Guest contributor Conall McCormick has a surprising theory on the origins of the entity.

The Great Intelligence is one of the Doctor’s most formidable adversaries due to its great power and unparalleled knowledge. Its main objective has always been to obtain a physical existence after it had lost its own. This article will focus on the origins of the Great Intelligence and what it used to be, more specifically I hold the view that it consists of the conscious of a Time Lord(s).

For more information on the Great Intelligence itself I recommend a great article by John Hussey here that analyses its entire existence.

“Known” Origins

On screen, the origins of the Great Intelligence is left largely to the imagination of the viewer. That is why a lot of my evidence in favour of my theory has derived from outside the show, namely in the prose texts and one direct-to-video production. To start with, the prose text “Millennial Rites” and “All-Consuming Fire” suggest that it derived from a race known as the Great Old Ones which existed in the universe before the Doctor’s own. This race was said to be equivalent to the Time Lords and travelled from the end of its own universe into a parallel universe/dimension that allowed them to enter the Doctor’s current universe shortly before it began to expand. According to another prose text – a novelisation of “Doctor Who and the Web of Fear”- it states that the Great Intelligence was exiled from its current universe. This can, at immediate inspection, seem to contradict the information already presented.

How it is possible

In “The End of Time” Rassilon describes the end of the universe, as well as what could be conceived as the origins of the Great Intelligence:

“We will initiate the Final Sanction. The end of time will come at my hand. The rupture will continue until it rips the Time Vortex apart… We will ascend to become creatures of consciousness alone. Free of these bodies, free of time, and cause and effect, while creation itself ceases to be.”

It is my belief that at this moment many Time Lords in anticipation of this event began to ascend frantically but in their haste, or perhaps by some great fault, the consciousness of the Time Lords became merged with one another. This perhaps explains why the Great Intelligence has no knowledge of its original physical form, according to the direct-to-video production “Downtime”:

“Was it huge with massive claws to crush and maim? A bloated spider-mind filling every cavernous gap with billowing web? Was it a mountain? A bank of mountains looming and rumbling like clouds in another sky or on another continuum?”

Therefore the reason why the Great Intelligence cannot recollect its original form is due to the fact that it used to be several different Time Lords and it is this confliction and confusion of data and memory that restricts its knowledge in this area. It also explains why the Doctor believed the Great Intelligence to be a hive mind, supporting this mass of thoughts theory suggested in “The Bells of St John”.

At this point you may argue that the Great Intelligence was known as Yog-Sothoth indicating that the Great Intelligence was formerly one person. That is not necessarily true. For instance it could have been a cult or group that was known by that name – or perhaps even a family or a town. All the Time Lords which would become the Great Intelligence would identify themselves of being a member of such a group and so would recognise themselves as Yog-Sothoth. Individual or not, it is said that the Great Intelligence feeds upon mental energy and grows from such energy again, according to “The Bells of St John”. It is conceivable therefore that as the Great Intelligence feasts it loses more and more of its grasp on its original existence and “humanity” (insert Time Lord equivalent here).

Soon after the events of “The End of Time”, on Gallifrey, the planet is swiftly transported into its pocket (parallel/dimension) universe as we are told by the Tenth Doctor:

“That’s what they were planning in the final days of the War. I had to stop them.”

By this logic the events of “The Day of the Doctor” occur shortly after the events of “The End of Time” as the War Doctor would naturally be at hand with the moment to attempt to prevent this final solution by destroying Time Lords and Daleks indiscriminately. Inside the pocket (parallel/dimension) universe the Great Intelligence has assumed that its old universe has been destroyed and cannot return to an earlier point in its history (because the time vortex has been ripped apart). In addition it also believes that it was exiled from its old universe by the Daleks because of their role in the Time War, thus agreeing with “Doctor Who and the Web of Fear”.

Fast forward to Series 5 and the cracks in time begin to appear throughout the universe. The Great Intelligence – a creature of pure consciousness – is able to squeeze through one of these cracks in “The Big Bang” similar to the way the regenerations are given to the Doctor in “The Time of the Doctor”. When the Doctor essentially reboots the universe it could be perceived that it had just begun and had just began to expand – thus agreeing with both prose texts. This then leads nicely to “The Abominable Snowmen” story whereupon the rest of the history of the Great Intelligence is already known to the viewer…