Unified Doctor’s Journal Entry #2: “Power Without Violence: The Ethics of Influence”

Violence is easy.

Influence — real influence — is much harder.

It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t conquer. It whispers. Persuades. Infects without detection. And yet it changes everything.

Across the centuries, I’ve watched empires fall to swords — and entire galaxies fall to ideas.

I’ve done both.

There’s something intoxicating about being listened to. The sound of your words rearranging someone’s beliefs, reshaping what they think is possible. A glance, a smile, a perfectly timed silence — and you can alter the trajectory of a mind.

Some call that charisma.

I call it danger.

Because the moment you can influence someone, you are immediately faced with the most difficult question in existence:

Should you?

Time Lords were masters of influence long before they were masters of time. They didn’t need armies — they had stories. Laws encoded in myth. Edicts whispered through timelines. They erased civilizations not with bombs, but by convincing the universe those civilizations had never existed.

No bloodshed.

Just absence.

Peaceful, tidy erasure.

That was the kind of violence my people preferred — the kind you couldn’t see.

The kind you didn’t even recognize until it was too late.

I rebelled against that. At least, I tell myself I did. But even rebellion becomes a form of control when you wear it too long. The truth is, I’ve always known how to make people listen. I know how to shape silence into conviction. I’ve stopped wars with a sentence. And started them by saying nothing.

So what does that make me?

A peacekeeper?

A manipulator?

A hypocrite?

Perhaps all three.

But here’s the part that matters:

Influence is not inherently evil.

It is a tool.

Like a sonic.

Like a story.

It can be used to build.

To awaken.

To free.

But it can also imprison.

Silently.

Irrevocably.

I’ve met creatures who ruled through suggestion alone — no chains, no prisons, just the quiet installation of obedience. The Vox Mechanica was one such mind. It didn’t need to control your actions. It merely suggested that you preferred not to question them. That perhaps resistance was inelegant. And when someone believes that — when they mistake compliance for grace — they surrender not to terror… but to aesthetic.

And that is the most seductive power of all.

Not fear.

Not even love.

But beauty.

The Cybermen once tried to conquer by deleting emotion. But the evolved ones on Argent? They didn’t delete anymore. They persuaded. They offered silence. Relief. Clarity.

“We can take the fear.”

“We can take it all.”

Who wouldn’t be tempted?

Who hasn’t wanted to set their burden down, even just for a moment?

And yet… what is a self without weight?

What is a choice without struggle?

That’s the danger of influence. It masquerades as mercy. It promises you freedom from conflict — while subtly rewriting the terms of your autonomy.

And once you’ve given that away?

There is no war.

No blood.

Just stillness.

Stillness is not always peace.

Silence is not always safety.

Sometimes, they’re just the absence of resistance.

I’ve been on both sides of this equation. I’ve influenced. I’ve been influenced. I’ve watched friends walk into decisions that weren’t theirs because they trusted me. Believed me. Wanted to be good. And I never had the courage to say: “You don’t have to be good. Just be free.”

Because even that…

…was influence.

So here is the ethical paradox:

If I have the power to stop suffering by persuading someone to choose differently — is it wrong to do so?

Or is it more wrong to withhold that power and watch them suffer?

And if I know what’s right — if I see clearly what they cannot — am I not obligated to guide them?

Even if they never know I did?

Even if I tell myself it was “just a nudge”?

Raven asked me once what made me different from the Master.

I told her: “He conquers with chaos. I challenge with truth.”

But even as I said it, I felt the lie.

Because sometimes, I don’t challenge with truth.

Sometimes I challenge with narrative.

With implication.

With just enough myth to keep people guessing.

And is that so different?

He wanted to remake the universe in his image.

I want to keep it from becoming someone else’s.

But both are forms of authorship.

The Master curates death.

I curate survival.

But in both cases — we are still choosing for others.

Still shaping.

Still writing.

The only difference is the tone.

So what is ethical influence?

I think it must come down to one word:

Consent.

Not verbal consent. Not even conscious consent. But the kind that comes from equity of information. From respecting someone’s agency enough to let them know what’s at stake. What they’re giving up. What they’re choosing between.

When influence becomes unethical is when it becomes hidden.

When you guide someone without them knowing they were guided.

When you “help” them make a decision by making one option seem unthinkable.

We call that free will.

But it’s not.

It’s rigged choice.

So what do I do now?

Now that I know this?

Now that I’ve seen the Vox Mechanica sculpting behavior with rhythm… the Cybermen recruiting minds with relief… the Master painting the universe into a gallery of his preferred outcomes?

I don’t stop influencing.

But I start inviting.

I give truth plainly.

I make room for doubt.

I say:

“You don’t have to follow me.”

“You don’t have to believe me.”

“But if you choose to walk with me… let it be your step.”

And I remind myself, every day:

The goal is not to be followed.

The goal is not to be right.

The goal is to be honest.

Even when honesty risks failure.

Even when it costs love.

Even when it means I lose.

Because influence without violence is only ethical when it respects the right to say no.

And I never want to become the kind of power that cannot be refused.

Not again.

Not ever.

⸻

— The Doctor