B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (320 page)

The Abandonment of Earth

Earth is completely evacuated six, possibly seven, times that we know of: (1) for “ten thousand years” between the time of the Solar Flares and
The Sontaran Experiment
(c.5000-c.15,000 AD); (2) for at least three thousand five hundred years before (and an unknown amount of time after)
Birthright
(c.18,500 AD-?); (3) a line cut from the rehearsal script but retained in the
Planet of Evil
novelisation reveals that “The Tellurian planet [Earth] has been uninhabited since the Third Era” (significantly before 37,166 AD); (4) for a significant time after the Usurians move the workforce to Pluto before
The Sun Makers
millions of years in the future; (5) there is a mass evacuation shortly before Earth plunges into the Sun ten million years in the future, seen in
The Ark
and reported in
Frontios
; (6) finally, Earth was empty at the time of its final destruction in the year five billion, seen in
The End of the World
. A wild card is the migration from Earth involving Starship UK, as seen in
The Beast Below
(possibly, or possibly not, part of the aforementioned Solar Flare incident; see the dating notes on that story).
System Wipe
(p13) concurs that Earth “gets blasted” half a dozen times at least.

[
1482
]
The Reaping
,
The Gathering
. The Doctor says that the Gogglebox was created while “humanity was on a day trip away from Earth space” owing to “solar flares or intergalactic war or something”. This placement is arbitrary.

[
1483
]
Heritage
. Cole’s grandmother fights in it.

[
1484
] Dating
Zamper
(NA #41) - It is “the sixtieth century” (p77). Earth appears to be populated at this time.

[
1485
] Dating
The Doctor’s Daughter
(X4.6) - The dates shown on screen are in a format that gives figures such as “60120724”. Donna works out that it’s “a big old space date” that runs year, month, day. Or, in the more familiar British format, the colonists land on Messaline on 17/07/6012, and events in this story occur on 24/07/6012. While the Doctor claims that said “big old space date” uses the New Byzantine Calendar, setting the story in 6012 AD seems reasonable enough.

[
1486
] “Twenty” (p8) and “ten” (p18) years before
Heritage.

[
1487
] Three years before
Heritage
(p56).

[
1488
] Dating
Heritage
(PDA #57) - Each chapter in the book has a precise date and time.

[
1489
] Dating
Half-Life
(EDA #68) - This story is set after
Heritage
, as there are references to that story.

[
1490
]
Heritage
(p227).

[
1491
]
Heritage
(p279).

[
1492
] Years after
Heritage
.

[
1493
]
The Crystal Bucephalus

[
1494
]
The Kingmaker
. The publisher’s robot is specified as being from the sixty-fourth century, but this isn’t to say the dominating publishing house is located there also, and the Doctor’s comments suggest that the company hails from much further in the future.

[
1495
] Dating “Ground Control” (IDW
Doctor Who Annual 2010
) - Mister K gives the year.

[
1496
] Dating
Return of the Krotons
(BF subscription promo #7) - The solar-flare event described in
The Ark in Space
occurred some “centuries” ago. The mining technology used is similar to that used in the moon conurbations of the late thirtieth century, so it’s definitely after that time.

[
1497
] “Five thousand years” after
No Future.

[
1498
] Dating
Wirrn Dawn
(BF BBC7 #3.4) - The story takes place amidst the background detail of the Galsec colonists as seen in
The Sontaran Experiment
. The migration of the Wirrn swarm into space could be the act that leads to a Wirrn queen invading Nerva Beacon in
The Ark in Space
. The title of this story seems to tip the scales in favour of spelling “Wirrn” with two r’s, as opposed to the three-r’ed version preferred by
The Ark in Space
novelisation and
Placebo Effect
.

[
1499
]
The Ark in Space
. As the colonists are scheduled to revive after “five thousand years” [c.11,000 AD], the Wirrn Queen must arrive on Nerva before that time.

Andromeda

Andromeda is mentioned a number of times in
Doctor Who
, sometimes as a reference to the constellation, other times as the galaxy of the same name. According to the TARDIS Information File entry that the Master fakes in
Castrovalva
, Castrovalva itself is a planet in the Phylox series in Andromeda. There is some evidence that Zanak (
The Pirate Planet
) raided worlds there, as the ground is littered with Andromedan bloodstones. In
The Daleks’ Master Plan
, an intergalactic conference was held in Andromeda. In
The Ark in Space
, we learn that Star Pioneers from Earth reached Andromeda and discovered that it was infested with the Wirrn. The two races fought each other for a thousand years, until humanity succeeded in destroying the Wirrn’s breeding grounds. Mankind went on to colonise the galaxy, and by the time of
The Mysterious Planet
, the civilisation was established on planets such as Sabalom Glitz’s homeworld, Salostopus. At that time, Andromedans capable of building advanced robots and harnessing black light stole Matrix secrets and fled the wrath of the Time Lords. The Doctor considers visiting “the constellation of Andromeda” in
Timelash
. The Doctor took the mer-children to a water planet in the Andromeda galaxy at the end of
Evolution
. According to Trix in
The Gallifrey Chronicles
, the currency in Andromeda is the Andromedan Euro, although
Dragonfire
,
Legacy
and
Business Unusual
all agree it is the grotzi in Glitz’s time.

The threat in
Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space
comes from Andromeda in the far future. “A lot of Andromedan planets are full of Migrators”, large amoeba like creatures protected by external antibodies, according to the Doctor in the short story “Danger Down Below” (
Doctor Who Annual 1983
), although they are usually only found on otherwise uninhabited worlds.
Shining Darkness
depicts a highly advanced Andromedan galactic civilisation where organic and machine live exists together in relative harmony.

[
1500
]
The Sontaran Experiment

[
1501
] Dating
Patient Zero
(BF #124) - The story takes place in a region of space-time so remote, it causes a glitch or two in the TARDIS’ translation system. The only tangible dating clue is that the Daleks seen here hail from the distant future (their time controller claims, almost wistfully, that they’ve travelled “so far back in time”) and have a warfleet at their disposal. The Amethyst station-manager, Fratalin, hasn’t heard of the Daleks - possibly indicating that
Patient Zero
takes place in an era free of Dalek interference, or possibly just that Amethyst is so remotely located, not even the Daleks have visited its galaxy before now. The Daleks don’t know about the Viyrans, but given the Viyrans’ habit of erasing the short-term memories of any being they encounter, this perhaps isn’t surprising. It’s unclear if Etheron, a very minor character and commander of the Interstar Cargo Carrier
Blaze
, has any connection to humanity or not. The back cover copy says “the Doctor must travel back in time, beyond all known civilisations”, suggesting this is the very deep past.

However,
To the Death
(set circa 2190, and also written by Nicholas Briggs) so repeatedly says that
Patient Zero
occurs in the future, it has to be taken as correct. The Doctor says that Amethyst station was destroyed “relative to when we are now? Thousands of years in the future...”, that the Dalek Time Controller “survived in the future and somehow travelled back”, that he intends to rectify things by going
forward
in time to destroy Amethyst more conclusively this time, and so forth. The Monk, echoing the Daleks’ claims, also says that the Dalek Time Controller was injured aboard Amethyst station “in the future”. So, an arbitrary sum of five thousand years has been added to
To The Death
to derive a year for
Patient Zero
.

Patient Zero
marks the genesis of Big Finish’s “Virus Strand” story arc - which formally encompasses “Urgent Calls”, “Urban Myths”, “The Vanity Box” and
Mission of the Viyrans
. The viruses that appear in
The Death Collectors
and
Forty-Five:
“Order of Simplicity” might also stem from Amethyst.

It’s implied that the invisible Mila stowed away aboard the TARDIS during
The Chase
. She impersonates Charley in
Paper Cuts
and
Blue Forgotten Planet
.

[
1502
]
Blue Forgotten Planet

[
1503
]
To the Death

[
1504
]
Real Time
. No date given. The CyberController in this era is an alternate history version of Evelyn Smythe.

[
1505
] “The Flood”. No date is given, but the eighth Doctor declares the Cybermen to be the most advanced he’s ever seen. This places the story after
Real Time
and
The Reaping
- two stories which also feature time-travelling Cybermen from the unspecified far future.

[
1506
]
The Reaping
. Presumably this occurs after
Real Time
, but this date is otherwise arbitrary.

[
1507
] Dating
The Time Vampire
(BF CC #4.10) - The year is given. The Doctor and Joshua’s encounter with the Z’nai was largely detailed in
The Catalyst
, but is actually depicted here. Mention is made of “the Naxian recession”, which could refer to the aliens from the Iris Wildthyme audios.

[
1508
]
The Catalyst

[
1509
] Dating
The Time Vampire
(BF CC #4.10) - It’s fifty years after the “Great Plague” that Joshua Douglas unleashed against the Z’nai.

[
1510
]
The Quantum Archangel

[
1511
]
The Quantum Archangel
. No date is given, but it’s before the Federation splits.

[
1512
] Dating
The Skull of Sobek
(BF BBC7 #2.4) - It’s said that the “culture” of Sobek extends back ten thousand years on various worlds, and it cannot be coincidence - although it curiously isn’t mentioned - that the ancient Egyptians worshipped a crocodile-headed god of the same name. This must be yet another example of extra-terrestrials influencing Earth civilisation (as with
Death to the Daleks
, etc.). In real life, Sobek is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, the oldest of which date to 2400-2300 BC. The dating of
The Skull of Sobek
to 7500 AD - i.e. about ten thousand years later - is somewhat arbitrary, but represents the latest that the adventure can feasibly occur. Conditions on Indigo 3 do, though, somewhat match with the “new dark age” of this era, as described in
The Crystal Bucephalus
.