Infinity Doctor's reality

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In one alternate timeline, a version of the Doctor spent decades or centuries living on Gallifrey, acting as both as a teacher and as a member of the High Council. There, he organised a peace conference between the Sontaran Empire and the Rutan Host living in that universe. When he was finished, the Doctor decided it was time to leave Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

The Eighth Doctor often encountered and interacted with consequences, fallout, and individuals from this universe in his own. (PROSE: Seeing I, Unnatural History, Interference - Book Two, The Taking of Planet 5, Father Time, The Gallifrey Chronicles)

Behind the scenes

• Writer Lance Parkin has been consistently ambiguous about the setting of The Infinity Doctors. On his website he categorises the novel as both a First Doctor and Eighth Doctor novel. Many readers considered the story either as a tale of the First Doctor before he left Gallifrey, or of the Eighth Doctor having returned to Gallifrey at an ambiguous point in his life. However, the truth may be more complicated than either of these possibilities. Parkin told an interviewer that the Doctor in the novel is "clearly not the eighth Doctor of mainstream continuity. He does look like Paul McGann"; Parkin's revelations about the plans from which the premise of The Infinity Doctors grew suggest that the story deals with a version of the Eighth Doctor whose past has been rewritten so that he has no longer ever left Gallifrey.
• In 2004, Parkin told the BBC's Doctor Who website that the novel was originally conceived as part of a two-novel series, with the other half written by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum. Orman and Blum were ultimately unable to write their novel, Mentor, though they would use elements of it in Unnatural History. Parkin said, "I realised this was a unique chance to do a story that could be outside the normal 'continuity' — about continuity. Which I found quite a fun idea. And I also realised that most of the readers would be expecting the bit where the universe goes all wobbly and turns back into the 'real' Doctor Who universe, and once I decided not to do that, it was very liberating."
• In the novel itself, Omega seems to address the nonconformity to standard continuity, claiming that reality is so riddled with paradox that multiple timelines and contradicting versions of the Doctor and Gallifrey are occupying the same universe and are constantly interacting with each other. Preceding events, aftermath, and references to The Infinity Doctors were seen throughout novels in BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, suggesting a degree of narrative and temporal melding.
  • The novels that have a relation to The Infinity Doctors are Seeing I, Unnatural History, Interference - Book Two, The Taking of Planet 5, Father Time, and The Gallifrey Chronicles
• In light of this, this wiki has decided to treat The Infinity Doctors as a universe parallel to the "main" Doctor Who universe, akin to Pete's World. Some details of this universe may also be found in the "main" universe, but it's not possible to determine which ones. A full discussion of the topic may be found here.