B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  Jack Harkness suggested that Norwegians, the Scottish, the Irish, the Danish and the Icelandic all had a bit of alien inheritance, owing to a spaceship that crashed in Iceland. The ship had been looking for volcanoes, and originated from somewhere near Pyrovillia. [306]

  Around 6000 BC, the humanoid Thains, arch-enemies of the Kleptons, died out. [307] Circa 5900 BC, the inhabitants of Proxima 2 created the Centraliser, which linked them telepathically. [308] Around 5500 BC, the Urbankans visited Earth for the third time. The Urbankans kidnapped the mandarin Lin Futu, along with a number of dancers. [309] A new “framily” formed inside a space-faring Ghaleen that the sixth Doctor and Peri would encounter. [310] The Mogor, a warlike race, lived on Mekrom. [311]

  The “hammies”, inhabitants of Tollip’s World, developed a symbiotic relationship with a type of indigenous flora: the Trees of Life. The Trees engineered a virus to wipe out some ape-like predators, but this killed all animal life on the planet. The hammies merged their bodies with Trees, waiting for the virus to burn itself out, but the slow-thinking Trees forgot to revive their charges. [312]

  Pre-History Section Sidebars

  When Did the Silurians Rule the Earth?

  There are a number of contradictory accounts in the TV episodes and the tie-in series of when the Silurian civilisation existed, and it’s impossible to reconcile them with each other, let alone against scientific fact.

  A lot of the dating references are vague: Doctor Who and the Silurians says the Silurians “ruled the planet millions of years ago”. The Scales of Injustice states the Silurians existed “millions of years” and “a few million years” ago, but also uses the term “millennia”. Bloodtide says it was “many hundreds of thousands of years ago” and “over a million years ago”. Eternity Weeps shows the arrival of the moon in Earth orbit. However, it’s inconsistent with its dating, stating that this happened both “twenty million” (p127) and “200 million” (p117) years ago. In The Hungry Earth, the Doctor says that a Silurian is “300 million years out of [her] comfort zone”.

  Ironically, the one thing we can safely rule out is that the Silurians are from the actual Silurian Era, around 438 to 408 million years ago. Life on Earth’s surface was limited to the first plants, and the dominant species were coral reefs. The first jawed fishes evolved during this era. If nothing else, in terms of Doctor Who continuity (according to City of Death), this is before life on Earth starts. It’s Dr. Quinn who coins the name “Silurian” in Doctor Who and the Silurians. Despite the name being scientifically inaccurate, everyone at Wenley Moor - including the Doctor - uses it. We don’t learn what the reptile people call themselves, but the Doctor calls them “Silurians” to their face and they don’t correct him. The on-screen credits also use the term.

  In The Sea Devils, when Jo calls the reptile people “Silurians”, the Doctor replies, “That’s a complete misnomer. The chap that discovered them must have got the period wrong. Properly speaking, they should have been called the Eocenes”. Yet the Doctor never uses the “correct” term. The novelisation of Doctor Who and the Silurians (called The Cave Monsters) called them “reptile people”, and the word “Silurian” only appears as a UNIT password. The description “sea devil” is coined by Clark, the terrified sea fort worker in The Sea Devils, and the term appears in the on-screen credits for all six episodes. Captain Hart refers to them as “Sea Devils” as though that’s their name. For the rest of the story, the humans tend to call them “creatures” while the Doctor and Master refer to them as “the people”.

  By Warriors of the Deep and Blood Heat, however, the reptiles have adopted the inaccurate human terms for their people. Bloodtide starts with a flashback where Silurians refer to themselves by that name in their own era. In Love and War, we learn that the Silurians of the future “liked to be called Earth Reptiles now”, and that term is also used in a number of other novels. The designation “homo reptilia” that crops up in a number of places is scientifically illiterate. In Blood Heat, the Doctor uses the term “psionsauropodomorpha”.

  In Doctor Who and the Silurians, Quinn has a globe of the Earth showing the continents forming one huge land mass, the implication being that it’s the world the Silurians would have known. The Scales of Injustice follows this cue. Scientists call this supercontinent Pangaea, and date it to 250 to 200 million years ago. Again, this seems too early, as it predates the time of the dinosaurs.

  That said, while most fans have assumed - and the tie-in media stories have often stated - that the Silurians come from the same time as the dinosaurs (around 165 to 65 million years ago, according to science, Benny: The Adolescence of Time and the Doctor in Earthshock), there is no evidence on screen that the Silurians were contemporaries of any known dinosaur species. In Doctor Who and the Silurians, the Silurians have a “guard dog” that’s a mutant, five-fingered species of tyrannosaur that the Doctor can’t identify, and in Warriors of the Deep, we see the lumbering Myrka. Likewise, while it seems obvious to cite the extinction of the dinosaurs and the fall of Silurian civilisation as owing to the same events, it’s not a connection that’s ever made on screen. Indeed, we know from Earthshock that the dinosaurs were wiped out in completely different circumstances than the catastrophe that made the Silurians enter hibernation.

  The key plot point with the Silurians’ story is not that they existed at the time of the dinosaurs, it’s that as their civilisation thrived, the apes who were humanity’s ancestors were mere pests. The Sea Devil leader in The Sea Devils says “my people ruled the Earth when man was only an ape”. Bloodtide says the Silurians ruled “while humanity was still in its infancy”, and goes on to specify that the apes at the time were Australopith-ecus. The earliest evidence for that genus is around four million years ago - which ties in with the date for the earliest humans in Image of the Fendahl. Although Doctor Who continuity has established that humanity dates back millions of years more than scientists would accept, it doesn’t seem to stretch anything like as far as the Eocene, 55 to 38 million years ago.

  We don’t know how long Silurian civilisation stood. One solution to the dating problem might be to say that it lasted for tens or even hundreds of millions of years, from before the dinosaurs (and surviving their extinction) through to the time of the apemen. But, all accounts have the reptile people as a technologically-advanced, innovative, stable and centrally-controlled civilisation. When they entered hibernation, they were merely “centuries” ahead of the twentieth century humans. This would seem to point to a civilisation lasting thousands of years rather than millions.

  We have to conclude that the Silurians and apelike human ancestors were contemporaries, and that Silurian civilisation ended long after the time of the dinosaurs. There are more than sixty million years to fit the Silurians in, then, including the Eocene period that the Doctor cited in The Sea Devils. It seems most likely, though, that the Silurians flourished for a few millennia at some point in the last five to ten million years.

  The Creation of the Cybermen

  The origin of the Cybermen (in our universe, at least) has never been depicted on television, but the broad facts were established in The Tenth Planet, with additional information in Attack of the Cybermen.

  DWM has offered two distinct origins, Big Finish a third. (The creator of the Cybermen, Gerry Davies, pitched his own origin story for television in the eighties, and this was reprinted in Virgin’s Cybermen book.)

  The three origin stories that were made might seem to contradict each other, but none of them contradict what we learn on TV. They can, with a little imaginative licence, all be reconciled with each other.

  “The World Shapers” appears to diverge the furthest from the television account, roping in the planet Marinus and making the Cybermen the descendants of the Voord from The Keys of Marinus, but the story doesn’t contradict anything like as much as it seems. The Voord are human underneath their wetsuits, and they become Cybermen to survive global environmental collapse. It would mean Marinus is
Earth’s twin planet - which is a stretch, but not an enormous one. (We know from The Keys of Marinus that it’s a planet where humans, wolves, chickens, grapes and pomegranates can all be found.) The issue of Marinus/Mondas leaving the solar system isn’t addressed, but neither is it ruled out.

  “The Cybermen” strip in DWM takes fan speculation that links the Cybermen and Silurians, and is more consciously mythological in tone.

  Spare Parts has, perhaps, the most orthodox interpretation of what we’re told in The Tenth Planet - the civilisation on Mondas is roughly the equivalent of the mid-twentieth century, with a sickly population surviving in subterranean cities. Mondas travels into interstellar space, and as it does so, the population need to take existing medical technology to extremes to survive. Note that for a third time, an established Doctor Who race is part of the Cyberman recipe, as here the fifth Doctor’s physiology provides the template for the future Cybermen.

  These stories can be placed in order. The DWM Cybermen strip comes first - it’s the only one that depicts Mondas leaving its original orbit. Not only that, it establishes that there’s a period of three thousand years when Mondas settled into a new orbit where the Cyber-civilisation has collapsed and an advanced, fragmented human civilisation dominates. This is an ideal place to fit The Keys of Marinus and “The World Shapers” - all it needs is for (some of) the humans on Mondas now to think of their planet as “Marinus”.

  Again, this seems like a stretch - and, of course, it isn’t what any of the writers intended or planned. But there are elements of Marinus technology in The Keys of Marinus that look remarkably like remnants or precursors of Cyber-technology: the Conscience itself is based around the idea of negative emotions being eliminated to create an ordered society and is built with “micro circuits”; the Troughton era Cybermen had hypnotic and sleep-inducing technology much like that of the city of Morphoton; in episode three, Darrius’ experiments, like those of the Voord in “The World Shapers”, have increased the “tempo” of nature; there’s a group of soldiers frozen in ice; the Voord and Cybermen are the only two monsters the Doctor’s ever met who were human once, have handles on their heads and wear wetsuits.

  So... Mondas settled into its new orbit and became known as Marinus. Within a thousand years, the Conscience of Marinus was built and soon came to control the population. For seven hundred years, the planet knew total peace. Then Yartek learned how to resist the Conscience’s influence - it’s hard not to picture the second Doctor breaking Cyber-hypnosis in The Wheel in Space and The Invasion. The Voord’s physical appearance might mean they’ve found some remnants of the legendary Cyber civilisation. They haven’t abandoned emotions in favour of logic and the good of society, though - ironically, it’s rather the opposite. If Yartek is part-Cyberman, it might explain why he apparently lives at least thirteen hundred years. Neither is it a paradox that Yartek manages to resist the Conscience - yes, the Conscience should have quelled his urge to break the conditioning if his intent was purely malicious, but it could have been an accident or motivated by... well, the fairly uncontroversial belief that having free will is a good thing. (The Doctor says as much at the end of The Keys of Marinus itself, and in many other stories.)

  “The World Shapers” sees the Voord consciously evolving into Cybermen to survive sudden environmental collapse. We have to speculate to join the dots, but it’s not a wild thing to do. The surface of Mondas is, once again, uninhabitable for humans. The DWM “Cybermen” strip explicitly states it also leaves its new orbit. The Voord understand the problem and are ready for it - they now achieve their aim, and take control of the planet (presumably there are at least some other survivors), and build subterranean cities (or merely extend them - their base is already underground in “The World Shapers”). Perhaps the most highly-evolved Voord - the ones who had become the Cybermen at the end of “The World Shapers” - became the Committee from Spare Parts.

  Spare Parts itself is set later - how much later isn’t specified - when the people of Mondas are used to their sickly, subterranean life. Without the Worldshaper, while they know their destiny, the early Cybermen have had to learn the science of cybernetics gradually - until the fifth Doctor comes along, at any rate.

  [1] All-Consuming Fire, Millennial Rites, The Taking of Planet 5.

  [2] Divided Loyalties. These are the Gods of Ragnarok seen in The Greatest Show in the Galaxy.

  [3] The Satan Pit

  [4] TW: The Twilight Streets. “The Light” presumably bears some affiliation with the Disciples of the Light who imprisoned the Beast (The Impossible Planet), although The Twilight Streets references the Light-Dark conflict as only having run for “millennia”. Abaddon appears in TW: End of Days; Bilis in the same story almost seems to imply that Abaddon is the “son” of the Beast. The point is unclear, however, especially as “Abaddon” is also given as an alias of the Beast itself in The Impossible Planet.

  The Cardiff Rift

  The ninth Doctor, Rose and Jack’s discussion in Boom Town about the Cardiff Rift (a central feature of Torchwood) seems to indicate that it pre-dates events surrounding it in The Unquiet Dead - the Gelth “used” rather than “created” the Rift, and it was only “healed” afterwards. References to the “darkness” might mean that Abaddon is trapped in the void seen in Army of Ghosts and Doomsday, with the Rift merely providing access. Going just by what’s on screen, Abaddon’s presence might be what weakens space-time in the Cardiff area, facilitating the creation of the Rift in the first place. The Twilight Streets, though, specifies that Abaddon wasn’t imprisoned there until 1876.

  [5] Island of Death

  [6] The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories: “The Entropy Composition”

  [7] The Forbidden Time

  [8] This appears on the console screen in Castrovalva.

  [9] Transit.

  The Age of the Universe

  The date of the creation of the universe is not clearly established on screen, although we are told it took place “billions of years” before Terminus. Modern scientific consensus is that the universe is about fifteen billion years old, and books that address the issue, like Timewyrm: Apocalypse and Falls the Shadow, concur with this date. In Transit, the seventh Doctor drunkenly celebrates the universe’s 13,500,020,012th birthday (meaning the Big Bang took place in 13,500,017,903 BC). SJA: Secrets of the Stars claims the universe is “13 billion” years old. The Infinity Doctors establishes that the Time Lords refer to the end of the universe as Event Two.

  [10] The Doctor reads the book The Origins of the Universe in Destiny of the Daleks, and remarks that the author “got it wrong on the first line. Why didn’t he ask someone who saw it happen?”. The tenth Doctor also claims to have seen the creation of the universe in Planet of the Dead.

  [11] The Curse of Fenric

  [12] Terminus

  [13] Slipback. This is a clear continuity clash with Terminus, and a discrepancy made all the more obvious as Slipback was broadcast within two years of Terminus and was written by its script editor, Eric Saward. If we wanted to reconcile the two accounts, we could speculate that the Vipod Mor explosion was the spark that ignited the fuel jettisoned in Terminus.

  [14] Four to Doomsday. Monarch never achieves this goal.

  [15] Dating Timeless (EDA #65) - This occurs at the universe’s start.

  [16] Sometime Never

  [17] “Hunger from the Ends of Time”

  [18] In An Unearthly Child, Susan defines the fifth dimension as “space”.

  [19] The Death of Art

  [20] Autumn Mist

  [21] The Quantum Archangel

  [22] The Shadow of the Scourge

  [23] Blink

  [24] The End of Time (TV)

  [25] Time and the Rani

  [26] The Armageddon Factor. It’s possible this is just hyperbole on the Shadow’s part.

  [27] Castrovalva.

  Event One

  The term “Event One” is first used in Castrovalva to mean the creatio
n of “the Galaxy”, but in Terminus the Doctor talks of “the biggest explosion in history: Event One”, which he confirms is “the Big Bang” which “created the universe”. There are a number of stories where the writers definitely confuse the term “galaxy” and “universe”, and a number of others where they seem to. Rather than rule which is which, this book will list what was said in the stories, noting the more egregious examples, rather than ignoring them or trying to rationalise them away.

  [28] The Curse of Fenric

  [29] Benny: Epoch: Judgement Day

  [30] All-Consuming Fire, Millennial Rites, Business Unusual, The Quantum Archangel, Divided Loyalties.

  [31] White Darkness

  The Great Old Ones

  Novels such as All-Consuming Fire, Millennial Rites, Business Unusual, Divided Loyalties and The Quantum Archangel state that many of the godlike beings seen in Doctor Who have a common origin. These Great Old Ones are also referred to in The Infinite Quest.

  The Great Old Ones were a pantheon of ancient, incomprehensible forces created by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and adopted by the novels for this purpose. Perhaps the most well-known of Lovecraft’s creations, Cthulhu, had already made an appearance in White Darkness. The Taking of Planet 5 uses Lovecraft’s characters, but has them as fictional characters brought to life by Time Lord technology.

  Other Doctor Who entities explicitly referred to in the books as Great Old Ones include - but aren’t limited to - the Intelligence (The Abominable Snowmen, The Web of Fear, Millennial Rites and Downtime), the Animus (The Web Planet, Twilight of the Gods), the Nestene Consciousness (Spearhead from Space, Terror of the Autons, Business Unusual, Synthespians™, Rose, The Pandorica Opens), Fenric (The Curse of Fenric) and the Gods of Ragnarok (The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, Divided Loyalties). Gog and Magog (or beings with the same name) appeared in “The Iron Legion” comic strip.