The Doctor in Warhammer 40,000 Universe

[The Yosemite Bear]

wait till we get to Tom Baker and "Dog Ex Machina"

[Uncluttered]

The Doctors power is not the TARDIS. He is a trickster god. He is the ultimate outside context problem.

The TARDIS lands in the throne room of the imperium of man.
(He always lands the TARDIS in the worst possible place.)

Everyone near the throne room gets confused and opens fire but the TARDIS shields hold steady.
They keep firing for several hours with no effect. Meanwhile the TARDIS absorbs the energy, and uses it to charge up an obscure, ancient, partly broken power supply with no apparent purpose.
Psykers try to get a read on it, but all they hear is Muzak in their heads, and it won't go away.

They set up fortifications all around it. Sandbags, machine gun nests, field canons and mines.

Finally, an expendable mid ranking Official walks up to it and knocks on the door.
He hears a man say "Just a moment" and the door opens ajar by itself.

The Official enters the TARDIS and the door closes behind him. A lurking squad of space marines run up to the door behind him, but it shuts too quickly for them to enter. They pound and pry and grab the door to no avail. The hail of gunfire starts up again before they are even completely clear.
The Official sees a small man whose arms are deep in some sort of device. The man asks him something, but he doesn't notice at first. The Official is awestruck at the inside of the TARDIS.

He eventually comes to his senses and points his imperial sidearm at the Doctor. The Doctor looks over and says "Can you hand me that nebulon screwdriver?" He pulls the trigger, but nothing happens.

The Doctor looks mildly irritated, and says "It's the one on the left."

The Doctor finishes what he was working on, and asks the Official what the date is.
The Official doesn't understand why that question was asked, so he starts spouting imperial dogma, and raises his gun again. The doctor ignores him and heads for the door.

The door opens and he calls out "Does anyone know the date?" He is answered only by a hail of gun fire, including more, and bigger field cannons. The throne room is being damaged from the backsplash, but the TARDIS doesn't show a scratch on it.

He closes the door and looks back to the Official.
"Fun lot eh?"
"Hold still, i need to check your resonation."

He takes a piece of chalk from his coat and marks an x on the deck. "Stand here" he says as he gently positions the Official with his free hand. The Official complies, although he doesn't know why.

The Doctor tosses the chalk straight up into the air, and with both hands, operates some controls on a swingout console. A green beam flashes onto the official from a far off piont. In an instant a readout on the screen tells the doctor everything he needs to know.

The doctor smiles and looks the Official right in the eye.

"Tell me about the imperium of man." He says. He catches the plummeting chalk from the air and places it back in his pocket.

Time passes.

The TARDIS door opens, and the Officials head pokes out. A hail of gunfire greets him. The weapons fire bounces of a transparent shield in front of his face.
"Stop, it's just me!" He cries.

He hides his head back in as the unceasing gunfire continues. A few more blasts of the field cannons shake the throne room, (they are getting bigger and more numerous each time) before a high ranking Bureaucratician nudges a space marine. The space marine motions, and the hail of weapons fire finally stops.

Smoke eventually clears, and the Officials calls out from the TARDIS. "I'm bringing the xeno out, he's unarmed, and I've promised not to hurt him.

The Bureaucratician calls back "Very well, please show our guest the hospitality he deserves"

The Doctor and the official can take only 10 steps from the TARDIS. Suddenly, huge hands grap the Doctor and the Official. The Doctor is dragged to the floor.
"What are you? Says the stooping Bureaucratician.

"They call me the Doctor" he smiles up.

"Well Doctor, you will tell us all you know."
"Take him to the tortureariam torturoris torturial rooms of torture!" said the Bureaucratician with a grin.

"I'm sorry." Says the Official to the Doctor.

Due to the grimdark that hangs about, the tortureariam torturoris torturial rooms of torture are a mere 5 minute walk from the throne room. The Doctor spends most of this walk draped upside down over the shoulder of a space marine.

During this time, hanging upside down, the doctor takes the chalk and writes on the back of the space marines armored carapace.
The ancient power supply falls from his pocket, but he catches it before it hits the floor and puts it back.
He is plopped into a waiting cell by the marine, who stares, but says nothing. The Doctor hands him the chalk.

"Here" He says to the marine. "It goes well with your suit"

The spacemarine examines the chalk in his gauntlet, and slams the thick grimdark door shut.

A few minutes later, a well oiled bare chested man wearing a black hood enters the cell. The door closes ominously behind him.

The space marine delivers the chalk to the lab of a Grande Adeptus Mechachino. The scary looking Grande stiffs at the chalk in the marines hand, and his eyes open wide. He grabs a pair of iron tongs and carfully takes it from the space marines armored glove. He places the chalk on a watchglass.

The spacemarine had already turned to leave, when the Grande noticed the writing all over the back of his armor. He ordered the spacemarine to stay.

Meanwhile.

The Bureaucratician opens the cell door of the torture chamber, to find the Doctor comfortably sprawled in an chair normally used for execution and interogation. The torturer adeptus himself is curled into a ball on a slab, unrestrained. He has a box of tissues, and is blowing his nose.

"What is the meaning of this!" shouts the Bureaucratician. His guards instinctively rush in and grab the doctor.
"Wait" says the doctor, "We're not done talking!"

The guards pull him clear of the room. The Bureaucratician gives the torturer an evil look, and heads for the door. Just then, the Doctor bursts in the room and shouts, as hands pull him back out again-- "Send her some flowers, she'll forgive you."

At this torturer begins bawling like never before. The Bureaucratician huffs with disgust and walks out.

Meanwhile, in the lab of the Grande Adeptus Mechachino....

The spacemarine effortlessly holds up a giant chalk board with each arm. The walls and every vertical surface are covered with chalk symbols echoing the doctors previous scrawls.
Tall, Venti and Grande Adeptis Mechachinos are nervously buzzing about the room. There are many exited vocoder voices chattering. Something big is up.
The Bureaucratician barges in with his entourage of bodyguards. "What is going on? What is this I'm hearing of?" he demands.

The Grande Mechachino points at him with the chalk in one gnarly yet bionic hand "Get out of here unless you have something useful to say."

Guards push the doctor into the lab at gunpoint. The Bureaucratician looks on "Will this do, you windup subhuman?"

"That will do Bureaucrat, that will do. Now Leave before we have a lab accident!"

The Bureaucratician narrows his eyes at the Grande. He turns to his guards and says "Don't let him out of here alive." He purposefully and loudly leaves the lab.

The Doctor pokes around the necrotic room called a lab. He causes a cascade of equipment to knock over like dominoes. In the chaos, nobody notices when he pockets a device.

"This is the math of the warp. All who look upon it are eventually driven insane with frustration" Says the Grande mechachino.
"Yet, you have casually solved the Adderall Archanium Stumpitus, a problem which has vexed us for centuries. We are using your gift to solve our most damning of problems. I know you are holding back. Help me. I can protect you from the Bureaucratician. But you must agree to serve me!"

The Doctor grabs the chalk from the table and struts around the room. Finally, he walks up to a space marine holding a chalkboard. He wipes away an arcane symbol, replaces it with another. Then he solves for X. X=41.9

"Tea?"
Says the Doctor, somehow he has assembled a tea set from lab equipment.
"This is what you are looking for."
He breaks off a piece of chalk and drops it into a thermos and presses it into the Grande Mechachinos hand.


With this, he throws the rest of the stick of chalk. All eyes follow it, and a spacemarine with a free hand nonchalantly reaches us and catches it.
The Doctor pulls the ancient powercell, and the purloined device out of his pockets, connects them together and starts to shimmer like macrovisioned porn.

Guards open fire into the room. Space marines drop their chalk boards and shield the mechachinos. Bullets hit the shimmering doctors shield and drop harmlessly to the floor. Lasers are absorbed.

A stray bullet catches the Grande Mechachino. He falls to the ground. The Doctor reaches down and pulls the thermos from his hand, opens it, and pours the tea into the mans mouth.
"You'll thank me later."

With a mad dash, the Doctor bowls over the guards. Their gun fire, karate chops, and other attacks bounce harmlessly off the shield. The doctor continues his run until he is in the throne room itself.

Seizing the controls of the largest of canons, something that was until recently on a starship, he quickly realigns it to point directly at the imperial Throne.
"Sorry." He says. "You'll thank me later too." and with that he fires the canon, ruining the machine keeping the emporers mind tethered to the world.

"And now to clean up in here."

The Doctor walks over to the broken machine, pulls out wires, and connects the makeshift shield device. He turns a dial on the power supply until the numbers read 41.9. He steps backwards from the machine, and out of his personal shield.

The shield expands to engulf the giant machine in a sparkly blue. None of the spacemarines dare shoot at it, for it was once the Emporer of Man. He waves at the corpse in the machine. The corpse smiles.
As the emporer dies, the blue light shoots into the ceiling. A startled court shoeshineician looks down though a hole from the floor above. The hole cuts clean through all the floors until it reaches the sky.

In the infirmary, the psykers all sigh with releaf. "The music is gone!" they say in unison.

A thousand light years away a psyker on a ship in peril sighs with relief. The demons attacking him vanish in a blue light. He hears a faint Muzak for a moment, and then all is silent.

In the lab, the Grande Mechachino feels better then he has in a long time. His body is regenerating. The bullets push out from his body and fall to the floor.
But, then his crude cybernetics start feeling itchy.

In the throne room a puzzled spacemarine places a barrel of a very large gun to the head of the Doctor.

The Doctor doesn't even turn his head.

"I just killed the Emporer of Man. Do you really want to try my patience?"

The space marine slowly backs away, but doesn't lower his gun.

"And that goes for the lot of you. GET OUT OF HERE!" The Doctor yells to the soldiers, the chorus, and everybody else in the throne room. A stampede of panic runs at the door. All that are left is the Doctor, the space marines, and the Official.

The Official is standing near the TARDIS. He offers a piece of chalk to the doctor. The Doctor takes the chalk and motions for him to follow.

Inside the TARDIS is an infirmary. In the Infirmary is a bed. On that bed rests a very large naked man, barely contained by a white sheet.

The Official stares, blinks, and drops to the deck in worship.

A hand touches him and he looks up. The man is staring at him for a moment, partially smiles, and goes back to sleep.

Fingers snap in front of him. He comes out of his near trance and looks over at the Doctor.

"Tell me about these space zombies"

[DPDarkPrimus]

Couldn't the Doctor get rid of the Necrons by instructing the Imperium to use gold bullets?

[The Yosemite Bear]

What peoplee are forgetting is that the Doctor can not be in anyplace long enough before some pepper pots show up shoutint "EXTERMINATE!"

[Serafina]

I have no idea whatsoever who or what Doctor Who is, except that it sounds wanktastic from what people on this board have said in this thread and others.

Dr Who is an individual from a race called Timelords. They basically mess with time, reality, etc, but were wiped out. Dr Who spends his time traveling the universe in the Tardis fighting evil. Simple really.

He is not called "Doctor Who", just "the Doctor".
Either way, the Time Lords could easily win against everything in 40K - with the remotely possible exception of the Necrons. And it was the Doctor who wiped out the Time Lords (and an equally powerful species, the Daleks). The question is whether he can still do that, but it is unlikely.
After that, he has still battled with extremely powerful enemies. But he generally had (mostly human) allies - even if they did nothing, they were not actively working against him. Lacking them could be a large issue, since it would be hard to interact with anyone.

The biggest problem he'd have in regard to the Imperium would be that he is alien. He's not H. Sapiens and presumably they'd have a means of detecting that. The Imperium doesn't like aliens (given the milieu, that's actually not irrational).

It is worse since he looks human and aliens that look exactly like humans automatically ring "infiltrator". On the other hand individuals have managed to pass in imperial society while being aliens, genestealers being the most obvious.

I think the Doctor would not be immediately recognized as alien. He looks very human, after all. And that might be enough to get into contact with individuals who are willing to work with an alien - Rogue Traders, some Inquisitors and Governors.

[Shroom Man 777]

The only recognizably alien bit Van Statten's auto-excruciating X-rays detected were his two hearts. I do not think the Doctor would be more alien then the standard 40k mutant. If genestealers, with gnarled claws and extra limbs and bile blood and shit, can hide in the upper echelons of 40k society, heh, then the Doctor's gonna pass his medicals with flying colors.

[hongi]

Either way, the Time Lords could easily win against everything in 40K - with the remotely possible exception of the Necrons.

The Time Lords could bend the Necrons over and...well, lets just say that time travel means the Necrons are in for a horrible time.

[Serafina]

Either way, the Time Lords could easily win against everything in 40K - with the remotely possible exception of the Necrons.

The Time Lords could bend the Necrons over and...well, lets just say that time travel means the Necrons are in for a horrible time.

Necrons have at least a limited control over time.
The Time Lords are still going to win, i am just saying that they won't necessarily completely steamroll them like they would with non-time sensitive races.

[NecronLord]

Necrons have at least a limited control over time.
The Time Lords are still going to win, i am just saying that they won't necessarily completely steamroll them like they would with non-time sensitive races.

They would. Easily.

[Darth Hoth]

Dr. Who has demonstrated psychic powers in the past. Not terribly often, but out and out telepathy for certain on occasion, and resistance to mind probes and such. He has on occasion confronted some very Big Evil in his own universe.

Does his universe have the kind of psychics that can kill large number of people in short time periods by "telepathy" (i.e. shutting down/overloading/soul-eating/whatever their minds, rather than just wrecking stuff physically by means of psycho- or pyrokinesis)? From what I gather, Warhammer does. Given his apparently extremely powerful weapons and defences, those would probably be the Imperium's best bet (along with the same for Chaos, &c.).

Dr Who is an individual from a race called Timelords. They basically mess with time, reality, etc, but were wiped out. Dr Who spends his time traveling the universe in the Tardis fighting evil. Simple really.

Sounds like "typical" overpowered, humorous, semi-parodical British soft sci-fi similar to the Culture or Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Am I far off?

The Time Lords could bend the Necrons over and...well, lets just say that time travel means the Necrons are in for a horrible time.

His Divine Majesty the Emperor could, as per Draco, screw with time at least locally. Not in the sense of time travel per se, just a weird stasis-like effect that can be selectively applied. (Or at least, either that, or he just brainwashed Draco to think it was so.) Warp travel can supposedly send things back in time also, although this is rare and uncontrollable. I am unsure how this matches up against the Doctor Who; just trying to present the closest approximates.

How does Time Lords time travel work, by the way? Is it a reset button as in Stargate SG-1, parallel universes, or what?

[Interlord1]

There time travel works by a machine called a Tardis, its basically a box with a console inside it (The box can normally change from something called a chameleon circuit but the Doctors is broken) And multiple rooms branching off from the console room. It is also bigger on the inside than on the outside. I'm thinking how the Doctor will deal with the Tyranids, he could probaby develop some supervirus to kill them all, but he has a reluctance for killing, and he can't reason with them.

[NecronLord]

Does his universe have the kind of psychics that can kill large number of people in short time periods by "telepathy" (i.e. shutting down/overloading/soul-eating/whatever their minds, rather than just wrecking stuff physically by means of psycho- or pyrokinesis)? From what I gather, Warhammer does. Given his apparently extremely powerful weapons and defences, those would probably be the Imperium's best bet (along with the same for Chaos, &c.).

Usually such things are implied rather than seen. Though at least one group of entities in the kids spinoff were able to control all six billion people on Earth.

The Doctor has never defended himself from a top level psionic entity successfully in straight-up combat. Sutekh, for example, had the mental power to make Earth a blasted heath. To quote Sutekh "In my presence, you are an ant, a termite" and there was no question that he could telepathically kill the Doctor although the Doctor was capable of keeping secrets from him (until mentally tortured into giving them up).

Killing the Doctor really isn't an issue for 40K though. Shoot him with an autogun and he's down. Shoot him repeatedly and that's the end of him. Time Lord technology and knowledge is impressive. Time Lords themselves are nothing special.

Sounds like "typical" overpowered, humorous, semi-parodical British soft sci-fi similar to the Culture or Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Am I far off?

Are you implying that Warhammer 40,000 is not overpowered humorous semi-parody British soft sci-fi?

And for the record, the Culture books aren't at all parody and with limited humour content. The same goes for Doctor Who. Though at least one of the Hitchikers books was intended originally to be a Doctor Who story (Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen) that was not produced.

His Divine Majesty the Emperor could, as per Draco, screw with time at least locally. Not in the sense of time travel per se, just a weird stasis-like effect that can be selectively applied. (Or at least, either that, or he just brainwashed Draco to think it was so.) Warp travel can supposedly send things back in time also, although this is rare and uncontrollable. I am unsure how this matches up against the Doctor Who; just trying to present the closest approximates.

How does Time Lords time travel work, by the way? Is it a reset button as in Stargate SG-1, parallel universes, or what?

These are absolutely nothing. Time Lord technology is capable of just handwaving away paradoxes and allowing you to murder your own ancestors.

[NecronLord]

There time travel works by a machine called a Tardis, its basically a box with a console inside it (The box can normally change from something called a chameleon circuit but the Doctors is broken) And multiple rooms branching off from the console room. It is also bigger on the inside than on the outside. I'm thinking how the Doctor will deal with the Tyranids, he could probaby develop some supervirus to kill them all, but he has a reluctance for killing, and he can't reason with them.

His reluctance to killing doesn't apply to non-sapient beasts. For example in Talons of Weng Chaing he just gets a gun and and shoots a giant rat-thing. There's no reason to think he'd give any consideration to 'nids.

[Broomstick]

Dr. Who has demonstrated psychic powers in the past. Not terribly often, but out and out telepathy for certain on occasion, and resistance to mind probes and such. He has on occasion confronted some very Big Evil in his own universe.

Does his universe have the kind of psychics that can kill large number of people in short time periods by "telepathy" (i.e. shutting down/overloading/soul-eating/whatever their minds, rather than just wrecking stuff physically by means of psycho- or pyrokinesis)? From what I gather, Warhammer does. Given his apparently extremely powerful weapons and defences, those would probably be the Imperium's best bet (along with the same for Chaos, &c.).

Keep in mind that there is something like over 40 years of Dr. Who episodes so there's a lot of territory there and multiple significant changes over the course of the series... yes, there are some Big Bad Psykers in the Whoniverse. The Master, another Timelord, aside from being quite willing to kill, enslave, and manipulate out-and-out stole someone else's body when he could no longer regenerate his own, and the first time we meet the Ood they fell prey to something very like an Old God which controlled them mentally. The Whoniverse has far more telepaths than psycho or pyrokinesis or teleports (probably due at least in part to the low budget of most of the show's history).

Whoniverse psi powers don't function as WH40K, but then, the Whoniverse isn't in a multi-millenial state of total war, either. But the mental mind-fuck is still more common than the throw-stuff-around or burn-it varieties of psi.

Dr Who is an individual from a race called Timelords. They basically mess with time, reality, etc, but were wiped out. Dr Who spends his time traveling the universe in the Tardis fighting evil. Simple really.

Sounds like "typical" overpowered, humorous, semi-parodical British soft sci-fi similar to the Culture or Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Am I far off?

Much more like the Culture than HHGttG.

How does Time Lords time travel work, by the way? Is it a reset button as in Stargate SG-1, parallel universes, or what?

Never explicitly explained, but you CAN generate a universe-destroying paradox (one of the New Who episodes, where Rose prevents her father's death) so it's not a parallel universe (though the Doctor has traveled to those). Other times, paradoxes are handwaved away. (Continuity is not a big feature of the series, and give 4-5 decades of stories, sort of hopeless at this point) Time travel is linked to the TARDIS, which has the actual time travel mechanism as well as navigational and other systems like defense and camoflage (the "chameleon circuits" on the Doctor's TARDIS have been broken for the entire duration of the show, thus, his is always a 1960's era London police call box). The calculations required for time travel require a living, sentient brain - that, and several other things leads one to believe that the heart of a TARDIS, the inner controlling thing, is alive in some way. That inner bit not only handles time travel, it can destroy entire races, utterly erase things from existence, bring the dead back to life, and bestow immortality The TARDIS has also survived close range matter-antimatter explosions without a scratch (the Three Doctors episodes), black holes, can tow planets, and basically is a deus ex machina.

So, the Doctor is extraordinararly high-powered, but usually doesn't use that power - he relies a great deal on word, persuasion, knowledge, and getting people to work on his side.

[NecronLord]

Whoniverse psi powers don't function as WH40K, but then, the Whoniverse isn't in a multi-millenial state of total war, either.

<General Strak, 491st Sontaran Assault Brigade> You could have fooled me!

((Okay, sorry, I know that's generally correct but I couldn't resist!))

Never explicitly explained, but you CAN generate a universe-destroying paradox (one of the New Who episodes, where Rose prevents her father's death) so it's not a parallel universe (though the Doctor has traveled to those).

Actually it just destroys the living population of Earth. The Doctor says they're sort of like antibodies; they just purge the 'wounded' area of the universe, not the whole thing.

[Broomstick]

The Doctor has never defended himself from a top level psionic entity successfully in straight-up combat. Sutekh, for example, had the mental power to make Earth a blasted heath. To quote Sutekh "In my presence, you are an ant, a termite" and there was no question that he could telepathically kill the Doctor although the Doctor was capable of keeping secrets from him (until mentally tortured into giving them up).

Of course, the Doctor tends to avoid straight-up combat of any sort, be it physical or mental. He certainly can resist psychic attack to some degree, how much has never really been tested.

Killing the Doctor really isn't an issue for 40K though. Shoot him with an autogun and he's down. Shoot him repeatedly and that's the end of him. Time Lord technology and knowledge is impressive. Time Lords themselves are nothing special.

Which might be one reason he avoid direct combat. He has certainly defended himself both bare handed and with weapons on occasion, but he clearly prefers to avoid combat.

These are absolutely nothing. Time Lord technology is capable of just handwaving away paradoxes and allowing you to murder your own ancestors.

Actually - that varies with the story. That weak continuity thing again.

[Serafina]

Well, one episode featured an universe-spanning paradox where humans from the end of the universe (trillions of years into the future IIRC) were brought back to the 21st century and did not only (nearly) wipe out humanity but also most of the other intelligent species in the universe.
And this paradox was held in place by a single modified TARDIS. Without such a paradox machine however, paradoxes can be a problem.

[Broomstick]

There time travel works by a machine called a Tardis, its basically a box with a console inside it (The box can normally change from something called a chameleon circuit but the Doctors is broken) And multiple rooms branching off from the console room. It is also bigger on the inside than on the outside. I'm thinking how the Doctor will deal with the Tyranids, he could probaby develop some supervirus to kill them all, but he has a reluctance for killing, and he can't reason with them.

His reluctance to killing doesn't apply to non-sapient beasts. For example in Talons of Weng Chaing he just gets a gun and and shoots a giant rat-thing. There's no reason to think he'd give any consideration to 'nids.

The Doctor may be reluctant to kill, but he is certainly capable of genocide. Of his own people yet, which is why he's the "last Timelord". In fact, he destroyed BOTH the Timelord and Dalek civilization (aside from a very, very few survivors). Push him far enough and he'll kill entire species. He's basically a nice guy, but don't piss him off.

[Serafina]

There time travel works by a machine called a Tardis, its basically a box with a console inside it (The box can normally change from something called a chameleon circuit but the Doctors is broken) And multiple rooms branching off from the console room. It is also bigger on the inside than on the outside. I'm thinking how the Doctor will deal with the Tyranids, he could probaby develop some supervirus to kill them all, but he has a reluctance for killing, and he can't reason with them.

His reluctance to killing doesn't apply to non-sapient beasts. For example in Talons of Weng Chaing he just gets a gun and and shoots a giant rat-thing. There's no reason to think he'd give any consideration to 'nids.

The Doctor may be reluctant to kill, but he is certainly capable of genocide. Of his own people yet, which is why he's the "last Timelord". In fact, he destroyed BOTH the Timelord and Dalek civilization (aside from a very, very few survivors). Push him far enough and he'll kill entire species. He's basically a nice guy, but don't piss him off.

I already said it:
The doctor is often held back from doing such things by his companions. But all companions he could pick up in 40K would probably not blink at genocide and even encourage it.

[NecronLord]

Actually - that varies with the story. That weak continuity thing again.

There's never been a TV story where the Time Lords are threatened by breaches in causality. Indeed, the one referenced above outright states that they went around fixing those caused by others. While they don't always use that capability, the capability to make a paradox engine and do that obviously exists so it's certainly within their ability.

[NecronLord]

not only (nearly) wipe out humanity but also most of the other intelligent species in the universe.

I never got the impression that they wanted to wipe out anything so much as conquer.

[Darth Hoth]

Are you implying that Warhammer 40,000 is not overpowered humorous semi-parody British soft sci-fi?

Not quite the same flavour, at least. It has less of the "Uber guy goes around doing wanktastic things using small plastic gadgets with silly names and being mildly condescending to people who tell him how crazy and impossible they are."

It is British, crazy and semi-parodical in its own ways, to be sure.

And for the record, the Culture books aren't at all parody and with limited humour content. The same goes for Doctor Who. Though at least one of the Hitchikers books was intended originally to be a Doctor Who story (Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen) that was not produced.

Well, it may just be me having trouble taking those kinds of scenarios seriously. For some reason, wanktastic powers feel less wanktastic to me in a setting where they are nothing special (e.g., Star Wars, Warhammer) and used in everyday life and war than in one where the lone party of heroes constantly interact with "low-tech" cultures and can demonstrate to them how awesome their stuff is by comparison to modern Earth.

**

As for the rest (addressing not only NecronLord's reply, but Broomstick's, also), I concede any pretence of an argument I may originally have had. I neither know anything about Doctor Who, nor does it appear that the Imperium has any chance whatever if he has a tenth of the abilities here ascribed to him and uses them at all competently.

[Broomstick]

Are you implying that Warhammer 40,000 is not overpowered humorous semi-parody British soft sci-fi?

Not quite the same flavour, at least. It has less of the "Uber guy goes around doing wanktastic things using small plastic gadgets with silly names and being mildly condescending to people who tell him how crazy and impossible they are."

Aside from the TARDIS, quite a few Dr. Who episodes he doesn't use his "gadgets" and solves things by solely by deduction and/or negotiation.

Unquestionably, Dr. Who is MUCH lighter in tone than WH40K. But then, I could argue the entirety of WWII was much lighter in tone than WH40K.

As for the rest (addressing not only NecronLord's reply, but Broomstick's, also), I concede any pretence of an argument I may originally have had. I neither know anything about Doctor Who, nor does it appear that the Imperium has any chance whatever if he has a tenth of the abilities here ascribed to him and uses them at all competently.

I think what throws people about Dr. Who is that most of the time he doesn't need to use his godlike power and so he doesn't, so long chunks of episodes go by and you don't see his full capabilities.

[Shroom Man 777]

Well, it may just be me having trouble taking those kinds of scenarios seriously. For some reason, wanktastic powers feel less wanktastic to me in a setting where they are nothing special (e.g., Star Wars, Warhammer) and used in everyday life and war than in one where the lone party of heroes constantly interact with "low-tech" cultures and can demonstrate to them how awesome their stuff is by comparison to modern Earth.

The Doctor's greatest enemies usually try to conquer the universe, or blow it up, or annihilate all realities - in order to conquer the universe.

Doctor Who isn't the kind of science fiction that puts importance on stupid weapons yields or asteroid vaporizations and comparing penis lengths measured in gigamegapaleo-tons or whatever. Surprise, but it's actually the kind of science fiction that has more emphasis in story and characterization, sometimes ridiculously, sometimes seriously. It can seem like science fantasy lots of times, but other times it can also delve into comedy, or horror and suspense, and such things.

It's one of my favorite shows.

[hongi]

Not quite the same flavour, at least. It has less of the "Uber guy goes around doing wanktastic things using small plastic gadgets with silly names and being mildly condescending to people who tell him how crazy and impossible they are."

It is British, crazy and semi-parodical in its own ways, to be sure.

I consider DW a type of sci-fi/fantasy amalgam. I don't know if it's the fantastical elements, the writing or just the plain wankiness, but DW does have a tendency to make me twitch sometimes. When the Tenth Doctor invents something out of the equivalent of rubbish, you either have to froth at the mouth or just shrug and say that he's a time travelling alien. Deal.

I don't know why though. The Xeelee are god-like, they do stuff that is effectively 'magic', but I rather like them. Whereas the Time Lords just plain annoy me at most times.