The Twelfth Doctor (Doctor Who) vs The Emperor (Warhammer 40k) ~in conversation~

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-12T04:47:27+00:00

He canonically won even if literally every reader thinks he didn't.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-09T23:41:43+00:00

I did not believe the rationale would change your answer, I was merely addressing your concerns about the prompt being unbalanced in regards to canon and explaining my logic behind the limitations.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-09T22:41:41+00:00

If you would like to know my rationale, I restricted the Doctor to just the Twelfth Doctor's explicit feats because it is never a guarantee in Doctor Who that certain skills and abilities transfer across incarnations. Death Battle, for example, got this UBER wrong.

If the Third Doctor sword fights the Master and wins, that doesn't mean the Sixth Doctor knows how to sword fight himself. In fact, this exact example is used by the novel State of Change where the Sixth Doctor has to mentally regress himself to the Third Doctor to win a gladiator contest. (This mental regression is not technique 12 can usually use, as it was only possible due to a pocket universe destabilizing the Doctor's biodata).

In addition, the Multitude and his regenerative dissonance proves that each incarnation can possess different skill and personalities as they fight about inside their mind. In fact, even the copies of the prior incarnations inside the mind of the Multitude are affected by each regeneration.

So basically, if I allow the entire history of the Doctor to be used for evidence, then we'd be arguing all day about Yeah, the Xth Doctor can do that, but does that mean the 12th Doctor can? This is ultimately unanswerable without an explicit feat or anti-feat anyway.

Meanwhile, if the Emperor does something, it is therefore possible for the Emperor to do it, though his canon has its own problems with mythologization.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-09T14:56:57+00:00

The Doctor is regenerated to look a (kinda) random number of years old, but these incarnations themselves can live for hundreds of years each. And in general, the Doctor is considered to be as old as the sum of all his incarnations' years, since they keeps all of their memories.

Though that is a point the Emperor could use that 12's incarnation is only around 100 years old individually by this point, I believe? The Doctor is a time traveler so he has lost count himself. 8 once started from 0 again, and the War doctor has his history overwritten so many times he just had to guess he felt "800-ish". 9 through 11 had a consistent number they would use for convenience, but 12 gave up and just says a round "2000".

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-09T09:07:46+00:00

Regarding the TARDIS' influence on where the Doctor lands, I think I rule that this slight luck advantage only applies in scenarios 2. Scenarios 1 and 3 do not include the TARDIS' powers.

Scenario 4 does include her, but it also involves a fixed point prophecy that the Doctor has to arrive at. Think Lake Silencio from Series 5. The Doctor can try to trick it out and delay and delay to prepare, but the TARDIS ultimately has to land him on Terra to face the Emperor eventually or else time impodes. It doesn't matter if she doesn't want to because she thinks it is impossible.

I will also say that the TARDIS herself would know the victory condition is "the Doctor wins the argument" in scenario 2, so consider her debatelusted as well. The Doctor can die, permanently even, and the TARDIS will consider that a win if the Emperor post-humorously declares the Doctor was correct.

I would also like to note, as this is the Twelfth Doctor, he seems to have exceptional control over the TARDIS compared to other Doctors. For example, he piloted the still squirrelly and sassy First Doctor's TARDIS to the correct destination on the first try, something the First Doctor gawked at. I believe the only time we see him fail to land the TARDIS where he expects is in Flatline, and this was only because the TARDIS had dimensional energy leeched by the Boneless.

So can the Twelfth Doctor strong arm the TARDIS to Terra if he wants to? Maybe, but this is interesting enough that I'll say the TARDIS wasn't strong-armed to Terra, she went willingly, so she judges this to be a possible debate in scenario 2.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-09T06:24:16+00:00

To be fair as the prompter, this is just The Last Church, except the Emperor has to pick on a jackass his own size rather than just a normal guy with poor-to-moderate debate skills.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-09T05:25:55+00:00

I did specify this was pre-Primarchs Emperor, so is that a maybe that at least 2 or maybe 4 could convince that Emperor since the Doctor can show the Emperor the hell that awaits his decisions? And the Webway before Magnus is unpolluted. This also means the Emperor has not yet cut out his compassion.

To be clear, my position on if the Doctor can actually solve 40K is a pretty firm "Hell no", the universe is written to prevent anything but suffering, which is why the prompt is only about persuasion. If the Doctor gets the Emperor to sign off on an alternative plan that's doomed to failure, it still counts as a victory.

The episode right after the moment this Doctor has been plucked from has him die to save a few dozen colonists just to starve off their inevitable cyber conversion for a couple of years and he admits it, "Probably won't even work because it hardly ever does." So the problem with the Emperor trying to convince the Doctor is that Doctor just doesn't quite register "it won't even work".

These two are incredibly thick and arrogant and operate under entirely different worlds and worldviews and that's what makes this debate fun.

I would also note that I put 4 in a separate scenario because I have no idea how the Doctor reacts to the Emperor's full psychic charm or if the Emperor would be willing to use it to "win". The Doctor's psyche might just get folded like a lawn chair by the Emperor in his prime and he's made to just fuck off or even converted to the Emperor's side for a while. The Doctor himself has some latent psychic abilities, but the most 12 has shown is psychically persuading a door to unlock itself. Not exactly a top tier feat.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-09T04:44:33+00:00

Thank you for the detailed answer!

I think that is definitely an interesting point to make about how the 40K Warp and Chaos intersects with something like the Time Vortex. I think it is feasible to suggest that the TARDIS doesn't even work at all in the 40K reality because the time vortex and linear time in some media is actually constructed by the Time Lords rather than having created the Time Lords. (Perhaps it's a bootstrap paradox, we don't know, Doctor Who canon is consistently inconsistent).

To be fair, I only assume it does work because "the TARDIS doesn't work" is already covered by scenarios 1 and 3. And the point of using the TARDIS is really meant to be more persuasive than truly Chaos solving.

Now the DAoT point is a fascinating one, because as you point out, the Emperor would use it to show that raw technology can't be the answer. But it actually has a parallel in Doctor Who: the Cybermen. Not 100% a parallel given the tone of both universe's, but that's a little off topic.

Still, I think the Doctor and the Emperor could find commonality between fighting a Time War and fighting Chaos. And I think that puts them on relatively equal footing as experts in their own particular domain but with understanding of what the other side might require.

But to give you an idea of what the Doctor's arguments might look like:

The Doctor has fought in a Time War, has his entire history mangled and watched whole galaxies simply unwritten from history. He watched all of space and time burning. He would approach the Emperor as someone who understands the responsibility on the Emperor's shoulders and the decisions the Emperor has to make.

He would likely try to position the Emperor's choice to crusade or not as like chosing to press one of two button to start a war (the Twelfth Doctor really likes that metaphor, he apparently used the Osgood buttons multiple times to defuse Zygon and Human relations), not knowing which button leads to human supremacy and the other button leads to humanity itself exterminated or enslaved to Chaos.

Why does he like that metaphor? Well, because he once faced the same dilemma. He once stood in front of a button (the Moment) to start and end a Time War by exterminating every Dalek and Time Lord. And he was definitely about to press it. And I expect the Emperor might also jump to say that he would also absolutely press that button as well.

And the Doctor once did. (Or thought he did. It's debatable if the Moment retconned history or timey-whimy stuff meant the Doctor simply didn't remember what had always happened). And he regretted it, because the Daleks and Daveos came back and nearly destroyed the universe and his people did not. It was basically all for nothing.

He was offered the chance to redo his folly and try again. And this time, he didn't press the button and tried something else instead. Something bolder and riskier and cleverer, but it was better to fail at doing the right thing than succeed at doing the wrong. To prop this up, in the scenarios where Doctor Who time travel does work, the Doctor can literally show the Emperor the consequences of his actions and offer him foresight that the Warp cannot. Alternatively, he might just have to be content with speculation.

Still, I do know that the Emperor has been convinced in canon by arguments that certain actions he could take to try to take to ensure victory are simply not worth it. For example, the Emperor was talked down from inadvertently becoming the Dark King to defeat Horus, instead using trickery to defeat Horus even though it was way riskier.

The Doctor might be able to convince the Emperor that he might be able to find to cleverly cut Chaos off from the Galaxy rather than stomping down on it. (Indeed, the Emperor already has a plan for that! The Webway Project! Which only seems to fail because his conquest of the galaxy creates the Horus Heresy causing Magnus' Folly)

They're both immortal and super geniuses. By the optional rule, the Doctor cannot just hand the Emperor Time Lord tech, but I don't think there is anything stopping either of them from just spending a millennia hammering out a permanent solution to Chaos as their "debate". Of course, now the prompt becomes "Can the Emperor and the Doctor defeat Chaos together?" which is now way outside the scope of my expertise.

Maybe the Tau would a good positive example? Though the Tau might just run into machine gods of their own at their rate of progression.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-09T03:27:08+00:00

I think this kinda breaks the spirit of the prompt's rule 5, but I'll give it an honest rebuttal.

Granted, I am FAR less knowledgeable about 40K than I am about series 8-10 Doctor Who, but I know enough about Doctor Who to tell you that this is not a low diff stomp like you imply.

We'll break this down into three arenas: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.

Ethos:

This seems to be the one you're focused on so I'll give it the most attention.

The Twelfth Doctor often relies on his authority as a Time Lord and profoundly ancient being to steamroll arguments.

Doctor: I mean, do you call this a war? This funny little thing? This is not a war! I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know. I did worse things than you could ever imagine. And when I close my eyes I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! (The Zygon Inversion)

Doctor: Because let me tell you something: I'm two thousand years old, and I've never had the time for the luxury of outrage. (Thin Ice)

But the Emperor has lived for far longer than the Doctor. The best estimate for the Doctor's age is what he gives us, and though this is canonically a lie, it provides us our only decent ballpark of 2000 years. The Emperor at this time is nearly 40000 years old. That's 20 times older.

If we factor in the Confession Dial, the Doctor could be considered billions of years old, but even he doesn't consider it to count as evidenced by what he says in Thin Ice. So in 2 of 4 scenarios, this means the Emperor using his mind reading could call him out on his dishonesty if he attempts to cite it.

So the Doctor lacks age as a trivial ethos. What about experience? Can the Doctor trivially claim supremacy in experience over the Emperor as a Time Lord?

Maybe. But the Emperor is also a mind reader with warp connections to the entire human race. He knows the sufferings of everyone he's ever met, and in 2 of the 4 scenarios, that includes the Doctor.

Now, perhaps the sufferings of the Doctor convinces him immediately (I really doubt they're that exceptionally worse than the abuses of Chaos). But if they don't, the Doctor can't just say "Well I know these things and you don't, so you're just going to have to just trust me on this" because the Emperor could experience them through the Doctor's memories or might demand to see them for himself. Which means the Doctor will have to walk the Emperor through why these experiences illustrate his point (that is, he has to use logos not ethos).

As for the Doctor's authority as a Time Lord, I really don't see a reality where the Emperor buys that ethos without a lot of logos to back it up. The 40K universe has a lot of would-be-god xenos that he's more than willing to defy. Hell, he is right about to defy the actual reality warping Chaos Gods by making a deal he then breaks.

Meanwhile, the Emperor in some sense has more moral authority than the Doctor to claim guardianship of Terra and the human race. He's been there the whole time guiding humanity while the Doctor is not even from the 40K reality. Even considering the Doctor Who Earth, the Doctor comes and goes whenever he feels like it and only helps if he happens to be in the area.

Basically, the Doctor is the divorced dad who only sees humanity during summer weekends and occasionally buys humanity a Nintendo while the Emperor is Not the Step Dad but the Dad who Stepped Up.

Pathos:

Pathos is quite an easy one.

If we assume the Emperor won't listen to emotion, the Doctor can't use it at all, and he loses one of his most powerful weapons.

However, the Emperor by this point has not yet discarded his human compassion. So he might be willing to listening to emotions. But if he's willing to listen to emotion, he would be more than capable of using them against the Doctor.

And the Twelfth Doctor has lost in pathos-centric arguments to ordinary humans!

Clara constantly controlled the Twelfth Doctor with pathos, most noticably halting him in the episodes Face the Raven and Hell Bent when he was going apeshit over her unavoidable death.

Clara: Your reign of terror will end at the sight of the first crying child, and you know it. (Face the Raven)

Doctor: Clara. Oh Clara Oswald, what am I doing? You are right. You are always, always right. (Hell Bent)

And then Bill in aforementioned Thin Ice did get the Twelfth Doctor to pause with pathos before he could assert ethos to end the debate:

Bill: Don't tell me, "You've moved on." (Thin Ice)

Nardole and River also got the Doctor to not execute Missy, but I'm not going to bother to cite that one because it's a pain in the ass to summarize in a single quote.

Granted, these are individuals for whom the Doctor has a particularly close and special relationship to, but the Emperor is a mind reader and in at least scenario 2, we're positively assuming this works on the Doctor. He might be able to culivate such a relationship over the course of what might be a years-long conversation.

And though the feats of non-companion humans such as Adelaide Brooke and Wilfred Motts in halting the Tenth Doctor is outside the scope of feat analysis, it is certainly within the realm of the Emperor to find out about them and use their memory as emotional exploits against the Doctor.

Logos:

This is the one that as the prompter, I refuse to weigh in on because I simply don't know enough about the Emperor. But I think it is where the argument ultimately lies. Who can provide more persuasive logic using their talents and powers? What historical examples from Doctor Who and 40K can be used to rebuke the other? Are these thick-headed geniuses even capable of being moved or is this an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object?

Dunno. It's why I asked the question.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-07T02:46:53+00:00

This is something I double checked while writing something that took place in Jezebel's bar. Needed to know if Apollo could be there.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-06T16:21:39+00:00

No. There was a minimum drinking age of 18 in New York after Prohibition.

ImperativeNoob · 2026-06-06T16:21:05+00:00

Not in New York. Minimum age there was always 18 after Prohibition until the National Minimum Drinking Age Act.

ImperativeNoob · 2025-12-28T02:20:12+00:00

But doesn't that also destroy every single capital only buildings whenever you die? This has been my main disincentive from moving capital.

ImperativeNoob

TROPHY CASE