Moderator's Note: Moved from 'Season Six: Day of the Moon'.

The post-hypnotic command isn't going to work on people who don't speak English, unless the Doctor arranged for the Tardis to translate. Even then, it won't be enough to wipe out the Silence, but it will cripple there operations on Earth for a while.

Does the Doctor really need physically to break into Apollo 11 just to interrupt the live TV signal?

Obviously, the Silence were planning to broadcast their own planet wide signal, so the Doctor had to remove whatever they planted to do that with.

In any story set before 1969, the Silence are around unseen, which raises a few problems. There should have been Silence telling Nero what to do, for example, but we never saw any sign Hartnell was having bits snipped out of his memories, or did we? Could that be the real explanation for his fluffs, his brain stuttering as memory of the Silence erases itself?

There doesn't seem to be any elided moment in the orphanage when Amy has time to see the Silence nest, mark her face, then forget it happened. Which is ok - not really a huge nit - but she an implanted recorder, why would she need to mark herself?

In fact why don't the Silence on the ceiling do anything after Canton has shot the one in Renfrew's office?

And apparently there are Silence wandering round in public, more or less guaranteeing that *someone* is bound to be perceving them at any given time. Way to blow your cover!

Did anyone else notice that "The Silence" look an awful lot like the painting "The Scream" I thought they might work that into it, that it was an after image the artist had or something.... just random thoughts

They did. Or was it in the "Doctor Who In America" filler hour?

I just had another thought. I'm assuming Rory, Amy, River and even the Doctor have seen the Moon landing video before, so why didn't they kill the Silence on sight? We know that our time was influenced by this event because of the abandoned Time vehicle in "The Lodger"

so why didn't they kill the Silence on sight?

Hard to do when you don't carry weapons. By the time you've got a chance to collect one, you've forgotten them again.

Kevin: Hmmm....so if Cybermen were around at various points in Earth history, as well as Daleks and various other partially- or completely- computerized entities, wouldn't they have records of the Silence, even if they organic element forgot them?

It's not necessarily a nit of they did. They presumably would have just killed them anyway. But at no point have computer-dependent invaders ever claimed that Earth was occupied by another race.

The Silence probably just laid low while they were around. They even might have helped the Doctor get rid of them (he is improbably lucky most of the time).

Kate: The Silence have a thing for Amy, which is why they don't kill her. But why not River or Rory?

Hmm. If only they hadn't casually splattered Joy like that, we might think they're actually monsters of the non-killing variety - which would have made them even more unusual, and the Doctor's jihad against them even more shocking. Bit of a lost opportunity there?

Kate: And what about the Silence in parts of the world where no one particularly is watching telly?

They'd be very few of 'em. And hopefully when they heard what happened to their pals they'd get off-planet, fast. Of course, there ARE still a few around - Amy spotted one in 2011.

Kate: Come to think of it, the Doctor's plan seems to depend on them getting video footage of one of the Silence saying "you should kill us all". What was he planning to broadcast if this hadn't happened?

The fact that Canton adjusted Matt's bow tie implies that ANYONE'S suggestion has hypnotic powers if made while their victim is looking at a Silence (Silent?). The Doctor would no doubt have shrieked 'KILL! KILL!' himself if the Silence hadn't conveniently done the job for him, thus allowing him to keep his hands a BIT cleaner.

Kate: In other respects though, the Silence's plan owes much more to 'City of Death'.

Steal from the best, that's what I say. Maybe this thread should be renamed and devoted to ALL those aliens who've kindly been affecting human development over the millennia - Scaroth, the Exxilons, the Daemons, the Time Lords, the Fendahl, the Osirians, the Silence, etc etc...?

Tim: So the Silence have been on Earth for thousands of years? How come we're never once HEARD of them in the last 47 years of Who?

Mandy: We have, many times. We just forgot.

WE would have forgot, but would THE DOCTOR?

The FIRST time, sure. The second time, he'd've remembered the first time and realised that he mustn't take his eyes of it till he'd taken a photo/scribbled a note all over his face/whatever.

we never saw any sign Hartnell was having bits snipped out of his memories, or did we? Could that be the real explanation for his fluffs, his brain stuttering as memory of the Silence erases itself?

Only if the Silence was on a LOT of other planets as well. Of course, they might be.

And apparently there are Silence wandering round in public, more or less guaranteeing that *someone* is bound to be perceving them at any given time. Way to blow your cover!

Yeah, surely at any one time numerous members of the human race would be screaming their heads off?

Did anyone else notice that "The Silence" look an awful lot like the painting "The Scream" I thought they might work that into it, that it was an after image the artist had or something.... just random thoughts

They did. Or was it in the "Doctor Who In America" filler hour?

Yeah, it was mentioned in Doctor Who Confidential (as WE call it) but not in Who itself.

I just had another thought. I'm assuming Rory, Amy, River and even the Doctor have seen the Moon landing video before, so why didn't they kill the Silence on sight?

Ooh, good point! Tennant and Martha watched the Moon landings FOUR TIMES! And weren't they stuck in 1969 for MONTHS...?

Hard to do when you don't carry weapons. By the time you've got a chance to collect one, you've forgotten them again.

The Americans seemed to manage just fine...

Kevin: Hmmm....so if Cybermen were around at various points in Earth history, as well as Daleks and various other partially- or completely- computerized entities, wouldn't they have records of the Silence, even if they organic element forgot them?

Ooh yes!

But at no point have computer-dependent invaders ever claimed that Earth was occupied by another race.

The Silence probably just laid low while they were around. They even might have helped the Doctor get rid of them (he is improbably lucky most of the time).

Yeah, he certainly is. Though somehow I can't quite picture the Silence whispering in thousands of alien ears 'Go on then...just tie him up and explain your plans to him...you know you want to...'

"And apparently there are Silence wandering round in public, more or less guaranteeing that *someone* is bound to be perceving them at any given time. Way to blow your cover!

Yeah, surely at any one time numerous members of the human race would be screaming their heads off?" - Emily

Slip-ups in this episode nonwithstanding, we can assume that with an extensive planet-wide warren of tunnels, they minimize that whenever possible- just coming out to affect events, perhaps- and were out so much due to investigating the Doctor's appearance?

we can assume that with an extensive planet-wide warren of tunnels, they minimize that whenever possible- just coming out to affect events, perhaps- and were out so much due to investigating the Doctor's appearance?

That's true...though you'd think if they were THAT wild to know what the Doc was up to, they'd be a lot more Silence in Britain and a lot fewer in America.

'What are they up to?' 'No idea' - thanks, Doc, I do love to know the motivation of the bad guys. Influencing the entirety of human history to get your hands on a cool spacesuit seems a little excessive even by Who-Monster standards. (And it's a bit embarrassing that we were hypnotised into our glorious voyage to a billion worlds - 'You just watch them fly' - rather than doing so because of our indomitable humanity or anything.)

ROSANNA: We ran from the silence.
DOCTOR: The silence?
ROSANNA: There were cracks. Some were tiny, some were as big as the sky. Through some we saw worlds and people. And through others we saw silence...and the end of all things. We fled to an ocean like ours and the crack snap shut behind us. Saturnyne was lost.

Sorry, but what has THAT - AND the utter, er, silence at the end of Vampires of Venice - got to do with THIS Silence? How the hell did the Saturnynes REMEMBER 'em long enough to evacuate a planet? What have they got to do with the end of all things - they've been hanging around on Earth for long enough without it ending?

Wouldn't there be piles of rotting Silence corpses lying around after the massacre? Does the sense of smell not function unless you're looking at them?

That's quite a long Silence-related chat the TARDIS crew have together, considering that 'you can't remember anything you discover.'

And Dr Renfrew remembers enough to scrawl himself quite long messages about getting out of there. AND to remember that 'I think someone has been shot' all the way up the stairs.

AT LAST! Amy responds to the Silence in, as Terrance Dicks would so delightfully refer to it, true feminine style: she lets out a hearty scream. If only more people did that - leading to everyone else in the vicinity's head turning and seeing the monster and KILLING IT! (look, they're Americans - they hardly NEEDED that post-hypnotic suggestion in the Moon Landing) the Silence would never have got such a grip on Earth.

ROSANNA: We ran from the silence.
DOCTOR: The silence?
ROSANNA: There were cracks. Some were tiny, some were as big as the sky. Through some we saw worlds and people. And through others we saw silence...and the end of all things. We fled to an ocean like ours and the crack snap shut behind us. Saturnyne was lost.

Emily: Sorry, but what has THAT - AND the utter, er, silence at the end of Vampires of Venice - got to do with THIS Silence? How the hell did the Saturnynes REMEMBER 'em long enough to evacuate a planet? What have they got to do with the end of all things - they've been hanging around on Earth for long enough without it ending?

The very things which have been puzzling me. I'm holding onto the thought that Moffat doesn't generally leave things dangling just because he spotted a new, shiny idea, and that all this will make sense, hopefully BEFORE the season break.

By the way, does anyone else find it rather annoying that these boards have no way to retrieve a forgotten password?

I would, if I'd forgotten mine, but I use a very generic one for places like this.

Why do these aliens want? why have they been on Earth so long? What was their agenda?

Does the post hypnotic command "you should kill us on sight" work on people that don't speak English?

And speaking of which, Special Agent Carl pulls out his gun and turns to aim before he see the Silent in the Oval office.

Not really sure the Doctor's little video stunt will be a death sentence for the Silence since (a) there are lots of them hiding in tunnels under the Earth, and (b) we see one still alive in 2011 at the beginning of "The Impossible Astronaut."

I don't think it was meant to be a death-sentence... just to make Earth such a hostile environment that it won't be worth it for them to stick around anymore.

Lawrence has some rather interesting things to say about the morality of this behaviour:

http://beasthouse-lm2.blogspot.com/

An odd thought popped in my mind: A Weeping Angel/Silence war.

The instant a Silence looks away or blinks, the Angel advances, and the instant an Angel takes its eyes off a Silence, it forgets what is was doing.

I'd love to put them in a dark room and then turn on the strobe....

Now THAT would be an interesting war. Who do we root for.

My money's on the Angels. I doubt whether the methods the Silent used against Joy would work on stone, whereas the Angels could snap a Silent neck or send it back into time, no problem.

And Lawrence Miles is???

Annoyed. Most of the time.

So I gathered.

I do wonder, though, who he is that he can say such things about Doctor Who and have Emily linking to him rather than warning him that she knows where he lives.

His books were the only thing that made the Sixteen Long And Barren Years Of Despair worth living.

(Well, them and some pretty cool African democracy revolutions.)

What about the TV Movie? I seem to recall a certain person quite liked that until RTG came along to show her the error of her ways...!

He slanders Donna.

What about the TV Movie? I seem to recall a certain person quite liked that until RTG came along to show her the error of her ways...!

OF COURSE I adored the telemovie, but OF COURSE I knew deep down (and not THAT deep down) that it was a godawful pile of ****.

He slanders Donna.

True. Have to admit, not loving, worshipping and adoring our Ginger Goddess is pretty unforgiveable. But I just think of Dead Romance and I MELT.

So...SPOILERS for The Almost People:

The Doctor only knows there's something seriously weird going on with Amy because he gave her that body-scan that said pregnant/not pregnant. (Repeatedly. In a stalkerish manner.) And he only gave her THAT because she told him she was pregnant. And she only did THAT - telling a highly inappropriate person at a highly inappropriate moment - because the Silent she met in the bathroom gave her a hypnotic command to do so.

So...WHY? Does it want the kid who'll apparently be the Silence Saviour - who they sent humanity to the Moon just to get a cool spacesuit for - rescued by the Doctor from whoever is holding her captive? Or are THEY employing Eyepatch Lady and luring the Doctor into an elaborate Amy-rescuing trap?

'They are everywhere. They are always. They are no one. They have been on Earth for a long time...' - was anyone else thinking the Torchwood Season Four villain might just be the Silence? Well, until the word 'Family' came up. The only aliens who've ever mentioned THAT are the Slitheen...who seem unlikely to be responsible for humanity's abrupt immortality.

The Silence are a very nice idea but they wander around in public far too much to last long. Take than one in the bar for example, the barman turns round to serve someone says "OMG look" everone turns round, one ex silnce. And what about medieval times when \lmost everyone was armed? What about WW2?

It is something of a death sentence for the Slience as it's made pretty clear they're scavenging on Earth as they are using an Apollo space suit. And even if they are off planet humanity is going to spread over most of the universe. Obvs some will slip through the net but now they're in hiding rather than the rulers of Earth. Not sure how they can rule a people who are unaware of their existance. Maybe the Silence's voice surpasses the language barrier.

Here's soemthing, we now know the Silence are an order not a species but is the command to kill them on sight going to apply to non members of the species? Do other members of the species have the forget ability, perhaps they were exiled to Earth? Has the doc signed the death warrent for an entire species for the actions of a few?

I guess the moral is not to make the Doctor feel desperate, as he obviously did about kicking the Silence off Earth. I suppose he broke all his rules for once. ('Good men don't need rules. Now is not the time to find out why I have so many.')

So. It's a religious order not a race, it has the core belief that Silence Will Fall when the question is asked. The first question. The oldest question in the universe. Hidden in plain sight...

As they think Amy'll bring the Silence, presumably it'll be her or her sprog who finally crack the 'question' thing. Well, River's already posted the oldest WRITING in the universe, she's the obvious candidate.

Why do they WANT to bring the Silence, anyway? And what does blowing up the TARDIS and fracturing the universe have to do with answering The Question?

Surely the oldest question is why are we here. Maybe they want to bring the silence because the universe is to chaotic or something.

And there's no point asking the oldest question becasue we already know the answer it's 42.

The oldest question in the universe, hidden in plain sight. I'll bet money the question is 'Doctor Who?'

is the command to kill them on sight going to apply to non members of the species?

But they're not a species so there won't be any non-member of the species. What I'm thinking is that maybe the headless monks are going to become Silences. (If that's the right plural.) The Monks are the acolyte stage or something. If the Silence is not a species then presumably they don't procreate, so they must somehow be converted into that form.

What I mean is the silence are an order not a species but what about members of the same species that aren't in the order?

Pretty sure the Monks are supposed to be separate. I think it's mentioned that they're Christian.

How did Prisoner Zero know about the Pandorica and the Silence is a good question

What I mean is the silence are an order not a species but what about members of the same species that aren't in the order?

Sorry, but I'm just not following you. If they're not a species, there aren't any 'same species that aren't in the order.'

He means, what about those long-faced monsters in black who weren't part of the Silence? Kind of like, what about those humans who weren't Nazis, or those Raxacocorifallapatorians who weren't Slitheen?

I got that. I just didn't think there were any.
If there are, they'd better avoid post-60s Earth.

No kidding. If the Silence are smart, they'll simply send in a different species to control Earth.

And if they're REALLY smart, they'll forget all about controlling Earth - and, indeed, forget all about asking their stupid question too.

But I guess people have got to do SOMETHING to amuse themselves, in a meaningless universe with no Doctor Who on the TV.

I think the Silence are all composed of the members of that one mysterious species. Here's a question does all that species have the ability to be forgotten if you don't look at them or is it just those that are members of the Silence? And it seems to me the Silence were stranded on Earth till humanity developed proper space travel.

As for the rest of the species it's not a matter of avoiding post 60s Earth it's a matter of avoiding the human race forever plus any aliens they happen to show that recording to. Considering how far we spread (plus that TV broadcast was sent out into space to be listened to by any species) that is one ex species. Emily's right the silence clearly isn't smart, lets face it only an idiot would want to destroy the entire universe if you don't have some kind of back up plan that involves you continuing after. Possibly they want to be apart of the next universe. The Who universe has multiple universes one after the other.

I seem to have missed something again. When or where is it established that the Silence was responsible for the TARDIS explosion that cracked the universe?

They haven't covered the TARDIS explosion yet. Maybe it explodes when the question is asked.

When or where is it established that the Silence was responsible for the TARDIS explosion that cracked the universe?

Well, a croaky voice said 'Silence must fall' as River wrestled with a TARDIS that had been taken over by some other force and made to explode. One naturally ASSUMED that, when a group of aliens called the Silence turned up saying things like 'We honour Amy, who will bring the Silence', THEY were responsible for this bad behaviour.

Of course, the Silence have since rebranded themselves as a multi-species religious order whose sole raison d'etre is to STOP Silence falling, so don't ask ME what the hell is going on here.

Perhaps there are TWO Silence-related groups?

1) People with croaky voices who exploded the TARDIS to cause Cracks in time (Pandorica Opens) and who caused LITERAL silence to fall over several planets, plus Venice for some reason (Vampires).

2) God-botherers who try to use River to kill the Doctor cos either they WANT Silence To Fall (Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon) or they DON'T want Silence To Fall (Wedding).

And frankly they seem so convoluted that the right floppy-fingered hand doesn't know what the left floppy-fingered hand is doing. I mean, they manipulated the whole of Earth's history to get it to the point of creating a nice spacesuit into which they could inexplicably stuff River under a lake...but when THAT didn't work out they just time-travelled to the fifty-second century to grab her, where they could have purchased any nunber of spacesuits at a reasonable cost...

Well, when you put it like that... now I'm confused.

Well, it will all become clear on the fields of Trenzalore, probably, maybe, possibly, I hope.

Oh, this is cute, I just noticed it, Apollo 11, eleventh doctor, wink wink.

=8)

'I forget'

- Moffat's response to the question of the name of the floppy-fingered race (since 'Silence' is the name of the religious order not the race) according to Gallifrey Base...

Well, it will all become clear on the fields of Trenzalore, probably, maybe, possibly, I hope.

Nah. Sorry. The Silence...couldn't be bothered to turn up at Trenzalore.

I mean, it was obviously SO MUCH EASIER to rule Earth since the days of the wheel and the fire, accelerating human development till they invented a REALLY COOL Apollo spacesuit in which to stuff the Doctor's bride-to-be in a failed attempt to kill him than just to...well...y'know...get themselves a nice package holiday to Trenzalore and STOP THE GREAT INTELLIGENCE. (Or just stop him beforehand. He'd be easier pickings than the Doctor, SURELY.)

And if they knew so much about the circumstances in which the Question would be asked, why didn't they know that its asking wouldn't do much harm? Why didn't they foresee Clara?

And if the entire raison d'etre of the Silence was to stop the Doctor's victories being turned into defeats, why did Madame Kovarian have such a personal hatred for him?

The big question: how can the Doctor lead the Silence into battle? Did he imagine he was on a solo suicide mission?

Nah. Sorry. The Silence...couldn't be bothered to turn up at Trenzalore.

Ah. Well, obviously they could. Second time round. Which is odd, because whilst NEITHER occasion fits the prophecy particularly exactly, the stars-going-out thing in Name of the Doctor seems rather more serious - and fitting - than the give-him-marshmallows-and-hang-around-for-centuries thing in Time of the Doctor.

The big question: how can the Doctor lead the Silence into battle? Did he imagine he was on a solo suicide mission?

Great. Now you've ruined my absolute favourite moment of Time (well, exccept for Capaldi's appearance. I have the feeling he'll ALWAYS be my absolute favourite moment of any episode in which he appears, which is a REALLY good sign for the future): the silhouette of the ancient Doctor and his ancient enemies going into battle together.

'Confessional priests. Very popular. Genetically engineered so you forget everything you've told them' - surely you'd forget TELLING the Silence whatever-you-told-them, but you WOULDN'T forget whatever crime you'd committed? In which case it would be entirely pointless, you could easily go to confession a dozen times a day, repeating the same thing over and over again, without it doing you any good...

And what sort of things would the Papal Mainframe consider a 'sin', anyway? Judging by the nudity and bed-like altar, it doesn't have the same reaction to even thinking about sex as the HUMAN Pope does...

'The Kovarian Chapter broke away. They travelled back along your timeline and tried to prevent you ever reaching Trenzalore' - that doesn't really explain why they also took over the whole of human history, back to the days of the wheel and the fire...

What's with the Church's sudden nudity obsession? Its soldiers/monks/Silent confessors/Mother Superior all look dressed to ME.

Plus NO ONE seems particularly inclined to attack their confessional priests. What kind of philistines don't watch Neil Armstrong?

Depends if these people are human or not.

They look pretty human to me. And they have a Pope and everything...

It occurs to me that maybe the Silence were just LYING in Day of the Moon about ruling the world since the wheel and the fire? They DID go round doing unnecessary 'Look at me, I'm so evil!' flourishes (killing Joy in the bathroom, for heaven's sake - what was THAT all about?) and this would make a lot more sense than them ACTUALLY ruling the world since the wheel and the fire.

What kind of philistines don't watch Neil Armstrong?

This is the far future. Maybe the footage no longer exists?

This is the far future. Maybe the footage no longer exists?

Nope, the Doctor categorically assures us in Day of the Moon that EVERY SINGLE ONE of the BILLIONS of humans who go into space for BILLIONS of years will see this footage.

Come to think of it, it's remotely possible that he might be exaggerating just a little.

Feeling-sick-when-you-see-a-Silent is something that's never heard of again post-Day of the Moon. And makes no sense - how successful would the genetically-engineered confessional priests be if they made their clients want to throw up? (Mind you, given how they blow Joy to smithereens for no readily apparent reason, maybe feeling sick is the LEAST of their clients' worries.)

'You will tell the Doc-tor' says the Silent to Amy, 'What he must know, and what he must never know' - presumably he's talking about seeing-the-Doc-go-splat-on-a-beach and being-pregnant? Why would it want the Doc to know either of these things? Forewarned is forearmed, and all that...

Why do NONE of the Silents in Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon ask for a confession?

Ruling the world with post-hypnotic suggestion, since the wheel and the fire - is that really the best way to stop the Doctor reaching Trenzalore? REALLY?

'You should kill us on sight' - hey, they're TRYING to save the universe from a devastating war! Admittedly they're using the stupidest, most convoluted method in history, but surely the SILENCE see themselves as the GOOD guys?

'We do you honour. You will bring the Silence.' - er...Amy will bring the Silence HOW, exactly? Sure, she'll birth a sprog who'll save the Doctor so he gets to Trenzalore so the Silence movement will be born to stop him saying his name, but...um...isn't their entire POINT to STOP the Doctor getting to Trenzalore? And at THIS point in their history, they think Amy's Ankle-Biter is the way to achieve this? Thus preventing the unscheduled faith-change that created their movement in the first place?

Was that ship from The Lodger the thing they arrived on Earth in?

I dunno what something dating from the invention of the wheel and the fire would be doing in Craig's attic, but sure, why not, we might as well decide they arrived in their own TARDISes since they DO have a similar one in Day of the Moon and it's not like Moffat's ever gonna give us an explanation...

...Though I suppose if he keeps up the novelisation-writing...

Question inspired by the discussion in the Audios/UNIT/Silenced board: would the Silence's memory wipe trick work on cats, and would it also work on a blind individual?

Well, they certainly seem able to hypnotise blind Helena Faversham into thinking they're poor persecuted shot-on-sight refugees (UNIT: Silenced audios) - alright, so they ARE poor persecuted shot-on-sight refugees but you'd think she'd get a bit suspicious of the croaky whispery voices, plus all the people they lure to her house to eat.

Her cats seem weirdly content to be shacked up with a bunch of Silents, I literally have no idea if they are being hypnotised or if they're just taking feline inscrutability to whole new levels.

Big Finish's UNIT: Silenced box set:

So they eat people (but not, blessed be, cats). Weren't they originally a confessional order? Who'd go to confess to a priest who might EAT them? (Or am I being unduly naive? People have been going to confess to priests who might sexually abuse them for centuries.)

'Your kind has hunted us for a generation' - so, 1969-c.2013 is one Silence generation. (I'm suddenly trying not to wonder how Silents make babies.)

Hand-drawn images of a Silent seem to have a longer-lasting effect than photos/moving images WHY, exactly?

The Wedding of River Song:

'You're a man with a long and dangerous past, but your future is infinitely more terrifying. The Silence believe it must be averted' - well they're pretty rubbish Sentinels of History if they think TRENZALORE is the big future-problem. The Doctor literally spends 900 years refusing to answer the Question they believe he'll have no choice but to answer. And so what if he answered and the Time Lords came back anyway? They DID come back and they just lurked around at the end of time trying not to be noticed till the Master came along and killed 'em all. If the Silence wanted to be worried about a Doctor, try JODIE!, humanity, Time Lordity and half the sodding UNIVERSE got wiped out on HER watch all because her Mummy got annoyed at her, dammit why didn't the Silence go after Tecteun, it's not like she was difficult to kill...

Or they could have just blown up Trenzalore rather than Sexy.