The 200-year older Doctor gets killed flat out at the beginning of the episode, while the Silence are watching. Holy shit. The very fact of what's going on is dangerous, because it seems like he's attempting to alter events in his own timeline, by alerting Amy/Rory/River to things that they need to know, but doing so VERY carefully so as not to create a Paradox. This is still playing very carefully with the idea that Time can be rewritten. The Space Suit imagery is purposefully reminiscent of the episode where we first met River. I'm still currently convinced that it's River who shoots the Doctor. After it takes place, River fires off rounds at the Space Suit as it heads back into the lake, none of which hit, to which she mutters,
" 'Course not... " Since that's older River, she must have some idea of what's happening if that's her in the suit. She wouldn't be able to kill herself because that'd cause a paradox.
Then we meet the current Doctor. This leaves the question of: how did the older Doctor get there? Has he been taking the slow path, and if so: for how long, why, and
where is the TARIDS? I'm assuming it would be with River Song, since he taught her how to fly it, and that would give a reason why she'd need to know that.
The dynamic of having the Doctor unprepared, and slightly untrusting is really interesting. It's especially tough because River takes it really hard that he only trusts Amy, and not her. Then they follow the clues that they receive from the older Doctor: The moon. 1969. The fact that
both of these have been referenced in Steven Moffat episodes already blows my mind, and makes me think that there's SO much more to this web than I'm even close to grasping.
Then we finally meet the Silence. Absolutely. Terrifying.
They're psychic, as they're able to learn Joy & Amy's name without speaking to them. They also are trying to make Amy tell him,
"What he must know, and what he must never know." They are likely limited by how much they can interact with anything, because they're no longer remembered afterwards. I would guess that they're limited by a quantum state mechanism of observation, much like the Weeping Angels, but that's also connected to the Time Energy that was seen through some of the cracks. I think that they actually stop existing in your timeline when they're not being observed. This means that it even effects time travellers, like River, Rory, & Amy. That also means that, because Amy's brought back things unwritten from her own timeline (Rory, her parents, & the Doctor), so she might somehow be their key to obtaining the influence they need.
We also know that there must be a way to remember them, and I think the key is with the picture that Amy took with her phone. We know that Prisoner Zero, and the Saturnynians know about the Silence, and talk about them, so there must be a way to remember them. Likely it's only through a second hand account, because someone could tell you about them, and because the actual event isn't in your timestream, it won't disappear. This also brings up the question of observation to images. Like the Angels, if their defense is locked into quantum observation, that means that when Amy looks at the image on her phone, the Silence she saw in the restroom will have existed in her timeline again, and she'll everything about what it told her.
That brings us to the mysterious phone calls that lead them to the warehouse. Not only that the phone calls reach Nixon at his every location, the origin of phone calls are important. River notes that the line has been disconnected from the warehouse when they arrive, so whatever is making them has to be using a form of
Om-Com, like the Chula used.
Then we come to two
more crazy pieces of information. The Silence can't even be detected by lifeform scanning devices (which means that they could have been in the Library). This supports my idea that they cease existing in a person's timeline when they're not being directly observed by that person. As I'd suspected, they are the ones with the replica TARDIS with a perception filter that eventually crashes with all the crew dead as the second floor of the apartment. My hypothesis right now is that it crashes as a result of the explosion from keeping the TARDIS stopped at 6/26/2010.
Now, comes the question of what happened when it killed Joy. Was she erased from time, or just blown into ashes? It's impossible to tell right now, because we haven't seen her before, or know anyone who would be influenced by either event. If they
can unwrite things from time, it might explain why Amy doesn't remember any of the events that the Doctor assumes she should have. It's possible that they attempted to destroy the TARDIS to use the cracks in time & space to spread this unwriting time energy all over the universe, but this lacks a clear motivation. The Silence
need something but I just can't work out what.
As I said, as I turned the thought into words, I did wonder if that was the case.
Oh my God.
