Timeline (73 Yards)
What Kate Stewart speculated to be a "timeline" suspended around "[Ruby Sunday]'s event" was created when the Fifteenth Doctor and Ruby Sunday unwittingly interfered with a fairy circle on the Welsh coast near Glyngatwg in 2024. Spanning Ruby's entire lifespan, it was ultimately undone when Ruby as the Woman prevented her earlier self and the Doctor from disrupting the fairy circle. Thereafter, Ruby retained only the faintest memories of her possible life, (TV: 73 Yards [+]Loading...["73 Yards (TV story)"]) although it was enough for the Time Window and Memory TARDIS's linked technology to harness. (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
Although the fairy circle seemed to keep an entity called "Mad Jack" bound, and Ruby came to believe that Roger ap Gwilliam's secret thirst to destroy the Earth with nuclear weapons represented the unleashing of this malignant force, (TV: 73 Yards [+]Loading...["73 Yards (TV story)"]) she would later encounter explicit evidence that ap Gwilliam's premiership was still part of history even in the version of events where they had not broken the circle. (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
Overview[[edit] | [edit source]]
Shortly afterwards, the Doctor vanished, and Ruby found herself locked out of the TARDIS and constantly followed by a woman who always stayed exactly 73 yards away from her.
In the timeline, Ruby found herself living a solitary life due to the woman's presence, as everyone who spoke to her ran away in fear. Individuals like Carla Sunday or Kate Lethbridge-Stewart who had known or intentionally sought out Ruby refused to have anything more to do with her after attempts to approach the woman.
In 2025, when Kate tracked Ruby down and attempted to help her, she explained that UNIT had determined the timeline was suspended, tied to something Ruby had done.
In 2031, the Great Russian War was fought between Russia and NATO.
In 2046, Ruby discovered that Roger ap Gwilliam, a politician the Doctor had told her about prior to his disappearance, was running for Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Gwilliam's old nickname, "Mad Jack", had been mentioned on a piece of paper in the fairy circle, and when Ruby learned of it, she became convinced that her purpose in life was to stop Gwilliam from causing a nuclear war. She subsequently became a volunteer for his Albion Party.
After Gwilliam won the election and Ruby learned of his plan to purchase nuclear missiles from Pakistan, Ruby manipulated him into interacting with the woman, causing him to abruptly resign from office. However, the woman remained.
Ruby lived for another forty years, and as an old woman, returned to visit the TARDIS on the clifftops where it had been left. When Ruby was dying, the woman approached her for the first time, and Ruby found herself appearing as the woman on the cliffs in 2024. Noticed by her past self, Ruby was able to nudge the younger Ruby into preventing the Doctor from stepping onto the fairy circle, aborting the timeline.
Ruby largely lacked memories of her life in the alternate timeline, but the number of times she recalled having previously been to Wales changed from two to three, although she could not remember what the third one was. (TV: 73 Yards [+]Loading...["73 Yards (TV story)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
A straightforward reading of 73 Yards [+]Loading...["73 Yards (TV story)"] would suggest that this "timeline" (never referred to more precisely than this) would be what is usually called an aborted timeline: a series of events which are not temporally abnormal in origin, but are ultimately undone via time travel. However, even within the timeline, Kate Stewart refers to "this timeline" as being related to Ruby's "event", a highly ambiguous line which suggests the entire timeline may have been in some way alternate to, and coexisting, the mainline Doctor Who history even before its origin point is averted.
