The Bizarre Adventures of Doctor Who

The Hermit & the Son Pt. 3

Sitting around as he smoked, Herman asks why David wanted to know so much about Mackie as a child, leading David into telling him that he doesn't know what happened, but something did, and it forced Mackie into erasing his memory from David's mother.

Hearing this didn't surprise Herman as he puffed smoke from his wooden pipe, before he thoughtfully said, "I might've taught him some tricks, but I never taught him that. There's some things that needs to stay in the past."

Herman adamantly tells David that he never taught Mackie how to wipe memories of himself from the mind of David's mother. Swearing that there's things even older than him that haven't been in circulation for centuries end.

"That kind of technique isn't something you use to get out of paying a parking fee, I'll tell you that. This was one of the "end all" options," Herman says that wiping memories isn't easily used to get out of paying fees and bills, it's only used when there's nothing left on the table, and it's ambiguous uses led the Council into banning it, preventing it from re-emerging into the forefront by suppressing people who knew it.

It takes major toll on everybody who used it, puts them in a mental fog from hell for weeks on end, a sort of deterrence, and even seasoned people couldn't escape the side effects if they tried.

Herman doesn't remember anyone during his time on Gallifrey that used the technique, but wouldn't be surprising if they just couldn't remember doing so, it took it out everyone that used it that memory loss themselves wouldn't surprise Herman.

"I doubt they even have a scroll detailing it left," Herman summed that he doesn't know how Mackie learnt the technique.

No way for him to stumble upon it by playing around with his telepathy, do it wrong, he or David's mother dies of an aneurysm from hell.

Imagine the scene from that horror movie with the burnt man dragging someone into their bed and the blood shoots up, but have it internally.

Even without recollection from people who use it, there were still warnings.

"So, why would you want to know that, except for maybe, cheating taxes?" Lila asks what applications the technique would've served if it was used as Herman thoughtfully thinks while smoke plumed from the wooden pipe, a peppery smell emitted from it.

Shrugging his shoulders, Herman says that he remembers it was used against Daleks, it originally came from interrogating them on whereabouts of garrisons on Gallifrey, when it was a green planet, where they stashed their bombs, whatever.

It was never meant to be used on anyone else except Daleks, maybe that's why there's heavy mental fog when people used it, because until then, Herman never heard anything about the side effects.

"Keeps them from knowing, kept us safe, 'till they got pissed at us enough they just wanted us gone, damn scavenging our remains," Herman summed that the technique fell out of favour during the Time War when the Daleks no longer wanted to ravage Gallifrey for everything it had after losing so many times, that they went for the nuclear option.

It resulted in everything that happened thereafter.

"Fascinating," Theodore's intrigued about the untold history that he was never told about, even from his uncle and father, but Herman said that the Council's rigid and wouldn't let anyone talk about things they deemed out of favour, even out of earshot.

There's a look on David's face as he's processing what Herman told him and what he knew about his father, how his father used the technique on his mother to wipe his memories, and the effort he went through doing it.