Time stream
The time stream was the pathway for the movement of time, usually in relation to individual peoples or planets. The Eleventh Doctor once used "time stream" and "timeline" as synonyms. (TV: The Name of the Doctor) The personal time streams of individuals were known as life-streams. The Time Lords were capable of throwing life-streams into reverse such that an individual would cease to have ever existed. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons)
Characteristics
The term "time stream" was used interchangeably with other terminology such as timeline, (AUDIO: Reborn) time track, (AUDIO: Disassembled) parallel universe, and reality. (AUDIO: Forever)
Time streams formed possible futures, as the sigil ring allowed Ruath to change time streams and visit the future Earth ruled by Haemovores. (PROSE: Goth Opera)
The Grey Man plucked the Doctor's TARDIS from the time streams, meaning that the Time Vortex was composed of time streams in addition to time winds. (PROSE: Falls the Shadow) Nyssa explained that the Fifth Doctor travelled the time streams, in addition to moving from planet to planet. (AUDIO: Hexagora)
When concerned about changing history and erasing themselves, the Monk informed Vicki Pallister and Steven Taylor that they were safe as long as they stayed away from their native time streams, meaning they existed as temporal anomalies. (AUDIO: The Secret History)
Disruptions in the quantum equaliser of Space-Time Manipulators had the potential to open up time streams which could cause temporal displacements. For instance, while Alistair Gryffen was working on the quantum equaliser, a sudden power surge caused a time stream which displaced Jorjie Turner from 2050 to November 1963 (TV: The Cambridge Spy)
Individuals
General
After Sixth Doctor, Tegan, and Gareth Jenkins defeated Group Marshal Nathan and his subordinate from the Tenth Sontaran Battle Brigade, (HOMEVID: A Fix with Sontarans) within the space of a few hours, the Sixth Doctor returned Gareth to his correct time-stream. (PROSE: Fixing a Hole)
On Gallifrey, the Time Lords had access to the time streams of individuals. (TV: The Three Doctors, Hell Bent)
By one account, at the time of his arrival on Earth, the Time Lords had intended to throw the Master's life-stream into reverse such that he would have never existed. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons)
Professor Chronotis's TARDIS could interfere with an individual's time stream. (TV: Shada, WC: Shada)
When the Timewyrm appeared in Great Britain in 1981, it stated the timestream was in flux before becoming trapped in puterspace by the Seventh Doctor. (COMIC: The Last Word)
Provided with the Doctor's sonic screwdriver by a future version of the Eleventh Doctor, Rory Williams used it to release the Doctor from the Pandorica. Touching it with the sonic screwdriver on his person, the Doctor confirmed from the resulting a spark of temporal energy that the two were the same sonic screwdriver from different points in its time stream. (TV: The Big Bang)
In his attempt to recruit River Song for the Battle of Demons Run, Rory acknowledged time streams when he asked her if she had met him yet. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
The Teselecta, a vehicle of the Justice Department, made an error as its crew travelled to 1938 in order to punish Adolf Hitler. As Jim reported, they were too early and had to go later in his time stream, however, the Teselecta colided with the Doctor's TARDIS before they could do so. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
Clara Oswald was extracted from the very end of her time stream, just before her death by Quantum Shade, after the Twelfth Doctor deceived the Time Lords into believing that she could give them details about the Hybrid. She appeared in the Capitol's extraction chamber 7, after which the Doctor attempted to flee Gallifrey with her. Ultimately, Clara used a neural block to erase the Doctor's memory of her before returning "the long way round" to meet her fate on Gallifrey. (TV: Hell Bent)
Combining the resources of time travel with their memory extraction techniques, the Testimony Foundation lifted the near-dead momentarily from their time streams in order to duplicate their memories before returning their physical selves to the moment of their dissolution without pain, distress or any recall of the process. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
The Doctor
- Main article: The Doctor's time stream
The Second Doctor wouldn't risk re-entering the time stream with the time rotor dismantled. (PROSE: The Nameless City)
At one point when the Third Doctor was attempting to repair his TARDIS, he saw a brief appearance of different versions of himself and Jo Grant, and when they disappeared he told Jo they had gone "back into their own time stream". (TV: Day of the Daleks)
During the First Omega Crisis, Lord President Pandad IV, despite the objections of High Chancellor Socra, had the Second and First Doctors extracted from their respective sections of the time stream to aid the Third Doctor against Omega. (TV: The Three Doctors)
Using a Time Scoop, Lord President Borusa took the first four incarnations of the Doctor and several of their companions out of their respective time streams to the Death Zone on Gallifrey in order to play the Game of Rassilon on his behalf. In the case of the Fourth Doctor and Romana II, the attempt to lift them from the time stream was unsuccessful and so they were trapped in a time eddy until the crisis was resolved. (TV: The Five Doctors)
The Seventh Doctor, when considering whether to let Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart discover time travel in the 22nd century or not, thought his interference could do things to the timestream that "even a Dalek would think twice about". (PROSE: Transit)
During the crash of the Byzanitum, River Song acknowledged whilst speaking with Father Octavian that she was dealing with the Eleventh Doctor at an earlier point in his time stream, before he learnt exactly who she was. (TV: The Time of Angels)
During Big Bang Two, the Eleventh Doctor experienced his time stream "unraveling, erasing" and "closing" as he observed himself in the past. (TV: The Big Bang)
While awaiting his death at Lake Silencio, the Eleventh Doctor had the Teselecta send letters to Amy Pond and Rory Williams, River Song, Canton Everett Delaware III, and a younger version of himself. He explained that to deliver the messages himself, it would involve crossing his own time stream, "best not", he remarked. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
The Doctor's time stream appeared as an open wound in the fabric of reality inside the ruins of the Doctor's TARDIS in the future on Trenzalore, where the Doctor was buried. The Great Intelligence, in the form of Walter Simeon, arrived on Trenzalore, accompanied by faceless humanoids called the Whisper Men, whom he used to bring several of the Eleventh Doctor's friends there to draw him out so he could invade his time stream, turning all of his victories into defeats and having his ultimate revenge. He did so by directly entering his time stream inside the ruined future TARDIS. However, this plan was foiled by Clara Oswald, who followed the Great Intelligence through the wound. Just as he was, she was ripped into countless versions of herself throughout history and saved the Doctor countless times throughout his incarnations. The original Clara then found herself in a wasteland inhabited by various Doctors. The Eleventh Doctor entered the time stream and was able to extract her, though she saw an unknown incarnation. (TV: The Name of the Doctor)
The Twelfth Doctor, attempting to return to the Drum in 2111 from Краснодар in 1980, found himself half an hour back in time. Watching his earlier self arrive, the Doctor observed to Mason Bennett that he was now locked in his own time stream and so the TARDIS would not let him leave. As such, they had to stay out of sight before time caught up. (TV: Before the Flood)
Species
Time Lords
Gallifrey existed in an exclusive time stream which granted it power over history. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
The Second Doctor stated that the Time Lords were responsible for placing and maintaining the time streams, and without them, countless millions of planets would die. (PROSE: The Nameless City)
The Time Lords revisited their own time stream to rewrite their laws in an attempt to trap the Valeyard. (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard) When in the Soviet Union in November 1967, a Time Lord informed the Seventh Doctor that they had eased his arrival into the time stream. (AUDIO: Thin Ice)
Others
The inhabitants of an unnamed planet were in a different time stream from the rest of the universe. When the First Doctor and Ian Chesterton visited the planet, a few minutes passed for them, but the inhabitants lived through their entire civilisation from its rise to its fall. (AUDIO: Rise and Fall)
The Guardians of Time were able to "insert" themselves into the time stream, where upon they either took over or created the personas of powerful individuals in history. (AUDIO: The Destroyer of Delights)
The Resurrectionists were able to reverse time for the recently deceased, returning them to an earlier point in their time stream and psychically directing them away from the actions that lead to their death. (AUDIO: You Are the Doctor)
Time Roaches consumed time streams, either ageing or de-ageing individuals. (AUDIO: Foreshadowing)
The Graxnix were removed from the time stream by the Tenth Doctor, trapping them between seconds. (COMIC: Hotel Historia)
The Two Streams Facility of Apalapucia used time streams (which was the source of the name). Apalapucians with the Chen-7 plague were kept in the facility in different time streams, allowing them to live out their whole lives in one day. This also meant that each patient was kept isolated in a different time stream, but in the same place. (TV: The Girl Who Waited) Depending on the timestream, 1 January marked several New Year's Days in a row on Apalapucia. (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary)
Planets
The Third Doctor's encounter with the Silurians was a crucial nexus point in Earth's time stream. (COMIC: Final Genesis)
