Time Agent

[beccaelizabeth]

Today's plot bunnies are sort of underdeveloped. Basically the storymaking parts of my brain keep trying to get Jack into bed with Methos. Or a Methos-like lifeform. Either works.

Trouble being, it only gets as far as that thing where each tells the other everything the audience already knows... sometimes while my MarySue lurks making helpful comments and/or video.

If video were actually an option this would be a service to the world, but lacking that, sadly not.



I was thinking though - PW playing a Time Agent. Jack's former partner. All sorts of good right there.

A lot would depend on how Time Agency time travel works. Is it point to point? Is it accurate? Can they get home easily?

I had a vision of Time Agents stretched across an area known for temporal disturbance, maybe on either side of the decade, playing a long game and only overlapping when they narrow down the disturbance. So they'd only meet when everything was really tense and about to hit the fan.

Or maybe Time Agents that exist sort of in relay, where one recruits the next and they pick an area of time and never get to go home again so they have only that one lifeline back to everyone they knew.

But even without that background, a Time Agent would represent such a connection for Jack. And such a danger. Surely what he's doing is everything the Agency would need to stop. He's a time traveller in a sensitive area of history making a difference. How can he expect to get away with that?

But then Torchwood are the perfect setup for it. Leave no trace in history, cover your tracks routinely, and correct the little things like first contact being with a random Weevil in a Cardiff back street rather than whatever glorious history the books claim.

... trying to maintain history as it was written is a dangerous idea. Written by the victors.

Time Lords have a different perspective, wide angle view.

Time Agents?



Not that we know they're timecops at all. They could be spies. All sorts you can hide behind 'agency'.

... including 'escort', but surely time travel would be a bit extreme for that... even for Jack...



So anyway: What are Time Agents?

... canon evidence would be nice, but cracked out plot bunnies are fun too.

Comments

[ryttu3k.livejournal.com]

Well! First, the Time Agency isn't a new-school invention. It was first mentioned in the Fourth Doctor serial, The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. I haven't seen it so I can't give you any details, but they are from the 51st century.

Now! The Time Agents DO feature in two of the Eighth Doctor books - and one, Eater Of Wasps, was the first of two I've actually read. (The cover makes me twitch. Just, ew.) In that book, the Time Agents (I don't think they're actually referred to by that name, but they do seem to be the same people) have been sent to 1930s England to retrieve an incredibly dangerous alien artifact. Unfortunately, they get there too late. And if they can't retrieve it, then they have instructions to, uh, blow up the entire area. Clean it up, essentially. (By way of a 'character' called Fatboy in one of the best puns ever.)

So that's what the Time Agency does, I believe. Retrieve dangerous artifacts or correct temporal anomolies, and if it all goes wrong, blow it up.

[beccaelizabeth]

I have seen Talons - the bad guy thinks there are Time Agents after him. That's all we know.

books I haven't read. I was under the impression they weren't terribly compatible with anything, including each other.
... without the TA name they could be completely different time travellers.


(TA=part timers=funny)


But an agency to try and keep time from getting ripped apart would be rather handy.

[ryttu3k.livejournal.com]

Well, with the Eighth Doctor spin-offs, you can either see the radio dramas, the book series or a strange mix of both as canon, especially as there is SO LITTLE verified canon for Eight. (The telemovie is about it.)

For the most part, they stick to canon pretty well. And, well, it's pretty much fanon that the Ninth Doctor's leather jacket belonged to one of the Eighth Doctor companions, Fitz Kreiner. (There are 73 Eighth Doctor novels, Fitz was in 55.) Also, Fitz is one of my favourite companions and I kinda don't want to relegate him to non-canon status... *looks sheepish*

Ahem! Back on topic. I do think the Time Agents would take a more... physical approach than the Time Lords. Where the Time Lords would just observe, interveining only when the time was desperate (like, say, in The Three Doctors), the Time Agents would be more like the Doctor, actively trying to change or prevent events.

[beccaelizabeth]

I think I've heard of Fitz. Possibly in the context of 'canon queer yaays'?

I haven't read any of the books. Because I started reading one and my eyebrow=ceiling quotient was reached waaaaaay early in the book.

... this was long before I'd read much fanfic. I think my standards are likely to have moved...



Time Lords have a long view. If Time Agents are human they're going to want to get in there and give things a good kicking, unless humans actually grow up some.
/cynic

[ryttu3k.livejournal.com]

Probably in that context, yes. He seemed rather straight, except for the massive hard-on he had for the Doctor...

Heh XD Fair enough. Mind you, one of the Target novelisations (Mawdryn Undead, I think) had the line, "Doctor, you don't know what your saying!"...

Heh, they're HUMANS. As if they've grown up.

[andreawashere.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'd love to read a Methos/Jack story! I'm still hoping that TPTB will cast PW as the next Doctor, I think they will be amazing together.

Re Time Agents: I support the theory that Torchwood eventually becomes the Time Agency. Sometime in the future, TW bosses will realize that TW really isn't a secret organisation, so their PR-people come up with a new name and a new logo.

[beccaelizabeth]

It would be kind of cool for PW to be all iconic and stuff, but I feel in Torchwood he'd have room to show more of his... range.
And possibly tattoos.


Time Agents might work for Torchwood but maybe as one department among many? I mean, alien tech is still going to be a Thing... though, come to think, a commercially available Thing, eventually. So they'd refocus on what remained secret?

[seraphina_snape]

Okay, I was going to post this in response to your comment (in your other post, about Countrycide), but I figure I might as well do it here since it ties in with the whole Time Agent thing.

You're right, we lack data. We don't know anything about Jack's own time, how the human race has advanced, how much it's integrated into other (alien) cultures or how much alien culture has been integrated into human culture.

We don't even know what Time Agents do. They could be anything from a long-standing government-funded prestigious (sp?) agency to a barely-legal underestimated and little valued organisation. So what do we know about them? Nothing; it's all inferred from what we suspect, from little clues we get.

Now, I would say that they do some sort of police work across time boundaries - they go back in time if they suspect someone selling or using technology, etc. which didn't exist at that specific time; they make sure there are no repercussions or time paradox stuff that could threaten the future and all that jazz.

I also suspect that they keep an eye on the development of the human race, making sure that certain advancements were made at a crucial point in time but not too early or too late in history.

Other than that, no idea what they could do. And I don't know enough about Highlander to offer an opinion on a crossover.

~ sera

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*


and Highlander? Basically the only relevant bit is PW=pretty

[lonelybrit]

The only new think I can offer about Time Agents is something JB mentioned in an interview about them, namely they do not have the ability to time travel themselves. They rely on folks like The Doctor to take them somewhere.

So, one possibly theory, is that maybe they used to have some kind of mutually beneficial agreement with some of the Time Lords? The TA would deal with the more mundane management of time, hitching rides in various TARDISs, and thus leave the Time Lords free to just watch and observe?

[beccaelizabeth]

That would leave the TA somewhat limited nowadays though, what with there only being the one Time Lord left. They'd be a lot more fun as an ongoing possibility.

[cthonus.livejournal.com]

AFAIK they were first mentioned in "DW Talons of Weng Chiang".

As with most of that wonderful story nothing was ever fleshed out. Just some marvelous teasing lines such as the 'I was with the Philippino army during the final battle of Reykjavik' and the 'infamous Butcher of Brisbane'. It's implied that they are sent out to stop people meddling with time but it's never stated whether they are similar to a judicial force or merely authoritarians who are out to stop time travel regardless of who is doing it or why.

I suspect at the very least, if they did recruit Jack, they must have a good sense of humour.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*

[tatianamikhail.livejournal.com]

Or he has a relative in the agency :)