T-Time
"T-Time", (WC: "Death Comes to Time" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"Death Comes to Time","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"}) misconstrued by Ace as "teatime", was Castellan Casmus's name for a particular point in history when it would become appropriate for a Time Lord to use their power to manipulate time itself directly with thought alone, which they were otherwise sworn never to use at scale. (WC: "No Child of Earth" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"No Child of Earth","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"})
In one version of history, Casmus's prophecy came to pass when the Seventh Doctor destroyed General Tannis and himself on Salisbury Plain, leaving Ace to carry on the legacy of the Time Lords for a "new age" where humans' destiny would be left in their own hands. (WC: "Death Comes to Time" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"Death Comes to Time","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"})
History
Foresight
A Gallifreyan prophecy known around the time of the Doctor's birth foretold that Tannis would pose a threat to Gallifrey in its future. Larna mentioned him to Ulysses, Saldaamir, Penelope Gate and Marnal among other threatening entities; she said that Gallifrey must survive Tannis's attack to ensure that the planet would be destroyed at its proper time. One Time Lord would be central to defeating Tannis's attack and all of the other threats. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles [+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"])
In a later state of history which had been plagued by temporal distortions, where most of the Time Lords had already been killed following a conflict centred around Micen Island, Castellan Casmus foresaw the imminence of T-Time. After the Seventh Doctor's companion and pupil Ace was separated from him on an adventure, he rescued her and took her to his own planet, (WC: "At the Temple of the Fourth" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"At the Temple of the Fourth","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"}) where he set her on the path to become a Time Lord in her own right, giving her a series of lessons and taking her before the Kingmaker to be granted authority as a Time Lord and usage of a TARDIS. (WC: "Planet of Blood" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"Planet of Blood","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"}, "The Prisoner" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"The Prisoner","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"}, "No Child of Earth" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"No Child of Earth","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"}) Before dying, he explained his view to Tannis that the age of the Time Lords was over and they were ill-fitting relics of an earlier era of the universe. (WC: "Death Comes to Time" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"Death Comes to Time","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"})
My time has come, but so has yours. Don't you see? You're the antique. The age of extremes is at an end. We're relics of a chaotic time, when the skies were unexplored, and monsters roamed. Now you look to the sky, and every star has a name. The great discoveries of this plane have been made. The great swings of good and evil are over. The new age will be one of balance. You can't see it, poor Tannis. For a Time Lord you're so limited.
The First Minister of Chance also had a series of prophetic dreams, which he felt foretold "something ominous", sensing that "something unnerving, something… terrible [was] about to happen". However, he was unable to discern their meaning. When he asked the Seventh Doctor if he had had any such dreams, the Doctor claimed otherwise, even though he'd previously had a highly specific prophetic dream in which he foresaw the death of Antimony (WC: "Death Comes to Time" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"Death Comes to Time","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"}) at the hands of Tannis, as would soon occur before a helpless Doctor, shortly before the Doctor's final confrontation with Tannis. (WC: "No Child of Earth" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"No Child of Earth","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"})
The Doctor's last stand
Casmus's strange prediction soon came to pass as the Seventh Doctor foiled the Canisian General Tannis's attempt to invade Earth as part of a wider scheme to take over the universe. After being misled by red herrings planted by Tannis about the origin of the temporal distortions which had been plaguing the universe, the Doctor had discovered that Tannis was secretly a Time Lord, and the real mastermind, even though he had carefully never used his powers himself so as to evade detection.
Tannis had counted on the Doctor and the Minister of Chance wiping each other out on the Kingmaker's instructions after the Doctor realised that the Minister — covertly manipulated by Tannis — was the cause of the time distortions. However, the Doctor found "another way", using his power to revoke the Minister's TARDIS then hurrying to Earth to give Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart's UNIT instructions on how to prepare for the Canisians' attack. As his invasion was repelled, Tannis abandoned his troops to their fates, having realised that the Doctor was present. He met the Doctor on Salisbury Plain, just next to Stonehenge — having traced the signal of Ace's radio as she communicated with the Brigadier in orbit, with the Doctor's TARDIS having landed near Stonehenge itself. Tannis sprang up on Ace and, delighting in no longer having to hide his powers, used them to disarm Ace, then punched her. He was confronted by the Doctor, but, confident that the Doctor wouldn't break the laws and the code, used his powers to order Ace to "die… slowly", gloating at the Doctor about his supposed impotence.
However, to Tannis's surprise, the Doctor unleashed his power to free Ace and block Tannis's further attempts to use his power on her. Strangely calm, just as Casmus had been, the Doctor explained that this moment was "what Casmus used to call 'T-Time'", the moment in expectation of which the Time Lords had "held this power for millennia (…) so that even if all of [them] were killed, one of [them] might stand here and stop an abomination like [Tannis] from taking over the universe". Tannis's pleas fell on deaf ears as the Doctor called upon all of his power to destroy Tannis, unbothered by Tannis's desperate protest that the Doctor would "disrupt the course of time" and that he "would die too". The Doctor's last words were a cryptic "I've been dead before". (WC: "Death Comes to Time" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"Death Comes to Time","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"})
We don't have any place in this future, Tannis. It's their universe now. We can't walk amongst them - we never really could. We tried to be like them, or not to be like them, or to hide from them… and you became something less than them. They don't need our guidance any more — and they won't put up with your force.
Aftermath
Continuation of a world without Gods
After the conclusion of the battle, Ace, who had not found the Seventh Doctor's body, returned to Mount Plutarch in her TARDIS and met with the Kingmaker. The Kingmaker was evasive regarding the Doctor's fate, rhetorically asking: "Who can kill a thought that was never alive?". However, she clearly asserted that the age of the old Time Lords was at an end, and a new life of adventure awaited her. (WC: "Death Comes to Time" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"Death Comes to Time","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"})
The tension was created and resolved. The Time Lords walk the worlds no more. Now, a new age begins. New adventure beckons. If you hold the light, new darkness will grow to oppose it.
Some accounts depicted events following the Minister of Chance's "defrocking" and the revocation of his ship, suggesting that several others of his race actually survived in various forms of retirement in the new age. These included the Horseman, who had willingly accepted exile to a ravaged planet in punishment for misusing his powers, as well as the Sage of the Waves, who had become a recluse in the Great Keep, the Summer King, who dwelled on the Isle of Apples, and the Pilot, who ran his barge on the alter-dimensional river Hex through which the Isle could be accessed. However, the survivors took part in a dissipation pact, agreeing to lock most of their power away in talismans to reduce the temptation of using them frivolously; together, they killed another of their number who had taken a human wife and begun to misuse his powers.
Unbeknownst to them, this renegade had sired a hybrid child, Rathen. As Rathen grew up, they began to realise the extent of what they could do, and tried to conquer the universe, causing further distortions which displaced several celestial bodies, (PROSE: The Minister of Chance [+]Loading...["The Minister of Chance (novelisation)"]) such as the one known as the "Near Cluster". (AUDIO: The Broken World [+]Loading...["The Broken World (audio story)"]) The Minister and the Horseman initially blamed one another for the act, but the Minister's companion Kitty allowed him to realise that there was another hand at work and they eventually identified and defeated Rathen, killing them beyond their ability to heal (AUDIO: Paludin Fields [+]Loading...["Paludin Fields (audio story)"], In a Barque on the River Hex [+]Loading...["In a Barque on the River Hex (audio story)"], PROSE: The Minister of Chance [+]Loading...["The Minister of Chance (novelisation)"]) using Nemorant. The Minister then resumed his travels, with Kitty as his companion. (PROSE: The Minister of Chance [+]Loading...["The Minister of Chance (novelisation)"])
Relationship to the Eighth Doctor's era
The circumstances of T-Time, with the Seventh Doctor dying on Salisbury Plain as the last of the Time Lords, (WC: Death Comes to Time [+]Loading...["Death Comes to Time (webcast)"]) seemingly conflicted with the accounts of the Seventh Doctor's regeneration into the Eighth Doctor in 1999 San Francisco, (TV: Doctor Who [+]Loading...["Doctor Who (TV story)"]) and with the fact that the Eighth Doctor would go on to interact with an intact Gallifrey and Time Lords. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors [+]Loading...["The Eight Doctors (novel)"])
Indeed, after being exposed to anti-time, the Eighth Doctor of one reality where he interacted with Gallifrey saw an alternate reality where the Time Lords had "terrible mind powers", (AUDIO: Zagreus [+]Loading...["Zagreus (audio story)"]) matching the mysterious powers which, in this account, Time Lords were said to inherently possess as "God[s] of the Fourth", despite being sworn never to use them. (WC: Death Comes to Time [+]Loading...["Death Comes to Time (webcast)"])
On the other hand, according to one account relevant to the Eighth Doctor's life, the Doctor's parents Ulysses and Penelope Gate knew that Tannis was a future threat to Gallifrey which the Doctor would play a key role in defeating; (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles [+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"]) another account dealing with this same version of the Eighth Doctor acknowledged the Canisian invasion as a recent event. (PROSE: Trading Futures [+]Loading...["Trading Futures (novel)"]) During a later stay in San Francisco trying to heal the scar in time left by his regeneration, the Eighth Doctor tried to call to the Time Lords for help, but his hypercube was intercepted by a youthful member of Faction Paradox, which should have been impossible after the Doctor sent it directly to Gallifrey. When the Doctor demanded answers from the boy, he suggested that this may have been because due to certain ongoing crises, Gallifrey was being "destroyed and undestroyed" repeatedly, with the Eighth Doctor currently existing in a Gallifrey-less universe wthout even realising it. (PROSE: Unnatural History [+]Loading...["Unnatural History (novel)"])
Maybe there's no one home on Gallifrey. Maybe they all left. Or maybe the whole planet’s being destroyed, and undestroyed, and destroyed, and you just caught them at the wrong moment.
Behind the scenes
The structure of the name "T-Time" evokes D-Day, the code name for Allied troops' decisive landing on Europe's western shores towards the end of World War II, turning the tide against the Nazi occupation.
The name would later be echoed by V-Time, a major plot point in Cwej: The Series, also dealing with the survival or lack thereof of the Superiors.
