From Newsgroup: rec.arts.drwho.moderated
From Address: jameskuyper@verizon.net
Subject: Re: "The Angles take Manhattan" - ground transport?

On 10/07/2012 04:10 PM, Daibhid Ceanaideach wrote:
> On 07 Oct 2012, James Kuyper  wrote:
> 
>> On 10/07/2012 10:56 AM, John Hall wrote:
>>> In article ,
>>>  James Kuyper  writes:
>>> 
>>>> However, wouldn't it be simpler to take the TARDIS to say, Chicago in
>>>> 1938, and then hop on a train to New York?
>>>
>>> I don't think it would even occur to the Doctor to take a train (or a
>>> bus).
>>
>> That makes a certain amount of sense. Consider how much trouble he has
>> with the passage of ordinary time ("The Slow Invasion").
>>
>> On the other hand, he took the equivalent of a tour bus in "Midnight" -
>> though I have to admit, that didn't turn out very well for him.
> 
> I think that still works; taking a tour bus to see a crystal waterfall is 
> an "event" in and of itself, rather than a means of getting from A to B.
> 
> What does bug me is why it doesn't occur to the Pond-Williamses to take a 
> bus or train to somewhere the TARDIS can get to, and stop being "trapped" 
> in New York.

That seems like the flip side of the same issue, and I originally
planned to mention it. But then I realized it's really a quite different
issue. The reason why the Doctor can never see them again is not because
they're trapped in New York, and he can't go there. It's because the
parts of the book that he read imply that he'll never see them again.
And thanks to a brand-new interpretation of what a "fixed point in time"
really means, that can't be changed.

When the concept was first introduced, a "fixed point in time" was
apparently intended to be something really unusual. Now that we know one
way in which they can be created, it seems like just about any time
travelers (and time travelers are a dime a dozen in the Whoniverse) who
find any records of journeys to the past that they haven't carried out
yet, should generate hordes of fixed points every time they examine
those records. I don't like the idea that fixed points are that easy to
create.
-- 
James Kuyper

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