In the Eleventh Doctor story “Day of the Moon” (2011), the Doctor and his trusty companions attempt to lead humanity into a revolution against the Silence, a religious order of aliens who cannot be remembered after they are encountered. The Silence exist across the entire planet, and have the ability to place post-hypnotic suggestions in humans they encounter. The Doctor discovers that the Silence have been guiding humanity’s evolution for millennia.
“Some years ago, I came upon a legend, which more nearly fulfills some of our criteria for a genuine contact myth. It is of special interest because it relates to the origin of Sumerian civilization. Sumer was an early—perhaps the first—civilization in the contemporary sense on the planet Earth. It was founded in the fourth millennium BC or earlier. We do not know where the Sumerians came from. Their language was strange; it had no cognates with any known Indo-European, Semitic, or other language, and is understood only because a later people, the Akkadians, compiled extensive Sumerian-Akkadian dictionaries.”
—Carl Sagan and Iosif Shklovsky, Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966)
The Silence are one of the greatest creations of Doctor Who. They are scarier than many of the program’s past villains. They are creepy, and they are elusive. For their unsettling appearance, story writer Steven Moffat drew inspiration from Edvard Munch’s famous 1893 expressionist painting The Scream, as well as from Men in Black. We learn that the Doctor first encountered the Silence in 1969 America, though he had been aware of their existence for some time. The Silence had been on Earth since the very start of civilization. Their mission was to secretly manipulate the evolution of humanity for their own enigmatic ends. In time we also find that the Silence are a religious movement composed of members of an alien-like humanoid species. The name of their religion is based on prophecy: when the oldest question in the Whoniverse is asked, silence will (or must) fall. As it’s the Doctor who is allegedly prophesized to answer this question, which turns out to be the show’s name itself (“Doctor who?”), the Silence aim to make his death a fixed point in space-time and prevent it. The Doctor is not so dumb, naturally. Though his death at Lake Silencio is indeed thought to be a “fixed point” of history, the Doctor faked his death, with River imprisoned for it so that the Silence will believe him dead.
Steven Moffat’s Silence are fascinating. They continue Moffat’s preference for using simple psychological concepts to make his aliens and monsters more frightening. But they’re bigger than that. The Silence are part of an interesting subgenre of sci-fi, where monsters and aliens are played far more subtly than before. By the late twentieth century, sci-fi had been imagining Darwinian aliens for over a century. But, in all that time, science still had precious little to say about the actual form of extraterrestrial life; that is, what aliens might actually look like. So some writers, ahead of the curve, had turned to more elusive explorations of alien contact. And 2001: A Space Odyssey had raised science-fiction cinema to a new level with its celebrated and mature portrayal of mysterious, existential, and elusive aliens.
An intelligent writer like Moffat recognizes the scientific difference between alien and human—unlike in psychology as well as physiology and form. It’s the same with the aliens in 2001, created by writer Arthur C. Clarke and movie director Stanley Kubrick. In his book Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective, American astronomer and SETI pioneer Carl Sagan confessed that Kubrick and Clarke had approached him about the best way to depict alien intelligence in their movie. (Sagan’s science text Intelligent Life in the Universe had been something of a bible for Kubrick, as the film unfolded from concept into reality.)
Sagan’s response was fascinating. He understood Kubrick’s desire to portray aliens as humanoid. It was convenient, after all, and hardly uncommon. But Sagan pointed out that, since alien life forms were unlikely to bear any resemblance to Earthly life, to portray them as such would introduce “at least an element of falseness,” into the film. Rather, Sagan suggested, the film should depict extraterrestrial super-intelligence, fitting for the Nietzschean theme of man’s evolving into post-human superman. On attending the film’s premiere, Sagan was “pleased to see that I had been of some help.” And when pressed in an interview with Playboy in 1968, Kubrick hinted at the nature of the elusive aliens in 2001 by suggesting, given their long maturation, they had evolved from biological beings into “immortal machine entities,” and then into “beings of pure energy and spirit,” beings with “limitless capabilities and ungraspable intelligence.” The elusive alien began to make “appearances” in other movies too. In Sagan’s own book and movie Contact; in Arthur C. Clarke’s novel Rendezvous with Rama; and in the Strugatsky brothers legendary novel Roadside Picnic.
So Steven Moffat’s Silence should be considered in this tradition of the elusive alien. Clarke and Kubrick had implied that their mysterious and existential aliens had given humanity a number of helpful hands up the evolutionary ladder, since the start of civilization. Moffat does something similar, though the Silence are far less benign than the elusive aliens in 2001, as they secretly manipulate human evolution for their own ends. Here are some fanciful diary entries that a Silent may have made during his interventions in human history.
Spotted a bunch of human apes leaving Africa. Told them to head for the Fertile Crescent and tried to convince them (using wild and very large hand gestures) that the Crescent will be their cradle of civilization. Almost told them to Google it, but then remembered they haven’t been helped to invent smartphones yet. They may have forgotten what I said anyhow.
The humans seem to like caves. I was hanging upside down like a bat in some caves in the south of France. Suddenly, I noticed some humans dabbling with primitive paint. One caveman wanted me to put my hand on the cave wall, so he could blow paint on it. I told him to use his own hand. Otherwise, those who follow will get quite the wrong idea about evolution. Think he later forgot I helped out, as I heard him grunting all the credit for himself. Ungrateful ape.
Was knocking around Oslo, Norway, when I noticed a painter guy taking a walk next to the fjord. Sun was setting and the clouds were blood red. It was spooky and cool. Guy asked if I minded him painting me, as the scene was so dramatic. Was happy to oblige. It was so cold my ears fell off. Not sure he remembered me.
As Neil Armstrong took the most important step for all mankind, he fell over. Luckily, I was there to pick him up. But no one remembered my good deed, and for some reason I didn’t show up on the TV footage. Disappointed.
Decided to try my hand at acting. Went along to the rehearsals for a new film, Men in Black, in which a couple of black-suited agents make people forget they’ve seen aliens. I consider myself perfect for the part. Film director looked terrified at first, but then admitted I was fit for the role. Didn’t get the acting job, though. It’s not that I was too thin. Or that the cameras seemed to ignore me standing there. I simply think the director forgot my rehearsal.