Time War timeline
Check the behind the scenes section, the revision history and discussion page for additional comments on this article's title.
Following the fall of Gallifrey, the events of the Last Great Time War between the Daleks and the Time Lords were time locked and thus isolated in its own "specific timeline", (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) which was mostly separate from the normal universe. (PROSE: Revenge of the Nestene) According to conflicting accounts, the time lock was placed by either the surviving higher species (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) or the Doctor. (COMIC: Don't Step on the Grass) This time lock was intended to ensure that no entity or faction could use time travel technology to revisit the war to alter or otherwise engage with any of the events that had occurred. Such interference was deemed too dangerous, likely to place the integrity of the Time Vortex itself at risk. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe)
Siblings Different and Same of the Faction insisted that the Doctor's actions had erased the Time War from history, (PROSE: The Paradox Moon) but every other account showcased that was not the case; the War had happened, but now it was inaccessible to the rest of creation, (TV: The Stolen Earth, et. al) leaving the great conflict between the Daleks and Time Lords to become the stuff of legend. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Scale of the war
In a linear sense, the war lasted for at least 400 years. Fought throughout countless time periods and even alternate timelines, however, it more accurately lasted an eternity as both sides fought across space and time, opening up new fronts as the Daleks seeded themselves in different epochs. (PROSE: Engines of War) As observed by surviving Gelth, the Time War's effects were "invisible to smaller species but devastating to higher forms". (TV: The Unquiet Dead)
Certain events which long preceded the outbreak of full-scale war were considered by some to be part of the Time War, most notably the Fourth Doctor's incursion into Dalek history on behalf of the Time Lords. (AUDIO: The Dalek Conquests, TV: Genesis of the Daleks) In addition, events which postdated the fall of Gallifrey were counted as part of the war including Operation Mannequin, (PROSE: Rose) the Battle of GeoComTex, (TV: Dalek) the Battle of the Game Station, (TV: The Parting of the Ways) and the Siege of Trenzalore. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters)
Looking into what they believed to be mere possibilities for the Doctor's future via the Matrix, the Time War-era Time Lords foresaw their confrontations with the Daleks following the war. Electing to treat post-War information as confidential, the data gleamed from these "future projections" was reserved for the eyes of section leaders only. As was noted in the Dalek Combat Training Manual edition that included these projections, some information about the post-War universe, such as data about the end of the Time War, was redacted from their security level as well. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)
Historical overview
The war begins
According to some historians, before properly beginning the conflict, the Dalek Emperor led the Dalek Empire out of space and time, going into the Time Vortex to prepare for the War, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) but another account held that the Daleks only deployed their "awesome fleet" into the Time Vortex when the War finally began. (PROSE: Meet the Doctor) No matter the true circumstances, from the perspective of humanity, the Daleks suddenly disappeared "thousands of years" prior to the Battle of the Game Station in 200,100. As recalled by Jack Harkness, a former Time Agent from the 51st century, the Daleks vanished from time and space at point when they were the "greatest threat in the universe", (TV: The Parting of the Ways) thus ending the Tenth Dalek Occupation. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) The Doctor would later state that the Daleks had "gone off to fight a bigger war", that being the Time War. (TV: The Parting of the Ways)
The rescue of Davros
Dalek Caan, the last survivor of the Cult of Skaro, was able to enter the Time War after initiating an emergency temporal shift, proceeding to rescue Davros from death at the hands of the Nightmare Child. Together, they emerged in the post-Time War universe with Caan being greatly affected both physically and mentally by the ordeal, appearing to have gone insane to observers. Knowing that the "entire war" was time locked, the Tenth Doctor proclaimed Caan's feat to be "impossible" whilst Davros himself deemed it "remarkable" that a "single, simple Dalek" had succeeded where Emperors and Time Lords had failed. (TV: The Stolen Earth)
The Final Sanction
On the last day of the Time War, Lord President Rassilon and his High Council understood that they were trapped inside the time lock. By transmitting a signal back through time and implanting it within the mind of the Master, who was fated to escape the Time War, the Time Lords had a link to the Saxon Master's location in the post-Time War universe, on Earth on 25 December 2009. By throwing a White-Point Star to Earth, Rassilon made the contact physical, resulting in Gallifrey briefly appearing in the sky above Earth, while Rassilon and a number of Time Lords appeared within the residence of Joshua Naismith. The Tenth Doctor warned that, with the time lock broken, it would enable the "hell" of the Time War to descend into the universe including not only the Daleks but the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, Could've Been King with his Army of Meanwhiles and Neverweres. Ultimately, the Tenth Doctor destroyed the star using Wilfred Mott's gun, forcing Rassilon and Gallifrey back into the war. Attacking Rassilon in retaliation for the impact the signal had on his mind throughout his life, the Master too joined the Time Lords in the war. (TV: The End of Time)
The war ends
Just prior to the fall of Gallifrey, the War Doctor was preparing to use the Moment to end the war when the sentient weapon enabled him to make contact with his future incarnations, the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors in the post-Time War universe. The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors, along with Clara Oswald, were allowed to accompany the War Doctor back to the barn on Gallifrey. Knowing that the events were time locked, the Tenth Doctor acknowledged that they should not have been allowed to enter them, with the Eleventh Doctor understanding that they had been let through the time lock. It was after this that the Doctors and Clara decided to change the outcome of the war that they remembered, leading to "all thirteen" incarnations of the Doctor piloting their respective iterations of the TARDIS into Gallifrey's atmosphere as they relocated the planet into a pocket universe. After returning to the National Gallery with his future selves and Clara, the War Doctor took his leave in the TARDIS before regenerating into the Ninth Doctor, losing his memory of saving Gallifrey and so believing that it had been destroyed. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Survivors
As the vast majority of the Daleks were destroyed in the fall of Gallifrey, the species was observed to be effectively extinct, with any that remained no longer able to plunder their own past or escape from within the timeline of the war itself. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) However, pockets of Dalek survivors did in fact manage to emerge in the post-Time War universe. The Metaltron, a Dalek veteran of the fall of Arcadia, (PROSE: Dalek) was found by the Ninth Doctor, who surmised that it had fallen through time. (TV: Dalek) The Dalek Emperor, who had survived aboard his ship, recalled he had fallen through time before emerging in the time of the Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire. (TV: The Parting of the Ways) Elsewhere, the Cult of Skaro had escaped the Time War in a Void Ship known as the Sphere, which was discovered by Torchwood London before opening in 2007. The Tenth Doctor understood that, within the Sphere, one could potentially sit out the end of the universe and the beginning of the next. (TV: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday) Following the fall of the Cruciform, the War Master escaped to the far future, just prior to the end of the universe, where he disguised himself as a human so that he would not be found. (TV: The Sound of Drums) Another Renegade Time Lord, the Monk, fled the Time War and was found by Missy in 16th century England. (AUDIO: Divorced, Beheaded, Regenerated)
Relation to the wider universe
After many years of war, the Nestene abandoned its conquesting ways, and made peace with the Plastic Conjunction on Nestenia, developing a rapport with the Embodiment of Gris, which observers described as a romance. However, Nestenia would fall victim to fallout from the Time War which briefly penetrated the normal universe, with the Nestene de-aged by a wave of Early, the food stocks destroyed by cloud of Late, and the Embodiment driven insane by a blizzard of Tick-tock. (PROSE: Revenge of the Nestene)
At the end of the Time War the time lock tore right through the planet Lujhimene, severing it in half. The time lock maintained the planet's gravity and atmosphere, and also spun its core as if nothing had happened. The Eleventh Doctor visited Lujhimene looking for the Volatix Cabal. (COMIC: Running to Stay Still)
The Twelfth Doctor once said that, even though it was over, the Time War could still kill someone due to that being the nature of a temporal paradox. However, he then claimed people should not worry and forget that warning, stating it would never happen. (PROSE: The Dangerous Book of Monsters) It was possible for individuals from the post-Time War universe to encounter combatants for whom the War was still going, as was the case when River Song and Kate Stewart's UNIT had encounters with the War Master. (AUDIO: Concealed Weapon, Master of Worlds) River also met the Eighth Doctor whilst he was in the midst of the conflict on two occasions. (AUDIO: The Rulers of the Universe, Lies in Ruins) The Tenth Doctor's TARDIS was once pulled back into the conflict's time lock by a telepathic summons from the War Master and he had to rapidly depart to prevent himself becoming trapped there. (AUDIO: The Last Line)
Alice Obiefune, a companion of the Eleventh Doctor, found her way into the Time War by using the Master's TARDIS and met up with the War Doctor. (COMIC: The Organ Grinder) Using the chaos of battle as a cover to escape to his future-self's TARDIS, the Master found a chronal tumour implanted in it. (COMIC: The One, Kill God) Believing he could now escape the Time War, he tried to do so, only to create a paradox; by trying to leave the War in his TARDIS, he could never implant the tumour. With this and the tumour reacting with the songbox, a paradox was made, and the Master's current regeneration was unwritten as his TARDIS burned. (COMIC: Fast Asleep) Now never having been in his child body, (COMIC: Fast Asleep) the Master remained present in the War's early days, still in his older "War Master" body, until he left the fighting after the events involving the Heavenly Paradigm. (AUDIO: The Heavenly Paradigm) To return Alice home, the Doctor removed the tracker dart from her left there by the Then and the Now, leaving it to interact with the Psilent songbox to create the Then and the Now originally. He then placed Alice inside it and sent her back to her Doctor. He told her that because of the paradoxes, they would all forget the events that happened there. (COMIC: Fast Asleep) The Doctor was later surrounded by members of the Volatix Cabal when Abslom Daak, having arrived from the post-Time War universe, descended from the skies, ever accompanied by the corpse of Princess Taiyin of Mazam, preserved within a cryogenic freezer-unit. The Doctor expressed his concern as Daak fired upon the Volatix. (COMIC: Physician, Heal Thyself)
At the time of Strax's birth and first deployment, the Sontaran Subliminal Education Matrix contained an entry on Time Lords which noted that "perhaps there is a universe-spanning war going on just out of sight, an apocalyptic crusade fought in the space between one second and the next". Strax read this line when he selected the education matrix's entry on the Time Lords to learn more about them. (PROSE: A Soldier's Education)
