A Good Man Goes To War (3207)

[Teddybrown]

Crash course in our universe's Cybermen:

Spoiler:

First of all, forget everything about them coming from Cybus Industries on a parallel universe Earth. The history of our universe's Cybermen (approached chronologically, rather than from the Doctor's POV) runs something like this....

Billions of years ago, Earth had a twin planet called Mondas. It was populated for a time by a race of near-humans. Over an indeterminate (but presumably LONG) length of time, Mondas began to drift away toward the far edge of the solar system. As this went on, the Mondasians began to transform themselves into cyborgs in order to survive. Eventually, such transformations became mandatory and thus were born the Cybermen.

It's never been made clear for how long they drifted in deep space like this, but evidently it was long enough that their entire population was forcibly converted into Cybermen and all emotion was purged as a weakness. At some point during this period, the Cybermen installed a drive system on Mondas in order to move the whole planet like a starship.

In the late 60s/early 70s (UNIT dating controversy), a faction of Cybermen established a base on the dark side of Earth's moon in order to stage an invasion of Earth. They were defeated by the Second Doctor.

With the population of the Cyberman race ever diminishing, they decided to return to the place of their ancestral origin with Mondas--Earth. Their plan was to drain Earth of all its energy in order to fuel their reserves, as well as finding an ample supply of humans for Cyber-conversion. This plot was foiled by the First Doctor in 1986, and in the process, destroyed Mondas completely.

With no homeworld, the Cybermen factionalized into various groups with their own schemes and plots being (of course) defeated by various incarnations of the Doctor over the next five hundred years.

The conflict reached its peak, however, in the 2500s in what became known as the Cyber-wars. The Cybermen had become a military force to be reckoned with in the galaxy. It took the combined efforts of the Earth empire, some galactic allies, and the Doctor to stop them from capturing or destroying Earth. Incidentally, the averting of this final attack by the Cybermen caused their freighter to be thrown back in time 65 million years; the impact causing the dinosaur extinction.

With this final victory over them, the Cybermen were finally defeated. And with the exception of a few straggler groups popping up now and again, largely passed into legend.

Thanks for that, I knew a small ammount relating to the cybermen from reading books and stuff, but have never watched any old Who, something that I wish I could get in to...
I knew the Cybus Industries Cybermen were a reboot, just didnt really know what happened to the old Who Cybermen and whether they were still around or not...
Thanks for that info =)

@ Sealurk

Silurians and a Sontaran on the Doctor's side. Excellent. I always thought that the Sontarans being such honour-bound creatures meant that they could also make surprisingly good (if haughty) allies. I particularly loved Commander Strax's heartfelt, genuine, respectful, honourable and ever so slightly scary farewells. I think they summed up the Sontaran mindset quite well.

I loved Commander Strax aswell, the way they made him a nurse as punishment, but by the end, he accepted himself as a nurse, most of his lines made me chuckle, especially his goodbyes as you mentioned and his comment about breastfeeding. His comment about death being honourable but not how he imagined also made me laugh because they always say death is honourable, but once he was dieing, he didnt like it. He was a great character and I didnt want him to die at the end...

[PMN1]

I think he means the skeletal hand clutching the fading sonic screwdriver. It's the teaser after the episode.

We know the Tardis can make new Sonics and River's was left at the Library....was it a Sonic, could it have been a Laser Screwdriver?

[P-90_177]

We know the Tardis can make new Sonics and River's was left at the Library....was it a Sonic, could it have been a Laser Screwdriver?

It was definately The Doctors current sonic.

[SGalisa]

I'm trying to remember when River first met Amy, did she recognise her?

No. Neither of them knew each other. Or at least River gave a good indication that she didn't know Amy, or was hiding it from her with those *Spoilers* lines... (When Amy first asked River if she was the Doctor's wife, or something... River just smiled, and the subject sort of got interrupted somehow. Same thing when Amy asked the Doctor if River was his wife... no clear enough, straight answer there, either.)

EDIT: Almost forgot -- the Silence creatures have established having the ability to wipe out certain memories from everyone. And they may have wiped out River's ability to remember her parents being exactly Amy and Rory, or have had a thought planted into her head by the Silence creatures to think her parents were someone else. So, this may be another reason why River has been silent in recognizing her own parents. Plus, if River was taken away as an infant, and put under foster care, it's doubtful she would know who her own mom was...?? Especially, if there were no photos to remember mom and dad with..??

I saw a few people call River a human\time lord hybrid but is that true? Evidently Time Lords evolved over millennia of exposure to the Vortex and River was conceived by 2 humans while traveling through the vortex in a shielded TARDIS. So would it be better to say she is a human that has taken one evolutionary step in the direction of the time lords?

I don't know if she took an evolutionary step per se. The Doctor has never had two humans conceive a baby aboard the TARDIS before. In fact, I think the Time Lords have never faced a similar situation in their past.

Taking this in reverse order. Including ALL of *classic* DOCTOR WHO eps, it's never been told on TV that the Doctor has ever had babies conceived or born from anyone traveling in the TARDIS. Amy and Rory are the first honeymoon suite / married couple where making a family story has come into being. As for speculation to what has gone on within the TARDIS is another matter; but Amy and Rory are the first couple to have a child conceived while either in transit on the TARDIS or after their journeys (perhaps somewhere between the Big Bang wedding night and The Impossible Astronaut stories).

As for River being part Time Lord -- medical science, even in Whovian land translates (so far that) she would require part of the Doctor's DNA to be that. So, if River is the little girl who regenerated, or River can regenerate to whatever degree, it's more likely she's been gifted with some of the TARDIS energy matrix itself. Perhaps a gift from the TARDIS for saying thank you to Amy for bringing the TARDIS back on reboot after the BIG BANG 2 occurred...?

Or, as the more common theory goes, just a byproduct of what happens when traveling with the TARDIS. Amy and Rory both became *injected* with the TARDIS' translator, as they were able to immediately understand most of the lifeforms speaking around them. I'm only guessing that there's a spark of TARDIS energy within them now, because of that new communication ability, being travelers with the Doctor. But that's only a guess.

Personally, I like the other answer better -- that River got infused with TARDIS energy (when Amy conceived her) and thus now has gained the ability to regenerate -- which is similar to, but not the same as being a Time Lord. Time Lords have 2 hearts and *that* is primarily what distingushes a Time Lord apart from a Human type of being. River only has one heart, as far as I know. And the Doctor has never sensed her presence as a Time Lord, even with an inkling of Time Lord DNA in her, he should be able to do that, and so far he has not, or at least has not revealed to anyone of having that sort of honing in--telepathic sensing ability with River Song.

[Control_Chair]

Great episode, loved the ending and hope the second half of the season explains more about the Silence and the how the young River winds up on Earth in 1969. One thing I didn’t understand though was how the headless monks were able to chant

[Pharaoh Atem]

It was definately The Doctors current sonic.

but anyone can use it.

[LoneStar1836]

Great episode.

I kind of figured River would turn out to be Amy's daughter after it turned out to be a child in the astronaut suit (as well as them sharing names of bodies of water)...as think that River is in prison for having killed the Doctor since their timelines were in reverse of each other (which I have loved btw since 10th first met her). So while that wasn't a shock but rather confirmation, still made for a great episode. The baby liquifying was still a surprise.

Ugh that have to wait till the Fall for the rest....

[wise one]

well maybe river does kill the doctor

a good man goes to war

river killing a good man......

[Sealurk]

Having just watched every existing episode of series six back to back (!), there are a few things that show up and make a lot more sense in light of AGMGTW.

Plenty of references to babies and parents, at least one per episode I think.

In The Impossible Astronaut, there is a dialogue that goes "Life signs?" "None that are showing up" "Those are the worst kind..." that has a new meaning after the Headless Monks.

River's line in Day of the Moon after taking out a room full of Silence ("My old fella didn't see that, did he? He gets ever so cross") while Rory stands behind her means a lot more now. He's a nurse and he doesn't like seeing people die, so it could just as well be him as the Doctor.

On a different note, did anybody else notice the extra TARDIS sounds during the starting credits of this episode? I couldn't hear them in any other credit sequence, so I'm not sure what's up with that.

Loving the music in this series. There's one particular piece, played when we see the little girl regenerate in DotM and I think when River is telling the Doctor who she is in AGMGTW that's particularly good (I don't know whether to call it Melody's Song, or Song's Melody ).

[Draygon]

well maybe river does kill the doctor

a good man goes to war

river killing a good man......

Mind you, there is one thing the Doctor points out...
"Good men doesn't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

[LoneStar1836]

Mind you, there is one thing the Doctor points out...
"Good men doesn't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many."

The Doctor may not think of himself as a good man, but that doesn't mean that River doesn't see him that way.

[Draygon]

The Doctor may not think of himself as a good man, but that doesn't mean that River doesn't see him that way.

A true point, and there are many who would and do agree.

Shame there is equal if not more in the universe who very much disagree

[Sealurk]

There's something I didn't notice first time - when Dorium approaches the Headless Monks and pays the price, the next shot of the monks shows his headless body walking with them.

[Teddybrown]

There's something I didn't notice first time - when Dorium approaches the Headless Monks and pays the price, the next shot of the monks shows his headless body walking with them.

I noticed that when I was watching it, seems when they cut your head off, you become a headless monk?
Small spoiler for episode 13

Spoiler:

Doriums in episode 13 though apparently

Im suprised no one has mentioned the small appearance of the Judoon
Was nice to see them again, abeit for a few seconds...

[Matt G]

1. Rory with the Cybermen - holy Christ.

2. A rather eclectic bunch of allies we have here, like how they kept popping up.

3. The Doctor being the term for "warrior?"

4. Aha, so that's what the TARDIS was on about!

Very cool stuff!