Age of the Silurians
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The Age of the Silurians, (GAME: Division of Angels [+]Loading...["Division of Angels (game)"]) or Silurian Age, (PROSE: The Silurians [+]Loading...["The Silurians (feature)"]) was the era of Earth's history in which it was ruled by the Silurians. Co-existing with the Sea Devils who resided in the seas, the Silurian Empire flourished on the land before the Earth Reptiles were forced into hibernation. (GAME: A Brief History of Space and Time [+]Loading...["A Brief History of Space and Time (game)"])
The period declined as a result of numerous disasters which led different triads or tribes of Silurians to retreat into hibernation over the millennia, (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"]) including the origin of the Moon (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story)"]) and the extinction of the dinosaurs. (COMIC: Clara Oswald and the School of Death [+]Loading...["Clara Oswald and the School of Death (comic story)"]) Ultimately, with the absence of the Silurians, the primitive apes whom they saw as pests evolved into humans. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story)"], The Sea Devils [+]Loading...["The Sea Devils (TV story)"]) Nevertheless, stories of the Silurian Empire spread through the universe, with many alien species considering 21st century humanity to be insignificant compared to Silurians. (PROSE: UNIT History [+]Loading...["UNIT History (short story)"])
Dating[[edit] | [edit source]]
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The dating of the Age of the Silurians was uncertain.
John Quinn's research came to the conclusion that the Silurians existed in the Silurian era, but the Third Doctor believed this to be inaccurate. (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story)"]) However, other sources indicated that life had not yet evolved into the state in which the Silurians existed and that the Silurians evolved long after the Silurian era. (PROSE: A History of the Universe [+]Loading...["A History of the Universe (short story)"], Prehistory Repeating Itself [+]Loading...["Prehistory Repeating Itself (feature)"])
The Silurians under Wenley Moor had a globe depicting the supercontinent which existed before the Great Continental Drift. The Third Doctor dated that state of the Earth to 200 million BC, (TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Silurians (TV story)"]) the transition point from the Triassic to Jurassic. Indeed, Pangaea broke up in the Jurassic. (PROSE: Prehistory Repeating Itself [+]Loading...["Prehistory Repeating Itself (feature)"])
Some accounts indicated the Silurian Age occurred entirely in the Cretaceous, which ended with the K-T extinction event. (PROSE: Prehistory Repeating Itself [+]Loading...["Prehistory Repeating Itself (feature)"], The Silurians [+]Loading...["The Silurians (feature)"])
The Third Doctor believed that the Silurians existed in the Eocene era. (TV: The Sea Devils [+]Loading...["The Sea Devils (TV story)"]) The Eleventh Doctor acknowledged that some would argue that the Silurians should be called Eocenes. (TV: The Hungry Earth [+]Loading...["The Hungry Earth (TV story)"]) Indeed, Ruth Drexler believed that the Silurians were properly called Eocenes, having roamed the Earth some 50 million years prior to 2085. (AUDIO: The Silurian Candidate [+]Loading...["The Silurian Candidate (audio story)"]) One history book indicated that the Silurians and Sea Devils lived in the Eocene, having evolved from dinosaurs who survived the extinction event. (PROSE: A History of the Universe [+]Loading...["A History of the Universe (short story)"]) Justin Richards's research indicated that the Eocene theory of Silurian dating was probably incorrect. (PROSE: The Secret Lives of Monsters [+]Loading...["The Secret Lives of Monsters (short story)"])
The Sixth Doctor claimed that the Silurians ruled the Earth whilst mankind was in its infancy as the primitive Australopithecus, "many hundreds of thousands of years" prior to 1835. (AUDIO: Bloodtide [+]Loading...["Bloodtide (audio story)"])
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
Origins of the Silurians[[edit] | [edit source]]
According to one account, the Silurians first emerged on Earth around 350,000,000 BC, when the planet was "a world of carboniferous tropical jungles and swamps". (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"])
During a period of tectonic upheaval, deteriorating conditions on the land forced some Silurians to spend more time feeding and breeding in the sea until it became their sole habitat, becoming the Sea Devil subspecies. The Sea Devils followed a similar evolutionary path to turtles, developing beaks and nostrils to breathe out of the water, while their Silurian crests became, through a process of exaptation, gill arches situated at the rear of the head. Their eyes shifted to the sides of their heads as another aquatic adaptation, while their claws became dexterous webbed hands. (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"])
Silurian Dominance[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Sea Devils came to co-exist with the land-based Silurians, with a time traveller's diary recording that the two Earth Reptile species signed a peace deal on 28 January 425,000,000 BC. (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary [+]Loading...["Time Traveller's Diary (novel)"]) Just as the Silurians did, the Sea Devils ruled the Earth when humanity's ancestors were apes. (TV: The Sea Devils [+]Loading...["The Sea Devils (TV story)"])
Both the Silurian and Sea Devil races were led by the Triad, their "custodians". (TV: Warriors of the Deep [+]Loading...["Warriors of the Deep (TV story)"]) While one Sea Devil chief, whom the Thirteenth Doctor wrote off as a zealot, claimed the Earth had been covered "in glorious aqua" during the age of his kind, (TV: Legend of the Sea Devils [+]Loading...["Legend of the Sea Devils (TV story)"]) the Sea Devils and Silurians lived alongside each other, (TV: Warriors of the Deep [+]Loading...["Warriors of the Deep (TV story)"]) with the Silurians ruling over warm landmasses (PROSE: Blood Heat [+]Loading...["Blood Heat (novel)"], TV: The Hungry Earth [+]Loading...["The Hungry Earth (TV story)"]) while their underwater cousins lived within the seas. (TV: Warriors of the Deep [+]Loading...["Warriors of the Deep (TV story)"])
On 4 June 100,000,000 BC, the Silurian Ark was launched from Earth (PROSE: Time Traveller's Diary [+]Loading...["Time Traveller's Diary (novel)"]) to avoid the "destructive impact" forecast for the planet, carrying a number of Late Silurians and dinosaurs. (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship [+]Loading...["Dinosaurs on a Spaceship (TV story)"])
Whilst historians observed that different triads or tribes of Silurians retreated into hibernation in anticipation of various disasters over millennia, contributing to the evolution of distinct Silurian subspecies, (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"]) one account indicated that Silurian subspecies co-existed in a caste system. Vastra, a warrior, recognised her "brothers" in the scholar caste, whilst their leader, Horlak, acknowledged her as a "sister". (COMIC: The Lost Dimension [+]Loading...["The Lost Dimension (comic story)"])
By some accounts, the Silurians lived in vast crystal cities and travelled in airships. (PROSE: Blood Heat [+]Loading...["Blood Heat (novel)"], Eternity Weeps [+]Loading...["Eternity Weeps (novel)"]
Warrior-class Sea Devils lived on Earth through the so-called age of the Dinosaurs, having used dinosaurs as both prey and as armoured mounts. They survived the extinction event which wiped out the dinosaurs by plunging their aquatic colonies into a state of hibernation. (COMIC: Clara Oswald and the School of Death [+]Loading...["Clara Oswald and the School of Death (comic story)"])
The extinction of the dinosaurs occurred around 65,000,000 BC, the time in which Va'stra (PROSE: The Red-Eyed League [+]Loading...["The Red-Eyed League (short story)"]) of the Eastern Lands (GAME: Lost in Time) was born (AUDIO: The Cars That Ate London! [+]Loading...["The Cars That Ate London! (audio story)"], The Ghosts of Greenwich [+]Loading...["The Ghosts of Greenwich (audio story)"]) in the Cretaceous period. (AUDIO: Symmetry of Death [+]Loading...["Symmetry of Death (audio story)"])
As a little girl, Vastra saw dinosaurs and learned to identify their gender, (TV: Deep Breath [+]Loading...["Deep Breath (TV story)"]) though she disapproved of her kind's practice of capturing wild ones and keeping them as pets. (GAME: Lost in Time [+]Loading...["Lost in Time (video game)"]) She also studied further subjects while living on prehistoric Earth. (WC: Who Are The Silurians? [+]Loading...["Who Are The Silurians? (webcast)"]) As an adult, Va'stra (PROSE: The Red-Eyed League [+]Loading...["The Red-Eyed League (short story)"]) belonged to the Eastern Council and the Sisters of the Bladed Soul. (AUDIO: Pater Noster [+]Loading...["Pater Noster (audio story)"]) She already lived in a Silurian city that stood where the human London would later be built. (GAME: Lost in Time [+]Loading...["Lost in Time (video game)"]) Prior to hibernation, Vastra was assigned the Life Task of finding and capturing a Weave. (AUDIO: Pater Noster [+]Loading...["Pater Noster (audio story)"]) She later joined her fellow Reptilia in their great hibernation. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War [+]Loading...["A Good Man Goes to War (TV story)"], COMIC: The Lost Dimension [+]Loading...["The Lost Dimension (comic story)"], AUDIO: Pater Noster [+]Loading...["Pater Noster (audio story)"])
Historians acknowledged reports of Silurians roaming the Earth as late as circa 40,000,000 BC during the Eocene and about 20,000,000 BC when the first apes walked on the Earth. (PROSE: The Monster Vault [+]Loading...["The Monster Vault (novel)"])
Aftermath and legacy[[edit] | [edit source]]
In 1835, Charles Darwin noted that there was no record of Silurian fossils or traces of their cities. The Sixth Doctor answered with Monkton's Theorum, "any reasonably intelligent lifeform [was] not going to leave a fossil". As for the cities, the Doctor noted that the oldest human structures were barely ten millennia old, and rhetorically asked Darwin if manmade buildings would last in excess of a million years. (AUDIO: Bloodtide [+]Loading...["Bloodtide (audio story)"])
Alternate timelines[[edit] | [edit source]]
One alternate version of the Third Doctor had his Exile on Earth in the Eocene era and joined an Earth Reptile lab. (PROSE: So Vile a Sin [+]Loading...["So Vile a Sin (novel)"])
In an alternate timeline where the Cybermen used Time Lord resources to conquer all of history, the Silurians of Earth were converted into Cyber-Silurians and transformed Silurian Arks into Cyber-Arks, with the intention of launching the Arks into space and seeding the universe with Cyber-Technology before humanity could begin to evolve. The Eleventh Doctor and Alice Obiefune attempted to stop the Cyber-Silurians, but the Doctor was upgraded into the Cyberiad onboard a Cyber-Ark after teleporting Alice out to escape several newly-awakened Cyber-Silurians. The Doctor used his new cyber-connection to deactivate the emotional inhibitors of the Cyber-Silurians; in retaliation, the Cyberiad killed all the Cyber-Silurians and immediately launched the full Cyber-Ark fleet. However, following the Twelfth Doctor and Rassilon's regeneration of the universe via the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey, these events, and, by extension, the rest of the timeline, were erased from history. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Supremacy of the Cybermen (comic story)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Some unproduced stories would have been set in the Age of the Silurians.
- The Mondas Factor was a proposed entry in The Doctor Who Role Playing Game which would have shown ancient Silurians warring with Mondas.
- Hallucigenia was a BBC Books novel proposed by Simon Bucher-Jones and Lawrence Miles which would have shown the Doctor travelling to the Silurians to attempt to negotiate a peace solution for co-habitation with the Silurians before they go into hibernation. The Doctor and his human companion discover experiments in evolution which start warping the companion's genetic history, turning her into a monstrous creature who threatens the Silurians.
