Lets talk about the Time War...

[Gotham Central]

…or more precisely the end of said event (since we don't know what precipitated the conflict).

One of the things that always bothered me about the depiction of the Doctor's actions in ending the war was that his solution never seemed to really work. If you think about it, the only thing he actually managed to do was kill all the Time Lords. He never successfully eliminated the Daleks. Indeed the Daleks end up powerful enough to threaten to restart the war if Gallifrey returned from the abyss. So all the Doctor really did was kill his own people and leave the universe defenseless against the Daleks.

This is compounded by Doctor Who's rather dubious depiction of time in the first place. One would expect that since the Time War was supposed to have raged across all of time and space (hence the name) and since the Moment was supposed to have eradicated both species from existence that it would have been impossible for the Daleks to "survive."

In retrospect, the new Retcon in "Day of the Doctor" makes some sense and kind of explains away the anomalies. What it does not do is explain what happened to the Dalek fleet once Gallifrey vanished. If the Doctor did not actually use the Moment to end the Time War, then what actually ended the conflict and what happened to the Daleks?

 

[Gov Kodos]

It was never going to work. When the Master, the Daleks, Davros, everything and the kitchen sink could get out, why not the Timelords? Real world, the Daleks are going to get used, they're too much of the iconography of the show not to be. Pretty much the same for the Master. Their inevitable use just leads to asking, if others, why can't Gallifrey and the Timelords come back as well? There is no good answer within the show. There is in the real world, they are great characters. But if they can keep skating by the end of the Time War, well, it gets to be like the Joker not getting iced by someone.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Across time & space and also time locked. That would seem to be it for the "time" part.

All the looks in we got seemed to indicate a somewhat conventional, futuristic war. Lots of shooting.

There were rumors of battle TARDIS's (TARDISes? TARDII?), but we never saw any. Nor any SIDRAT's.

Unless the time lock would reset the war every time. That would be timey wimey.

 

[DWF]

If the Doctor hadn't let the Daleks go at the end of Victory Of The Daleks they wouldn't be at full strength.

 

[shivkala]

I actually think the Retcon makes it more plausible that the Daleks survived the Time War. The Doctor's plan was dumb, he just assumed that the Daleks shooting at Gallifrey all would hit and destroy each other. To me, it's no surprise that they survived, in fact, I'm surprised only a few of them did.

The retcon also fits the theme of "the Doctor could beat the Daleks, but sacrifice other's lives" seen, for example in "The Parting of the Ways" and the aforementioned "Victory of the Daleks."

 

[Sindatur]

I think the bulk of The Time War, was pretty much what we saw with The Great Intelligence (And then Clara) jumping into The Doctor's Time Stream. The Time Lords would go into The Daleks past and change it, to their advantage, then The Daleks would go back and correct it and make it even more to The Dalek Advantage, and so on, and so forth. This caused planets outside the conflict to be destroyed or conquered, or not developed, because they were never conquered, etc, etc across the universe, that's why everyone is so Anti-Time War and Timelord.

Once Time Locked, it became a Conventional War when the Daleks broke through the Dams and landed, and that's where we joined the Time War in The Anniversary Special, and The War Doctor had had enough and stole The Moment.

 

[shivkala]

How would the other races know about the changes to the timeline?

Personally, I like the Time War being something abstract and unthinkable to humans. The constant going back in time was something Moffat used for laughs in "The Curse of the Fatal Death."

 

[M.A.C.O.]

…or more precisely the end of said event (since we don't know what precipitated the conflict).

One of the things that always bothered me about the depiction of the Doctor's actions in ending the war was that his solution never seemed to really work. If you think about it, the only thing he actually managed to do was kill all the Time Lords. He never successfully eliminated the Daleks. Indeed the Daleks end up powerful enough to threaten to restart the war if Gallifrey returned from the abyss. So all the Doctor really did was kill his own people and leave the universe defenseless against the Daleks.

Remember what was revealed by the Doctor and Rassilon in "The End OF Time". Rassilon time lords in his desperation to survive and win the war planned on using The Final Sanction. The Final Sanction would've wiped out the whole of creation and all of time and space. Every surviving Time Lord would've become a being of pure consciousness. That is why the Doctor used The Moment (stated reason in TEOT). It was a lose-lose situation for the Doctor. If he did nothing then all of creation, time and space would be destroyed. If he used The Moment as a preemptive strike to Rassilon's Final Sanction, then all the Time Lords and Daleks would presumably be destroyed. The Doctor chose the lesser of the two evils. As we in the Trek Fandom would say, "The Needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".

"The Day of The Doctor" does not address the dilemma the Doctor was up against in trying to preemptive Rassilon. Instead the use of The Moment is portrayed as an tool to end the war because the Doctor has grown tired of the violence. The 2.47 billion children casualties his trotted out as a justification in the story (via Moffat) to retroactively change Galifrey's fate and the Doctor's decision. It just rings false to me. Rassilon's mad plan to wipe out creation is what inspired The Doctor to end the war using the Moment.

The Doctor's decision may have been ugly, double genocide. But keeping things in perspective, it was either make a decision then and there with the tools he had available or let Rassilon have his way. The Dalek's were never going to win. The Final Sanction would've ended their threat forever. I think the Doctor (9, 10, 11 *pre TDOTD*) was slowly able to reconcile his decision because he had saved all of time and space from destruction. It just cost him a part of his soul.

One of the things that always bothered me about the depiction of the Doctor's actions in ending the war was that his solution never seemed to really work. If you think about it, the only thing he actually managed to do was kill all the Time Lords. He never successfully eliminated the Daleks. Indeed the Daleks end up powerful enough to threaten to restart the war if Gallifrey returned from the abyss. So all the Doctor really did was kill his own people and leave the universe defenseless against the Daleks.

Well to be fair there were not that many Dalek's left from the Time War.

There was the one we saw in the episode "Dalek".

The Four of the Cult of Skaro. Who ran away during the Time War with a Genesis Arc(Time Lord Prison).

The Dalek Emperor's ship with however many Dalek's were left alive on it. After hundreds if not thousands of years, the Emperor had built up the thousands of Dalek's we saw in "The Parting of the Ways".


We know more Time Lords than just The Doctor survived the Time War.

The Master. He ran away like the Cult of Skaro.

All of those Time Lords (a dozen or so) who were killed and salvaged by House for their parts and TARDIS' in "The Doctor's Wife".



** Add Edit***

The 11th Doctor last stated age was 1200 in "A Town Called Mercy". Assume he is still 1200 years old in TDOTD.

The Tenth Doctor died when he was 907. The Tenth Doctor said in "Voyage of the Damned" he was 903.

The Ninth Doctor said he was 900 years old in "Aliens of London".

In The Day of The Doctor, it is said that it was 400 years from when the War Doctor used the Moment to his present incarnation as 11th. That means there is a 100 year gap from when the War Doctor used the Moment and regenerated and when he met Rose. He probably spent that time in a deep depression, wrestling with his conscious, or some other manner of self reflection and or atonement.

 

[Emperor-Tiberius]

My basic beef with the War Doctor existing, is that the ambiguity that the Time War was fought also throughout the OldWho is now gone. Before, with the Eighth being the Doctor that brought everything to an end, RTD's comment about how Genesis and Remembrance oif the Daleks serving as vital points of the War made more sense than they do now. Honestly, thats just about the worst thing of having a whole new incarnation stuck there.

No qualms with the special itself, but the Time War, abstract as it may have always been, doesn't work as nterestingly as before. Now, its all been the War Doctor's thing.

In The Day of The Doctor, it is said that it was 400 years from when the War Doctor used the Moment to his present incarnation as 11th. That means there is a 100 year gap from when the War Doctor used the Moment and regenerated and when he met Rose. He probably spent that time in a deep depression, wrestling with his conscious, or some other manner of self reflection and or atonement.

Or, the Ninth Doctor was 100 years old, said years spent during the closing moments of Rose, when the Doctor left but came back to ask Rose (technically again) to join him by adding that the TARDIS can also travel in time.

Even with the events of The Day of the Doctor in consideration, I always thought the Doctor regenerated directly after he used the Moment. Now, instead of using the Moment, he saved Gallifrey and regenerated shortly after.