Anachronism

Anachronisms were objects, ideas or persons present in a time which is not related to its own, and thus liable to create a time paradox.

Overview

Regulation

The Time Lords' First Law of Time set out to prevent anachronisms such as a person meeting themselves (DW: The Three Doctors) or returning Eldrad to her present, by that time (from a 20th century point of view) the distant past (DW: The Hand of Fear)

Serious instances

When Anti-Time began to bleed into the universe, anachronisms began to affect history and had a disastrous effect on the Web of Time. (BFA: Neverland)

Examples of their creation

The Monk had, by the time he met the First Doctor in 1066, caused many deliberate anachronisms in Earth history to "improve" it. (DW: The Time Meddler) The Doctor caused anachronisms of his own by deliberately defacing copies of the Mona Lisa , writing with felt tip pen on the canvas "this is a fake". The words would be readable in the 20th century after X-rays had been discovered. (DW: City of Death)

The Rani created anachronisms in the Alternate Rome on Terra Nova. (MA: State of Change)

The Daleks introduced anachronisms in many times they visited, including 1866 (DW: The Evil of the Daleks), 1930 (DW: Daleks in Manhattan), 1963 (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks), 1984 (DW: Resurrection of the Daleks) and other times visited by the Daleks after the Last Great Time War

Examples of their prevention

The Doctor warned Barbara Wright against attempting to change 15th century Aztec culture. (DW: The Aztecs)

Since portable stereos did not exist in the 1960s, the Seventh Doctor called the stereo that Ace carried around in Shoreditch in 1963 a "dangerous anachronism". (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)