51st century

Timeline

previous: 50th century next: 52nd century

Years of interest

5000 5094 5019 5020 5066 5006 5083 5086 5064 5010 5017 5012 5097 5067 5080 5050 5026 5090 5087

In the 51st century, humanity continued to spread into the galaxy and to deal with time travel.

Earth and humanity

Another Ice Age affected Earth during this time. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang; PROSE: Emotional Chemistry; AUDIO: The Butcher of Brisbane)

Earth began to be abandoned by the rich and powerful as the sun went supernova. Those left behind were fractured into millions of nation-states ("Alliances") battling through the ether in the Transmat Wars. (COMIC: The Keep) Ionisation was used to combat the glaciers caused by the Ice Age, and sites like Brittanicus Base were established by this time to deal with the glaciers. (TV: The Ice Warriors)

The Ninth Doctor told Rose Tyler that, by this century, humanity would have spread out across "half the galaxy". Humanity was more sexually liberal in this century than in previous eras, widely accepting both same-sex relations and inter-species ones. (TV: The Doctor Dances) Human bodies in this period evolved to produce more highly evolved pheromones, which made them more sexually attractive than their ancestors. (TV: Day One, Fragments)

This century was also notable for major advances in robot rights. (AUDIO: One Mile Down)

Among humans, however, discrimination against other species was still rampant. Though humans often thought themselves the saviours of others' worlds, the Tenth Doctor was quick to point out that human colonists destroyed planet after planet, along with all native life, as they exploited new worlds for natural resources. (AUDIO: One Mile Down)

The Church was a faith-based military organisation primarily responsible for interstellar security, protecting human populations, and special covert operations. Regular military ranks were replaced by offices such as Bishop, Cleric and Verger. (TV: The Time of Angels, Flesh and Stone)

The Time Agency operated out of this century, but it was closed again in the same century. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, The Empty Child, Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)

Law and order collapsed in this century. Derek O'Dell, a fan of the 20th century comic book Aggrotron!, adopted the identity of Courtmaster Cruel, a character from the comic, to strike fear into the hearts of criminals. (AUDIO: Izzy's Story)

The Supreme Alliance of Eastern State, at the initiative of its Minister of Justice Magnus Greel, experimented with time travel using a method developed by the alien scientist Dr Sa Yy Findecker based on double nexus particles and zygma beam, but this proved to be a dead end. Greel was said to be the first human to travel through time, arriving in China during the 19th century, but became horribly disfigured by it. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, AUDIO: The Butcher of Brisbane)

World War VI also took place in the early 51st century. The Icelandic Alliance fell and the Supreme Alliance of Eastern States, of which Magnus Greel was Minister of Justice, rose in its stead. The Supreme Alliance committed a number of war crimes and was brought down by the Filipino Army at the Battle of Reykjavik, which the Fourth Doctor witnessed. (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang, AUDIO: The Butcher of Brisbane)

Also in the early 51st century, Magnus Greel killed approximately 100,000 people, a deed which earned him the epithet "Butcher of Brisbane". (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) Consequently, the area where the corpses were kept became known as the Brisbane Dead Zone. (AUDIO: The Butcher of Brisbane)

Jack, originally Javic Piotr Thane, (AUDIO: Month 25) had came from the Boeshane Peninsula in the 51st century, living under the threat of invasion. Ultimately, what Jack described as "the most horrible creatures you could possibly imagine", whose howls travelled before them, arrived. They had been known to pass over the Peninsula and it was believed that they would do so again, but it was on that day that they attacked. Jack's father, Franklin, had sent him away with his younger brother Gray to run for safety as he went to find their mother. As they ran, however, Jack lost Gray after losing the grip on his hand. Jack returned home to find his mother with Franklin's corpse. (TV: Adam)

Gray himself was captured by the creatures who, as he recalled, "lived to torture". They kept him and others just on the verge of life and he would lay, hemmed in by corpses, praying to become one. Years later, the now adult Gray sought retribution against his brother following these experiences, catching up with him in the 21st century. (TV: Exit Wounds)

The Doctor is embroiled in the aftermath of the crash of the Byzantium. (TV: The Time of Angels)

The Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond, along with River Song witnessed the crash of the Byzantium, then confronted the last of the Weeping Angels in the Maze of the Dead. (TV: The Time of Angels / Flesh and Stone)

The Tenth Doctor and Donna Noble visited the Library where they faced an infestation by the Vashta Nerada. The Doctor met River Song for the first time in his personal timeline (but not in hers). River retrieved the consciousnesses of some 4,022 humans who were uploaded to the memory banks of the supercomputer, CAL, died, and uploaded to the Library's computer. (TV: Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead)

Robotics

The SS Madame de Pompadour. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace)

Clockwork robots were utilised whilst on spacecraft with normal electronic systems and computers, with historians concluding that engineers reverted to earlier, classic technologies since electronic robots had gained a reputation for being dangerously unreliable in light of incents with Voc Robots, the Heavenly Host, Handbots and Kerblam! Men. (PROSE: The Monster Vault)

At some point in this century the SS Madame de Pompadour was damaged by an Ion storm and the Clockwork Droids tried to fix it but where stopped by The Doctor. And a little time after The Doctor left the ship became sentient and believed it was Madame de Pompadour her self. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace, WC: Pompadour)

The spaceship SS Madame de Pompadour became disabled. Adrift in the Dagmar Cluster, its Clockwork Droids repaired the ship using whatever they could find, including the crew and used their body parts as substitutes for mechanical components, and attempted to kidnap the original Madame de Pompadour from the 18th century to use her brain as their computer core. This was thwarted by the Tenth Doctor. (TV: The Girl in the Fireplace) Its sister ship, the SS Marie Antoinette, fell through time to ancient Earth. The Clockwork Droids, controlled by a central droid which grew to become a cyborg, eventually surfaced in Victorian London where they harvested organs until the newly regenerated Twelfth Doctor stopped the Half-Face Man. (TV: Deep Breath)

On 11 January of an undisclosed year, the Dagmar Cluster hosted the great spaceship race. Those in attendance were advised to beware ion storms and cannibal spaceships. (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary)

The Time Lords themselves used clockwork constructs derived from 51st century Earth technology in their confession dials, one example being the Veil which menaced the Twelfth Doctor. (PROSE: The Monster Vault, TV: Heaven Sent)

Conflicts

The Kollo-Zarnista Mining Corporation owned and run Kollo-Zarnista Mining Facility 27, which extracted diamonds from Saturn's atmosphere using Cancri technology. The hive-mind race Ba-El Cratt waged war against the Cancri and the Human Empire when they discovered they were working together to mine diamonds. Three Ba-El Cratt travelled to Saturn to destroy Kollo-Zantista Mining Facility 27. (PROSE: Diamond Dogs)

Some time during this period, the native Swampies of Delta III and Thawn, the leader of the local methane and protein collection and manufacturing refinery, were at war. Thawn was conspiring with the criminal and gun smuggler Rohm-Dutt to wipe the Swampies out. During this period Kroll appeared in its Fourth Manifestation, killing Thawn and Ranquin, leader of the Swampies. The Doctor was able to reduce Kroll back to his normal size and retrieve the segment of the Key to Time lurking within him. (TV: The Power of Kroll) Around this point, Laura Palmer was worried Rohm-Dutt would attack a shipment of diamonds coming out of Saturn. (PROSE: Diamond Dogs)

To prevent them from falling into Dalek hands during the Last Great Time War, the weapons factories of Villengard were destroyed by the War Doctor using a molecular fruit bomb, with the assistance of Dorium Maldovar, and replaced by a banana grove. (COMIC: The Whole Thing's Bananas) The Ninth Doctor recalled having done so when he recognised a 51st century sonic blaster from Villengard wielded by Time Agent Jack Harkness, who himself was native to the 51st century. (TV: The Doctor Dances)

Some time in the 51st century, (PROSE: Diamond Dogs) the planets of Androzani Major and Minor of the Sirius system were independent. The exceedingly rare but also utterly toxic substance spectrox was found in the caves of Androzani Minor, and a war had broken over the control of the spectrox trade between Morgus of the Sirius Conglomerate and his former partner Sharaz Jek, who used android soldiers. The conflict was effectively over through the deaths of both Morgus and Jek. (TV: The Caves of Androzani)

The work of natural historians who were allowed to study the monster information vaults of the Doctor's TARDIS noted that a "Great Cyber War" took place in the 51st century, involving the Cyberium and the Alliance. The Alliance had sent the Cyberium back through time, (PROSE: The Monster Vault) only for Ashad to recover it in Switzerland in 1816 (TV: The Haunting of Villa Diodati) before returning to the immediate aftermath of the war, where he attempted to bring about the restoration of the Cyber-Empire. (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen)

Notable individuals

Captains Jack Harkness and John Hart were Time Agents from the 51st century. (TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang)

Jack Harkness, (TV: The Doctor Dances) John Hart, (TV: Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) K9 Mark I, (TV: The Invisible Enemy) Gray, (TV: Adam) Magnus Greel, (TV: The Talons of Weng-Chiang) Morgus, Sharaz Jek (TV: The Caves of Androzani, PROSE: Diamond Dogs) and Rohm-Dutt (TV: The Power of Kroll, PROSE: Diamond Dogs) all came from this century.

Other references

Whilst dealing with Daleks in 2021, Jack told Yasmin Khan that he was from the Boeshane Peninsula in the 51st century and suggested that may take her there later. (TV: Revolution of the Daleks)