[1562] Dating City at World’s End (PDA #25) - This is an arbitrary date, although we are told it is “thousands of years” after Ian and Barbara’s native time.
[1563] Alien Bodies
[1564] Dating The Ark in Space (12.2) - Harry twice suggests that they are “ten thousand years” after the time of the Solar Flares, and the Doctor confirms this in The Sontaran Experiment, which takes place immediately afterwards. The Terrestrial Index set the stories between “15,000 and 20,000”. The TARDIS Logs suggested a date of “28,537”. Cybermen offered the year “?14714”. The TARDIS Special gave the date “c.131st century”. The first edition of Timelink said “10,000”; the Telos version went for “15,000”. About Time decided it was “15000 AD, at the earliest”.
[1565] Wirrn: Race Memory
[1566] Dating The Sontaran Experiment (12.3) - The story immediately follows The Ark in Space. In SJA: The Last Sontaran, Sarah claims that these events happened “ten thousand years” in the future.
[1567] Heroes of Sontar
[1568] Dating The Eye of the Tyger (TEL #12) - The dating is more than a little confused. The Doctor says this is “a million and a half years” in Fyne’s future (p28), but the blurb says it’s the “thirty-second century”. It’s clearly after the solar flares first referred to in The Ark in Space.
[1569] Dating Wirrn: Race Memory (BBV audio #29) - It’s repeatedly said to be “one hundred years” after events in The Ark in Space. The audio concurs with the TV story in that “ten millennia have passed since the solar flares”, but also, a bit oddly, says that the Nerva gene bank is fifteen thousand years old.
[1570] Genesis of the Daleks. It’s a presumption that “Space Year 17,000” is the same as 17,000 AD.
[1571] Dating The Time of Angels (X5.4) - It’s “twelve thousand years” after the story’s main events.
[1572] Inter Minor is in the Acteon Group, as is Metebelis III (Carnival of Monsters), although it is later referred to as the Acteon galaxy (The Green Death, Planet of the Spiders). The Isop galaxy is the location of Vortis (The Web Planet, Twilight of the Gods), the home of the Face of Boe (according to Bad Wolf) and possibly the Slitheen (Boom Town refers to “venom grubs” - as they’re called in The Web Planet novelisation; they’re named “larvae guns” in the TV version). Artoro and the Anterides are referred to in Planet of Evil.
[1573] “Thousands of years” before The Parting of the Ways. It’s unclear exactly when this occurs. Captain Jack knows about the Daleks’ disappearance, but as he’s also a time traveller; it doesn’t mean this happened before his native time. It’s after “Space Year 17,000”, historically the last recorded reference to the Daleks before Bad Wolf.
It’s also unclear what this “vanishing” entails - the Doctor seems amazed that he meets a Dalek in Dalek, suggesting that they’ve been erased from history (would he, for example, have been surprised to meet one around 2164 on Earth, during their invasion?). However, Captain Jack recognises their ships in Bad Wolf, and the inhabitants of 200,100 both know the Daleks’ name and that they vanished. Perhaps the simplest solution is that the new-style, gold Daleks that make their debut in Dalek are “Time War Era” Daleks, and so none of them should exist after the Time War.
[1574] “Thousands of years” before Twilight of the Gods.
[1575] “Four thousand years ago” according to Speed of Flight.
[1576] Dating Heroes of Sontar (BF #146) - A plaque commemorates the Sontaran invasion of Samur “in the Marshall year 7509”, but this is unlikely to equate with the Earth calendar because a) the Sontarans are too inclusive and egotistical a race to resort to anything but their own dating, and b) a human-torture manual written by Field Major Styre is in use, so it’s after The Sontaran Experiment. Judging exactly how far after is tricky: Styre’s manual is still in circulation, even though one would presume that the Sontarans would eventually gain better intelligence on humans (whom they are aware of, to the point of designating Terra a Class-C civilisation) and render his findings outdated. And yet, enough time has passed since The Sontaran Experiment that Sontaran stories of the Doctor are now “legion”, whereas Styre hadn’t heard of him.
The Sontarans currently have an empire with considerable holdings in the Madillon Cluster, a territory they seemed to be battling the Rutans for in The Two Doctors.
[1577] Dating Plague of the Daleks (BF #129) - The Doctor notes the use of a fortieth century-style shuttlecraft and a forty-fifth century-style environmental dome; from this, he conjectures that he and Nyssa have arrived “beyond the Critical Age”, i.e. after the solar flares have ravaged Earth (presumably the same incident established in The Ark in Space). However, this isn’t to say that the adventure actually takes place near the forty-fifth century - both items could be long-lasting, or could have been recreated for nostalgic purposes. The history established in The Ark in Space, in fact, tends to rule out Plague of the Daleks as occurring near the forty-fifth century - the solar flare cataclysm is so great that humanity takes desperate measures such as converting Nerva Beacon into a hibernation station to survive, and it’s hard to imagine that amidst this tragedy, a heritage trust is shuttling carefree senior citizens to Earth as a tourist service with declining revenues.
One of the seniors, Vincent Linfoot, says that he’s backtracked “several hundred generations” (call it seventy-five hundred to seventeen thousand five hundred years for the sake of argument) of his family to Stockbridge, and here finds a family gravestone from 1872. Extrapolating “several hundred generations” from that point, the story could date anywhere from circa 9,350 to 19,350. As Stockbridge itself - however much the Doctor mourns for its loss - could itself be a Dalek recreation, and there’s nothing to say that a single brick of it stemmed from the genuine article, it’s perhaps best to assume that it was established as a heritage city after Earth’s repopulation after The Ark in Space, and that its destruction comes before the planet being (yet again) abandoned by 18,500 according to Birthright.
That just leaves the task of correlating this story to Dalek history. The Daleks’ instruments say they’ve been hibernating in Stockbridge for seventeen centuries awaiting the Doctor’s arrival, but as their equipment is badly corroded, the accuracy of their time-keeping devices is very questionable. Whether or not the “seventeen centuries” figure can be trusted, though, it’s notable that A) the Stockbridge Daleks say their race possessed a mighty battle fleet when they went to sleep, and that B) two natives of this era - Lysette Barclay and Professor Rinxo Jabbery - respectively claim that “the Daleks died out centuries ago” and that most civilised races consider them to be extinct. If Plague of the Daleks does indeed take place after Earth’s re-settlement in The Ark in Space, Jabbery and Barclay could be referring to the Daleks’ failed assault against Venus in 17,000 (as established in Genesis of the Daleks).
Pursuant to this, the Doctor claims that while the Stockbridge Daleks slept, they were defeated by the “combined forces of over one hundred planets”, and that they “were driven from this sector of the galaxy centuries ago; where there used to be a glorious Dalek empire, there’s just a big empty nothing”. As he’s no means of establishing the year beyond the forty-fifth century technology he’s witnessed, however, his opinion here can’t particularly be trusted - he could just as easily be referring to the downfall in Dalek fortunes in the centuries after The Daleks’ Master Plan or Dalek Empire II, or just be mocking them to gain a psychological advantage.
One last oddity: at story’s end, the Doctor tells Nyssa that “time” deposited them at the last possible point in Stockbridge’s future - i.e. its destruction. Not only is this claim bizarre on its face - does he mean the entity Time from the New Adventures, or does he actually mean to say that the time bubble in The Eternal Summer was somehow self-aware? - it’s still not proof that the Stockbridge seen here isn’t a Dalek recreation, and that the original didn’t perish long ago.
[1578] Birthright
[1579] “2347.54 years” before The
Speed of Flight.
[1580] Dating The Web Planet (2.5) - The story seems to take place in the future as the Animus craves “Earth’s mastery of Space”. Bill Strutton’s novelisation places it in “20,000”, although the Doctor suggests that the TARDIS’ “time pointer” might not be working. The New Adventure Birthright suggests that Earth is abandoned at this time, but it is established in The Ark in Space and The Sontaran Experiment that man has spread through the universe.
[1581] “Over a hundred and fifty years” before Twilight of the Gods.
[1582] Dating Twilight of the Gods (MA #26) - This is a sequel to The Web Planet. The Animus was defeated “seventy thousand days ago” (p1), which is a little under one hundred and ninety-two years.
[1583] Dating “The Naked Flame” (DWM Yearbook 1995) - It’s an unspecified amount of time after The Web Planet.
[1584] Dating Return to the Web Planet (BF subscription promo #6) - The back cover says, “It’s been hundreds of years and several regenerations since the Doctor last visited the insect world of Vortis.” Within the story itself, the Doctor mentions his “previous visits” (note the plural) and that he hasn’t visited since “a few regenerations back”, a tacit acknowledgement of the second Doctor’s trip to Vortis in Twilight of the Gods, and possibly (for those who prefer) even those seen in the Annuals and TV Comic.
[1585] Shada. Chris Parsons’ dating of the book gives a figure of “minus twenty thousand years”, with time running backwards over the book. This might be a property of the book, rather than an indication it comes from the future.
[1586] Dating “Final Sacrifice” (IDW Vol. 1, #13-16) - Robert Lewis’ group arrives on the colony planet “twenty thousand” years after they left, in 1906.
[1587] Dating Birthright (NA #17) - Ace says she was born “Oh, probably about twenty thousand years ago” (p134), although how she reaches this figure is unclear. It is “year 2959” of the Charrl occupation of Earth (p1) when they start their scheme, which will take “almost five hundred years” (p60), yet curiously it is “year 2497” (p109) when they finish! This is presumably a misprint, and ought to read “3497”.
[1588] Dating Speed of Flight (MA #27) - This is “about twenty thousand years” after Jo’s time (p23).
[1589] “Twenty one thousand years” after The Sands of Time (p122).
[1590] “A few thousand years” after 21,906, according to “Final Sacrifice”.
[1591] Dating The Face of Evil (14.4) - The story could take place at any point in the far future. The Doctor states in The Invisible Enemy that the year 5000 is the time of Leela’s ancestors. This story, then, takes place at least ten generations after that - the crew of the colony ship were stranded for “generations” before the Doctor first helped them, and there have apparently been seven generations since (the Sevateem seem to attack the barrier once a generation, and this is the seventh attempt).
Humans evolve limited psychic powers around the time of the fifty-first century (The Talons of Weng-Chiang) and the Tesh have psychic powers, so they might originate after that time, but they probably receive all their abilities from Xoanon’s selective breeding programme.
In The Sun Makers, the Usurian computer correctly guesses that “Sevateem” is a corruption of “Survey Team”, and that Leela comes from a “degenerate, unsupported Tellurian colony” suggesting that there are many such planets known to the Company. The Terrestrial Index set the story “several centuries” after the “fifty-second century”. The TARDIS Logs offered the date “4931”, Timelink “6000”, About Time said “Somewhere around the fifty-third century might be a good bet.”
[1592] Dating Last Man Running (PDA #15) - The story could take place at any time in the far future.
[1593] Dating Iris: Enter Wildthyme (Iris novel #1) - It’s “something like thirty thousand years” after the last time Iris visited Valcea, in The Blue Angel.
[1594] The Slitheen Excursion
[1595] Dating Planet of Evil (13.2) - While it could be argued that the date “37,166” that appears on the grave marker might use some Morestran scale of dating, the Doctor does state that the TARDIS has overshot contemporary London by “thirty thousand years”. The Dimension Riders and Infinite Requiem both suggest that the Morestrans are not human, which is possible (although they do know of Earth). The Doctor’s suggestion to Sorenson leads to events in Zeta Major.
[1596] Dating Zeta Major (PDA #13) - It is 1998 by the New Church Calendar (p82), and that long since Planet of Evil.
[1597] Forty-two thousand years after Zamper (p249).
[1598] Algernon Pine is defrosted “about ten thousand years” before The Coming of the Terraphiles, and so the era of the Terraphiles is at least that old. The Lockesleys have governed for “nine millennia” before The Coming of the Terraphiles.
[1599] Dating “The Child of Time” (DWM #438-441) - Jacobs mentions the damage the plague has done to “the human empire” - that, and the advanced human science that creates the Galteans, very much suggests that it’s a fair distance in the future. A little strangely, however, a caption suggests that the plague cripples humanity in “The Near Future”. Author Jonathan Morris avoided giving exact dates for fear of contradicting other stories, and commented that, “[‘The Child of Time’] wasn’t intended to tie in with anything that’s already been established in Doctor Who (but if it does, that’s fine with me!).” If one squints, then, it’s possible to connect the meteor strike that spreads the plague in this story with the similar event that helps to inflict damage on Earth prior to The Coming of the Terraphiles.
[1600] Dating “Apotheosis” (DWM #435-#437) - The war has been going on “a thousand years”, so it’s that long after the genesis of the Galateans in “The Child of Time” (DWM).
[1601] “The Child of Time” (DWM)
[1602] Dating “The Child of Time” (DWM #438-441) - The Doctor says that it’s “thousands of years” since Amy’s time, estimates that Chiyoko has been worshipped as a goddess in the war for “several hundred years”, and judges that the war “hasn’t been going too well” since he and Amy last witnessed it in “Apotheosis” (so, it’s some time after that story).
[1603] Before The Coming of the Terraphiles.
[1604] “Several millennia” before The Coming of the Terraphiles.
[1605] Within “several millennia” of The Coming of the Terraphiles, as this has to be after the Bacon Street Regulators were set up.
[1606] The Coming of the Terraphiles sees the fifteenth such tournament, they are held every two hundred and fifty years.
[1607] “Onomatopoeia”. Going by the galactic war numbering system used in The Coming of the Terraphiles, the seventh galactic war occurred somewhere between 47,000 and 50,957.
[1608] The Coming of the Terraphiles
[1609] Dating Heart of TARDIS (PDA #32) - There’s no specific date, but it is “some tens of thousands of years beyond the twentieth century”.
[1610] K9: The Bounty Hunter. Pia’s organisation is also referred to as the Galactic Peace Assembly. These events lead into the K9 television series, starting with K9: Regeneration.
[1611] Cornelius the pirate fought in the war, but not in the “past half century” before The Coming of the Terraphiles.
[1612] The Coming of the Terraphiles
[1613] “A few years” before The Coming of the Terraphiles. He claims this was in the “fifty-first thousandth century” - although the book is set in 51,007, which is in the 512th century.
[1614] Dating The Coming of the Terraphiles (NSA #43) - The Doctor says “51,007’s the date”.
[1615] Dating “The Gift” (DWM #123-126) - It’s “twelve thousand years” before the main events of “The Gift”.
[1616] “Two thousand years” before “The Gift”.
[1617] Dating “The Gift” (DWM #123-126) - No date is given, but the people of Zazz are the “distant descendants of an Earth colony”.
[1618] Dating Serpent Crest: Tsar Wars (BBC fourth Doctor audios #3.1)
- The story occurs in the future; the Robotov Empire is of human creation, and the insurrectionists are designated as human. In Serpent Crest: The Broken Crown, set in 1861, the Doctor tells Alex, “You’ve only just learned that you’re the Robotov heir, from a hundred thousand years into the future.”
[1619] Serpent Crest: Survivors in Space
[1620] Dating Serpent Crest: Survivors in Space (BBC fourth Doctor audios #3.5) - It’s been “twenty years” since Alex was returned home (Serpent Crest: Aladdin Time) and made Tsar.
[1621] “A hundred millennia” after Grimm Reality.
[1622] The Condemned
[1623] Dating “Onomatopoeia” (DWM #413) - The guardian here ends the “hundred thousand years” of silence that have passed on Graveworld 909 since the seventh galactic war, the rough date of which can be established from The Coming of the Terraphiles.
[1624] The Forgotten Army
[1625] The Ark
The Segments of Time
The Commander in The Ark states “Nero, the Trojan Wars, the Daleks... all that happened in the First Segment of Time.” References in that story to the Tenth and Twenty-Seventh Segments are noted later in this book. The Well-Mannered War is set in the Fifty-Eighth.
It’s unclear whether a Segment is measured purely mathematically. A “century” has to mean “a hundred years”. If a Segment is a fixed period of time, then as The Ark is set ten million years in the future, this might suggest fifty-seven equal segments of around 175,000 years.
Equally, the term might mark a specific era with distinct cultural or even physical features (like, say, “Victorian” or “Ice Age”). What would mark the beginning or end of a Segment? Would the boundary be formally defined and obvious (like say that of “the tenth Olympiad”, or “the Leptonic Era”), even if it was open to a degree of interpretation (we can speak of “the Second World War”, even though the exact moment it started and ended depends on which country you’re from and how you define terms)?
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