B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (285 page)

Despite the Doctor’s assertion that
The Daleks
takes place in the far future, we know that
The Daleks
takes place before
Planet of the Daleks
(2540). We also know that, by then, the Daleks are back on Skaro.

There’s no elegant way of reconciling this. The Daleks have to abandon Skaro, leaving behind a city full of Daleks who don’t have space travel or any apparent knowledge of other planets. They can’t leave their city, let alone conquer another planet. And they have to do it after
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
, then develop time travel (the Daleks in
The Chase
specifically leave and report back to Skaro).

If there
is
a logical reason this happened, there’s no indication in an existing story. Vicki (from 2493) has heard of the Dalek Invasion of Earth, but doesn’t know what a Dalek looks like, suggesting that from 2167ish to at least 2493, the Daleks don’t menace Earth. (The eighth Doctor audios somewhat complicate this by featuring a second Dalek invasion later in the twenty-second century.)

[
401
]
Fear Itself
(PDA)

[
402
] Dating
Day of the Daleks
(9.1) - It is “two hundred years” after the UNIT era. A Dalek states that they “have discovered the secret of time travel, we have invaded the Earth again, we have changed the course of history”. This isn’t, as some fans have suggested, a version of events where the conquest seen in
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
was more successful - the Daleks travel back and invade a full century earlier, after the first attempt has failed.

The Daleks don’t recognise the third Doctor, so they have come from before 2540 and
Planet of the Daleks
(or the alternate history they set up has wiped that story from the new timeline).

[
403
] “A hundred years” before
The Stones of Venice
. The painting of the “woman in a jar” probably refers to an Empress of Hyspero from
The Scarlet Empress
.

[
404
] There are frequent references to the Veltrochni and Tzun in the books of David A McIntee. In
White Darkness,
we learn that civilisation on Veltroch is more than three billion years old (p90). The Tzun appear in
First Frontier
, and
Lords of the Storm
reveals much of their technology and the history of their destruction. The history is further sketched out in
First Frontier
(p94),
Lords of the Storm
(p24) and
The Dark Path
(p142). The Veltrochni also appear in
Mission: Impractical
, and the aliens in
Bullet Time
- although never named - could well be Tzun survivors of the
First Frontier
incident.

[
405
]
The Mutant Phase

[
406
] He’s 19 in
Killing Ground.

[
407
]
The Janus Conjunction

[
408
]
The Time Meddler

[
409
] The Doctor is booked up for “two hundred years” after
The Seeds of Doom.

[
410
] In
The Androids of Tara
, Zadek, one of Prince Reynart’s men, states that the plague was “two hundred years” ago.

[
411
] “Fifteen years” before
Fear Itself
(PDA).

[
412
] “Forty-seven years” before
SLEEPY.
The Brother-hood plays a role in
The Death of Art
and
So Vile a Sin
.

[
413
]
Seeing I
(p83).

[
414
] “Twenty-five years” before
Longest Day.

[
415
]
The Five Doctors
. How much time has passed since Susan left the Doctor isn’t clear, but she does look older.

[
416
] Dating
The Year of Intelligent Tigers
(EDA #46) - It’s the “twenty-second century” (p145), and references to colonies on Lvan and Gidi link it to
Nightmare of Eden
. It is clearly early in humanity’s colonisation of other planets. That said, the spaceport has been established for a hundred years, so it must be the latter part of the century.

[
417
] “Three years” before
To the Death
. It’s possible that this happens concurrent with the start of
Lucie Miller
circa 2188, but as only two years elapse from the outbreak of the plague to the end of
To the Death
, the plague must take some time to spread.

[
418
] Dating
An Earthly Child
(BF special release #8),
Relative Dimensions
,
Lucie Miller
and
To the Death
(BF BBC7 #4.7, 4.9-4.10) - These Big Finish audios explore what becomes of Susan on post-Dalek invasion Earth. The blurb to the first of these,
An Earthly Child
, says it’s “thirty years on” from the Daleks conquering Earth. Within the story, it’s repeatedly said that it’s “thirty years since the invasion, twenty years since we set ourselves free” (in
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
). Susan suggests that everyone over 35 remembers where they were when the invasion came; one of her associates, Duncan, doesn’t because he’s only 33.

In the follow-up audio,
Relative Dimensions
, the Doctor picks up Susan and Alex on “Christmas Eve”- events in
An Earthly Child
are said to have happened “six months ago”, establishing that
An Earthly Child
probably happens in summer. The Doctor seems to drop off Susan and Alex (along with Lucie) on the day they left, and the concluding two-parter (
Lucie Miller/To the Death
) plays out over a period of two years (to judge by Alex’s remark that Lucie fell ill during the initial plague outbreak “two years” ago).

These audios are virtually impossible to reconcile against
Legacy of the Daleks
, set circa 2199, and which also covers Susan’s life on post-invasion Earth. Some of the contradictions pertain to Susan’s personal life -
An Earthly Child
presents Alex Campbell as Susan and David’s son, Susan acknowledges seeing her grandfather in
The Five Doctors
, and David Campbell has died beforehand in unspecified circumstances. Against all of that,
Legacy of the Daleks
claims that Susan and David never had biological children, and instead adopted three war orphans (in some accordance with
The Five Doctors
novelisation); Susan says she
hasn’t
seen her grandfather since
The Dalek Invasion of Earth
(although the eighth Doctor, somehow, remembers their meet-up in
The Five Doctors
), and David Campbell dies saving the Doctor’s life from the Master. In both stories, at least, it’s established that Susan worked to secure Dalek technology left over from the invasion.

Perhaps the bigger concern, however, is that
Lucie Miller
and
To the Death
entail a second Dalek invasion of Earth - and the accompanying deaths of millions due to Dalek plague - that isn’t referenced in any other
Doctor Who
story.

The conclusion that seems rather hard to overlook is that history
has
been changed here, either by a) the Dalek Time Controller arriving in the twenty-second century from Amethyst station, or b) the Meddling Monk intervening on the Daleks’ behalf. (The Monk, we know, has the
ability
to change history - so adamant is the Doctor about this in
The Time Meddler
.) History might have gotten off its established path, in fact, the moment the Monk nipped back a few years and threw the plague vial out of his TARDIS door.

Earth society is in relatively good shape in
An Earthly Child
, but is practically down to feudal levels in
Legacy of the Daleks
- this would be extremely hard to reconcile, were it not for the second Dalek invasion falling between the two, and almost inevitably setting Earth back some notches. In short, what remains of Earth after
To the Death
could easily slide into the “dominions” seen in
Legacy of the Daleks
.

The wild card here is to what degree, barring a complete and total temporal catastrophe, History might actively try to restore itself to its established path.
Doctor Who,
cumulatively, is less than clear on to what degree this is the case, but stories such as
The Waters of Mars
support the notion. (Actually,
The Kingmaker
is downright whimsical about it, claiming that the motto of the Celestial Intervention Agency is, “The [historical] details change, the story remains the same...”) An entirely new timeline of Earth might have unfolded had the Monk’s intervention led to the Daleks succeeding - but their defeat at Lucie Miller’s hands might enable History to get back on track, give or take. An innate tendency of History to bend back into shape when possible might also explain David Campbell’s contradictory fates - perhaps he initially died in
Legacy of the Daleks
, and in the revised history, he dies as a sort of temporal “pre-shock”. (This wouldn’t explain, of course, why Susan in the revised history has given birth to Alex if she was childless in the original timeline - but it might explain Alex’s death in
To the Death
, if he was never supposed to have been born, and History is manoeuvring to both eliminate him and thwart the Daleks in the process.)

This is all, naturally, the result of us trying to pound a round peg into a square hole. Some open-ended questions will remain no matter how this is played. (If the audios overwrote
Legacy of the Daleks
, for instance, then how did the Roger Delgado Master come to be gravely wounded and dying on Terserus?) Still, if one squints a bit, it’s possible to accept that intervention on the Monk’s part has left Susan’s life irrevocably altered, even though Earth’s history runs pretty much as intended.

The Venus de Milo is collected by the Monk and possibly destroyed in
To the Death
;
Benny: The Sword of Forever
alternatively states that it was destroyed during the Thousand-Year War.

[
419
]
Legacy of the Daleks

[
420
] “Four years” before
Killing Ground
(p71).

[
421
] “Last month” according to
Relative Dimensions.

[
422
] Dating “Echoes of the Mogor” (
DWM
#143-144) - There’s no indication of the date, but it seems to be early in the history of Earth’s interstellar exploration. There are bullet holes in the walls at one murder scene, so the FHD might have projectile weapons, although weapons that resemble these are called “lasers” in “Hunger from the Ends of Time!”. Due to the presence of the FHD, and their wearing the same uniforms and carrying the same weapons, we’ve assumed that this story, “Hunger from the Ends of Time!” and “Conflict of Interests” all take place around the same time.

In “Conflict of Interests”, mankind has a base on Rigel (between seven and nine hundred light years from Earth in real life), and spacecraft capable of “light by six”.