#and the gary russell book

[gen-is-gone]

As requested by absolutely no one, my personal skiplist recommendation for the Eighth Doctor Adventures:

[ *Books that are more or less universally agreed to be excellent.

+Books I personally quite like that don't tend to make the top ten lists

-Books that are important enough that you shouldn't skip them, but imo kind of suck (don't yell at me if a book you like is on here, this is just my opinion)

Bolded books are arc important. ]

2. Vampire Science* 4. Genocide+ 6. Alien Bodies* 9. Longest Day- 11. Dreamstone Moon 12. Seeing I* 15. The Scarlet Empress* 17. Beltempest 19. The Taint- 21. Revolution Man+ 22. Dominion+ 23. Unnatural History* 25. Interference pt One: Shock Tactic 26. Interference pt Two: Hour of the Geek 27. The Blue Angel* 28. The Taking of Planet 5* 30. Parallel 59+ 31. The Shadows of Avalon 32. The Fall of Yquatine- 33. Coldheart+ 35. The Banquo Legacy 36. The Ancestor Cell 38. Casualties of War 39. The Turing Test* 41. Father Time- 42. Escape Velocity- 43. EarthWorld* 45. Eater of Wasps+ 46. The Year of Intelligent Tigers* 49. City of the Dead* 50. Grimm Reality* 51. The Adventuress of Henrietta Street- 52. Mad Dogs and Englishmen 54. Anachrophobia* 56. The Book of the Still* 58. History 101+ 59. Camera Obscura* 60. Time Zero 62. The Domino Effect- 63. Reckless Engineering 64. The Last Resort+ 65. Timeless 66. Emotional Chemistry 69. The Tomorrow Windows 71. The Deadstone Memorial+ 72. To the Slaughter 73. The Gallifrey Chronicles- PDA 73. Fear Itself* (Takes place between EarthWorld and Vanishing Point)

There are a number of books that are perfectly fine but nothing particularly special that didn't make the cut, as well as some kind of shitty books that did, as this is a skiplist to sort of whittle down the series to a somewhat more managable number while still keeping all of the arc essential books on the list. In my opinion, you could read every book on this list and not only not be confused by any of the arc stuff, but also come away not feeling like you've missed anything quintessential to the series.

And remember, this is my personal list, not speaking for anyone else's opinions about any of these, sorry if I included one of your favorite books among the 'shitty but significant' list, sorry if I skipped a book you love, yadda yadda yadda.

Happy reading! :D

[immortal-beloved]

Interesting dates from ‘The Torchwood Archives’ by Gary Russell

[azazel-dreams]

Doctor Who: The Star Beast by Gary Russell

Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤

[noahsbookhoard]

📚May 2024 Book Review (Part 3/3)📚

A slight change of plan: this review was supposed to include a french thriller, Le manuscrit inachevé by Franck Thilliez but since it's a trilogy and I read all three books it will be easier to speak of all three at once!

The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton

India, 1634. Detective Samuel Pipps is arrested by governor-general Jan Haan for reasons unknown. He is to be brought back to Amsterdam aboard the ship Saardam with his sidekick Arent Hayes, the governor-general, his wife and his mistress. As they board the ship, a leper appears and curse the ship before bursting into flame. With Pipps under arrest, Arent will have to solve this mystery by himself and make sure the ship reaches its destination, despite the lepers prediction.

Stuart Turton's The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle has been a total hit for me earlier this year, I wanted to read another book of his. I couldn't get his latest book yet but this one was available!

The premise intrigued me, historical novel, a nautical story (with an author's note indicating that there were licenses taken, I knew next to nothing on the subject and the period so if there were, they flew past me) and a murder mystery with a pinch of horror. The balance is really well built, the ship and period create interesting obstacles to the investigation and nook and cranies to build a horror atmosphere. The main character is not the weathered detective who guesses everything and withhold his discovery à la Poirot, we get to see his deduction as he makes them, and it adds to the threat until the very end.

The characters are nicely drawn, I felt like I knew them already and had read about other cases they solved before. The author is great at giving tiny details that makes the characters and their relationships feel life-like, it made the ending hit that much harder.

Nonetheless I wasn't awed by the resolution: I had seen not of it coming, which is frequent eniugh in murder mystery but some aspects of it didn't feel like they had been set up upstream. It was also very down to earth, and I was expecting some supernatural elements to actually be supernatural in the end (I can't be much clearer without spoiling the end). That one is on me but it still tinted my feeling.

In conclusion, I found it a bit less awe-inspiring than The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle but a nice read and a good thriller. Specialist of sailing, and the 17th century might find some historical incoherence but the book is really enjoyable.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy #1) by Douglas Adams

Arthur Dent is the last human survivor of planet Earth, destroyed to make way for a galactic highway. His friend Ford Prefect, an alien in disguise saved hit at the last second. Together they will explore the new planets, guided by Ford's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and solve such grand questions as "where did all the ballpen go?" and "what is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?"

This is a cult classic and, as I get acquainted with SciFi and British absurdism, I gave it a go.

This was a wierd experience. Fun but wierd: I was a bitclost and Arthur's reaction to everything was so far out of what I would have felt that I had difficulty identifying with him. Other characters were really fun, I love Ford and Martin most of all. I admit most of the longer names are blurry for month after reading.

The different adventures were fun, I'm really growing fond of the absurd. Zaphod's ship and its propulsion system, the Impossibly Drive is such a funny yet efficient mechanism!

This was a fun discovery, I probably missed 48% of the references but I finally have context for that "42" easter egg on Google. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe is on the TBR for late September or October and I'm looking forward to it.

The Start Beast (Doctor Who 60th anniversary novelisation) by Gary Russel

The Doctor just regenerated, and this new face is strangely familiar. The coincidence is too much when he runs into Donna Noble, still amnesic. She can't remember him, it would be fatal; but as an alien called The Meep crashes in London and has to run to escape pursuit, the Doctor and Donna will run into each other again and work together to save planet Earth.

I was so excited for the 60th anniversary episodes!! David Tennant and Catherine Tate are such an awesome duo and Russel T Davis back on the team was a great news to me! I loved those new episodes and this one especially.

Aaaaand that's about all I have to say! Unfortunately, the book adds very little to the show. I hadn't rewatched it recently but it was still fresh enough that I didn't rediscover it through the book. I should have expected it. So yeah, novelisation doesn't add much but that's still one hell of an episode!

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

Covers Revealed for the Target Novelisations of Doctor Who's 60th Anniversary Specials

Covers Revealed for the Target Novelisations of #DoctorWho's 60th Anniversary Specials

The covers for the three upcoming Target novelisations of the Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials have been released, and though they don’t spoil anything from the plots or tell us too much about what each Fourteenth Doctor adventures has in store for us, they are nonetheless gorgeous. These covers have original art by Anthony Dry, who uses the pointillism technique to evoke the work of Chris…

[agenderhyde]

encyclopedia britannica has a picture ca. 2008 of DT as DW and my first thought was, that's outdated, then i remembered, and like. it's accurate yet still not, at the same time

[ozzieinspacetime]

Gary Russell (Aka the guy who wrote Divided Loyalties) is the one writing the book version of The Star Beast,, I just KNOW we're getting academy content in these specials I can feel it in my guts in my bones

[onebluebookworm]

Ranking Books I Read in 2022 - 35-31

35. Another Day In the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives - Gary Younge

What I Liked: Utterly painful and haunting. Very novel concept - taking a random day and chronicling all the gun deaths of young people in chronological order, some receiving a lot of attention, some barely receiving a mention in the local paper. Offered some fire quotes about American gun culture. What I Didn’t Like: Some parts could get a little dry and uninteresting. Final thoughts: Not for the faint of heart, but definitely something a lot more people should read to understand how much we give up in order to avoid passing any kind of effective gun control. TW gun violence and discussions of racism.

34. Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture - Roxane Gay

What I Liked: A wide range of essayists offered new perspectives on this very sensitive subject. Another book full of absolutely fire quotes. What I Didn’t Like: Ally Sheedy’s essay was pretty fucking tone deaf. The essay regarding migrants who’d experienced sexual violence was dry as all hell and mostly just quotes statistics, and that’s not something you really should do when you’re trying to draw attention to a problem like this. Final thoughts: Hard to get through, but ultimately a great resource mostly full of thought-provoking, heartfelt works. TW for sexual violence of all kinds.

33. Monsters in the Closet: Homosexuality and the Horror Film - Harry M. Benshoff

What I Liked: An amazing resource full of very interesting history and analysis. Bulked up my to-watch list. The section on Vincent Price made my entire life because he’s my hero. What I Didn’t Like: Some of the language got a little too academic and would lose me, but that honestly wasn’t very often. Final thoughts: A must-read for queer horror film lovers, that truly codifies why the genre resonates with us so much. TW discussions of homophobia.

32. Just Like Home - Sarah Gailey

What I Liked: Phenomenal language. Intensely creepy atmosphere. Daphne is an amazing villain. What I Didn’t Like: Vera is kind of bland, and we don’t really learn much about her as an adult. James became kind of a mustache twirling baddie and it wasn’t incredibly believable in a book that had such complex characters up to this point. Final thoughts: A little rough around the edges, but still a refreshing take on the haunted house story.

31. Exit, Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles - Mark Russell

What I Liked: A surprisingly realistic look into life around this time period, you can tell Russell did a lot of research. As crazy as the concept is, these characters actually do make for compelling reading. What I Didn’t Like: The subplot with the chairwoman of the committee kinda fizzled out and died. Final thoughts: As absolutely ridiculous as it sounds to take classic Hanna-Barbara characters and put them in a gritty historical drama about McCarthy America, it’s just sincere enough to work. TW for homophobia and suicide.

[downthetubes]

New "The Tomorrow People" novels launch this week

Oak Tree Books and Chinbeard Books have just released The Tomorrow People: The First One, the first book in a new collection of standalone novels based on the original version of the cult sci-fi series, first screened in the UK in the 1970s

Oak Tree Books and Chinbeard Books have just released The Tomorrow People: The First One, the first book in a new collection of standalone novels based on the original version of the cult sci-fi series, first screened in the UK in the 1970s. Cover by Robert Hammond The First One by Gary Russell will be published this week, on Thursday 18th July, and is available to pre-order in paperback,…

[georgelthomas]

Book Review: Doctor Who: The Star Beast by Gary Russell

Book Review: Doctor Who: The Star Beast by Gary Russell #ReaderCommunity #ReadingCommunity #BookCommunity #Reading #Books #BookReview #Review #DoctorWho #60thAnniversary #TheStarBeast #DonnaNoble #Anniversary #BBC #Novelisation #Novelization

Hi everyone! How are you all? Today is Friday, and it’s time for another review. This time, I am reviewing The Star Beast by Gary Russell, the first novelisation of the three Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials. Doctor Who: The Star Beast was first published in ebook format in November 2023 and in paperback in January 2024 by BBC Books and is 160 pages long. The PlotThe Doctor, an alien from a…

[gen-is-gone]

Round One, Bout Eleven

[azazel-dreams]

Doctor Who: The TV Movie by Gary Russell

Rating: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤

[iantoscoffee]

ianto and bisexuality.

being unsure, questioning yourself all the time, being told to label yourself and that same label later being “unvalid”. the stereotypes, the accusations of transphobia and the “best of both worlds” are the reasons why some people to this very day struggle with accepting themselves and ianto is a primary example of that. he doesn’ t refuse his sexuality nor he is ashamed of it; what upsets him is how hard it is for him to live in a world where others’ opinion on you (labels) are more important that the person themselves.

from: torchwood the twilight streets (book) from gary russell

[thedoctorwhocompanion]

The Three Doctor Who 60th Anniversary Specials to be Adapted Into Target Novelisations

The Three #DoctorWho 60th Anniversary Specials to be Adapted Into Target Novelisations

The three upcoming Doctor Who 60th anniversary specials will be turned into Target novelisations, the first (and perhaps only) stories for David Tennant’s Fourteenth Doctor! Each book — The Star Beast by Gary Russell, Wild Blue Yonder by Mark Morris, and The Giggle by James Goss — will have specially commissioned cover artwork by the regular Target novel artist, Anthony Dry, inspired by the work…

[intuitive-revelations]

Trying to put together a pseudo-theory/diagram about the Guardians of Time / Six-Fold God and how the Toymaker, Maestro, Harbinger etc. fit into it...

... and man does it annoy me we're somehow now up to seven Guardians instead of six in the expanded universe.

This was going to be a quick rant, but has somehow turned into more of a full dissection, so buckle in for some major overthinking about Doctor Who lore from someone who has other stuff they should be focusing on.

History of the Guardians in the DWEU

To recap, we're introduced to two guardians in The Ribos Operation:

White Guardian: Light and Order

Black Guardian: Darkness and Chaos

1980s Doctor Who Magazine stories like The Legacy of Gallifrey and Power to the People continue to depict just these two (though the prior is filtered through a possibly unreliable in-universe narrator and the latter is fairly tongue in cheek). These give two possible origins of the Guardians of Time.

The prior implies the White and Black Guardians were manifested by Rassilon from within the Matrix, and entrusted with the Key to Time. While the wiki suggests this somewhat aligns with a comment by the Tenth Doctor in a recent book suggesting Rassilon could be considered a singular 'Guardian of Time' (a bit more on this book later), I wouldn't put much stock into it. Reading it now, The Legacy of Gallifrey is filled with a number of inaccuracies (though tbf, this may be more a matter of its publication date than any writing error) and as a whole comes across somewhat as pro-Rassilon propaganda, something somewhat supported by the ambiguous framing device.

The latter notably depicts the Guardians as having been a single entity of the same species as capital-G God, but split into two once God placed them in the universe. Interestingly, this does somewhat align with the later Big Finish depiction of the Guardians as below the "Grace", god-like being(s) from outside the universe.

We then get Divided Loyalties, which clarifies there's six in all, similarly forming a 'Six-Fold God'. This is directly connected to the existence of six parts of the Key to Time. It also names two more:

Crystal Guardian: Dream and Fantasy (supposedly the Toymaker)

Red Guardian: Justice and Truth

Also mentioned are "twin Guardians" of something, though the Toymaker cuts himself off before finishing.

Divided Loyalites provides an alternative account of Rassilon's meeting with the Black and White Guardians and his naming of the Great Old Ones. Rassilon speculates that the Great Old Ones are the Time Lord equivalents of another universe. Though he only knows of the two, somewhat fitting The Legacy of Gallifrey's telling (also by Gary Russell), he speculates that there may be more Guardians: Guardians of Justice, Mortality and/or Imagination. Also, fitting the idea that the previous story might have been propaganda, Mortimus dismisses this new account as 'rubbish', for "What can be more advanced than the Time Lords?". Finally, somewhat contradicting the rest of the book, the record suggests there could be more than one being known as 'Toymakers', perhaps supporting the concept of him having his own 'pantheon' as we are seeing now.

This idea of there being six Guardians is later supported by the more recent "The Whoniverse" reference book, which depicts six Guardians at the beginning of the universe, though admittedly there is room for more off-image, if one assumes they're spread evenly in a circle.

Craig Hinton expanded on Divided Loyalties's ideas, as well as those from books like Millennial Rites, in The Quantum Archangel. This is most explicitly shown in his writing notes published in Shelf Life, where the Guardians are envisioned as the high eschelons of the previous universe's Time Lords, a bit like the other Great Old Ones, and also seemingly welding this version of the Toymaker's origins with the original concept of him being one of the Doctor's people (which still may or may not be true, depending on the Doctor's origins). They also consider the Eternals and Chronovores their children. He gives a list of six Guardians, higher Time Lords (mostly) from the previous universe, who act as vessels for fundamental elements of the new universe:

The White Guardian – The Guardian of Light in Time, the Guardian of Structure, He Who Walks In Light.

The Black Guardian – The Guardian of Dark in Time, the Guardian of Chaos, the Guardian of Entropy, He Who Walks in Darkness.

The Red Guardian – The Guardian of Justice and Morality in Time, the Guardian of Right, He Who Walks in Judgement. Eventually, this will be the Doctor (see Aspects of Evil).

The Azure Guardians – The Guardians of Balance in Time, the Guardians of Equilibrium, They Who Walk Both Paths.

The Crystal Guardian – The Guardian of Thought in Time, the Guardian of Dreams, He Who Walks in Dreams. Also known as the Celestial Toymaker…

The Gold Guardian – The Guardian of Life in Time, the Guardian of Sentience, He Who Walks in Life.

He also identifies them respectively as the equivalents of the following of the previous universe's "Time Lords" (as they're not literally so, I'll refer to them as 'Pre-Time Lords' from here on out):

President – Black

Chancellor – White

Castellan – Azure

Matrix Keeper – Crystal

The Renegade – Red

The Matrix – Gold

Notably there are some odd 'asymmetries'. For one thing, the Azure Guardian seems to actually be made up of two beings (if they're a former Pre-Time Lord, maybe they "bigenerated"?), presumably being the 'twin Guardians' mentioned in Divided Loyalties. Meanwhile, the Gold Guardian, instead of perhaps being the Pre-Time Lords' Gold Usher equivalent, is actually a manifestation of their version of the Matrix.

The Red Guardian is also notable for being a renegade - the equivalent of the Doctor of the previous universe. Per Aspects of Evil, a Hinton story published in the charity anthology Missing Pieces, the Doctor in-fact not only was once the Renegade/Red Guardian, who may also be the Other (and thus the Timeless Child?), but eventually will be again once their life is over.

Regardless, all seems well and good: we now have six members of our "six-fold God" of ambiguous origins. While we do see a 'Beige Guardian' and hear about a 'Green Guardian' in Happy Deathday, a 35th anniversary DWM comic, these are seemingly entirely fictional in-universe, characters in a video game played by Izzy Sinclair.

More recently, the Leftbridge-Stewart series has dipped its toes into this part of the lore, with the Azure Guardian actually appearing in-person in An Ordinary Man. Interestingly, he is also referred to as the "Rainbow Guardian of the Quantum Realm". While the rainbow element is a bit unclear, the 'quantum' aspect may suggest his two-part nature relates to quantum superposition and entanglement.

A few months later, this is followed by another Leftbridge-Stewart story, The George Kostinen Mystery, which features the "Silver Guardian of Space and Matter"...

...which is a problem.

Now we're seemingly stuck with seven Guardians, not six. (Or arguably eight, if you count the Azure Guardian twice.)

An Aside: Time Lord Legends for Time Tots

Arguably we might even have two or three more Guardians too! That Tenth Doctor novel I mentioned earlier, Legends of Camelot, features a Time Lord legend naming more, based on Arthurian lore. Removing Ten and Donna's interjections and comments, the full thing reads:

Once upon some times, in a universe before and after our own, two powers existed: the Guardian of Might and the Guardian of Magic. In an endless battle, the Guardian of Might would try to defeat the Guardian of Magic through strength, and she would try to defeat him through cunning. Yet so closely aligned were they that neither could ever triumph. The Guardian of Might, known as Arthur, wished for the universe to be ruled by order. The Guardian of Magic, known as Morgwen, championed the forces of chaos. The fight continued until their very universe grew close to collapse, but neither would concede. The final hope was Merlin. Merlin, Champion of Neutrality, offered a solution. No more stars would be razed, no more galaxies destroyed. He took one small planet and created on it a scenario that was designed to encompass both might and magic, order and chaos – a scenario of swords and sorcery, knights and monsters, honour and deception. Each Guardian would choose a player, and the game would play out as it may, until one side had triumphed. The war would be over, the universe would be rebuilt. The Guardians agreed, and the game was played. Arthur chose a player and gave him his name, and Morgwen did the same, with Merlin as the neutral adjudicator. But the final triumph never came. If ever Arthur approached victory, Morgwen would force a reset and choose a new player, hoping for a different outcome. Merlin discovered her perfidy, and knew his plan had failed – and that other dimensions were now threatened too. While the two Guardians were distracted by their game, he compressed reality around them. Like carbon into diamond, so their dimension became the Druse, known also as the Crystal Cavern – a place imbued with such powers it would send them into the deepest possible sleep. Yet the Guardians were so mighty, it could not be guaranteed that sleep would last for all eternity. Merlin therefore imprisoned himself with them and joined the Guardians in their slumber within the Druse. He recreated the game scenario in his dreams and fed it into theirs. Thus, believing they were still playing the game, the endless battle between might and magic, Arthur and Morgwen would not realise they were imprisoned and so would not attempt to escape. And still they sleep, and still they fight, and so will it continue within time and without time, eternally and never. Yet travellers in eternity beware, and approach not the Druse, lest you rouse the sleepers and bring their fight to your reality.

Now are these 'Guardians' actually connected to the Guardians of Time?

I think...sort of.

The descriptions of each one certainly sound like they match the scale of the Guardians of Time, as does their behaviour, being convinced not to fight each other directly, causing intergalactic scale damage (as we discover the Toymaker is capable of in our universe in The Giggle), but instead by influencing mortals, or ephermals.

They also seem to match certain roles seen in the Guardians of Time. The Guardian of Might champions order, like the White Guardian, while the Guardian of Magic champions chaos, like the Black. Meanwhile "Merlin", who may or may not be a Guardian himself, champions neutrality and acts to bring balance, similar to the Azure and Red Guardians. Of course, while this shows a clear similarity between this book's Guardians and the Guardians of Time, it also implies they're redundant.

The solution seems to appear in the detail that these Guardians, even in their empowered forms, originate in another universe. Which universe is less clear, as they seem to exist parallel to N-Space, but also "before and after our own". Either way, it suggests that the same history that led to the Guardians and Great Old Ones entering N-Space (and the Division trying to escape to the next universe in Flux), may have occured before, whether as part of the same universal cycle, as part of the Dark Times, or within a completely separate universe.

Whether this version of "Merlin" connects to the Doctor and/or Red Guardian, however, is another question entirely. Ten actually mentions his recurring role as Merlin in the book, but say he definitely wasn't this one (yet anyway).

Back to the Silver Guardian

So we can discount Legends of Camelot's Guardians, but what about the "Silver Guardian of Space and Matter"?

Well... I see two possible approaches to fix this, without fully ignoring any member of the group.

On one hand, technically there is some ambiguity over whether the Guardians have jurisdiction over just Time, or both Space and Time (and presumably the whole universe). While the prior is the classic name, most descriptions suggest the latter. Even The Giggle explicitly refers to them as "The Guardians of Time and Space".

One could argue, therefore, that it might be that only the "Guardians of Time" are limited to six, and there could be more outside of that number serving the rest of the universe. If so, then the Guardian of Space and Matter might be part of this latter group.

However, it's pretty hard to justify the other Guardians not including space as part of their domains. It should also be noted that when the Toymaker says there are six Guardians in Divided Loyalties, he is explicitly referring to "Guardians of the Universe", seemingly nixing this theory.

On the other hand, a group of six + more is a surprisingly common theme throughout the Doctor Who universe, specifically in Gallifreyan culture. There are six chapters, but also the shadow-y CIA (not to mention other organisations, some of which even refer to themselves as 'chapters', like "Chapter 9" and "The Final Chapter"). There are six founders, of somewhat ambiguous identities, which may or may not include the Other, who may be a seventh. Even Gallifreyan numerology seems to reflect this, with circular Gallifreyan using a base-7 number system:

(There are also six known Menti Celesti, which seemingly lines up with this too. However, we've yet to learn of a seventh at the current time, so who knows? That being said, unlike the Guardians (for the most part, more later), the Menti Celesti seem to exist in opposite pairs: Life and Death, Pain and Hope, Time and Fate, so they may not follow the same pattern.)

This could suggest a seventh 'shadow' Guardian, separate from the other six. Our sources so far would suggest it's the Silver Guardian, given they weren't included in previous accounts, but this doesn't seem to match what little we know about them.

Other possible candidates could be the Crystal Guardian (given the Toymaker's uniqueness, not to mention 'Crystal' not exactly matching the colour naming scheme, though silver technically doesn't either - perhaps he was being unreliable in including himself as one of six in Divided Loyalties), or perhaps the Red Guardian, given their connections to the Doctor/Other, who might also be a shadow-y seventh figure in the founders of Gallifrey.

Alternatively, it could be the Azure or Golden Guardians, both unique in their own ways, the prior consisting of two entities, the latter having formed from something like the Matrix (and thus possibly consisting of many, many individual beings).

A Possible Fix?

While I'm not sure if this is the theory I'll stick with in the future, I do have my own interpretation which might offer a solution.

I think it's notable that among the 'main six', only the two members we've seen the most, the Black and White Guardians, seem to serve as direct opposites to one another.

Order/Chaos.

Light/Darkness.

It is also only these two that directly seem to link to 'Time'. The White Guardian represents order, the Black, entropy. While the exact nature of time remains uncertain to physicists, one common definition uses the arrow of time enforced by the second law of thermodynamics: the rule that over time, the universe will approach a state of chaos over order. Over time, the entropy of the universe tends to a maximum.

(This can also be applied to discussions of the Big Bang and possible fates of the universe, including the concept of repeating universes, either by quantum fluctuations long after heat death, or by cyclical processes like the Big Crunch/Bounce, something also relevant to discussions of the Guardians.)

This leads us to two conclusions:

If there is a divide between the "Guardians of Time" and the rest of the "Guardians of the Universe", it's probably around the Black and White Guardians, explaining their prominence.

The nature of the Black and White Guardians may be unique, even compared to the other Guardians.

To expand on point 2, I think it's possible that Power to the People was more accurate than we've given it credit for. While the idea of the Guardians splitting from one 'god' could be interpreted as connected to their joint identity as the 'six-fold God', it's not very compatible with the more common version of their origin as individual Pre-Time Lords.

(Unless one imagines the Pre-Time Lords all being in their 'Matrix' at the time of their entry into N-Space, I suppose, with the Gold Guardian once being all of them? Hmm... that's not part of this theory, but I suppose could be utilised as part of an alternative at a later point...)

Instead perhaps the White and Black Guardians alone were once a single "Guardian of Time", one of the six, before fracturing into two?

This may not even be that unique a circumstance. As we've acknowledged, the Azure Guardian is somehow made up of two entities, and we know there may be multiple Toymakers, not to mention his "sister" Hecuba, plus Maestro and Harbinger (though their nature might be different - as we mentioned before, the Guardians consider Eternals and Chronovores their children, so it may be that Maestro is less a Guardian and more one of these).

However, perhaps the strongest evidence other than Power to the People itself might be in one of Hinton's stories I've previously mentioned.

Aspects of Evil depicts a far-future Doctor, on the verge of death. He is approached by the White and Black Guardians who reveal that he has all his life actually acted as a servant of the Black Guardian, and a force for chaos in the universe, in combat with forces like the Daleks and Cybermen, who were always acting to impose their own "order" on it.

Along with these forces, the Valeyard is named as the Doctor's direct opposite, serving the White Guardian's goals as they served the Black's.

Not the Master, born alongside the Doctor, but the Valeyard, who was split off from them.

I think this may be a sign that the White and Black Guardians have exactly the same relationship. They weren't born together as opposites, but emerged as such, split off from one another.

One could even make the argument that they represent exactly the same thing (albeit, with Aspect of Evil's revelation, in reverse). The Valeyard represents an inevitable evil to the Doctor's good, emerging far in his future. The Black Guardian represents an inevitable chaos to the White Guardian's order, again emerging far in his future, just by the natural consequence of entropy.

Thus our final six-fold line-up of Guardians of the (current) Universe, ignoring any off-spring, reincarnations and such, might look like the following:

The (Grey?) Guardian of Time, split into the White Guardian of Light and Order and the Black Guardian of Darkness and Chaos.

The Red Guardian of Justice and Truth

The Gold Guardian of Life and Sentience

The Azure (and Rainbow?) Twin Guardians of Equilibrium and the Quantum Realm

The Crystal Guardian of Dreams and Fantasy

The Silver Guardian of Space and Matter

It's definitely messy, but might be the best fit for now. However this very much remains an open question, and there's lots of alternative solutions that could be proposed...

...

(...or you could just do the sane thing and ignore the inconsistency.)

[usafphantom2]

About the A-12 Oxcart

CIA developed the highly secret A-12 OXCART as the U-2’s successor, intended to meet the nation’s need for a very fast, very high-flying reconnaissance aircraft that could avoid Soviet air defenses. CIA awarded the OXCART contract to Lockheed (builder of the U-2) in 1959. In meeting the A-12’s extreme speed and altitude requirements, Lockheed — led by legendary engineer Clarence “Kelly” Johnson — overcame numerous technical challenges with cutting-edge innovations in titanium fabrication, lubricants, jet engines, fuel, navigation, flight control, electronic countermeasures, radar stealthiness, and pilot life-support systems. In 1965, after hundreds of hours flown at high personal risk by the elite team of CIA and Lockheed pilots, the A-12 was declared fully operational, attaining the design specifications of a sustained speed of Mach 3.2 at 90,000 feet altitude.

CIA’s operational use of the A-12 was beset by not only many technical problems but also political sensitivity to aircraft flights over denied areas and competition from imaging satellites. After the U-2 piloted by Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960, all Soviet overflights were halted, thus blocking the A-12’s original mission to monitor the Soviet Bloc. By the time of the CIA’s first A-12 deployment in 1967, CORONA satellites were being launched regularly to collect thousands of images worldwide each year. Although its imagery was less timely and of poorer resolution than the A-12’s, CORONA was invulnerable to anti-aircraft missiles and much less provocative than A-12 overflights. At the same time, the US Air Force was developing the SR-71, a modified version of the A-12. Seeing little value in maintaining both overt SR-71 and covert A-12 fleets with similar capabilities, President Johnson ordered the retirement of the A-12 in 1968.

The only A-12 reconnaissance operation codenamed BLACK SHIELD, took place from May 1967 to May 1968. A detachment of six pilots and three A-12s based at Kadena Air Force Base in Okinawa flew 29 missions over East Asia. The panoramic stereo camera aboard each aircraft yielded considerable high-quality imagery that within hours of landing was processed. From the images, photointerpreters provided key intelligence information in support of US military operations during the Vietnam War.

The A-12 on display at CIA Headquarters — number eight in production of the 15 A-12s built — was the first of the operational fleet to be certified for Mach 3. No piloted operational jet aircraft has ever flown faster or higher.

I found this article on the CIA website. This is the Central Intelligence Agency's opinion about the Oxcart. Interestingly, the A-12 was taken from the Minnesota Air Guard to be placed in front of the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The pictures are of that very A-12 that used to be in Minnesota.

CIA did not give up the A-12s without a fight. They wanted to keep them. They did insist that for about a year during the transition from the A-12 to the SR 71s to have civilians from the CIA fly the SR 71 on covert missions if necessary. I have a paper called “ Memorandum for the President” from my father‘s book “The Very First’’ about the CIA flying the SR 71. What was decided during that congressional committee with Senator Russell as a key person on this matter was to reduce the overall fleet size by mothballing eleven A-12 aircraft and phase out the CIA fleet capability by January 1968 with all missions assigned to the SR 71 fleet under Air Force management with the possible use of civilian crews. The date on this document is December 26, 1966 . ~Linda Sheffield

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