General Smythe's King's Regulations and Orders for the Army, 1912

General Smythe opens this thick 1912 military manual on the command post table to start the court-martial. He consults select pages while pronouncing fabricated charges and guilty verdicts against the Doctor, Zoe, and Jamie. Carstairs later cites the regulations to Ransom and Buckingham, arguing the trial violated standard procedures like witness cross-examination.

4 appearances

Purpose

Reference regulations for conducting army court-martials

Significance

Props the sham trial's pretense of legality; Carstairs' later reference exposes Smythe's procedural breaches, deepening allies' distrust of his command.

Appearances in the Narrative

When this object appears and how it's used

4 moments

S6E35 · The War Games Part 1

Smythe’s rigged court-martial condemns the Doctor’s team

The King’s Regulations and Orders for the Army, 1912 is opened by Smythe at the start of the court-martial, serving as a symbolic prop to lend false legitimacy to the proceedings. Its pages are ignored as Smythe recites the charges, the book’s presence a hollow ritual masking the trial’s corruption. The Doctor’s protests—'This is a travesty of justice.'—highlight the irony of invoking regulations to justify their execution, exposing the farce of the court’s authority.

Before: Closed and unused, sitting on the table as a prop before the trial begins.

After: Open but untouched, a symbolic relic of the military’s corrupted justice system.

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S6E35 · The War Games Part 1

Smythe delivers rigged guilty verdicts

General Smythe opens the Kings Regulations and Orders for the Army, 1912 at the start of the court-martial, using it as a symbolic prop to feign adherence to military procedure. The thick volume is consulted selectively, serving as a hollow justification for the farcical trial. Its presence underscores the corruption of the legal process, as Smythe ignores its actual contents to rig the guilty verdicts against the Doctor, Jamie, and Zoe.

Before: Stored on a table in the British Command Post, unused until Smythe opens it to begin the court-martial.

After: Closed and set aside as Smythe delivers the verdicts, its symbolic role fulfilled in the charade of justice.

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S6E36 · The War Games Part 2

Buckingham and Carstairs challenge the court-martial

General Smythe’s King’s Regulations and Orders for the Army, 1912 is invoked indirectly through Carstairs’ critique of the court-martial, which he argues violated its provisions. Though the manual itself is not physically present in this scene, its absence is telling: Carstairs’ inability to cite it as a basis for the trial’s fairness suggests the military is operating outside its own rules. The object’s narrative role is to highlight the hypocrisy of Smythe’s regime, where ‘justice’ is rendered arbitrarily, and institutional guidelines are ignored when convenient. Its implied presence looms over the scene as a standard that has been betrayed.

Before: Presumably in General Smythe’s possession or in the Command Post, where it would have been consulted during the court-martial (though Carstairs implies it was not).

After: Symbolically ‘absent’ from the scene, as Carstairs’ reference to it serves only to underscore the trial’s illegitimacy. Its role shifts from a tool of justice to a relic of a system that no longer functions as intended.

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S6E36 · The War Games Part 2

Carstairs and Buckingham challenge Ransom’s credibility

King’s Regulations and Orders for the Army, 1912 is invoked by Carstairs as he challenges the legitimacy of the Doctor’s court-martial, citing its violations of standard military procedure. The object serves as a narrative device to highlight the irregularities in Smythe’s manipulations, providing Carstairs with a legal framework to question the trial’s fairness. Its mention in dialogue underscores the tension between institutional protocol and the rogue Time Lord’s fabricated justice, framing the scene as a clash between order and corruption.

Before: A physical manual consulted by General Smythe during the court-martial, used to justify the Doctor’s conviction. Its pages were selectively referenced to fabricate charges.

After: The regulations are cited by Carstairs as evidence of the trial’s illegitimacy, but their authority is undermined by the broader manipulations at play. The object’s role persists as a symbol of the military’s hypocrisy and the Doctor’s group’s moral high ground.

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