"The Time Travellers" question (Spoilers)

[EJA]

Okay, Simon Guerrier's novel The Time Travellers has the First Doctor, Susan, Ian and Barbara visit London in 2006, but in an alternate history where WOTAN (from the TV story The War Machines) partially succeeded in conquering much of the world, and global war and poverty erupted after its defeat in 1969. It's also implied that this is how history was originally meant to turn out, and that the Doctor's actions later in his personal timeline drastically altered things. Now the thing is, in An Unearthly Child, it's shown that Susan is aware that England will have a decimal system in the future. Decimalisation was introduced in England in 1971. So my question is, do the events of the alternate history in the novel specifically prevent this from occuring? I realise this won't seem terribly important to most people, but I just wondered.

Actually, when you think about it, if the Doctor and Susan were already aware of decimalisation by An Unearthly Child, then they would've also already had knowledge of the future shown in The Time Travellers!

 

[JoeZhang]

if you like.

 

[EJA]

if you like.

If I like what?

My point is, after 1969 (according to the novel) England, and other nations of the world, is transformed into a dystopian nightmare, like something out of the Quatermass film. Would decimalisation still occur in such a time? This particular version of history isn't negated until The War Machines.

 

[Count Zero]

Why can't you have war and the decimal system? Societies don't just put everything to a halt due to war, even if it is a devastating one. Just recently, I stumbled upon remarks about archeological excavations taking place in Germany in 1945.

 

[EJA]

Why can't you have war and the decimal system? Societies don't just put everything to a halt due to war, even if it is a devastating one.

You could be right. I don't really know enough about such things to say so either way myself. Of course, then there's still the tiny problem of the Doctor and Susan knowing about events in 1971+ at this time, but having no knowledge of the rest of history as per Guerrier's novel until they arrive in 2006 with Ian and Barbara....

 

[Count Zero]

Maybe she read a maths or science book from the 70s that used the metric system.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

The Time Travellers would have to take place after Unearthly Child in their personal timelines if Ian & Barbara were with them.

So they should have no knowledge of that future....yet.

 

[EJA]

The Time Travellers would have to take place after Unearthly Child in their personal timelines if Ian & Barbara were with them.

So they should have no knowledge of that future....yet.

The Doctor and Susan travelled around together quite a lot prior to meeting and Ian and Barbara, and by implication, visited the future.

Although it should be said that regardless of whatever flaws the book may have, The Time Travellers is still one of the best DW novels ever written.

 

[23skidoo]

The basic question is one that exposes a fundamental (and irreparable) flaw in entire concept of Doctor Who, and as such it simply has to be ignored. Just like Star Trek falls apart if one applies "no one can travel faster than light" to it (well, that applies to virtually all SF in that example). Perhaps the Time Lords wiped certain things from the Doctor's memory in order to orchestrate his later actions in The War Machines.

Also, what's to stop WOTAN from having introduced decimialisation? Actually, if a computer were to take over the world, it would make sense for it to do so. Wasn't that in real life one of the reasons why the UK adopted decimalisation anyway?

Alex

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

Wouldn't a computer introduce binary? Or at least Fortran?