British and Irish readers will understand where the title “Who Do You Think You Are?” comes from. For all my readers everywhere else in the world I’ll just explain, quickly, that it is the title of a Television programme in which celebrities trace their genealogy, usually travelling to the places their ancestors came from. Personally I find genealogy a very boring kind of history, but a lot of people enjoy it, and it seemed an interesting thing to do with Chrístõ.
I first named The Doctor in the summer of 2005 in one of my earlier Unfinished Business stories. I made up Chrístõdavõreendiamondhaertmallõupdracœfiredelun-miancuimhne de Lœngbærrow while walking my dog. Chrístõ is Italian for Christopher. Davoreen is Irish for David, though usually as a surname not a Christian name. Thus his first two names were taken from the most recent two actors to play the role. Diamond Heart was meant to reflect a cold, hard brilliance in his character. Mal Loup is not my doing. It is slightly flawed French roughly meaning Bad Wolf and was supposed to be the name of the American newscaster first seen in the World War III episode of Doctor Who. It seemed like a neat idea to fit it into The Doctor’s name Dracoe apparently means dragon, though I’m not sure in what language. But Dragon Fire, of course, was a Seventh Doctor episode of Doctor Who, so it fitted. De Lún is not really any language at all. It’s similar to the French de lune, meaning of the moon, and the Irish de Luain, meaning Monday. The moon reference was what I was looking for, anyway. Mian is Irish for either ambition or desire, depending on context. Cuimhne is Irish for remembrance, and is a word found on gravestones and memorials.
I established a long time back that each of the parts of the name are added at birth to the first born of the family, starting with a man called Chrístõ de Lœngbærrow and passing down through his line to Chrístõ Cuimhne. In the course of various stories in either Unfinished Business, Theta Sigma or Marion and Kristoph, mention has been made of several of those ancestors. Chrístõ de Lún is our Chrístõ’s grandfather, an astronomer, who has appeared in a lot of the Marion and Kristoph stories. Chrístõ Dracœfire was mentioned in several places as having once fought a dragon. In a Marion and Kristoph story, Chrístõ Mallõup was mentioned as a general who stirred Gallifreyan politics. Chrístõ Diam?ndh?rt was mentioned in an Unfinished Business story as having freed the people of Malvoria from a despot.
Their stories have been mentioned briefly here and there. But I decided it was time they got a bit more of as centre stage. So Chrístõ takes a mental journey to meet each one of those men and see something of their lives.
We begin with Chrístõ de Lún, and since I know very little about astronomy and none at all about Gallifreyan astronomy it was hard work making this section convincing. But I think it worked.
The section with Chrístõ Dracœfire was slightly easier. The only problem was how to make a man fighting a dragon into something new and original. It’s been done quite a few times since St. George!
Chrístõ Mal Loup’s story gave me a bit of trouble. At first I planned to show him in the battle with the rebels. But I decided against that and went for his daring and decidedly treasonable invasion of the Panopticon and his impassioned plea on behalf of the Kutua of Kutuan X. That went far more to show Chrístõ what sort of man his ancestor was than a battle scene.
Diamondhaert’s story is a tragedy. We meet him at his own funeral as he explains how his life was cut short leaving his child fatherless. I had various ideas about how this was going to be played out, including having Chrístõ witness the murder. I also intended that Diamondhaert’s wife would be pregnant at the funeral, but that seemed just a bit too melodramatic. In the end, much of it being told by Diamondhaert’s spirit form, as a background story while the funeral took place was the best way to tell it.
Chrístõdavõreen’s story was a better one. Chrístõ gets to witness him being invested as Lord High President. This was the easiest section of all to write, since the ceremony all came from the Doctor Who episode Invasion of Time. I thought it would be good to show one of Chrístõ’s ancestors actually achieving the highest honours on Gallifrey.
A story for the first Chrístõ de Lœngbærrow was a bit harder simply because I have written two stories for the New Lord’s Of Time series in which he and his brother feature heavily. I decided to go back before he was a great patriarch and give him a simple little love story.
And that rounded up Chrístõ’s exploration of his Gallifreyan family. But it’s not over. Now he has to go and meet his Human ancestors. And that’s another story!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Do_You_Think_You_Are%3F
