Hiya! Don't know if we've talked before, so a greeting seemed in order. :-)
Is it wrong of me to hope that this is what the Eighth Doctor meant when he said he was half-human? The "on his mother's side" bit was a joke!
Putting aside the actual content of the Eighth Doctor special, I'm intrigued by your idea that the regeneration process is a form of genetic renewal/adaptation. In this case, one wonders where the new genes would come from. You suggest that Time Lords carry around a lot of spare DNA to mix and match, which is certainly one possibility, but what if they can also pick up fresh material from the beings they encounter (yes, just like the Dalek in Dalek)? After all, we've seen one of the Doctor's previous Time Lord companions, Romana, essentially steal the appearance of an alien princess when she was deciding on her own next regeneration.
Except for the Romana example, I don't know if there's much support in Who lore for the idea that Time Lords wander around time and space hoovering up alien DNA as a form of self-improvement. But I'm amused to think that the infamous Master regenerates the same exact way every time because he's arrogant enough to believe that his current genetic makeup can't be improved upon. :-)
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Date: 2006-09-05 08:26 pm (UTC)Is it wrong of me to hope that this is what the Eighth Doctor meant when he said he was half-human? The "on his mother's side" bit was a joke!
Putting aside the actual content of the Eighth Doctor special, I'm intrigued by your idea that the regeneration process is a form of genetic renewal/adaptation. In this case, one wonders where the new genes would come from. You suggest that Time Lords carry around a lot of spare DNA to mix and match, which is certainly one possibility, but what if they can also pick up fresh material from the beings they encounter (yes, just like the Dalek in Dalek)? After all, we've seen one of the Doctor's previous Time Lord companions, Romana, essentially steal the appearance of an alien princess when she was deciding on her own next regeneration.
Except for the Romana example, I don't know if there's much support in Who lore for the idea that Time Lords wander around time and space hoovering up alien DNA as a form of self-improvement. But I'm amused to think that the infamous Master regenerates the same exact way every time because he's arrogant enough to believe that his current genetic makeup can't be improved upon. :-)