Sha: “If you had not interfered, I would have become leader. First of the Stenza. And yet, I should thank you.”
The Doctor: “Thank me? Why?”
Tzim-Sha: “You have made me a god.”
The Doctor: “You are nothing of the sort.”
(Tzim-Sha can do double duty as a Master meta in a lot of places too - three stories, past, present, and future.)
Tzim-Sha: “It has taken thousands of years. Every fragment of scientific understanding the Stenza ever possessed, allied to the impossible power of the Ux. You will see, Doctor. I must be a god. I have the powers of one.” (The Time Lords/Shobogans and the Timeless Children)
The Doctor: “Let me guess. They built you a weapon. That's what your sort like to do. Is that why all those ships came? You made a weapon, and they came to stop you.”
(The Alliance. The Lone Cyberman and the Cyberium AI. The Timeless Children)
((An inscription scored in the floor of a dead Stenza-controlled planet, where the only thing imitating life are robots and remnants: “We are scientists. Abducted, tortured and made to work, while our families are held hostage. We are forced to find new ways of destruction. Poisons, weapons, creatures. We gave them our minds and they made us the creators of death. This planet has been left scorched and barren from our work. The atmosphere and water are toxic. Killing machines and creatures inhabit every corner. We had no choice but to obey... The Stenza. We are trying to destroy all of our work before they use it against others. There's two words below that. They're coming.”
(The Timeless Children))
The building is weird - treated weirdly in the text. The Shrine. They refer to the building as pulling them in - not the people in it. This shrine is the weapon. The TARDIS directly referenced as Ghost Monument (What Are TARDISes) ((the planet itself is screaming))
Paltraki: “I remember what they did. Five objects. Five planets. One weapon. They stole five planets.”
The Doctor: “That's not possible.”
Paltraki: “It's what happened. Entire planets removed from their spatial orbit.”
The Doctor: “It would've destroyed all life. Planetary genocide.”
(The Lone Cyberman and the Cyberium AI: The Death Particle | Backups of species - currently two, Cybermen and Time Lords)
The Doctor: “All these planetary masses cannot exist in the same place at the same time. The technology isn't stable. You bring another through, it could destroy everything.” (Rassilon with Gallifrey in The End Of Time)
Graham - everyone’s Grandpa, and Ryan, trap Tzim-Sha - mirror of the Doctor’s abusive parental figure. (Era theme: The concept of family and chosen Fam)
The Doctor: “Can't disconnect them, it might kill them.”
Yaz: “But if we don't, what happens to Earth? Their life versus seven billion others.”
(A Crisis of Utilitarianism meta feat. The Astronaut, Percy Shelley, The Timeless Child)
The Doctor and Yaz make themselves vulnerable to the Planet being able to affect their mind. (No current meta besides it just feels TARDISy and Kasaaviny, and it goes nowhere in the actual story to the point where it feels certain this is meta for the future.)
“There's too many things to do! One thing at a time. It's fine. All good. Well, almost.” (The desperate cry of the Writer creating meta. I know it well.)
The Doctor and Yaz block the Ux’s powers.
(The narrative likelihood that this set of Doctors are not actually immortal, or if they are they cannot keep it)
The Doctor: “Universe provide for me.” - the TARDIS arrives. Is referred to as a Ghost Monument.
Tzim-Sha: “The Universe provides” - the Ux. As Rassilon mirror - the Timeless Child. (What are TARDISes?)
The Doctor: “Their knowledge, their abilities, Tim Shaw's tech, our blue box.”
(What look like the best guesses for each of the plot points of the era in meta form. The Doctor and Master’s memories. The Timeless Child(ren)’s abilities. The Cyberium AI, TARDISes).
Tzim-Sha has an electric hand/power gauntlet thing.
(In case you weren’t sure on the Rassilon mirror. + The Lone Cyberman)
The Doctor: “I know this will be painful. I wouldn't put you through this if I could think of any other way right now.”
Delph: “It's okay.”
The Doctor: “It's not, but thank you.”
(The Timeless Child(ren) (and that distinct sensation that this is all going to be very direct mirroring in the future))
Graham: “You brought us all together. You ain't going to tear us apart. You ain't worth killing. But you can have a taste of your own medicine.”
Ryan: “We're not weak, we're strong, and we sentence you to life.”
Graham: “So, as you're contemplating eternity, keep one name on your mind.”
Both together: “Grace.”
(This feels like the slightly nicer sounding version of what personally I’m hoping the Master is going to say and do to Rassilon at the end of all this)
The Doctor decides on “Fam”. Yaz likes it.
(Era theme: The concept of family and chosen Fam)
You know how it implies that when you look into the Time Vortex you see everything, including your life forward and back, and it results in the three states?
No wonder the Master went madder than anyone else, the Doctor can never stop running, and even Rassilon went from being inspired to save their species all the way to making them ascend.
(Do not consume the Time Vortex with Immortality. Side effects may include: Sleepiness. Dizziness. Heart problems. Bleeding. Sickness. High blood pressure. Falls or injury due to accidents.)
@grassangel said: A thought for you because of your meta: the Cyberium as the fluid in the opening credits.
It definitely does have a resemblance, doesn’t it. And that fits in with the Chibs style of ‘if you think it’s odd/wrong it probably serves a bigger purpose’.
The Cyberium AI is weird as hell. It’s clearly really important, not just as a plot device, but as itself. It’s got characterisation. It’s got a mirror important enough to be in the first episode - Tzim-Sha’s Gathering Coil, the first thing this Doctor ever faces.
And it mirrors the Doctor and Timeless Child’s ‘Power’. I mean it really mirrors them. To the point where, like with the Lone Cyberman and Rassilon, I’m not sure if it’s mirroring the character ridiculously heavily, or if it just straight up is the character. Just like working out Clara was going to be the Doctor with a TARDIS - I knew the result but I didn’t know what form it would take, literally the character or not, until the end. Cus that’s Doctor Who and its shapeshifting for you.
You know how my preferred method is to just point out all the metas as I see them, so you can draw your own conclusions if they’re different to mine, but I will actually put my thoughts as to what this all means at the end.
So click below for every bit of Cyberium AI meta from not just Series 12, not even just Series 11...but all the way back to Season 25)
(Under a cut because there was so much more than I thought there was)
In episode order then:
The Woman Who Fell To Earth
(The Gathering Coil as double-layer, mirroring the Cyberium AI’s role itself; but also therefore as its Doctor character mirror, and Timeless Child ‘Power’ mirror)
-See the title of the episode. The title with at least three references now.
-It crashes into a train when we meet it. A few moments before the Doctor does.
-“What are you? Okay, you don't like questions. More the private type, I get that.”
-Its data is absorbed into the Rassilon-mirror Tzim-Sha.
-In doing so also implants into him - and I quote the Doctor - “Micro-implants which code to your DNA. On detonation, they disrupt the foundation of your genetic code, melting your DNA.” Sound familiar?
-It’s being used - against the laws of the user’s species - in order to attain leadership. (Like Rassilon/Tecteun)
-Looks like one creature but is actually a huge number in the appearance of one. (The Doctor).
-The Gathering Coil might look like an Eldritch horror, but it never actually kills anyone on purpose. When it first shows up, the woman driving the train dies from shock, (“Shock” get it? Like...) Grace dies in an attempt to stop it by electrocuting it. The most damage it itself deliberately does, is short-circuit a crane.
----
The Haunting Of Villa Diodatti:
(Heavily as Timeless Child ‘Power’ mirror(?))
-The Lone Cyberman confirms the Cyberium AI to be both a lifeform and ‘weapon of some kind’. Like the Ux.
-We meet it already inside Doctor-mirror Percy Shelley - suicidal, social activist, and a great believer in the importance of society having Hope even if not so good at it himself. He is not trying to use its powers, but as Guardian of them doesn’t want others to take and abuse them. The word ‘Guard’ is also used by Mary in regards to the child. (And we could leave this episode and say how Irish Metaphor Doctor was a ‘Garda’ but you get the point).
-It hides in a house that appears to warp and change and shield and use a perception filter - theorised to be the Cyberium AI warping the perceptions of people in the building, even though none of them are remotely Cyber in any way. Shelley says directly only some of the changing is his doing. On a practical level, it must have strong telepathic abilities - like the Doctor. On a meta level, it hides itself in a place that mirrors a TARDIS.
-The Doctor can’t find it at first because it’s “hidden away, cloaked, too big to register.” Like the Timeless Child memories.
-The Doctor seemingly genuinely didn’t know what it was a minute ago, when she was asking Ashad what it was. But now suddenly she does know: “Cyber technology. The knowledge of the whole cyber race and AI from the future, containing the knowledge and future history of all Cybermen”. Almost as if she’s remembered.
-This next bit’s important and connected so we’ll just do the whole lot and break it up afterwards:
Percy: “They scorched and split the sky. Built the army of all armies. Left behind only pain, rage, fear and death.”
Mary: “How is he seeing all this?”
The Doctor: “The Cyberium is burning through his mind. It'll destroy him if it stays in him much longer. An epic battle. The Cyberium at the heart of it, controlling data, strategy, decision-making. Clever! Very clever. Someone took it from the Cybermen, sent it back through time here in an attempt to change the future.”
*The Lone Cyberman tries to break in*
The Doctor: “In an attempt to protect you from that.”
-Like Donna with the Doctor’s memories, this is burning Percy up.
-An epic Battle, like with the Ux - a great battle referenced and not explained. The Cyberium AI instead of the Ux at the heart of it, used to fight it. (If anyone’s still assuming the Timeless Child(ren) thing was simply about regeneration power, there should be more focus on the Division and the Child as weapon).
-The Doctor again coming in with extra information.
-Possible Future Meta: Someone attempted to change the future by taking the source of power from the Rassilon (see the mirror).
-Thirteen tells the Doctor-mirror to just let the Rassilon-mirror have the power. (Reminds me of how the Timeless Child ‘would not yield any secrets’). But the Cyberium AI has been sending Shelley (Doctor-mirror) symbols and numbers. So Possible Future Meta: It wasn’t just the regeneration power Rassilon got from the Timeless Child, it was also information. (Of course - the Doctor, especially this one meant to mirror all this, is the Builder And Destroyer, after all)
-We confirm the Cyberium AI’s own sentience, separate from its host, (and its reluctance to leave). It changes the mental map of the house specifically to avoid the Lone Cyberman.
-The Lone Cyberman believes the host must be killed in order to get the power out. Mary Shelley immediately talks to the Lone Cyberman about fatherhood, and how he doesn’t want to do this. (Rassilon/Tecteun)
-The Doctor convinces the Cyberium AI to leave by showing it Percy’s future. (The mercury-like substance exits Percy quite like the poison with Ten. Given the amount of Ten-era-mirroring, this one’s cute). (Possible Future Meta: The Doctor meeting Timeless Child self, like with Martin!Doctor).
-The Cyberium AI goes to the Doctor, who calls herself its “true Guardian”. Says it feels “Very at home”. Going with how she seemed to remember what it was without ever being told earlier...
-The Doctor, when her friends and the planet is at risk, decides to give it over the the Lone Cyberman, and the Cyberium works with her in a way it refused to with Shelley, meaning she didn’t need to die, even though she says it had already started fusing.
-Next after the Doctor-mirror/Doctor, the power enters the Rassilon-mirror.
-(Yaz restarts the Doctor-mirror’s heart. That’s not important to this meta, but it sure is important to other ones).
-We talk about ghosts just as we enter the Ghost Monument.
----
Ascension Of The Cybermen:
(Both as Doctor mirror and Timeless Child Power mirror)
-Cyberium!Ashad says “The Cyberium does know you. Both you and humanity will be destroyed, and I shall bring the Cyber race to its greatest ever glory.” - the Cyberium AI has already seen the Doctor’s death before. Or it’s lying.
-The Doctor’s blatantly obvious talking-to-herself therapy speech is to Cyberium!Ashad.
“The Cyberium has given me understanding. It has distilled my purpose. I am the perfect vessel.” - A container, a ship for the Cyberium AI.
“Everything is in me for the ascension of the Cybermen, and beyond. ... All your deaths. The death of everything is within me.” - First, mirrors the ‘life’ within the Timeless Child. Second, considering before this was previously an AI trying to avoid conflict and entering Ashad, the fact that Ashad and his death particle gets convinced to go to the Master and Gallifrey, makes me wonder how much the Cyberium AI was forced to go along because that’s its nature and it has to follow instructions, or whether it was planning and pulling the strings. Or both - TARDIS-style.
----
The Timeless Children:
(Heavily as Doctor mirror, minorly Timeless Child Power mirror)
-“Oh. Oop. Excuse me. Check my notifications. Oh, goodie! The Cybermen are here, at the Boundary. Better extend the hand of friendship. Breaker 1-2 calling all Cybes.” So the Master knew that the Cybermen would come. How? They haven’t interacted from our perspective at all.
-The Master says to Cyberium!Ashad “I want you to think of me as your new best friend.”
-Master to the Doctor: “Don't heckle, dear. I can always decide to cut you short.”
-Master to Cyberium!Ashad: “Oh, shoot. I should've said, somebody needs to cut you down to size, then zapped you. I was just trigger-happy. I'll use it next time.”
(Plus, a ‘next time’ - we haven’t seen the last of him).
-The Cyberium AI is revealed to have been the one to create the Death Particle. Which again makes me question who’s pulling whose strings. As the Master points out Ashad is more organic than most, and Ashad simply says that he’ll mechanise when the process is over - ignoring the point that this didn’t work before. And Ashad seems to think it will wipe out everything, ignoring the reality that its coverage is only a single planet.
-The Master is clearly talking to the Cyberium more than Ashad at points.
Ashad: “The Cyberium will process and dictate the strategy.”
The Master: “The Cyberium. I've heard a lot about that over the millennia. The heart of all your power. The centre of all Cyber knowledge.”
-Sounds very like the other Timeless Child(ren) mirror - the Ux.
-The Master actively flirts with it. “Oh, come on, Cyberium, show us some leg. What do you actually look like, hmm?” And after shrinking Ashad without so much as a close-up, like he’s been nothing to the plot, “Well, aren't you pretty? And fast. You made your exit very swiftly there. Worried, were you?”
-The Master hoped the Death Particle would activate and laments to the Cyberium AI that his “nice little gamble” didn’t pay off - as in it didn’t kill him. (Assuming Timeless Children plural, that may be the only thing that would work, and that he is telling this to the Cyberium AI again could fit nicely with the narrative idea that it knows what it’s doing).
-“Oh, sorry, were you close? Candidly, I think you can do better.” ... “Wow, that was quick. Wa-ha-ha! Whoa! Woohoo! At least buy me... dinner!” - (And considering we all had a giggle at the clearly intentionally funny ‘a piece of you is in me’ line that’s going to happen either in about a minute, or in the world of the episode and making adjustments for simultaneous storytelling, right now...)
-“I ransacked the Matrix of the Time Lords, distilled all the knowledge, all the experiences, all the discoveries, into these brains up here. All the Cyber knowledge, all the Time Lord knowledge. Put it together, what do you get? Absolute supremacy in the universe. Choose me.” - (The Master pointing out we’ve now got two sets of incredible knowledge. Rule of three has me wondering about the Timeless Child’s ‘Knowledge’.)
-After the power was originally in the Doctor-mirror/Doctor, it then went to the Rassilon-mirror(?) and then to the Master. If you’re a fan of Timeless Children Plural theory.
-The Master: “No, Doctor. As of now, I wish my enemies a long and healthy life, so they may witness my many triumphs, because they will be legion.” - (So, in case you’re not familiar with the Legion thing, two points: A Legion was a division in the Roman army of about 3000-6000 men. We will be coming back to Rome - oh God will we - but just slot that information away for later. Point two - For another use of Legion, we need to head to the Bible, Mark 5:1-9. ‘Who cares, Rowan?’ Well, this is the story in which there is a man living among tombs, who no-one can bind, not even with chains. He cries out and attacks himself, and on seeing Jesus in the distance rushes over and kneels before him, screaming that he’d put him under oath not to torment him. Jesus doesn’t talk to him, but to what is possessing him, ordering it to come out, and asking its name. And it, not the man replies: “I am Legion, for we are many.” (Fun fact, we eventually get rid of the demons by exorcising them into animals who then run off...a...cliff. *sighs* Ok.)
The Doctor: “You're looking peaky.”
The Master: “Oh, yeah. The Cyberium lives in me now, Doctor. Yeah. Yes. See, I've been looking forward to seeing your face about that. I can feel it flowing around in me. The information, the strategy, the... the... the consciousness. It's a beautiful thing. And look at us. I have broken you and created a new race. And now? Now I shall conquer... everything. Oh.”
-“See, I've been looking forward to seeing your face about that.” - This is a quiet point that exemplifies a major one. The Master’s story is different to ours. He knows things that we do not. The Doctor in theory (though I doubt in practice) had never come across the Cyberium AI before, she hasn’t mentioned its name or anything about it to the Master. In theory (again press x) the Lone Cyberman carrying the Cyberium AI just turned up when the Master dragged the Doctor through to Gallifrey as pure happenstance, he should know nothing about that incident with the AI and Shelley (and yet he quotes him). Why has he been looking forward to seeing her face in regards to that? What does he know about it that he expects her to remember? Just like with the Timeless Child infodump, we are fools if we take all this at face value, because the Master planned for all of this. And it seems like the Cyberium AI _itself_ is planning too.
Ko Sharmus: “You didn't start this. I did. I was part of a resistance unit that sent the Cyberium back through time and space. Though obviously we didn't send it back far enough. So this is my penance. Mine to finish. My journey ends here. But the universe still needs you, so I suggest you run.” (Ko Sharmus is treated way too important. We’ve got to see him again.)
----
Done? Done.
Well no, no actually we’re not. Because there is one final episode.
But we have to go back, just a little bit, to the Seventh Doctor. Stick with me. I promise you’ll be glad you did.
Silver Nemesis:
-A story revolving around a thing called Validium.
-To quote the TARDIS Wiki: “It was living metal that could think for itself and was capable of speech as well. When destroyed, it could reform itself.”
The Doctor: “Validium was created as the ultimate defence for Gallifrey, back in early times.”
Ace: “Created by Omega?”
The Doctor: “Yes.”
Ace: “And?”
The Doctor: “Rassilon.”
Ace: “And?”
The Doctor: “And none of it should have left Gallifrey. But, as always with these things, some of it did.”
-Catch that hint of the Cartmel Masterplan where it’s clearly meant to lead you to ‘And? The Other One’. It’s ok, you’re not reading too far into it, I promise.
-“It should never have left Gallifrey, but some of it did. A piece of validium fell to Earth and was found by the Lady Peinforte.” Can you guess what she did with it? Why, she moulded it into a statue of herself.
-A silver lady statue.
-(You remember how we just seemed to abandon Barton? Who is somewhat not human? Was involved with creatures from another dimension? And that statue? Seemed set-up for a cyber plan? Saw nothing wrong with a bit of familial murder? Ooh hoo. Welp.)
-Nazis are involved. Ill-timed notifications. The Doctor forgetting. A cellar. (A fez). A meteorite containing the validium crashes by a barn. On November the 23rd. Happy Birthday. We blow things up. A lot of things.
-The villains of the piece? Besides the nazis and the Time(travelling) Lady? Well it could only be the Cybermen. A bit of the Validium is held by each of them
-The Cybermen take their bit of the Validium to the tomb of the Lady, with an inscription “Death Is But A Door”. The Lady is not buried there, and it doubles as a pun, with a hidden door.
-One of the lead nazis betrays his fellow to be turned into a Cyberman. “Supermen are all very well, but the giants are the master race.”
-The Seventh Doctor is mirrored with the Lady, who describes herself as evil. They even have mirrored scenes with their equivalent companions.
-The Lady: “All power, all power past, present and future, shall be mine. Why, I shall be mistress of all of that is, all that shall be, all that ever was. Yes, all! All!” - Oh, doesn’t she sound familiar now...
-Point Of Interest: Like many of the concepts Chibs has been playing with from Classic Who - the Morbius Doctors, almost certainly the Valeyard - this was apparently a fairly controversial episode among the old guard. Why? Because well...
The Validium: “I am beautiful, am I not?”
Ace: “Yes. You're very beautiful.”
The Validium: “It is only my present form. I have had others which would horrify you. I shall have those again. You are surprised I speak?”
Ace: “I know you're living metal.”
The Validium: “I am whatever I am made to be. This time Lady Peinforte called me Nemesis, so I am retribution.”
-I mean this is all cute but it doesn’t explain why it’s here and-
The Validium: “And I'm to destroy the entire Cyberfleet?”
The Doctor: “Forever.”
The Validium: “And then?”
The Doctor: “Reform.”
The Validium: “You might need me in the future, then?”
The Doctor: “I hope not.”
The Validium: “That is what you said before.”
The Doctor: “Enough.”
The Validium: “And after this, will I have my freedom?”
The Doctor: “Not yet.”
The Validium: “When?”
The Doctor: “I told you when.”
The Doctor: “Things are still imperfect.”
-Oh well that’s...Hmm.
Lady Peinforte: “You are nothing. Only the Doctor matters, and he is but a pawn in the game of my making.”
...
Ace: “The Doctor's not just going to give you the bow. Tell her, Doctor. Tell her.”
Lady Peinforte: “Doctor who? Have you never wondered where he came from, who he is?”
Ace: “Nobody knows who the Doctor is.”
Lady Peinforte: “Except me.”
Ace: “How?”
Lady Peinforte: “The statue told me.”
Ace: “All right, so what does it matter? He's a Time Lord, I know that.”
Lady Peinforte: “Well, Doctor?”
The Doctor: “If I give you the bow,”
Lady Peinforte: “Your power becomes mine, but your secrets remain your own.”
...
Lady Peinforte: “I shall tell them of Gallifrey, tell them of the old time, the time of chaos.”
...
The Doctor: “You had the right game, but the wrong pawn. Check.”
-What used to be the Cartmell Master plan is now the Timeless Child Master...plan- Is this why it’s involving the Master? For a pun? Whatever, either way the Seventh Doctor is now a treasure trove of useful ideas - I did wonder why Chibs chose Ace in particular as the companion who should get a ‘Thirteen meeting them again’ book - trying to lure people in for a second look, clearly.
-So what happens in the story? In the Timeless Child, the Master ends up absorbing the Cyberium. In Silver Nemesis, the Validium absorbs our Lady Mistress Of All. How neat.
-The Doctor ‘wins’ by giving the Validium the Cyberleader’s instructions, confirming it understood them, and then the Cybermen let it fly off to their fleet. Which then blows up. Because it chose to disobey them. (As he knew it would).
-The Validium is left floating in space, until the Doctor calls on it again. I’m not saying this relates to opening titles full of goop, but I’m not saying it doesn’t either.
So. That’s a lot. While I would usually doubt the Validium would literally be the Cyberium, and that it would be for fans to join together as they wished or not... Honestly, given the use of lore in Chibs Who, I don’t actually feel certain of that anymore.
But either way, there’s your meta masterpost, you can commence your theorising now.
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I know no-one comes to these things for my stupid conclusions, but in case you did, here’s a couple of my very disparate fever-brained thoughts, that I’m too ill to put together more...smartly, and might have to come back to if you’re ever going to actually see this post:
-The Doctor/The Other/The Timeless Child had a hand in the weaponisation of the Cyberium AI (forced/cajoled/whatever).
-The Time Lord empire, in at least one version of reality, is inextricably linked to the Cybermen empire, with the Cybermen showing similar levels of technology to Time Lords (a cyber carrier ‘more advanced’ than very far future humans have ever seen - “Coming out of vortex now”, implies it has time vortex travel. And “That’s my home planet - that's Gallifrey”. Immediately the image cuts to Cyberman, then straight back.)
-The Timeless Child was chosen as a vessel to save some form of living knowledge, rather than just being a mystical alien.
-((My nuttiest guess that is only 30% meta and 70% gut feel is it’s a TARDIS-kind, probably our own, which stayed with them because they carried her, and now she carries them. That concept, the little links we’re seeing with TARDISes and their sentience, the implied planetary genocide of all but a saved pair, cyberised humans and cyberised Time Lords - a TARDIS is a cyberised something, the question of living technology, the gloop of the vortex, the Ghost Monument, the Doctor’s agonised loss of her for her first episode that she then only finds at the end of the second on a dead planet ruined by space-fascists...))
-Are those two the same story? You could go in either direction. The stories are all about cycles and loops, so a strong case for mirroring, but at the same time we have a Lone Cyberman who can’t be converted properly and no-one knows why, which makes me think that is still Rassilon with either the ghost of a memory of an old plan, or - thanks to time travel - the old plan itself. That perhaps the Timeless Child’s Power would end up somewhat fused with the Doctor when they turned it into the weaponised Cyberium “AI”, explains why we see it in meta go from benign to weapon creator.
-The Cyberium AI created the Death Particle which would destroy all life and stop the Cyber-Time Lords from taking over. This feels like the exact thing the Doctor was trying to stop with the Time Lords in The End Of Time, and Day Of The Doctor, as their absolute last-ditch plan.
-Certainly the Battle that the Alliance are gearing up for, I would assume is the same battle that we keep seeing in mirrors, and is directly related to Gallifrey. It keeps coming up linked together, like with Ko Sharmus, and we first find out about the Alliance from the inside of a stolen Battle TARDIS.
-So perhaps that’s a point that history is hinging on, and someone - read: the Master - has chosen to interfere. Things all seemed to go wrong after he discovered the Timeless Child information - impossible Time Lords and TARDISes appearing, an Alliance, a Cyber Empire etc. Maybe originally the Doctor/Timeless Child (title, not necessarily youth) was used to control the Cyberium AI and win the battle. But the Master took them away from Rassilon so that couldn’t happen, so everything’s a catastrofuck of paradoxes.
For my fellow The Master Was The Second Child theory fans:
Simm!Master repeatedly killing Jack in the Year That Never Was because he’s subconsciously recreating how he wanted to kill the Timeless Child for taking his inheritance/Mummy’s attention away from him.
if tecteun was supposed to be rassilon why not say she took the name 'rassilon'. or something. the episode talks about shabogans, it's not like that'd be an obscure opaque reference.
Why? Well, I am not Chibnall of course, just an aspiring interpreter, so all I can tell you is what I think is going on:
In this story, everyone is someone else. A picture within a picture. And we’re not just going Stenography meta - it is in the text itself. I, the Master, show you pictures of Ireland, which are actually pictures of our history, surprise! We are told we can and should analyse for the story below the image on the surface
He doesn’t tell you Tecteun is Rassilon because he doesn’t need to. We’ll need that for handholding later. But we all know, including the characters. Chibs never tells you that Pat and Meg and The Sergeant are Tecteun, but we all understand that from the images.
Having a character with multiple names is something he already established. The Doctor - Martin!Doctor - and Ruth. It is important because you need to know that the Timeless Child and the Doctor are different names for the same person.
‘All a bit deep when you could’ve literally just called her Rassilon tho’ - Anonymous Strawman.
Well yes. But that’s because it’s baby’s first puzzle and we’re not looking deep enough. If we want to play the game before the answers are read out, that is not the secret safe we have to crack open, that is the large suspicious painting of a key with the secret safe underneath. Of course Rassilon and Tecteun have different names but are the same person. Martin!Doctor applauds you. Well done.
So to my mind, the question seems to be the same as the one for the Doctor and the Timeless Child, and the same as the one for the Master and the boy on the cliff:
Who else are they?
“It’s the basic condition of life to be required to violate our own identity.” ― Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The General *post-“With all due respect, sir. Get off his planet”*: “Gallifrey is currently positioned at the extreme end of the time continuum, for its own protection. We're at the end of the universe, give or take a star system.”
The Doctor: “I know. I came the long way round.”
The General: “The President may not find anywhere to go.”
The Doctor: “He's not the President any more.”
The General: “He was a good man once. Isn't this going a little far?”
The Doctor: “Oh, I've barely started. Tell the High Council they're on the next shuttle.”
This fits very well with the whole ‘Tecteun saving a dwindling species from existence’ thing, and the narrative complexity of certain not straight evil-or-good decisions that look like they’re coming.
