When is the Doctor from?

[Crewman47]

I've looked up on a bit about the Gallifreyan calendar and I found that the Doctor was born around the Rassilon era, when specifically I can't find out, but various sources also aren't clear as to when these eras are when compared to our calendar.

I was just wondering, then, if any hints or anything were ever given as to when the "present" day scenes on Gallifrey (during the early seasons), or the Doctors own present were ever dated? I mean is the Rassilon era in Earth's past or future, or does it run in sync with Earths timeline?

Any thoughts?

 

[Starkers]

I always got the impression that Gallifrey exists out of linear time.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

It's pretty vague, isn't it? The Three Doctors for instance seems to be suggesting that events on Gallifrey are unfolding in the present time - whereas Trial of a Time Lord might suggest that it's all happening two million years in the future. Then again, some of the books have implied that the Doctor's time is in the ancient past. So yes, I think the notion that Gallifrey exists outside of linear time, and can intersect with it at various different points seems the most attractive.

 

[Andrew_Kearley]

It's pretty vague, isn't it? The Three Doctors for instance seems to be suggesting that events on Gallifrey are unfolding in the present time - whereas Trial of a Time Lord might suggest that it's all happening two million years in the future. Then again, some of the books have implied that the Doctor's time is in the ancient past. So yes, I think the notion that Gallifrey exists outside of linear time, and can intersect with it at various different points seems the most attractive.

 

[FalTorPan]

In the television series, I don't believe we've ever seen the Doctor travel to Gallifrey at a point in its time stream which is definitively before any other point in its time stream that he's already visited. In other words it's possible that it's not possible for the Doctor to travel back in time as it pertains to Gallifrey.

The Lungbarrow story shows this sort of time travel, but even in that story it's not depicted as a routine activity.

 

[The Wormhole]

I like the theory that Gallifrey existed in our past, and that's what I stick to.

 

[Tom]

Yes it would seem that the Doctor, the Master and Gallifry run at the same linier time seperate to everything else in the universe.

 

[Tom]

I would have liked an episode where the Doctor wakes up and finds himself on old Galifry. He finds out he is really in the body of another time lord (think quantum leap) and must find out how he got there, stop a disaster, and not tell anyone what fate will befall the planet in the future. This way you can have a Gallifry story with out interfering with established events.

 

[Marc]

In the television series, I don't believe we've ever seen the Doctor travel to Gallifrey at a point in its time stream which is definitively before any other point in its time stream that he's already visited. In other words it's possible that it's not possible for the Doctor to travel back in time as it pertains to Gallifrey.

The Lungbarrow story shows this sort of time travel, but even in that story it's not depicted as a routine activity.

Isn't that part of the function of the transduction barriers - to prevent anyone travelling to Gallifrey's past or future that's outside of the person's time line?

 

[Guy Gardener]

which means that the barriers existed before the machinery to sustain them (the eye of harmony?)was created. Which means they may have mistaken the transenduction barriers as a natural effect at first, then as an effect by an outside force possible some one manipulating their evolution, then by the time they figured out that it was an invention of their future selves they had to decide when to build the barriers and not accidentally cause a paradox by building them too early or too late.

The Osirans though of the timelords (Pyramids of Death.)as a young race and that was barely a few million years ago when they built that power station on Mars and locked up Sutek on earth.

omega was a boyhood hero of legend tot he doctor. Rassilon cock blocked Omega's glory hounding. Who the fuck names their kid Omega?

That fat kid from BSG1980 got saddled with the same distinction.

 

[Stevil2001]

^ No one named him "Omega" according to the audio dramas. It was a nickname he acquired after receiving the first-ever grade of "omega"--complete and utter failure--from the Prydonian Academy. His birthname was Peylix.

 

[Rowan Sjet]

Yes it would seem that the Doctor, the Master and Gallifry run at the same linier time seperate to everything else in the universe.

Yeah, I liked that theory too until i nitpicked it a bit more. Say for instance the events of the season 3 ending trilogy occurred with Gallifrey still around. The Master goes back in time and the Doctor follows but arrives months later. He manages to grab the Master and decides to take him back to Gallifrey in the Tardis. Someone will be out of sync when they get there.

 

[Guy Gardener]

tThe hot tree girl from when the earth got eaten by the sun said that the Time lords had been extinct for an impossibly long time, although that was the year 5 million.

Was time changed?

The master says that he couldn't find galifrey?

But he's been fluttering around this era in earths history for a while, like when he was pretending to be a judge on that colony episode, surely he would have noticed if his home world had disappeared... Especially if the eye of harmony was gone if all travel capsules are powered by the same super nova caught in a time loop that it is exploding for the first time forever...

Ravalox? During the trial of the timelord. they moved earth, so who moved it back?

The Shadow Procomation lassy said that time lords were supposed to be extinct too.

 

[Chaos Descending]

tThe hot tree girl from when the earth got eaten by the sun said that the Time lords had been extinct for an impossibly long time, although that was the year 5 million.

Billion. Not million.

 

[23skidoo]

I subscribe to the "time is irrelevant" theory with regards to Gallifrey. As befitting a race like that. It's also one of the only ways of getting your head around Gallifrey being sealed off from the rest of the universe, and from all times, yet allowing stories like Three Doctors, The War Games and Arc of Infinity to still happen (though possibly this might explain why Ten and Sarah Jane appear to not remember The Five Doctors - the Sarah Jane Adventures episode Death of the Doctor includes another line of dialogue (which I won't spoil) further suggesting SJ has no memory of those events.

Alex

 

[Chaos Descending]

It still makes me wonder how the Sontarans were able to access Gallifrey for their invasion if Gallifrey exists "out of time" somehow.

 

[Marc]

It still makes me wonder how the Sontarans were able to access Gallifrey for their invasion if Gallifrey exists "out of time" somehow.

Inside help - some-one open the gates and they flooded in.

 

[Chaos Descending]

If Gallifrey was "outside of time", how could they ever reach the "gates".

My point was, The Invasion of Time strongly hints that Gallifrey is just a regular planet in regular space.

They even seemed to have something like "Space Traffic Control".

 

[RoJoHen]

It seems to me that Gallifrey existed in normal time until the Time War began, at which point the universe was in a constant state of flux where history was being written and rewritten over and over again. The Time War happened at different points in time across the whole of creation, and maybe, much like Amy and the Cracks, different parts of the universe remember the Time Lords differently depending on how they were affected by the Time War.

However, it's pretty clear to me that Gallifrey, at one point, existed in the past of regular linear time. That's how so many people across the universe know what the Time Lords were and understand the tragedy of the fall of Gallifrey.

 

[Karnbeln]

We've seen that the universe can be threatened by something that exists outside of time and shows up at all points in history, yet the Doctor doesn't encounter it or see any evidence of its effects until a certain point in his own personal history. The example that immediately comes to mind (but there are obviously earlier examples) is the cracks in time. Tom Baker didn't see the cracks, and he and his companions were not affected by all of time imploding on itself in the series 5 finale. Neither are future doctors, presumably. This seems to indicate a linearity outside of the standard flow of time the Doctor travels through. Let's call it hypertime for the moment.

All the has happened or will happen, the entire state of the flow of time, exists as a moment in hypertime. Like things change over time, time changes over hypertime. Before the Time War, Gallifrey existed in Earth's past and in Earth's future. After the Time War, it existed in neither. "Before" and "after" in this case means before and after a point in hypertime. One hypermoment, Gallifrey existed, and evidence of that could be seen throughout history. The next, our time was rewritten so only the Doctor existed. This happens constantly in hypertime.

Time travellers move at will through our 4 dimensional time, but no matter how far back or how far forward they travel, their perceptions move forward linearly in hypertime just as assuredly as ours do in normal time.

Gallifrey exists outside of normal time, but moves forward linearly in hypertime, which is why "time travel" is impossible in regards to it and we only see linear progress. The "higher races" that remember Gallifrey have some perception of hypertime.

Hopefully, this post makes sense, rather than sounding like the "Time Cube" page. Just think of it as time itself having time.