I did recently claim that I had nearly exhausted all of my CHRONOLOGY AND TIMELINES topics. But the emphasis here is on the word nearly. There are still a few recurring characters/races whose histories are a little convoluted and could use some sorting out. But their appearances in the show aren't quite as prolific as, say, the Cybermen, Daleks or the Master. So these won't be sprawling, multi-part epics like some of my other essays of this nature have been. Chances are, they'll take up one entry.
THE TRICKINESS OF ZYGON HISTORY
In many ways, the manner in which we've seen the Zygon stories transmitted is a fairly chronological order. A good chunk of any Zygon story takes place on contemporary Earth and can just be assigned the date on which we saw it. In this sense, a timeline for these aliens is pretty straightforward: Terror of the Zygons, then Day of the Doctor and then The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion.
There you go. Latest essay complete.
If only it were that simple...
If you'll notice, I've titled this entry: A History of Zygon Incursions. This is because any story we've seen, so far, involves them trying to colonize the Earth. Quite often, their attempts are done in a somewhat forceful manner. So their history, by our perspective, is just a series of incursions.
Sadly, this means we have no clear idea of their past. We never witness what life is like on their homeworld and we don't see much of their activities in other parts of the galaxy. This makes determining their origins a somewhat complicated situation. Particularly since there does seem to be a contradiction in what has actually caused the Zygons to start trying to invade us.
There are still further complications. Zygons have a tendency to arrive at Earth at one point in time but then don't actually start causing any real trouble til some centuries later. In order to truly present an accurate version of their history, we have to pinpoint arrival times and attack points. Which can become quite convoluted. We even have to accept that several groups of Zygons came to Earth at different periods to attempt colonization. Apparently, the Earth is something of a Zygon hot-spot!
Finally, there are a few references made to Zygons both visually and in dialogue that need to be placed in a proper order of some sort. These references are quite brief. We see a Zygon ship in Pandorica Opens. The Zygons are mentioned in Power of Three and Face the Raven. But these things still have some degree of relevancy and need to be addressed.
With all these factors in mind, I have to admit: this essay won't quite be as straightforward as I thought it would be...
EARLY ZYGON HISTORY
As has been mentioned, we have never actually seen what the planet of the Zygons is like so we have to make some suppositions about their background based only on dialogue and visual cues.
The most obvious thing we can note about their culture is that they evolved along the lines of biotechnology. They don't manufacture equipment for themselves like we do. They grow it. In this sense, all machinery that a Zygon uses is probably, in some sense, alive.
Humans build devices with functions that are activated when we flick on electric circuits. Zygons handle things differently. They do things to specifically-created organisms that trigger bio-chemical responses within the life form to produce a desired effect. Probably the most famous example of this would be the Zygon computer the Twelfth Doctor "stimulates" to acquire data from. But we see this sort of thing all over the place in Zygon stories. Their technology, then, would be comparable to that of the Axons. The one big difference between the two cultures would be the fact that the Zygons aren't as integrated with their tech as Axons are.
Like the Axons, however, the Zygons would seem to be a bit of a parasite race. With, perhaps, a bit more of a militaristic bent to them. Zygons are quite happy to visit other worlds and exploit their resources without asking nicely. However, they're not quite as mad about conquest as some of the other militant races out there like the Sontarans or the Daleks. Zygons are happier to use stealth to achieve their aims rather than the application of brute force. It does seem, however, that they do ultimately intend to assert their dominance over the other races they infiltrate. They just like to be sneaky about it.
Which leads us, of course, to their most prominent core trait. Like the Rutans or Kamelion, the Zygons are shape-shifters. They're able to change their form at will and duplicate other life forms when they need to. One of the most efficient ways of chronicling their history is by noting how advanced their shape-shifting abilities are in the story they're being featured in. The technology to achieve this trick does always seem to upgrade and improve as the Zygons evolve.
This is the best we can determine about the origins of this species. They are shapeshifters who are reliant on bio-technology. They are both parasitic and militant. Other than that, we don't have much to go on. Little has been said about what life is like on the planet they hail from. What has been said about it is, in fact, somewhat self-contradicting.
WHAT LED THEM HERE - PART ONE: SPACE LANES
Having established that we have little or no idea of what things are like on their planet, there is one thing we can definitely say about the origins of the Zygons: they have dealt with some serious disaster. It is, in fact, a cataclysm of some sort that seems to have brought them to our world. Their home seemed doomed and they were desperate to find somewhere else to live.
For whatever reason, quite a few ships that fled the Zygon homeworld ended up on Earth. We don't know exactly why this happened. It is doubtful that the planet of the Zygons is all that close to us. There is some dialogue in Terror of the Zygons about a large colony ship that is on its way to Earth but will take another century or two to get there because of the distance between the two planets. So why would so many Zygon refugees make their way here? Surely there must be habitable worlds that are closer.
There could be any number of reasons why Zygons choose Earth so much as a place to settle down. Personally, I think it has something to do with how Earth seems to be located on a well-known Space Lane.
I have always liked the concept of Space Lanes. It's a term we've heard used casually a few times throughout the course of the show. The basic idea of a Space Lane is that there are certain ways to pass through the cosmos that are the most efficient trajectories. In the same way that we build roads here on Earth that are meant to be the shortest distance between two points. These trajectories make travel as smooth and short as possible. A Space Lane is, essentially, a road in space.A popular path that ships take through the Universe to reach certain destinations. A sort of Intergalactic Highway.
Earth is on, at least, one really good Space Lane that a lot of vessels like to use. It might even be possible that it's an intersection of several Space Lanes. So Zygons were just using a well-travelled pathway through the galaxy that led them to Earth. Any number of their ships might have been using this Space Lane as an escape route and found Earth along it and decided to stop there. Earth being on a popular Space Lane would even account for the frequency of visits we've received from so many different aliens over the years. They all just fly by Earth on a popular Space Lane and decide to check things out.
WHAT LED THEM HERE - PART TWO: CONTRADICTIONS
Of course, Earth being on a popular Space Lane is only one factor. There are probably plenty of other planets that are also along this same Space Lane that had suitable conditions for the Zygons. It's entirely possible that some refugees may have even tried to set themselves up on them. My guess would be that a lot of these other planets had highly advanced civilisations already living on them. So they would be harder for the Zygons to infiltrate.
Earth's appeal lay in the fact that it was at a primitive stage when Zygons first flew by it. They could settle there and not be easily detected by the natives. This was a bit of a double-edged sword, of course. The settlers would be lacking in certain creature comforts. But, overall, it seemed like an ideal spot. Again, in terms of larger continuity, my guess would be that Earth is one of the few primitive planets along this particular Space Lane. Which is another reason why it gets hit as often as it does by alien travellers. Like the Zygons, other aliens see that they are less likely to be detected should they land there.
There is still one major problem that remains in getting the scant knowledge we have about the origins of the Zygons to work. There seems to be, at least, two different disasters that are responsible for their mass evacuation.
In Part Two of Terror of the Zygons, Broton does a nice big info-dump on Harry Sullivan. He explains that his ship crash-landed on Earth several centuries ago. That they've been trying to get the ship to work again and have discovered that their home planet was destroyed in "a stellar explosion". Which we can assume is a more poetic way of saying super novae. In Part Four of that same story, Broton explains to the Doctor that the disaster is "fairly recent". These conversations with Harry and the Doctor are meant to be taking place in either the late 70s or early 80s. This is, technically, a UNIT story. So setting a clear date is near-impossible.
However, the Zygons in Day of the Doctor tell a somewhat different story. They claim that the Zygon homeworld was one of the first planets to be destroyed in the Time Wars. These Zygons fled the disaster and, presumably, arrived a short while later on Earth. The date, when we see them first entering into the paintings made from stasis cubes, is 1562.
There are a lot of facts that are not adding up, here. Broton says it's a super novae that wiped out his people and that it probably happened sometime within the last century ("fairly recent" would imply that, at least). Another group of Zygons say their planet died from the Time Wars and this would probably have happened sometime around the 1500s (to the best of our knowledge, Zygons can't time travel - so they would have fled their world and made it to Earth a short while later).
How do we get these contradictions to work?
GETTING THE CONTRADICTIONS TO WORK
When I was working on my History of Ice Warriors essay (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/06/chronologies-and-timelines-brief.html) I tried to create a timeline where several disasters befell the Martian people that turned their world into the barren wasteland it is, today. I could attempt something similar with the Zygons but that seems a bit too tricky. Both the Time Wars and a super novae seem pretty final. I can't see their planet being able to exist after one such incident so that a second Armageddon can sweep in and take them out all over again.
I could say the Zygons went the same route as the Daleks and took on a second homeworld that was also destroyed. Or I could even claim that the Time Wars created some sort of "temporal retcon" that re-wrote history. But I would prefer a much simpler explanation.
The long-range communication equipment on Broton's ship was damaged when it crashed. He only recently got it working again. Even then, it only works so well. There's still a lot of interference. He received some sort of looped message from an emergency transmitter left somewhere near the devastated Zygon homeworld explaining its situation. He couldn't quite make out everything, though. From what he could discern, it seemed like his planet had been destroyed in a super novae and he guessed that it had only happened, recently. He was working off that information when he managed to contact a colony ship travelling along at sub light speed. Again, communication was difficult. But he promised them a nice habitable planet when they arrived in a few centuries time.
So, in truth, the planet of the Zygons was destroyed in the early 1500s by some side effect of the Time Wars. It's possible that enemies were attacking each other with stellar manipulators and they took out a sun near Zygonia (or whatever the Zygons call their planet of origin) - which would cause Broton to interpret things the way he did. He only got the news recently, and thus, believes that the whole event is far more recent.
This, for me, is the explanation that works best.
WORKING OUT THE TIMELINE: ARRIVALS
Having reconciled a major contradiction in Zygon history, we can now get on to establishing a proper timeline for their incursions. It should be noted that, on several occasions, these aliens land on our planet and stay hidden from us for quite some time before making an attempt to conquer us. This means, of course that we need to establish an arrival time before noting their order of attack.
The first Zygons to reach Earth (that we've seen, thus far) would be Broton's party. Unlike other Zygon arrivals, no specific date is given. The best we get was Broton saying they first got here "several centuries ago". I'm going to estimate that they landed about 800 years prior to the events of Terror of the Zygons.
What we see of their technology strongly indicates that Broton's group is the first to arrive. Their shape-changing capabilities do seem to be at the most primitive. In all cases that we've seen, the subject they are copying should be kept alive. But Broton's storage cubicles do seem to be the most bulky and inefficient. Which helps support the idea that this is the oldest of the Zygons to have come here.
The dependence these Zygons have on a Skarasen might be another indicator of their age. No other group of Zygons seemed to need a Skarasen to help them survive. Which would indicate these other parties are more advanced. Sometime after Broton's craft came to Earth, it would seem that the Zygons found a way to by-pass their need for Skarasen lactic fluids.
The last really good point that supports that Broton's team landed here first would be the fact that they don't actually seem to be refugees from the Time War Disaster. But, rather, just a passing ship that happened to crash here. Broton only learns of the destruction of his world quite some time after his ship has crashed. So it stands to reason that other stories featuring Zygons had later landing points since they are fleeing a doomed world. Broton and his cronies all hail from a much earlier time. Which means, to me, they must have been the first Zygons to get here. So their landing point has to be sometime before the arrival of the Zygons from Day of the Doctor. I'd like to think it's not too much sooner, though. Just a few centuries. Which is why I've chosen my 800 years earlier timeframe.
Our other arrival times are much easier to determine since specific dates are often given in the stories involving them. The Tenth Doctor starts dealing with a group of Zygons that are on Earth in the Year 1562. My guess would be that they just got there when Ten starts fighting them. How they arrived is a bit of a mystery. We see them in an underground base of some sort but we can't say for certain that it's a spaceship. The fact that they are in possession of a stasis cube might have significance since it is a piece of Time Lord technology. The Doctor in It Takes You Away, speaks of how one of her Grans suspected another Gran was a Zygon spy. Could this mean that some Zygons found their way to Gallifrey and tried to infiltrate their society? The Time Lords might have detected them and sent them off with a time scoop or something of that nature to Earth in the 1560s. There, the Zygons set up their plan to go into hibernation until the world gets more interesting.**
A more advanced style of shapechanging indicates to me that these are Zygons from a later time period than Broton's gang. The Terror Zygons have to integrate their subjects into their technology by placing them in a special alcove before they can start using their form. We see this specifically happen when they copy Harry Sullivan. But in Day of the Doctor, a Zygon just has to meet Queen Elizabeth to copy her. Yes, Kate Stewart does get a bunch of weird blobby stuff put all over her later in the story. I would guess this is because they need to make a better copy of her. But it is not necessary, anymore, for a Zygon to do this like it was in Broton's Day. So I'm sure this is a group of Zyongs from a later era.
Our third Zygon arrival is an unusual one. We don't actually see any Zygons while it happened. They are only referenced as a sort of gag. As an anniversary present, the Doctor takes Amy and Rory to the newly-built Savoy Hotel in 1890. He promises them there will be absolutely no danger and excitement while they stay there. Just an enjoyable time of relaxation.
We cut a moment later to see all three of them sitting around disappointed with all kinds of cacophony erupting off-camera and the Doctor saying something to the nature: "Who knew the Savoy was built over a Zygon spaceship that replaced half the staff?!" As I said, the whole thing is played as more of just a goofy joke but we should still acknowledge it in the timeline.
While the Savoy Incident takes place in 1890, my guess is the Zygon ship sat there for a century or two. I'm also going to guess that this is another batch of Time War Refugees. So their arrival would be somewhere near the time that the Day of the Doctor Zygons got here. I'm going to say early 1600s. The Day Zygons arrived earlier cause they used Time Lord technology to get here. The Power of Three Zygons arrived by more conventional means.
** SPECIAL NOTE: I do think the Day Zygons did, indeed, attempt an invasion of Gallifrey. When their world was destroyed in the Time Wars, they managed to get their hands on some kind of time travel technology that a Time Lord, Dalek or other combatant (a Skaro Degradation or Nightmare Child or something like that) was using that caused the devastation. Perhaps a warrior was thrown from combat and their time ship broke down. That very act of being ejected from the battle may have had side effects that destroyed Zygonia (or whatever it's called!). While the warrior was trying to repair their ship, surviving Zygons snuck aboard and took it over.
The Day Zygons then, somehow, took the ship into Gallifrey's past to before the Time Wars. They may have even made it to a point where the Doctor hadn't even been born, yet. There, they attempted their coup. Perhaps they were hoping that, by going to a period before the Time Wars, they could stop them from happening and, therefore, save their homeworld. The Time Lords, however, caught them and put them back into a proper post-Time War timeline. As they were being returned to their proper point in time, a Zygon managed to steal a stasis cube. Some other Gallifreyan tech might have also been taken.
One of the Doctor's Grans, however, remembers the whole incident and suspects there are still a few Zygons hanging about. She believes one of them is another of the Doctor's Grans.
WORKING OUT THE TIMELINE: ATTACKS!
Now we arrive at the other end of the timescale: the periods where Zygons start trying to take us over.
The first attempt would be the Savoy Incident of 1890. We know little about it, of course. We just know that Zygons were uncovered by the Doctor, Amy and Rory and whatever plans they had were foiled by this particular TARDIS crew. Any more precise details than that have never been revealed. It is a cute joke, though.
The next attack is a bit trickier to pin down. It really depends on what UNIT Dating Protocol you subscribe to. It could have taken place in either the 70s or 80s. We can't quite say, for sure. I tend to favor the "year the story was transmitted in" theory. So, in my head, Broton's Abortive Display of Power at the World Energy Commission Conference would be somewhere around 1976.
Finally, we have the Commandeering of the Black Archive. Quite obviously, this occurs in 2013. Probably even in November (was Clara celebrating her birthday, that day? It's on November 23rd!). This particular Incursion doesn't quite fail like the others did. But it isn't a successful invasion attempt, either. Thanks to some sonic trickery that the Doctors employ on a mind wipe device, the whole problem evolves into something quite different. We see the beginning of a treaty between Zygons and humans being forged as the story nears its conclusion.
THE ZYGON/HUMAN TREATY
From this point onward, we see a whole new side to the Zygons. No longer are they mere parasitical conquerors. They're more like Homo Reptilia, now. In that, just like humans, there are Zygons who want to live peacefully and there are Zygons who want to conquer.
A treaty is forged that fateful day in the Black Archive and Twenty Million Zygons are allowed to secretly live among us. Most of the Zygons are happy to pretend to be humans and enjoy their new home. But there are splinter factions that rise up from time-to-time who harbor the old Zygon ideology of oppressing the worlds they inhabit. To combat this problem, the Doctor has left the Osgoode Box in place. Whenever an uprising of this nature occurs, it is referred to by UNIT as The Nightmare Scenario. This scenario has taken place several times, now (and, more than likely, continues to happen on a regular basis). Each time it does, however, the Doctor wipes the memory of key participants so that the peace treaty can continue. Seemingly unbroken.
It is clear, of course, that Zygon Invasion/Zygon Inversion takes place after Day of the Doctor. But the fact that Zygons have advanced even more helps to support this. Their shapeshifting abilities now enable them to simply look into someone's memories and assume the form of people they know. They don't actually have to meet the person they are copying. There is also no longer a need to maintain a live feed with the person they have duplicated.
Zygons also now have some sort of weaponry implanted into their hands that fires a bolt of energy that can either kill or stun. The weapon doesn't appear to have much of a range, though. When the target is destroyed, all that is left of them is a pile of electrified hair! We also see a special implant Zygons can use that can force other Zygons to lose their ability to change shape.
The use of pods to contain the subjects they are copying almost seems like a step back from what we saw being used on Kate Stewart in Day of the Doctor. That version seemed much more portable and efficient. It could be possible, however, that what was used on Kate was more of a sort of lash-up that only works for a short while. The pods are probably something more permanent and effective.
A FEW OBSCURE REFERENCES
Officially, we have reached the end of what we know of the Zygons' onscreen timeline. There are a few references made, however, that tell us that the Zygons will continue to prosper after 2015 (roughly, where I would date Invasion/Inversion).
Just a few episodes later, Ashildr (aka "Me") brings up the Zygons while she and the Doctor are having a conversation on the secret Trap Street that she has been living on along with a host of alien refugees. One would guess this incident is happening only a few months after the events of Invasion/Inversion. The conversation indicates that the Zygons continue to live among us and that the peace treaty has been maintained.
But what of the far-flung future? Will the Zygons still be around any time after the 21st Century?
We have, at least, one visual clue that indicates that the Zygons survive until, at least, the 42nd Century. If you go to Part Five of my Cyber History Essay (Specifically, the "More Cross-Referencing" section https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of_27.html) you'll see that I finally commit to a date in which the Alliance Against the Doctor was formed. It was this Alliance that goes back in time to Stone Henge in the 2nd Century and seals the Doctor in the Pandorica to ensure that his TARDIS never explodes and destroys the Universe. While we don't actually see a Zygon assembled in the Under-Henge to imprison the Doctor, we do definitely catch a few solid glimpses of a Zygon spaceship floating above Stone Henge as the Doctor does his famous speech that scares the Alliance away for a bit.
The Alliance Against the Doctor seems to be made up of some pretty unsavory characters. Any group that welcomes the likes of Daleks, Cybermen and Sontarans can't be the nicest of organizations. Does this mean the Zygons have "turned bad" again like they were in the days of Terror of the Zygons, Day of the Doctor or even Power of Three? It seems unlikely that they would be admitted into the Alliance if they hadn't. More than likely, some Zygons have become corrupt, again. There are probably still a whole gaggle of them out there, however, that have kept their good intentions. Like the Ice Warriors or the Silurians, my guess would be that they exist in factions. Some good. Some nasty.
Whatever their intention,.it would seem that the Zygons will live on for quite some time...
Well, that ended up having a bit more word-count than I expected! I was tempted to turn this into a two-parter but that would have made each entry feel just a bit too short. So I decided to get this all done in one post. Hope it didn't feel like too long of a read!
Some other CHRONOLOGY AND TIMELINE essays that only go on for one entry:
The Great Intelligence: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/09/chronologies-and-timelines-great.html
The Weeping Angels: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/06/chronologies-and-timelines-brief.html
River Song: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2017/03/chronologies-and-timelines-complex.html
The River Song entry is, easily, the entry I have put the most work into. Ever!
