Introduction
In
this months issue we will be only touching on our episode of focus 'Random
Shoes' as there are no gadgets to focus on - for a sci-fi show Torchwood is
very 'gadget light'. Instead we will take
a look at the object at the centre of the story; the Dogon Sixth Eye.
For
this we need to spread our scope a tad and look at a couple of objects that are
not seen in this episode, which is not only light on Gizmos etc but also light
on Torchwood Team participation! So, we have instead, the Invisible lift, where
we shall again be touching on, what we now affectionately call The
Mothership, Doctor Who and also the
Cryochambers. Is this a gadget or gizmo I ask myself? Well the way I see it,
not all gadgets are small or even handy. Gadgets and Gizmos is merely descriptive
of those unusual and sometimes alien oddments, both little and large, and also
a handy title for the column.
So
let's go and have a look at this issues bits and bobs.
Dogon
Sixth Eye
Although
it is apparently an alien body part and not actual alien tech, it could be seen
as a gadget, a bizarre and weird gadget, but a gadget nonetheless. On the alien
this sixth eye sits at the back of the head and allows them to see their own
past lives and also allows them a certain amount of perception.
Shortly
before his death Eugene swallowed the eye. It allowed him to see his life, even
after his death. And he was able to see his life in perspective and watch as Gwen
solves the mystery of his death. Once it had been removed Eugene was able to
return home for a moment to say his goodbyes.
Jack
knew of these and knew that they, at one time, where highly collectable and was
very pleased when Gwen offered to get him Eugene's, if Jack allowed her the time
she needed to find out why he ran into a car to his death. Jack granted her the
weekend in exchange for the Dogon Sixth Eye.
What
we never find out is whether or not it's organic. Is it literally the sixth eye of some poor
Dogon alien or did they create the sixth eye themselves, like some kind of
upgrade. Yes I know It's not all squelchy, gooey and altogether revolting, it
may be that Dogon's eyes are not all of the above and more like a huge marble, though
personally I find 'squidgy and yucky' much more believable. As we have learnt
over the past 50 years through the Whoniverse, you just never know what an
alien is going to be like. Some are very solid, whilst others are like morning
mist.
What
Do We Have On Earth?
Well
I suppose if there was some insane Doctor out there who was prepared to do some
weird and insane surgery, you could have an eye put in the back of your head.
But I don't think it would allow you to see your life in better perspective. Let's
face it, in the real world most people who are having such problems go and see
a head Doctor, shrink, a psychiatrist. Or they talk to their best friends,
mothers etc. rather than resort to a weird eye stuck in the back of their head,
upsetting adults and scaring children.
The
Invisible Lift
When
we write about Torchwood it is almost impossible to avoid touching on Doctor
Who at all. Even though the two shows never really cross over, except briefly
in the Doctor Who episode 'Stolen Earth' when the Earth is taken by Davros and
the Daleks and Torchwood is brought in by former Prime minister Harriet (yes we
know who you are) Jones. And then of course Jack hops off, once again, to help
the good Doctor to save the earth and frankly the whole universe, along with
Donna Noble. This episode fell between “Exit Wounds” and the mini 3rd
series of Torchwood “Children of Earth.” And so the so called 'invisible lift'
is no exception. When you examine this in depth, it makes you realise the
complexities of time and how easy you could walk into your earlier self if you
weren't paying attention. In this case it's the creation of the invisible lifts
'Perception Filter.'
So
hold on to your hat, we're about to revisit some old friends in order to
correctly explain the lift!
As
we all know the perception filter allows the team to go up to the surface
unobserved by passersby. As Jack puts it, it's a corner of the eye thing where
people see, but don't see. Like a momentary passing movement that doesn't quite
register.
When
Jack explains this to Gwen we are given the impression that this lift has been
in existence for many years; where as in reality, it's only 1 year. The
perception filter was created in 2005, when the ninth Doctor had landed the
TARDIS at the base of the water tower to recharge the batteries via the rift.
During the visit, the Doctor, Rose and Jack discovered that Blon Fel Fotch
Pasmere-Day Slitheen, known to humans as Margaret Blaine, in the episode Boom Town (Doctor Who: series one,
episode 11) a member of the Slitheen family, was still alive and was the
Lady Mayor of Cardiff, (much of her family had been killed when Mickey Smith
blew up number 10 Downing Street with a missile to save the Doctor, Rose and
Harriet Jones, and of course the entire world). She'd cooked up a very big plan
to escape the earth that involved building a nuclear power station in the
middle of Cardiff. To cut a very long story short, she was going to use a nuclear
meltdown from the said power station to propel her tribophysical waveform
macro-kinetic extrapolator, we'll call it a board for ease of my typing fingers
and brain (it's a bit like a high tech surfboard).
Then
the Doctor arrived with the TARDIS! Margaret decided to dupe the Doctor and co
into connecting the board to the TARDIS console, (Jack realised that if
he connected it to the TARDIS it would speed up the recharging
process...ooops!) thus using its power,
combined with the rift, to send Margaret and board into space and destroying
everyone and her mother(not Blons mother) in the process. Of course everything
goes...errr..pear shaped (children could be reading this) and it almost rips
the rift, TARDIS and Cardiff in two. This whole process causes the chameleon
circuit of the TARDIS to bleed a little and onto the concrete slab the TARDIS
is sat upon, thus creating the perception filter field and so therefore the
'invisible lift.'
Of
course whilst ALL this is happening a certain Captain Jack Harkness, head of
Torchwood 3, is persuading his team that everything is fine and they really
don't need to go above ground at all, even if Cardiff is splitting in two,
because Jack knows that his younger self is above them trying to stop this
mess. So neither he nor his team can go above ground.
One
has to presume that much fun was had by Jack when he had to retcon all his team
and make up a story about when the lift appeared and change records on both the
computers and in files (we know how Ianto knows everything there is to know
about Torchwood). I would imagine this was something Jack had been working on
for some time once he became head of the team.
So
now you know what it does and how it got there. As you can tell, I never
presume everyone who reads this or watches Torchwood, knows everything there is
to know about Doctor Who. Now I need to breath for a while....blimey!
What Do We Have On
Earth?
It goes without saying that there is no such thing as an invisible
lift. But we do fool people all the time into not seeing something that is in
front of them, we call this camouflage. During the war Britain and America hid
vehicles, ammo and fuel all the time using netting, foliage and even mirrors.
We would even sometimes fool the enemy into thinking something was there that
wasn't by creating fake planes, trucks and so forth. Or placing lights in such
a way that at night enemy planes would be fooled into thinking they were
bombing a town. But, we are coming close to something that is closer to Harry
Potters’ invisible cloak than the lift.
The lift fools people looking in a different direction, you will
look anywhere but the lift. We saw this when the Doctor created pendants for
himself, Martha and Captain Jack, using TARDIS perception filter circuits
welded to their TARDIS keys to hide from the Master and his cronies.
This new technology that is in the works uses light to create invisibility.
The material refracts light in such a way that the material appears to be
invisible
The Hubs Cryochambers
It
cannot be denied that of all the things Torchwood does, this can be the most
difficult for any new member of the team to deal with. We witness this with
Gwen when she joins; and that is the simple fact that Torchwood stores bodies
in the basement cryochambers for later use.
These
nameless bodies are used when a body is needed when an innocent victim has been
killed and is so badly mutilated by something unearthly or rift activity. So,
they use another body that is enough like them no one will question it. And
that is combined with the team’s ability to change records and witness
statements via computers in the Hub and so covering their tracks. Tosh used one
to cover up the death of Matt Steven's when his body was destroyed by the gas
alien in the episode 'Day One.'
The
other thing that can be hard to handle is that former dead agents are not
buried or cremated, but also kept here. We must assume that they are not stored
with the nameless bodies, but elsewhere in the basement. Along with their
bodies being stored in the Hub, all their belongings are kept in a lock-up.
This we see in 'They Keep Killing Suzie' when they have to search her things.
This
had happened to all agents until Toshiko's death. When this happened Jack chose
to give Tosh a proper funeral and not hide her away from her family in the
Hub.
They
have also been used to keep living people in suspended animation. We see this with
both Tommy Brockless in series two in the episode 'To The Last Man' and with
Jack, also in series two in 'Exit Wounds', where he persuades the 1900's
Torchwood team to place him in stasis after they dug him up after he'd been
buried alive by his brother Gray back in AD 27.
Of
course what we are never made privy too is just how many of these there. We
only see one section, yet there must be more if every agent that has died has
been laid to rest here.
What Do We Have On
Earth?
Well
as shocking as this may seem to the ordinary man or woman on the street, these
do exist, though not to cover up some weird alien killing or strange rift
activities. Though from many people’s points of views, the reality is just as
bizarre.
There
are many people out there, who have lots of spare cash, who have paid to have
themselves cryogenically frozen in the hopes that someone will fetch them back
to life in the distant future. Some only have their head frozen and hope that
genetic engineering will be as such that clones can be created from their
frozen tissue. And maybe, possibly, have memories extracted in some way from
their brains. There are many who have or will die from a serious illness and so
they hope for a cure in the future and again, have their bodies thawed and
re-animated.
Of
course whether all this is possible in the future is anybody’s guess. As things
stand it's not possible to take bodies that have been frozen, thaw them and
re-animate them. I wonder if the resurrection glove would be helpful. No wait,
they don't exist either. One doesn't wish to seem glib about this. But in my
opinion these people are being taken for a ride by people whose only wish is
for a bigger bank balance and not these peoples preservation.
As
we all know from owning freezers, meat doesn't stay fresh forever. After, what
is really only a short time, it starts to break down along with its DNA
make-up. The reason being this that after the body has been frozen for some
time crystals start to form in the flesh and starts to destroy its structure.
Over time more and more crystals form in the body, so when you finally try to
thaw the body the bodies structure collapses and the result is something
unrecognisable as human and a very unpleasant mess. So until we find a way of
preserving the body at a temperature that is just above freezing so no crystals
form, it will be impossible for us to preserve bodies long term.
Bibliography
Torchwood:
The Encyclopedia by Gary Russell
The
Torchwood Archives by Warren Martyn aka Gary Russell
Doctor
Who: The Encyclopedia A Definitive Guide to Time and Space
by
Gary Russell
Wikipedia
Tardis photo
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