View source for Howling:There are three main timelines in the DWU

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What if there are three main timelines in the DWU. The first timeline is the classic series timeline which consists of the classic series. the Virgin New Adventures, the Virgin Missing Adventures, the Past Doctor Adventures, and the Eighth Doctor Adventures, and Scream of the Shalka. The second timeline is the DWM timeline which consists of most of the DWM comic strips. The third and final timeline includes an altered version of the classic series, the Big Finish audios, and the Revived series of Doctor Who from 2005 to the present. All these timelines have differences. For example, in the first timeline, the Doctor was loomed and is a reincarnation of the Other who was part of a triumvirate which consisted of Rassilon, Omega, and the Other himself. At the end of Lungbarrow, the Tardis console begins to change into the one seen in the TV movie. After Lungbarrow, the events of the TV movie take place and after that are the Eighth Doctor Adventures. In the EDAs, the Doctor ends up destroying Gallifrey to prevent a war that would involve the Faction Paradox and the Enemy. In the second timeline (the DWM timeline), Ace is killed and the Doctor goes to acquire the Master's remains, setting up the TV movie. After that, the Eighth Doctor meets Izzy Sinclair the DWM Eighth Doctor comic strips take place. In the third timeline (the Big Finish/New Who timeline), the Doctor has his Big Finish adventures. In the Night of the Doctor, the Eighth Doctor only mentions his Big Finish companions and not of the others such as Fitz, Sam, Trix, Compassion, Izzy, Destrii, and others. I theorize that that means that while the Big Finish audios take place in the same timeline as New Who, it takes place in a timeline that is different to the ones in the comics and novels.

- In CC: The Beginning and TV: The Name of the Doctor, it shows the Doctor leaving with Susan. However, in Lungbarrow, the Doctor travels to Gallifrey's past and meets Susan there and it was stated that she was the Other's granddaughter. She recognized him as her grandfather and left with him in the Tardis. So these are clearly different timelines that we are dealing with.
- In DWM: Ground Zero, Ace is killed and the Doctor is much older. However, she is clearly alive and older in the Virgin New Adventures while the Doctor still looks a little younger than how he was portrayed in DWM: Ground Zero. So these are clearly different timelines that we are dealing with.
- In TV: The End of Time, the Master mentions his father and in TV: The Sound of Drums, he is shown as a child. However, in Lungbarrow, it was clearly stated that Gallifreyans were loomed, not born. This means that in New Who, Gallifreyans were born instead of being loomed. So these are clearly different timelines that we are dealing with.
- In New Who, the Doctor states that he is 900 years old. However, in TV: Time and the Rani, the Doctor in his Seventh incarnation states that he is 953 years old. Also, the Seventh Doctor had his 1000th birthday in the novels. So it appears that the Doctor in New Who is a much younger Doctor than the one from the other timelines.
- In EDA: The Ancestor Cell, the Doctor destroys Gallifrey and erased the Time Lords and the Faction Paradox from existence to prevent a war between the Faction Paradox and the Time Lords (which can be chronicled in the Faction Paradox novels). Yet in New Who, the Doctor destroyed Gallifrey because there was a Time War between the Time Lords and the Daleks. And don't give "There were two destructions of Gallifrey" thing. There is no way the Doctor could have destroyed Gallifrey twice. That is just stupid. It is clearly a different timeline.
- In New Who, Sarah Jane Smith never met the Doctor after TV: The Hand of Fear. However, she had met him again in TV: The Five Doctors and had also met the Eight Doctor in the EDAs during the 90s. Also, she was portrayed as being married and as a mother where as in New Who, she states that she has never been married before.

Also, Time Lords are not a race, it is a rank. And a Time Lord gains their second heart after their first regeneration.
[[Special:Contributions/24.115.233.143|24.115.233.143]]<sup>[[User talk:24.115.233.143#top|talk to me]]</sup> 23:23, January 13, 2014 (UTC)

:And only in the realm of Doctor Who could an explanation like this be considered plausible. Or, as these timelines seem to split off in sequence, either there were divergence points, or the history of the Universe was rewritten. —[[User:BioniclesaurKing4t2|BioniclesaurKing4t2]] - [[User talk:BioniclesaurKing4t2|"Hello, I'm the Doctor.]] [[Special:Contributions/BioniclesaurKing4t2|Basically, . . . ''run''."]] 03:18, January 17, 2014 (UTC)

This is not a new idea. In the Foreword to [[Dead Romance]] author [[Lawrence Miles]] explicitly states that the [[Virgin Books]] and the BBC Books take place in separate universes. In the [[Doctor Who Magazine]] comic [[The Glorious Dead]] the DWM [[Eighth Doctor]] "discovers" that there are various incarnations of him existing in various universes, and each one is equally "real". In [[Zagreus (audio story)]] the [[Big Finish Productions]] Eighth Doctor gets to see into alternate universes, and witnesses the events of the DWM comic [[Oblivion (comic story)]], the [[Eighth Doctor Adventure]] novel [[The Adventuress of Henrietta Street]], the BBC webcast [[Death Comes to Time]], as well as other universes, some where the Eighth Doctor exists, and some where he doesn't. Again, it is stated these are all equally "real" and "valid". The official Big Finish book ''The Inside Story'' by [[Benjamin Cook]] explicitly states that this sequence was written to "nail down the alternate realities so that no one would ever have to try and and fit the BBC books, the Virgin books and the Big Finish audios into a single coherent universe or timeline ever again". The EDA [[The Gallifrey Chronicles]] has the character [[Marnal]] seeing into the Eighth Doctor's future, and seeing three different ninth incarnations. While the [[Past Doctor Adventure]] [[Spiral Scratch]] has the [[Sixth Doctor]] and [[Melanie Bush]] (from the BBC Books) encountering alternate versions of the Sixth Doctor...one is still travelling with [[Peri Brown]], one is travelling with [[Frobisher]](ie. from the DWM Comics), one is in blue travelling with [[Evelyn Smythe]](from the Big Finish Audios), another Sixth Doctor in blue is travelling with Evelyn, only she has cybernetic implants(ie. from [[Real Time (webcast)]], and there are also various other Sixth Doctors, most of them with a version of Mel, but some without. Again, the idea that any one of them is the "real" one is mocked.

It is unclear whether your "three timelines" is 100% accurate. What '''is''' clear is that the various television episodes, novelisations, novels, novellas, short stories, webcasts, comic strips, comics, graphic novels, movies, stage plays, audios, audiobooks etc. were never intended to fit into a single "DWU", with some stories being "real or "valid", and others dismissed as "not part of the DWU" or somehow less. [[Peter Cushing]]'s "Doctor Who", the "Doctor Who" who met [[Susan English]], the [[Richard E. Grant]] [[Shalka Doctor]], [[Peter Anghelides]]'s redhaird Doctor from [[Good Companions]], the Doctor from [[The Cabinet of Light (novel)|The Cabinet of Light]], the Doctor from [[The Infinity Doctors]], [[John Who|John]] and [[Gillian Who|Gillian]], the [[World Distributors]] Annuals, the [[Daleks]] comic strip where the Daleks were created by a scientist called [[Yarvelling]] from blue humanoids called Dals, [[Seven Keys to Doomsday]]...they're all "Canon", they're all "Real", and they're all just as real and valid as [[An Unearthly Child (TV story)]], [[Pyramids of Mars (TV story)]], [[Rose (TV story)]] or [[The Bells of Saint John (TV story)]]. How many timelines are there? I don't know. But there ain't one "DWU", where some stories can be placed, and others can be discarded. [[User:Master of Spiders|Master of Spiders]] [[User talk:Master of Spiders|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 12:56, May 10, 2014 (UTC)

No, there isn't. What there are, though, are stories I really like, stories I think are OK & stories I think are rather poor (or worse). Some in the last category "fit" perfectly well; it doesn't make them any more enjoyable. --[[Special:Contributions/89.241.222.60|89.241.222.60]]<sup>[[User talk:89.241.222.60#top|talk to me]]</sup> 23:16, May 10, 2014 (UTC)