Great Intelligence

fictional character in the TV series Doctor Who
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The Great Intelligence is a character from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Although the Intelligence has no physical form, it is capable of communicating with others through apparent forms or possessed bodies. It first appeared in the serials The Abominable Snowmen (1967) and The Web of Fear (1968) (both written by Henry Lincoln and Mervyn Haisman), where it controlled robotic Yetis and encountered the second incarnation of the Doctor. After a long absence, the Great Intelligence returned to the series in the 2012 Christmas Special The Snowmen, voiced by Sir Ian McKellen, with Richard E. Grant assuming the role in subsequent appearances.

Doctor Who — Incarnations of The Doctor : 1st - 2nd - 3rd - 4th - 5th - 6th - 7th - 8th - War - 9th - 10th - 11th - 12th - 13th - 14th - 15th
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Quotes

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  • We must make certain that "Doctor" learns nothing of what is happening. He is a man of great knowledge and intelligence, but he may not show sympathy for the powers that guide us. He may even seek to hinder the great plan.
  • Such a brain as yours is too small to grasp my purpose.
    • To the Doctor, in The Abominable Snowmen (30 September - 14 November 1967) written by Mervyn Haisman and/or Henry Lincoln
  • Tonight the thaw, tomorrow the snow will fall again - yet stronger. The drowned woman and the dreaming child will give us form at last. Tomorrow the snow will fall and so shall mankind. She is coming.
  • Now the dream outlives the dreamer and can never die. Once I was the puppet - now I pull the strings! I tried so long to take on human form. By erasing Simeon, you made space for me. I fill him now! More than snow, more than Simeon - even this old body is strong in my control. Do you feel it? Winter is coming. Winter is coming!
  • Welcome to the final resting place of the cruel tyrant; of the slaughterer of the ten billion, and the vessel of the final darkness. Welcome... to the tomb of the Doctor!

Dialogue

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(25 December 2012)
Young Walter: [to his snowman] I don't want to talk to them. They're silly.
Snowman: They're silly. [Walter looks at his snowman in shock] Don't talk to them. They're silly. [Walter starts to runs away] Don't need anyone else. I can help you.
Young Walter: ...How?

Dr. Simeon: The last of the arrivals have been sampled.
Great Intelligence: The great swarm is approaching. As humanity celebrates, so shall it end. Will the final piece be ready?
Dr. Simeon: It's in hand. I serve you in this, as in everything else. [spoons the snow from the jars into the globe]
Great Intelligence: And do you keep my secrets? Those men who helped us tonight...
Dr. Simeon: It won't be a problem - I promised to feed them.

Great Intelligence: Danger. Danger.
Dr. Simeon: What's wrong?
Great Intelligence: There is danger here: An intelligence. An intelligence beyond anything else in this time and place.

[The Doctor has made his way into the Great Intelligence Institute]
Dr. Simeon: Who are you, and what are you doing here?
The Doctor: This: [hits the globe with his cane] Wakey, wakey!
Dr. Simeon: That is highly valuable equipment! You must step away, now!
Great Intelligence: We are the Intelligence.
The Doctor: Ooo, talking snow! I love new things!
Great Intelligence: You are not of this world.
The Doctor: Takes one to snow one! Right, let's see... Multi-nucleate crystalline organism, with the ability to mimic and mirror what it finds. Looks like snow. Isn't snow-
Dr. Simeon: You must leave here now.
The Doctor: Shut up, I'm making deductions. It's very exciting. [to the Intelligence] Now, what are you, eh? A flock of space crystals? A swarm? The snowmen are foot soldiers, mindless predators. But you... You're the clever one. You're Moriarty. So, you turn up on a planet, you generate a telepathic field to learn what you can, and when you've learnt enough, what do you do? You can't conquer the world using snowmen. Snowmen are rubbish in July. You'll have to be better than that. You'll have to evolve.
(30 March 2013)
Miss Kizlet: UNIT are here. Friends of the Doctor, I presume?
Great Intelligence: [on screen] Oh, old friends. Very old friends.
Miss Kizlet: Then I appear to have failed you, Great Intelligence.
Great Intelligence: I have feasted on many minds. I have grown. But now it is time for you to reduce.
Miss Kizlet: You've been whispering in my ear so long... I'm not sure I remember who I was before.
Great Intelligence: Goodbye, Miss Kizlet.
(18 May 2013)
Whisper Men: Tell the Doctor... Tell the Doctor... Tell the Doctor...
Clara: Tell him what?
[An image of the Great Intelligence appears]
Great Intelligence: His friends are lost forevermore... Unless he goes to Trenzalore.

Great Intelligence: I see you have repaired your pet. No matter. I was only attracting your attention. I presume I have it?
Vastra: Dr. Simeon? This is not possible.
Great Intelligence: And yet here we are, meeting again, so very far from home.
Jenny: But he died. You told me.
Vastra: Simeon died. But the creature that possessed him lived on. I take it I am now talking to the Great Intelligence?
Great Intelligence: Welcome to the final resting place of the cruel tyrant, of the slaughterer of the ten billion, and the vessel of the final darkness. Welcome... to the tomb of the Doctor!

Great Intelligence: It was a minor skirmish by the Doctor's blood-soaked standards. Not exactly the Time War, but enough to finish him. In the end, it was too much for the old man.
Jenny: "Blood-soaked"?
Vastra: The Doctor has been many things, but never blood-soaked!
Great Intelligence: Tell that to the leader of the Sycorax, or Solomon the trader, or the Cybermen, or the Daleks. The Doctor lives his life in darker hues, day upon day, and he will have other names before the end: the Storm, the Beast, the Valeyard.
Vastra: Even if any of this was true, which I take the liberty of doubting, how did you come by this information?
Great Intelligence: I am information.
Jenny: You were a mind without a body last time we met.
Vastra: And you were supposed to stay that way!
Great Intelligence: Alas, I did. [peels away its Walter Simeon face, and its clothes fall to the ground leaving no trace of a body underneath; a Whisper Man steps forward and transforms into a replacement Simeon] As you can see.

Great Intelligence: Open the door, Doctor. Speak, and open your tomb.
The Doctor: No.
Great Intelligence: Because you know what's in there?
The Doctor: I will not open those doors.
Great Intelligence: The key is a word lost to time. A secret hidden in the deepest shadow and known to you alone. The answer to a question.
The Doctor: I will not open my tomb!
Great Intelligence: Doctor... What is your name?

[After the Doctor's tomb is opened]
The Doctor: Now then, Dr. Simeon, or Mr. G. Intelligence, whatever I call you... Do you know what's in there?
Great Intelligence: For me? Peace at last. For you? Pain everlasting. Won't you invite us in?

Great Intelligence: The Doctor's life is a open wound. And an open wound can be entered.
The Doctor: No, it would destroy you--
Great Intelligence: Not at all. It will kill me. It will destroy you. I can rewrite your every living moment. I can turn every one of your victories into defeats. Poison every friendship. Deliver pain to your every breath.
The Doctor: It will burn you up! Once you go through, you can't come back. You will be scattered along my timeline like confetti!
Great Intelligence: It matters not, Doctor. You thwarted me at every turn. Now you will give me peace, as I take my revenge on every second of your life. Goodbye. Goodbye, Doctor. [enters the time stream]

Quotes about the Great Intelligence

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(30 March 2013)
The Doctor: I don't know who you are or why you are doing this, but the people of this world will not be harmed, they will not be controlled, they will not be--
Miss Kizlet: The people of this world are in no danger whatsoever. My client requires a steady diet of living human minds. Healthy, free-range human minds. He loves and cares for humanity. In fact he can't get enough of it.
The Doctor: It's obscene! It's murder!
Miss Kizlet: It's life. The farmer tends his flock like a loving parent. The abattoir is not a contradiction. No one loves cattle more than Burger King.
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