Take a deep dive into the backstory of "Power of the Daleks", you will learn that David Whitaker's original scripts for this story were so long, they required being cut back considerably by fellow writer, and Script Editor, Dennis Spooner. And, in his original script for episode 2, the Doctor explains the reason for his leaving his, as yet unnamed, planet was that it was destroyed in a war with the Daleks. Meaning that Mr Whitaker, effectively, predicted the "Great Time War" in 1966!
So, if it was going to be proven that the Doctor left his planet after it was destroyed by Daleks then it might’ve been started by someone else who took exception to having their planet destroyed by Daleks
The audio story Time War has the time Lords contacting the 4th doc during the time war. So from the time lord POV the events.of genesis take place during the time war in a desperate bid to stop the daleks by changing their history
Or maybe the First Doctor is responsible because if the First Doctor hadn't messed about 'needing Mercury' then he would've never met the Daleks and if he never met the Daleks then the Second Doctor never would've known how evil they were and told the Time Lords about them. Ehehehheh. You can take it back really far I guess. All just theories though. :)
agree - also the first doctor introduced the concept of time travel to the Daleks ("the chase") - if hadn't meddled, then they would have been locked to their home planet with davros initial logic programming that no other intelligent life exists else where in the universe ("genesis of the daleks"). However I guess the events of other aliens visiting Skaro would have occurred without the doctor's interference.
Then again the 1st doctor not meeting them in Daleks would likely have lead to them still meeting them later in well the Invasion of Earth which he likely wouldn't have been able to avoid. The Daleks likely always had the course they where going on the only difference is when the doctor 1st met them. Every other story with them doesn't need the previous to happen bar the Chase & Master Plan.
For the most part, the Daleks would still learn of life past Skaro. A ship crash landed on Skaro, which gave them an early tech boost. So yeah, that's unlikely to change.
That assumes that the Daleks experience the Doctor's interference in Chronological order and that's not the case, you can make an argument that some of the Doctor's adventures against the Daleks, only the first two Dalek stories are Daleks who still have no solar slats and arent capable of time travel. is it possible that the Chase for the Daleks occurs after, from the or Daleks point of view after the Evil of the Daleks or Daleks Masterplan. Theres rarely a reference to the Daleks native era, except the events of Dalek Masterplan take place mainly in 4000 Ad except the time travel parts. The Dalek timeship seemed a more refined one than the Chase.
@@dookdomini6535 That's a good point about the Chase. So in the original timeline the Daleks learn time travel from the Doctor's meddling--BUT I think the events of Genesis was 'added' to the timeline; Davros knew the Doctor and his companions were aliens so he changed their programming way before... Ugh, this time travel stuff is awful lol
I think this is an interesting argument, and I like how the narrative is interconnected. However, I also think it can be argued that the 4th Doctor is responsible - not because of what he did, but what he didn't do. If he had followed his instructions and destroyed the Daleks, the war would never have happened.
Davros talk with the 12th Doctor seems to indicate that the Timelords were found out when messing with the Daleks's past since he had a video recording of the 4th Doctor with the two wires.
Big Finish made a What If series about this. And apparently, at least according to Big Finish. Had the 4th Doctor gone through with his mission. It would’ve started the war early. Causing the Timelords to go and make him regenerate into an alternate war/5th Doctor played by Colin Baker. Unless were only going off of the shows continuity
@@JohnCoon-tp7wv In my opinion Big Finish is there to fill in the holes and try to explain some of the more odd stuff. No matter if One stirred up the Daleks, Two pushed the Time Lords into acting or Four got caught meddling with time, the more interesting things happen during the war. Like the War Master's plan to rewrite Kaled history so they'd fight for him. Or those similar horrors that Cole unleashed upon the universe, I hope ew can get something about those freaks down the line.
Very good point, I hadn't considered that! If the 4th Doctor had completed his mission, the Time War wouldn't have happened, so he is responsible. Now I can just imagine the Time Lords being really annoyed at him when the Time War started thinking 'He had one job. None of this would be happening if he'd just done what we specifically sent him to do. I knew we should've sent someone more reliable to do that mission...'.
@@pupbenny indeed - though we don't actually know if he would have succeeded. It may have been that Davros had another secret lab somewhere or whatever. There's always a way haha
I think it’s more the First Doctor who sparks things off. He makes the Daleks curious about time travel, leading to them developing their own time machines and creating the Time Destructor. That would definitely get the Time Lords interested and concerned! Second Doctor escalates things, eventually leading to the Time Lords sending the Fourth Doctor to commit preemptive genocide.
It could also be that the Daleks are uniquely suited to fight the Time Lords. Only the Time Lords and the Daleks have "evolved" under the auspices of the seventh doctor's time-lock. That changes the game quite a lot.
Nah, the Time Lords were busy kidnapping Daleks for fun for the games in the death zone back in the Dark Ages as we heard about in the five doctors. Although this does rather put the whole "The time lords and the daleks did not know of each others existence until the 1st Doctor saw them" idea in peril
I think it was mentioned in The Five Doctors that The Timelords DIDN'T use either The Daleks Or The Cybermen in The Death Zone games. As The Fifth Doctor said" They play TOO well!" Borusa was the one to bring them there for his scheme.
But that's the dark ages, a different time, by the doctors time they had become civilised and non interference. As for the 5 drs that takes place after the time Lords learned about the daleks.
@@tonyug113 depends on how much was lost/hidden in the dark ages. "Well, the Doctor found these Dalek things on a planet called Skarro." "Hmm, Skarro, you know they look like the things we found in the ancneit texts called "Skarrians...."
The time Lords were a moribund decadent society -- yet in the pertwee era we saw them actively monitoring the unoverse (the beginning of the omega epeisodes) -- also seeing themselves destroyed would have forced them to consider acting as their own existence was under threat. The episodes when the sontarans and others invaded the citidel might also have been a wakeup call (when the doctor was made president)
If The Fourth Doctor had completed his mission to destroy the Daleks and not let his moralistic side get the better of him, the Time War would not have happened.
...and when has that ever worked? You take out one enemy, another always rises up to equal the previous villainy or surpass it. Evil is self-sustaining.
Good point! In that respect, he is responsible, at least for failing to prevent the war with the Daleks. Perhaps, in a world in which he did it, the Time Lords would become known as the evil destroyers. Or maybe no one would know. All interesting points.
@pupbenny The Fourth Doctor began to question his mission to wipe out the Daleks and if it is right or wrong and if he is right to commit genocide. The Doctor is not The Punisher.
I had the same thought. It would have been a great reveal if Doctor Who ran a repeat of Genesis Of The Daleks between Terror Of The Vervoids part and The Ultimate Foe part, but with an extra scene there where Timelord, who sent the Doctor on that mission, was revealed (to the audience) to have been the Velyard all along in disguise... But maybe if they decide to bring the Valyard back one day, it wouldn't be too late for such a reveal, hmm? ).
I love this video, the funny thing is this is exactly the same observation and conclusion I made on my own back in 2021 when I started watching the whole show from An Unearthly Child to current, and when I got to the War Games, I remember thinking “so this is how the Time Lords even found out about the daleks’ existence…”
Fan since Pertwee's first appearance and I 100% agree with this. I believe The Doctor's example shook the Time Lords from their doldrums and moved them to carefully and methodically construct a philosophy of intervention. One could argue that the creation of the War Council of Gallifrey, et al is one of the results of The Doctor's influential speech. From our perspective it seems to have taken place rather quickly, but my head canon is that Two and the Time Lords (sans regal headpieces) were from early in the Time Lord's timestream and Four's was much later, maybe by thousands of years. Time Lords interactions with each other can span the whole of Time Lord existence, after all. You can be study buddies with Scientific and Young Rassalon and later fight Mean and Destroyer Timothy Dalton Rassalon later.
I completely agree! To me it makes sense that the Time Lords from, for instance, The Deadly Assassin are far in the future compared to when they appeared in The War Games. There's just something about their brief War Games appearance that has a different feeling about them to me. Their simplicity suggests an earlier stage in their history.
You cannot travel through Gallifrey's history with conventional time machines, there are a few exceptions in new who like making the Master insane and saving Gallifrey from the Daleks (which I think may have already happened before the new series started) My guess is that the Doctor just keeps visiting the present on Gallifrey and only once broke through the security measures to alter what he thought was an unchangeable future.
So the Second Doctor started the war, 1-12 ended the war, the Twelfth Doctor created Davros and the Fourteenth Doctor created Daleks, the Doctor, generationlessly, is responsible for most if not all things both Time Lord and Dalek. I think in the new gods era of Doctor Who, The Doctor is a god of life. Self regeneration, timelessness, intense addiction to saving people, and currently unintentional creation of many, many species. It feels like they're a god that was exiled and abused by the Gallifreyans, and every time they remember/learn of their god status, their memory and body gets reset. Except this time, with the timeless child era and the existence of other gods in the Whoniverse, the Time Lords can't do anything to stop the Doctor from retaining this information about themselves
This is a *BRILLIANT* bit of analysis! I mean, I don't actually agree with its conclusions (completely), but it's definitely brilliant! I'd never thought of tracing the start of the Time War back quite this far. You did! [SALAAMS AND APPLUSE] - - - - - - - - So... Why don't I fully agree? Well, the clue is in that "thinking about it for five minutes" (apparent) change of mind by the tribunal, during the trial. I've never seen the CIA as something that was created *after* the Doctor's trial: The CIA are *old* ! They've been in existence for a long time, trying to change the status quo; they just never had much (overt) power or influence, until the occasion of the Doctor's trial. But suddenly, here was a renegade Time Lord - a completely *INDEPENDENT* Time Lord - who'd never joined the CIA, and who (maybe?) actually *refused* to do so... but who, having become a kind of underground folk-hero, was now - at his sudden and unexpected trial - standing RIGHT THERE on Public Register Video (because of course such an unusual trial would be recorded, if not televised live!), making several of their key political talking points for them, for all of Gallifrey to hear! No wonder Goth (Bernard Horsfall) smirked... =:o}
Thank you very much for your comment, I really appreciate your analysis of it! :) You make very good points, I did consider that the CIA might be older than the trial but couldn't find any definitive answer about it, but as a secret organisation I definitely think it's possible that they've been going a very, very long time that we just haven't heard of. You make really fantastic points, I love the idea that, in some ways, they use The Doctor to make their own points for them. I also love that smirk Horsfall does, there's so much that can be read into it. They might've had a brief appearance in The War Games, but there's so much about the Time Lords in this episode that's just utterly fascinating and can be analysed in so many different ways.
The time war was in full swing during Remembrance of the Daleks and escalated when the Doctor personally got involved in his 7th, 8th and War Doctor incarnations. If you follow the books that is.
@@CreativeWM_Personal [TILTS HEAD INQUISITIVELY] Ooh, which books? (I only know the New Adventures (Virgin, 1990s) and the EDAs (BBC, late '90s to early '00s). By the time the revival got into its 2nd year I didn't have the income to follow the new series books. =:o1 )
It's fascinating, that even in the Classic Series, it seems like they were building towards a confrontation between the Daleks of Skaro and the Time Lords of Gallifrey. In the Dalek's last Classic appearance (baring a voice cameo in the TV Movie), their creator, Davros, promises to "sweep away Gallifrey and its impotent quorum of Time Lords!", and then the Doctor prompty destroys Skaro - argubly the first 'real' concrete act of war of the Time War. The Doctor definitely caused the Time War, there's absolutely no doubt about that. But which Doctor, eh? Doctor Who?
The Doctor was the trigger, for sure. But which particular faction of Time Lords, at that time, was holding the gun...? CIA, Faction, or High Council? Or some other group of "manipulators" entirely?
I always figured it to be kinda weird that the Time War's origins are considered to be Genesis of the Daleks, even in-universe historians of the war claim it. After all, even from the Dalek perspective the Time War is a great great deal of time from the events of Gensis, it's not like the Daleks wouldn't have been able or willing to try and strike back the moment they figured space travel. I always figured that the idea that the events of Genesis were the origin was the Time Lords perspective on things. It paints them in a fairly good light after all, acting in the best intrests of the universe, and history IS written by the victors, a Time War probably moreso. Nah, I reckon that were you to ask a Dalek how the war started, before getting exterminated he'd probably tell you that it was the events of Rememberence of the Daleks that kicked it off. I cant imagine the Genesis stuff led to exactly great relations between the two species, but I consider the complete destruction of their entire planet to be much closer to the events of the Time War and much more of a smoking gun.
Yeah that makes sense too. Reminds me of how, while World War II is generally stated to have started in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland, I believe, unless I'm mistaken, that if you ask the Chinese, they consider it to have started in 1937 with the Japanese invasion of China. Really I suppose it's all a matter of perspective.
personally I always seen the time war as a bootstrap paradox, always destined to happen, the daleks become a threat to the time lords they send the 4th doctor back in time to skaro, instead of preventing the daleks creation he guarantees it, and unintentionally saves davros, davros was doomed to die at his creation hands, by being forewarned about future dalek defeats davros considers he will not be there to lead the daleks and adds extra safe guards to his life support saving his life, ultimately he competes with his creation to claim leadership, the 7th doctor with time lord help tries to wipe out the daleks with the hand of omega, the surviving daleks have a new main focus the extermination of gallifrey and the time lord, eventually their technology rivals the time lords, to neutralize this threat to the time lords they send the 4th doctor back in time to skaro ...
I agree, I think the Time War was always GOING TO happen (because unless prevented, an advanced enough species will develop time travel, and any two super advanced adversarial civilizations, both with time travel, will inevitably come to blows with each other) It was also ALWAYS happening (because of the nature of a war fought IN and WITH time, trying to use grandfather paradoxes and similar to defeat the enemy) There's the 12th doctor episode when he inadvertently saves young Davros. Idk if this was the explicit theme of the episode but my takeaway was that there was nothing to be done to prevent the war: Abandon young davros and he dies? Save him and teach him kindness? Kill him in his infancy? Someone else just takes his place and creates the daleks anyway - by a different name, with a different design or style, in a different year that it happens perhaps, but it's still inevitable. Like how Kang in the comics (and the MCU) is sort of inevitable. Not because of fate, but because just as evolution keeps recreating crabs, time will keep tending toward the time war eventually happening. The only way to prevent this from ever happening would be to have total authority over which species can develop time travel (and keep it at just 1: those with it already), and to stop others BEFORE they can complete it. Because once they've completed it, you can never grandfather paradox them: as they will always use time travel to their own defence, as they would've always done so. The rick and morty episode with the space snakes showed how this chaos would happen on a small local scale very well. Once time travel is developed by an "unenlightened species", it doesn't take long for chaos to happen. It takes exactly 0 seconds, because it's already happened. I believe the time lords were originally the guardians of the Web of Time and in doing so would've prevented anyone from getting time travel. Therefore remaining the only people with TT in the whole universe and all of time: ultimate authority, but I can't remember which classic episode showed that so I might be misremembering.. All these little moments that the doctor almost stops, or almost starts, the time war are like pebbles thrown into the Amazon. It might disrupt some water molecules and make them take a different path, but it won't change the direction of the river at all
This makes since. The time loaded tested the doctor with the autism and the master and monitored how he and the military dealt with the threats including the Daleks. Then they looked into the future and found out that the Daleks were more of a problem.
I wouldn’t say the 2nd Doctor was responsible for the time war but rather the founding of The Celestial Intervention Agency. Based on his travels to the end of the War Games the time lords took note of the Doctors suggestion of action.
The 4th doctor ended up sealing them away in their bunker for 10k years but didn't start the Time War. I think Davros believed 4th & friend(s?) were from the other race on the planet (was 1 race till Darleks were created), NOT Aliens but spies. Pretty sure 4th Doctor was 1st to meet Davros/Darleks. Davros didn't know about practical Time Travel untill he met earlier 'Doctors' later on in Davros' Timeline, where he actually learnt about Gallifray, Time Lords & the Doctor being one of them. By then 1st Doctor & 2nd had also messed up Davros' plans & killed LOTS of Darleks. Each of the Doctor's 1st 13 lives fought the Darleks (some many times) & some early 1st could've exterminated them. EDIT. I know the Doctor (13th), before the chic Doctor (1st of the awarded 2nd regeneration cycle), met Davros as a boy but thats a bit different. P.S. its also where Darleks learnt the word & meaning of "Mercy" & it stuck in their vocabulary.
How was the Fourth Doctor ever responsible? He didn't choose to go to Skaro, he was sent there against his will... and wasn't even informed of this "plan" until already on the planet's surface, as the Time Lords assumed he would go along with it (like he had a choice in the matter!). The problem (as with all time travel stories) is that the Daleks wouldn't have known about the Time Lords until much later in their history, if the Time Lords hadn't sent the Doctor to their "genesis". In foreseeing a time when the Daleks would essentially menace the entirety of creation, the Time Lords in an attempt to prevent it, provided them with the knowledge and motive for doing just that! The Second Doctor's meddling in "Power" are earlier in his timeline... but considerably further along in the Daleks'. The ultimate blame is entirely with the "non-interfering " Time Lords.
2:28 I mean a lot of people do say Gavrilo Princip was the one responsible for WW1. Even today that's still the cause taught in school, rather than the series of complicated and complex defence treaties between the European powers at the time.
It can well be argued that, yes, the mutual promises of help created a powder keg, but nothing guaranteed that the powder keg would be lit, that without Gavrilo Princip, the war might have never happened.
Hey, there is this series called "War Of The Worlds 1934" that is it's own spin on the classic story. Mabye you should get into contact with the guy and maybe have an interview or discuss the episodes he's made. Maybe like a directors commentary. It would be great to see a proper channel like yourself discuss and talk about this novel little series (I've only ever seen one guy talk about it) P.S. Love your channel! From Odd's world to WOTW. Generally great stuff you put out!
Thank you very much, Thomas, I appreciate it! :) I'll have to take a look at "War Of The Worlds 1934" and see if I can do a video perhaps about it, if I'm able! :) I've heard of it but, surprisingly, I haven't actually watched it yet haha.
I’m thinking of checking out some Big Finish Productions stories. In those, I think they do confirm connections between the original Doctor Who serials and the Time War. This really does give the Doctor an almost fatalistic connection to the Time War, in spite of his reluctance to join the war. The Doctor discovered the Daleks and perhaps unknowingly set them on a collision course with the Time Lords. And when they inevitably went to war, he was the one to end the war. And then he went back and undo some of his own actions in how he ended the war.
Great points, but I think the waters are a bit more muddy. The Daleks were already so upset over the wandering Doctor that they set to chase him thru time and even plan to use The Second in their plans of Evil Of The Daleks. The Daleks may have had no clue that The Doctor had never been working against them on his own and not on instruction of his people. And/or, maybe The Master set up the War to destroy The Doctor and The Time Lords and, as usual, it backfired.
I always figured it was the 1st Doctor who started it because, he was the one who decided that the Daleks should be stopped and, in Day of the Doctor, he was the one who started the calculations for the stasis cube that they put Gallifrey in.
If the creation of the Daleks was stopped, what would that do to the timeline with Dalek encounters with The Doctor beforehand? Would it along with it's memories be wiped? There would be other repercussions such as Dalek events leading to the departure of granddaughter Susan which now may not happen.
Very good questions. Maybe the Time Lords would somehow prevent all these paradoxes that basically would've occurred. If the Master can do what he did with the Toclafane with one TARDIS turned into a paradox machine, I suppose the Time Lords would probably make it so that these events somehow remained intact, despite the Daleks no longer existing.
yes a bit like when the 6th doctor meets the decayed master (fresh from deadly assassin) he could destroy him but that would be changing history logopolis. tom baker would still be the doctor
When they first started mentioning the Time War, didn’t the Doctor refer to it as “the LAST great time war”? That would imply there were other time wars we don’t know about. Did they all involve the Daleks and the Time Lords? Were there time wars with other species? Or was it one big war with many phases? So many questions…
In the entire history of DW, we've seen many species with at least the rudiments of time travel capability, even if it was accidental and uncontrollable. Any two species with roughly "controllable" time travel capability, however rudimentary, could engage in a Time War with each other. For example, the (sufficiently advanced) Sontarans (see "The Time Warrior"), pitting themselves against the sufficiently advanced Terran Humans (see "Day of the Daleks", "The Time Monster", "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", "The Talons of Weng Chiang", "Torchwood", etc.) might be a conflict that would qualify - at least as far as Gallifreyan/future historians were concerned - as a "Time War".
One could also make the argument that the Time Lords started it when they first developed the ability to time travel. How many species in the Who-niverse that have the capability to travel through time and space, idk, but you can't start Time War without a Time Machine. This allowing all incarnations of the Doctor to intervene in the affairs of the Daleks et al.
I think even if the time lords weren’t told about the daleks, they would’ve found out about them since the daleks would’ve eventually gone to leave for other planets once they had finally eradicated all thals
At this point, i believe that entropy is at fault! If it wasn't for its disorder setting the Universe in motion, the Time War would've never happened in the first place.
Arguably the 14th Doctor is also responsible, but it depends on how canon you consider the short where he bumps into a pre-accident Davros and gives the daleks their name and plunger
I still maintain that the Ruth Doctor is between 2 and 3. In fact I suspect the Timelords forced his regeneration into someone who initially ran what became the CIA/Division under a separate regen cycle before being put into hiding as Ruth and later in exile as the 3rd Doctor.
I always believed the 7th doctor ultimately triggered the time due to him causing a massive act of violence towards the Daleks. Tricking Davros into using the hand of omega to destroy Skaro and the Imperial dalek empire.
Loved this video, this is something a whole bunch of people tried to tell me and I was like no, the Time Lords sent him to do it. Ah Venusian Karate, I love it.
Basically, the Doctor was too young and moralistic in the original series to realize exactly how much death and destruction the Daleks would eventually cause. It wasn't until Gallifrey itself was on the line that the Doctor finally became the cynical ender of worlds he needed to be.
Absolutely! Ultimately, the video is simply expressing one of many theories, I've heard very valid arguments for probably most Doctors having started it and that's definitely a good one. I think it fits with the Seventh Doctor well.
An extension of this, then, is that Barbara is ultimately responsible. It is clear in the first few stories that The Doctor will only ever take action to save himself and Susan and has no interest in righting wrongs. Barbara, more than Ian, is the one who acts as his conscience. By the time she leaves, The Doctor is the champion of justice, fairness and what is right.
What about the Minyans from Minyos ("Underground" - S. 15)?? They were the first race that the Time Lords contacted (and was given as the reason WHY The Time Lords observe, and do not interfere) . If the members of that crew had regenerated 1000 times, that would make them quite old, indeed. Where would that be placed on the timeline?
I don't think the Doctor is to blame here since due to the nature of the Daleks, they would only keep expanding until someone stops them, and if the timelords cant then no-one else can so its inevitable that they would fight unless the doctor couldve prevented them
honestly it's the 12th doctor that started the Time War, as he "saved" Davros when Davros was still a child from a mine field. Though due to time rules that even he can not brake or bend, he was kind of forced to save Davros.
I would also draw you to Evil of the Daleks where he directly influences the Daleks in their goal to become more deadly by becoming more humanized. He also names 3 as individuals which may have become the nexus of the Cult of Skaro. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evil_of_the_Daleks
Oh that's a good point and I really like the idea that the Cult of Skaro somewhat originating with the Alpha, Beta and Omega Daleks. I've never heard that idea before, that's really interesting!
I believe the Time War was started by the events in 'The Chase'. The Daleks develop time travel in order to kill a timelord; even if a renegade? This is the first shot.
I feel like the Time War was an inevitability, not something that can be blamed on one person or event. Had the Time Lords done nothing, the Daleks would have still learned of the Time Lords eventually and sought to destroy them, the war might have taken on a different appearance but a war through time would still have occurred. The Time Lords were damned if they interfered and would have been damned if they didn't.
The Doctor broke "the most important Law of Non-Interference" meaning there might be other less important Laws of Non-Interference instead of non-interference being the Time Lords most important law of all laws
I would argue that it goes a little further back than that, to "The Evil of the Daleks", where the Second Doctor introduced "The Human Factor" to some Daleks, touching off a civil war and creating a stem timeline where the Emperor and all the Daleks on Skaro were obliterated. By this point, Daleks had already demonstrated rudimentary time travel el technology, so on discovering this timeline they undoubtedly acted to prevent it, which would have had some ugly knock-on effects to the Daleks' overall timeline. But that would have instructed them in the use of time and causality as weapons. They were also now aware of the Time Lords, and would likely have attacked other Time Lords wherever they encountered them. 5:53 Sending the Doctor to Earth was risky; there are auxiliary writings that describe Earth as a "temporal nexus point", meaning that temporal interference in Earth's development can potentially have catastrophic knock-on effects for other civilizations.
Very good points! It's interesting how there's so many points where the Doctor has interfered with the Daleks in so many ways, there's a lot of instances where his meddling could essentially be considered responsible for the Time War.
The first Doctor was responsible… until they met him, they had no idea of life on other planets & were only concerned with being the dominant life on the planet. Then the First Doctor showed up on Skarro and they learned not only of alien life, but time travel. They then built a Dalek version of his TARDIS and the time war began. The Chase marks the start of the war proper…
I always find it odd the 4th doctor takes the blame for starting it, yes he did go back and introduce time travel possibilities to the Daleks BUT the timelords sent him on the mission
i think it could also be argued that 4s decision not to destroy the Daleks on that mission, while principled, is one of his biggest mistakes . the Time Lords' idea was basically sound and the whole Time War and lots of other destruction was completely unnecessary.
On a history test at Patrexi Middle School on Gallifrey, one of the questions is: Which Doctor started the Time War? The correct answer turned out to be: Yes.
The Daleks, because of the way Davros programmed them, always coveted the power of the Time Lords. They were created to believe that they were the supreme beings and that anyone who interfered with their destiny must be exterminated. Therefore, it was not, in fact, the Doctor, in any of his incarnations, who “started” the Time War. It is the Daleks who were responsible, or Davros himself for creating them evil in the first place. It was his own egomania that started The Time War. The Doctor ended it. That’s the only thing that’s really important…and the Leela survived.
Its Gallifrian's themselves in general. It was shown through the use of war games. The general theory is that they medeled with other planet inhabitants in their evolution, this was long ago before they wrote laws about interfering with other worlds' history via time travel. The games were a byproduct of them interesting in life changing events on planets such as Skaro. Yes, it's possible they did see Skaro as a project of interest a secret. Later, their political on this point changed and was overlooked. Who was responsible for this is questionable, but who indeed was the one to blame? Was it a young time lord who kept it secret even reprogrammed his memories so he'd forgets. A time lord who took a side step and ran away because of something dark he could not remember. One day, he'll come back and recall those day memories of those war games he fought to forget. Sometimes memories change, but they often rise from the past? Skaros Ghosts Doctor Who
The Daleks, the second story of the first Doctor, started it and all the times the Doctor ruined their plans. But the starting shot was The Chase. Were the Daleks decided to go after the Doctor and hunt him down through time and space. It was the first shoot fired. From there bullets were fired from both sides, until The Timelords decided to intervene in the birth of the Daleks. And the second Doctor was responsible for this action as you stated in the video during his trial. The first, second, third and fourth Doctor are responsible for the time war.
Never liked the idea that the war started with Genesis of the Daleks. The Daleks in Genesis don't even know who the Doctor even is, its only Davros (post Destiny) a thousand years later who has a grudge about it & He declares war on the Timelords in Remembrance.
I'd argue that the Fourth Doctor is still responsible for the Time War because of his actions in Genesis of the Daleks. Not for embarking on his mission for the Timelords but in failing to fully complete it. He hesitated to avert their creation because he thought the daleks innocent because they hadn't technically killed anyone yet and preventing their creation would be the equivalent of genocide. But I'd argue there is a vast difference between preventing an artificial race from being created and genocide in much the same way that abortion is in no way equivalent to killing a living child. In failing to destroy the daleks when he had the chance, he doomed countless peoples to genocide and extinction, including his own race and inevitability the daleks themselves. Because all they could do was kill until there was nothing left to kill. TLDR: Krillin had the right idea when he killed Cell when it was still in the test tube.
Maybe the Doctor caused the Daleks, as he is shown saving a young Davros.... one key decision that resulted in their existence -- whereas for cybermen, its stated that wherever humanoids exoist cybermen eventually get created.
The time lords foresaw the end of life by the daleks. The time lords have a pretty good way of predicting through matrix projections. The doctor didnt put the daleks on their radar. Also the gallifrey time war audios kind of make the catalyst for the time war the genesis. The doctor also blames that incarnation for starting the war
Hear me out, I think the problem is The Doctor himself, every encounter he had with the Daleks ended with their destruction and defeat. He is mythical figure of doom to the Daleks, so much so he has become part of their folklore and treated differently compared to their other enemies. So to the daleks after seeing how One Timelord alone could do so much to them, likely where always destined to clash with the Time Lords all thanks to a fear first created by the Doctor's encounters with them. In the Dalek mind, a civilisation like the Time Lords could never be allowed to keep existing, it was too dangerous and deep down I think they were terrified of the Time Lords.
Very good way of putting it. The Oncoming Storm is definitely something the Daleks would obsess over, the only one who seems to be able to defeat them. The thought of a whole planet full of them must terrify them!
@@pupbenny It likely is, I mean if I was always being defeated by the same person from a certain society or organisation or whatever. I took would eye the rest of them with a hint of worry and fear too.
The law against interference was meant to stop Gallifreyan technology falling into the hands of younger races. The Doctor showed that Time Lord isolationism was allowing predatory species to grow in strength while condemning Gallifrey to stagnation.
I don't think you're assessing this correctly. For a Time Lord, causality is different. Things that happen in the future for us, might well be a causal decision point for them to act. The fourth Doctor is tasked to intervene with the Daleks because of events the Daleks *will* cause, which for the Time Lords have already been caused. They are a necessary consequence of the causal series of events. It's why the Doctor can intervene and make a difference because if it weren't causal, no action he could make would make a difference. Something the Daleks do to the Time Lords or something the Time Lords treasure happens in the future and the Time Lords then decide the Daleks shouldn't exist or at least not exist in the form they now exhibit. With regards to the observation policy and intervention in general. To claim something is irretrievably evil is to say something cannot change regardless of the kinds of intervention that is used nor can be used. If the Time Lords where "smarter" they would have taken the fourth Doctor back to a point in the planet Skaro history where to the two warring factions began their disagreement. It would have been much more effective to prevent the war which caused the circumstances in which the development of the Daleks seemed a worthwhile enterprise. Moreover, the greatest complication of intervention by the profoundly powerful is that they are then also determining what good and bad are for everyone else. The minimum standard for goodness is existence. No group of creatures can devalue their own existence and expect to continue to exist. So it is with the Time Lords. Past that it gets super complicated and it gets even more convoluted when intervening in the lives of others, either by omission or by action. Either way they are imposing a moral framework on all other beings to some degree or another. The complication as I see it, is not an in universe one but that the Daleks are a popular enemy, so the BBC are not going to be happy to kill a golden goose.
It's an interesting take, but I'd argue against it. Despite the Time Lord's alleged non-interference policy, I suspect that they had been quietly sticking their fingers into things for quite a while. The Celestial Intervention Agency was spoken about during the 4th Doctor's time, and it sounded like it was fairly common knowledge, at least in the higher levels of government (and that's without even considering the Division or whatever it was called from new Who). Considering how corrupt and manipulative the Time Lords were later confirmed as being, it's more likely they just used the 2nd Doctor's trial as a way to legitimise something they had already been doing - despite them apparently not interfering, they didn't seem particularly reluctant to deal with the War Lords after all. And it seems likely that the moves against the Daleks were more for selfish reasons than otherwise - Daleks have been pretty evil all along, but it wasn't until they were predicted to become a danger large enough to threaten the Time Lords themselves that they sent the Doctor to interfere with their history. Well, that's how I'd read it anyway! I enjoy alternate theories on things like this. Personally, I don't see the Doctor as responsible at all - he was just an agent used by the Time Lords. Like you said, responsibility tends to fall more on whoever's calling the shots, not the front line fighters.
Great analysis! Likewise I enjoy alternate theories, there's such a long history with Doctor Who that there's so many interpretations, which is pretty fantastic. I considered that the CIA might have been around before the trial but couldn't find a definitive answer on it, but you're right it definitely sounded like it'd been around a very long while. I really like the theory that the CIA used the trial to legitimise their actions, that works very well!
I am sure the Second Doctor's trial was a moment that had been prepared for. The sentence had been carefully researched, and must have been pre-approved at the highest level. Therefore the remarkably brief legal proceedings were part test case, part show trial, with the object of presenting the new interventionist policy in the most favourable light. I think it is no coincidence this mirrors the Doctor's similarly short court-martial at the beginning of the same story.
Wrong; The Timewar (we call the Timewar) (inside the mostly)classic era Whoniverse) began when Rassilons original ppl getting split up into two opposing factions at the end of thier existance inside the "previous"/"lost" Whoniverse at the "end of (thier) time". Where 1 faction of Rassilons original ppl became those we know as the "Guardians over time" Super simply put. They are/was protecting the outcome of thier "End of time" from inside the void ("inbetween" the lost/classic whoniverse) as "they" ascended at thier end of thier time. Faction 2 had a much worse fate then becoming ascended beings and thus are trying/doing everything they can, to undo/prevent "thier" "End of time". They are able to do this by "taking down the Timelords" that are atleast partly (thru Rassilon) behind the outcome of the "Lost" whoniverse end of time. This 2nd faction have had atleast two different names in DW. Classic era "The Ragnarookians" (the ppl from the war at the end of time) New Era; "The Weeping angels of old" We know this from inside the show because of the following. (in a super condensed way) The Timelords got also split up into two opposing factions at the end of time (war) when Gallifrey was frozen and taken into the void (inbetween the classic and new (Doomsday/Big Bang created) whoniverse. Only Gallifrey wasnt just frozen in that last moment. It was also "burnt" by someone activating "the last defence of Gallifrey", (this someone is most likly the dying Jon Simms Master). In super short think "the Moment" became the New Whoniverse "Key to time" as it split up the Timelords into the exact same type of two opposing factions when "Rassilons Nightmare child plan" (from the end of time pt 2). = Missy was always making sure the outcome of the TImewar would remain. = Think "Guarding/Protecting" it, setting up the Jon Simms Master to be at the right place at the right time with the right motivation (to spite Missy out of existance and at the same time get his revenge on the Timelords & the Doctor) Thus ascending 1 group of the TImelords (at the Gallifreyan high counsil) while trapping the other (outside the Gallifreyan high counsil) in an quantum locked (Schrödingers cat like) state of both being ascended and alive at the same time. = Group 2 of the former Timelords are the "weeping angels" (in the new Whoniverse) and Missy are infact the new Black Guardian (for the new Whoniverse). The new White Guardian have been seen in the show possibly at several time but atleast once in End of time both parts setting up/Guarding the outcome. High probability Santa & Mrs Flood also are this new White Guardian (also "known" as our Doctor´s actual sister & mother to the Master)(that requries an input on its own to explain how we know that>) But put in mega short. All of new Who = the Dark times of our mankind (from the classic whoniverse Earth) and how we become the rulers over time (inside the new WHoniverse) the exact same way the ppl Rose and Jackie and Metacrysis ended up with became the TImelords. = The Daleks and all other Timelord enemies was puppets trying to take down by the "Ragnarookians"/Weeping angels of old. (inside the classic WHoniverse) = the same story and outcome but with slightly different details and ppl for each new Whoniverse..(this is what makes them "stable) aka The never ending story/song.
I think you somewhat undersell the Doctor's punishment. We'd already seen, and would continue to see, that regenerations for the Doctor in particular results in a similar-but-different personalities. While the Doctor as a whole lives on, forced regeneration is functionally the execution of the 2nd Doctor. The 3rd Doctor performing "community service" is warning as much as a punishment. And while the Doctor tendency towards relatively short-lived incarnations makes it a non-factor here, the Time Lords also presumably took a chunk out of his overall expected lifespan by ending his second incarnation early. If you want to think of it in more human terms, it was like jumping straight to how you'd mentally and emotionally be 10 years later in life, without actually experiencing any of the intervening time.
This doesn't make sense. In the 2nd Doctor era, the Time Lords were all powerful and had god-like powers. So how could they be destroyed by the Daleks in a war? They could just warp to another dimension like ascended masters. No physical villains can touch them if they are god-like and interdimensional and on a higher plane.
Sorry but this theory is rubbish. The 2nd Doctor might have alerted the Time Lords to the dangers of the Daleks, but it was THEIR decision to make the 4th Doctor do something about it that exposed the early Daleks to the threat Timelords posed to them. Thus their intervention revealed that a kind of Bootstrap Paradox was in play. That was the brilliance of Genesis of the Daleks. The 4th Doctor may have set their development back, but he also gave them something to hate which helped them become the xenophobic killing machines the 1st and 2nd Doctors would eventually encounter. The Timelords breaking their own nonintervention laws was always going to happen, the Doctor was always going to be involved, he was always going to experience that moral dilemma, and the time war was always going to happen because it was all part of the paradox. But most importantly, with a bootstrap paradox it's usually impossibly hard to determine precisely where it started. The Terminator movies are another example of a Bootstrap Paradox because the killer robot's technology survives and ends up being used to create the Skynet system that eventually becomes self-aware and builds the Terminator robots. It was always going to happen.
Take a deep dive into the backstory of "Power of the Daleks", you will learn that David Whitaker's original scripts for this story were so long, they required being cut back considerably by fellow writer, and Script Editor, Dennis Spooner. And, in his original script for episode 2, the Doctor explains the reason for his leaving his, as yet unnamed, planet was that it was destroyed in a war with the Daleks. Meaning that Mr Whitaker, effectively, predicted the "Great Time War" in 1966!
Oh wow! I didn't know that, that's really interesting! It's pretty astonishing how many of these ideas originate all the way back then.
So, if it was going to be proven that the Doctor left his planet after it was destroyed by Daleks then it might’ve been started by someone else who took exception to having their planet destroyed by Daleks
The level of continuity of this show is beyond staggering.
The audio story Time War has the time Lords contacting the 4th doc during the time war. So from the time lord POV the events.of genesis take place during the time war in a desperate bid to stop the daleks by changing their history
Or maybe the First Doctor is responsible because if the First Doctor hadn't messed about 'needing Mercury' then he would've never met the Daleks and if he never met the Daleks then the Second Doctor never would've known how evil they were and told the Time Lords about them. Ehehehheh. You can take it back really far I guess. All just theories though. :)
agree - also the first doctor introduced the concept of time travel to the Daleks ("the chase") - if hadn't meddled, then they would have been locked to their home planet with davros initial logic programming that no other intelligent life exists else where in the universe ("genesis of the daleks"). However I guess the events of other aliens visiting Skaro would have occurred without the doctor's interference.
Then again the 1st doctor not meeting them in Daleks would likely have lead to them still meeting them later in well the Invasion of Earth which he likely wouldn't have been able to avoid. The Daleks likely always had the course they where going on the only difference is when the doctor 1st met them. Every other story with them doesn't need the previous to happen bar the Chase & Master Plan.
For the most part, the Daleks would still learn of life past Skaro.
A ship crash landed on Skaro, which gave them an early tech boost. So yeah, that's unlikely to change.
That assumes that the Daleks experience the Doctor's interference in Chronological order and that's not the case, you can make an argument that some of the Doctor's adventures against the Daleks, only the first two Dalek stories are Daleks who still have no solar slats and arent capable of time travel. is it possible that the Chase for the Daleks occurs after, from the or Daleks point of view after the Evil of the Daleks or Daleks Masterplan. Theres rarely a reference to the Daleks native era, except the events of Dalek Masterplan take place mainly in 4000 Ad except the time travel parts. The Dalek timeship seemed a more refined one than the Chase.
@@dookdomini6535 That's a good point about the Chase. So in the original timeline the Daleks learn time travel from the Doctor's meddling--BUT I think the events of Genesis was 'added' to the timeline; Davros knew the Doctor and his companions were aliens so he changed their programming way before...
Ugh, this time travel stuff is awful lol
I think this is an interesting argument, and I like how the narrative is interconnected. However, I also think it can be argued that the 4th Doctor is responsible - not because of what he did, but what he didn't do. If he had followed his instructions and destroyed the Daleks, the war would never have happened.
Davros talk with the 12th Doctor seems to indicate that the Timelords were found out when messing with the Daleks's past since he had a video recording of the 4th Doctor with the two wires.
Big Finish made a What If series about this. And apparently, at least according to Big Finish. Had the 4th Doctor gone through with his mission. It would’ve started the war early. Causing the Timelords to go and make him regenerate into an alternate war/5th Doctor played by Colin Baker.
Unless were only going off of the shows continuity
@@JohnCoon-tp7wv In my opinion Big Finish is there to fill in the holes and try to explain some of the more odd stuff.
No matter if One stirred up the Daleks, Two pushed the Time Lords into acting or Four got caught meddling with time, the more interesting things happen during the war. Like the War Master's plan to rewrite Kaled history so they'd fight for him.
Or those similar horrors that Cole unleashed upon the universe, I hope ew can get something about those freaks down the line.
Very good point, I hadn't considered that! If the 4th Doctor had completed his mission, the Time War wouldn't have happened, so he is responsible. Now I can just imagine the Time Lords being really annoyed at him when the Time War started thinking 'He had one job. None of this would be happening if he'd just done what we specifically sent him to do. I knew we should've sent someone more reliable to do that mission...'.
@@pupbenny indeed - though we don't actually know if he would have succeeded. It may have been that Davros had another secret lab somewhere or whatever. There's always a way haha
I think it’s more the First Doctor who sparks things off. He makes the Daleks curious about time travel, leading to them developing their own time machines and creating the Time Destructor. That would definitely get the Time Lords interested and concerned! Second Doctor escalates things, eventually leading to the Time Lords sending the Fourth Doctor to commit preemptive genocide.
Yeah, that's definitely a very valid point too!
This, right here.
It could also be that the Daleks are uniquely suited to fight the Time Lords. Only the Time Lords and the Daleks have "evolved" under the auspices of the seventh doctor's time-lock.
That changes the game quite a lot.
Nah, the Time Lords were busy kidnapping Daleks for fun for the games in the death zone back in the Dark Ages as we heard about in the five doctors. Although this does rather put the whole "The time lords and the daleks did not know of each others existence until the 1st Doctor saw them" idea in peril
I think it was mentioned in The Five Doctors that The Timelords DIDN'T use either The Daleks Or The Cybermen in The Death Zone games. As The Fifth Doctor said" They play TOO well!" Borusa was the one to bring them there for his scheme.
@@Micahtron2000 But how did they find out!
But that's the dark ages, a different time, by the doctors time they had become civilised and non interference.
As for the 5 drs that takes place after the time Lords learned about the daleks.
@@tonyug113 depends on how much was lost/hidden in the dark ages. "Well, the Doctor found these Dalek things on a planet called Skarro." "Hmm, Skarro, you know they look like the things we found in the ancneit texts called "Skarrians...."
If we retcon in the modem WHO, the hands-off timelords were either a long time after, or were ignorant during the very interventionist Division.
The time Lords were a moribund decadent society -- yet in the pertwee era we saw them actively monitoring the unoverse (the beginning of the omega epeisodes) -- also seeing themselves destroyed would have forced them to consider acting as their own existence was under threat. The episodes when the sontarans and others invaded the citidel might also have been a wakeup call (when the doctor was made president)
If The Fourth Doctor had completed his mission to destroy the Daleks and not let his moralistic side get the better of him, the Time War would not have happened.
...and when has that ever worked? You take out one enemy, another always rises up to equal the previous villainy or surpass it. Evil is self-sustaining.
Moralistic side. The part that makes him good. If you hadn't he would have been no better than the Daleks.
Say that to their victims lads and the time lords that went day-days.
Good point! In that respect, he is responsible, at least for failing to prevent the war with the Daleks. Perhaps, in a world in which he did it, the Time Lords would become known as the evil destroyers. Or maybe no one would know. All interesting points.
@pupbenny The Fourth Doctor began to question his mission to wipe out the Daleks and if it is right or wrong and if he is right to commit genocide. The Doctor is not The Punisher.
The fourth Doctors main change is the unintended survival of Davros. Possibly.
For a long time I’ve wondered if the time lord that sends The Doctor to Skaro might have actually been The Valeyard
I had the same thought. It would have been a great reveal if Doctor Who ran a repeat of Genesis Of The Daleks between Terror Of The Vervoids part and The Ultimate Foe part, but with an extra scene there where Timelord, who sent the Doctor on that mission, was revealed (to the audience) to have been the Velyard all along in disguise... But maybe if they decide to bring the Valyard back one day, it wouldn't be too late for such a reveal, hmm? ).
No. That was actually Chancellor Valyes. He gives the 4th Doctor the Time ring on Narvin’s request
They certainly both have the same fashion sense. ;)
I love this video, the funny thing is this is exactly the same observation and conclusion I made on my own back in 2021 when I started watching the whole show from An Unearthly Child to current, and when I got to the War Games, I remember thinking “so this is how the Time Lords even found out about the daleks’ existence…”
Fan since Pertwee's first appearance and I 100% agree with this. I believe The Doctor's example shook the Time Lords from their doldrums and moved them to carefully and methodically construct a philosophy of intervention. One could argue that the creation of the War Council of Gallifrey, et al is one of the results of The Doctor's influential speech. From our perspective it seems to have taken place rather quickly, but my head canon is that Two and the Time Lords (sans regal headpieces) were from early in the Time Lord's timestream and Four's was much later, maybe by thousands of years. Time Lords interactions with each other can span the whole of Time Lord existence, after all. You can be study buddies with Scientific and Young Rassalon and later fight Mean and Destroyer Timothy Dalton Rassalon later.
It is tempting to imagine that some of the council were against non interferance and the second doctor's speech tipped the balance.
I completely agree! To me it makes sense that the Time Lords from, for instance, The Deadly Assassin are far in the future compared to when they appeared in The War Games. There's just something about their brief War Games appearance that has a different feeling about them to me. Their simplicity suggests an earlier stage in their history.
You cannot travel through Gallifrey's history with conventional time machines, there are a few exceptions in new who like making the Master insane and saving Gallifrey from the Daleks (which I think may have already happened before the new series started)
My guess is that the Doctor just keeps visiting the present on Gallifrey and only once broke through the security measures to alter what he thought was an unchangeable future.
I must admit, I like the idea of his third incarnation as a sort of _Cold_ War Doctor honing his skills in a very spy-fi sort of setting.
So the Second Doctor started the war, 1-12 ended the war, the Twelfth Doctor created Davros and the Fourteenth Doctor created Daleks, the Doctor, generationlessly, is responsible for most if not all things both Time Lord and Dalek. I think in the new gods era of Doctor Who, The Doctor is a god of life. Self regeneration, timelessness, intense addiction to saving people, and currently unintentional creation of many, many species. It feels like they're a god that was exiled and abused by the Gallifreyans, and every time they remember/learn of their god status, their memory and body gets reset. Except this time, with the timeless child era and the existence of other gods in the Whoniverse, the Time Lords can't do anything to stop the Doctor from retaining this information about themselves
This is a *BRILLIANT* bit of analysis!
I mean, I don't actually agree with its conclusions (completely), but it's definitely brilliant! I'd never thought of tracing the start of the Time War back quite this far. You did! [SALAAMS AND APPLUSE]
- - - - - - - -
So... Why don't I fully agree?
Well, the clue is in that "thinking about it for five minutes" (apparent) change of mind by the tribunal, during the trial.
I've never seen the CIA as something that was created *after* the Doctor's trial: The CIA are *old* ! They've been in existence for a long time, trying to change the status quo; they just never had much (overt) power or influence, until the occasion of the Doctor's trial. But suddenly, here was a renegade Time Lord - a completely *INDEPENDENT* Time Lord - who'd never joined the CIA, and who (maybe?) actually *refused* to do so... but who, having become a kind of underground folk-hero, was now - at his sudden and unexpected trial - standing RIGHT THERE on Public Register Video (because of course such an unusual trial would be recorded, if not televised live!), making several of their key political talking points for them, for all of Gallifrey to hear!
No wonder Goth (Bernard Horsfall) smirked... =:o}
Thank you very much for your comment, I really appreciate your analysis of it! :) You make very good points, I did consider that the CIA might be older than the trial but couldn't find any definitive answer about it, but as a secret organisation I definitely think it's possible that they've been going a very, very long time that we just haven't heard of. You make really fantastic points, I love the idea that, in some ways, they use The Doctor to make their own points for them. I also love that smirk Horsfall does, there's so much that can be read into it. They might've had a brief appearance in The War Games, but there's so much about the Time Lords in this episode that's just utterly fascinating and can be analysed in so many different ways.
The time war was in full swing during Remembrance of the Daleks and escalated when the Doctor personally got involved in his 7th, 8th and War Doctor incarnations. If you follow the books that is.
@@CreativeWM_Personal [TILTS HEAD INQUISITIVELY] Ooh, which books?
(I only know the New Adventures (Virgin, 1990s) and the EDAs (BBC, late '90s to early '00s). By the time the revival got into its 2nd year I didn't have the income to follow the new series books. =:o1 )
It's fascinating, that even in the Classic Series, it seems like they were building towards a confrontation between the Daleks of Skaro and the Time Lords of Gallifrey. In the Dalek's last Classic appearance (baring a voice cameo in the TV Movie), their creator, Davros, promises to "sweep away Gallifrey and its impotent quorum of Time Lords!", and then the Doctor prompty destroys Skaro - argubly the first 'real' concrete act of war of the Time War.
The Doctor definitely caused the Time War, there's absolutely no doubt about that. But which Doctor, eh? Doctor Who?
The Doctor was the trigger, for sure. But which particular faction of Time Lords, at that time, was holding the gun...? CIA, Faction, or High Council? Or some other group of "manipulators" entirely?
Ha very good points!
I always figured it to be kinda weird that the Time War's origins are considered to be Genesis of the Daleks, even in-universe historians of the war claim it. After all, even from the Dalek perspective the Time War is a great great deal of time from the events of Gensis, it's not like the Daleks wouldn't have been able or willing to try and strike back the moment they figured space travel. I always figured that the idea that the events of Genesis were the origin was the Time Lords perspective on things. It paints them in a fairly good light after all, acting in the best intrests of the universe, and history IS written by the victors, a Time War probably moreso.
Nah, I reckon that were you to ask a Dalek how the war started, before getting exterminated he'd probably tell you that it was the events of Rememberence of the Daleks that kicked it off. I cant imagine the Genesis stuff led to exactly great relations between the two species, but I consider the complete destruction of their entire planet to be much closer to the events of the Time War and much more of a smoking gun.
I completely agree.
Yeah that makes sense too. Reminds me of how, while World War II is generally stated to have started in 1939 with the German invasion of Poland, I believe, unless I'm mistaken, that if you ask the Chinese, they consider it to have started in 1937 with the Japanese invasion of China. Really I suppose it's all a matter of perspective.
personally I always seen the time war as a bootstrap paradox, always destined to happen, the daleks become a threat to the time lords they send the 4th doctor back in time to skaro, instead of preventing the daleks creation he guarantees it, and unintentionally saves davros,
davros was doomed to die at his creation hands, by being forewarned about future dalek defeats davros considers he will not be there to lead the daleks and adds extra safe guards to his life support saving his life, ultimately he competes with his creation to claim leadership, the 7th doctor with time lord help tries to wipe out the daleks with the hand of omega, the surviving daleks have a new main focus the extermination of gallifrey and the time lord, eventually their technology rivals the time lords, to neutralize this threat to the time lords they send the 4th doctor back in time to skaro ...
Yeah that's a good point, it seems like the Time Lords and the Daleks going to war is an inevitable event, really.
I agree, I think the Time War was always GOING TO happen (because unless prevented, an advanced enough species will develop time travel, and any two super advanced adversarial civilizations, both with time travel, will inevitably come to blows with each other)
It was also ALWAYS happening (because of the nature of a war fought IN and WITH time, trying to use grandfather paradoxes and similar to defeat the enemy)
There's the 12th doctor episode when he inadvertently saves young Davros. Idk if this was the explicit theme of the episode but my takeaway was that there was nothing to be done to prevent the war:
Abandon young davros and he dies? Save him and teach him kindness? Kill him in his infancy? Someone else just takes his place and creates the daleks anyway - by a different name, with a different design or style, in a different year that it happens perhaps, but it's still inevitable.
Like how Kang in the comics (and the MCU) is sort of inevitable. Not because of fate, but because just as evolution keeps recreating crabs, time will keep tending toward the time war eventually happening.
The only way to prevent this from ever happening would be to have total authority over which species can develop time travel (and keep it at just 1: those with it already), and to stop others BEFORE they can complete it. Because once they've completed it, you can never grandfather paradox them: as they will always use time travel to their own defence, as they would've always done so. The rick and morty episode with the space snakes showed how this chaos would happen on a small local scale very well. Once time travel is developed by an "unenlightened species", it doesn't take long for chaos to happen. It takes exactly 0 seconds, because it's already happened.
I believe the time lords were originally the guardians of the Web of Time and in doing so would've prevented anyone from getting time travel. Therefore remaining the only people with TT in the whole universe and all of time: ultimate authority, but I can't remember which classic episode showed that so I might be misremembering..
All these little moments that the doctor almost stops, or almost starts, the time war are like pebbles thrown into the Amazon. It might disrupt some water molecules and make them take a different path, but it won't change the direction of the river at all
This makes since. The time loaded tested the doctor with the autism and the master and monitored how he and the military dealt with the threats including the Daleks. Then they looked into the future and found out that the Daleks were more of a problem.
"The time loaded tested the doctor with the autism"... [GIGGLE] God, I love autocorrect! =:oD
Im guessing it turned into adhd by tennant.
I wouldn’t say the 2nd Doctor was responsible for the time war but rather the founding of The Celestial Intervention Agency. Based on his travels to the end of the War Games the time lords took note of the Doctors suggestion of action.
Big Finish need to get on Grand Theft Chrono yesterday.
With a TARDIS they might actually be able to haha.
The 4th doctor ended up sealing them away in their bunker for 10k years but didn't start the Time War. I think Davros believed 4th & friend(s?) were from the other race on the planet (was 1 race till Darleks were created), NOT Aliens but spies.
Pretty sure 4th Doctor was 1st to meet Davros/Darleks. Davros didn't know about practical Time Travel untill he met earlier 'Doctors' later on in Davros' Timeline, where he actually learnt about Gallifray, Time Lords & the Doctor being one of them. By then 1st Doctor & 2nd had also messed up Davros' plans & killed LOTS of Darleks.
Each of the Doctor's 1st 13 lives fought the Darleks (some many times) & some early 1st could've exterminated them.
EDIT. I know the Doctor (13th), before the chic Doctor (1st of the awarded 2nd regeneration cycle), met Davros as a boy but thats a bit different. P.S. its also where Darleks learnt the word & meaning of "Mercy" & it stuck in their vocabulary.
I've often thought this and the remastered special leans into this
How was the Fourth Doctor ever responsible? He didn't choose to go to Skaro, he was sent there against his will... and wasn't even informed of this "plan" until already on the planet's surface, as the Time Lords assumed he would go along with it (like he had a choice in the matter!). The problem (as with all time travel stories) is that the Daleks wouldn't have known about the Time Lords until much later in their history, if the Time Lords hadn't sent the Doctor to their "genesis". In foreseeing a time when the Daleks would essentially menace the entirety of creation, the Time Lords in an attempt to prevent it, provided them with the knowledge and motive for doing just that!
The Second Doctor's meddling in "Power" are earlier in his timeline... but considerably further along in the Daleks'.
The ultimate blame is entirely with the "non-interfering " Time Lords.
My thoughts exactly! :)
Cool idea and reasoning. I enjoyed your video! 👍
Thank you very much, I appreciate that! :)
2:28
I mean a lot of people do say Gavrilo Princip was the one responsible for WW1.
Even today that's still the cause taught in school, rather than the series of complicated and complex defence treaties between the European powers at the time.
It can well be argued that, yes, the mutual promises of help created a powder keg, but nothing guaranteed that the powder keg would be lit, that without Gavrilo Princip, the war might have never happened.
True! That's an interesting point to consider!
Good video. I’m sure I remembered reading that it was generally accepted that The Time War began when McCoy blew up Galifrey.
Skaro
@@potsdam28yes, sorry.
Hey, there is this series called "War Of The Worlds 1934" that is it's own spin on the classic story. Mabye you should get into contact with the guy and maybe have an interview or discuss the episodes he's made. Maybe like a directors commentary. It would be great to see a proper channel like yourself discuss and talk about this novel little series (I've only ever seen one guy talk about it)
P.S. Love your channel! From Odd's world to WOTW. Generally great stuff you put out!
Thank you very much, Thomas, I appreciate it! :) I'll have to take a look at "War Of The Worlds 1934" and see if I can do a video perhaps about it, if I'm able! :) I've heard of it but, surprisingly, I haven't actually watched it yet haha.
I’m thinking of checking out some Big Finish Productions stories. In those, I think they do confirm connections between the original Doctor Who serials and the Time War.
This really does give the Doctor an almost fatalistic connection to the Time War, in spite of his reluctance to join the war. The Doctor discovered the Daleks and perhaps unknowingly set them on a collision course with the Time Lords. And when they inevitably went to war, he was the one to end the war. And then he went back and undo some of his own actions in how he ended the war.
Great points, but I think the waters are a bit more muddy. The Daleks were already so upset over the wandering Doctor that they set to chase him thru time and even plan to use The Second in their plans of Evil Of The Daleks. The Daleks may have had no clue that The Doctor had never been working against them on his own and not on instruction of his people. And/or, maybe The Master set up the War to destroy The Doctor and The Time Lords and, as usual, it backfired.
Good points!
The original seed was the 3rd Doctor asking the Timelords to send him to Spiridon to destroy the Dalek army.
that a good thought
Ooh, action figures! A very nice touch, you sneaky so and so.
Haha, thank you! It's just an easy way for me to get footage and be, I guess, somewhat more creative than just showing screenshots continuously.
I always figured it was the 1st Doctor who started it because, he was the one who decided that the Daleks should be stopped and, in Day of the Doctor, he was the one who started the calculations for the stasis cube that they put Gallifrey in.
If the creation of the Daleks was stopped, what would that do to the timeline with Dalek encounters with The Doctor beforehand? Would it along with it's memories be wiped? There would be other repercussions such as Dalek events leading to the departure of granddaughter Susan which now may not happen.
Very good questions. Maybe the Time Lords would somehow prevent all these paradoxes that basically would've occurred. If the Master can do what he did with the Toclafane with one TARDIS turned into a paradox machine, I suppose the Time Lords would probably make it so that these events somehow remained intact, despite the Daleks no longer existing.
yes a bit like when the 6th doctor meets the decayed master (fresh from deadly assassin) he could destroy him but that would be changing history logopolis. tom baker would still be the doctor
When they first started mentioning the Time War, didn’t the Doctor refer to it as “the LAST great time war”? That would imply there were other time wars we don’t know about. Did they all involve the Daleks and the Time Lords? Were there time wars with other species? Or was it one big war with many phases? So many questions…
In the entire history of DW, we've seen many species with at least the rudiments of time travel capability, even if it was accidental and uncontrollable. Any two species with roughly "controllable" time travel capability, however rudimentary, could engage in a Time War with each other.
For example, the (sufficiently advanced) Sontarans (see "The Time Warrior"), pitting themselves against the sufficiently advanced Terran Humans (see "Day of the Daleks", "The Time Monster", "Invasion of the Dinosaurs", "The Talons of Weng Chiang", "Torchwood", etc.) might be a conflict that would qualify - at least as far as Gallifreyan/future historians were concerned - as a "Time War".
I always though that the previous Time War was the “War in Heaven” Storyline, in which the Time-lords fought a hybrid species that came from Earth.
Very true! So many questions and so many theories that attempt to answer them haha.
One could also make the argument that the Time Lords started it when they first developed the ability to time travel. How many species in the Who-niverse that have the capability to travel through time and space, idk, but you can't start Time War without a Time Machine. This allowing all incarnations of the Doctor to intervene in the affairs of the Daleks et al.
Was Rasilon still alive in the War Games episodes?
I think even if the time lords weren’t told about the daleks, they would’ve found out about them since the daleks would’ve eventually gone to leave for other planets once they had finally eradicated all thals
Very good point. Ultimately conflict between them seems inevitable really.
Considering Time Travel, it could be the 999BBth Dr. Or the Valeyard. But, it should be the Pre-First Rouge Dr & that is why He had no memory of them
You could say many of the doctors are responsibly by the fact the Daleks learned about time travel after meeting the doctor.
At this point, i believe that entropy is at fault! If it wasn't for its disorder setting the Universe in motion, the Time War would've never happened in the first place.
The algorithm is acting weird because it's not doing anything for your channel to me, even though I subscribed. I didn't get notified of this video
Ah thank you for letting me know, I'll look into it. I'm glad you got suggested the video anyway (I'm assuming), that's at least a good sign. :)
@@pupbenny It was my homepage, actually. Your posts don't pop up on my subscriptions tab either
Arguably the 14th Doctor is also responsible, but it depends on how canon you consider the short where he bumps into a pre-accident Davros and gives the daleks their name and plunger
I still maintain that the Ruth Doctor is between 2 and 3.
In fact I suspect the Timelords forced his regeneration into someone who initially ran what became the CIA/Division under a separate regen cycle before being put into hiding as Ruth and later in exile as the 3rd Doctor.
A fun argument
Indeed! That's all it's meant as too, simply a fun argument. :)
Interesting. Gives me more to think about.
I always believed the 7th doctor ultimately triggered the time due to him causing a massive act of violence towards the Daleks. Tricking Davros into using the hand of omega to destroy Skaro and the Imperial dalek empire.
Loved this video, this is something a whole bunch of people tried to tell me and I was like no, the Time Lords sent him to do it. Ah Venusian Karate, I love it.
Basically, the Doctor was too young and moralistic in the original series to realize exactly how much death and destruction the Daleks would eventually cause. It wasn't until Gallifrey itself was on the line that the Doctor finally became the cynical ender of worlds he needed to be.
Yeah, very good way of explaining it, I really like the way that works!
In the Doctor's defense the Timelords are the reason, they send the Doctor to the Daleks which coursed the butterfly effect creating the Daleks birth.
Could we Say that Doctor Seven started the Time War, as he Tricked Davros into making the Sun of Skaro go into Supernova?
Absolutely! Ultimately, the video is simply expressing one of many theories, I've heard very valid arguments for probably most Doctors having started it and that's definitely a good one. I think it fits with the Seventh Doctor well.
An extension of this, then, is that Barbara is ultimately responsible. It is clear in the first few stories that The Doctor will only ever take action to save himself and Susan and has no interest in righting wrongs. Barbara, more than Ian, is the one who acts as his conscience. By the time she leaves, The Doctor is the champion of justice, fairness and what is right.
What about the Minyans from Minyos ("Underground" - S. 15)?? They were the first race that the Time Lords contacted (and was given as the reason WHY The Time Lords observe, and do not interfere) . If the members of that crew had regenerated 1000 times, that would make them quite old, indeed. Where would that be placed on the timeline?
I don't think the Doctor is to blame here since due to the nature of the Daleks, they would only keep expanding until someone stops them, and if the timelords cant then no-one else can so its inevitable that they would fight unless the doctor couldve prevented them
Yeah that's a very good point! It seems inevitable really.
honestly it's the 12th doctor that started the Time War, as he "saved" Davros when Davros was still a child from a mine field. Though due to time rules that even he can not brake or bend, he was kind of forced to save Davros.
Damn it! I… never considered the 2nd Doctor set off a chain of events that led to the Time War.
-JMM
I would also draw you to Evil of the Daleks where he directly influences the Daleks in their goal to become more deadly by becoming more humanized. He also names 3 as individuals which may have become the nexus of the Cult of Skaro.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evil_of_the_Daleks
Oh that's a good point and I really like the idea that the Cult of Skaro somewhat originating with the Alpha, Beta and Omega Daleks. I've never heard that idea before, that's really interesting!
I believe the Time War was started by the events in 'The Chase'. The Daleks develop time travel in order to kill a timelord; even if a renegade? This is the first shot.
I feel like the Time War was an inevitability, not something that can be blamed on one person or event. Had the Time Lords done nothing, the Daleks would have still learned of the Time Lords eventually and sought to destroy them, the war might have taken on a different appearance but a war through time would still have occurred. The Time Lords were damned if they interfered and would have been damned if they didn't.
The Doctor broke "the most important Law of Non-Interference" meaning there might be other less important Laws of Non-Interference instead of non-interference being the Time Lords most important law of all laws
I would argue that it goes a little further back than that, to "The Evil of the Daleks", where the Second Doctor introduced "The Human Factor" to some Daleks, touching off a civil war and creating a stem timeline where the Emperor and all the Daleks on Skaro were obliterated. By this point, Daleks had already demonstrated rudimentary time travel el technology, so on discovering this timeline they undoubtedly acted to prevent it, which would have had some ugly knock-on effects to the Daleks' overall timeline. But that would have instructed them in the use of time and causality as weapons. They were also now aware of the Time Lords, and would likely have attacked other Time Lords wherever they encountered them. 5:53 Sending the Doctor to Earth was risky; there are auxiliary writings that describe Earth as a "temporal nexus point", meaning that temporal interference in Earth's development can potentially have catastrophic knock-on effects for other civilizations.
Very good points! It's interesting how there's so many points where the Doctor has interfered with the Daleks in so many ways, there's a lot of instances where his meddling could essentially be considered responsible for the Time War.
but in the chase, daleks masterplan the daleks have a time travel machine anyway
The first Doctor was responsible… until they met him, they had no idea of life on other planets & were only concerned with being the dominant life on the planet.
Then the First Doctor showed up on Skarro and they learned not only of alien life, but time travel. They then built a Dalek version of his TARDIS and the time war began.
The Chase marks the start of the war proper…
I always find it odd the 4th doctor takes the blame for starting it, yes he did go back and introduce time travel possibilities to the Daleks BUT the timelords sent him on the mission
Yeah exactly! I think it's definitely an odd argument that I see regularly made.
i think it could also be argued that 4s decision not to destroy the Daleks on that mission, while principled, is one of his biggest mistakes . the Time Lords' idea was basically sound and the whole Time War and lots of other destruction was completely unnecessary.
Highly plausible. Great video.
I remember John Pertwee regularly using Venusian Akido.
On a history test at Patrexi Middle School on Gallifrey, one of the questions is: Which Doctor started the Time War?
The correct answer turned out to be: Yes.
video actually starts at 3:15, he's just repeating the title of the video again and again before that
I remember seeing these episodes many years ago.
The Daleks, because of the way Davros programmed them, always coveted the power of the Time Lords. They were created to believe that they were the supreme beings and that anyone who interfered with their destiny must be exterminated. Therefore, it was not, in fact, the Doctor, in any of his incarnations, who “started” the Time War. It is the Daleks who were responsible, or Davros himself for creating them evil in the first place. It was his own egomania that started The Time
War. The Doctor ended it. That’s the only thing that’s really important…and the Leela survived.
Its Gallifrian's themselves in general. It was shown through the use of war games. The general theory is that they medeled with other planet inhabitants in their evolution, this was long ago before they wrote laws about interfering with other worlds' history via time travel. The games were a byproduct of them interesting in life changing events on planets such as Skaro. Yes, it's possible they did see Skaro as a project of interest a secret. Later, their political on this point changed and was overlooked. Who was responsible for this is questionable, but who indeed was the one to blame? Was it a young time lord who kept it secret even reprogrammed his memories so he'd forgets. A time lord who took a side step and ran away because of something dark he could not remember. One day, he'll come back and recall those day memories of those war games he fought to forget. Sometimes memories change, but they often rise from the past? Skaros Ghosts Doctor Who
The Daleks, the second story of the first Doctor, started it and all the times the Doctor ruined their plans. But the starting shot was The Chase. Were the Daleks decided to go after the Doctor and hunt him down through time and space. It was the first shoot fired. From there bullets were fired from both sides, until The Timelords decided to intervene in the birth of the Daleks. And the second Doctor was responsible for this action as you stated in the video during his trial. The first, second, third and fourth Doctor are responsible for the time war.
Never liked the idea that the war started with Genesis of the Daleks. The Daleks in Genesis don't even know who the Doctor even is, its only Davros (post Destiny) a thousand years later who has a grudge about it & He declares war on the Timelords in Remembrance.
Patrick throuton was the best doctor by far
That is a rather subjective comment.
@@RustyViewer no I'm a jedi we don't do subjective, just light sabers our kid
I'd argue that the Fourth Doctor is still responsible for the Time War because of his actions in Genesis of the Daleks. Not for embarking on his mission for the Timelords but in failing to fully complete it.
He hesitated to avert their creation because he thought the daleks innocent because they hadn't technically killed anyone yet and preventing their creation would be the equivalent of genocide. But I'd argue there is a vast difference between preventing an artificial race from being created and genocide in much the same way that abortion is in no way equivalent to killing a living child.
In failing to destroy the daleks when he had the chance, he doomed countless peoples to genocide and extinction, including his own race and inevitability the daleks themselves. Because all they could do was kill until there was nothing left to kill.
TLDR: Krillin had the right idea when he killed Cell when it was still in the test tube.
Well reasoned!
Thank you very much! :)
Maybe the Doctor caused the Daleks, as he is shown saving a young Davros.... one key decision that resulted in their existence -- whereas for cybermen, its stated that wherever humanoids exoist cybermen eventually get created.
Yeah that's a good point. The cybermen are inevitable, but maybe the Daleks were simply due to the Doctor.
Nope. Its actually Narvin who started the whole conflict unintentionally
because Romana habitually refuses to communicate
The time lords foresaw the end of life by the daleks. The time lords have a pretty good way of predicting through matrix projections. The doctor didnt put the daleks on their radar. Also the gallifrey time war audios kind of make the catalyst for the time war the genesis. The doctor also blames that incarnation for starting the war
Hear me out, I think the problem is The Doctor himself, every encounter he had with the Daleks ended with their destruction and defeat. He is mythical figure of doom to the Daleks, so much so he has become part of their folklore and treated differently compared to their other enemies. So to the daleks after seeing how One Timelord alone could do so much to them, likely where always destined to clash with the Time Lords all thanks to a fear first created by the Doctor's encounters with them. In the Dalek mind, a civilisation like the Time Lords could never be allowed to keep existing, it was too dangerous and deep down I think they were terrified of the Time Lords.
Very good way of putting it. The Oncoming Storm is definitely something the Daleks would obsess over, the only one who seems to be able to defeat them. The thought of a whole planet full of them must terrify them!
@@pupbenny It likely is, I mean if I was always being defeated by the same person from a certain society or organisation or whatever. I took would eye the rest of them with a hint of worry and fear too.
Which one though?
There has been multiple Time Wars before the 2005 reboot
The law against interference was meant to stop Gallifreyan technology falling into the hands of younger races. The Doctor showed that Time Lord isolationism was allowing predatory species to grow in strength while condemning Gallifrey to stagnation.
It's rather like getting bitten..by your own tail.."..you did it to yourself..but it wasn't you..but it was..."... Irony...😮😢
I don't think you're assessing this correctly. For a Time Lord, causality is different. Things that happen in the future for us, might well be a causal decision point for them to act. The fourth Doctor is tasked to intervene with the Daleks because of events the Daleks *will* cause, which for the Time Lords have already been caused. They are a necessary consequence of the causal series of events. It's why the Doctor can intervene and make a difference because if it weren't causal, no action he could make would make a difference. Something the Daleks do to the Time Lords or something the Time Lords treasure happens in the future and the Time Lords then decide the Daleks shouldn't exist or at least not exist in the form they now exhibit.
With regards to the observation policy and intervention in general. To claim something is irretrievably evil is to say something cannot change regardless of the kinds of intervention that is used nor can be used. If the Time Lords where "smarter" they would have taken the fourth Doctor back to a point in the planet Skaro history where to the two warring factions began their disagreement. It would have been much more effective to prevent the war which caused the circumstances in which the development of the Daleks seemed a worthwhile enterprise.
Moreover, the greatest complication of intervention by the profoundly powerful is that they are then also determining what good and bad are for everyone else. The minimum standard for goodness is existence. No group of creatures can devalue their own existence and expect to continue to exist. So it is with the Time Lords. Past that it gets super complicated and it gets even more convoluted when intervening in the lives of others, either by omission or by action. Either way they are imposing a moral framework on all other beings to some degree or another.
The complication as I see it, is not an in universe one but that the Daleks are a popular enemy, so the BBC are not going to be happy to kill a golden goose.
but what about series 6b that the timelords send him on missions before his regeneration two doctors, three doctors, five doctors
The war games was re-released in color
My question now is, what is now true after the 12th Doctor saved Davros while he was a child?
It's an interesting take, but I'd argue against it. Despite the Time Lord's alleged non-interference policy, I suspect that they had been quietly sticking their fingers into things for quite a while. The Celestial Intervention Agency was spoken about during the 4th Doctor's time, and it sounded like it was fairly common knowledge, at least in the higher levels of government (and that's without even considering the Division or whatever it was called from new Who). Considering how corrupt and manipulative the Time Lords were later confirmed as being, it's more likely they just used the 2nd Doctor's trial as a way to legitimise something they had already been doing - despite them apparently not interfering, they didn't seem particularly reluctant to deal with the War Lords after all. And it seems likely that the moves against the Daleks were more for selfish reasons than otherwise - Daleks have been pretty evil all along, but it wasn't until they were predicted to become a danger large enough to threaten the Time Lords themselves that they sent the Doctor to interfere with their history.
Well, that's how I'd read it anyway! I enjoy alternate theories on things like this. Personally, I don't see the Doctor as responsible at all - he was just an agent used by the Time Lords. Like you said, responsibility tends to fall more on whoever's calling the shots, not the front line fighters.
Great analysis! Likewise I enjoy alternate theories, there's such a long history with Doctor Who that there's so many interpretations, which is pretty fantastic. I considered that the CIA might have been around before the trial but couldn't find a definitive answer on it, but you're right it definitely sounded like it'd been around a very long while. I really like the theory that the CIA used the trial to legitimise their actions, that works very well!
@@pupbenny Yes, fixed canon for Doctor Who isn't really a thing :-) Perfect for fans to come up with their own theories.
I am sure the Second Doctor's trial was a moment that had been prepared for. The sentence had been carefully researched, and must have been pre-approved at the highest level. Therefore the remarkably brief legal proceedings were part test case, part show trial, with the object of presenting the new interventionist policy in the most favourable light.
I think it is no coincidence this mirrors the Doctor's similarly short court-martial at the beginning of the same story.
Moffat started the time war by making 12 too lame to kill Davros as a boy.
Spoilers
Lil correction:
Dr Who, while a Time Lord, is not actually from Gallifrey just merely adopted by them.
(welcome to New New Dr Who)
Wrong; The Timewar (we call the Timewar) (inside the mostly)classic era Whoniverse) began when Rassilons original ppl getting split up into two opposing factions at the end of thier existance inside the "previous"/"lost" Whoniverse at the "end of (thier) time".
Where 1 faction of Rassilons original ppl became those we know as the "Guardians over time"
Super simply put.
They are/was protecting the outcome of thier "End of time" from inside the void ("inbetween" the lost/classic whoniverse) as "they" ascended at thier end of thier time.
Faction 2 had a much worse fate then becoming ascended beings and thus are trying/doing everything they can, to undo/prevent "thier" "End of time".
They are able to do this by "taking down the Timelords" that are atleast partly (thru Rassilon) behind the outcome of the "Lost" whoniverse end of time.
This 2nd faction have had atleast two different names in DW.
Classic era "The Ragnarookians" (the ppl from the war at the end of time)
New Era; "The Weeping angels of old"
We know this from inside the show because of the following. (in a super condensed way)
The Timelords got also split up into two opposing factions at the end of time (war) when Gallifrey was frozen and taken into the void (inbetween the classic and new (Doomsday/Big Bang created) whoniverse.
Only
Gallifrey wasnt just frozen in that last moment.
It was also "burnt" by someone activating "the last defence of Gallifrey", (this someone is most likly the dying Jon Simms Master).
In super short think "the Moment" became the New Whoniverse "Key to time" as it split up the Timelords into the exact same type of two opposing factions when "Rassilons Nightmare child plan" (from the end of time pt 2).
= Missy was always making sure the outcome of the TImewar would remain. = Think "Guarding/Protecting" it, setting up the Jon Simms Master to be at the right place at the right time with the right motivation (to spite Missy out of existance and at the same time get his revenge on the Timelords & the Doctor)
Thus ascending 1 group of the TImelords (at the Gallifreyan high counsil) while trapping the other (outside the Gallifreyan high counsil) in an quantum locked (Schrödingers cat like) state of both being ascended and alive at the same time.
= Group 2 of the former Timelords are the "weeping angels" (in the new Whoniverse)
and Missy are infact the new Black Guardian (for the new Whoniverse).
The new White Guardian have been seen in the show possibly at several time but atleast once in End of time both parts setting up/Guarding the outcome.
High probability Santa & Mrs Flood also are this new White Guardian (also "known" as our Doctor´s actual sister & mother to the Master)(that requries an input on its own to explain how we know that>)
But put in mega short.
All of new Who = the Dark times of our mankind (from the classic whoniverse Earth) and how we become the rulers over time (inside the new WHoniverse) the exact same way the ppl Rose and Jackie and Metacrysis ended up with became the TImelords.
= The Daleks and all other Timelord enemies was puppets trying to take down by the "Ragnarookians"/Weeping angels of old. (inside the classic WHoniverse)
= the same story and outcome but with slightly different details and ppl for each new Whoniverse..(this is what makes them "stable)
aka
The never ending story/song.
You are not talking into account that the Daleks had previously used time travel as an attempt to assassinate the Doctor in the Chase.
daleks masterplan as well
It's a really good theory.
But the Fugitive Doctor and the division kinda go directly against it. If not outright disprove it.
Good video though. 👍
I think you somewhat undersell the Doctor's punishment. We'd already seen, and would continue to see, that regenerations for the Doctor in particular results in a similar-but-different personalities. While the Doctor as a whole lives on, forced regeneration is functionally the execution of the 2nd Doctor. The 3rd Doctor performing "community service" is warning as much as a punishment.
And while the Doctor tendency towards relatively short-lived incarnations makes it a non-factor here, the Time Lords also presumably took a chunk out of his overall expected lifespan by ending his second incarnation early. If you want to think of it in more human terms, it was like jumping straight to how you'd mentally and emotionally be 10 years later in life, without actually experiencing any of the intervening time.
magnificent
No use of tardis as a punishment
Vidies like this remind me of how rich and grand doctor who lore is
This doesn't make sense. In the 2nd Doctor era, the Time Lords were all powerful and had god-like powers. So how could they be destroyed by the Daleks in a war? They could just warp to another dimension like ascended masters. No physical villains can touch them if they are god-like and interdimensional and on a higher plane.
Not to mention whatever all happened during season 6B
yes he his chased by worzzel gummidge then regenerates into jon pertwee
If it isn’t the consequences of his own actions
Sorry but this theory is rubbish. The 2nd Doctor might have alerted the Time Lords to the dangers of the Daleks, but it was THEIR decision to make the 4th Doctor do something about it that exposed the early Daleks to the threat Timelords posed to them. Thus their intervention revealed that a kind of Bootstrap Paradox was in play. That was the brilliance of Genesis of the Daleks. The 4th Doctor may have set their development back, but he also gave them something to hate which helped them become the xenophobic killing machines the 1st and 2nd Doctors would eventually encounter. The Timelords breaking their own nonintervention laws was always going to happen, the Doctor was always going to be involved, he was always going to experience that moral dilemma, and the time war was always going to happen because it was all part of the paradox. But most importantly, with a bootstrap paradox it's usually impossibly hard to determine precisely where it started.
The Terminator movies are another example of a Bootstrap Paradox because the killer robot's technology survives and ends up being used to create the Skynet system that eventually becomes self-aware and builds the Terminator robots. It was always going to happen.
Terry Nation was responsible.