How do so many people know about the Time War? (Spoilers)

[EJA]

The Time War/Time Lords being extinct is a load of twaddle. There, I said it.

 

[Lonemagpie]

The Doctor wandering round telling everybody he meets "I'm the last, they're all gone now" probably helps spread the rumour...

 

[EJA]

The Time Lords being dead in the Ninth Doctor's personal timeline shouldn't have negated the Laws of Time in Father's Day. The Time Lords from before the War would easily have noticed Rose royally botching things up with her antics, and been able to step in. And before anyone says it's because they're time-locked, how did the pre-War Time Lords interact with the rest of the universe in the classic series? I probably didn't state that very well, but I hope you get the idea.

And if the Time Lords are considered extinct in 1580, how can they still exist in 1973, as implied in The Three Doctors? It makes absolutely no goddamn sense!!

 

[Demonland]

And if the Time Lords are considered extinct in 1580, how can they still exist in 1973, as implied in The Three Doctors? It makes absolutely no goddamn sense!!

I agree it makes no sense. But in Doctor Who anything can be explained by Wibbly Wobbly Timey Whimey.

 

[FalTorPan]

Contradictions are hardly a new phenomenon in the Whoniverse. Dalek origins, anyone?

 

[John Picard]

There have been numerous in NuWho of people throughout time and space being aware of Gallifrey's destruction, and the fact that the Doctor is the last Time Lord. In 2006/7, Mr Finch spoke of the Time Lords in the past tense (School Reunion), and in 1580 Rosanna also seemed to be aware of the War (The Vampires of Venice). But it's when one takes the classic series into consideration that things become problematic. In The Three Doctors, it was strongly implied that Gallifrey existed contemporary to Earth in the 1970s. In The Two Doctors, set around 1985, the Time Lords were very much in power, and references made by characters such as Sabalom Glitz implied that they were considered very much alive around 2,000,000 AD, as shown in The Trial of a Time Lord. So how come in the new series, wherever and whenever the Doctor travels, be it past, present or future, the Time Lords are considered long extinct or mythical?

My guess is living in an era of 24/7 news coverage

 

[JoeZhang]

I think the only book to play with these sorts of issues was The Time-travellers which had the first Doctor visit 2006 London - which is a war-torn hell-hole because in his personal time-line, he's not yet been the second doctor and stopped WOTAN.

 

[Brent]

After the Time War ended, the time stream was changed so that anyone in any era who does know about the Time Lords know they are extinct, or near enough. I thought this was made perfectly clear all along?

But it is changed now, Prisoner Zero knew, the Fish Alien lady knew, she knew all about Timelords. It is as if things have changed all the sudden and the Timelords are no longer myth.

 

[EJA]

Contradictions are hardly a new phenomenon in the Whoniverse.

True, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't look for ways to rationalise discrepancies.

 

[Starkers]

I always took the Time War to mean that the Time Lords and Daleks have both been erased from all of history (the Doctor excepted, presumably because he was the one who wielded the Moment), with the "time lock" being the thing that keeps the Time Lords from the old timeline from re-writing themselves back into the current timeline. I'd theorize that species with an awareness of the effects of time travel would sense history being re-written and retain some awareness of what the Time Lords (and Daleks) were, even if they didn't actually have any living memory of them.

The Sontarans knew about the Time War though, and it was more than a vague awareness of it because they were still hacked off they weren't able to be involved

 

[David cgc]

I wonder who's side they would've been on. Did the Sontarans ever fight the Daleks in the classic series? Even if they didn't, I suppose they'd be too prideful to accept some kind of deal with the devil to be one of their vassals like the Cleverly Named Creatures the Doctor mentioned in "End of Time."

See, now, they were lucky, though. If they'd took part in the Time War, they would've been at Gallifrey with everyone else in the end, and then who'd be around to fuck up those Rutan scum?

After the Time War ended, the time stream was changed so that anyone in any era who does know about the Time Lords know they are extinct, or near enough. I thought this was made perfectly clear all along?

But it is changed now, Prisoner Zero knew, the Fish Alien lady knew, she knew all about Timelords. It is as if things have changed all the sudden and the Timelords are no longer myth.

Well, the only people who seemed to refer to the Time Lords as legends were people who would've heard about them second-hand. Advanced enough to be friendly with time-sensitive peoples, but not actually time-sensitive themselves. The Krillitane in "School Reunion" seemed to have a personal knowledge of the Time Lords, and Captain Jack implied more than once that he'd had dealings with both Daleks and Time Lords back before The Unpleasantness.

 

[Starkers]

I'd like the think the Sontarans would have sided with the Timelords, but who knows! Maybe whichever side the Rutans didn't side with?

Even though Jabe seemed to suggest Timelords were mythical, her scanner seemde to identify the 9th Doctor really quickly.

 

[John Picard]

I'd like the think the Sontarans would have sided with the Timelords, but who knows! Maybe whichever side the Rutans didn't side with?

Even though Jabe seemed to suggest Timelords were mythical, her scanner seemde to identify the 9th Doctor really quickly.

Wars don't always have to be fought with only two sides.

 

[Cyke101]

It makes absolutely no goddamn sense!!

Only if you try to think of it in a strictly linear sense, which again, is not the nature of time as defined by this show. There are also ways that time can progress sideways, up and down, diagonally, in parallels and right angles, and in more dimensions than is conventionally known. Heck, their archenemies very nearly destroyed the omniverse, future and past (retroactive destruction) -- if the Daleks can do that (which makes even less sense), there's no telling how the Time Lords truly operate.

http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Gallifreyan_history
http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Last_Great_Time_War

I'm willing to be that if you cross-reference the cited episodes with the dates they're set in, you'd also get a similar mishmash of events... while they may be linear for Gallifrey, that doesn't necessarily mean they're in line with the rest of how time flows for the universe.

Additionally, the Time War wasn't just fought over a large area and over a prolonged period of time, but it was also fought via time travel. In some cases, the Doctor battled the Daleks in non-linear stages of time, say one battle took place in the far future, while a later battle occurred in the past. And yet the Time Lords and the Daleks weren't the only ones who were aware of such events; you would think a later battle in the past would make the previous battle in the future irrelevant (which would happen if time were truly linear), but that's not the case and probably lead to even greater escalation.

Lastly, there's also the crack. We saw what happened when the clerics, who weren't time travelers, fell into the crack: their entire timeline was wiped out of existence. That wasn't the case with time travelers who could perceive time differently than the rest of us. The Angels, River, the Doctor, and Amy all perceived it differently, as did the recent vampires. The vampires fell through, but their timelines weren't wiped out and they maintained their history. Perhaps a similar effect is how time-aware species can know about something as devastating as the Time War.

 

[The Wormhole]

Humans seem to be aware of it by Jack's time or least the Time Agency did. He was aware of Gallifrey at least as a legend, he was also aware of regeneration. Or Jack just gets around and someone who told him.

There is obviously no disputing the "legends of Gallifrey" Jack heard about were probably from the 51st century, I always assumed that his knowledge of regeneration came from his life in the 20th century. I'm sure Torchwood or UNIT mentioned it in one of their files on the Doctor.

 

[Sci]

There is obviously no disputing the "legends of Gallifrey" Jack heard about were probably from the 51st century,

I rather imagine that Gallifrey is to the rest of the galaxy throughout time as Atlantis is to us -- a legendary, semi-mythical civilization that was said to be far more advanced than anyone else but mysteriously destroyed.

Think of the Doctor as the last of the Atlanteans.

 

[Psion]

There is obviously no disputing the "legends of Gallifrey" Jack heard about were probably from the 51st century,

I rather imagine that Gallifrey is to the rest of the galaxy throughout time as Atlantis is to us -- a legendary, semi-mythical civilization that was said to be far more advanced than anyone else but mysteriously destroyed.

Think of the Doctor as the last of the Atlanteans.

That's a brilliant comparison and it adds to the fairy tale quality of Doctor Who. As Cyke101's post suggests to me, no matter when in the history you are, the Timelords and their legendary accomplishments and struggle against the Daleks are a thing of the distant past -- the same distance back, as though that piece of history has taken a right angle to the usual linear perception of time.

 

[Starkers]

I'd like the think the Sontarans would have sided with the Timelords, but who knows! Maybe whichever side the Rutans didn't side with?

Even though Jabe seemed to suggest Timelords were mythical, her scanner seemde to identify the 9th Doctor really quickly.

Wars don't always have to be fought with only two sides.

Hmm, well I guess the Sontarans are probably fanatical enough to fight both sides...

But it would be a bit like America fighting China whilst Britain tries to fight both of them!

 

[EJA]

Ok, so why didn't the Time Lords from before the War show up during Father's Day and other moments in the new series where time went all pear-shaped? We know they still exist, as the Tenth Doctor met his fifth self in Time Crash.

Let's be honest here: The entire premise of the Time War/post-Gallifreyan era, and therefore the whole new series, is seriously flawed.

 

[Stevil2001]

Let's be honest here: The entire premise of the Time War/post-Gallifreyan era, and therefore the whole new series, is seriously flawed.

Not really.