Howling:What exactly did Moffat erase?

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There's another thread about Moffat's confirmation that, because of the cracks and the reboot, the highly public invasions of the 21st century never happened.

But exactly which stories got erased?

Most likely the real answer is "whichever ones Moffat needs to get out of the way", and he hasn't sat down and made a list, much less come up with a rationale. But it would still be nice to come up with an in-universe answer. So:

1. Everything after some cutoff. Say, the end of the TV movie; 1 Jan 2000 sounds like an important date (and the 21st century is when everything changes, right?), and it includes all the RTD episodes but none of the classic ones. But this wouldn't take care of The Next Doctor, which the Doctor specifically talked about being erased. Or Terror of the Zygons, which Moffat has called out as the one classic story that can't have been covered up or forgotten. And how does it affect all the future stories, from The Keys of Marinus to Cold Blood (which include every companion death!).

2. A random smattering. A few dozen things were wiped out of earth history, and they just happen to include the handful of public-knowledge 2005-2009 invasions, the Victorian Cyberking, and Nessie in the Thames. Well, isn't that convenient? Pretty hard to swallow, but if Moffat doesn't have a plan, it may turn out to be the only thing consistent with the evidence we get over the years to come.

3. The ones that were "complicated space-time events". We know the cracks like to eat those. And for the most part, the invasions that risked breaking a fixed point in time were also the ones that went public. So this might actually work. And I can almost see RTD coming up with it and suggesting it to Moffat (or to the public).

4. The ones that were incompatible with Amy's worldview. The world was rebooted from Amy's memories, so if Amy believed humanity wasn't in fear of aliens, some things had to vanish from history to make that sensible. The question is, why would Amy believe that?

4a. Subconscious choice. She wanted to live in a world where all the thrilling adventures happened all around the universe, but she had a nice safe home to return to. And the Doctor had already suggested that she could will her parents into existence, and hinted that she could fix Rory's existence problems, so why not try this as well?

4b. Traumatic delusion. She's lying there dying from Auton Rory's shot. The Doctor shows up and says "We'll get you into the Pandorica, take you back to 21st century England, and everything will be OK". That's the last thing she hears before blacking out. Then she's in statis for 2000-odd years, being repaired by the Pandorica. When she wakes up, she believes that 21st century England is safe.

4c. Spacetime shrinkage. There's not just one Amy there--there's also little Amelia, who grew up in a world without stars. Of course that world didn't have aliens blowing up Big Ben every Christmas.

4d. The Silence. In another thread, it's suggested the Silence deliberately blew up the universe so the Doctor would be forced to find some way to reboot it, so they could turn their post-hypnotic suggestion ability into a history-editing ability. While writing themselves into the history of the Earth this way, why not also remove all of the threats that were common knowledge? Even if they weren't worried about the threats themselves, wouldn't they prefer humans who weren't all convinced that the universe was full of hostile aliens trying to enslave them? --99.33.26.0 03:16, May 7, 2011 (UTC)

PS, Doing a search, I found another similar thread from early last year. However, the consensus at the time was that Moffat wasn't actually erasing anything from history (even the original poster agreed), and obviously nobody could have come up with any good answers before seeing The Big Bang anyway. So I think it's better to keep this new thread instead of reopening the old one. But if someone who's more experienced with this wiki than me disagrees, I'll dig it up and reopen it. --99.33.26.0 03:57, May 7, 2011 (UTC)

In Rememberance of the Daleks the Seventh Doctor has already explained why nobody remembers the Loch Ness Monster. He said something along the lines of "humans have a remarkable capacity for self deception," which has always been a theme in both the classic and the new series. More importantly, Ace does not remember ever hearing about the Loch Ness Monster, but Sarah Jane still remembers it in School Reunion. This means that it was not erased, but people simply didn't believe it. Your first thoery doesn't work because we know that before the universe was restored, one event before 2000, The Next Doctor, was erased. Besides, there were classic episodes that took place in the 21st century. If the Cybermen never attack Earth in the 21st century, Zoe won't be a companion. The erasures happened before the Big Bang, so all your theories about Amy rebooting the universe inaccurately are wrong, or people would have remembered the invasions before the finale. The cracks have just always been shown to appear at random points in space-time, so they appeared in the Dalek invasion, Victorian London, Saturnya, the the Byzantium, Starship UK, etc. Some of the events that they erased were events that we had seen or heard of already, to show the audience what the cracks were capable of.Icecreamdif 13:15, May 7, 2011 (UTC)

First, the fact that Sarah Jane remembers Terror of the Zygons doesn't mean that it wasn't erased. That episode happened before the cracks had erased anything. As for the "remarkable capacity for self-deception" explanation, Moffat himsef called this the one story of the classic series that couldn't be explained away that way (or by UNIT coverup, etc.), which is why I brought it up in the first place.

For theory 1, I'm not sure why you felt the need to repeat the exact same arguments against it that I already gave (The Next Doctor, and the classic episodes that take place in the future), but at any rate, I was already convinced that this was the weakest answer.

For theory 4a-c, the fact that the erasures happened before The Big Bang doesn't actually prove anything. First, we don't know whether anyone remembered the invasions beforehand; we only saw that Amy didn't. From the time we saw the first crack to the finale, not once did anyone mention any of those events. And, oddly, the Doctor never thought to ask Rory, River, Nasreen, etc. about them (which is the first thing I'd do if I were trying to figure out why Amy didn't remember them). So, we don't actually know either way.

Finally, you argue that theory 2 must be the answer because "the cracks have just always been shown to appear at random points in space-time"--but they _haven't_ been at random points. At least not the ones we've seen or heard about. Those appeared at points very near to where Amy and the Doctor were (including the ones on Saturnyne--one of them connected to Venice during Amy's arrival like a wormhole, and the others were near that one). Of course it's possible that there were millions of others that we didn't see, but it's just as possible that there aren't; we don't know either way.

There were presumably cracks all throughout the universe, we just only saw the ones near the Doctor and Amy, because the show is from their point of view. Moffat may say that it is impossible for people to ignore the Loch Ness Monster, but within the show, the 7th Doctor specifically stated that people did just ignore it and rationalize it away. The fact that Ace had never heard of the "Zygon gambit with the Loch Ness Monster," in an episode from long before the cracks existed, proves that the Loch Ness Monster was just attributed to drugs in the water supply, or something along those lines.Icecreamdif 16:28, May 8, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, but do drugs in the water supply bomb entire cities and kill hundreds of people though? There's no way you could write all that off as a hallucination. EJA 16:37, May 8, 2011 (UTC)

We don't know whether there were cracks all throughout the universe. In fact, multiple times last season, Moffat referred to the mystery of why the cracks seem to be following Amy--although he didn't come anywhere near _confirming_ that they were following her. And that's the whole point; Moffat hasn't told us exactly what fell into the cracks, beyond telling us that thanks to the cracks the 21st century humans won't know about alien invasions.

At the risk of belaboring the Nessie point far more than it deserves, it's possible that Moffat just forgot about that 7th Doctor episode, or that he (like EJA above) just thought it was ridiculous. But, if he did decide that event was removed by the cracks, and wanted to resolve the Ace puzzle, it wouldn't be that hard. Remember that Ace was a 4-year-old growing up in the inland west suburbs. If the Doctor had mentioned the same event to someone 10 years older who grew up near the East End docks, they would have remembered. But the Doctor didn't think of that, and mistakenly assumed Ace's lack of memory because of the usual human self-deception. Anyway, the chances of Moffat ever bringing up Terror the Zygons onscreen, much less Ace's memory of it, seem pretty minuscule. The point Moffat was obviously making is that RTD gave us at least one ohmigod-aliens event every year, while the classic show did it exactly once in its entire history, and that's what made it impossible to write stories with any sense of wonder about aliens, and that's what he wanted to change. --99.33.26.0 01:54, May 9, 2011 (UTC)

If people actually believed that the Loch Ness Monster came to London, everybody would know about it, even years later. As was stated by the Doctor himself, people just refused to believe its existance. I haven't seen Terror of the Zygons in a while, but I don't remember anything about them bombing entire cities and killing hundreds of people. It also makes sense to show humans gradually coming to believe that aliens exist, because in the Classic Series, there were a few episodes that took place in the 21st century. It has always been a major plot point in Torchwood, particularly in Fragments that "The 21st century is when everything changes." These alien attacks are "everything changing." If we assume that all the big public alien attacks are erased, then does that mean that Children of Earth is gone. Does that mean that Ianto, Steven, and the Frobisher family are still alive, and Jack is still on Earth. If you know what the premise for the next season of Torchwood is, than you know that the writers clearly don't have a problem with making alien incursions public to the whole world.Icecreamdif 04:06, May 9, 2011 (UTC)

"... in the Classic Series, there were a few episodes that took place in the 21st century." Yes, and almost uniformly, people were shocked about the idea of aliens. Go back and watch Wheel in Space, where Bennett and his crew refuse to believe that there are aliens attacking, and insist the problems must be caused by malfunctions or fanatical anti-space-program saboteurs. Then watch Moonbase, Seeds of Death, etc.

"... If we assume that all the big public alien attacks are erased, then does that mean that Children of Earth is gone. Does that mean that Ianto, Steven, and the Frobisher family are still alive, and Jack is still on Earth." Yes and no, respectively. Time isn't linear; there can be effects without causes in the past. Amy's engagement ring existed even though Rory didn't. For that matter, every time someone walks around before his own birth, it's the exact same "paradox."

Anticipating your next objection: Jack can still remember, and otherwise be affected by, those events, even though they're not part of the world's past anymore, because he's a time traveler, and they're still part of his past--exactly as the Doctor explained to Amy in Time of Angels. Beyond that, it's an open question exactly how the paradoxes are dealt with. Maybe there are gaping holes in history; if anyone dug down beneath all the conspiracy and coverup surrounding Torchwood, they'd find that the answers still made no sense. Or maybe the erasure by the cracks, or the later reboot, smoothed over the gaps, rebuilding as consistent a history as possible backward from 2011, in which case they might find some reasonable explanation for the destruction of the Hub, but not the same one we saw. There are probably other ways RTD could deal with it, if he chooses to, although most likely he won't even bother to explain it.

"... If you know what the premise for the next season of Torchwood is, than you know that the writers clearly don't have a problem with making alien incursions public to the whole world." Really? "But this time, the threat is much closer to home, as they realize that their greatest enemy is mankind itself..." There's a global conspiracy to keep the truth about Torchwood secret from everyone, and even the people behind the conspiracy don't know why Jack's history goes back for centuries. Meanwhile, something done by some secret human organization causes death to cease to exist, and Torchwood has to reunite to save the world before it runs out of resources due to overpopulation in four months. How does any of that mean that either past or future alien invasions are public knowledge in Torchwood? --99.33.26.0 05:03, May 9, 2011 (UTC)

I'm actually starting to wonder if perhaps Amy and Rory live on a "clone" of Earth that was created at some point prior to the really big invasions from the Daleks, Cybermen, etc. It's not in a parallel universe, it's just somewhere else, like Mondas. EJA 09:41, May 9, 2011 (UTC)

Maybe they live on Ravolox. It always seemed odd to me that, after 2 (short-)billion years, there were still recognizable ruins of London, so there has to be more going on there than just "the Time Lords moved it out of the way". Why change the name from Earth to a variety of smoked salmon just because it got moved? Most of all, why did Yarven in Goth Opera know the name in 1993?

But seriously, I don't think that's Moffat's intention. He told us pretty clearly that it's because of the events of last season (the cracks and the reboot) that Amy and Rory's world has never been publicly invaded. (Of course we all know that rule #1 is "The Moffat lies"....) --99.33.26.0 10:15, May 9, 2011 (UTC)

I have two answeres to this debate.

1) No one has an answer!

2) Who cares?

I think Moffat left the restoration of the universe open to interpretaion so no matter how many arguments we come up with as to whether or not the invasions were erased we'll never know the answer because the Moff doesn't have the answer.2.96.165.100 15:00, May 9, 2011 (UTC)

I doubt that Moffatis going to reopen a plot point from the Sixth Doctor's era, especially one that was explained in the episode. It is possible that when Matt Smith's successor leaves, they will introduce the Valeyard, but Ravolox was pretty much confirmed to be Earth in the future. There were a lot of things that didn't make sense during that era of the show, like the Sixth Doctor's regeneration, or the plots of half of the Seventh Doctor's episodes. Even disregarding Ravolox, the Doctor knows where Earth is, so I doubt that he would repeatedly land on a clone Earth by accident. I know that Jack would obviously be able to remember Children of Earth if it was erased, as he is a time traveller (although it could be argued that the 21st century had become his time), but what about Gwen, Rhys, Andy, Lois, and all the others. We will definetly be seeing Gwen and Rhys again in the next season of Torchwood and they will most likely be shown to remember why Jack left, and what happened to Ianto and the Hub. When Amy found her engagement ring, she was still confused as to its origins. I think that Gwen and Rhys would be significantly more confused if they forgot what happened to Jack, Ianto, and the Hub, and I doubt that theu will spend any time in Torchwood explaining about events being erased from time. My point about Miracle Day was that that story will feature a major extraterrestrial (or something similar) event that it would be impossible for anybody in the world not to notice, so if people have forgotten about the past alien invasions, their ignorance won't last long.Icecreamdif 01:59, May 10, 2011 (UTC)

The Ravolox thing was a pretty obvious joke. But if you really want to take it seriously--according to War of the Daleks, both the Doctor and Davros repeatedly landed on a clone Skaro by accident and never realized it.... --99.33.26.0 06:02, May 11, 2011 (UTC)

Regarding point #4 in the first posting: AFAIK the universe was rebooted by extrapolating it from the "bumper family-pack" of atoms contained in the Pandorica; the only effects attributed to Amy is restoring her lost family members and calling back the Doctor from the Void. The biggest issue I have with the dissapearing/reappearing family though is that the story suggests Amy only moved to England because she'd become an orphan - which would mean the parents got sucked into a different crack than the one in the house in England .. but the Doctor says that house had too many rooms. Moffat writes very spectacular episodes, but doesn't seem to be a big fan of plausability or continuity, even inside his own work, much less with the established Whoniverse. This seems to be a big trend in recent years, for example the Star Trek-reboot also changed the canon dramatically. I guess it's like with your favourite band suddenly getting into free-jazz, either you follow them or move on; it's called evolution, baby .. still, we can lament the loss of loved attributes from before the "cataclysm" ;-) Flowtron 05:42, May 10, 2011 (UTC)

Okay, let's assume that Amy didn't remember the events of Journey's End because of the Cracks; history was shrinking. But then the universal reboot occured, and the Dalek invasion was restored......but by then the government had invented a story debunking the Daleks as genuine aliens, and put the invasion down to terrorists pretending to be aliens, which is why a lot of people are now skeptical of the existence of genuine aliens. I know it isn't entirely satisfactory, but at least this way everything occured exactly as it was shown. EJA 11:27, May 10, 2011 (UTC)

You can explain it that way if you want, but it's more complicated than what Moffat told us, and it leaves a lot of new questions, and it doesn't really buy you anything. For one thing, why, and how, did the reboot unerase everything the cracks erased? And then, why didn't they unerase Amy's parents? -99.33.26.0 06:02, May 11, 2011 (UTC)

from what i can see anything that was erased before the explosion of the tardis has stayed erased, because in the doctors timeline at the point the pandorica was sealed those things didnt exist in the universe because they had been erased, so when he used the atoms in the pandorica to restore the universe they werent restored because they werent there. (and also werent in amys memories because she couldnt remember them because they had already been erased). so if we look at the doctors timeline anythin that had been erased prior to the big bang 2 has stayed erased because it didnt exist in the uninverse to be used in the reboot so therefore has never happened because the event was never there to reboot217.23.232.194 14:59, May 10, 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. That's not the only interpretation, but it's the simplest, and Moffat has made it pretty clear it's the one he wants us to take. --99.33.26.0 06:02, May 11, 2011 (UTC)

That sucks. EJA 15:27, May 10, 2011 (UTC)

Actually, we know the Daleks in Journey's End weren't eaten by the Crack, because that's not the way it happened. So something else must have occured for Amy to not know what the Daleks are. I've already offered some alternative theories, and I've also been thinking about an attack by memory vampires. EJA 19:39, May 10, 2011 (UTC)

What do you mean "that's not the way it happened"? We know that the Doctor thinks they were eaten by the crack, everything we've seen in-universe is consistent with that fact, and Moffat (and RTD) have confirmed out-of-universe that it's what happened. So, why not accept that they were eaten by the crack? --99.33.26.0 06:02, May 11, 2011 (UTC)

When the Doctor used the Pandorica to restore the universe, the last time it had been sealed was when Amy was put inside of it, when there was no universe. This means that opening and resealing the Pandorica doesn't effect the articles inside of it, and the Pandorica was already sealed, and had been for some time, when the Doctor first arrived at Stonehenge. This means that we don't actually know how much had been erased when the Pandorica was initially sealed. That means that until another episode shows characters either remembering past invasions, or having no knowledge of alien life, we can't really be sure if any of the invasions have been erased. And EJA does have a point, people have been convinced that some pretty major things didn't happen. In The End of Time Luke mentioned Mr.Smith putting out an explanation for everybody in the world's face changing and another planet appearing in the sky, and in Remembrance of th Daleks it was shown that people didn't believe in the Loch Ness Monster anymore, and this was long before the cracks or even the Time War.Icecreamdif 23:13, May 10, 2011 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I meant that EJA has a point about the government conspiracy, not hte memory vampires. UNIT, Torchwood, or Mr. Smith could have created a false explanation for the planets in the sky, although it hasn't actually been shown that people don't remember the attack or believe in aliens anymore.Icecreamdif 23:26, May 10, 2011 (UTC)

We're talking about a human race who, in 2008, were leaving the major cities in droves every Christmas because they expected an alien invasion, and voted for Harold Saxon just because he promised to tell the truth about aliens. And that's _before_ Journey's End and The End of Time, and despite the government's (etc.'s) best efforts at coverups for two and a half years. You seriously believe that, in another 16 months, they managed to come up with something so good that people are now sceptical about aliens to the point where they think the idea is impossible, and unworried about major threats to the world?

Obviously, that's not strictly impossible. If Moffat wanted to write a story about the government setting up a worldwide empathic control network, or the Silence posthypnotically removing all those threats from people's minds, or whatever, he could. But he didn't; instead, he wrote a story where the cracks removed those events from time. --99.33.26.0 06:02, May 11, 2011 (UTC)

I'm not saying that everybody believes the government coverup, I a must saying that the government probably did try to cover it up. As you admitted yourself, there have been no episodes since The Big Bang featuring characters in the 21st century who don't believe in aliens, and most of your argument pretty much depends on that occuring. Until there is another episode that takes place in the 21st century for more than a few minutes, I doubt that either of us is going to convince the other of our opinion. If we do continue this debate, we should probably do it on Forum:Moffat confirms.. the 21st century invasions never happened., becuse that forum is to debate whether or not the invasions never happened, while this one is to determine which invasions have been erased if they were erased.Icecreamdif 00:59, May 12, 2011 (UTC)

The SJA story "The Vault of Secrets", set in the present, has the majority of people on Earth highly skeptical of the existence of alien life and ridiculing the small minority of people who do believe in aliens. This has been put down to the Cracks erasing the invasions in DW Series 1-4 from history. Which, IMO, is lame. EJA 07:25, May 12, 2011 (UTC)

People weren't ridiculing all people who believe in alien life, they were ridiculing the crazy people who believe that they have met aliens themselves. Even though most people do believe that some alien invasions have occured, they don't believe that it is a common, everyday occurence. Sarah Jane also believed that the members of BURPSS were crazy and there is no doubt that Sarah Jane believed in aliens.Icecreamdif 18:17, May 12, 2011 (UTC)

What episodes are you talking about here? Have you gone back and watch The Hungry Earth yet?

But you're right about the fact that this argument is getting away from the main point, and we already have a different thread for this argument, so let's get back to it.

The more I think about it, the more I like #4c, but suspect that Moffat (to the extent he has any answer in mind) is thinking of something more like #3. And, as I said before, it seems like the kind of thing RTD would think of--in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he threw in some reference in Torchwood, like Jack being the second most complicated space-time event left in the univese, so history is twisted around him.... --99.33.25.110 13:28, May 15, 2011 (UTC)