Please DO NOT add to this discussion.
Back in World War III, the Ninth Doctor said that Harriet Jones would go on to serve three (?) terms as PM, starting in 2006. In The Christmas Invasion, the Tenth Doctor deposed her the next year, thereby altering history. Okay....but in order for Harriet to have served for those three terms mentioned earlier, she would have to have survived the Sycorax attack, which she could not have done had the Doctor not already been there to help everyone. The Torchwood Institute already existed by the time of this story, so Harriet would have always utilised them to destroy the Sycorax. So how could Harriet have served for three terms? 82.2.136.93talk to me 16:55, May 18, 2012 (UTC)
Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey.... or, as the eminent Ponsonby Britt once opined "Eeeny meeny, chili beany, the spirits are about to speak." The Doctor avoids monkeying with fixed points in time and crossing his own personal timeline except for cheap tricks, lest something disastrous happens. However, he didn't sense a fixed point in time, so that was ok. His lack of certainty would indicate that either he was unfamiliar with the situation, indicating he hadn't been anywhere near before, which meant he wouldn't be crossing his own timeline or it was a point of time in flux, what the Eleventh Doctor would call "an opportunity." Through some marvelous Time Lord-y ability that is incomprehensible to the minds of those beings who have not evolved over billions of year to deal with the Time Vortex (i.e., script-writier's handwaving) the Doctor's memory of what he read was likewise in flux until they had saved the earth, whereupon it settled down into Jones being Prime Minister for three terms. However, it was still not a fixed point in time, so he could monkey with it.
This would suggest that the Sycoraxic invasion was caused by other monkeying... perhaps drift, perhaps the Master showing up, perhaps something off the map that will never show up. Either that or, had the Doctor not been around for the Sycorax, Torchwood would have simply blown them out of the sky anyway.Boblipton talk to me 21:31, May 18, 2012 (UTC)
In World War III, the Ninth Doctor was rather vague about Harriet Jones, recognising the name but not initially remembering her 3 terms as PM, which suggests that this part of her career was far from certain. His recall might have been confused by having memories of alternate timelines or something like that. --89.240.255.170talk to me 09:51, May 19, 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I too have wondered if the presense of the Sycorax might have been some kind of temporal aberation, i.e. something that wasn't necessarily meant to happen. Perhaps those particular Sycorax got lost in a time storm or something, but didn't quite realise they weren't in their home time zone anymore. They seem quite nomadic anyway, so I doubt this would bother them overly. 82.2.136.93talk to me 09:55, May 19, 2012 (UTC)
- It's also likely (though not in any way confirmed on-screen) that it was the Doctor's interference with Harriet Jones' political career in The Christmas Invasion which opened the door to the Master becoming Prime Minister. Presumably, in the version of history in which Harriet Jones served three consecutive terms, Harold Saxon did not become PM. But in the uncertain period following her resignation, (and with the aid of the Archangel Network) he was able to claw his way to the top. I always assumed that the Master becoming PM was a direct consequence of the Doctor arrogantly changing the timeline in The Christmas Invasion. —Josiah Rowe talk to me 01:31, May 21, 2012 (UTC)