Talk:Time lock

A lot stated in this article seems to be interpretive and not based on canon demonstrations. For instance, in the new series so far, The Doctor only meets three Time Lords. One is a clone of himself (Jenny), and so doesn't count. One is the Master, and the Master's presence is explained by him deserting and hiding out in human form at the end of the universe, presumably sneaking past the restrictions of the Time Lock. The third is the Doctor's own Fifth incarnation, and since the Doctor is not subject to the Time Lock, there's no reason he can't meet his former selves.

However, the strong indication that The Doctor is effectively alone in the universe, despite the non-subjective nature of other Time Lords including the Rani, the Monk, Romana, assorted Chancellors, and so on, therefore dictates that if he has reason to believe that he cannot bump into these beings ever, that not only is the Time War locked out from being able to be time travelled to, the participants are prevented not only from being able to time travel OUT of it, but also *from ever having done so previously*

The only way this makes any sense is if Gallifrey, Skaro, and other places participating in the Last Great Time War have been ripped out of time completely, effectively locking them and the rest of the universe into two different time streams, perhaps with the Time War locked into a closed loop even. Therefore, in the current universe, Romana, for instance, *never existed* (presumably with the side effect that The Doctor, while able to meet with his fifth incarnation, cannot always meet with his fourth incarnation, at least not any time that Romana was travelling with him).

Clearly The Doctor can travel to times before the Time War, as demonstrated in several episodes: The Runaway Bride (the formation of Earth), The Fires of Pompeii, The Wire, and so on. (Blink had him sent back to 1969, but the Weeping Angels, being from the earliest times of the Universe, may not be subjected to the restrictions of a Time Lock, so this cannot be counted -- however, the TARDIS *did* travel back to that time to retrieve The Doctor and Martha after this, and since the Fourth Doctor was made President of Gallifrey, while the First Doctor met Daleks for the first time "thousands of years in the future" (according to his statement in The Dalek Invasion of Earth) after leaving Earth from 1963, we can conclude that if these times are reachable, the time that the Time War takes place is likely reachable, but that The Time War itself is *not*).

Since we know that the participants in the Time War (other Time Lords) cannot (in theory) escape the Time Lock, and the Doctor sees himself as alone in the universe and does not see running into other Gallifreyans as a likelihood (and previously even as a possibility), and since in his Ninth incarnation he's amazed that even one Dalek escaped and states with certainty that it is the only one of its kind in the Universe (a fact the Dalek verifies), then the Time Lock cannot be simply a restriction against time travel to the time of the Time War. Certainly there must be other Daleks in the universe, after all, because they are going to invade Earth in 2150 A.D. but since the lone Dalek states that there are not, this event has been utterly removed from future-history in all ways.

Of course, the concept that the Time Lords have locked the Time War in such a way as to make Time Lords not have existed would therefore clearly create a paradox in that there were never Time Lords to do this in the first place. Perhaps it is the reason the Doctor has escaped the same fate: if he did the locking, there's a fixed point in spacetime that is responsible for initiating the lock (turning the Key of Rassilon to do so, perhaps). On the other hand, if he is not actually responsible for the lock itself, it is then a strong indicator that there is a currently functioning Paradox Machine active on Gallifrey, on the other side of the Lock (and therefore also locking it further, that if deactivated the paradox would ensue that would prevent the unlocking).

I'm interested to see how Stephen Moffat gets past all these troubles. While he can feel free to black box things away as "wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff humans wouldn't understand" he does, of course, have to make an effort. Further, knowing his writing, he will for his own sanity. 173.12.172.149 02:13, September 27, 2009 (UTC)