Theory talk:Timeline - Fifteenth Doctor

Pre-TCoRR adventures

Just want to voice my disagreement that the events of The World Tree ^[+]Loading...["The World Tree (audio story)"], Come on TARDIS, let's go party ^[+]Loading...["Come on TARDIS, let's go party (illustration)"] and Rose ^[+]Loading...{"ed":"2023 Illustrated Edition","1":"Rose (novelisation)"} can be placed before The Church on Ruby Road ^[+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"]. The argument for that placement relies on the fact that the adventures can be summed up in a single sentence and that we don't see the full diary entry summarising Fifteen's first adventures in First Day of the Doctor ^[+]Loading...["First Day of the Doctor (short story)"].

This is the transcript of the diary entry, exactly matching the formatting from the annual:

'What the h[...]
here?" are[...]
first word[...]
saying t[...]
Ruby S[...]
other[...]
some[...]
adv[...]A cut-off extract from the Fifteenth Doctor's diary

I have attempted to "reconstruct" the diary entry, to show just how short it is:

'What the hell is going on
here?" are some of the
first words I remember
saying to the world.
Ruby Sunday is
otherwise
someone I shared my first
adventure with.A cut-off extract from the Fifteenth Doctor's diary

I can't quite figure out the section with Ruby fully, but you get the impression.

So, to refute @BananaClownMan's argument... no, these solo adventures cannot fit between The Giggle ^[+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"] and The Church on Ruby Road ^[+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"]. The other diary entries seen in FDoTD only contain the respective Doctors' debut stories; it is already internally inconsistent that Fifteen's contains the events of The Giggle and The Church on Ruby Road, and looking at the sentence structure, it condenses the plots of TWT and TCoRR a lot. So, for it to contain information about TWT, CoTlgp and Rose is incredibly unlikely. At the very least, the Fifteen's description of TWT would go "I attempted to help my eleventh incarnation free a woman from a Time Bubble", which already can't fit between the parts about TG and TCoRR. You cannot place this sentence in the diary entry, let alone anything about Come on TARDIS, let's go party and Rose which can only be snippets of larger adventures.

Even though the diary entry is not fully seen, we can work out the approximate length of it using the "what the hell is going on here?" quote in conjunction with the line breaks, and can work out that, as far as The First Day of the Doctor is concerned, there is no gap whatsoever.

@BananaClownMan also stated that @WaltK's rebuttal of The Giggle ^[+]Loading...["The Giggle (novelisation)"] on Theory talk:Timeline - Fourteenth Doctor ignoring some EU stories can be attributed to the fact that Fourteen was not being fully thorough. But, in this case, it does not apply, as The First Day of the Doctor is pretty damn explicit that the diary entries cover, well, the first day of various incarnations of the Doctor. It makes no sense within the context of the story for Fifteen to have had at least three off-screen adventures by this point, and to omit them from his diary.

You could speculate or theorise a reason for this, but what's the point? If you are going against information given in the only story that makes any sort of claim on Fifteen's timeline, to place some ambiguous adventures that can feasibly take place at a later point, forcing them into this gap makes no sense.

I fully expect First Day of the Doctor to be contradicted in the future, but, based upon current information, The Giggle leads directly into The Church on Ruby Road.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

21:31, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Furthermore, we don't even absolutely know that Fifteen is alone in any of these stories. Ruby could be in the TARDIS during The World Tree, Ruby could'be been out of frame of the photograph taken of Fifteen in Rose, and we don't even see Fifteen in Come on TARDIS, let's go party, hence why it's only really covered as a Fifteenth Doctor story in the theory namespace.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

21:53, 28 December 2023 (UTC)

Any objections to my answer? If not I'll edit the page accordingly.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

14:15, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

I'm still planning to, I'm just getting some things I'd already planned out of the way, because this post is really long and deserves my undivided attention. I'll be sure to reply as soon as possible, but it might be a few more days at most. BananaClownMan ☎ 18:24, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

Sorry this reply took so long, (I wanted to get my Fourteenth Doctor retrospective done before I moved onto the Fifteenth Doctor) but I can now try my best to offer an explanation for why his current solo travels are between his post-regeneration and adventures with Ruby.

The biggest problem at the moment is that the Fifteenth Doctor's tenure is still ongoing; we only have the one point we know he was traveling alone that we can feasibly place them, which is between The Giggle and Ruby Road. A similar problem occurred with the Fifth Doctor, as there is no narrative gap in his television tenure in which solo adventures can be fitted, those were retroactively added long after he left the role, mostly by the The Burning Prince audio, the Blood and Hope book and the Time Apart anthology. With the Fifteenth Doctor, we are simply too early in his tenure for there to be an additional gap for his solo adventures. Sure Ruby could just not be with him at the moment (maybe asleep in the TARDIS), but the general approach on the timelines forums is to assume the Doctor is traveling alone unless he mentions his current companion in some capacity. For example, we used to have the "all 13" scene from The Day of the Doctor scattered across the Doctors pages in subheadings were they were traveling alone, until Steven Moffat revealed their companions were standing off-screen during the event in DWM 475 and the entries were quickly relocated to align with the new information.

Concerning any contractionary information presented in First Day of the Doctor, an unfortunate aspect of following an expanded universe is that not all information will align all the time. As, while this wiki follows a policy of treating all entries as equally valid, writers for the franchise do not. In fact, they will just use the television show as a lynchpin for their own continuity. As such, many will treat The Snowman as the direct follow up to The Angels Take Manhattan based on the fact it was the following episode, while expended media like Doctor Who Adventures, The Dalek Generation and Empire of the Wolf will showcase the Doctor transition from losing the Ponds and retiring in such a way that they can only take place between the two episodes.

So, when it comes to the Fifteenth Doctor traveling alone, we kind of just have to place it in the only gap we have at the moment, since we don't know if he will travel alone after Ruby leaves. Should there be no companion hand over, as was the case with the Fifth Doctor leaving Turlough and going with Peri, they can easily be placed after Ruby. I suppose for the moment, a stalemate would be placing his solo adventures in the "Currently unplaced" subheading.

I hope you found this explanation satisfactory. Sincerely, BananaClownMan ☎ 00:40, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

I think the "currently unplaced" solution may work the best. As you said, we're very early in Fifteen's tenure and it is difficult to say much with any certainty.

Although, I feel regarding Rose and Come on TARDIS, let's go party, they are such brief appearances of Fifteen (the latter one we can only even theorise its during Fifteen's era!) it's not remotely clear if Fifteen is alone or not. For example, in the Rose novelisation, the photo of One is taken during The War Machines, the photo of Four is taken during Logopolis, and the photo of Eight is taken during the events of The TV Movie, all stories where the Doctor has a companion, meanwhile many of the others are seemingly taken during all-new adventures. So it is very difficult to say that a photo of Fifteen means he is travelling alone.

All we know is that someone took a photograph of Fifteen sometime prior to 2005. Which is very little evidence at all.

EPSILON^🔎 |📯|📂|📦|📝

03:23, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Wonder Chase + Ruby's First Planet

With Ruby's travels to the Deep Space Zone in Wonder Chase, doesn't this imply a placement after Boom? It may be splitting hairs over whether where she lands is itself a planet, but doubtless the view of the purple ringed planet would probably lessen the impact of the similar vista in Boom? Template:Unsig

Well, they're wearing their outfits from The Church on Ruby Road ^[+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"], and I don't believe the place they land in WC is a planet, but I suppose I see your point. It was probably intended to not be too long after TCoRR though. Cookieboy 2005 ☎ 13:08, 5 June 2024 (UTC)