Talk:Eighth Doctor
The Relic
(diff) (hist) . . Eighth Doctor; 17:07 . . ***Stardizzy*** (Talk | contribs) (→The Doctor's involvement in the Future War with The Enemy - cleaning up prose, also removing Doctor's "future corpse"; didn't the Relic come from the dead version of the Third Doctor?)
No... The Relic featured in Alien Bodies is buried by the third Doctor )or the fourth, can't remember). But it isn't the third Doctor, the third Doctor (in which ever timeline) either dies on Dust or dies or dies on Earth per Planet of the Spiders. The Relic is the body of the Doctor, the Doctor who lives through the future war with the Enemy... Ie The Relic is the body of the Doctor...from the same future that Homunculette is from, except slightly eariler than Homunculette obviously. By Homunculette coming back in time to bid on the Relic, and thus making the 8th Doctor aware of this it changes the future, but because of the temporal nature of the Time Lord's future it doesn't change it, 'change it'.
It is stated that the body of the Relic isn't the Doctor 'now' but his body in the future after he encounters even more things that change his biodata, the Faction Paradox and the Time Lords both want The Relic, the Faction Paradox because that's how their technology works the Time Lords because they've lost access to things through their war, time lines being written and re-written means they can't access some things, they think that the Relic with all its changes and information in the bio-data will help them in this quest. --Tangerineduel 13:05, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Is an "in-universe" approach really the best one to take with the Eighth Doctor?
Shouldn't there at least be a link to the Big Finish audios or the comics, both of which have detailed plotlines for the Eighth Doctor? I could understand just covering the TV movie and linking out to the books/audios/comics, but it seems really odd to imply that one of the non-telly media is the 'real' Eighth Doctor chronology and ignore the other two entirely.--Doyle 15:05, 9 August 2007
- Anything that is to be written must be written from an 'in-universe' perspective, within the Eighth Doctor article. It is remiss that there isn't a passing reference to the other parts that you've mentioned. (Which I'll probably begin work on soon at some point). --Tangerineduel 14:17, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
- To me, this article is organized in a way that will render it impossible to complete with accuracy. The Eighth Doctor simply cannot be written about from a completely in-universe point of view. There have been so many frankly discordant narrative runs — most of whom don't make reference to the other parts — that you really can't find a single, accurate chronology of events. This needs to be explained to the reader — in an out of universe voice — for the article to be genuinely useful. To say, simply, that the events of The Eight Doctors are what happened directly after the television movie is entirely biased towards that particular medium. There's no reason in the world why Storm Warning, End Game, or Dreadnought can't equally be viewed as the immediate post-TVM story.
- The first duty of this wiki shouldn't be "write it in-universe", but rather "avoid bias". The Eighth Doctor is an obvious exception to the general guideline to write in-universe, because doing so immediately causes bias. You have to choose a place to start the biography, and that choice reveals your bias. It would be best if this article had four sections — Radio Times continuity, DWM continuity, Big Finish continuity, EDA continuity — and then explored each of those branches as separate. To the minor extent that there are crossovers — Placebo Effect, for instance — a little background note would suffice to explain the event as an attempt to integrate the events of one medium into another.
- I absolutely agree that if you try and force all of the strands into one chronology you inevitably end up making your favourite the most real one. Whether that means going with the audios or comics and 'explaining away' the novels, or whether that means going with the novels and 'fitting in' the audios and comics. Very convincing Complete Eighth Doctor Biographies can be produced, and I'm very attached to my own mental one, but they all depend on massive ammount of speculation and bias.
- On the other hand...I don't think this means we have to step 'out of universe'. As you say the defining aspect of his era has been a lack of definition, but that's as true 'in universe(s)' as without. The Big Finish Eighth Doctor's life has been an arc about a paradox, the BBC Novel's Eighth Doctor's life has been an arc about a paradox...
- Why not start the biography with a brief section on the uncertain nature of the Eighth Doctor's life, referencing that great quote about it from The Gallifrey Chronicles -
- "Look at the rest of the Doctor's time-stream, though. It's meant to be a neat line. The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail out of this chaos I don't know.
- Whether you put it down to Charely Pollard or Faction Paradox, it's an in universe fact that this guy's timelines are shot to hell.
- You could then divide the biography up into sections on the three different continuites and present them with equal weight, a disclaimer noting the uncertainty as to how they fit together.
- The biography could then end with a 'Behind the scenes'/Speculative section detailing the different ways that have been suggested as to how it all might fit together.--Richard Jones 21:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
- Yeah I agree with Richard, on both the complexity and the breaking it all up, but only if it's absolutely necessary (and also allows to give equal weight to everything), so we could have the Big Finish run, the EDA and the DWMs.
- As to time placement of certain stories Storm Warning does not take place straight after the TVM (as it's placement is explained in Terror Firma). Endgame opens in such a way that it's not explicit as to where it starts. The Eight Doctors is the starting point because it directly references the TVM and leaves (little) room to manouvere.
- On a side note, there isn't anything (hugely) contradictorary in the Eighth Doctor time line (okay it's all over the place but there's are no huge inexplipible problems)...unlike the for example Ace and the Seventh Doctor (in which DWM comics serious muck everything up with different POVs of Ace and Gallifrey).
- It may be folly, however Lance Parkin's AHistory puts everything (well the Big Finishes, TV stories and Novels) in one cohesive continuity, so I see no reason why it can't be written (as mentioned the only slight problem is the DWM comics, but as Richard has said there are various ways that can be explained).
- Also, even if we break up the sections there is the slight problem that only 1 out of the 3 is finished; the DWM comics, the EDAs ended on a cliffhanger with The Gallifey Chronicles and the BFAs are still going. So even broken up the individual parts couldn't be re-integrated into one continuity.
- Most timelines are based on best guesses, the Eighth Doctor one is based on where things could go (for example the everything up to Zagreus has to take place before The Ancestor Cell...probably) The Big Finish and DWM comics have to take place from the TVM up to The Ancestor Cell or (potentially) after The Gallifrey Chronicles. --Tangerineduel 05:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
- It's well established that The Dying Days and the Radio Times strips take place in the pre-Vampire Science gap, so there'd be no need to separate those out. What I think we should be considering is something like this...--Richard Jones 12:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
- That looks okay. (Just one tiny note...there should be a space between the : and the story title) sorry to be a bit picky. (Ie BFA: Zagreus) --Tangerineduel 13:08, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Proposed Biographical Structure
Birth Cry
Summary of the TVM. Ending with...
The Temporal Orbit, travelling back into his own timestream to undo events in which he had been involved, was the Eighth Doctor's 'birth cry' (EDA:Unnatural History), heralding a life of considerable complexity. Those attempting to view the Eighth Doctor's time-stream would find it not a neat line (EDA:The Gallifrey Chronicles) but rather a chaos of paradoxes (EDA:Interference, BFA:Storm Warning) and parallel time lines (BFA:Zagreus, EDA:Time Zero).
Consequently, although several periods of the Eighth Doctor's life are well documented, there remains no definitive account of how these eras relate to each other.
Life, Death and Amnesia
Biography of the EDA/Dying Days/Radio Times era. From The Eight Doctors through to The Gallifrey Chronicles. Noting the big gaps in which the adventures of the other media may take place, but not offering conjecture on which do.
Insert Suitable Title Here
Biography of the DWM era.
Travelling with Charley
Biography of the main Big Finish era.
Travelling with Lucie
Biography of the BBC7 era (I think it's best to separate the two audio eras up, as it's perfectly possible for someone to think the Charley-era happens sometime pre-Ancestor Cell while the Lucie-era happens sometime post-The Gallifrey Chronicles. I know I do.
Behind the Scenes
Brief account of how the three continuities stopped playing nice, and a list of some of the suggested options by which fans can slot them all in together.
Myself I like putting the DWM strips in the pre-Vampire Science gap, the Charley audios in the pre-Blue Angel gap, and the Lucie audios after the Gallifrey Chronicles and the restoration of Gallifrey. But there's no right answer here and it would be a big ol' fib for the wikia to pretend there was.
This section might as well also note Lance Parkin's suggestion that The Infinity Doctors could be set late in the Eighth Doctor's life.
--Richard Jones 12:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
