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Post by mrperson on Jul 28, 2021 19:21:28 GMT
So.... one thing that continues to bug me a bit: the existence of a "pre-time War universe." See, before this series was even thought up, one thing that always bugged me about the new series is that it simply made no sense that the Doctor could no longer run into any other Timelords who are in their own timelines pre-Time-War. Right now, the 4th Doctor and Romana are running around Paris in the year 1979. They are always there unless and until that history is rewritten. As seven says in one of the BF eps, everyone he meets is both dead and alive. Similarly, Axos is always attempting to siphon energy from Earth in March 1971. And Caesar always crosses the Rubicon at a particular date and time. A time traveler can visit any of these, provided the historical event hasn't been changed by someone else. So why couldn't post-Time-War doctors ever run into pre-time-war other timelords? It's not like Timelord incarnations are always lined up when they meet. We have Simm turning into Missy at some point during/before 12's reign. But then... 12 runs into Simm's Master, too. So while they may only visit Gallifrey chronologically (relative to their own timeline, that is), they seem to be able to run into each other out of sync. (There's also your multi-doctor stories). It was suggested that the Time War rewrote history so comprehensively that the "pre Time War universe" does not exist anymore, and that this in some way explains why 11 couldn't accidentally run into the Beavers Master; why reboot Doctor was (temporarily) truly the 'last of the timelords'. But now, there is very much a "pre Time War universe" and a "post Time War universe", and one can travel between them (albeit in the rather unique fashion presented here). I probably shouldn't bother thinking much about it, but it does seem....odd. The Doctor can run into old Masters. Eleven confronts Ainley in IDW’s Prisoners of Time and Twelve battles Delagado in DWM’s Doorway to Hell. So its not the case that classic stuff ceased to exist. There was a version of the universe before the Time War kicked off. Where Bliss studied robotics ( Companion Piece), where the First Doctor travelled directly from Cornwall to the South Pole ( First Doc Companion Chronicles) and Ogrons weren’t present when the Third Doctor encountered the Daleks ( Planet of the Ogrons). Then the Time War happened and time was altered, un-altered and altered again numerous times. Eventually the temporal cataclysm ceases, its battles inaccessible in a time lock, but the universe was changed. Now the First Doctor got detoured on the way to the South Pole, and always did, now Ogrons battled the Third Doctor, and always did, and now Bliss studied physics and travelled with the Doctor, and always did. Same universe, and all the things that once existed in it still do just potentially altered. So all the Masters are still running around somewhere, as are all the Doctors. (Tangent-Those examples are just specifics things it’s been explicitly said the Time War changed, you might also attribute literally any inconsistencies between classics and new series to these alterations. For example, I theorise the Mars Probe space program of The Ambassadors of Death got erased, hence why a probe getting to Mars is such a big deal in The Christmas Invasion. The world of 2018 presented in The Enemy of the World was another casualty, becoming the more familiar present day presented in Series 11 onwards. But I digress.) As for travelling between those iterations of the universe, it’s courtesy of jumping a time track. That’s how back in The Space Museum the Doctor and co briefly got to a timeline where they’d been imprisoned in the museum already, and that’s how the Tenth Doctor accidentally gets to the pre-Time War version of the universe in Prisoner of the Daleks. Dalek Universe doesn’t say the words time track at any point, but I reckon that’s what’s happened when Ten got abducted by a time tunnel. As concepts go, it’s a bit convoluted but fundamentally is just a plot device. Hmm..when I think of the term "time track", I think of episodes like Aquitaine, where the characters are at different points in time at the same general area and in the same reality. Which also covers the Space Museum: they did, in fact, get imprisoned, but were then able to rewrite that future and thus avoid it. I suppose the relevant question would be: ok, but could the 4th Doctor now go back to the pre-rewrite version, where his 1st incarnation and crew were successfully imprisoned? Is that a "place" that still exists in the sense that the parts of the "pre Time War" universe 10 is running around in exist? Or, did that future never happen and therefore cannot be visited because of what 1 pulled off in that episode?
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Post by grinch on Jul 28, 2021 19:22:46 GMT
The Doctor can run into old Masters. Eleven confronts Ainley in IDW’s Prisoners of Time and Twelve battles Delagado in DWM’s Doorway to Hell. So its not the case that classic stuff ceased to exist. There was a version of the universe before the Time War kicked off. Where Bliss studied robotics ( Companion Piece), where the First Doctor travelled directly from Cornwall to the South Pole ( First Doc Companion Chronicles) and Ogrons weren’t present when the Third Doctor encountered the Daleks ( Planet of the Ogrons). Then the Time War happened and time was altered, un-altered and altered again numerous times. Eventually the temporal cataclysm ceases, its battles inaccessible in a time lock, but the universe was changed. Now the First Doctor got detoured on the way to the South Pole, and always did, now Ogrons battled the Third Doctor, and always did, and now Bliss studied physics and travelled with the Doctor, and always did. Same universe, and all the things that once existed in it still do just potentially altered. So all the Masters are still running around somewhere, as are all the Doctors. (Tangent-Those examples are just specifics things it’s been explicitly said the Time War changed, you might also attribute literally any inconsistencies between classics and new series to these alterations. For example, I theorise the Mars Probe space program of The Ambassadors of Death got erased, hence why a probe getting to Mars is such a big deal in The Christmas Invasion. The world of 2018 presented in The Enemy of the World was another casualty, becoming the more familiar present day presented in Series 11 onwards. But I digress.) As for travelling between those iterations of the universe, it’s courtesy of jumping a time track. That’s how back in The Space Museum the Doctor and co briefly got to a timeline where they’d been imprisoned in the museum already, and that’s how the Tenth Doctor accidentally gets to the pre-Time War version of the universe in Prisoner of the Daleks. Dalek Universe doesn’t say the words time track at any point, but I reckon that’s what’s happened when Ten got abducted by a time tunnel. As concepts go, it’s a bit convoluted but fundamentally is just a plot device. Hmm..when I think of the term "time track", I think of episodes like Aquitaine, where the characters are at different points in time at the same general area and in the same reality. Which also covers the Space Museum: they did, in fact, get imprisoned, but were then able to rewrite that future and thus avoid it. I suppose the relevant question would be: ok, but could the 4th Doctor now go back to the pre-rewrite version, where his 1st incarnation and crew were successfully imprisoned? Is that a "place" that still exists in the sense that the parts of the "pre Time War" universe 10 is running around in exist? Or, did that future never happen and therefore cannot be visited because of what 1 pulled off in that episode? I suppose we can always cough and mutter something about The Axis but I’m not really sure if that’s even a thing anymore.
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Post by theillusiveman on Jul 28, 2021 20:16:17 GMT
Individual Cover art and story titles have been released
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Post by theillusiveman on Jul 28, 2021 20:17:14 GMT
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Post by mrperson on Jul 28, 2021 22:05:08 GMT
Hmm..when I think of the term "time track", I think of episodes like Aquitaine, where the characters are at different points in time at the same general area and in the same reality. Which also covers the Space Museum: they did, in fact, get imprisoned, but were then able to rewrite that future and thus avoid it. I suppose the relevant question would be: ok, but could the 4th Doctor now go back to the pre-rewrite version, where his 1st incarnation and crew were successfully imprisoned? Is that a "place" that still exists in the sense that the parts of the "pre Time War" universe 10 is running around in exist? Or, did that future never happen and therefore cannot be visited because of what 1 pulled off in that episode? I suppose we can always cough and mutter something about The Axis but I’m not really sure if that’s even a thing anymore.
Heh.
One way or another, the answer is going to involve that in some form. If Tolkien had invented Gallifreyan and written all Doctor Who to flesh it out, we'd probably have an answer that made perfect in-universe sense. But seeing as Who was written by myriad writers over 50+ years in myriad mediums...... nope.
These are the things I end up thinking about when my mind refuses to shut up, which unfortunately is....always
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Post by thelonecenturion on Jul 29, 2021 8:18:31 GMT
So, re: pre- and post-Time War universes, I've just found this comment from Dorney on Reddit: "If it helps, I don’t think it’s ’before‘ and ‘after’ as it would be with a conventional war (when 1935 is ’before’ WW2 and 1955 ‘after’). There isn’t a year it starts and a year it finishes. In fact I don’t really believe the Time War should really have a conventional ‘beginning’ in any way (I mean, I appreciate it’s ambiguous but I’ve always intended Starship of Theseus to be the Doctor’s first encounter with it - where it isn’t happening… and then it’s suddenly been happening for years. One of the reasons I’m a bit grumpy any speculative timeline puts any Time War related 8th Doctor story before it, does rather negate the point and make him seem a bit callous to my eye!). But in terms of the Doctor‘s timeline (and that of the Time Lords and Daleks) there clearly is a universe in which they’re not fighting the Time War (the classic series), and a universe when the Time War is over and done (the new series) and the Doctor has crossed from one to the other (despite this basically being borderline impossible). So the Doctor can literally be in the exact same time and place but on different sides of the war. If that’s a little confusing, I’d argue that’s exactly how it should be as the Time War is a battle fought by beings who live four dimensionally and shouldn’t be wholly comprehensible to those of us who have to limit ourselves to three."
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Post by Chakoteya on Jul 29, 2021 8:23:38 GMT
** Waits patiently for some clever-clogs to write their Doctoral Thesis on this temporal dilemma. **
(Hey, some people have used Trek time-travel and social dynamics as bases for theirs, so why not? )
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Post by mrperson on Jul 29, 2021 22:02:57 GMT
So, re: pre- and post-Time War universes, I've just found this comment from Dorney on Reddit: "If it helps, I don’t think it’s ’before‘ and ‘after’ as it would be with a conventional war (when 1935 is ’before’ WW2 and 1955 ‘after’). There isn’t a year it starts and a year it finishes. In fact I don’t really believe the Time War should really have a conventional ‘beginning’ in any way (I mean, I appreciate it’s ambiguous but I’ve always intended Starship of Theseus to be the Doctor’s first encounter with it - where it isn’t happening… and then it’s suddenly been happening for years. One of the reasons I’m a bit grumpy any speculative timeline puts any Time War related 8th Doctor story before it, does rather negate the point and make him seem a bit callous to my eye!). But in terms of the Doctor‘s timeline (and that of the Time Lords and Daleks) there clearly is a universe in which they’re not fighting the Time War (the classic series), and a universe when the Time War is over and done (the new series) and the Doctor has crossed from one to the other (despite this basically being borderline impossible). So the Doctor can literally be in the exact same time and place but on different sides of the war. If that’s a little confusing, I’d argue that’s exactly how it should be as the Time War is a battle fought by beings who live four dimensionally and shouldn’t be wholly comprehensible to those of us who have to limit ourselves to three."
It sounds like he sees the issue I was trying to describe in other terms, and has arrived at a somewhat similar solution: because reasons, now enjoy the story!
I do very much appreciate attempts to make sense of this stuff, but at the end of the day it would be a miracle if there weren't things that didn't make sense in fiction about something that shouldn't be possible given what we know and if it is possible we could not possibly understand now....
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Post by Deleted on Aug 6, 2021 8:47:31 GMT
I listened to both Vol. 1 and 2 over the last week or so. I thought Vol. 2 was a lot better than the first set, honestly. All the stuff with The Lost felt kinda like House in The Doctor's Wife but in a totally different story. It was very much a character piece. For Anne Kel.....Anya to discover the truth about The Doctor's history with her family but also the truth about his attitudes to death and pain...that he has to keep running or he'll have to face it. "He doesn't like endings" as River said, once. I liked exploring how The Doctor feels about Anne's death...even though she was never real. That was kinda lovely given he did the same with Nurse Redfern in Human Nature/Family Of Blood. I don't know if that connection was intended but it's certainly there. He too convinced someone to love him while "not himself". I like that kinda symmetry. Mark being killed off felt a little too soon but I guess that's in keeping with the Master Plan sorta setting, really. Sudden, shocking deaths. At least he got a real full ep about his "people" before he went. Nice cliffhanger too. Those words in a Dalek voice? That was a real "What? WHAT?"....what?" worthy of an RTD finale. Good decision to churn these out kinda fast too, makes it feel more of a series.
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Post by nottenst on Sept 13, 2021 15:13:59 GMT
Just finished The Lost. It was another enjoyable set. I was surprised by the fate of Mark 7. It seemed too as as @davygallgher mentions above.
I am looking forward to the next set. I still need to listen to the Behind the Scenes and read everyone's comments.
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Post by Tim Bradley on Mar 24, 2022 8:03:30 GMT
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Post by mark687 on Feb 27, 2023 19:39:54 GMT
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Mar 1, 2023 4:16:35 GMT
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