Theory:Doctor Who audio discontinuity and plot holes/An Earthly Child

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This page is for discussing the ways in which An Earthly Child doesn't fit well with other DWU narratives. You can also talk about the plot holes that render its own, internal narrative confusing.

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• This story completely contradicts the novel Legacy of the Daleks. First Susan has a son called Alex Campbell.

Not necessariy a contradiction in and of itself. Alex was presumeably created by a pseudo-scientific means given that he seems to be almost fully human, as well as the infertility between Gallifreyans and humans.

• Alex also knew his father David Campbell, who died when Susan and David didn't have any children.

I don't quite recall Alex having known his father, but I'll take your word for it. The framing sections of Gary Russel's Short Trips: Repercussions have an implied appearance by a taken-out-of-time Sam Jones. If blonde Sam Jones was indeed removed from time by the Doctor at some point following Interference, then the events that caused the Doctor to get caught up in Legacy of the Daleks, mainly his seperation from Sam, never truly happened in the new timeline(though the Doctor and perhaps Susan would retain memories of their parts in it), meaning David could well live to see Alex 'born'.

• Susan says she hasn't seen the Doctor since The Dark Tower (ie. The Five Doctors (TV story), which contradicts Ground Zero.

Ground Zero has to have been undone anyway for the NAs to have happened; it is speculated by some that this rewriting occurs via Kroton harnesting the Glory. Alternatively, perhaps by being returned to thier own times, their memories of the events of Ground Zero were erased. As to Ace's fate in this scenario, well it wouldn't be the first time Seven replaced her(Loving the Alien); perhaps this Ace was just the latest model, removed from an alternate Earth by a lonely and depressed Seven near the end of his life.