2011 (end of summer) - Let’s Kill Hitler [1452]
The Doctor failed to answer Amy and Rory’s phone calls, so they created a huge crop circle that read “DOCTOR” and was featured in the Leadworth Chronicle. He saw the photo and joined them. Amy and Rory’s childhood friend, Mels, was on the run from the police and pulled a gun on the Doctor, ordering that they go back in time and kill Hitler. The Doctor took Amy, Rory and Mels back to 1938... after resolving matters there, Amy and Rory continued travelling with the Doctor.
2011 - Night Terrors [1453]
The Tenza were birthed in space, then adapted their form in order to find a nest; they were effectively space cuckoos. One such Tenza transformed itself into George, the eight-year-old son of a young couple named Alex and Claire, and altered their memories so they would accept him. George feared rejection, and his psionic abilities trapped people in the place that symbolised where he put “bad things”: the doll’s house in his cupboard. The eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory became trapped in the doll’s house prison, and were threatened by living dolls. Alex’s love for his son calmed his fears, and normality was restored.
2011 (7th-14th October) - Touched by an Angel [1454]
Mark Whitaker, a widower following his wife’s death in 2003, was now a partner at the law firm of Pollard, Boyce & Whitaker. On 7th October, he received an archived set of instructions... that was written in his own handwriting, and which detailed tasks Mark had to perform throughout 1994 and 2001. The only Weeping Angel that had survived the eleventh Doctor’s trap in 2003 used the very last of its energy to send Mark back to 1994.
The eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory identified Mark as a curious blip in the space-time continuum, and followed him to that year. After many cross-time shenanigans, the travellers returned Mark to 2011. He had physically become a 37 year old again following events in 1993, and decided to move on with his life - hopefully by starting a new relationship.
2011 (late October) - The Way Through the Woods [1455]
The eleventh Doctor, Amy and Rory found that journalist Jess Ashcroft was the latest of hundreds of people who had gone missing in Swallow Woods throughout the millennia. They identified the semi-sentient spaceship of Reyn the were-fox as being responsible for the disappearances, and ended the spatio-temporal anomalies the ship had extruded into the Woods. This retroactively returned everyone the ship had captured. History would record that only three of the abductees - Jess, Laura Brown and Emily Bostock (a barmaid from 1917) - had gone missing, as they opted to travel with the liberated ship.
The Long War was now over, and Reyn returned to his devastated homeworld to fulfill upon the legend of the Traveller: a figure who would restore the lost technology of how to make spaceships semi-sentient.
Torchwood Series 4: Miracle Day
2011 - TW: Miracle Day [1456]
The world’s population now exceeded 6,928,198,000. In Cardiff Bay, the water tower had been rebuilt since the Hub’s destruction. Rendition of UK citizens to US custody was permitted under the 456 Amendments to US Code 3184.
The Three Families initiated their plan to destroy the world economy in order to rebuild and take control of it. The Families seeded the blood of an immortal, Jack Harkness, into the Blessing in Singapore and Buenos Aires simultaneously, causing the Blessing to accept the blood as a new template and transmit some of its properties through humanity’s morphic field.
On a Sunday night at 11:36 pm, Eastern US time, in what became known as the Miracle, death instantly vanished from Earth. People became so alive that they continued to function despite hideous injuries - not even decapitation could entirely kill someone. Some people had conditions that left them brain dead, their bodies denied the release of death. The child killer Oswald Danes was executed in Jacksonville, Kentucky - but the Miracle kept Danes alive, and the state governor was forced to set him free.
In spite of the Miracle, humanity continued aging as normal, suggesting that everyone would eventually become an undying, aged husk. The 50% of pregnancies that would naturally have aborted didn’t, making genetic mistakes viable. As murder was no longer possible, many murder prosecutions were reduced to assault charges. The need for painkillers skyrocketed, and a bill introduced in the US Congress made all prescription drugs, painkillers and antibiotics available without a prescription - a windfall for the pharmaceutical companies.
Jack Harkness had returned to Earth, and the inversion of the Blessing meant that he had became mortal. His blood endangered the Families’ plan, and so they initiated an online virus to search out references of Torchwood, hoping to flush Jack into the open. Jack used malware to eliminate each and every digital mention of Torchwood, and the word itself ceased to exist online. Agents of the Families moved to discredit anyone with any knowledge of Torchwood, putting CIA agent Rex Matheson and CIA analyst Esther Dummond on the run. They were forced to join Jack and Gwen Cooper as the remnants of Torchwood.
2011 - TW: Web of Lies [1457]
Miles Mokri, a conspiracy blogger, uncovered many details pertaining to the Miracle and was rendered silent when assassins shot him. Miles’ sister Holly and FBI agent Joe Bradley combed through Miles’ evidence and became convinced that a shadow group was trying to control the world through the Miracle. They found and destroyed the Three Families’ back-up supply of Jack’s blood, which was hidden at Coney Island.
2011 - TW: Miracle Day
The nations of Earth struggled to adjust to a world without death... Somalia stopped fighting, but North Korea mobilised its army at its southern border, as many of its soldiers thought themselves immortal. The Prime Minister of India announced a desire to reconcile with Pakistan - with reincarnation was no longer an option, the one life accorded to each human seemed too precious to waste on fighting. Some projections held that as the three hundred thousand people who died on average each day were still living, global resources would be exhausted in four months. Contraceptives were introduced to the water supply in India and mainland China. Hospices started closing down. The price of oil crossed a symbolic $100 a barrel amid fears over distribution in the Middle East.
Cultural movements emerged in response to the Miracle. People took to the streets as “the Soulless” - marchers wearing white masks with sad faces, and holding vigil candles, to denote that everlasting life had robbed mankind of its souls. Members of the suicide-minded 45 Club believed that jumping from the 45th floor or higher was the only guaranteed way to lose consciousness forever. Ellis Hartley Monroe, a darling of the Tea Party, started the Dead is Dead campaign, which advocated that the people who should have died should be treated as such. People in Egypt rioted against the “Western Miracle”.
The world governments began to deal more decisively with the growing numbers of undead. Europe and the United States established categories for the classification of life... Category 3 designated a healthy person, Category 2 was a functioning person who had a persistent injury or illness, and Category 1 denoted someone without brain function, but whose body remained alive owing to the Miracle.
The United Kingdom, the United States, France, Germany and generally the whole of Europe established overflow camps for the undead. China declined to do so, but the Pan-African Summit opted in favour of it. Anyone designated Category 1 or 2 was taken to the camps - in the United States, this was sanctioned under the Emergency Miracle Law. The UK Prime Minister announced that the camps were part of a “new age of care and compassion”.
Incineration units were secretly established in the camps to turn the Category 1 cases into ash; in the United Kingdom, the Emergency Rulings for the Sake of Public Heath allowed for the burning of dead bodies en masse. Torchwood exposed the truth about the incineration units, triggering headlines such as “Horror of Death Camps in the 21st Century”, and also released a video showing the incineration of one of their associates, Dr. Vera Juarez. However, this merely paused the camps’ operation. The White House ordered an investigation into Juarez’s death, but made no apology for th
e Category 1 process. The footage of Juarez’s murder received more than five million views online, and memorial services were held for her.
The US Supreme Court agreed to hear a case involving adjustments to the life sentences of convicted criminals. The US Congress considered the creation of Category Zero: a designation for anyone - including Oswald Danes - who had earned death by incineration for moral reasons. Phicorps facilitated Danes having a media career in which he advocated compassion in these difficult times, in a manner that boosted corporate profits. Madison Weekly attained some fame as the “bisected bride” - a car accident had sheered off her lower half, but she got married a week later while propped up on a box. Angelo Colasanto, having extended his lifespan by limiting his calorie intake and lowering his body temperature, used the Null Field from the Hub to cancel out the Miracle in a very small area and end his life.
The stock market collapsed, and the global economy went into freefall. Banks closed, and the Euro’s weakness exacerbated the financial crisis. Greece and Ireland declared bankruptcy, and Spain’s economy destabilised, threatening to pull down the whole European Union. Pension funds began going bankrupt, creating a domino effect. A new Great Depression was instigated. At the first sign of the economic meltdown, China withdrew from the United Nations and sealed its borders.
Two months into the new Great Depression, the White House halted all immigration into America. The insurance industry had largely gone bust, “along with half the Western World”. The overflow camps built to dispose of Category 1 patients were in full operation - the Depression meant that the public was looking to its own welfare, and could offer little protest. Rationing was instituted. In the UK, the Emergency Powers Act allowed government agents to enter homes without a warrant in search of Category 1 patients. Violations of the Miracle Security Act were treated as treason. Some people in the US chose to classify themselves as Category 1, a means of assisted suicide.
Torchwood discovered how the Families had created the Miracle, and found the sites of the Blessing in Shanghai and Buenos Aires. Jack’s mortal blood was fed into the Blessing at both locations, restoring the Blessing to its previous state.
“In a pit in old Shanghai, I brought death back to the world. They said it was like a breath, the breath that went around the whole wide world. The last breath, and then no more.” [1458]
Everyone kept alive by the Miracle instantly died, including Gwen Cooper’s father Geraint. Esther Drummond was killed in the final confrontation with the Families. Oswald Danes, having coerced Jack and Gwen into letting him accompany them to Shanghai, died while detonating the Families’ facility there. The Three Families survived, still shrouded in secrecy, and judged the Miracle as a good trial run for their Plan B. UNIT sealed up the sites of the Blessing.
Rex Matheson found that - perhaps owing to his proximity to the Blessing when it recalibrated - he had become just as immortal as Captain Jack.
Miles Mokri recovered from his gunshot wounds. His sister Holly remained in possession of one last bag of Captain Jack’s blood - a safeguard against Miles’ injuries worsening and a resurgence of her cancer, which was in remission. [1459]
[1] Ten Little Aliens
[2] Nyssa is “18” according to the Writers’ Guide for Season 18.
[3] Who Killed Kennedy (p70), working on information implied by Remembrance of the Daleks.
[4] TW: In the Shadows
[5] Sometime Never
Is the Doctor Really a Crystal Skeleton Man from the Future, Now?
Sometime Never ends with the multiverse being restored after being merged by the Council of Eight. “In just one of many universes”, a benevolent member of the Council, Soul, and Miranda’s daughter, Zezanne, arrive in a junkyard in Sabbath’s ship, the Jonah - which disguises itself as a police box. Soul has absorbed the essence of the Doctor, and as Miranda’s daughter, Zezanne is the Doctor’s granddaughter. Clearly, in their universe, they take on the roles of the Doctor and Susan.
The question is whether this represents a new origin story for our Doctor and Susan. The EDA range had destroyed Gallifrey, but it wasn’t specified whether the planet had simply blown up or been removed from the timeline so that it never existed. If Gallifrey had never existed, the existence of the Doctor and his TARDIS would have been a paradox... unless he wasn’t from Gallifrey. This explanation closed that loophole.
As of The Gallifrey Chronicles, the Doctor certainly thinks he’s a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, has met a Time Lord and seen evidence of Gallifrey’s former existence. Gallifrey therefore existed, and it seems fairly clear now that the Doctor isn’t Soul.
[6] In An Unearthly Child, Susan says that “the last five months have been the happiest in my life”. She and the Doctor were on Earth for “six months” according to Matrix (p31); Time and Relative suggests it was more like thirteen months. The Doctor returns for the Hand of Omega in Remembrance of the Daleks.
[7] Interference
[8] The Vampires of Venice. The eleventh Doctor is seen carrying this card, although this type of photo ID would be unheard of in 1963. Either way, it’s the earliest known point in the Doctor’s timeline when he uses his “John Smith” alias.
[9] Dating Time and Relative (TEL #1) - Susan’s diary gives the date as “Wednesday, March 27th 1963” for the first entry (p9), “April 4th” for the last. They have already been on Earth “five months, I think”, according to Susan, who admits to some confusion on the point.
[10] TW: Ghost Machine
[11] Dating “Lunar Lagoon” (DWM #76-77) - The Doctor declares “this is 1983”, but the Second World War is still being fought. The anomaly is explained in “4-Dimensional Vistas”, where Gus gives the date as “July 25th 1963” and it transpires it’s a parallel world where the War didn’t end. The Doctor says he never learned to swim. There’s no explanation for the title of the story, which has nothing to do with the moon, and doesn’t feature a lagoon.
[12] Dating “4-Dimensional Vistas” (DWM #78-83) - The Doctor learns the date is “July 25th 1963” from Gus.
[13] Dating “The Moderator” (DWM #84, #86-87) - The Doctor takes Gus back to “the same time, the same place that we first met”, which was in “Lunar Lagoon”.
[14] Dating The Taint (EDA #19) - It is 1963 (p10).
[15] Dating “Operation Proteus” (DWM #231-233) - It is “four months” since the Doctor and Susan arrived on Earth, so a month before An Unearthly Child. “Ground Zero” confirms this is “October 1963”.
[16] Dating Ghost Ship (TEL #4) - According to the blurb, the story is set in 1963.
[17] Dating An Unearthly Child (1.1) - The Doctor has left the Hand of Omega at the funeral parlour for “a month” before Remembrance of the Daleks, suggesting that the first episode is set in late October. The year “1963” is first confirmed in episode two. Ian’s blackboard reads “Homework - Tuesday”.
[18] Dating Matrix (PDA #16) - The date is given (p39).
[19] Dating Remembrance of the Daleks (25.1) - The story is set in late November 1963 according to the calendar on Ratcliffe’s wall, as well as a host of other incidental evidence. (Not least of which being the broadcast of an episode of the “new science fiction serial Doct—“.) The draft script was set in December. The novelisation places this story a week after Kennedy’s assassination, but page 57 erroneously says the killing occurred “last Saturday” (it actually occurred on a Friday).
Quatermass
A throwaway line in Remembrance of the Daleks mentions a “Bernard” who is working for “British Rocket Group”. This is a reference to the four Quatermass television serials: The Quatermass Experiment, Quatermass II, Quatermass and the Pit and simply Quatermass, in which British space scientist Bernard Quatermass battled alien horrors. Most fans agree that the first three serials heavily influenced a number of Doctor Who stories, although successive production teams rarely made the comparison, and often denied it.
In the New Adventures, The Pit (p169) makes referenc
e to an incident at “Hob’s Lane” (Quatermass and the Pit, although it perhaps more correctly ought to be “Hobbs Lane”) and Nightshade first introduces the eponymous nineteen-fifties television series that bore many similarities to the Quatermass serials. “Bernard” makes a brief appearance in The Dying Days. While not mentioned in dialogue, the set dressing in The Christmas Invasion states that the Guinevere probe to Mars was launched by the British Rocket Group.
Do the Quatermass serials occur in the same fictional universe as Doctor Who? As might be expected, there are a number of discrepancies between the two programmes. The Quatermass Experiment contradicts The Seeds of Death (and Thin Ice) by claiming that Victor Carroon was the first man in space, and a race of Martians appears in Quatermass and the Pit. Broadly, though, the two series might co-exist, with the final serial Quatermass taking place around the time of the New Adventures Iceberg and Cat’s Cradle: Warhead. Indeed, the existence of Professor Quatermass might go some way to explaining the rosy state of the British space programme in the UNIT era (q.v. “The British Space Programme”).
The evidence as to the canonicity of Quatermass in Doctor Who is otherwise split... Beautiful Chaos implies that the Doctor had dinner with Bernard Quatermass and his daughter Paula during the moon landings, but in Planet of the Dead, Malcolm Taylor appears to reference the Quatermass TV show when he designates “Bernard” as a unit of measurement.
[20] The Scales of Injustice (p154). This is “a few years” before the London Incident (the Yeti invasion seen in The Web of Fear). The first three individuals on this list hail from Remembrance of the Daleks, Ruth is seen in The Time Monster, and Anne appears in The Web of Fear and Millennial Rites.
B00DPX9ST8 EBOK Page 95
