Talk:Fourth Galaxy

According to The Husbands of River Song the Fourth Galaxy is, in fact, the Milky Way. (The ship is passing near Gamma Eridani in the year 5343.

I'm not even sure how to propose a move for something that major. -Derik ☎ 03:05, October 29, 2018 (UTC)

The specific line in The Husbands of River Song is "We are currently cruising at warp factor twelve. Traversing the fourth galaxy of our seven galaxy cruise. Next is the Andromeda galaxy." While it's clear that the Milky Way was the fourth galaxy visited by their cruise, that's not necessarily the same as it being the Fourth Galaxy. – n8 (☎) 17:01, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

Merger with other Quinnis locations

In the 1960s, a common term for galaxy was "island universe", or "universe" for short. You can see this in Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks, where Skaro is said to be in "the next universe but one", and in The Sons of the Crab, where Dr. Who travels "outside the home galaxy of the Milky Way and in an entirely new universe, the universe known to him as the Crab Nebula." (Later in The Sons of the Crab, "island universe" is specifically equated with "galaxy".) So it's completely unsurprising that the location of Quinnis in The Edge of Destruction is "the fourth universe", while The Edge of Destruction says it's "the fourth galaxy". To pretend there's a contradiction between these accounts obscures the very clear equivalence in the minds of the authors.

Likewise, in The Devil Goblins from Neptune, the Doctor saying that Quinnis is in Galaxy Four isn't a bungled reference, it's a confirmation that the setting of Galaxy 4 is what was referenced in The Edge of Destruction, just as The Eyeless confirmed that Galaxy 7 from Benny's Story is the Seventh Galaxy from The Infinity Doctors. We do not do the wiki any service by keeping these pages separate. – n8 (☎) 18:20, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

I largely agree, although it should be noted that AUDIO: Quinnis ignores the 60s vernacular, instead trying to make the quote from The Edge of Destruction make more sense in a modern context by having the Doctor and Susan literally enter another universe. This could, of course, be easily accounted for by referring to different accounts, but it is something to note. On a side-note, I always find it really interesting learning of these archaic terms in stories from the 60s - I doubt I'd have ever heard of the term "island universe" had I not read The Sons of the Crab, especially as it isn't particularly well-documented anywhere on the internet. It seems to be briefly mentioned in Galaxy and Great Debate (astronomy) and that's about it (for Wikipedia). Danochy ☎ 22:54, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

In light of AUDIO: Quinnis I do not think an actual merge would be a good idea; per Quinnis there is such a thing in the DWU as a universe called the fourth universe, clearly a different entity from Galaxy Four! But Nate is also correct that we shouldn't be acting as though the novelisation contradicts the TV story on this point. I think this page should mention something like:

The First Doctor stated that Quinnis was located in "the fourth universe". Although many accounts held that this was another name for the Fourth Galaxy, one account claimed that Quinnis was instead located in an actual parallel universe distinct from the Doctor's own.

With the lead of this page mentioning "fourth universe" as a valid alternative name for the Fourth Galaxy.

Corresponding edits would also, of course, be made at Fourth universe.

Does anyone see faults in that reasoning, or shall I implement it? Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 23:26, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Yes, this sounds good to me. Thanks for stepping in with this resolution; it's a good compromise between my proposal and the current state of the wiki. And could this be accompanied by a merge with Galaxy 4? – n8 (☎) 23:35, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Naturally! Sorry if I wasn't clear, I didn't even consider that part to be in question. Well, it's now all been carried out, anyway.

Oh, while I'm here, a few additional notes:

A], in this case we know "universe" can be equated with "galaxy" thanks to the direct correspondence between the Doctor's line in the novelisation and his line in the TV story. However, I do think that in general, the default assumption with a random DWU source should remain that "universe" means "universe" and "galaxy" means "galaxy"; even if you have reason to think the author may have thought otherwise, you need to produce actual clues within valid sources that "universe" is here being used to mean "galaxy".

The quality of proof needn't be quite so high as the direct equivalence we've got here, mind you, but something more than "it was 1965 so David Whitaker probably meant". I know this isn't necessarily ideal, but I think this is a necessary buffer against the slippery slope of correcting DWU authors' "bad" or "outdated" science for them. As always, T:NO RW is and must remain a big deal.

B], due to the "No contested information in infoboxes" rule, the infobox of the Quinnis page should state "Fourth universe" as its location but not link to either Fourth universe or Fourth Galaxy. The main body of the page will explain the confusion well enough. Scrooge MacDuck ☎ 00:22, 11 February 2021 (UTC)