![]() Biodata, as the Time Lords use the term, is more than just a person’s memories, DNA and biometrics: it’s also a continually-updated copy of their timeline information, and the connection goes both ways. The Matrix stores the biodata of everyone on Gallifrey. Meanwhile, the cortex vault is storing the Dalek’s memories… and censoring them. Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first: among its other uses, the Matrix acts as a repository for the memories of dead Gallifreyans. What the reflex link seems to be is the remote access link to the Matrix: Four was able to access it in Deadly Assassin because they were literally plugged into it, but the reflex link would have allowed them to access it from anywhere in the universe.Īnd that’s where the parallels start to get interesting. First, there are more than a thousand Gallifreyans in existence second, the Doctor had demonstrated telepathic abilities before Invisible Enemy (most importantly in Deadly Assassin, where they were able to interface with the Matrix) and would do so again in later serials. ![]() So just to clear this up, the reflex link is not the source of all Gallifreyan telepathy or the primary link out to the hivemind. There are multiple ways to access it, but at least one of them seems to be telepathy: it’d be a bit like having WiFi delivered straight to your brain. There’s also the Matrix, which is a collective store of all Gallifreyan… well, all Gallifreyans. The nature of the hivemind has varied throughout the species’ history: originally it was pretty much all-encompassing, save for some lucky individuals, but after Rassilon rewrote their genome to accommodate things like regeneration and individual thought it seems to be more like the Ood: a sort of collective subconscious. There are plenty of examples of this, but the one which springs immediately to mind is in Dalek:ĭoctor: I’d know. Gallifreyans are telepathic and have a hivemind. And in the second example, Twelve explicitly calls it evil. ![]() But in terms of scene-to-scene parallels, this one is by far the most noteworthy: the Doctor specifically points out the part of each brain which is responsible for the creation, or simulation, of a hivemind. Into the Dalek has some very clear parallels with Invisible Enemy on a storytelling level, so much so that every classic Who fan I’ve seen liveblogging it has made a comment to the effect of ‘are we getting another tin dog then’. Invisible Enemy is also the serial which introduced K-9, in a completely unrelated piece of trivia. So yes, that is Four standing in (and discussing the biology of) their own brain. Henceforth this shall be known as That One Scene That Made Charamei Learn To GIF Because She Wanted To Talk About It So Much, so sit down, kids, because I’ve just spent the better part of a day learning to rip DVDs and swearing at size limits and boy am I going to talk now.įor those who don’t know, the scene on the left is from The Invisible Enemy, in which the Doctor contracts a mind-controlling virus and so, naturally, medical science being what it is in the future, they and Leela make tiny clones of themselves and enter their own brain to get rid of it. ![]() Imagine the worst possible thing in the universe, then don’t bother, because you’re looking at it right now. ![]()
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