The Doctor
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The Mun
- Name: Teyla
- Contact
- Email: teyla86[at]gmail[dot]com
- AIM: teyla86
- Yahoo: t.eyla
- LJ: http://t_eyla.livejournal.com/
The Character
- Name: The Doctor
- Age/Birthdate: The Doctor isn't quite sure how old he is. He lost track at some point. He knows he's older than 1,000 years, but when asked, he usually goes with a number somewhere in the 900s. Being over 900 years is impressive. Being over 1,000 years is old. He doesn't celebrate his birthday. He never did, it's not something that's done in Gallifreyan culture. He could tell you his birthday according to the Gallifreyan calendar, but it wouldn't mean much, and he never bothered to convert the date. "A long time ago, in a galaxy far away" will have to suffice.
- Canon: Television, Doctor Who (2006 - 2009)
- Canon Entry Point: After Planet of the Dead. From before that, not included in this Doctor's canon are the TV movie and all spin-off media except Torchwood.
- Journal: http://or_timelords.livejournal.com/
- Card: Three of Swords. (Upright)
- Card-Related Abilities/'Card Tricks': He's been told he can control the element of air. What that means, he hasn't really had the time to find out yet.
Defining Abilities and Attributes
The Doctor may look human, but he is actually a Time Lord. Time Lords are a very old and by now almost extinct species. They have a life expectancy of over a millennium, having the ability to "regenerate" up to 12 times when their current body has reached the end of its usefulness. Regenerating means changing your body and personality while keeping your memories intact.
A Time Lord's core body temperature is quite a bit lower than the human standard of 36.5°C, but due to an "insulation layer" in the skin, they feel merely a bit cool to the touch. They have two hearts, a system of pulmonary tubes instead of lungs, and a respiratory bypass system that allows them to survive without oxygen for an unlimited amount of time. They have advanced healing abilities and heightened senses compared to an average human.
Time Lords have two additional senses aside from the five human ones--telepathy, and something called a time sense. The telepathic sense enables them to create a mental connection with other sentient beings by touch, or to enter a mental connection with another telepath without initiating physical contact. The time sense allows them to feel and understand time and the passing of it non-relatively and as an intrinsic part of their nature.
The Doctor has a very well developed time sense, while his telepathic skills are low average. He is in his tenth regeneration, which means that he can regenerate three more times before he has to worry about actually dying when his body gives out. Due to his highly developed Time Lord senses, the Doctor is very handy physically--very good balance, good aim, very precise visual judgment, photographic memory and a perfect pitch. He's also very clever, knows basically everything there is to be known and speaks every language in the known universe.
This should, by no means, imply that he is infallible. His skills and knowledge are still subject to his own personal judgment, and his judgment is as biased and impaired as anyone's. Sometimes, the wealth of information at his disposal can actually be more of a hindrance than a help.
The Doctor is rarely seen without his TARDIS. They're mentally bonded and inseparable except for limited periods of time. Should the Doctor's telepathic bond with the TARDIS be separated, it would cause severe psychic trauma for him and kill the TARDIS.
Personality
The Doctor is above all an idealist. His convictions and principles have always been the most important thing in his life. He firmly believes that all life is equal, and equally precious and valuable, and he'll take independent thought over blind faith in any given situation. All his life, he has tried his best to live up to his own values. He has always opposed any sort of generalizing standards, believing that they compromise the freedom of the individual. This makes it very hard for him to integrate in any sort of society structure. By his own choice, he usually ends up an outsider, the person who thinks outside of the box and keeps reminding others that the box is there in the first place.
When he was younger, he launched several futile attempts at changing the societies he was part of to support independent thought and freedom and equality of each individual--first on his home planet, Gallifrey, and later on Earth. When those failed, he resigned himself to withdrawing and living his life as the only independent, autarkic authority in the universe, intervening whenever he felt injustice was being done and moving on before anyone could claim him for their side.
The one time he did take sides in his seventh regeneration, fighting in the Time War against the Daleks, ended in him destroying both his own people as well as an entire other race. In the face of this trauma and major betrayal of his most valued principles, the Doctor had a hard time maintaining his sense of identity and self-respect. With Gallifrey gone, he'd lost all roots and sense of belonging, and sought out Earth in the hope of finding a substitute home. However, due to his inability to integrate in any society, Earth could never quite become the home he wished it to be, something the Doctor slowly but surely realized in the years following the Time War.
He kept travelling, continuing his old life, and is still doing so now, although he has stopped the habit of taking humans along on his travels, since he feels that he is doing them more harm than good by taking them away from their lives on Earth. He lives a very lonely, secluded life, which he shares only with the TARDIS, his sentient time machine he has been telepathically bonded to since he graduated from the Prydonian Academy on Gallifrey as a very young man. He's looking for a purpose, something he can be a part of in order to be able to fulfil his self-inflicted outsider position--you can't oppose something that doesn't exist anymore--and he's also ultimately looking for someone he can share his outsider status with, since it does get very lonely out there on the sidelines of the universe.
Background
The Doctor has had a long and eventful life. A summary of his entire history can be found at his character journal.
