Howling:Moffat confirms.. the 21st century invasions never happened.

The Howling → Moffat confirms.. the 21st century invasions never happened.

There be spoilers about un-released stories here.
Run back to the forums if you're scared.

At least, as of The Big Bang, humans in the 21st century will now be very suprsied if they see aliens because, simply put, they're not in recorded history anymore, appararantly. They're... gone. Damn cracks. Thanks, Moffat. The Big Bang, the explosion, changed the Whoniverse, Moffat confirms. I believe it was confirmed in DWM. Anyways, I found out in the spoiler thread of Gallifrey Base, here's the post (including text from the interview about it): http://gallifreybase.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2814470&postcount=3

So... what the hell do we do with the timeline article now? As of series 5, the timeline has been reworked... heavily. This will also rule out anyone from the RTD era returning because the show technically... well, all of that will have been erased with the invasions. It seems 21st century Earth is the only time period affected by the events of the finale... i'm assuming the future still pans out how it had with the invasions. Oh, whatever. But how will this affect SJA, a world where there are remembed invasions? Has SJA been afected, too? It seems that Torchwood has - apparantly, as of series 4 Torchwood, few seem to even be aware of aliens and invasions, fitting it with the events of the series 5 finale of Doctor Who.

Delton Menace 00:03, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

If this actually pans out on screen, mark me down for "do NOT like" - I despise erasing/rewriting years of importannt history from a show. Besides that, it makes no sense at all with the dialog and information presented in the finale about how all this would work. As, as mentioned, how it will mesh with SJA - it's a kids show, so changing the rules on them is a more unwieldy proposition than on Torchwood. I was so thrilled with the finale before, and now I'm just disappointed. 207.171.242.66 00:11, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, also what does this do to the entries for Adelaide Brook and the new species and heck, everyone's articles that existed in the past few years. I mean, Adelaide's death was fixed, and it was caused by her being there, and her being there was from the Daleks and. . . . 207.171.242.66 00:18, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

Well, it basically means the timeline has been split so that it now takes on a similar, but alter timeline. No one is aware of alien and all of that stuff anymore... I like to think that despite all of the changes made toi the 21st century, the future stories remain the same. It's all very confusing. But if the 21st century has been changed so damn much, won't all the stories set in the future change, too? Or maybe time makes them happen the same. Oh, it's so damn confusing. But fact is, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead will still happen, despit ethe changes made to our time period. Bah, it's all so confusing.

I'm guessing the changes apply to SJA, too. No one should be well aware of aliens on there anymore, either. Delton Menace 00:43, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

Even more confusing - both Martha and Rose joined the Doctor in the midst of big, public alien events that I assume are erased. So neither of them was ever a companion, right? This is just crazy. I cannot believe they want to erase years of series continuity. Oh, that sort of thing so ticks me off - I think you have to go by previous continuity when writing for an already established fandom. I love continuity. Continuity porn is tossed in for people like me. I can understand why they might want to erase aliens from the public concscience for story-telling reasons, but this was not the way to do that. Right now I don't even care about the Christmas special or next series. 207.171.242.66 00:48, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I know how you feel. I love continuity being expanded on, not split or erased... They could have dome something less confusing and that wouldn't annoy people - have some kind of huge global memory wipe, but not bloody erased the events themselves. They could have made it so that many people had their memories erased, and few would remember or semi-remember, like Donna during The End of Time. It would help explain no one remember Daleks in the episode 'Dalek' but explain that Adelaide was among those who remembered. But no, they had to do the erase thing to have no one know about aliens and what not.

Funny enough, if so much 21st century stuff is all gone, that means the meetings between the Doctor and Sarah will be gone. So how if he appear in SJA? Eh, this is all confusing. We'll see what happens.

So he's erased 'Blink', one of his own stories? Hah, what comes around goes around. And I hate this decision he's made. I'm going to resort to live in an imaginary world where Moffat never did that.

But there's another point raised here, in terms of mass article changing. I say we don't change them until a TV story at least confirms it. Or we don't do it all. The evil dude. 05:35, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

It's already been bloody confirmed. The cracks did history in and out, the universe was destroyed, time was changed left and right. Then Moffat confirmed that there are no longer any big invasions and all of that. He clearly noted that the finale reset it so that the Earth in Doctor Who is once again like our own, and people will be shocked whenever they see aliens in that ime period from now on. The only things that have been erased are all those invasion world-changing things. They wanted it so that no one knows about aliens again, apparantly, so they used the cracks and the whole universe reboot.

He clearly said that history has been wibbled, or something like that. They needed a way to make it so that the Whoniverse Earth was like ours again - as noted in Flesh and Stone, the cracks unwrote time, erasing two huge invasions. That was the first sign that they wanted Earth back to being unaware, and now he well, confirmed that it's all gone. Delton Menace 05:48, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

But surely small alien invasions still happened and its only the huge ones that made humans aware of aliens that have been erased, so things like the battle of canary warf, the slitheen invasion and journeys end dalek invasion never happend but smaller things like blink and the empty child etc still happned. remember old who still had things like auton invasions and contact with aliens but the human race as a whole was not aware of their existence, as far as i can see whith the new series its just like 'officical' first contact hasnt been made for the general public. 217.23.232.194 08:09, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we should note it until it is somehow confirmed on screen. Although Moffat has "confirmed it", he's "confirmed" lies before. Until there is on screen evidence, the only place to not it is in the behind the scenes sections. It doesn't make sense that the Doctor says that everything will be returned to where it should be, but those things aren't. Presently, on screen information rules over Moffat. Unless those things that were erased, the Angels etc stay erased, unless focused on and remembered. Also, the whole "past companions did not happen" is a big no-no. The only reason I can see for the events of Journey's End not happening is that, after the Earth was returned home, the remains of the Daleks were absorbed through the cracks (the same way Rory was), causing people to forget them. Otherwise, the whole earth would not exist. --The Thirteenth Doctor 12:22, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with The Thirteenth Doctor, Moffat has lied before and furthermore it doesn't make any sense at all. Jack said that everything changes in the 21st century meaning that the invasion atempts were part of the recorded history up until the 51st century. It doesn't make any sense because if the Battle of Canary Wharf never happened then Rose wouldn't leave the TARDIS and if the War in the Medusa Cascade never happened then the 10th doctor would use his spare hand when he regenerated in The End of Time. This is A MASSIVE continuity shift/error or any other word that pops into mind. This also contradicts a very possible theory which states that when the 10th Doctor regenerated the damage to the TARDIS allowed the entity known as the Voice to gain control of the TARDIS and to crash it. If the TARDIS never exploded then the cracks never happened and the invasions were never erased from time(asuming that the theory is correct). Time Guardian 14:17, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, Time Guardian. Also, Moffat pointed out in his Flesh and Stone episode that time travelers are not affected by time being unwritten or re-written. While events ar eerased of changed, time travelers will still remember and not be affected. At least, the Doctor won't be affected in any shape or form. Doctor Who, as Moffat has said many times, does not have a strict, linear timeline. Series 5, his series, constatly mentioned that time can be rewritten and unwriten, and it mentioned several times that events are in flux. It's a theme of Moffat's series: the rewirting of time.

I think Moffat said in that interview that erasing those things clears up some continuity errors, rather than having the producers ignore the invasions, which would create errors by having people not remember invasions if they had still actually happened. He directly pointed out that he wanted the Whoniver present day Earth more in line with our world: people would be suprsied by seeing aliens, not be like, "Oh, it's them aliens again."

He pointed out in older interviews that Doctor Who willl not be a slave of it's own so-called continuity, and that the Doctor's time traveleing changes history all the time (see: The Waters of Mars, The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood, ect.). But his traveleing in general rewrites history left and right. The show does not follow one basic continutiy, it creates new timelines, a lot. Delton Menace 17:52, July 22, 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we can rely on time travellers not being affected, though. After all, in this series Amy forgot Rory for a bit ... and I think River did too, although I'd have to look it up. You can't exactly say Amy wasn't at the eye of the storm, either! I don't think we can make predictions as to what will be gone or not, so I'd rather wait and see, and not rewrite whole chunks unnecessarily. the angel Jean - Smith's little elf 03:01, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

Funny enough, I believe continuity should be built on, not bloody erased to make room for different continuity. Bah. Delton Menace 12:10, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

Amy forgot Rory because he was part of her personal time-line, and River never met Rory so she can't have forgotten him. 82.33.57.244 12:22, July 23, 2010 (UTC)

Wasn't there a big deal about time never truly being changed? How could Amy ever TRULY remember Rory, or even the Doctor if they ACTUALLY never existed? I think beings and events are just forgotten, and those left dont think too hard about them... a bit like a perception filter, which appeared multiple times through the series. I'm not one to join imaginary dots, but... 86.179.252.129 11:20, July 24, 2010 (UTC)

Moffat is just trying to wind us up. Chuck us in the deep end and see what we speculate. And if it is true, it'll hopefully resolve it next series. Or, better yet, but more unlikely, Christmas 2010.

Like I've said before erasing the invasion atempts is causing a PARADOX not a simple timeline being re-written. But there's a loophole, the Doctor said that major changes in the timeline would result in a parallel universe being created so it's possible(if my logic is correct) that our universe remained the same but it created a universe in which the invasion atempts never happened. And I mean that if the Dalek fleet along with Davros was erased from existence then the Daleks would never exist and the entire history of the universe changes in the blink of an eye so erasing the Medusa Cascade incident would mean erasure of the Dalek race completely(which didn't happen because the invasion was NEVER erased in order to prevent the formation of the forementioned PARADOX). Time Guardian 10:26, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

P.S. You'd have to cosider the whole history of an object/person being erased before making asumptions about how it changes the timeline.

I touched on this in another thread. There were many continuity issues created in the 60s and early 70s because they set episodes in the near future. Like Mondas invading the Earth in 1986. Regardless this had to have been planned for sometime because peoples memories starting getting wonky back in the Next Doctor when no remembers a giant robot trashing london in the 1850s. This isnt something that Moffet has just pulled out of his rear. The question I have had since this Time reboot was being hinted at is how the Time Lords were effected. The sad irony of the Time War was that after the Doctor kills everyone, Davros and the Daleks survived while the Time Lords were wiped out. The Doctor pretty much screwed that one up. 173.57.144.238 22:32, July 26, 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone have a functioning link for this interview/confirmation? The original link posted by Delton Menace doesn't work (anymore). DigiFluid 17:35, August 1, 2010 (UTC)