B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (325 page)

[
1645
] Dating
The Eyeless
(NSA #30) - The date is given.

[
1646
] Dating
The Eyeless
(NSA #30) - It’s “twenty years” since the main events of the story.

[
1647
] Dating
The War Games
(6.7) - It is stated that humanity has been killing itself for “half a million years” before this story takes place, which (coincidentally) ties up with the date 309,906 established for the Doctor’s first trial (or “Malfeasance Tribunal”) in
The Deadly Assassin
.
The TARDIS Logs
suggested a date of “48,063” for this story,
Apocrypha
offered “5950 AD”.

The aliens in this story are unnamed on screen, yet they’re referred to as “the War Lords” in
The War Games
novelisation by Malcolm Hulke,
The Making of Doctor Who
1972 edition, the Lofficier
Programme Guide
, and
Timewyrm: Exodus
by Terrance Dicks. They’re simply “Aliens” in the 1973
Radio Times Special
. As both Hulke and Dicks independently use the name “War Lords” in their other work, it has been adopted in this volume to avoid confusion with other unnamed alien races.

How Many War Zones are There?

The War Games
establishes in dialogue that the aliens have “ten” zones under their control. The map we see shows eleven, not including the Control Zone. Three more appear in dialogue, making a total of fifteen... map: Greek Zone [c500BC]; “two thousand years ago” map: Roman Zone; map: 30 Years War Zone [1618-1648]; map: English Civil War Zone [1642-1646]; “1745”, Jacobite Rebellion; “1812”, Napoleon’s advance into Russia; map: Peninsular War Zone [1808-1814]; map: Crimean War Zone [1853-1856]; “1862”, map: American Civil War Zone; map: Mexican Civil War Zone, “Mexican Uprising” (?1867); Franco-Prussian War [1870-1871]; map: Boer War Zone [1899-1902]; The Boxer Rising [1900]; “1905”, map: Russio-Japanese War Zone; “1917”, map: 1917 War Zone.

[
1648
] Dating
The Eight Doctors
(EDA #1) - This happens during
The War Games.

[
1649
] The War Chief is shot in
The War Games
, and reappears in
Timewyrm: Exodus.

[
1650
] “Three hundred and seventeen thousand years” after 40 BC, according to
The Gallifrey Chronicles
.

[
1651
]
The English Way of Death

[
1652
]
Only Human

[
1653
] Dating
Only Human
(NSA #5)
-
The Doctor calculates the precise date.

[
1654
] Dating
The Girl Who Never Was
(BF #103) - The Cybermen seem to generalise the year as “500,000”, but the eighth Doctor - using the TARDIS’ scanning equipment - specifies the date as 500,002. This is further confirmed by the sixth Doctor in
The Condemned
, and Charley in
Brotherhood of the Daleks
.

[
1655
] “Half a million years” after
The Curse of Fenric
. When the Reverend Wainwright asks the Doctor how he knows about the Haemovores’ future, the Doctor says “I’ve seen it”. Some commentators (including
The Discontinuity Guide
and the previous editions of this chronology) have presumed that the Haemovore timeline was created when the Ancient One poisoned the Earth, and erased when he/she refrained from doing so, but this isn’t actually said on screen. The Doctor attributes the Haemovore era to “half a million years of industrial progress”, not something as sudden and cataclysmic as a single chemical release.

The next story to deal with Earth is
The Mysterious Planet
, set around the year two million - meaning that if the Haemovore timeline is “real”, there are 1.5 million years for the dying Earth, “its surface a chemical slime”, to recover. It perhaps sounds like a cheat to assume the Earth could simply “get over” such a catastrophe, but it’s no less plausible than the idea that humanity’s homeworld recuperates after the Daleks bombard it with enough firepower to change the shape of the very continents (in
The Parting of the Ways
, set in 200,100).

[
1656
]
Goth Opera,
in which Ruath says the Haemovore timeline is a “possible future” (p44).

[
1657
]
Benny: The Vampire Curse:
“Possum Kingdom”, supporting the “haemovore future” from
The Curse of Fenric
being part of established history.

[
1658
] Dating
K9 and the Missing Planet
(
The Adventures of K9
#4) - It’s after “The human race had swarmed like locusts across the galaxy”. Earth becoming known as Tellus isn’t referenced in any other story, so dating when this could have occurred is a matter of sheer guesswork. That the miners on the unnamed planet have the technological nous to move between universes when they come across Star Crystal, and that they know of the Time Lords, suggests that it’s the far future.

[
1659
] Dating
Timelash
(22.5) - No date given on screen. This has been arbitrarily set in the same year that the Time Traveller met the Eloi and the Morlocks in H.G. Wells’
The Time Machine
. There is no indication on screen exactly when the third Doctor visited Karfel; the novelisation suggests it was “at least one hundred years” before this story, during the time of Katz’s grandfather.

[
1660
]
The Ark

[
1661
] Date unknown, but it’s in the “far distant future” of
To the Death
.

[
1662
] Dating “The Neutron Knights” (
DWM
#60) - No date is given, but if it truly is Earth’s last battle, the story would seem to be set either before
The Ark
or somewhere in vast gap between that story and
The End of the World
. The Doctor speculates that “past and future are flowing into the same event”, which doesn’t really help. It doesn’t seem to be set during the Millenium Wars. While the link isn’t made in either story, it’s been placed during the Primal Wars mentioned in
The Ark
.

[
1663
] Dating “Descendance” / “Ascendance” (
Radio Times
#3785-3804) - No date given. The Doctor and Stacy open the story by witnessing “an early [Martian] period ascendancy rite”, which could equally suggest that this is old Mars before the downfall of Ice Warrior civilisation, or that it’s a traditional rite taking place in contemporary/future times. The surface of Mars is habitable - again, either an indication that it’s prior to the decline of the Martian ecology (
The Judgement of Isskar
), or that it’s after Mars has been terraformed (in stories such as
The Resurrection of Mars
). Either way, there are large Martian cities that modern-day astronomers and space probes would be unlikely to miss.

Two details suggest a future dating: The Martians are familiar with both Christmas and humanity (the Doctor is told, “You have all the outward appearance of a typically human buffoon”). No mention is made of the Federation.
The Silent Stars Go By
establishes that the Martians re-settle Mars at an unspecified point prior to the sun expanding and rendering the planet uninhabitable once more (
The Ark
). So while an old Mars dating is certainly feasible, a future dating was here chosen because the phrases “typically human buffoon” and Ssard’s “It’s the Martian equivalent of what humans call Christmas, Stacy” are rather hard to wave away as figures of speech.

As this was the last entry to be placed in
Ahistory
Third Edition, its exact placement (working to the parameters specified above) was literally chosen using the stairwell method - slips of paper were flung into the air, and the one reading “one million AD” reached the bottom of the stairs first.

[
1664
]
Dragonfire

[
1665
]
The Mysterious Planet

[
1666
] Dating
The Mysterious Planet
(23.1) - The Doctor consults his pocket watch and suggests that it is “two million years” after Peri’s time. Both the camera script and the novelisation confirm this date.
The Terrestrial Index
attempted to rationalise the various “ends of the Earth” seen in the series, but in doing so it ignored virtually every date given on screen. It is claimed, for example, that this story was set “c.14,500”.
The TARDIS Special
gave the date as “two billion” AD, an understandable mishearing of the Doctor’s line.
About Time
speculates that this is the same destruction of Earth seen in
The Ark
(the first Doctor was confused about the date), but doesn’t explain why Time Lords who would covertly sterilise the Earth to prevent their secrets getting out give humanity notice this would happen, and enough notice to build a giant evacuation ship to boot.

The setting reminds Peri of “a wet November”, perhaps suggesting the month. There’s nothing on screen to suggest this isn’t Glitz’s native time.

[
1667
]
The Eight Doctors

[
1668
] Before
Dragonfire
.
The Curse of Fenric
unveiled Fenric’s involvement in Ace arriving in the future.

[
1669
] “Ten hundred million years” (a billion) before
Doctor Who and the Invasion from Space.

[
1670
] Dating
Dragonfire
(24.4) - No date is given on screen, but Glitz’s presence suggests the story takes place after
The Mysterious Planet
. Iceworld services “twelve galaxies”, and Glitz comes from Andromeda, suggesting that intergalactic travel is now routine (and that it’s after Andromeda was colonised). According to the novelisation, Svartos is in the “Ninth galaxy”.

Head Games
claimed it was “a few thousand years into the future”, at the time of the Galactic Federation.
Head Games
also establishes that Earth is devastated at this time, a reference to
The Mysterious Planet
/
The Ultimate Foe
(but one that might also support a dating around the time of the solar flares). Assuming it’s the Galactic Federation from the Peladon stories, that and the dating of
Mission: Impractical
would seem to agree that Glitz’s native time - and the events of
Dragonfire
- is much earlier than two million years in the future. Glitz is working for the Master in
The Mysterious Planet
, so could have been taken to the far future. However, with absolutely no evidence for this, or for Glitz having his own time machine, it seems better to conclude that he was in his native time in
The Mysterious Planet
.

[
1671
] Dating
Head Games
(NA #43) - For Mel, it’s been about two years since
Dragonfire
. It’s here confirmed that Glitz is from the period when Earth was moved to become Ravolox.

The story is vague as to whether the Detrios sequences take place simultaneous to the modern day (2001), when Dr. Who and Jason pick up Mel from Avalone in the future, or in some other time zone entirely. While a contemporary dating
feels
more likely, a future dating is indicated when someone living on Detrios cites the people there as “we humans”, and suggests that the planet’s first settlers were “astronauts” (p91). Previous editions of
Ahistory
dated these sequences to the year 4000.