CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: THE STATE OF FLUX - PART THREE: THE REST OF 'EM!

And so we move into an unexpected third part to this essay. I really did think I could get it done in just two chapters but there was so much more stuff involving Daleks than I'd originally realized!   

Just in case you missed the earlier segments, here are links to them. It would help if you read them first: 

Part One:

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/02/chronologies-and-timelines-state-of.html

Part Two:  

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2022/02/chronologies-and-timelines-state-of_19.html 

And now, Part Three...

As we move into our final chapter of STATE OF FLUX, we are going to mainly deal with one particular species. Like the Daleks, I am certain these are time travellers rather than creatures from the Present Day. While I'm quite sure the Sontarans and Weeping Angels were contemporary, these infamous cyborgs hail from the future. 

Once we have determined which era they are from, I want to explore a theory as to why they and the Daleks have come back in time the way they have. It's a bit of a complicated idea, but it could make sense of things. 

Before we finally wrap up this exploration of the Flux, there is still one more creature that we have seen before on the show that we need to put in a timeline of some sort. We don't see much of him, but he's there! 

STILL IN THE NURSERY 

In case you haven't guessed, we're going to be trying to figure out when exactly the Cybermen that we see in Flux come from. As was clearly established right in Halloween Apocalypse, the events of that particular cosmic disaster take place in 2021. But we do not see any Cybermen from that particular period. I believe the Cybermen that do show up in the story come from the distant future. 

Like the Daleks, I'm basing my opinion mainly on aesthetics. If we were seeing Contemporary Cybermen in Once, Upon Time and The Vanquishers, they would not appear the way they did. More than likely, they would resemble the model we saw in The Invasion. Or, quite possibly, the ones from The Moonbase. Those are the types of Cybermen that were around during that particular period (I'm ruling out Mondasian Cybermen as they do seem to get completely decimated when Mondas burns out during The Tenth Planet in 1986). There are a few other versions that we see here and there during the 20th and 21st Century (Neomorphs in Attack of the Cybermen and Silver Nemesis, Cybus Cybermen in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday and Nightmare-Style Cybermen in Dark Water/Death in Heaven), but they are not what I would call "locals". They are time travellers or intruders from another reality or a specially-designed version by Missy. So we'd be less likely to see those particular kinds of Cybermen during the Flux as they only pop up incidentally in that era. Invasion and Moonbase Cybermen would be in greater proliferation. So those should be the ones being featured.**

But we see neither of these two models in Flux. Instead, it's the warrior-class Cybermen from Ascension of the Cybermen/The Timeless Children. This type would have fought during what I labelled the Second Great Cyber War that took place sometime around the 31st Century (for more details on this era, read here: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/06/chronologies-and-timelines-appendixes.html). These Cybermen were capable of time travel. The Lone Cybermen does, after all, go into the past to recover the Cyberium. So it is possible for them to be able to make such a journey to the time of the Flux. 

How there is another army of this particular model might be a bit more difficult to explain. A troop carrier of them is discovered during Ascension but appears to get wiped out during Children when their ship is blown up. My guess would be that there were still other Cybermen of this nature out in space in ships that had been abandoned during battle. One of these groups of hibernators was, somehow, awakened. They probably caused some trouble in their own time zone but, eventually, went into the past. Where they then pop up for two episodes of Flux. 

Like the Gunmetal Grey Daleks that we also should have seen, I'm guessing the Contemporary Cybermen models were, more-or-less, destroyed fairly early on as the Flux spread across the Universe. Only the temporally-displaced Cybermen really remain. 

** To better understand the different models of Cybermen, check out this link: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/03/special-glossary-models-of-cybermen.html

BUT WHY ARE THEY THERE, ROB? 

Okay, so we've worked out where this particular batch of Cybermen comes from. We've also done the same for the Daleks in the previous entry. When discussing the Daleks, I claim they were time travelling to accomplish some sort of secret mission and just happen to get caught up in the events of the Flux. 

Should we say the same sort of thing just happened to be going on with this army of Cybermen? Were they, too, on some sort of unrelated expedition into the past and got swept up in events? Admittedly, it does seem like a bit too much of a coincidence. 

It might make more sense if we just assumed that these Daleks and Cybermen from the future actually came back in time to investigate the Flux. It's entirely possible that the two armies were trying to save their own timelines because the catastrophe was powerful enough to re-write the future. That, indeed, the Universe was going to get totally destroyed by the Flux and the Daleks and Cybermen were trying to prevent this from happening before they became an aborted timeline. 

I'm likening the whole thing to that experience the Doctor has with the Ood at the beginning of The End of Time. Where they actually explain to him that "events of the past are affecting the present" (or words to that effect). The Oods' psychic ability enabled them to see a divergence in the timeline that was about to happen that would erase them from existence and enlisted the Doctor's help to stop it from happening. 

While Daleks and Cybermen don't have psychic abilities (it is kinda cool that Sontarans have developed a special psychic division, though) they are both proficient at time travel. That proficiency caused them to create some sort of technology that allowed them to view the causal nexus and see that what was happening in 2021 would change the future and wipe them out. 

As usual, the two races applied brute force to solve the problem. Sure that a gigantic army could fix anything, they sent a huge force back to 2021 to take care of things. Once there, they saw that even their great numbers were useless against such a disaster. But they could not escape back to the future. That timeline was now gone and wouldn't return unless someone could stop the Flux. 

All that's left for these time-travelling Daleks and Cybermen is to consolidate their losses. They try to occupy what little of time and space is left. Eventually, they get lured into a trap by the Sontarans. The events of The Vanquishers happen here.   

Clearly, there are still some Daleks and Cybermen around after the Sontarans spring their trap. Either some escaped when they realized they'd been betrayed or there are some Daleks and Cybermen in the future that still exists because the Flux didn't completely destroy the Universe. Whatever the case, we have already seen the post-Flux Daleks harassing the Doctor. No doubt, Cybermen will come along too.   

JUST ONE LAST THING.... 

Okay then, the Daleks, Sontarans, Weeping Angels and Cybermen all seem to be taken care of. We're done, right?    

Not quite. 

I almost don't think about that nice little Ood we saw in Survivors of the Flux and The Vanquishers because he isn't actually a baddie. But I did create a timeline for the Ood a while back (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2021/02/chronologies-and-timelines-odd-history.html) so I should give these two episodes a place in their history. 

No doubt, Tecteun has the ability to pluck the Ood from anywhere in time and space. But, once more, we're going to let aesthetics have a role to play in things. The Ood does have a translation device so we're going to say he was taken from some time during the Halpern Family's occupation of the Ood Sphere (some time between the 40th and 42nd Century). I'm guessing Tecteun just time scooped one of them out of the warehouse and everyone chalked up the sudden disappearance of livestock to a glitch in the inventory program! 

Clearly, snatching the Ood took place before the events of Planet of the Ood. Yes, there were Oods that still had translation devices after they were liberated, but I doubt they would still be all that subservient. And Tecteun would have wanted an obedient slave. Although, we could argue that the Doctor gets the Ood to help her as much as it did because it is one that has been freed. But I'm more inclined to think that the Ood just saw the sheer magnitude of what its master was commanding it to do and broke its conditioning. It just couldn't do what was being asked of it. 

We could really nitpick and try to decide whether or not this Ood hails from before Impossible Planet/Satan Pit or after but I don't think we really need to be all that precise. I'm fine with just saying it comes from somewhere within those two centuries when the Halpern Family ruled the planet. 

There we go, we've now taken care of everything that happened during The Flux (and a little bit before and after if we're counting some of the Dalek stuff!). Everything has been neatly arranged into the various timelines that I've conjured up over the years. 

No doubt, I'll be adding an Appendix soon to my CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essay about Homo-Reptilia. In the meantime, I'll write about some other stuff. Easter is still a long enough way off!   

 

CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: THE STATE OF FLUX - PART TWO: THE DALEKS!!

My vain efforts to create coherent timelines for all the returning baddies that showed up in Flux continues. I thought I could tackle this in two parts. It looks like it might take more...

DALEK STUFF - MORE THAN I REALIZE!   

Ironically, the recurring foe that we saw the least in Flux will probably take up the most amount of space to discuss. At first, I thought I would just be dealing with the brief cameos the Daleks make in Once, Upon Time and The Vanquishers and be done with it. But then I made an important realisation: 

"Hey Rob," it dawned upon me as I attempted the mental gymnastics of placing the Daleks from Flux in a timeline of some sort, "There are two other Dalek stories that have come out over the last year or so that you still haven't reconciled!"

"Oh yeah!" I said back to myself in sudden surprise, "I should take care of them too!" 

I have these sort of conversations with myself quite frequently. Sometimes, I'm just crossing my own timeline while still in the same incarnation. On other occasions, it's a full-on multi-incarnation adventure!    

RESOLVING THE REVOLUTION

Shortly after it was transmitted, I went to the trouble of figuring out where the very fun and exciting Resolution fits within the Dalek Timescale. You can read the full entry here if you so desire: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/02/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html. 

I actually made a very bold claim about the tale. I believe that this is the first story in the New Series that uses a Dalek from before the Time Wars. It is my theory that this Recon Dalek was sent to Earth sometime after the events of The Daleks but before Power of the Daleks. 

I find this to be a rare occurrence with how the Doctor has been dealing with the Daleks since the Time Wars. For the most part, Dalek stories have been happening in a fairly linear fashion. I have even postulated that the Daleks might be operating on the equivalent of a Gallifreyan Mean Time. Admittedly, this might not actually be the case. Such rules may not exist for the Daleks. But I do think the Doctor might be making a concerted effort to keep his relationship with his greatest foes as orderly as possible. He tries his best to meet them chronologically. And he is making a concerted effort to avoid dealing with Daleks from before the Time Wars for fear that he might accidentally give them a "sneak preview" of things to come.

Resolution, then, is a bit of an oddity. Clearly, Daleks from after the Time Wars would have no need to send a Recon Dalek to Earth in the 1700s to investigate it. By this point in their history, they know Earth quite well, already. So this has to be a Dalek who comes from that specific time who is scouting the Earth. The battle that splits the Kaled Mutant into three parts represents the very first contact Daleks have with humans. 

It stands to reason, then, that the Recon Kaled Mutant that is re-created by Leo Rugazzi from the remains found in the "junkyard chic" Dalek casing left behind in Resolution also hails from the same time period. Chibnall provides us with a very clear narration that this Recon Dalek has come back to make more trouble. That the Kaled Mutant originally comes from the 1700s and re-assembled itself in 2019. A clone of it was then made about a year later. From there, it creates an army that it intends to use to take over the Earth and establish a power base from which it can begin a campaign of galactic conquest. 

This Recon Dalek has no idea of the contrived future that its race has forged for itself that we have already seen. It does not know of the other attempts to conquer the Earth that will happen in adventures like The Dalek Invasion of Earth or Frontier in Space. Nor is it aware that its people will eventually wage war against the Time Lords in stories like Day of the Doctor. It does not know, either, that survivors of that Great War will come back to plague the Earth in the early 21st Century in episodes like Army of Ghosts, Doomsday, The Stolen Earth and Journey's End (to make this things even more convoluted, those particular episodes all take place prior to Resolution and Revolution of the Daleks if we are viewing them from the perspective of Earth's timeline!).

While the Recon Dalek is oblivious to all this, it will still be influenced by these events as Daleks from its own far-flung future will come back and complicate things. 

ESTABLISHING A SECOND DALEK TIMELINE 

So, it seems pretty clear where and when the Recon Dalek and his army come from in Revolution of the Daleks - but that doesn't mean we're done sorting out the timelines for this story. There is a second group of Daleks that we also need to address. I'm speaking, of course, of the Death Squad Daleks. Or the SAS Daleks - as they are nicknamed.

Because of their bronze livery, it's clear to me that these are Post-Time-War Daleks. Sometime after their battles with Gallifrey, they have intentionally placed themselves in the Time Vortex so that they can easily go to any period in history and wipe out Daleks that they deem impure. The Question is: where do they fit in the Dalek Timeline before they entered into  the Vortex? 

My guess would be that they come from some time shortly after the events of Victory of the Daleks. One of the main elements of that particular story's plot involves Daleks having to prove to the Progenitor's computer that they are "true Daleks" even though they are showing signs of genetic deviation. It would seem to me that, after such an incident, the Daleks would want to create a more concrete solution for the problem of other impure strains that might be out in the Univere. We see by Assylum of the Daleks (a story that takes place a short while later in that particular part of their chronology) that they have become a mighty army, again. They can afford to allocate a small force to the Time Vortex to manage the problem. Their great numbers would also mean that they have no need of these impure Daleks to increase their size. They are just fine with having the rogue Daleks exterminated. 

For me, then, the Death Squad Daleks come from some time between Victory of the Daleks and The Pandorica Opens/Big Bang. Or, quite possibly, shortly after Pandorica Opens/Big Bang and Assylum of the Daleks. Dealing with the Cracks in Time the Doctor's exploding TARDIS caused might have been a higher priority than creating a Death Squad. It all depends on just how much time actually passes between Vicotry and Pandorica/Bang. If the Cracks In Time Crisis happens almost immediately after Victory then forming the Death Squad might have taken a bit longer. If it took a while for the disaster to occur, the Death Squad might have come along first. But all three stories, I feel, happen quite close together. I do think the Death Squad would hail from sometime around this period. 

If you want a better look at that particular period of their history, here is the entry that covers it: https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/4155651475182736486?blogID=4155651475182736486.

AT LAST, WE GET TO THE FLUX 

Finally, we've reached the Daleks that we see in Flux. While we clearly established in Part One of this little dissertation that the Flux is taking place in late 2021, I don't believe the Daleks that we see during the event are from that particular time period. These are, in fact, Daleks from the far-flung future that have travelled back in time and gotten trapped in this period as the Universe seems to be ending. 

As usual, I'm going with my philosophy of: "If it's a bronze-liveried Dalek - it's from after the Time Wars." Which is exactly the sort of Dalek we see in both Once, Upon Time and The Vanquishers. Had it actually been Daleks that existed around that era, they would have been more of a gunmetal grey. It's entirely possible, of course, there were some contemporary Daleks roaming about as the Disaster unfolded. We just don't see any of them. More than likely, the Flux wiped them out fairly quickly and these time travelling Daleks were all that remained. 

We could easily say that these Daleks came from any period after the Time Wars. Their presence in Flux is so fleeting that we can't really get any kind of clear idea of their true place in the timeline. At no point do we hear a Dalek proclaim: "We have just survived our battle with the Cybermen at Canary Wharf!" or "We just defeated the revolting sewers of Skaro!" or anything like that. Absolutely no clear point of reference is given. 

Just to make things simple, though, I'm going to say this is a very recent form of Post-Time-War Dalek. These are Daleks from shortly after their cameo in The Pilot but before their appearance in Twice Upon a Time. Like the Sontarans and Weeping Angels that we spoke of in Part One, there is a huge gap of time that takes place between the two stories I just mentioned. No doubt, more adventures from this era will eventually be made. To get a clearer idea of when these stories take place, you can check out this entry: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2020/03/chronologies-and-timelines-history-of.html. 

There is one big question that still needs to be addressed: What are Daleks from somewhere near the 50th Century suddenly doing in the 21st? The simplest guess would be that an army had been sent into the past on a mission of some sort. Perhaps the Daleks were actually attempting to meddle in time. As they were trying to alter history, the Flux began and they were caught up in it. Gunmetal Grey Contemporary Daleks were destroyed by the Flux but the time-travelling Bronze Time War Survivors were escaping the peril for as long as they could. 

I do have a more elaborate theory as to why the Daleks went into the past to encounter the Flux but I'll get into it in the next part of the essay. There is another group of recurring foes that are also doing some time travelling (Hint: their name rhymes with Ryberpen). As I place them in their timeline, I will also divulge my Daleks and Cybermen From the Future Have Purposely Sought out the Flux Hypothesis. 

EVE

And now, all that's left is to figure out where Eve of the Daleks fits into all of this. A snippet of dialogue within the story makes it all quite easy. At one point during all those time loops, the Daleks explain that they are a special hit squad dispatched to take out the Doctor as an act of revenge for what she did to their forces in the Flux. The Doctor explains, of course, that she wasn't the one who did it. It was the Sontarans. The Daleks don't care and just want to kill her, anyway. 

This means that the hit squad has also travelled from the future. Like the army before them, they would come from some time after The Pilot but before Twice Upon a Time. The large group of Daleks from this period goes back in time first and is wiped out by the Sontaran double-cross. A short while later, the team we see in Eve of the Daleks makes a similar trip to eliminate the Doctor, Yaz and Dan. They also fail. 

THAT'S IT FOR DALEKS

With this latest appendix, we are now up-to-date with the chronologies of all the latest Dalek stories and cameos. Revolution of the Daleks. Once, Upon Time, The Vanquishers and Eve of the Daleks now fit into the neat little timeline I've made for them. No doubt, there will be more adventures for me to arrange soon enough. 

I will bother to note that at this current place in their timeline (between The Pilot and Twice Upon a Time) the Daleks do seem weak. Pilot indicates that they are, once more, at war with the Movellans. Perhaps, just like last time, the Movellans got in a good shot at them and there's not many Daleks left. On top of the Second Movellan War, they also lost large numbers in the Flux. These losses have greatly damaged their campaign to conquer the Universe. Which is why they would go to the trouble of hunting the Doctor down and trying to eliminate her once and for all. They really want to make sure she will no longer interfere as they attempt to re-build their numbers. 

And so ends our second chapter. We still have two more creatures to place in their proper timeline. We will tackle them in Part Three...

 

CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES: THE STATE OF FLUX (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?!) - PART ONE: THE CONTEMPORARIES

After a crapload of BOOK OF LISTS entries, it's time to change gears. Thankfully, we've just had a season full of recurring foes whose histories I have chronicled in previous essays that now need to be properly placed in the timelines I've created. 

 

I'm guessing that, by this point, anyone who hates Chris Chibnall has stopped reading this blog. I've taken a ridiculously strong pro-Chibnall stance on here. Not just because I think a lot of the persecution he's suffered was completely unfounded, but I also feel he's actually doing legitimately great things with the show. So much so, that I may just consider him to be the best Showrunner since Doctor Who returned to the air in 2005! 

Flux, for me, has greatly re-enforced this notion. I do feel it's something of a masterpiece. Six glorious episodes that linked together beautifully and told a continuously compelling story that was richly-layered and brilliantly-conceived. A really amazing piece of television that actually had a lot of the Chibnall-naysayers (not all of you, of course, some will never convert!) having to finally admit defeat and agree that he did something really good. Although, I'd say it was more than just really good. In fact, I'd say it was amazing. 

Quite simply, Flux kicked ass. 

As the whole season played out, I appreciated more and more what Chibnall had been doing all along. Series Eleven gave us no recurring foes and a very "light" Doctor. Series Twelve started bringing some villains back and the Doctor went to some darker places. Thirteen was steeped in Lore and recurring monsters and showed a Doctor that was being pushed beyond all her limits. I absolutely loved the way he arced things across the last few years. To me, it shows off just how good of a writer he truly is by having the skills to plan things out so far ahead. I know many will be happy to see the back of him as RTD steps in for 2023, but I won't be one of them. I loved Chibnall's work and will miss him dearly. 

NICE REVIEW, ROB - NOW GET TO THE POINT! 

All right, that little review was largely unnecessary. This is supposed to be a CHRONOLOGIES AND TIMELINES essay. But I still wanted to voice my opinion just a little bit in the intro before getting to the real meat of the essay. Flux rocked and I felt that needed to be stated clearly for all the world (or, at least, those who read this blog) to see. 

Besides being awesome, something else that Flux did to make me happy was to feature sooo many recurring creatures whose timelines I have already pieced together into something linear and mildly cohesive. The inclusion of these various races throughout the season now means I get to do a nice, gigantic two-part Appendix where I can figure out where these latest appearances will fit in to the histories I have established. This, of course, makes me very happy! 

It's my theory that some of the returning aliens that we saw this season came from another time while others hail from the present. Part One of this Appendix will focus on the ones that come from our current time period. I will not just point out which races are in the present tense but I will try to provide evidence to support my views. 

Part Two of the Appendix, of course, will look at the time travellers who I feel came from another era to investigate the Flux. I will also try to present evidence to substantiate those claims. 

But we'll get to that later. Let's focus on the Now. 

SETTING A DATE

The Halloween Apocalypse very quickly establishes a date for when the Flux Disaster starts. It seems to begin on October 31st, 2021. Or, at the vary latest, November 1st, 2021. It seems pretty late in the night when the story starts. Due to a slight time distortion, Karvanista arrives on Earth ahead of the rest of the Lupari fleet. So the Event probably did start later in the night but then Karvanista accidentally slips back in time to rescue Dan. So when Vinder sees the Flux advancing towards Observation Outpost Rose, a few hours may have elapsed since the start of the adventure. Which means we might be past midnight, by this point. So, if we want to be super-pedantic, the Flux may have started on November 1st.   

Whether this all begins October 31st or November 1st is not all that relevant. The most important fact is that providing a date in Halloween Apocalypse does make it clear that we are not in the future or the past. This is a present-day experience. 

It stands to reason, then, that several of the returning aliens that we see during the season would also be from the present. I would think this would especially be the case with anyone that appears in Halloween Apocalypse. This is a story with a very specific date and the creatures that cameo in the tale are, very much, reacting to the current events of the Flux. 

This leads me to believe, then, that Commander Ritskaw and his forthcoming Sontaran invasion force all hail from the Modern Day. When they make their bid to conquer the Earth by slipping in just before the Lupari shield forms, they have only travelled in Space - not in Time.

PRESENT-DAY INTERLOPERS - PART ONE

War of the Sontarans may cause a bit of confusion about what period these Sontarans come from since most of it does seem to take place during the Crimean War. But, as the story progresses, we learn that the Sontarans established an original foothold on Earth during late 2021 and are using time travel technology to go back into the past and pervert the course of human history (they tend to like to do that!). So these are still Sontarans from current times - they're just time travelling a bit once they make it onto our world. 

Thanks to the intervention of the Doctor, their original plan to conquer the Earth fails. But this doesn't stop the Sontarans from hatching a second, more subtle plan. In this scenario, the Grand Serpent is recruited to their cause to interfere with the formation of UNIT and make the Earth vulnerable to another invasion from the Sontarans. 

While this does seem to be a different battalion (led by a Commander Stenck, this time), these are still Sontarans from the present. Just like the other Sontaran invaders, they are desperate to use Earth as a means of protection from the Flux. And, at the same time, they are planning to eliminate the two other major races that are competing with them to dominate what's left of the Universe. While they have probably given the Grand Serpent some time travel technology so that he can influence UNIT over the years, the scheme is still initially-hatched in late 2021 as the Flux is sweeping across the cosmos. 

WHERE DOES IT FIT? 

All that's left, now, is to go back to my original entry on Sontaran History (https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/04/chronologies-and-timelines-probable.html) and place it somewhere in the timeline I established, there. The Halloween Apocalypse, War of the Sontarans, Survivors of the Flux and The Vanquishors takes place between the events of Sontaran Strategem/Poison Sky and The Sontaran Experiment. There is, of course, a sizeable gap of time between those two stories. I wouldn't be surprised if more Sontaran adventures eventually appear in this period in future episodes. 

About the only other thing that needs to be brought up about all this is the fact that the Sontarans in 2021 look radically-different from the ones in 2008(ish). How do we account for such a big difference of appearance in only a handful of years? Especially from what is meant to be a clone species?!

If you do bother to go back and read my initial essay on the matter, I theorise that the Sontarans are similar to us in that different regions of the planet produced different races. Those races then started cloning themselves as the Sontarans began fighting the Rutans all those many years ago. This explains why clones can look so different from each other during certain stories. Basically, we are seeing different races from the same species. 

PRESENT-DAY INTERLOPERS: PART TWO 

The other Big Nasty that we need to deal with in this entry are the Weeping Angels. I'm convinced that they also hail from the Present Day. But, just like the Sontarans, things can get a bit confusing as they do a fair amount of travelling back and forth in time. Their initial entry point onto Earth, however, is late 2021. 

The first Weeping Angel that we see in the season is the one that abducts Claire in Halloween Apocalypse. Which, as we've already established, is taking place on October 31st/November 1st, 2021. So we can safely assume that this is where (or, more accurately,when) the Angel comes from. In some ways, it's a bit difficult to be certain of this since we have no clear idea of how Weeping Angels get around. They can transport people into the past but they don't seem capable of actually time travelling, themselves. Since moving through time doesn't seem possible for them, I'm inclined to believe this Angel is from the present. I don't believe the Angel could attack Claire in 2021 if it didn't come from that time period.  

As we go into Village of the Angels, things become tricky. We see Weeping Angels in 1967 and then in 1901. These are Angels working as an extraction team that are trying to capture an agent that wants to leave Division. The rogue agent, of course, is the same Angel we saw attacking Claire in Halloween Apocalypse. What about the rest of them? What time period are they from? 1967? 1901? 

It's my belief that, like the fugitive Angel they were chasing, the extraction team are originally from current times. Division has granted them the ability to travel through time so they can set up the quantum extraction. I believe this because the Angels bring the Doctor back to the Present to meet Tecteun in Survivors of the Flux. This leads me to think that Tecteun put together a team from a contemporary position on the timeline and sent them back in time to get the fleeing agent and the Doctor. 

PROPERLY PLACING THE ANGELS AND DEALING WITH A TRICKY BIT

Just as we did with the Sontarans, we need to place Halloween Apocalypse/Once, Upon Time/Village of the Angels and Survivors of the Flux in a timeline I have already established for the Weeping Angels. Should you wish to take a full look at it, I tried to piece their history together in this entry: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/06/chronologies-and-timelines-brief.html . 

Chronologically, all the episodes from Flux that involve Weeping Angels take place between Blink and The Time of the Angles/Flesh and Stone. We could be nitpicky and try to fit things in a bit better by dealing with their brief cameo in The God Complex, but let's not sweat that too much. Those particular Angels, after all, were just an illusion. 

The Flux episodes that involve Weeping Angels fit into a pretty big gap of time between Blink and Time of the Angels/Flesh and Stone (just like the Sontaran episodes did). More than likely, there will probably be other Weeping Angel stories that will get made someday that we can also slot into this particular part of their timescale.  

There is one more issue to deal with that might be a bit tricky to reconcile. During Once, Upon Time we see a Weeping Angel appearing to Yaz during certain scenes that take place in her past. This is happening so that  the Angel can, ultimately, leap out from Yaz's memories and into the TARDIS to commandeer it. I have asserted that all Weeping Angels in Flux are from the Present. I also believe that the species is capable of temporally displacing their victims but cannot travel in time, themselves (the very fact that an Angel needs to steal the TARDIS to go back to 1967 helps to re-enforce this). So the Big Question is: how was this Weeping Angel able to slip into Yaz's past? 

My guess would be that Yaz is having a very unique relationship with Time during that particular episode. And, while an Angel cannot actually travel in time, it can still manipulate it. Those two elements working together enabled the Weeping Angel to briefly reach into Yaz's past and make some appearances in her memory. She is now retaining the image of an Angel, which enables the creature to leap out into the TARDIS at the opportune moment. But a Weeping Angel would never be able to do this sort of thing under normal circumstances. Yaz needed to be zipping around in her own timeline like she was for the Angel to accomplish such a trick. 

THUS ENDETH PART ONE

We have, now, "properly" chronicled the recurring baddies that hail from the Modern Day. There are, of course, a few other creatures that appeared in Flux that I have chronicled over the years that were not brought up in this particular installment. This is because I don't believe they actually came from our Time Zone so I am going to give them a special entry of their own. As we move into Part Two, I'll explain why I believe them to be time travellers who are visiting this period from another era and try to present evidence to support my ideas. 

See you then.... 

SPECIAL NOTE: 

Just wanted to offer a bit of an apology for not posting so much in January. I had intended to put up a few entries for the month but then a personal tragedy came into my life that was clearly a bigger priority. After a very brief battle with cancer, my father passed. Grieving him was more important than blogging about Doctor Who so I took a little break from here. 

While I will never totally recover from such a loss, I am starting to feel well enough to get back into my passion for blogging about Doctor Who. So the entries should start coming out fairly regularly, again. 

Thanks to all of you who have been patient with me while I was away and I appreciate the great support you show me now that I am starting to write in here, again. 

 

Just in case you don't feel like scrolling up to find the link, here are the full histories of the two monsters we covered in this entry:

Sontarans: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2016/04/chronologies-and-timelines-probable.html

Weeping Angels: 

https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2018/06/chronologies-and-timelines-brief.html