Going back over the scene, it’s confusing. The Rani says it was the genetic bomb, but earlier she said she’d flipped her DNA to avoid it. She says their species as a whole is infertile (“a biological dead end”), which sounds like she’s talking about more than just the two of them. If the genetic bomb was a slow, lingering extinction rather than an instant death, why did she only have a split second to avoid it? Maybe that means that others survived the genetic bomb as well, but the Doctor already knew about the infertility despite not knowing about other survivors. Add to that the Rani’s disgust at Mrs Floods comments last week about the new Rani being her child, and the whole thing feels like two different ideas squashed together and not quite fitting.
So, deep lore dive — in the Wilderness years novels the Time Lords were apparently depicted as infertile after a split in society that essentially exiled a mystical matriarchy that had been in power. IIRC those eventually turned into the Sisterhood of Karn?
But as a result Gallifreyans started reproducing through looms, basically Space Baby Factories. That has gone pretty much disregarded since 2005 when the show returned to the screen, but for some reason RTD seems to have doubled down on it, at least in subtext like the Rani’s comment about infertility and, well — “Space babies”?
Going back over the scene, it’s confusing. The Rani says it was the genetic bomb, but earlier she said she’d flipped her DNA to avoid it. She says their species as a whole is infertile (“a biological dead end”), which sounds like she’s talking about more than just the two of them. If the genetic bomb was a slow, lingering extinction rather than an instant death, why did she only have a split second to avoid it? Maybe that means that others survived the genetic bomb as well, but the Doctor already knew about the infertility despite not knowing about other survivors. Add to that the Rani’s disgust at Mrs Floods comments last week about the new Rani being her child, and the whole thing feels like two different ideas squashed together and not quite fitting.
So, deep lore dive — in the Wilderness years novels the Time Lords were apparently depicted as infertile after a split in society that essentially exiled a mystical matriarchy that had been in power. IIRC those eventually turned into the Sisterhood of Karn?
But as a result Gallifreyans started reproducing through looms, basically Space Baby Factories. That has gone pretty much disregarded since 2005 when the show returned to the screen, but for some reason RTD seems to have doubled down on it, at least in subtext like the Rani’s comment about infertility and, well — “Space babies”?