River Song

Biography

"Hell in high heels"

- The Doctor describes River Song to Winston Churchill

River Song, born Melody Pond, is the daughter of Amy Pond and Rory Williams and a companion of the Doctor. As she was conceived in the time vortex, she is part time lord. Her relationship with the Doctor is complicated by the fact that as she is a time traveler in her own right, their meetings occur in the wrong order. The first time that the Doctor meets River, is the day she dies, later in his travels he is also present when she is born. As she has primarily spent time with an unspecified future incarnation of the Doctor, she has extensive knowledge of events which the current Doctor has not yet experienced, and she is a more skilled TARDIS pilot then him. She is able to read and write Old High Gallifreyan (The language of the time lords), is an excellent markswoman, and is the only companion so far who knows the Doctor's true name. She has knowledge of Time Lord anatomy, and regeneration and she refers to the Doctor as "Sweetie" and has often hinted that her and a future Doctor have a romantic relationship. She use's the word "Spoilers" if ever asked about future events. So far she has taken shorter trips with the Doctor, periodically escaping from prison to find him, rather then long journeys like Rose, Martha, Donna, Amy etc.

Major Story Arcs

Silence In The Library and Forest Of The Dead

When the Doctor and Donna Noble traveled to The Library, a giant planet sized library in the 51st century, after receiving a message on the psychic paper, the Doctor first meets River Song. She introduces herself as Prof. River Song and explains that 100 years ago The Library had sealed itself shut and ceased all communication with the outside. River and her team had arrived to determine why this was and what happened to the 4022 people in The Library at the time. She subsequently asks the Doctor why he is pretending not to know her, and comments that based on his face it is still early days for them. Then after consulting her diary she realizes that the message she had sent to the Doctor had arrived too early, before he knew her. River was carrying a future version of the Doctors sonic screwdriver, which she said he will give her just before she comes to the Library. The Doctor soon deduces that due to an infestation of Vashta Nerada, the planets supercomputer, called CAL, had 'saved' the 4022 people by storing them in the computer.

River moments before her death.

As the situation in the Library deteriorates, all but one of Rivers team is killed. The Doctor devises a plan to stop the Vashta Nerada and rescue the 4022 people, but in doing so would have to give his life. River, discovering his plan, knocks out the Doctor and handcuffs him nearby while she sacrifices herself to save the thousands of lives stored in the computer core. During her final moments, The Doctor asks her why she carries handcuffs to which she replies 'Spoilers' and he says "There's only one reason Id ever tell anyone my name, there's only one time I could". River then tells the Doctor that if this is the first time he met her that he knew all along this would happen, and to change nothing a s the time she spent with him was the best time of her life. After her death, the Doctor leaves her diary, along with the future sonic screwdriver in The Library and walks away, deciding not to look up what happens. As he walks away he rushes back and picks up the sonic screwdriver, realizing that his future self had years to find a way to save her and that the one thing he gave her was his screwdriver. The Doctor realizes that the screwdriver had been altered so as to save an impression of River's consciousness, in the same way the people had been saved in the computer core. The Doctor then uploads her consciousness, along with those of her dead companions into the computer core where they can live forever, with all the books in the universe to explore.

The Time Of Angels and Flesh & Stone

While the Doctor and Amy pond were in the Delerium archive, the universe's biggest museum, the Doctor see and exhibit containing a 12,000 year homebox from the starship Byzantium. It which has a message carved in it saying "Hello Sweetie" in the language of the time lords. The Doctor and Amy steal it and rush back to the TARDIS and play the final moments from it before it crashes, where he sees River carving the message, and then been chased by soldiers to an airlock on the outer hull of the ship.

At the crash of the Byzantium

River proceeds to look at the security camera and say a combination of coordinates before opening the airlock and been blowing out into space, the Doctor used the coordinates given by River in the recording to travel back in time to be outside the ship to save her. River then pilots the TARDIS to the planet where the the ship crashed, where she explained that she is assisting the church (which in the 51st century is a military organization) with a covert investigation into a weeping angel aboard the Byzantium.

The Byzantium had crash landed into an ancient temple called "The Maze of the Dead" which was full of statues, making the angel difficult to find. As the Doctor, River, Amy and the soldiers made their way up to the ship they realized that the native people who built the maze had two heads, but the statues only had one. The Doctor and River then simultaneously came to the same conclusion, that the crash of the Byzantium was not an accident, but a rescue mission by the one angel aboard the Byzantium, who was using the power from the crashed ship to bring the angels back to life. The Doctor and his companions were then forced to flee into the ship where an army of fully resurrected angels surrounded them. The Doctor, along with River eventually worked out a way to not only destroy them but erase them from time altogether by forcing them into a crack in time, which had appeared in the ship. During these events, Father Octavian, the man in charge of the mission, informed the Doctor that River was in fact in prison for murder, and that she had only been released temporarily to assist them on this operation. A fact which River confirmed after they had climbed out of the Byzantium. When confronted by the Doctor she told him that she had killed a good man, and when the Doctor asked who, she told him that it can't be told and that it has to be lived but that she will see him again very soon, when the Pandorica opens. She then returns to prison, commenting that she might have done enough to earn a pardon this time.

The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang

Sometime before the crash of the Byzantium, River Song, while in Stormcage containment facility, received a phone call from Winston Churchill. The call had been intended for the Doctor but he could not be reached so the TARDIS rerouted it to River.

River Song about to kill a dalek.

He informed her of a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, depicting the TARDIS being destroyed. The painting contained a date, and map reference. River then escaped from prison and broke into the royal collection aboard the Starship UK. She then purchased a vortex manipulator from the black market and traveled back in time to Planet 1, where she carved a 50 foot high message into a cliff of diamond containing the words "Hello Sweetie" along with coordinates for the Doctor. Once the Doctor and Amy saw the message they traveled to Britain in 102AD where the Doctor was greeted as Caesar, and they found River posing as Cleopatra. The group, using information from the painting then found the Pandorica buried under Stonehenge. River explained to Amy that the Pandorica was built to contain the most feared warrior in the universe and that now it was opening. Shortly after an alliance of all the Doctors greatest enemies appeared, trapping him. They then explained that the Pandorica was empty, and that it was built to contain him. After he had been locked inside, River was flying the TARDIS when an external force took control of it and blew it up, though the TARDIS had managed to save River by trapping her in a timeloop inside the TARDIS control room at the moment of the explosion.

River Song at Amy's wedding with the Doctor

Once the Doctor had escaped the Pandorica, and saved Amy and Rory, he then used River's vortex manipulator to rescue her. A few moments after this they were attacked by a Dalek, which River subsequently killed, despite it pleading for mercy. The TARDIS exploding had caused everything else in the universe to never have existed, and Earth was also vanishing. The Doctor then used the Pandorica, powered by the exploding TARDIS to undo the explosion, though it meant his own timeline would become undone and he would die. After the timeline had been restored, River went to Amy and Rory's wedding and gave them her diary as a gift, though it was empty. This caused Amy to remember the Doctor and bring him back into existence. River then spoke to the Doctor outside of the wedding, where the Doctor asked River if she was married, to which she answered a very ambiguous "yes". She then told him that he will find out very soon who she is, and that she was sorry, but its when everything would change.

The Impossible Astronaut and The Day Of The Moon

After receiving a letter from the Doctor, containing coordinates, River once again broke out of prison and traveled to Utah in 2011 where she met Amy, Rory and the Doctor. River and the Doctor seemed much more in sync here, referencing events that had not happened and seemed to be enjoying each others company.

River shooting at the astronaut who killed the Doctor

The Doctor then told them that he would take them to 1969. After a picnic at a lake, an astronaut emerged from the water and killed the Doctor. A man called Caton Everette Delaware III arrived, also with instruction from the Doctor, with equipment to burn the body. A few hours later, River, Amy and Rory met a younger version of the Doctor at a nearby café, who had received the same letter that they had, but he did not know it was from his future self. They then traveled to 1969 to meet a young canton. River once again demonstrated her ability to fly the TARDIS better then the Doctor by correcting him as he was controlling it. After some investigation, the group found a warehouse in Florida where a group of aliens known as " The Silence" had apparently been experimenting on a young girl. While exploring the warehouse, the Doctor and River flirted quite a lot. River and Rory then found a spaceship buried under the building, while simultaneously Canton, Amy and the Doctor found the little girl, in the same space suit they saw kill the future Doctor in 2011. The Silence then relised that the Doctor and his companions were doing and set out to stop them. The Silence had the ability to edit themselves out of a persons memory as soon as they looked meaning the Doctor, River and his companions had no idea who they were fighting against. They could also use this ability to control people through a form of post hypnotic suggestion.

First Kiss

Three months passed by, during which the Silence used the government to capture the Doctor and force River and his companions to go on the run and get separated across America. Once the Doctor had escaped, with help from Canton, he used the TARDIS to save River, who many days before hand, had jumped off a roof in New York city to escape capture. The Doctor used the Silence's post hypnotic suggestion against them, and caused everyone person in the world to kill one as soon as they saw them. During the final confrontation with the Silence the Doctor and River Song again flirted while threatening them. The Doctor also stated that while he doesn't like people who use guns, he makes an exception for River. The Doctor then returned River to her prison cell in Stormcage where they kissed before he left, after which she relised that it may be the last time she kisses him, as their timelines are moving in opposite directions.

The Identity of River Song

In the epic mid-series finale of season 32 (series 6) it was revealed that River Song is, in fact, Amy and Rory's daughter who they named Melody.