Who is the Ruth Doctor? A look at the theories so far.

Who is the Ruth Doctor? A look at the theories so far.

  So at this point we all know about the Ruth Doctor, an incarnation of the Doctor that the current Doctor, currently in the second incarnation of her second set of regenerations, has no knowledge of, and likewise, this new Doctor has no knowledge of the current Doctor. 

  Hidden away on Earth in Gloucestershire as a 44 year old black female human courtesy of the chameleon arch which the 10th doctor used once, and when restored is flying around in a Tardis with a control console look and layout very similar to the one used by the First, Second and Third Doctors.
  Theories have of course come and gone as to who she is and where she fits in all of this, so let's take a look at some of them, and see what we can come up with.

  She’s from an earlier cycle.
  This has been a whole can of worms to discuss, but the thing is, it’s not without precedent. The Doctor and the Master are both in their second (known) sets of regenerations at present, not to mention the debate about where this version of the Master fits in as we don’t know if he’s post Missy or Pre Missy.
  But the evidence is mounting against this. At this point we know when a Time Lord regenerates, they can become either male or female or even a different ethnicity. Romana even tested out some non humanoid forms before settling on her second incarnation.
  But we have seen the first doctor as a child, a young, caucasion boy who presumably grew up into the first doctor as portrayed by William Hartnell.
  And Ruth's Tardis is shown to be a Hartnell era Tardis, a blue police box which is the shape it only got stuck on after we first met the Doctor.
  Of course there was that meeting with Mobius where images of the Doctors previous incarnations were shown, counting backwards from Tom Baker's fifth doctor to Harntell and then several different people, supposedly showing that there were different incarnations. However even Davidsons Doctor would later declare himself to be the Fifth incarnation.
  So who were these other images of? In reality they were members of the production crew dressed up, apparently as they weren’t actors this annoyed the unions. But one theory is that these might be images of Mobius's own past incarnations, he himself being a Time Lord.
  For argument's sake let's say she is from an earlier cycle, why would the Time Lords gift her a new set of regenerations? They only gave the Eleventh a new set as he was close to death from extreme old age and was their only hope to be freed from their own prison. They needed him alive to save themselves.
  And of course now they are all dead, thanks to the Master finding out their secret, their lies. Could she be from an earlier incarnation? If she is, it’s a continuity nightmare in the making.
Possible, but Painful.

  She’s the Timeless Child grown up.
  At present we really know nothing about this character, other than finding out about her drove the Master to such a level of madness, that he destroyed Gallifrey in his rage. Every theory here is pure speculation with no real evidence, but this character is almost certainly going to play some part in all this.
  If the previous theory is true, that the Doctor had an earlier set of regenerations, could this child be the true first incarnation of the Doctor as a child? But then how could Clara meet the young boy that would become the first Doctor? We know the Time Lords have lied about something, but how could they make Clara physically experience a lie?
Not likely.

  Shes between Two and Three. Or She’s between War and the Ninth? Or Ten didn’t use two regenerations after all?
  I’m going to lump these three ideas together because they are somewhat going into the same territory here. We know the Doctor can change appearance twelve times as part of his or her regeneration cycle. Some changes we’ve never seen on screen such as Two into Three, War into Nine, and Ten may or may not have used up two regenerations after all if an aborted regeneration doesn’t count.
  Now admittedly the 11th Doctor did clear up that this did count as two regenerations, but how could he know for sure? He himself in a previous episode had expected to regenerate when injured by the brainwashed River Song, but was told by the Tardis his regeneration ability had been destroyed, and River Song sacrificed her remaining regenerations to save him. This sadly didn’t seem to give him anymore regenerations but did keep him alive.
  So there is a lot to unpack there. It does seem that even the Doctor himself counted the incident with Ten staying Ten as a regeneration, but it could be retconned away if the doctor had his or her memories altered, or simply doesn’t fully understand the process fully.
  Some have pointed out that we’ve not seen a full regeneration of the War Doctor into the Ninth Doctor, this was explained by Steven Moffett that as Christopher Eccelston hadn’t been involved in the 50th anniversary, they didn’t want to use his face to create the wrong impression that he had been on set to film.
  As such some have claimed we can’t see the full change of faces when John Hurts regeneration was in full swing. I don’t have a copy of the 50th special to verify this, and looking on youtube I’ve found mostly fan edits that “continue” the cycle to introduce Ecclestone, and even the official BBC clip cuts off part way through the regeneration so I can’t verify this for myself.
  Could she be a version between War and Nine? Well, No. War was in a console room that resembled the classic original but had elements of the control room used by Nine and Ten and was wearing elements of clothing used by both Eight and Nine. There’s too much evidence against this for it to hold up to scrutiny.
  But we never saw Two change into Three.
Could be a contender.

She's an extra incarnation added to make up for being used between the 2nd and 3rd’s lives.
  It’s an interesting idea, that the doctor has had a whole extra life given to him to make up for a secret life that all memory has been removed from him. And it’s not beyond Time Lord technology to do so. They’ve done it to the second Doctor's companions, Jamie and Zoe after all. And the Third Doctor had some knowledge of the Tardis removed from him as well.
  Of course this would really mean that the Third Doctor was the true extra life and the mindwipe was there to cover a guilty secret, one later uncovered by the Master in his own second cycle. But it might just be easier to kill the Doctor overall then all this bother, after all, who would on Gallifrey would miss a renegade Time Lord?
  But there is plenty of evidence to support this, the console room is correct to the earlier years of the Doctors adventures, as is the Tardis disguise. The jacket Ruth wears as the Doctor is a similar style to what the Third Doctor is wearing when we first meet him which was similar enough to the Seconds jacket, and while he was wearing trousers similar to the Second Doctors, it is possible Ruth likes to change her outfit every now and then. The third was a bit of a Dandy with his dress sense, and Ruth's dress sense is rather close to his, if not maybe even more elaborate.
It stands up

  The metacrisis doctor or some other alternative reality doctor?
  Chibnall has dismissed the idea of an alternative reality or parallel universe Doctor, stating this is a Real Doctor, not one from a different universe. Now we have no reason to not believe Chibnal, but previous showrunners have all outright lied to us for obvious reasons. To keep us guessing and keep us interested in the show. No one when writing a work of fiction is going to go and do interviews and tell us what the outcome will be before we’ve had a chance to see the work. And I have no problem with that. It certainly won’t stop me speculating.
  After all, a Doctor from another reality is still a Real Doctor, just one from that reality. So I do think

this could be a doctor from another reality, especially as both she and the Time Lady chasing her are both unaware of the destruction of Gallifrey. Although this could still point towards being an earlier Doctor from well before Gallifrey’s destruction.
  As for the Metacrisis Doctor, in deleted footage he was given some Tardis coral to let him grow his own Tardis when we last saw him. And assuming he let it grow and he waited until Rose had passed away he could have just gone and resumed his adventures in that reality, and perhaps much to his surprise (or maybe he lied to Rose) found out that he could regenerate after all. River Song could do so after all, and she was only part time lord while the metacrisis Doctor is half time lord. Both are likely to have long lifespans with slowed aging in each incarnation, much like a full timelord. And a new Tardis might very well just use the default console control room scheme.
  Plus as he originates in the main universe timeline he wouldn’t really count as an alternate reality Doctor, he simply resides in a different reality, which is a different thing.

  But again, this is speculation on my part.
Bit of a stretch, but not impossible.

  She’s a human who's been exposed to the doctors chameleon arch by accident?
  We’ve seen something similar when Tenants doctor met a human who had been exposed to some of the Doctor's memories, so this does hold some water, but she had the memories of the Doctor already running in her head before she found the lighthouse. And It doesn’t explain how she had access to the Tardis before this.
  Not likely at all, unless she’s been set up by someone else but that might make the story needlessly extra complicated.
I don’t see this happening.

  The Valeyard?
  All of the evil that the Doctor has accumulated over the years somehow split off during his last incarnations, last seen prosecuting the 6th doctor before going fully rogue himself and wandering off in his own stolen Tardis. The problem here is he had no ability to regenerate as he was only supposed to exist once the Doctor had used up all his regenerations. We’ve seen a hint that he still exists in the form of the Dream Lord that the the 11th Doctor came up against with the Ponds, just waiting for a chance to come back at a later date.
  But Ruth isn’t acting in an evil manner, true she sets her weapon up to backfire, which kills the Timelord chasing her, and we have seen on very rare occasions the Doctor will kill. The sixth doctor making use of Cyberman weapons to take some of them out and even pushing at least one person into a pool of acid.
  Yeah, brutal. Physician heal thyself.
  Of course we know precious little about the Valeyard including how much we were told about him being true. Much of the information we got came from the Master whose hardly a reliable witness at the best of times.
  An older theory that might add to this is that the Valeyard and the Metacrisis Doctor are one and the same. Neither are apparently able to regenerate (unless one or both of them are lying) and the Metacrisis Doctor was willing to make use of methods the Doctor finds despicable, which could make him a candidate to age into the Valeyard due to the long lifespan he most likely has.
  But this is pretty far fetched at best.
Nope.

The 12th Doctor's transporter buffer clone?
  While writing this list I remembered that the 12th Doctor had once been trapped in a prison he kept dying in and kept managing to use his regeneration energy to make a new clone of himself, through the transporter that was used to send him there, courtesy of the transporter buffer. (yes I’m using Star Trek terminology as I can’t recall the Dr Who terms at the time of writing)
  Evidently each clone still had the full number of new regenerations as when he did finally die in a later adventure, he became the 13th doctor we know today,and there had been millions of dead corpses piling up by the time he freed himself.
  Could someone have gotten ahold of the transporter buffer and used it to make another Doctor?
Not impossible, but not too likely.

  The Ranni? Or the Meddling Monk or some other rogue Time Lord? Susan maybe?
  It would be great to see the Ranni back, like the Monk and the Master she’s one of his former classmates (and according to the 7th doctor they are the same age) but she’s not really an evil character or a good guy character, more a morally grey character who lives for science and loves to experiments and doesn’t give a damn about consequences.
  The Monk isn’t really evil or good either but is something of a hedonist, seeing time travel as a way to have fun.
  Susan we have only seen since she left the show in multi Doctor specials where she seems amazed to meet other versions of her grandfather, but she was left abandoned by him to start her own life with no access to time travel. And if she did find a way to get a Tardis of her own, why would she adopt his name?
  Could the Ranni or the Monk have turned over a new leaf? Could a chameleon arch change their DNA and give them the memories of the Doctor? It’s possible, but I don’t see either of them doing it.
Too out of character

Maybe something else altogether? My final speculations.
  It’s possible we might have amongst all of those theories the correct one somewhere. And I have to be honest at this point, out of those theories the idea she is a secret regeneration between the second and third Doctors with all knowledge and memory of her erased (or hidden) appeals the most to me.
  It adds up with the evidence we’ve seen. The style of Tardis blue box and console room, not relying on a sonic screwdriver like the second did, it all points towards being part of that time in the doctors life. And whether the Time Lords gave an extra regeneration or the Tenth doctor aborting a regenerating doesn't truly count, she still fits in whichever way you care to look at it.
  Of course there was one very easy way to find out where she was in all these regeneration issues. Ask her which one she was. But neither Doctor thought to ask that question.
  This does also make me think of an older theory I had when Eleven was about to jump into his own timestream when he found the oversized tardis being used as his grave stone and the swirling mess of wibbly wobbly timey stuff he found on the planet he died on.
  At that point I’d had an inclining that he was the true last incarnation and had an idea that maybe, if he jumped into the vortex of time before him, he would travel back to his own timeline and wake up anew as the first doctor again, played by David Bradley, complete with all knowledge of his future lives and events that he had stopped. And he would go off on his adventures again, but this time, try to do them better.
  A bit like the Star Trek (2009) reboot movie, but a bit deeper given how the character would remember his future past lives
  This would effectively have given them a new set of regenerations and the possibility of writing new stories featuring a new version of the first doctor, and when it came time to regenerate, leaving it open ended as to just what they were going to do.
  Someone trying to be the new Patrick Troughton, or someone trying to be a very different, all new second doctor?
  Obviously that is not the route they went with, but they could go down that route later on this regeneration cycle. So I do have to wonder, have we actually got any working theories that are actually even closely right? Or has Chibnall and company pulled the wool over our eyes and got something in mind we as fans have not thought of?
  I’m hoping it’s the latter.