Forum:Metaltron reality

Index → The Panopticon → Metaltron reality

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Opening post

Not a lot to say here, just a request that User:MrThermomanPreacher/Sandbox/Metaltron timeline be moved into the main namespace. Feel free to remove some of the headcanony palimpsest universe stuff if deemed necessary. MrThermomanPreacher ☎ 11:35, 4 August 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

Could you remove some of the "headcanony palimpsest universe stuff" yourself, and then re-present the sandbox to this thread? Once we've established there's no headcanon (intentionally) there, I've no particular issue with this. Although, also, with those bits removed, I don't really see why you wouldn't be able to do the move yourself? Cousin Ettolrahc ☎ 12:14, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I'm not convinced. Unless specific valid sources depict them as "universes" in their own right, I don't think we should create pages for every last state of the palimpsest. In theory the palimpsest-universe way of looking at the concept of time being rewritten means that there's a "Universe where little Amelia dropped her ice-cream" that gets overwritten with a "Universe where an adult Amy bought little Amelia a new one" as per Night and the Doctor, but that's just not how the story itself thinks about this. We can't start creating a retroactive palimpsest-universe page for every version of the future that gets overwritten by later TV continuity. And I just don't think any of the quotes provided at your sandbox are framing the Metaltron's state of reality in terms of being a distinct universe from what replaced it. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 12:57, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

I like reality / timeline pages, and I like this page, but the palimpest framing confuses me as well. In particular, I don't think there's a clear implication that Dalek was actually overwritten by the later stories, just that the Metaltron and the Ninth Doctor were isolated and mistaken. Maybe some of the page's contents would be better housed on a "Metaltron incident" page similar to Operation Mannequin etc. – n8 (☎) 17:50, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

Well we have a page on the incident already, at (or at least should be at) Van Statten Incident.

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17:54, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

@Nate, the BTS section of Van Statten Incident does claim that The Time Traveller's Almanac (which is a valid source these days) makes explicit the idea that Doomsday and such hadn't metatemporally happened yet, and this was why Van Statten didn't know about the Daleks. Which is only logical in the first place, of course, though I agree we shouldn't go too far in assuming it if we didn't have such a source. But just because a source confirms that time was rewritten does not, IMO, justify the creation of a page about the state of reality pre-rewrite — that way, as I said, lies "reality where Amy was bought a new ice cream". Only if the source actually frames things as a palimpsest-universe or the like, should a page be created. So, could we have a straight quote from the Almanac to see how it phrases things? Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 00:04, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

At this point in their timelines, the Doctor and this Dalek seemed to be the only survivors of the Last Great Time War — the last of their races. The Cult of Skaro were still in their sphere in the Void and had yet to emerge in the Torchwood Institute and precipitate the Battle of Canary Wharf in 2007. The Empire State Building had been constructed without their interference, and the Earth had never been transported across the universe to the Medusa Cascade. Like Henry Van Statten, most of the human race had no idea what a Dalek was. With the death of the last Dalek, the Doctor was the unwilling victor of the Time War. Or so he thought...The Time Traveller's Almanac, Chapter 3: "Everything Changes"; Page 149

Here you go!

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01:02, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Phrasing to me suggests that the relevant slice of the 3+1-manifold has changed due to temporal interference, (perhaps quite a large slice!) but not that the entire universe was wiped away and rewritten. (/grumbles about the metaphysics of the DWU making very little sense and someone needing to clean it up/) Najawin ☎ 06:13, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes… Importantly the facts of the case aren't really what's in doubt. It's how the author presents it. The whole "thing" with palimpsest universes is that in The Infinity Doctors, Parkin takes a situation that in most authors' lingo would just be "the still-singular main universe's history was rewritten", and treats its different "editions" as each deserving the name of "a universe" in general even though they succeeded one another instead of existing in parallel in such a way that travel with them might ever be possible. This warrants creating pages for the various "states of reality" thus identified by Parkin (which just so happen to match up to different eras and branches of Doctor Who lore IRL, e.g. the DWM-comics continuity or the Virgin continuum, and thus act as a bizarro mirror to the similarly-meta taxonomy of "alternate universes" in Zagreus). But crucially, I don't think we should create pages about palimpsest universes about "versions of history" seen in other people's works, even if they exactly fit the definition of a Parkinnian "palimpsest universe", if those other people don't present them in terms of distinct timelines/realities/universes. That's the tricky bit. Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 12:34, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Palimpsest terminology aside, I feel it does deserve a page. Almanac very firmly takes the view that Dalek is set in a former version of history, it's a not even a theory as far as it is concerned (even then, were it presented as speculation, it would still be in-universe speculation). Adventures in Time and Space: The Roleplaying Game: The Ninth Doctor Sourcebook also touches on this issue and even expands on it through a link to Harriet Jones. Long story short, it states that Dalek takes place during Britain's Golden Age with Harriet as Prime Minister in 2012, before the Tenth Doctor changes things in The Christmas Invasion. MrThermomanPreacher ☎ 14:20, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

Right, but again, we do not and cannot create a page for every version of history. The question isn't whether it's speculation. By at least some accounts, the Doctor changes history in basically every story ever; no (or hardly any) time-travel has ever happened yet, any time they land somewhere they're tinkering with events in big or small ways. Again I return to Night and the Doctor — it's not a "theory" that Amy rewrites history so that she now got a second ice-cream. There was a pre- and post-ice-cream "version of history". But it's not presented as two different universes, just as rewriting the universe. And the Dalek thing just seems to be the same thing on a bigger scale. – The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scrooge MacDuck (talk • contribs) .

Be that as it may, I cannot help but feel this page is justified if others aren't. Multiple sources creating an explanation for a discrepancy in a prior source is notable moreso than just time being casually rewritten in a lone source; this is like Dating protocol, even if that page isn't about another timeline per se.

Heck, the bit about the rewritten version of the timeline in The Time Traveller's Almanac is presented in a section of it's own, not just in the main recap of the events of Dalek.

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17:14, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I mean, "multiple". TTA, and, what, Dalek Combat Training Guide? If you squint? It's really all from the first. (No, the cracks in time do not count. C'mon.) Najawin ☎ 17:59, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

TTA, tha sourcebook @MrThermomanPreacher pointed out, and as you pointed out, DCTG. That's three sources all saying the events of Dalek happened in a different version of the Doctor's universe. That's kinda substantial.

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15:05, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Not if none of them are talking about it in terms of different universes. I tire of repeating myself, but changes to time qua changes to time are never and should never under any circumstances be grounds for creating reality pages. Only if characters/sources are talking in terms of "alternate timelines", "versions of history", etc. are page-creations warranted. People in Doctor Who change history all the time, and I have yet to hear of any principled way to avoid creating millions of pages for "universe before Amy went back to gave herself ice cream" and whatnot, if we start allowing in things like the so-called "Metaltron reality". Scrooge MacDuck ⊕ 17:43, 16 September 2023 (UTC)