4-D War
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The Black Sun War was a temporal conflict fought between the Gallifreyans (and later the early Time Lords) against the Order of the Black Sun, (COMIC: 4-D War) based thirty thousand years in Gallifrey's future. (COMIC: Star Death, 4-D War) It was part of the Time Wars. (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS)
History
The first strike of the war, from the Time Lords' point of view, was when a Black Sun agent called Fenris the Hellbringer travelled back in time to attack and prevent Omega and Rassilon from turning the star Qqaba into a power source for their time experiments. The attempt did not succeed but did cause the apparent death of the stellar engineer Omega. (COMIC: Star Death)
After Fenris' ruined mind was retrieved from the Time Vortex, the Time Lords used the telepathic brainfeeler Viridian to probe Fenris' mind. After learning of the Order's name, the Order attacked the Question Hall, killing Viridian and Fenris, along with nine of the Castellan's strike force before any further information could be retrieved. Wardog also lost his arm. The Order's attack lasted only thirty seconds before they vanished. (COMIC: 4-D War)
The Time Lords did not know why the Black Sun, whom they had never encountered before the attack, should want to strike at them. They surmised it was for something they had yet to do. (COMIC: Star Death, 4-D War) Years later, at a diplomatic conference, the Black Sun Elder was murdered by the parahuman Millenium, who was one of the Special Executive hired by Gallifrey. Millenium was controlled by the Sontaran ambassador Brilox by using a psy-snare to wipe Millenium's mind as part of a plan to secure the uranium rights on Desrault for the Sontarans. Wardog then wiped Brilox' mind after he found the psy-snare on Millenium. This provided the motivation for the war's beginnings, as from the Order's point of view, Gallifrey were the ones who had struck first. (COMIC: Black Sun Rising)
References
The Fourth Doctor mentioned that Rassilon discovered the secrets of time by stealing the translation belt of a species who attacked Gallifrey in the Time Wars "in retaliation for things we did to them before we'd even heard of them in the first place." (PROSE: Heart of TARDIS)
In 1977, Jim Sheldrake wrote a back-up strip for the Mister E tie-in comics about a Time War waged by the "Black Sun Brigade" against the Temperons of Mister E's home planet in return for atrocities that the Temperons had not yet committed. Sheldrake would later claim to have no memory of writing the story. (PROSE: The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Enemy)
Behind the scenes
- The comic stories comprising the Black Sun arc were an early collaboration between writer Alan Moore and illustrator David Lloyd, who would go on to create the graphic novel V for Vendetta.
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