Last Great Time War

Last Great Time War
Dates:	Throughout time
Location:	Gallifrey, Skaro, Arcadia
Result
Main Battle: Gallifrey and Skaro destroyed, Time Lords and Daleks almost entirely wiped out.

For Time Wars in general, see Time war.

The Last Great Time War was the war between the Time Lords and the Daleks, which destroyed Gallifrey and left few survivors.

The War

Origins of the War

The precise facts of the Time War are mostly a mystery, but its origins are slightly more clear. At one point, the Time Lords predicted that in one possible timeline, the Daleks would "destroy all other life forms and make themselves the dominant creature in the universe" (it is possible that this is the future timeline that results from the Dalek's detonation of the Reality Bomb in the Medusa Cascade). The Time Lord Ferrain sent the Doctor on a mission to Skaro during the Thousand Year War with certain objectives:

• If possible, to avert the creation of the Daleks
• Otherwise to alter their development and make them less aggressive
• Find some intrinsic flaw or weakness to exploit in the Daleks

The Doctor believed he managed only to, perhaps, set back the history of the Daleks for a thousand years. (DW: Genesis of the Daleks)

The Daleks soon learnt of what the Time Lords tried to do, and planned to infiltrate the High Council of the Time Lords with duplicates. (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks) One of the Dalek Puppet Emperors opened declaration of hostilities; although the Daleks claimed that these were merely in retaliation for the Time Lords sending the Doctor back in time to prevent their creation.

The Etra Prime Incident (BFA: The Apocalypse Element) began an escalation of hostilities. Lady President Romana made diplomatic overtures. (NA: Lungbarrow) She later initiated a Dalek-Time Lord peace treaty under the Act of Master Restitution. (DWA: 2006 Doctor Who Annual)

This Act enabled the Doctor to safely visit Skaro to retrieve the Master's remains. (DW: Doctor Who: The TV Movie)

The Main War

The war lasted for years and took place throughout space and time. As the Doctor said, "A war with the Daleks against the Time Lords, and the whole of creation at stake." (DWA: 2006 Doctor Who Annual)

The Daleks, wielding the full might of the Death of Goth of Goth, launched a massive fleet into the Time Vortex, launching the war. (DWA: 2006 Doctor Who Annual) The main force was made of a fleet of Dalek Flying Saucers. Over a million Battle TARDISes were used by the Time Lords, (TDA: Peacemaker) though Bowships, Black Hole Carriers and N-Forms were also used (DWA: 2006 Doctor Who Annual).

The Time Lords also resurrected the Master, believing him to be an excellent soldier. The Master was to protect the Cruciform, but when the Dalek Emperor took control of it he ran in fear. (DW: The Sound of Drums)

During the very first year Davros was killed at the Gate of Elysium, when his command ship flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child. The Doctor tried to save him, but failed. Eventually, Caan, a survivor of the war managed to time shift back into the war and extract him from the time-locked event, at the cost of his sanity, transporting him into the post-war universe. (DW: The Stolen Earth, Journey's End)

During the course of the war, the entire chain of Hotel Historias was destroyed (DWM: Hotel Historia) and the Nestene Consciousness's protein planets were destroyed. (DW: Rose) Another of the known theatres was Arcadia, where main Arcadia fell from the sky and the Doctor fought on the front lines that eventually fell to the Daleks. (DW: Doomsday)

Toward the end of the war the Daleks sent a capsule to 70 CE Earth in order to spread the Dalek Factor amongst Humans. The capsule's engine exploded, and the Dalek was killed soon after impact. It was only able to release a small amount of the Dalek Factor, leading to only one in a half a million Humans having it. (TDA: I am a Dalek)

The Last Great Time War can include the Battle of GeoComTex, Battle of the Game Station, Battle of Canary Wharf, the Daleks planned assault on Manhattan and War in the Medusa Cascade.

Conclusion

The Time Lords decided the only way to stop the Time War was to destroy both the Daleks and themselves in an inferno. It would mean the destruction of Gallifrey and Skaro. The Doctor agreed upon the action, and lured the Dalek fleet into an all-out attack on Gallifrey, led by the Emperor himself.

The Doctor and his TARDIS almost died. Gallifrey, Skaro, the Time Lords and the Daleks were all but destroyed. The Doctor was the last Time Lord.

Aftermath and aftershocks

The war was mostly invisible to "lower species", but devastating to the time-aware "higher" ones.

• The Nestene Consciousness justified its 2005 invasion of Earth with the loss of its protein planets. (DW: Rose)
• In the year 5,000,000,000 the Forest of Cheem knew of the war and its effects on the Time Lords. (DW: The End of the World)
• The Gelth lost their physical bodies because of the war, reduced to gaseous forms. (DW: The Unquiet Dead)
• The Eternals apparently fled this reality in despair, never to be seen again, and the Animus died in the conflict. (DWA: 2006 Doctor Who Annual)
• Though the Sontarans were aware of the war, they weren't allowed to take part (DW: The Sontaran Stratagem), as opposed to the Graxnix who were one of the lowest races allowed to take part in the war. (DWM: Hotel Historia)

The destruction of the Time Lords created a vacuum that may have left history itself more vulnerable to change. The Doctor explained to both Rose and Donna Noble that time was in flux and history could change instantly-- a big change from the way it had been. (DW: The Unquiet Dead, The Fires of Pompeii)

The most dramatic demonstration of this was when Rose created a temporal paradox by crossing her own time stream to save her father's life just before his intended death in a traffic accident. This summoned the Reapers, who descended to sterilize the "wound" in time by devouring everything in sight. The Doctor stated that if the Time Lords had been still around, they could have held back the Reapers and prevented or repaired the paradox. (DW: Father's Day)

As well, the Doctor noted that when the Time Lords were around, travel between Parallel worlds was less difficult. With their demise, the paths between worlds were closed. (DW: Rise of the Cybermen)

The Survivors

The Dalek Emperor, one of the survivors of the war (DW: The Parting of the Ways)

Time Lords

• The Doctor survived. He stated that if any other Time Lords lived, he would have sensed their presence. (DW: Dalek)

The Doctor's survival may have entailed a regeneration. Though he did not say so categorically, he implied unfamiliarity with his new face when he first met Rose Tyler.

• The Master also survived, having used a Chameleon Arch to become the Human Professor Yana in order to escape the war. His use of the arch prevented the Doctor from sensing his existence. (DW: Utopia)
• Whilst not a Time Lord, Leela was a resident of the Capitol on Gallifrey, and it is known that she survived, at least for a small time, after the destruction of Gallifrey. (BFA: The Catalyst)

Daleks

• A lone Dalek survived and crashed onto the Ascension Island on Earth in 1962 (DW: Dalek)

• The Dalek Emperor also lived, although he had fallen through time to approximately the 2,000th century and set about re-building an army from the DNA of Humans. (DW: Bad Wolf)

• The Cult of Skaro and the Daleks imprisoned within the Genesis Ark escaped the attentions of the Bad Wolf, having left the universe for the Void before the end of the war. (DW: Doomsday)

• Though Davros was originally killed in the war, Dalek Caan was able to change the past by temporal shifting into the war and rescuing him. (DW: The Stolen Earth, Journey's End)