Alternate timeline (The Infinity Doctors)

In one alternate timeline, a version of the Doctor spent decades or centuries living on Gallifrey, acting as both as a teacher and as a member of the High Council. There, he organised a peace conference between the Sontaran Empire and the Rutan Host. When he was finished, the Doctor decided it was time to leave Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

The creation of this status quo was described as being within the power of the Effect (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) or the Great Black Eye. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)

Although one account has these events occurring parallel to the era of the Eighth Doctor's life after his experiences with the War in Heaven, (PROSE: Father Time, The Infinity Doctors) others indicate this occurred in the Doctor's early life, (TV: Arc of Infinity, The Infinity Doctors) still fresh from his marriage with Patience, (PROSE: Cold Fusion, The Infinity Doctors) and was the cause of the Doctor and the Master leaving Gallifrey (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) or was instead the post-War destiny of the Eighth Doctor, (PROSE: Paydirt) with the Doctor being the Emperor, the Magistrate being the Man with the Rosette, and Larna being another of the Four surviving elementals. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) Alternatively, other sources indicate this occurred on a different Gallifrey than Romana III's Gallifrey, which would later become ruled by the War King and was thought to be the original version of the planet. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5, The Book of the War)

The Eighth Doctor often encountered and interacted with consequences, fallout, and individuals from this timeline in his own. (PROSE: Seeing I, Unnatural History, Interference - Book Two, The Taking of Planet 5, Father Time, The Gallifrey Chronicles)

Behind the scenes

• Writer Lance Parkin has been consistently ambiguous about the setting of The Infinity Doctors. On his website he categorises the novel as both a First Doctor and Eighth Doctor novel. Many readers considered the story either as a tale of the First Doctor before he left Gallifrey, or of the Eighth Doctor having returned to Gallifrey at an ambiguous point in his life. However, the truth may be more complicated than either of these possibilities. Parkin told an interviewer that the Doctor in the novel is "clearly not the eighth Doctor of mainstream continuity. He does look like Paul McGann"; Parkin's revelations about the plans from which the premise of The Infinity Doctors grew suggest that the story deals with a version of the Eighth Doctor whose past has been rewritten so that he has no longer ever left Gallifrey.
• In 2004, Parkin told the BBC's Doctor Who website that the novel was originally conceived as part of a two-novel series, with the other half written by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum. Orman and Blum were ultimately unable to write their novel, Mentor, though they would use elements of it in Unnatural History. Parkin said, "I realised this was a unique chance to do a story that could be outside the normal 'continuity' — about continuity. Which I found quite a fun idea. And I also realised that most of the readers would be expecting the bit where the universe goes all wobbly and turns back into the 'real' Doctor Who universe, and once I decided not to do that, it was very liberating."
• In the novel itself, Omega seems to address the nonconformity to standard continuity, claiming that reality is so riddled with paradox that multiple timelines and contradicting versions of the Doctor and Gallifrey are occupying the same universe and are constantly interacting with each other. Preceding events, aftermath, and references to The Infinity Doctors were seen throughout novels in BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, suggesting a degree of narrative and temporal melding. Novels with a relation to The Infinity Doctors include Seeing I, Unnatural History, Interference - Book Two, The Taking of Planet 5, Father Time, and The Gallifrey Chronicles.