# Authors have ideas they never use. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 9, 2005, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-have-ideas-they-never-use/307575 "2005-06-09T08:37:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2005, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-have-ideas-they-never-use/307575/21 "2005-06-09T22:27:41Z")
> [@Stryfe](#): > > Isn’t it implied in the episode that the only reason that this is a problem is the fact that the Timelords no longer exist. If so this explains why it does not contradict the original series. The problem here is that Timelords did exist and could travel in time and they were able to have multiple versions of themselves existing in the same space and time. Now if a time travelling race was once able to do something then obviously it always was and always will be able to do it. Even if the destruction of Gallifrey make sit impossible for this to ever occur again after that reference point there’s no problem with it having occurred prior to that event and the villain/s travelling forwards in time to the present. So the idea makes perfect sense. And would have been brilliant. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-have-ideas-they-never-use/307575/22 "2005-06-10T15:50:20Z")
Except that that brings up the question of how the Gallifreyans kept time travel from interfering with their own history. Reading between the lines, I’d always assumed that Gallifrey and the Time Lords ran on a sort of “quasi-absolute” time: with the rarest of exceptions, they never got “out of synch” with each other. I remember an episode with the fifth (Peter Davidson) Doctor in which he and his companions accidently ended up in the very far future and the Doctor was extremely anxious that **no one** ever find out that he’d been in that time period. I wonder if he had illegally gone into the relative-to-Gallifrey future. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-have-ideas-they-never-use/307575/23 "2005-06-10T16:39:23Z")
**Lumpy** I asked a far more learned Whovian than myself the question of timetravel and the history of Gallifrey. He told me (he probably cited episodes and novels) that Gallifrey itself was protected by a chronaton screen or something similar. That would explain why the Master, the Rani, etc were constantly tampering with the history of other planets in order to gain power, but never did the same with Galifrey. ---
**Author:** ![PurpleHaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@PurpleHaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PurpleHaid)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-have-ideas-they-never-use/307575/24 "2005-06-10T16:42:57Z")
Sorry to continue the Whovian hijack, but, how were the Time Lords wiped out? I have not seen the episodes in question where that is revealed (and I don’t mind spoilers for that plot point). They are freakin’ time travellers. They are not all going to be in the ‘present’ whenever a given attack occurs. And they have the ultimate defense: “If we’re losing, hop back in time and we’ll reinforce our fatal flaw.” They don’t even have the biggest problem facing a time traveller going to the past to warn of impending doom: people disbelieving you and your crazy talk. And given The Doctor’s adventures, at least some Time Lords enjoy mucking about and altering the hell out of other species past/futures, you might think someone is going to stop in at the presumed ruins of Gallifrey and head back to stop it. The extinction of your own species would sway many folks’ general principles. Perhaps that’s just for an, as yet unfilmed, episode’s Doctor to make happen. Also, I concur that multiple iterations of a Who-universe villian would be potentially brilliant, given the Who-reality’s unique take on the aging process. (And what a novel sloution for a TV show to have built-in to explain the inevitable actor swap over a long term run.) ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-have-ideas-they-never-use/307575/25 "2005-06-10T17:17:11Z")
> [@PurpleHaid](#): > > They are freakin’ time travellers. They are not all going to be in the ‘present’ whenever a given attack occurs. And they have the ultimate defense: “If we’re losing, hop back in time and we’ll reinforce our fatal flaw.” They don’t even have the biggest problem facing a time traveller going to the past to warn of impending doom: people disbelieving you and your crazy talk. See my above response to **Lumpy**. Gallifrey has some kind of temporal shield to prevent tampering. Back To The OP Alan Moore’s Twilight Of The Superheroes. America is controlled by groups of superhumans who act like feudal nobles. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-have-ideas-they-never-use/307575/26 "2005-06-10T17:43:56Z")
> [@Scott Plaid](#): > > I fail to understand, (sorry for self-hijacking) I am fully aware, as I have said, that the Doctor has worked alongside himself. However, what makes you say “Not really.” to the perceived coolness of the idea of a gang of thugs, all the same person, with different faces and personalities? I can understand if you claim it is not unique, but not that it can be perceived as “Brilliant.” Because it doesn’t work that well. Too many characters need too much face time. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2005, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-have-ideas-they-never-use/307575/27 "2005-06-10T17:57:31Z")
Speaking of unfinished “Doctor Who” stories, it’s an odd bit of trivia for sure but the brit sitcom **Are You Being Served?** was actually inspired by a never-filmed serial from the William Hartnell years. Apparently the first Doctor, Susan, Barbara & Ian were going to visit a planet-sized department store run by a race of evil aliens! Back to the original subject: After H.P. Lovecraft’s death, several scraps of never-completed stories were found among his papers. A few of the scraps have been printed as is, including “Azathoth” which would have dealt with the oft-referred to ‘mad idiot god at the center of the universe.’ Chris Claremont also has remarked that he intended to write a year-long X-Men storyline in which Wolverine would be abducted by the league of assassins known as the Hand, brainwashed into serving them, and consequently become a villain that the X-Men would be forced to fight. The Powers That Be at Marvel nixed the idea (perhaps because it was too much like the Dark Phoenix storyline.) During the 1990s, the then-X-writers (can’t remember their names) proposed a story in which Magneto altered the world’s magnetic field so that weather went bezerk on a global level. Storm would sacrifice her own life in order to restore order. Again, the PTB at Marvel said “no way!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/authors-have-ideas-they-never-use/307575.md?page=1)