Why does the Doctor assume the Ood civilization is accelerated?

Question

In The End of Time: Part 1 the Doctor meets Ood Sigma 100 years after the events of Planet of the Ood. The Doctor believe the advances in Ood civilization in the last 100 years are too much to be natural.

DOCTOR: Magnificent. Oh, come on, that is splendid. You've achieved all this in how long?

SIGMA: One hundred years.

DOCTOR: Then we've got a problem. Because all of this is way too fast. Not just the city, I mean your ability to call me. Reaching all the way back to the twenty first century. Something's accelerating your species way beyond normal.

_{The end of Time: Part 1. Transcript on Chakoteya.net.}

In theory, shouldn't it be possible for the Ood civilization to advanced that much in 100 years on it's own?

As an intelligent, telepathic and peaceful race (thus no time spent fighting each other or someone else) they could've built all that in that time.

Or picked something up from another more advanced race, even without someone deliberately accelerating them?

What are the reasons that the Oods civilization couldn't progress that far in 100 years, without the help of deliberate acceleration?

Answer 1

The last time the Doctor saw the Ood, the basically had no civilization. The entire race had been enslaved by humans. Their "overmind" -- the central brain that connects all of the Ood, had been taken from its home planet and kept under control by humans. The Ood themselves have all had half of their brains removed and replaced with the translation spheres.

When The Doctor frees them and returns them to their home planet, they are very much a defeated and broken race. They are just starting to rebuild their civilization that humans had destroyed centuries ago.

Within less than 100 years, they not only rebuilt themselves back to their normal levels of technology, but had surpassed themselves many times over. They had developed the technology needed to see through time, something that very few races ever develop. And these Ood had to start from a place where most of the living Ood were "crippled", and it would take time for new generations to be born and grow up and learn enough to start advancing things.

That's a pretty significant leap forward for any race, much less a race that overall had no "driving force" behind significant technological advancement. While you cite their peaceful nature as benefit, the reality is that hardship drives advancement more often than not: war, hunger, overcrowding, resource exhaustion, etc. are all key reasons why civilizations devote themselves fully to improving technology. When a civilization is at peace and content, there's much less drive to do so.

It's also possible, based on the way The Doctor phrases it, that he literally knows how fast they should be advancing; it's possible that, since his last meeting with them, he has "checked up" on them when he has visited future time periods, and can judge how far along they should be in 100 years. AFAIK there are no canon examples of The Doctor visiting the Ood Sphere between "Planet of the Ood" and "The End of Time", but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.