Silence must fall when the Question is asked, a guiding tenant of the organisation known
as the Church, but what does it actually mean and why is the Church so heavily tied to the
Doctor? Hi, Ric here and today’s index is looking
on the Silents and the Silence. That is two different things, Silents with a “CE”
and also with a “TS”” but technically they’re part of the same order so it all
comes under the same church roof. This is going to get confusing isn’t it… Well,
let’s start then at the most obvious place. The beginning.
In the 52nd century, there existed a religion ordained over by the Papal Mainframe. This
organisation’s origin is a bit obscure but its role is effectively a militant arm of
“the Church”, overseen perhaps in part by a Christian-linked faith, but number of
other religions too as they do claim to commune with various afterlives. There is a lot of
terminology that is thrown around that does not align completely with current-era doctrine
so what we’re looking at is likely and evolution or amalgamation of several faiths.
As mentioned however, the role the Papal Mainframe was not to console, teach or evangelise, but
of military action. Their designated function was to protect human settlements, overseeing
the safety of the soul “in this life and the next”, as it was put. To this end, much
like the Orders of Holy Knights from millennia past, the Papal Mainframe included much more
military aspects and titles among its ranks. There exact layout and structure of the Church
may have changed with time over the years. As with many of the subjects of the Cultural
Index from Doctor Who, we see the organisation at numerous points in its lifetime and are
exposed to several different orders and chapters that make up its holy structure.
Roles within the organisation included Priests, Bishops, Clerics and Vergers. The Priests
oversaw the wellbeing of those who followed the Church of the Papal Mainframe and here
we have the origin of the Silents, but we’ll get back to them at the second half of this
video. A Cleric refers to many official titles within a religion, but within the Papal Mainframe
many of the infantry and personnel bore this rank.
A Bishop within the clergy could also hold rank over soldiers and much like a military
ranking system. These were then divided up into classes. There were also Colonels and
such who were higher up and oversaw much larger scale operations and answered to the chapter’s
head. This sort of tiered ranking also applied to their laws and punishments, for example,
there were different severities of heresy that could be enacted with level one punishable
by death. The whole organisation however was overseen
by the Mother Superius, Tasha Lem during the 51st to the 61st century who seemed to be…
intimately familiar with the Doctor. The chapters were each overseen by another member of the
cloth and the Papal Mainframe often worked alongside other Church Orders. The Order of
Headless Monks for example, were extremely dedicated to the creed that you were to “Listen
to the Heart, not the Head.” And as such, the ultimate display of faith for these monks,
was to decapitate themselves. Yet through the miracle of technology of the time, this
was not fatal. The severed heads were then kept in Transepts
in sealed boxes or loose. These remained alive and very much conscious, full of their individuality
and aware of themselves while the body continued on acting out the demands of their order.
The loose heads however decayed and became feral, while the boxed ones lived on. I can’t
help but wonder if they became feral due to the fact that they were still aware as severed
heads, surely that would drive anyone insane, unless you had a handy mental internet connection
as Dorium Maldovar did. This particular branch of the Church survived until the 171st century.
The Papal Mainframe was based in a large interstellar vehicle of the same name which traversed the
systems, undertaking its holy missions. It was a sign of respect when visiting such a
place to arrive naked. In the nude. Nuddy. Perhaps this harkens back to the ideas of
original sin, or has some other origin, but either way, the abashed need not fear as holographic
clothing was allowed. One can only hope the inside of a 52nd century church is not as
drafty as a current one. Also the guards of such a place can see through holograms anyway,
but hey, you might feel a little better about it? The ship itself was very powerful with
strong scanners and pin point weaponry that could be deployed from orbit.
However, because of timeline changes, the role of the Papal Mainframe was forever altered
by the intervention of the Doctor, Paradoxes and, indirectly the Time War. You see, it
began when they uncovered a prophetic question and wrote it into their scripture for its
potentially dire consequences. With the Doctor’s antics in time shaping history and growing
his legend, they soon identified the meaning of the prophecy.
“On the fields of Trenzalore, at the fall of the Eleventh, when no living creature can
speak falsely or fail to answer, a question will be asked. A question that must never
ever be answered, Doctor Who?” As with a many things in Doctor Who, this
grandiose sounding prophecy and impressive duty have a grounded origin and it loses much
of its mysticism when analysed. The Time War was long since over and locked away. But apparently,
answering this one question would bring it all back, plunging the universe into chaotic
war once again. Naturally the Papal Mainframe took it upon itself to ensure this never happened
and as such, assigned itself a role in the Paradox to come.
The Question, once answered honestly would bring the Time Lords back through a crack
in the space-time, but with all the enemies of the species waiting in orbit over Trenzelore,
their return would be a massacre. In order to establish if it was safe or not to return,
the Timelords broadcast a Question asking for the Doctor’s name. It was the oldest
question in the universe as the Timelords had broadcast it throughout time.
In order to maintain the Doctor’s silence the Church aided him in upholding the stalemate
and observed for 900 of years over Trenzalore, playing diplomat and enforcers where possible
with the numerous aliens. The Siege of Trenzalore lasted so long that the Church’s tenants
were adapted and changed into the Church of Silence to maintain its new crusade.
However, not every chapter agreed on their methodology. The Kovarian chapter of the Church
of Silence reasoned that if the Doctor were dead, then there was no longer a risk of a
Second Time War and soon they broke off from the main clergy, basing themselves on Demon’s
Run to conduct their attempted assassination. Adopting the name, the Silence, they were
capable of time travel, exactly how is unknown, but its solid enough reasoning to argue that
you need such capability to track a time traveller. The first attempt saw them try to trap the
Doctor in the Tardis and blow it up, but inevitably they failed and actually created the very
cracks in time that the Timelords were now using to attempt a return.
Then they tried again, this time with a more subtle approach. They searched for a potential
assassin that could be made to rival the Doctor, finding the unborn child of his companions,
they abducted the mother and experimented on the child, who had been exposed to the
energies of Time travel. This child, Melody Pond, grew up to become River Song and she
had a very confusing timeline. Sufficed to say, that they enforced powerful mental conditioning
and cultivate in her the ability to regenerate with the sole purpose of killing the Doctor.
Then in Utah, 2011, Lake Silencio the culmination of their second attempt. They were trying
to artificially create a fixed point in time so that the Doctor could not escape, but long
story short, he did. Alongside their fellow devotees, the Silence
brought with them a number of confessional priests who eventually became known as the
Silents. So on to these creatures then. The Silents are around 7 foot tall and very slender
men. They were genetically engineered by the Church
of the Papal Mainframe to receive confession from its followers and they have an interesting
effect termed “memory-proof”. Basically, you cannot retain an image of them in your
mind and events unfolding while you were looking at them are forgotten. Even knowledge of them
will fade over time at a faster rate than usual and somehow this ability persisted even
in recreations of their image. This effect took around a second or so to kick in after
breaking line of sight. Those who worked closely alongside a Silent wore an eye-drive device
to retain their memories outside of their mind and keep the image fresh.
If a Silent imparted a command to someone who then forgot their presence, the order
would persist in their psyche as a posthypnotic suggestion.
They also had the ability to absorb and store electrical energy, from a power source or
even ambient static. They could then amplify this and discharge it with high enough power
to disintegrate a person. They slept upside down in clusters with their arms drawn in.
Perhaps their manipulation of electricity lends itself to some form of electrostatic
adhesion where they can stick to surfaces? That would be cool.
The Kovarian Chapter set in motion a long plan to take on the Doctor and originally
sent their Silent priests back in time as far back as the Stone Age in order to guide
mankind on a desired path. Over time, they imparted commands and manipulated humans,
urging them to develop certain technologies that would benefit the Church of Silence and
lingering in the corners of the eye, always seen then forgotten. It would seem that the
rogue chapter itself did not partake in these manipulations, instead, allowing their ever
present proxies to propagate throughout human history. The Silent were unable to innovate,
they could not create, it was likely not part of their genetic design, hence the need to
guide humans from the shadows. Over the hundreds of millennia, they lost their original demeanour
as priests and became malevolent, scorning ideals of mercy and lacking compassion. They
became monsters. Naturally then, the Doctor tricked them into turning humanity against
them, without mankind ever realising it. It was also suspected that encounters were
occasionally remembered in part. In some way, for if the image of a Silent, clad in its
black suit was recorded in way where it looked substantially different, the image would persist.
Such images are speculated to include ancient hieroglyphics, the 1893 Scream painting, the
silhouette of the alien “Grey” and perhaps other urban legends such as the Men in Black…
In terms of capabilities and technology the Church of Silence was local to the 52nd century
and their headquarters, Demons Run mirrored the level of advancement found in the Church
of the Papal Mainframe, in that they were easily a spacefaring power at home with a
myriad of energy and ballistic weaponry. However, the breakaway chapter spent a very long time
researching the Doctor and even attempted to recreate a Tardis with some success it
seems leading to them employing limited time travel in their plans.
They also seemed to have a very strong understanding of the human psyche as seen by their ability
to create such complex organisms as the Silents and their imparting of powerful conditioning
into River Song, which she was not able to shake off until she had completed her task.
So that is a rundown of the Church of Silence, the Silent creatures and their more lawful
origins as an arm of a future organised religion. The way the Silence acted out their purpose
boarders on reverence for the one they hunted at times and ultimately, this led to sympathisers
with the Doctor within their own order and in no small part to Kovarian Chapter’s downfall.
While the original Papal Mainframe remained mostly on the side of the just, their methods
can also be seen as rather extreme, but the Doctor considered them an ally.
So with that all said and done, let’s take a look at the choices for the next index,
on the community tab you can find the vote and it’s either for the Bolian from Star
Trek as generally there’s not much on them, or the Children of Atom from the Fallout Universe
for another dose of a fictional religion. Thanks again for watching and I hope to see
you next time for another Sci-fi video and don’t forget to like comment and subscribe.
What no, I didn’t say anything, I’ve been Ric, goodbye!