| The Cold | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Naming | |||
| Binomen | None | ||
| Morphology | |||
| Body type | Amorphous | ||
| Intelligence | |||
| Sapience | Sapient | ||
| Aggressivity | Extreme | ||
| Ecology | |||
| Place of origin | Arctic | ||
| Habitat | Ice | ||
| Diet | Apparently, it draws nourishment from both organic and inorganic structures. | ||
| Locomotion | Creates mobile ice structures | ||
| Lifespan | Potentially immortal | ||
| Status | Living | ||
| Behind the Scenes | |||
| Universe | Doctor Who The Diogenes Club | ||
| Created by | Kim Newman | ||
The Cold is an intelligent life form which inhabits - and is capable of animating - ice and snow. It is described as a giant brain made from a matrix of countless ice crystals, and it's been stated that several ages ago, it blanketed over the world, covering everything in its path.
History[]
Born thousands of years ago, in the first great Quaternary ice age; the Cold has become dormant at some point, only to be awakened again in 1963 when it tried to reclaim the Earth from humanity.
Before the rise of Humans, the Cold was the only intelligence active on Earth and all the ice in the world formed part of its brain. The Cold would dedicate its time to the pursuit of knowledge and the artistic sculpting of all forms of ice: from glacial cathedrals to the smallest snowflakes.
Doctor Who Universe[]
The Doctor has described the Cold as a reasonable and vastly intellectual being, claiming that its attempts to exterminate humanity were born not out of malice, but that the Cold instead failed to view Humans as intelligent beings, believing it was simply getting rid of an infestation; akin to an algae-infested aquarium that had to be cleaned up. However, Susan's own observations have led her to believe otherwise, as she saw the Cold seemingly enjoying itself as it manifested itself in huge amorphous snow blobs and tentacles, ambushed and trapped prey and as it randomly captured people only to crush or squeeze them to death in sheer brutality. Most notably, the Cold started manifesting itself as quasi-humanoid animated snowmen dubbed Cold Knights, which marched the streets of London, terrorizing the population and taking several lives.
At first, the Doctor - who had left Gallifrey not long before and at that point had never interfered with the history of the universe - attempted to remain perfectly neutral in the conflict, helping neither humanity nor the Cold. After being convinced that the Human race was perhaps worth saving, the Doctor managed to trap the Cold inside a small chunk of ice and sent it to Pluto in the far future where it could live a relatively comfortable life.
Diogenes Club Universe[]
| “ | Once it was all over the world, a giant organism - a symbiote, drawing nourishment from the rock, from what vegetation it let live. When the Great Ice Age ended, it shrank, shedding most of its bulk into the seas or ordinary ice, but somewhere - maybe in several spots around the world - it left parcels of itself. |
” |
— Richard Jeperson
| ||
In this timeline, the Cold was awakened later, during the seventies. Professor Cleaver allied himself with the Cold, communicating with it using an alphabet of millions of characters in the form of snowflakes.
The story also reveals the Cold's powers enable it to break the laws of physics, achieving temperatures below absolute zero, and that it went dormant that way, by enclosing itself in a sub-zero crystal. Ultimately, it is stopped by Richard Jeperson, who manages to communicate with the Cold and convince it to spare humanity.
Appearances[]
- Time and Relative, by Kim Newman
- Cold Snap, by Kim Newman
Notes[]
- In Time and Relative, the Cold is usually referred to as "it" while in Cold Snap, the Cold is referred to as "she", but only by Professor Cleaver.