Theory:Doctor Who prose discontinuity and plot holes/Timewyrm: Exodus

You are exploring the Discontinuity Index, a place where any details or rumours about unreleased stories are forbidden.
Please discuss only those whole stories which have already been released, and obey our spoiler policy.

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

Remember, this is a forum, so civil discussion is encouraged. However, please do not sign your posts. Also, keep all posts about the same continuity error under the same bullet point. You can add a new point by typing:

* This is point one.
::This is a counter-argument to point one.
:::This is a counter-argument to the counter-argument above
* This is point two.
::Explanation of point two.
::Further discussion and query of point two.

... and so on. 

• In The War Games, the Time Lords put a forcefield around the War Lord's planet, preventing anyone getting on or off. Yet the War Chief somehow got both to the planet, and from there to Earth after this forcefield was in place.

Perhaps it is a one-way forcefield: people can reach the planet(presumably with suitable enough difficulty as to deter most) but no-one can leave. As to how the War Chief was then able to get to Earth along with some of the War Lord aliens, he is a Time Lord, and thus may know ways around such technology.

But there wouldn't have been "some of the Ware Lord aliens" to reach the planet with. They had been erased from existence.

The Timewyrm could have (inadvertently or not) altered the timeline so that the War Lord aliens were not erased from existence, but simply put in exile.

• The War Lord and his men were clearly travelling to and from the planet by SIDRATs, yet the War Chief and some guards departed the war games by a spaceship.

Well the War Chief had to be recruited to allow the SIDRATs to be made workable, so presumeabley the spaceship was their form of transportation prior to the SIDRATs' creation.

But that would have been some time before. During The War Games (TV story) themselves, SIDRATs were used exclusively.

They could have had an old spaceship on standby. There's no real reason for the spaceships to be completely junked, even if SIDRAT travel was more efficient.

The people themselves would still have had spaceships. However, it was made clear that all travel between the abse where the war games were being orchestrated and their home planet was by SIDRAT.

Given that it was a rather poor imitation of a TARDIS/based on TARDIS principles, surely the SIDRATs would have been suitably dealt with by the Time Lords. One then assumes that, believing the War Chief dead, the Time Lords then allowed the War Lord guards to board a ship and limp back to their own planet before enacting the forcefield that traps them there.

The War Lord guards were erased from existence, they would never have existed. Plus that doesn't answer where the ship magically appeared from.

The ship already existed and was the War Lords original form of transportation pre-SIDRAT, it just wasn't in use.

• In The War Games, the Time Lords erased The War Lord, The Security Chief, and all their accomplices from history. They explicitly state that it will be like they never existed at all. Yet somehow, The War Lord has a son, who not only exists, but remembers all the events of The War Games. To say nothing of the fact that he's now allying himself to the very man who was using his father, and openly betrayed him.

I would speculate that, as a lesson to the War Lord aliens, the Time Lords bent the rules a bit, permitting the aliens to remember the horrific erasure their leader had suffered and to discourage such behaviour. As to the War Lord's son allying himself with the man who betrayed his father, he most likely viewed the War Chief as a means to an end, one that the War Chief was needed to help achieve. Or he's just not the brightest spoon in the cutlery drawer.

Firstly that's a very big(and bizarre) speculation. The War Lord and all his associates were dematerialised, and made as though they never existed. But the really big point(and the one both you and Terrance Dicks can't seem to grasp) is this...If the War Lord never existed, how could he have a son? Because for the War Lord's son to exist, his father must have existed. But his father never existed. So the stupidity about him managing to get through the forcefield, remembering the War Games and allying himself with the War Chief are bad enough, but his very existence itself contradicts the War Games.

Oh, I can grasp the paradox of the situation perfectly well, it's dear old Terrance that got us into this mess in the first place. Ultimately any way to fix it is going to be bizarre speculation because there is no feasible way for it to work. If the properties of the forcefield allow for the paradox, then surely leaving the planet would result in the son's erasure from time. Short of a paradox machine implanted inside of him, there's really no answer that can be given.

Presumably the Timewyrm's interference/existence changed the timeline in such a way that the Time Lords deemed exile and execution a more appropriate punishment.

• The Fourth Doctor's cameo/message takes place directly after The Invasion of Time (TV story), but he is described as wearing his burgundy costume from Season 18.

As noted, this whole story is such a discontinuous mess that we can only accept that the Timewyrm's actions changed the entire nature of the universe, and all who dwell in it, and when the Seventh Doctor and Ace finally defeat the Timewyrm, everything is put right, meaning that at the end of the fourth novel, nothing in any of the four Timewyrm books ever really happened. The face that the Fourth Doctor is wearing the wrong outfit is a clue to the fact that the whole universe, including the future(and the past) is still royally screwed up, and that the Doctor and Ace are effectively in a parallel universe, at leats until they can finally defeat the Timewyrm once and for all.

• It is implied that the Doctor and 'Kriegslieter' have only met once before. However, The War Games made it perfectly clear that they knew each other very well from before The War Games.

Debatable. Though they do have an easy chemistry, the dialogue in The War Games indicates only that they recognize one another as Time Lords.

Oh no it isn't. Quotes from the television serial:

  From Episode 5 of The War Games:

SECURITY CHIEF: Only two of them and one of those has already been caught. WAR CHIEF: Had I not pointed them out, you wouldn't have even known they were here. SECURITY CHIEF: Yes, that has been puzzling me. Just how did you recognise them?

From Episode 6:

WAR CHIEF: You must surrender, Doctor, or you will all be crushed to death. You have thirty seconds to decide.

From Episode 8:

SECURITY CHIEF: You admit it then. You do know him. WAR CHIEF: Of course I do. And only I can deal with him. Release him.

and...

WAR CHIEF: I know this man. He is a fugitive from the Time Lords.

And from the novelisation Doctor Who and the War Games(from Chapter 6): The War Chief's eyes came to rest on the Doctor. Zoe thought she detected a moment of mutual recognition between the Doctor and the War Chief, as though they had once known each other.

• 'Kriegslieter' says that he was forced to flee Gallifrey because Borusa viewed him as a political threat. Odd, because that must have been before The War Games, at a time when Borusa wasn't even involved in politics.

Clearly Borusa is playing the long game, setting up the pieces for his grand enterance into the political realm.

How exactly?

• 'Kriegslieter' plans to gain access to the Doctor's mind to learn about TARDISes.But HE HIMSELF IS A TIME LORD. Which was said several times in both The War Games, as well as this book! How did he get away from Gallifrey, and to the planet of the War Lord(s)? How was he able to scan thousands of years of Earth history, for the soldiers in The War Games? And this book further states that the War Lords are not contemporaneous with 20th century earth! he How was he able to build multiple SIDRATs? So we have full Time Lord(who, according to Timewyrm:Exodus itself, was a high-ranking member of Time Lord society when he left Gallifrey), he flees Gallifrey, goes to another planet in another time and space, is able to scan thousands of different eras of Earth history(and on multiple continents), builds numerous SIDRATs, is able to get the War Lords and all their technology to 20th century Earth......but he doesn't know anything about TARDISes, and needs to try and steal the Doctor's TARDIS in order to find out anything about TARDISes?

Another main plot point was that 'Kriegslieter' was the result of a botched regeneration. In addition to the obvious physical effects, it doesn't seem too far off the Mark to suggest that there were mental defects as well. Memory loss is a known side effect of unstable regeneration (see the TV movie), ergo 'Kriegslieter' could have lost some knowledge permanently. How TARDISes operate, for example.

I think the only mental defect here was from the person writing this book.