CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: 

Part 2 of The Tymecian version of Dalek History (a.k.a - The Right Version)

This one's a long one. So I've decided to break it down a bit and will release the chapters over the next little while so that it's a bit more digestible! Since the entire essay is complete, the wait between posts won't be quite as long as it normally is....

PART TWO:   THE WARS AGAINST EARTH AND THE RETURN OF DAVROS

Having been forced off Skaro, the Daleks were roaming through the cosmos in two distinct versions.    The solar-powered Mark Threes probably stayed in space as much as possible but sent the Mark Twos down to various planets to be employed as occupation forces.    It's likely they attacked various worlds in this way.   The Mark Threes would form blockades around an alien planet so that other neighbouring worlds could not assist in resisting the invasion.   And then the Mark Twos would go down to the surface of the blockaded planet to subjugate and plunder.  

            

Most likely, the Doctor in his Second Incarnation had several unseen adventures against the Daleks during this period.   Which is why the Second Doctor was easilly recognizeable to the Daleks during  Power of the Daleks. From the Doctor’s perspective, he had these clashes against the Daleks sometime after his encounter with them in Evil of the Daleks.   

            

Of course, our space-faring Mark Threes were also into exploring the universe.   All kinds of scout ships were sent out in this era.   Not all of them came back, though.    One of those scoutships crashed on the planet Vulcan.  A planet that was eventually colonised by humans from the planet Earth.   The story of Power of the Daleks takes place.

    

There seems to be some controversy with the dating of Power of the Daleks. From what I’ve heard of the audio tracks and seen of the still images, there is no clear indication of the date this story takes place. I believe a Radio Times listing claims it is 2020 - which seems a bit too early. Space travel technology seems a bit too sophisticated for a 2020 Earth society to handle (either that, or we make some huge strides in the next 5 years). It is obvious Power takes place before Dalek Invasion of Earth as the humans don’t seem to recognize the Daleks they’ve revived. I would be more inclined to think this is a late 21^st Century/Early 22^nd Century timeline that we’re dealing with.

While some expeditions into Deep Space are failing, the Mark Twos and Threes are gaining more and more ambition as they invade more and more planets.   Perhaps, at this point, they might have even had a close brush or two with the Cybermen.  They delve into the Cybermen's past and are inspired by their use of the planet Mondas.    And while the scout ship on Vulcan never returns to the Dalek fleet, other scout ships have come back from Earth-occupied Space.    Reports are logged and the Daleks have noted the abundancy of rescources on Earth.   They also note that Earth is expanding quickly and could become a formidable foe if they are not nipped in the bud, soon.   So the Daleks decide to attack the planet Earth and create their own version of Mondas.    A planet they can pilot around the universe, too.

            

And so, Dalek Invasion of Earth ensues and their plans are ruined.    This is a most crippling loss to the Dalek War Effort.    Before the lifeless Mark Twos can be recovered, the Mark Threes are attacked by a spacefleet assembled from Earth's colony worlds and driven back to their own end of the cosmos.    It is for this reason that we only ever see the solar-powered Dalek from this point onward.   The other model is never used again.    The failure to invade Earth also becomes the Daleks' first actual battle that they've lost.   And while they continue to invade other parts of the Universe - what happened on Earth is never forgotten.   The Daleks vow that they will, someday, take revenge.

            

During this period of time where the Daleks have turned away from Earth, the Third Doctor probably had a few unseen run-ins with them.   These adventures probably take place after his exile but before he meets Sarah Jane Smith (Sarah doesn't recognise the Daleks in Death to the Daleks).   Which would explain why the Daleks know what his third body looks like in such stories as  Frontier In Space, Planet of the Daleks and Death to the Daleks.   

            

After a few years of conquest in other parts of the Universe, however, the Daleks do finally return their attention to Earth and its ascociated colonies.  The first attempt at the Daleks' revenge on Humanity doesn't happen until some centuries after Dalek Invasion of Earth.   The Daleks turn their eyestalks back to that end of the galaxy, but they have become cleverer this time.    They decide to intentionally weaken Earth's forces before engaging them in intergalactic war.    And, of course, we witness the events of Frontier In Space.

            

Sometime between these two stories, we might guess that the Daleks poked around near or even on Skaro and re-established some sort of contact with the Thals.   This incited the peace-loving species to take action against them, again.   Having never taken much interest in space travel, they, at last, develop prototype space vessels and use them to begin assaulting the Dalek Fleet.     They discover their operations on the distant planet of Spiridon and a mission is sent there to investigate.    And Planet of the Daleks takes place.  

            

Even though their pre-war efforts have been thwarted, the Daleks are still resolved to fight the human menace and decide to engage Earth's forces.   Or, perhaps, Daleks can just hold on to a grudge forever and can't resist avenging their loss way back in the 22nd Century. Whatever the case, a legitimate Space War ensues.  Most likely, during this particular war, the Thals are finally wiped out.   As we never seem to hear from them again after Planet.

            

As we all know, there are problems with a Plague near the end of the huge Earth/Dalek Space War.    In an effort to cure that plague, an expedition is sent to the Planet Exillon where large deposits of paranium have been detected.    Death to the Daleks takes place at this point.  

            

We can't be sure of exactly how the Space War between Humanity and the Daleks ended.   It seems certain, however, that Earth came out on top of things.   Whether the Daleks withdrew in defeat or became busy in other parts of the cosmos - none can say for sure.   But Earth seemed free of the Dalek Menace by the time we start hitting the 27th Century.

            

However, the Daleks were still holding that grudge and want to conquer the Earth in some way.   Political machinations, plague and full frontal attack had all failed.   As they look for a more lateral approach, they end up making one of their most pivotal discoveries: 

            

Time Travel. 

            

Unable to defeat Earth in the present, they explore the Fourth Dimension and attempt to go back into the past to manipulate Human history to their advantage.   Somehow, their meddling creates an alternative timeline in which Earth's Cold War ends up resolving in much the same way theirs' did back when they were merely Dals on Skaro.    Humanity is ravaged by atomic bombs and the Daleks can easily come in and take control of the planet. 

            

And so, Day of the Daleks takes place.   It should be noted that the Space Wars of 26th Century have actually done a lot of damage to Dalek Records and they, at first, don't recognise this incarnation of the Time Lord.  Only after a brain scan is his identity verified.   

            

With this second conquest of 22nd Century Earth now averted, the Daleks temporarilly give up the fight to defeat the Earth and turn their attention elsewhere.   A short time later, they meet the Movellans and declare war on them.    

            

Of course, the Great Empasse ensues as neither side could bring themselves' to launch an attack against the other.   In an effort to eliminate the stalemate, the Daleks return to Skaro to unearth their creator.   The Movellans send a mission of their own to stop them.   Destiny of the Daleks now happens.   Again, one should note the conspicuous abscence of Thals on Skaro during this story.   Either they've been wiped out - or they've left Skaro and live somewhere else.    It's highly unlikely that the Daleks could be running a mining operation on Skaro if the Thals were still there.   We would have, at least, seen some sort of effort on the Thals' behalf to stop the operation.

            

We also see what appears to be a far more elaborate underground bunker in Destiny of the Daleks than the one we saw in Genesis of the Daleks. If you refer back to Chapter One of the essay, you’ll see that I mentioned that the Mark Threes seriously expanded the bunker during their Great Wait. At some point, the Fourth Doctor must’ve had an unseen adventure in the expanded bunker (a second covert mission for the Time Lords, perhaps?) as he knows his way around it quite well.   

            

Sometime around this era, a Dalek is plucked out of Time and Space and sent to the Death Zone on Gallifrey (The Five Doctors).   

            

The progression of stories is quite evident for the next little while since continuity in Dalek stories is quite tight during the 80s.   The Daleks lose the war against the Movellans and Davros is rescued from his prison to help the survivors of the Movellan virus.   Ressurection of the Daleks takes place, here.

            

How Davros survives the virus and ends up on Necros is a bit vague.   One gets the impression that a few unseen skirmishes may have taken place between the Sixth Doctor and the Dalek Creator between Ressurection and Revelation (Davros seems to instantly recognise the Sixth Doctor and can even build statues in his likeness - perhaps these confrontations occur in the Doctor's timeline somewhere between Trial of a Time Lord and Time and the Rani since Peri doesn't seem to recognise a Dalek or Davros).  Eventually, however,  the Sixth Doctor is lured to Necros and we see the events of Revelation of the Daleks.

            

Again, how Davros survives his fate at the end of this story is uncertain.   But much happens between Revelation and Remembrance.   He is brought back to Skaro and put on trial (the Daleks, weakened from their war effort against the Movelllans, "return to their ancestral seat" and become planet-bound again for a time)  Davros, for some reason, is not punished for his treachery against the Daleks.   In fact, he somehow manages to create a Civil War.  In the process of doing this, he becomes a self-appointed Emperor (or, more than likely, clones another head and makes that the Emperor while he remains hidden, somewhere) and a renegade faction still loyal to the Supreme Dalek splinters off and begins openly fighting the Imperial Daleks. 

            

In this political climate, the events of Remembrance of the Daleks take place.   

            

Now, the destruction of the planet Skaro does create some predicaments for future continuity.    But the Doctor does explicitly state that he sent the Hand of Omega some "thousand years into the future" from the date of 1963 (he loves doing things in "millenial chunks" when it comes to Daleks, doesn't he?)   This would mean that Skaro is destined for destruction sometime in or around the mid 29th Century.    But the Daleks we see in Remembrance are, more than likely, only from the 28th Century.  So they still have a little time left before their homeworld is obliterated forever.   In fact, it's entirely possible that the Daleks spent nearly another century on Skaro knowing it was doomed.  

CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: 

The Tymecian version of Dalek History (a.k.a - The Right Version)

This one's a long one. So I've decided to break it down a bit and will release the chapters over the next little while so that it's a bit more digestible! Since the entire essay is complete, the wait between posts won't be quite as long as it normally is....

This is one of my favorite things to postulate regarding long-term villains and/or monsters in Doctor Who: How, exactly, does their history play out within the context of the stories that have been shown about them. While adventures involving Daleks have happened in one order in the Doctor's timeline - the fact that he has traveled through Time means that, from the Dalek's perspective, their experience of him has happened in an entirely different way. And that's part of what makes Dalek stories so fun - trying to figure out what their "proper" order is.  It can also be something of a conundrum.    But sorting out this puzzle has given my fanboy brain endless hours of enjoyment.  

Before I begin, it should be noted that I have read various other manuscripts that have done the same thing as I have, here (Terry Nation and John Peel's book on the Daleks, Jean-Marc Locifier's  Terrestial Index and so on...).  While many of these other efforts mainly gel with my own theories, there are a few points we greatly differ on.   Should you be familiar with these other works, this will become quite evident to you as you read along.  

Anyway, here goes:  

PART ONE:  THE EARLY DAYS ON SKARO

It all begins, of course, on Skaro.   Probably some time back when Early Man on Earth was just starting to get good at hunting and gathering.    Skaro was already a somewhat advanced civilization, by this point.   Most likely, they'd even done a bit of space exploration and had learnt a fair amount about the galaxy they inhabited.   Maybe even set foot on a few other planets.

            

However, there was a big problem with racial disharmony on Skaro.    The advanced civilization had evolved into two basic cultures - one barely distinguishable from the other - but the differences were distinct enough to provoke an Ultimate War (I say "Ultimate" because I assume there were probably many wars before the one we eventually see in Genesis).

            

The two sides of this War were, quite naturally, the Kaleds and the Thals.    And while the War was, initially, fought from opposite ends of the planet, it is said that it waged on for close to a thousand years.   As populations were decimated - the enemies moved closer.   Until, eventually, most of the planet was now barren from the ravages of battle and the surviving population of both races were inhabiting huge protective domes that were practically only spitting distance away from each other.   

            

And into this mess, the Fourth Doctor is dropped.    And the events of Genesis of the Daleks ensue.   We meet Davros for the first time and get some somewhat revisionistic history that almost flatly contradicts the events of The Daleks.  But, good little fanboy that I am, I can make sense of this.   

            

Of course, the important piece of information to note to help fix this is a bit of throwaway dialogue in Episode Two.    The discussion of the different models of travel machines.   The Daleks we see in Genesis are "Mark Three".   Which suggests there are two other versions of Daleks that were built before them.   The Mark One was, most likely, largely unsuccessful and was scrapped, altogether.    The Mark Two was probably experimented with more extensively before it was, eventually, abandoned.   The Mark Three used most of the same design as the Mark Two but Davros found a different power source for them.    Mark Two used static electricity.  Mark Three relied on solar power (or, quite possibly, psycho-kinetic energy - or a combination of the two).       

            

There is one other important snippet of dialogue that we get in Part Six of Genesis that also helps to reconcile some of the continuity issues.    The Doctor makes an assumption that he has set the Daleks back a good thousand years or so.   It seems almost absurd that the Doctor can make such an assumption - but he does understand the Daleks better than anyone.   So we should take him at face value.  

            

Let's assume that the millennium he speaks of takes place entirely with Mark Threes remaining in the bunker.   Given that they are in a facility designed for humans rather than Daleks, it would take some time for them to even adapt the technology around them to work for Daleks rather than Kaleds.    Once they've adapted the technology, however, they start digging themselves' out of the bunker.   But all this adaptation and burrowing takes years to properly accomplish.   

            

At the end of Genesis of the Daleks, we get the impression that there is a fair amount of Thal survivors.   That they have banded together with the Mutants of the Wasteland and will probably try to rebuild what's left of their society now that the Thousand Year War is definitely over.   The Mark Threes, as we've just said, take several years before they can emerge again.   This gives the Thals and the Mutants some time to reconstruct their society.   The emerging Dalek force, quite small in comparison to the Thal/Mutant community, see how outnumbered they are and immediately descend back into their bunker.   

            

While, the Mark Three Daleks, themselves', are too few (there is, to all appearances, only a handful of them at the end of Genesis).   They repair their incubation chambers and set about building an army.   They also expand their bunker into a huge underground base.   The Thals and the Mutants have moved to another part of Skaro and don't even notice this development occurring.  So several more years pass as the Mark Threes build themselves' up.   

            

More than likely, there was also a small amount of Kaleds kicking around during all this time and they have created a tiny colony of their own.  They are also thriving on another part of the planet far away from everyone.   But they are keeping an eye on the Thals and the Mutants - seeing that the two only seem to be getting along so well.    If nothing else, the Thals seem greatly intent upon remaining distinct from the Mutants.   Within the colony they are building up - there is a fair amount of racial segregation.   Thals stay with Thals and Mutants with Mutants.   They only cooperate with each other on the most basic of levels.         

            

Eventually, enough disagreements started happening between the Thals and the Mutants.   Seeing this problem, the Kaleds choose to band with the Mutants and create a proper nation of their own.    Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the Thals, this new alliance re-christens themselves' as "Dals".    Distinction between Kaled and Mutant is lost and they are a stronger people for it.     

            

Of course, animosity now begins to grow between the Thals and Dals.  Technology begins to advance, too.   The neutron bomb is eventually developed and the two cultures experience the equivalent of a Cold War.   Both sides possess an endless arsenal of world-destroying missiles that are just waiting to be launched.    

            

Around this time, the Mark Threes re-emerge from their bunker to poke around a bit.    They have now amassed a formidable army and the bunker is now quite the underground base. It's taken quite some time to do this with their limited resources - several decades, at least.   But they feel ready to, at last, re-conquer the surface.   

 

By this point, however, the Mark Three Daleks see how close the Thals and the Dals are to an all-out war.    Again, they descend underground and choose to wait out that war.    No doubt, one side will wipe out the other and they will only need to fight one army instead of two.         

            

Quite to the Mark Threes' surprise, the Thals and Dals choose to use their Neutron Bombs against each other.    Once more, the surface of Skaro is devastated.    The Great Wait underground is prolonged for an even larger period of time as the radiation from the Neutron War must now clear before they can re-emerge.    This process takes another five hundred years or so.   

            

Which means the Doctor isn't far off in his estimation that the Daleks have been genuinely set back for a thousand years.  Had they not been buried in that bunker, they would have immediately returned to the surface and conquered Skaro quite quickly.  The Thals, Mutants and Kaleds that had survived the Thousand Year War were still too small in number and would've posed no real threat against even a handful of Daleks.   But being trapped underground for a few years set the Mark Threes back just enough to create a series of events that slowed down their overall quest to conquer the Universe. That whole series of events went on for nearly a thousand years.   As usual, it's a bit of a stretch - but we can get it all to work.   And it also allows us to make sense of the whole Kaled/Dal continuity error.         

            

The Neutron War wiped out most of the Thal and Dal population.   The survivors were suffering greatly from radioactive contamination.   Both species began to mutate.   The Thals, of course, eventually mutated Full Circle.   But not so with the Dals.   Inter-breeding with a race already influenced by mutation meant that they would evolve differently after the catastrophe.    They would turn into the slug-like creatures that Davros had first engineered those many years ago.    Vaguely recalling Davros' theories, the Dals look back into his works.  While most of his research was kept secret and could not be recovered - some of his work was much more public knowledge.   This included most of his findings regarding the Mark Two Travel Machines.    As the Dals tried to re-build a civilization after the Neutron War, they used Davros' Mark Two designs to secure a future of some sort for themselves'.    They built a version of Dalek reliant upon static electricity and began to place the more advanced versions of their mutation into them.  Their future was now secure and they continued to build a city for their new Dalek form to dwell within.  

            

The remaining Thals, however, had moved out to a more remote part of the planet where there was still some fertile land for them to work.  But the move came at a sacrifice. Not a lot of technology was made available to them in that new location.  So as the Daleks bred in their City and continued to become more and more advanced, the Thals stayed close to nature and maintained a fairly primitive lifestyle. They also became extreme pacifists.  

            

And now, the events of The Daleks take place. And while it looks like our Mark Twos are done for by the end of this particular battle, close to a thousand years have now passed since Genesis of the Daleks.   Those nasty solar-powered Mark Threes have waited out the radiation and are finally ready to properly re-emerge onto the surface and begin their plans for conquest.   

            

One of the first things the Mark Threes do is discover the abandoned Dalek City.   They take advantage of their find.   Certain adaptations are made to the Mark Twos to make them more mobile.   They're given little receptor dishes so that power can be transmitted to them.    And while they are probably considered an inferior model of Dalek - the Mark Threes are still a relatively small army and every single soldier is needed to expand the Empire. 

            

No doubt, a great clash between Daleks and Thals occurred on Skaro at this time.   We can't say for sure what happened in that battle - but we get the impression that the Thals actually drove the Daleks off the planet.    The Daleks formed a space fleet of some sort and went off to conquer the Galaxy.  The Thals probably ignored the Dalek menace once it left their world and only started to decide to do something about the Dalek Spacefleet some great time later.  

            

FIXING CONTINUITY GLITCHES:

THE DOUBLE TIMELINE: EXPLAINING THE CONUNDRUM OF THE SECOND DOCTOR

The Second Doctor, lovingly portrayed by actor Patrick Throughton, became a bit of a problem during his return appearances in the 80s. No one was upset with the actor when he reprised his role in both The Five Doctors and The Two Doctors, but we were just a little bit bothered with the writers (only a bit, though - cause it's hard to begrudge Terrance Dicks or Robert Holmes!). By no means did we think either of these beloved scribes had written particularly bad stories, but they did commit a greater sin. They got some really important continuity wrong. In fact, aside from the "Dating the UNIT stories" debate, this is probably the next biggest continuity glitch that has ever occurred in the show.

As Dicks and Holmes were writing their respective scripts, they had both forgotten that during the Second Doctor's era - his origins were still a mystery. Only in his final dieing moments is it revealed that he is a Time Lord who who ran off in a stolen TARDIS. By the time this information is shared, he is very firmly captured by his people and about to be sentenced to exile and regeneration. There is no real oppurtunity for Doctor Two to go out and travel some more. He is doomed.

And yet, when we see him in The Five and Two Doctors, this particular incarnation is speaking quite freely about the Time Lords and his fate at their hands. He is even undertaking missions for them. All of which would seem to be impossible. When his stories were being made in the 60s, Throughton's Doctor had no open association with the Time Lords. If he had made contact with them before his final story, they would've inflicted the same fate on him as they did in The War Games. But the Second Doctor that we see in the 80s stories seems to be radically different from the one we watched during his adventures in the 60s.

Is there any way we can reconcile these discrepancies? The Discontinuity Guide, a wonderful work of non-fiction that was published in the 90s (if it's not in your collection, you need to find it), does a great job of fixing the problem. It proposes the concept of a "Season 6b". The basic idea of the theory is that the Celestial Intervention Agency (or CIA, for short) was watching the Doctor's trial and pulled him out of it just before he was about to be regenerated. They made a deal with him - he would be granted his freedom to roam the Universe but he would need to undertake missions for them from time-to-time. The concept works great and gets the whole incongruity to gel. It's the theory that I tend to stick with.

But before The Discontinuity Guide was published, I had formulated a theory of my own. One that works even better in light of things that we've now seen in the New Series. And while I still agree more with the notion of a Season 6b, I thought it might be fun to share my own pet theory, here:

During Episode One of The Three Doctors, we see the Chancellor and the Lord President on Gallifrey looking at an event from the Second Doctor's timestream on a scanner screen. They pluck him out from that event and bring him to the present where he starts working with his third incarnation. The sequence we see on the screen is not from a previous Second Doctor story. It looks a bit like it's from The War Games but it's not - they filmed entirely new footage. I suggest that this was "an unseen adventure". A story that was never televised that took place while he was travelling with Jamie and Victoria. Probably somewhere near the end of Season Five.

Once the Second and Third Doctor are united, we see them enter into a sort of mental communion in which the Third Doctor gives the Second Doctor a full update on the situation. This is one of the most significant events that helps form my theory. Doctor Three lets his predecessor learn his entire future. He's not just letting him see the current crisis, he's letting him learn all about the events that would lead up to it. He might even be doing this on purpose with the hope that he can meddle in his own past and change the outcome of those events.

Which is exactly what happens. The Time Lords are not aware that the Two Doctors entered into this psychic conference with each other. They erase the Second Doctor's memories of the Omega Crisis when he returns to his proper timeline, but they don't erase the memories his third incarnation implanted. The Second Doctor is now sitting somewhere near the end of Season Five with a knowledge of what is going to happen to him shortly. Being the anarchistic fellow that he is, he makes an attempt to change his own future.

His boldest step is to leave Jamie and Victoria behind at the end of this unseen adventure that we witnessed a fragment of in The Three Doctors. He doesn't intend to leave them there forever. He wants to go out into Time and Space and actually get good at steering the TARDIS. Only then, will he go back and get them. A properly steerable TARDIS will mean he can keep travelling with his companions but avoid certain adventures that he knows he must not have. But he also knows that altering his timeline like this can be dangerous business. He'd rather not put his friends at risk as he first undertakes the decision. Only once he sees that he can really control things will he allow Jamie and Victoria re-join him.

So, for a while, the Second Doctor travels alone. He starts developing the ability to steer his erratic time vehicle a bit accurately but not quite well enough to go back and get Jamie and Victoria, yet. It may be sometime during this part of his life that he does have a fight with the Terrible Zodin. We don't know much about his relationship with her - but it may have happened, here. Eventually, however, he does arrive on Earth in the 80s and reads about his old friend the Brigadier in an article in The Times. This inspires him to pop into yesterday and visit him. The visit should be relatively safe as he has no intention of bringing the Brig on board the TARDIS. Just a quick hop back to say hi to him.

For once, he's able to steer the TARDIS properly and he joins Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart for the UNIT reunion. But since he sees no evidence in the article in The Times that he was at the event, he chooses to visit the whole thing as discreetly as possible. After he arrives, we hear the Doctor claiming to be "bending the rules a bit" to be there. He remains pretty non-specific about how he is altering the Laws of Time, but this could be what he's alluding to. That he's actually actively trying to change his own future.

Of course, when he first sees Jamie and Zoe in the Tower of Rassilon, he thinks it might be possible that he is witnessing some sort of "echo" from a parallel reality. Could his timelines still be intermingling a bit? He's not certain so he doesn't want to do anything to harm them. But then he takes a better look at them. They seem older than they were when they were travelling with him. So if they are from that alternate timeline, they would've had the experiences they had during The War Games and would've been sent back to their own time and had most of their memories of him erased. Yet this version of Jamie and Zoe seem far too familiar with him. So he knows that they are illusions and dispels them.

This explains, of course, how the Doctor is able to know that Jamie and Zoe shouldn't know who he is anymore. Even though their memories would've been erased during a moment in his own timeline where it would've been impossible for him to go out and start travelling again. A bit convoluted, of course. But then, most fan theories that are fixing continuity glitches are.

The Doctor continues travelling on his own for a bit and gets better at steering the TARDIS. In his pursuits to improve his navigating skills, he actually ends up doing a bit of re-decorating and a newer version of the console is installed. Finally, he decides it's safe to go back and get Jamie and Victoria. He was hoping to come back to the exact point in time where he left them, but he only does so well. He's a few years off and they are now a bit older. However, they are still willing to climb back aboard the TARDIS and travel with him some more.

So, off they go. The Doctor appears to have effectively changed his own future and is back to his usual antics: travelling with friends and getting into trouble. But such actions do still create ripples in the Causal Nexus. They are subtle but they do not escape the eyes of certain Time Lords in high places. Members of the Celestial Intervention Agency detect the time disturbance the Doctor has created by altering his future and trace things back to him. They find him and confront him on what he's done. They threaten to bring his actions to the attention of the High Council unless he's willing to strike a deal with them. Knowing the Doctor could make an excellent operative, they promise to keep their silence if the Doctor will undertake missions for them from time-to-time. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, the Doctor accepts their conditions.  This latest addition to the CIA is given his first task: confront his old friend Dastari about the Kartz/Reimer time travel experiments.

Victoria doesn't like the sound of any of this and asks if she can be dropped off somewhere where she can pursue an interest she is developing in graphology. Wholly confident that he can pick her back up again, the Doctor complies. The CIA, however, notice the deviation in his course to let Victoria disembark and install a device in the console that will give them dual control of the TARDIS. Just to make sure he goes where he's meant to.  While such an action infuriates him, the Doctor still takes Jamie to Space Station J7 and they have a meeting with Dastari.

From here, of course, the events of The Two Doctors can logicallly ensue. The Sixth and Second Doctor have their adventure together and then both incarnations return to their own business. The Second Doctor goes back to pick up Victoria and the Sixth Doctor keeps arguing with Peri.

We can assume that Doctor Two continued travelling in this altered timeline for a while longer. He would still get sent on missions by the CIA once in a while but he would, mainly, just enjoy a whole new lease on life. Perhaps Victoria still left him and he and Jamie pick up Zoe. Or perhaps other companions were found. Who can say for sure? But, more than likely, the Doctor chose to openly avoid his confrontation with the War Lords. Knowing that if he did encounter them then this would lead to his exile.

This avoidance might have been his undoing. Perhaps the War Lords rose to such a power in the galaxy that the High Council of the Time Lords had to investigate them. Perhaps, in that investigation, they discovered the divergence the Doctor created in his own timeline. Alternatively, the disruption the Doctor was causing in Time may have just become too difficult to hide and it was, eventually, brought to the High Council's attention. Whatever the case may be, the Doctor was apprehended and the problem was corrected.

We're not sure exactly how they solved the problem, of course. But these are the Time Lords were talking about: they're pretty good at manipulating the Fourth Dimension. It may be that they just snatched the Doctor back up and put him on trial again and sent him into exile. That what he did when he was sent back to his timeline after The Three Doctors is now True Canon.  We would hate to think, though, that all those televised stories we saw in the latter part of the 60s were deleted from the Doctor's personal history (okay, maybe we wouldn't be so upset if The Space Pirates never happened!).  So it may be possible that the Time Lords arranged for both timelines to exist at the same time. That, somehow, both these realities exist together. That when the Doctor thinks back to the days of his second incarnation, he has two sets of memories. Perhaps, even key participants in both chronologies also remember two versions. Or, at least, they did for a bit. More than likely, poor old Jamie got his memories erased again when the High Council caught up with the Doctor a second time.

This idea of two different timelines existing concurrently might seem outlandish. But we recently witnessed something similiar with the Eleventh Doctor and his excursions on Trenzalore. In Name of the Doctor he very definitely visits the planet at a time after his death where the TARDIS is in a vicious state of disrepair. These events had to have happened in order for him to meet Clara and start travelling with her. But in Time of the Doctor, the outcome we see in Name of the Doctor is changed. He gets a whole new regeneration cycle and does not die on Trenzalore. But if that is the case, then how does Name of the Doctor happen? Again, it has to occur or the Doctor and Clara would never meet.

The answer, of course, is that Time Lords can allow their timeline to split like that once in a while if it has to. And then re-join, later, at an appropriate point. For a time, though, the Doctor's life actually travels along two paths at once.

In fact, this may have also happened at the end of the Trial of a Time Lord season. In one timeline, he goes off and has a bunch of adventures with Mel where they, eventually, fight the Vervoids. In another timeline, he and Mel leave the Space Station where the Doctor's trial took place and, a short while later, the Rani forces the TARDIS to crash and cause the Doctor to regenerate. This would explain why we still see him in the costume he was wearing during his actual trial in Time and the Rani rather than the costume he was wearing in Terror of the Vervoids.

Of course, a simpler explanation would be that the Doctor chose to change back into the outfit he wore during his trial after the events of Terror of the Vervoids. But I hate simple explanations.

So, up until Name and Time of the Doctor, we have not seen any televised evidence that the Doctor can have two timelines at once. Which made my theory of the Second Doctor's alternate timeline a bit more difficult to swallow. But in light of this new evidence, it could be entirely possible that the Doctor's timeline can split now and again and create these sort of complex paradoxes.  Given how complicated extensive time travelling can be, it's entirely possible that Time Lords can do these sort of things.

Or maybe it's just easier to believe in the Season 6b theory.

Yeah. It probably is....