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

On 10/04/2012 09:43 AM, solar penguin wrote:
> James Kuyper wrote:
> 
>>
>> The issue is this: there's a hypervolume of space-time, of unspecified
>> spatial and temporal extent, but including New York around 1938, which
>> the TARDIS cannot enter due to the density of time distortions. The
>> Doctor works around the problem by traveling to ancient China and
>> leaving a message on a vase which will eventually end up within that
>> hypervolume.
>> However, wouldn't it be simpler to take the TARDIS to say, Chicago in
>> 1938, and then hop on a train to New York?
> 
> The Doctor wants to arrive at a precise point in time and space.  New
> York 1938 is a pretty big hypervolume of time and space, many miles
> wide and a whole year long.
> 
> If his train is delayed or his taxi from the station gets caught in a
> traffic jam, he might arrive too late to help. ...

That's not an extraordinarily difficult thing to avoid; just make an
adequate allowance for delays.

> ...  If he catches an
> earlier train and arrives too early, he might change events too soon
> and cause a paradox. Getting a homing beacon there to aim at avoids
> these problems.

Putting the message on the vase presents exactly the same kind of
opportunities to change events. As an inanimate object, the chances of
changing history are smaller, but not negligible - someone could read
the inscription, and despite their inevitable puzzlement about it's
meaning, still make a different decision about something (anything) than
they would have reached if they'd never read it. He's given it a couple
of millenia for those small chances to occur, which makes it at least as
dangerous as the possibility of arriving 30 minutes early.

> This is not actually explained in the epsiode, but it's pretty obvious
> if you think about it.
-- 
James Kuyper

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