#the time war

[asuni-m]

Do you think, in Journey’s End, when Martha threatens to blow up the Earth to stop the Daleks, the Tenth Doctor has a flashback to him destroying Gallifrey?

And how Davros says The Doctor turns ordinary people into soldiers, he realizes it’s true. Because The Doctor was an ordinary person turned into a soldier and he did destroy is own planet to stop the Daleks. And Martha was going to follow in his path. A path he created first.

Do you think he saw himself in Martha? And all the things he’s ever done? All the deaths he caused? How, the only other planet he’s ever called home, was going to be destroyed by him, again?

How it was going to happen all over again, all because of him?

Cause I do.

[clowns0cks]

I had a vision

[nums-bird]

The situation in tristamp Twitter is so funny rn like this is THE fandom moment of 2023

I implore you to just such "bigolas dickolas"on Twitter and see what I mean

AND NOT ONLY did Bigolas dickolas,trigun's trending Stan promote the time war BUT it also caused the REPRINTING OF THE TRIGUN MAXIMUM MANGA.(like what?)

[galahadwilder]

Watching Doctor Who and then getting to the expanded universe materials afterward is hilarious because like

Doctor Who mentions that the Sontarans weren’t allowed to fight in the Time War and you’re like “what why?” and then you listen to the Audio Dramas and you’re still like “I feel like the Sontarans would’ve done fine. Not great, but fine”

And then you read Faction Paradox and find out what weapons Time Lords ACTUALLY use and it’s like. Oh. Oh the Sontarans would’ve gotten fucked.

[this-simplefeeling]

currently thinking abt how in The Mind of Evil we learn that the Doctor's deepest phobia is fire SPECIFICALLY bc he was traumatized by seeing a planet burn to death... and Oh Boy does that add a layer to the way Gallifrey's destruction must have affected the Doctor..

[thekinglemingle]

It will never not be hilarious to me that in preparation for the return of Doctor Who to the screens, the novels neatly put away their toys. They resolved their years' long Time War storyline in a way that it wouldn't be required for future canon, they un blew up Gallifrey and brought the Time Lords back to life.

And then RTD immediately established that in the time since the show was last on TV, there has been a huge Time War, Gallifrey has been blown up and all the Time Lords were dead.

[hey-missy-youre-so-fine]

I made one with each of my beloveds ❤️

[mylifeiscomics]

No More

My head canon is that he wore the Eighth Doctor’s clothes because he never planned on living and never wanted to be anything other than a soldier who had a job to do. He wasn’t the Doctor anymore so what would be the point?

And that’s why he chose his dark clothes after the war. Mourning.

[intuitive-revelations]

While I've got critiques of a few choices (eg. bigeneration, the Season One reset), one thing I've got to commend RTD for is that the story arc of things getting "more supernatural" / the universe shifting from sci-fi to fantasy is actually a pretty perfect way of continuing the shows overall myth arcs without actually requiring knowing all the backstory.

Not only does this follow on from the Time Lords currently being gone again (which itself was kind of built up from the previous Gallifrey arcs and the Master's character development), but also is more or less exactly what the Ravagers wanted to do in Flux. They wanted to undo the Anchoring of the Thread, recontexualised in terms of the Division's universal interferenc. While time and its laws have somewhat stabilised for now, we are indeed now seeing Rassilon's laws of rationality starting to collapse. I would strongly argue this started even before the 60th anniversary, between the time loop in Eve of the Daleks and the constellations literally rearranging themselves in the sky in Legend of the Sea Devils.

Even outside of the shows main arcs, New Who has already dipped its toes into the concept that there are older creatures which don't necessarily run on science in the same way as everything else, or that are from outside the universe / incompatible with it. Primary examples being the Carrionites, Racnoss, the Beast and Abaddon, Weeping Angels, Solitract, arguably even The Timeless Child. The Dark Times have also been prominantly featured in stuff like the Time Lord Victorious series and Titan Comics.

We've also being seeing entities like Eternals gradually returning (Zellin, Rakaya, maybe Time) who were originally established as leaving the universe in the wake of the Time War in RTD's Series 1 backstory in the DW Annuals. We've even seen quite significant emphasis put on the Sisterhood of Karn and their connection to Gallifrey, something primarily developed in the EU with the Pythia lore, which also links into the likes of the Visionary in The End of Time.

All this being said, none of this backstory is (for now) important for new viewers to know. All they need to know is that Fourteen fucked up in Wild Blue Yonder, and now things which were once outside the universe, like the Toymaker, are starting to leak into it. They don't need to know, for example, that the TARDIS may only have been able to access edge of universe thanks to the scale of the Flux's destruction.

Ultimately this feels a lot like his approach with the Time War. While it was a logical conclusion to the classic series (hence why we get so many time wars / destructions of Gallifrey in the EU), with Genesis, Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks all particularly serving as build up for a Dalek attack on Gallifrey, and indeed were all included in said prior-mentioned DW Annual articles along with the tension de-escalating 'Act of Master Restitution', none of that was important for new viewers in 2005 to know.

This being said, I do suspect some past context will return in the future, just as it did over New Who. For example, we're bound to be reintroduced to the idea that the Time Lords established rationality in the universe, maybe name-checking the Division as part of their interference. I also stand by my previous theory that we're likely to eventually see Rassilon return after his exile in Hell Bent. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if he served as the face of an effort to bring back the Time Lords in some form, opening up questions of their oppressive history (expect the Timeless Child's trauma to be emphasised) and whether the universe is better off without its fantastical elements suppressed, even if this does open the universe up to the dangers he fought like the Vampires, Carrionites, Great Old Ones etc. (Particular emphasis on the last of these, given it's sort of implied the only reason eg. the Great Intelligence isn't a full-power Cthulhu Mythos Yog-Sothoth is because of the Anchoring.) Perhaps the Sisterhood of Karn's newfound influence on Gallifrey in the wake of the Time War and Lungbarrow could play a role here.

[stargazerlily7210]

I feel like we do the War Doctor a disservice by calling him War Doctor.

I mean, his whole thing is that, in no incarnation (himself included) does he want to be called Doctor, or even consider himself The Doctor in this incarnation.

So instead of War Doctor, why don't we call him The Medic? He can't be The Doctor because he's taken an active role in combat. But he is still a healer and everything he does is trying to help save people within the context of the fighting.

So I propose: He's not The Doctor of War. He's The Medic.

[raspberry-gloaming]

The thing about getting into Gallifrey and currently being on Time War 4 is that now every time I see a time war related nuwho tv episode, and the Doctor is angsting about what they did, and so on, I just want to yell WHY DIDN'T YOU JOIN THE RESISTANCE THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH BETTER WHAT WERE YOU THINKING BRO???

Like I obviously know that the Resistance was created long after NuWho and the time war came into existence, but thats meta, ooc. But IN UNIVERSE? The resistance had how many timelords? all those double agents and exiles and renegades... Even if somehow the Doctor was not contacted about that or by them pre-War Doctor, surely while working for Gallifrey in the John Hurt years between Night and Day of the Doctor someone, just someone, could have said something to them. Leela was on Gallifrey! She could have said something! A double agent still on Gallifrey could have said something!

[romanadvoratrelundar]

not gonna lie saving gallifrey was such a boring asspull to bring other time lords back in the mix. & the way the time war was portrayed took all the genuine horror out of it. like, think instead about how interesting it might have been to bring in gallifreyan refugees or something as a way of having time lord stuff to play with without undercutting the horror of the time war and the the doctor’s genocide. honestly the fact that gallifrey got brought back at all kills the really interesting implications of the doctor being the one to singlehandedly end the war, & what that means for their character. and it also kills the horror of the end of time, and how to bring gallifrey back, in any form, would bring with it all the horrors of the time war, war crimes and weapons to terrible to be described, with names like the nightmare child. and in one episode, they just. bring it back and everything is FIIIIINE. the doctor never committed genocide, bringing gallifrey back has no real repercussions the likes of which were implied in the end of time. (like, imagine the creations of a society like the time lords primed for war. even if all were stripped of weaponry, consider the terrible knowledge of such things that might be unleashed, the repercussions of such a war on time lord society & thought.) give us the skaro degradations, the horde of travesties, the nightmare child, the could-have-been king with his army of meanwhiles and never-weres. like, show us the hell that the doctor himself said the war had become by the end!! the doctor only takes the gun from wilf when he realizes the time lords are returning. that holds meaning!!

like, imagine if they actually HAD explored the full implications of how the time war had been lampshaded in previous episodes, gave us a full arc of the doctor dealing with the fallout of the timelords returned, weaponized and wielding horrors unimaginable. bring back the rani! explore the full implications of the doctor’s willingness so commit genocide upon both his people and the daleks. what was so terrible that the doctor decided that for the universe to live, both must die?? there’s so much to work with in that idea alone!!

or like mentioned, give us gallifreyan refugees! surely not all died or were trapped, surely there were other time lords, if even a few. and like, i know that house thing kinda explains that away as “any remaining time lords got eaten by the house” but frankly, i just think that if that’s the excuse you go with as to why there’s no other time lords besides the doctor &the master until gallifrey returns, you’re handwaving it. that could be fascinating!! you could tie it into the audio dramas, or the novels, give us characters from those, bring back characters from classic who! hell, you could bring in the valeyard as a doctor from a timeline that spooled out of the time war, a vesion of the doctor who was never meant to exist, and who practically doesn’t.

at the end of the day, i’m just never getting over the wasted potential of the time war in nuwho. it makes me feel absolutely bonkers, because there’s so much there!

[dooweeedooguy]

i have questions about this book

cuz like for starters--who wrote this? Gallifrey at this time was stuck in a bubble universe destroyed so the only time lords around are the monk n the doctor, but i recall smth about the monk never took part in the time war and fled

so the only time lord that couldve written this is the doctor but why would he write his real name in there, which he's kept secret for his whole life, in a plain old book?

so the doctor has been ruled out too.

...so who in the universe wrote this AND also knows the doctor's name??

and did the book just not reach the general public? cuz if it did than WAY more people woulda known the doctor's name and woulda just been smth on an iceberg list instead of The Question

maybe the doctor destroyed any and all copies of the book, but kept one for himself...?

this dont make any sense--

[whatsupspaceman]

thinking about the time war as a wound continuously stitched up and reopened again & again. in a meta sense doctor who always changes as a show and always has different writers trying to do different things, but they all succeed in making sure that the doctor is always just about to win & always losing and always just about to heal & always getting hurt all over again. do you understand me. the doctor is always losing everyone all over again for the first time and they are always dragging themselves to their feet and trying again

[galahadwilder]

You’ve made me interested in the weapons that the Time Lords used during the time war, tell me more about them. 👀

@dougielombax @synthomite retcon viruses, living shadows, blood magic, cannibal TARDISes, universal programming languages (as in, they program the universe), sentient laws of physics, and there’s a theory that the Enemy from the War in Heaven was actually a separate hostile timeline. Basically, they called all matter-based technology “burlesque devices” because if you can’t do things by retconning the universe to have always been the way you want then what are you even doing fighting a time-travel war?

[the-worms-in-your-bones]

It really fucks me up the the first and last acts of the time war were acts of life