Time War (Doctor Who)

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The end of the Last Great Time War

The Time War is an event referred to on several occasions in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, beginning from its revival in 2005. The conflict was between the Time Lords and the Daleks, resulting in their mutual destruction, which the series suggests was caused by the Doctor himself. The Doctor also referred to this conflict as "the last great Time War," implying that there had been others.

The term "Time War" can also be applied to at least two types of time-spanning conflicts in the Doctor Who universe. The first type of time war is where the two sides are fighting the war across different points in history, separated by centuries or millennia. The second type of time war is where Time itself is used as a weapon, with preemptive strikes, time-loops, temporal paradoxes, and the reversal of historical events. The last great Time War could be of either variety or both (or neither).

It is implied in the various spinoff media that there have been several previous Time Wars, but that all traces of them have been removed from history. One such war is mentioned in the 1995 Virgin New Adventures novel Sky Pirates! by Dave Stone. Lasting thirty thousand years, it is fought between the Time Lords and other races that are developing time travel. The Time Lords destroy one such race, the Charon, before they even exist. This war takes place a generation after the time of Rassilon, the founder of Time Lord society.

The Time War itself has been alluded to occasionally, but it has never been directly explained. Short comments in various episodes act as hints, and the war was not thoroughly talked about until "The Sound of Drums"/"Last of the Time Lords".

The last great Time War

The last great Time War is first alluded to in the first episode of the 2005 series, "Rose". There, the Ninth Doctor explains to his companion, Rose Tyler, that the reason behind the Nestene Consciousness' invasion of Earth was because its food planets were destroyed in "the war." Later in the episode, the Doctor states that he fought in the war, but he was unable to save the Nestenes' planet.

In the following episode, "The End of the World" (2005) set five billion years in the future, Jabe of the Forest of Cheem expresses amazement that the Doctor, a Time Lord, still exists, implying that the war had consequences up and down history. At the end of that episode, the Doctor confesses to Rose that the War had destroyed his home planet, leaving him the only surviving Time Lord.

In "The Unquiet Dead" (2005) the Doctor encounters the ghostly Gelth, aliens from another dimension, whose bodies had been destroyed by the war. The Gelth say that the war was unseen by "lower species," but devastating to the "higher" ones.

In "Dalek" (2005), it is revealed that the Time Lords' adversaries in the war were the Daleks. The Doctor claims responsibility for the destruction of ten million Dalek ships, but also admits that the Time Lords "burned" with them. What actually started the war was not stated, but executive producer Russell T. Davies commented in an episode of the documentary series Doctor Who Confidential that the origins of the war dated back to Genesis of the Daleks (1975) where the Time Lords send the Fourth Doctor into the past in an attempt to avert the Daleks' creation, or affect their development to make them less aggressive.

Further details of the War are sketchy; in "The Sound of Drums" (2007) the Master says that he was resurrected by the Time Lords because they believed he would be a "perfect warrior for a time war"; in "Doomsday" (2006) the Tenth Doctor mentions that he fought on the front lines, and was present at the Fall of Arcadia. "The Sound of Drums" states that the Doctor was responsible for destroying both the Dalek fleet and his home planet Gallifrey, after the Dalek Emperor gained control of something known as the Cruciform. Although at least the single Dalek in "Dalek" had survived, the Doctor dismisses the possibility that other Time Lords may have survived as well, saying that he would have sensed it if they had. However, unknown to him, the Master also survived, albeit in human form.

According to General Staal of the Sontarans, his race tried to participate in the War but were forbidden for unknown reasons.

Though it is not entirely certain, it suggests that The Doctor absorbs the time vortex to end the war. In the episode "The Satan Pit", the beast calls The Doctor, "the killer of his own kind." Also, in "The Sound of Drums", The Doctor explains to Martha that if an immortal absorbs the time vortex, he would become like a vengeful God. Later, in "Last of the Time Lords", The Master reveals to us that The Doctor ended the war and that the Time Lords and Gallifrey burned. He also accused The Doctor of having an uncontrollable amount of power, making him vengeful.

Aftermath

Despite speculation in some fan quarters, there is no real evidence that the Time Lords were erased from history due to the Time War. Indeed, races such as the Forest of Cheem and the Krillitanes know of both the War and the Time Lords, although they describe them as extinct. Similarly, although the Daleks are described as having "vanished out of time and space" by Jack Harkness in the two-part first season finale, they are still known as a legend by the future inhabitants of Earth.

Why the Doctor does not encounter other time travelling Time Lords or return to Gallifrey at a time before its destruction is not made explicit in the series (but see below for a possible explanation from the novels). The Doctor does run into a Time Lord from a different era other than his own, specifically his own fifth incarnation, in the mini-episode Time Crash.

The destruction of the Time Lords creates a vacuum that may have left history itself more vulnerable to change. In "The Unquiet Dead" (2005), the Doctor tells Rose that time is in flux, and history can change instantly — a more fluid definition to that which had been seen in earlier stories, which had implied that history was either immutable (The Aztecs, 1964) or capable of being changed only by very powerful beings (Pyramids of Mars, 1975; Remembrance of the Daleks, 1988). The Doctor himself significantly alters history when he brings down the government of Harriet Jones, who he originally predicted would be elected for three terms and become the architect of Britain's "Golden Age".

The most dramatic demonstration of this was in "Father's Day" (2005), when Rose creates a paradox by crossing her own timestream to save her father's life just before his destined death in a traffic accident. This summons the terrifying Reapers, who descended to "sterilise the wound" in time by devouring everything in sight. The Doctor states that if the Time Lords were still around, they could have prevented or repaired the paradox.

The consequences of creating a paradox are also why the Doctor cannot go back in time and save the Time Lords. Indeed, such actions may have directly contributed to their near-extinction: "They're all gone," the Ninth Doctor laments, "and now I'm going the same way." However, the Master's use of the retrofitted TARDIS as a paradox machine in "The Sound of Drums" (2007) demonstrates another possible implementation of a paradox, while in the episode "Blink" (2007) Billy Shipton states that the Tenth Doctor warned him that trying to alter his own timeline after having been sent into the past would "destroy two-thirds of the universe."

In episode "School Reunion" (2006) The Doctor is tempted by the Skasis Paradigm, which would give him the ability to reorder the universe, and allow him to stop the war. In "Rise of the Cybermen" (2006) the Doctor notes that when the Time Lords were around, travel between parallel universes was less difficult, but with their demise, the paths between worlds are now closed.

Other races also suffered casualties. The Nestene consciousness lost its homeworld and its protein-source planets, and the Gelth lost their physical form, being reduced to gaseous beings. The Time War also provides a convenient in-story explanation for any contradictions in series continuity: for example, Earth's destruction by an expanding sun in "The End of the World" six billion years hence, as opposed to the original depiction of its demise around the year 10,000,000 AD (The Ark, 1966) can be attributed to changes in history due to the War.

Survivors

Although the Doctor initially believes himself to be the last survivor of the Time War, in "The Parting of the Ways" (2005) he discovers that, in addition to the lone Dalek in "Dalek" the Dalek Emperor itself had also survived, and had gone on to build a whole new Dalek race, using the organic material of Human cadavers by completely rewriting their DNA. Whether this means that other Time Lords may have survived as well is unclear; though, as noted above, the Doctor is convinced that he would know of them (tapping his head: "In here") if they had. The destruction of the Emperor and his fleet at the conclusion of the 2005 series by a time vortex-augmented Rose Tyler is accompanied by her declaration that "the Time War ends."

In "Doomsday" (2006) it is revealed the elite Cult of Skaro survived by fleeing into the Void between dimensions and survived the original end of the Time War, taking with them the Genesis Ark, a Time Lord prison ship containing millions of Daleks. The new Dalek army released from the Ark is eventually sucked back into the Void, due to the actions of the Tenth Doctor, but the specially-equipped Cult of Skaro uses an "emergency temporal shift" to escape that fate. They reappear in New York, 1930 in "Daleks in Manhattan"/"Evolution of the Daleks" (2007); all but the Dalek Caan are killed in the story, leaving Caan as the last known living Dalek. Caan uses another emergency temporal shift to escape after the other three are killed.

In the 2007 episode "Gridlock" (2007) the Face of Boe says that while the Doctor is the "last of his kind," he is also somehow "not alone." This duality is explained in "Utopia" (2007) where it is revealed that the Master had managed to survive his race's extinction by hiding in human form at the end of the universe, similar to how the Doctor had hidden from the Family of Blood in "Human Nature." Both used a device known as the Chameleon Arch, which rewrites Time Lord DNA, changing the subject's species and giving them new memories, while storing the original biological configuration and consciousness in a fob-watch for safekeeping.

The 2008 episode The Stolen Earth revealed that Davros had been present in the Time War. The Doctor saw his ship destroyed. While the war was time-locked, Caan nonetheless managed to use his temporal shift to return to it and rescue Davros. Davros subsequently used cells from his body to create a new Dalek Empire, and maintained Caan close at his side.

More nebulous, is the fate of the Doctor's former companion Romana. Davies has stated that he considers Romana's adventures canon during the period in which the series was cancelled (including leaving E-Space and becoming President of the Time Lords during the period of the Time War with the Daleks), meaning that Romana most likely perished in the final battle. However, since Davies and other writers have yet to officially acknowledge this on revelation onscreen, many fans still consider Romana to still be in the "E-Space" universe and only presumed to be dead, for reasons yet to be revealed.

Doctor Who Annual 2006

The Doctor Who Annual 2006, published by Panini in August 2005, contains an article entitled Meet the Doctor by Russell T. Davies, which provides some additional background information on the Time War as seen in the television series, also mentioning in passing events depicted in the novels, audios, and comic strips. Although the canonicity of such material is debatable, the fact that Davies is the chief writer and executive producer of the television series may add some weight to the information given. Whether or not any of the material will be used as part of the television series is also unclear.

The article describes the Time Lord policy of non-intervention, but states that on a "higher level," they protected the time vortex, and kept the peace. It further claims that two previous "Time Wars" had been fought: the first a skirmish between the Halldons (a race mentioned in the Terry Nation story We Are the Daleks from the Radio Times 10th Anniversary Special, 1973) and the Eternals (Enlightenment). The second was the brutal slaughter of the Omnicraven Uprising, with the Time Lords intervening on both occasions to settle matters.

The conflict between the Daleks and the Time Lords is described as "the Great (and final) Time War." Initial clashes included the Dalek attempt to infiltrate the High Council of the Time Lords with duplicates (Resurrection of the Daleks, 1984), and the open declaration of hostilities by one of the Dalek Puppet Emperors (possibly Remembrance of the Daleks); the Daleks claim these are merely in retaliation for the Time Lords' sending the Doctor back in time to change Dalek history in Genesis of the Daleks.

The article says that historical records are uncertain, but mentions two specific events in the lead-up to the war. The first was an attempted Dalek-Time Lord peace treaty initiated by President Romana under the Act of Master Restitution (a possible reference to the otherwise-unexplained trial of the Master on Skaro at the beginning of the FOX Network Doctor Who television movie, 1996). The second was the Etra Prime Incident (The Apocalypse Element), which some say "began the escalation of events." Weapons used by the Time Lords included Bowships, Black Hole Carriers and N-Forms (the last from Davies' 1996 New Adventures novel Damaged Goods), while the Daleks wielded "the full might of the Deathsmiths of Goth" (from the comic strip story Black Legacy by Alan Moore and David Lloyd, in Doctor Who Weekly #35-#38), and launched a massive fleet into the vortex (possibly in The Time of the Daleks).

The timelines of lesser races and planets shifted without the inhabitants of the worlds affected being aware of the changes in history, as they were a part of them (presumably including Humans). "Higher species" who were able to notice the changes included the Forest of Cheem, who were distraught at the bloodshed; the Nestene Consciousness, which lost all its planets, and further mutated; the Greater Animus, which died; the Eternals, who apparently fled this reality in despair, never to be seen again; and the Gelth, who were forced to take incorporeal form and hide themselves at the edge of the universe. The war lasted for years, and exactly how it ended is also not precisely known. Series writer Paul Cornell opines that the contrasting depictions of the Earth's destruction in The Ark (1966) and "The End of the World" (2005) were due to changes in history caused by the Time War.[1]

The article ends with a description of hierogylphics related to the Time War, carved on a mountainside on the distant planet Crafe Tec Heydra. There, under an image of a lone survivor walking away, the message "You are not alone" has been scratched, perhaps indicating that the Doctor was not the sole survivor of the conflict. This is also the same message that the Face of Boe delivers to the Doctor in "Gridlock." On Martha Jones's MySpace page, it is revealed that she and the Tenth Doctor, just prior to the events of "Human Nature" (2007) visited the Eye of Orion (previously seen onscreen at the start of The Five Doctors, 1983), where a shrine to the Time War stood. This may or may not be the same place mentioned in the Doctor Who Annual.

Gallifrey audio series

Gallifrey is the umbrella title of a series of audio plays by Big Finish Productions, set on Gallifrey during Romana's tenure as President. In Gallifrey: Panacea, the final chapter of the third series, the Time Lord Irving Braxiatel speaks of "rumours out there in the big wide universe — more than rumours, in fact — that something's coming to Gallifrey, something worse than you could possibly imagine."

Because of these rumours, Braxiatel engineers the removal of the Time Lord biodata archive from Gallifrey, in order that the Time Lords might someday be restored after their planet meets its doom. Former Big Finish producer Gary Russell indicated in a forum posting on Outpost Gallifrey that this was a reference to the television series' Time War.

Other Time Wars in Doctor Who

Eighth Doctor Adventures

In a story arc stretching through several of the Eighth Doctor Adventures, sometime in the Doctor's future, a war is fought between the Time Lords and an unnamed Enemy. In this story arc, Gallifrey is also destroyed as a result of the Eighth Doctor attempting to prevent the war from beginning (The Ancestor Cell, 2000). This cataclysm also creates an event horizon in time that prevents anyone from entering Gallifrey's relative past or travelling from it to the present or future. Presumably, if the novels and the television series events are to be reconciled, at some point Gallifrey is restored, only to be destroyed again in the Time War. The last Eighth Doctor Adventures novel, The Gallifrey Chronicles, establishes that the Doctor has the ability to restore the planet and its inhabitants, but ends without revealing if he does so.

Series executive producer Russell T. Davies wrote in Doctor Who Magazine #356 that there is no connection between the War of the books and the Time War of the television series, comparing Gallifrey being destroyed twice with Earth's two World Wars. He also said that he was "usually happy for old and new fans to invent the Complete History of the Doctor in their heads, completely free of the production team's hot and heavy hands."

Despite Davies' unequivocal statement that the two wars are distinct, Lance Parkin, in his Doctor Who chronology AHistory, suggests in a speculative essay that the two destructions of Gallifrey may be the same event seen from two different perspectives, with the Eighth Doctor present twice (and both times culpable for the planet's destruction). This is supported due to the novels' destruction of Gallifrey involving an evil future version of the Eighth Doctor.

Another version of the Eighth Doctor Adventures' War, referred to as the "War in Heaven," also appears in the Faction Paradox novels conceived by Lawrence Miles.

Doctor Who comic strip

In three comic strip stories written by Alan Moore and published in Doctor Who Monthly, the Time Lords, assisted by The Special Executive, fight a time war early in their history against the Order of the Black Sun, based some thirty thousand years in their future.

The first strike of the war, from the Time Lords' point of view, is when a Black Sun agent travels back in time, and attacks the Time Lords just as they are about to turn the star Qqaba into a power source for their time experiments. This also causes the apparent demise of the stellar engineer Omega. The Time Lords do not know why the Black Sun (whom they had never encountered before the attack) should have wanted to strike at them, and surmise that it was for something they had yet to do (Star Death, DWM #47; The 4-D War, DWM #51).

Years later, at a diplomatic conference, a representative of the Order is murdered by the Sontarans, and the murder is blamed on the Time Lords. This provides the motivation for the war's beginnings, as from the Order's point of view, the Time Lords are the ones who strike first (Black Sun Rising, DWM #57).

See also

• Temporal Cold War (Star Trek: Enterprise)
• The Big Time (1957) by Fritz Leiber