The Programme Guide set the story in both “c.2400” and “c.2900”, while The Terrestrial Index preferred “the tail end of the twenty-fifth century”. Cybermen placed the story in “2496”, but admitted the difficulty in doing so (p71-72). The Discontinuity Guide offered “c.2875”. Timelink suggests “2525”. About Time went for “After the late 2800s, but ‘thousands of years’ before the time of the solar flares”. “A History of the Cybermen” (DWM #83) suggested the (misprinted?) date “25,514”.
[1029] “A few centuries” after The Resurrection of Mars.
[1030] Dating The Power of Kroll (16.5) - The Doctor claims that Kroll manifests “every couple of centuries” , and this is his fourth manifestation, suggesting it is at least eight hundred years since Delta Magna was colonised. The Terrestrial Index set the story in the “fifty-second century”, The TARDIS Logs “c.3000 AD”. About Time favoured it being the far future, possibly after the time of the solar flares, or even the same era as The Sun Makers.
[1031] Dating “Victims” (DWM #212-214) - The year isn’t specified, but reference to the human empire seems to place it in the Earth Empire period. The implication is that the Doctor gets his burgundy outfit from Kolpasha following this story. The sixth Doctor says in Year of the Pig that his favourite tailor is on Kolpasha, and that his coat is considered the height of fashion there in Instruments of Darkness. Spiral Scratch mentions that the sixth Doctor and Mel visited Kolpasha. Placebo Effect (set in 3999) names Kolpasha as the “fashion capital” of the Federation.
[1032] “Centuries” before Burning Heart (p4).
[1033] “Many hundreds of years” before Legacy.
[1034] “At least another century or two” after the future component of Paradox Lost.
[1035] The Kaldor City mini-series as produced by Magic Bullet features a number of the same characters, concepts and actors as appeared in The Robots of Death. Legacy says that The Robots of Death was set in the deserts of Iapetus, the second moon of Saturn, but Kaldor City maintains that Kaldor City is removed enough from Earth space that Carnell (and possibly even Kerr Avon; see the Blake’s 7 essay) view it as a safe haven after fleeing the Federation from Blake’s 7. Furthermore, much of the plot of the first audio, KC: Occam’s Razor, is predicated on the idea that Kaldor City has no interstellar trade.
In real life, Iapetus isn’t large enough to have a desert the size of the one referred to in The Robots of Death. Also, according to Uvanov in the mini-series, the planet on which Kaldor City resides has a 26-hour day; a day on Iapetus is equal to seventy-nine days.
[1036] The background to The Robots of Death.
[1037] “Ten years” before The Robots of Death.
[1038] The Robots of Death, with details about Capel’s scheme given in Kaldor City.
[1039] Dating The Robots of Death (14.5) - An arbitrary date. The Programme Guide set the story “c.30,000”, but The Terrestrial Index preferred “the 51st Century”. Timelink set the story in 2777, the same period as it set The Happiness Patrol. Previous editions of Ahistory picked 2877, while stressing this was a bit of a crapshoot.
While the specific century remains very much in doubt, at least two if not three episodes of the Kaldor City mini-series occur in or relatively soon after a year ending in “90”, and it’s said in Kaldor City episodes four and five that The Robots of Death - and the Company robot augmentations that Taren Capel carried out shortly beforehand - occurred “ten years” ago. Allowing that Capel went into hiding for “six weeks” (KC: Taren Capel) after making his modifications to the robot assembly lines, and that the storm mine was “eight months” into its tour (according to both Taren Capel and Corpse Marker) when events in The Robots of Death happened, it’s entirely possible that Corpse Marker takes place roughly six years, one month and two weeks after The Robots of Death. That said, the “ten years” figure is bantered about with such approximation, it’s a coin toss as to whether The Robots of Death itself occurs nine or ten years prior to the end of Kaldor City. The final date of 2881 given here was chosen to better synch this story with Corpse Marker, although 2880 is also feasible. See the dating notes on Kaldor City for more.
[1040] Kaldor City: Taren Capel. Robophobia confirms that the truth about the storm mine murders wasn’t made public.
[1041] Dating “Crisis on Kaldor” (DWM #50) - It seems to be around the same time as The Robots of Death.
[1042] Dating Corpse Marker (PDA #27) - This is a sequel to The Robots of Death, and according to the back cover blurb occurs “several years later”. The final installment of Kaldor City takes place “three years and thirty days” after Uvanov becomes Firstmaster Chairholder - an event that occurs at the end of Corpse Marker, when Uvanov leverages the previous chairholder, Dess Pitter, out of office. As ten months elapse within Kaldor City itself, this means that the audio series opens approximately two years and three months after Corpse Marker.
Blake’s 7
Corpse Marker and the Kaldor City audio series - both sequels to The Robots of Death - feature Carnell, a character who first appeared in the Blake’s 7 episode Weapon. Chris Boucher either wrote or was involved with all of these stories. Moreover, it’s very likely that Kaston Iago - the lead character in Kaldor City - is Kerr Avon, who somehow survived the shootout at the end of Blake’s 7, changed his name and went into hiding in Kaldor City afterwards. Although legal reasons prevented this from being expressly said, Iago is very much like Avon - he’s a ruthless and brilliant killer with a number of programming skills. By the way, it’s probably not coincidence that Iago, like Avon, is played by Paul Darrow. Iago says in Kaldor City that he killed “The Butcher of Zercaster” - the name given in the charity audio The Mark of Kane to Travis, the Blake’s 7 villain whom Avon shot dead on screen. KC: Occam’s Razor identifies both Carnell and Iago as having fled the Federation.
This opens a can of worms, as it suggests that Blake’s 7 and Doctor Who occur in the same universe, which is just about possible. It’s never established in which century Blake’s 7 takes place, and the original proposal stated only that it was “the third century of the second calendar”. The only real indication was that the Wanderer spacecraft (in the Blake’s 7 story Killer, written by Robert Holmes) were the first into deep space “seven hundred years” before Blake’s era. In Doctor Who terms, that would set Blake’s 7 in the twenty-eighth or twenty-ninth century.
The future history of Blake’s 7 is pretty basic - humanity has colonised many planets and most of those are under the control of the fascist Federation. While never stated in the series itself, publicity for the show (and subsequent guides to the series) said that there was a series of atomic wars across the galaxy several hundred years before Blake’s time, and the Federation was founded in the aftermath. By coincidence, this fits quite neatly with the Doctor Who timeline, and the atomic war might be the Dalek/Galactic Wars of the twenty-sixth century. As might be expected, not every detail matches perfectly, but the oppressive Earth Empire of Doctor Who is not wildly different from the Terran Federation seen in Blake’s 7. The symbol worn by the Earth expedition in Death to the Daleks (authored by Terry Nation, who created Blake’s 7 and wrote a fair amount of it) is the symbol of the Federation in Blake’s 7, turned ninety degrees.
The audio Three’s a Crowd, which roughly dates to this era, mentions a Federation and uses Blake’s 7 teleport sound effects. In Kaldor City, the sound effect of Iago’s gun holster is very similar to that used in Blake’s 7 Series 4, and mention is made of Herculaneum, the substance that comprises the Liberator’s hull.
[1043] Dating Kaldor City (Magic Bullet audio series; KC: Occam’s Razor, #1.1; KC: Death’s Head, #1.2; KC: Hidden Persuaders, #1.3; KC: Taren Capel, #1.4; KC: Checkmate, #1.5) - The Kaldor City mini-series follows on from Corpse Marker. Iago indicates in KC: Checkmate that the central five-part Kaldor City series happens over a ten month period. The most glaring dating clue with regards the year is that Carnell’s Voc says in episode four (KC: Taren Capel) that it was la
st upgraded on “09/01/90”, so the later Kaldor City installments either occur in a year ending with 90 or, presumably, not long thereafter.
It’s variously indicated that three or five months pass between episode two (KC: Death’s Head) and episode three, so it’s a toss-up as to whether episode two takes place in the same calendar year as episode one. Uvanov comments in episode three that Iago last took a holiday - a reference to events in episode one - “last year sometime”, so episodes one and three must occur in different years. Where the Fendahl is concerned, its core, Justina, says it grew stronger after being flung into a supernova (at the end of Image of the Fendahl).
[1044] The Kaldor City Finale
The ending to the core Kaldor City mini-series, as the summary to KC: Checkmate demonstrates, is something of a surreal experience. So much so, it caused some confusion upon release as to how the story actually ended. Different theories have been offered concerning this... one possibility is that Iago was mortally wounded in his shootout with Blayse, and everything he experiences concerning Carnell and the retroactive murder of Justina is a delusion of his dying brain. Another is that it’s all a metaphor, part of the political and sexual power plays that permeate the audio series.
The explanation that is increasingly hard to avoid, however, is that the Fendahl wins at the very end, and absorbs everyone in Kaldor City who wasn’t killed beforehand. The choice offered to Iago - to deface Justina’s painting, and to retroactively murder her - is part and parcel of the Fendahl’s seduction; Iago fully enables the Fendahl’s victory by agreeing to it. (Quite why the Fendahl needs to tempt Iago in such a fashion rather than just up and absorbing him isn’t said.)
Kaldor City writer/producer Alan Stevens has stated - by way of confirming observations made independently online by Paul Dale Smith - that the last scene of Checkmate, plus the whole of the short story KC: “The Prisoner” (included on The Actor Speaks CD featuring Paul Darrow) and KC: Storm Mine (KC 1.6) occur within the Fendahl gestalt (hence the refrain in the latter story that, “We’re all in this together”). “The Prisoner” evidently occurs from Landerchild’s perspective within the gestalt; Storm Mine occurs from Blayse’s point of view. The “Iago” that appears in both stories is just their respective memories of him, although Smith - tapped as a potential writer to continue the series - postulated that the Iago that appears in Storm Mine was the genuine article, trying to subvert the gestalt from within and cheat death.
If it’s possible to puzzle through how Kaldor City ends, however, the Big Finish audio Robophobia - which has to take place after both The Robots of Death and Kaldor City - seems to indicate that Kaldor City not only survives the Fendahl incident (albeit through events we’re never shown), but subsequently creates a booming robotics trade for itself. See the dating notes on that story.
[1045] Dating Grimm Reality (EDA #50) - The mining companies were active “a hundred or a hundred and ten years” ago, in the 2780s.
[1046] Dating Ten Little Aliens (PDA #54) - It is clearly the subjugation phase of the Earth Empire. An e-zine written somewhat prior to these events (p15), with biographies of Haunt’s troopers, is dated “23.5.90”, presumably meaning 23rd May, 2890.
[1047] The Fall of Yquatine (p30, p43).
[1048] “Thousands of years” before The Krotons.
[1049] Dating “Supernature” (DWM #421-423) - It’s the time of the Earth Empire. The forced use of an underclass to colonise worlds, and the Doctor’s choice of an Earth city as the colony world’s name, is somewhat akin to conditions described in Ten Little Aliens. The ongoing DWM storyline featuring Chiyoko starts in this story, continues in “The Screams of Death”, “The Golden Ones”, “Planet Bollywood” and “Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night”, and ends in “The Child of Time” (DWM).
[1050] “Apotheosis”
[1051] The Fall of Yquatine (p30, p43).
[1052] “Silver Scream”
[1053] Dating Sontarans: Silent Warrior (BBV audio #19) - The participants are cited as human, and mention of Grimwade’s Syndrome suggests this is the same era as The Robots of Death. Alex’s pedigree is unknown; he might be from Orion, but his vague talk of working for watchmen who “like to keep an eye on things” might imply that he’s of Time Lord manufacture.
[1054] The Mutants
[1055] Terror of the Vervoids
[1056] Just War (p143), although we see bears and wolves in The Ice Warriors, and hear of a variety of animal specimens in The Ark in Space. Pigs and dogs survive until at least the year 5000 AD (The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Invisible Enemy), there are sheep and spiders on the colony ship sent to Metebelis III in Planet of the Spiders, Europa is well stocked with animal life in Managra, and the Ark (in The Ark) contains a thriving jungle environment complete with an elephant and tropical birds.
[1057] Death and Diplomacy (p16). The lack of wisdom teeth is also mentioned in Benny: Dry Pilgrimage.
[1058] Just War
[1059] “Fifty years” before Roz’s time. The Also People (p10).
[1060] Illegal Alien (p152).
The Thirtieth Century
While it’s highly likely that the Earth was not ravaged by solar flares at this time (see The Beast Below and The Ark in Space), the Doctor’s description of a “highly compartmentalised” Earth society of the thirtieth century in The Ark in Space matches similar descriptions of Earth in stories set at this time. Earth is “grey” in The Mutants and “highly organised” in Terror of the Vervoids episode four. We learn of food shortages in Terror of the Vervoids.
In terms of the New Adventures, this is Cwej and Forrester’s native time, and we meet them there in Original Sin - a story that ties in quite closely with The Mutants (Solos is even mentioned on p318). Roz returns and dies in her native time in So Vile a Sin.
We first learn of the decline of the Earth Empire and the Overcities in The Mutants, although in that story the Solos native Ky calls them “sky cities” and claims they were built because “the air is too poisonous”, not because of the wars.
[1061] Original Sin (p160-161).
[1062] Nerva Beacon has a “thirty year assignment” according to Stevenson in Revenge of the Cybermen, so it ought to be decommissioned around 2915. We see the Beacon again in The Ark in Space.
[1063] Dating Robophobia (BF #149) - No year is given, and it’s an unspecified amount of time after the Storm Mine Four killings (The Robots of Death). A continuity clash between this story and the Kaldor City mini-series is somewhat inevitable... the Fendahl seemed to destroy/ingest/otherwise dominate Kaldor City in KC: Checkmate, so placing Robophobia - in which Kaldor City is quite active - after that is rather tricky. However, Robophobia can’t easily go beforehand as it entails Kaldor City having a massive interstellar robot trade, whereas the Kaldor City audios establish that Kaldor City has no contact with other worlds. (In fact, the plot of the first Kaldor City story, KC: Occam’s Razor, is highly dependent on that notion.) Robophobia and Kaldor City agree that the truth about Taren Capel’s insurrection was never made public, but matters are further complicated in that everyone involved in Robophobia finds it unthinkable and unprecedented that robots might be capable of murder - even though the Fendahl’s victory was preceded (KC: Taren Capel) by a robot rebellion that almost certainly killed some thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people.
While it’s often undesirable to assume that there’s a missing story that reconciles matters, in this case it’s slightly easier to believe that the Fendahl was somehow defeated off screen - in such a way that everyone’s memories of Kaldor City’s robots becoming murderous en masse was somehow erased - than to make Robophobia, which occurs onboard a spaceship bearing one hundred fifty-seven thousand robots to another planet, take place simultaneous to a set of audios predicated on Kaldor City having no offworld trade. With that shaky solution in mind, sixty years have arbitrarily been chosen for Kaldor City to recover from the Fendahl incident, and to develop (as was a stated goal in Occam’s Razor) the comme
rce seen in Robophobia.
[1064] The Mutants
[1065] “Five hundred years” before Snakedance.
[1066] Original Sin
[1067] The Also People adds that Roz’s clan name is “Inyathi”, which means buffalo.
Roz Forrester
A discussion document about Roz and Cwej prepared by Andy Lane for the New Adventures authors said that Roz was born in 2935. No date is given in the books themselves, and the collective evidence suggests that Roz is born a little later than that. Roz meets the Doctor in Original Sin (set in 2975), three years (Original Sin, p211) after the death of her treacherous mentor, Fenn Martle. She spent fifteen years squired to Martle, and prior to that spent five years with an offworld Adjudicator, which was preceded by two years of training on Ponten IV (Original Sin, p127). In Benny: Oblivion, Martle is “29, nine years older than Roz”. At this point, Roz has been squired to him for a year (p8). In So Vile a Sin (p127), Roz says she was an Adjudicator for “twenty-three years” (p293). She’s variously said to have “thirty years’ experience as an enforcer” in Zamper (p184), “twenty-five years on the streets” in The Also People (p46), and to have been an Adjudicator for “over twenty years” in Just War (p184). She’s cited as being “Class of 2955” in GodEngine (p175).
Presuming the “twenty-three years” remark should be accepted (because it’s the most specific) as marking the end of Roz’s tenure with the Adjudicators in Original Sin, and doesn’t count the training she received on Ponten IV, a composite of Roz’s life can be rendered... she’s born in either 2937 or 2938, she goes to train on Ponten IV at about age 12 (circa 2950), she trains for five years with the offworld Adjudicator (circa 2952-2957), but “graduates” in 2955 (an event that, depending upon the training/coursework involved, might occur in the middle of her offworld training). She’s squired to Martle at age 19 (circa 2957), Martle dies in 2972 and Original Sin occurs in 2975. All of which matches the New Adventures’ continual (if somewhat vague) portrayal of Roz as someone who’s closer to 40 than 30.
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