Age of the Silurians
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The Age of the Silurians, (GAME: Division of Angels [+]Loading...["Division of Angels (game)"]) or Silurian Age, (PROSE: The Silurians [+]Loading...["The Silurians (feature)"]) was the era of Earth's history in which it was ruled by the Silurians. Co-existing with the Sea Devils who resided in the seas, the Silurian Empire flourished on the land before the Earth Reptiles were forced into hibernation. (GAME: A Brief History of Space and Time [+]Loading...["A Brief History of Space and Time (game)"])
The period declined as a result of numerous disasters which led different triads or tribes of Silurians to retreat into hibernation over the millennia, (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"]) including the origin of the Moon (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story)"]) and the extinction of the dinosaurs. (COMIC: Clara Oswald and the School of Death [+]Loading...["Clara Oswald and the School of Death (comic story)"]) Ultimately, with the absence of the Silurians, the primitive apes whom they saw as pests evolved into humans. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story)"], The Sea Devils [+]Loading...["The Sea Devils (TV story)"]) Nevertheless, stories of the Silurian Empire spread through the universe, with many alien species considering 21st century humanity to be insignificant compared to Silurians. (PROSE: UNIT History [+]Loading...["UNIT History (short story)"])
History
Silurian Dominance
According to one account, the Silurians first emerged on Earth around 350,000,000 BC, when the planet was "a world of carboniferous tropical jungles and swamps". (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"])
During a period of tectonic upheaval, deteriorating conditions on the land forced some Silurians to spend more time feeding and breeding in the sea until it became their sole habitat, becoming the Sea Devil subspecies. The Sea Devils followed a similar evolutionary path to turtles, developing beaks and nostrils to breathe out of the water, while their Silurian crests became, through a process of exaptation, gill arches situated at the rear of the head. Their eyes shifted to the sides of their heads as another aquatic adaptation, while their claws became dexterous webbed hands. (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"]) The Sea Devils came to co-exist with the land-based Silurians, with a time traveller's diary recording that the two Earth Reptile species signed a peace deal on 28 January 425,000,000 BC. (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary [+]Loading...["Time Traveller's Diary (novel)"]) Just as the Silurians did, the Sea Devils ruled the Earth when humanity's ancestors were apes. (TV: The Sea Devils [+]Loading...["The Sea Devils (TV story)"])
Both the Silurian and Sea Devil races were led by the Triad, their "custodians". (TV: Warriors of the Deep [+]Loading...["Warriors of the Deep (TV story)"]) While one Sea Devil chief, whom the Thirteenth Doctor wrote off as a zealot, claimed the Earth had been covered "in glorious aqua" during the age of his kind, (TV: Legend of the Sea Devils [+]Loading...["Legend of the Sea Devils (TV story)"]) the Sea Devils and Silurians lived alongside each other, (TV: Warriors of the Deep [+]Loading...["Warriors of the Deep (TV story)"]) with the Silurians ruling over warm landmasses (PROSE: Blood Heat [+]Loading...["Blood Heat (novel)"], TV: The Hungry Earth [+]Loading...["The Hungry Earth (TV story)"]) while their underwater cousins lived within the seas. (TV: Warriors of the Deep [+]Loading...["Warriors of the Deep (TV story)"])
On 4 June 100,000,000 BC, the Silurian Ark was launched from Earth (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary [+]Loading...["Time Traveller's Diary (novel)"]) to avoid the "destructive impact" forecast for the planet, carrying a number of Late Silurians and dinosaurs. (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship [+]Loading...["Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (TV story)"])
Whilst historians observed that different triads or tribes of Silurians retreated into hibernation in anticipation of various disasters over millennia, contributing to the evolution of distinct Silurian subspecies, (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"]) one account indicated that Silurian subspecies co-existed in a caste system. Vastra, a warrior, recognised her "brothers" in the scholar caste, whilst their leader, Horlak, acknowledged her as a "sister". (COMIC: The Lost Dimension [+]Loading...["The Lost Dimension (comic story)"])
Warrior-class Sea Devils lived on Earth through the so-called age of the Dinosaurs, having used dinosaurs as both prey and as armoured mounts. They survived the extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs by plunging their aquatic colonies into a state of hibernation. (COMIC: Clara Oswald and the School of Death [+]Loading...["Clara Oswald and the School of Death (comic story)"])
The extinction of the dinosaurs occurred around 65,000,000 BC, the time in which Va'stra (PROSE: The Red-Eyed League [+]Loading...["The Red-Eyed League (short story)"]) of the Eastern Lands (GAME: Lost in Time) was born (AUDIO: The Cars That Ate London! [+]Loading...["The Cars That Ate London! (audio story)"], The Ghosts of Greenwich [+]Loading...["The Ghosts of Greenwich (audio story)"]) in the Cretaceous period. (AUDIO: Symmetry of Death [+]Loading...["Symmetry of Death (audio story)"])
As a little girl, Vastra saw dinosaurs and learned to identify their gender, (TV: Deep Breath [+]Loading...["Deep Breath (TV story)"]) though she disapproved of her kind's practice of capturing wild ones and keeping them as pets. (GAME: Lost in Time [+]Loading...["Lost in Time (video game)"]) She also studied further subjects while living on prehistoric Earth. (WC: Who Are The Silurians? [+]Loading...["Who Are The Silurians? (webcast)"]) As an adult, Va'stra (PROSE: The Red-Eyed League [+]Loading...["The Red-Eyed League (short story)"]) belonged to the Eastern Council and the Sisters of the Bladed Soul. (AUDIO: Pater Noster [+]Loading...["Pater Noster (audio story)"]) She already lived in a Silurian city that stood where the human London would later be built. (GAME: Lost in Time [+]Loading...["Lost in Time (video game)"]) Prior to hibernation, Vastra was assigned the Life Task of finding and capturing a Weave. (AUDIO: Pater Noster [+]Loading...["Pater Noster (audio story)"]) She later joined her fellow Reptilia in their great hibernation. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War [+]Loading...["A Good Man Goes to War (TV story)"], COMIC: The Lost Dimension [+]Loading...["The Lost Dimension (comic story)"], AUDIO: Pater Noster [+]Loading...["Pater Noster (audio story)"])
Historians acknowledged reports of Silurians roaming the Earth as late as circa 40,000,000 BC during the Eocene and about 20,000,000 BC when the first apes walked on the Earth. (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"])
Alternate timelines
The Silurian Earth (PROSE: Infinite Requiem [+]Loading...["Infinite Requiem (novel)"], Head Games [+]Loading...["Head Games (novel)"]) was an unstable mini-universe, (PROSE: No Future [+]Loading...["No Future (novel)"]) an alternate timeline/universe/sub-universe where Earth was taken back by the Silurians in 1973. The Seventh Doctor visited, and destroyed, the planet in its respective 1993. (PROSE: Blood Heat [+]Loading...["Blood Heat (novel)"])
In an alternate timeline where the Cybermen used Time Lord resources to conquer all of history, the Silurians of Earth were converted into Cyber-Silurians and transformed Silurian Arks into Cyber-Arks, with the intention of launching the Arks into space and seeding the universe with Cyber-Technology before humanity could begin to evolve. The Eleventh Doctor and Alice Obiefune attempted to stop the Cyber-Silurians, but the Doctor was upgraded into the Cyberiad onboard a Cyber-Ark after teleporting Alice out to escape several newly-awakened Cyber-Silurians. The Doctor used his new cyber-connection to deactivate the emotional inhibitors of the Cyber-Silurians; in retaliation, the Cyberiad killed all the Cyber-Silurians and immediately launched the full Cyber-Ark fleet. However, following the Twelfth Doctor and Rassilon's regeneration of the universe via the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey, these events, and, by extension, the rest of the timeline, were erased from history. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Supremacy of the Cybermen (comic story)"])
