Been taking a look at Death Comes to Time for map reasons (since it’s here we’re introduced to Mt. Plutarch and the Lune Forest - the latter of which is also mentioned in Gallifrey: Time War, though it seems a lot of people misheard it as ‘Loom Forest’). Got a couple of theories based on some details of the scenes with Ace:
1. There might be a connection between this timeline and The End of Time:
Ace recognises some of the constellations in the sky on Gallifrey from Earth. Casmus doesn’t correct her. But this is ludicrous, the planets are at least 29000 ly apart, if not galaxies. Even if some of the stars can be seen from both Gallifrey and Earth, they would be oriented differently.
Now you could point out that 'constellation’ is sometimes used differently in DW, such as for stars that are near eachother locally (this definition is used a lot actually), rather than angularly, or may even refer to stars that are temporally connected in some way. But that doesn’t seem to make sense here. At best, maybe Ace is flat out wrong and Casmus is misunderstanding based on different definitions, or just ignoring the statement.
On the other hand, I think it has been suggested that Gallifrey’s heavens behave differently (though I thought that was simply related to Gallifrey’s changing flow of time?) so maybe this is some sort of alignment corresponding to “Ace’s era”? One could probably link this in some way to the Younger World Story or Earth’s caldera.
My suggestion, however, is this timeline might be related to Gallifrey being moved from the Time War into the Solar System in Rassilon’s Final Sanction. Perhaps this is a universe where the Sanction was completed and reverberated back in time as it collapsed, as far as the Seventh Doctor’s era, creating new branching timelines as it went. It would even help justify the Time Lords’ powers in this universe, if they’re in the process of ascending and becoming 'beings of consciousness alone’ ala the Celestis.
In other words, the stars look like they do from Earth because Gallifrey is quite literally in Earth’s place (though obviously not quite in Earth’s present day).
2. “Saronite” explains why Gallifrey’s oceans aren’t as blue as Earth’s.
A much less grandiose theory here, but in Ace’s tests, she must cross the “Cavern of Infinite Death” without falling into the pool of saronite. When she does and believes she’s been poisoned, Casmus explains:
ACE: But what about the poison? CASMUS: Who said it was poisonous? ACE: But … but … you said it… CASMUS: I said you mustn’t touch the saronite. ACE: Well, what is saronite? CASMUS: It is much like water, with one important exception. ACE: What exception? What is it! CASMUS: It is red.
Presumably the pool is water with some mineral 'saronite’ mixed in. If 'saronite’ is common enough across Gallifrey, it may tint the oceans enough, combined with the reddish glows of the Suns and the atmospheric tint, to result in the dark red-brown-purple-ish colour of the seas we tend to see from space.
Fun fact: I googled saronite to see if it was some real mineral, but all the results related to World of Warcraft, where it is the name of a mineral formed of the blood of 'Yogg-Saron’?
I don’t know where saronite first appeared. If it came from Wrath of the Lich King, then the Doctor Who usage predates it. However I know Warcraft as a franchise is older than Death Comes to Time, so saronite might have appeared there earlier.
Either way, I guess Gallifrey’s water is literally filled with the blood of an elder god.
Started work on Gallifrey map v2, now with more visual references. >:)
It’ll also be much more detailed - I’m hoping to try using fictionalmaps.com to make a zoomable version, even though most of the planet other than the Capitol/Prydonia and Arcadia will be empty of detail, unless I or someone else does some fanon worldbuilding for regions like Anarcos or Capari where we have little more than a name.
Background is my previous version, which I’ve been using as a reference for working out placements and stiching parts together. Main goal is to use the new sources to help fill in the parts where I had to rely purely on descriptive sources (ie. most of Wild Endeavour).
Here’s my original sketch map for v1, for comparison:
If you’re wondering why I’m not using End of Time or Tecteun’s story in The Timeless Children, at this point I’m working on the assumption that the ‘surface’ seen in those is the Transduction Barrier (which has some interesting timeline implications for Rassilon’s era). Hence why it glows so much in both, plus why Gallifrey’s so huge in the prior when most sources suggest it’s roughly Earth-size. This is also why neither show visible oceans/landmasses but other sources do.
I could use the ship-approaching scene from Invasion of Time, but based on the star movement we only actually see a very small part of the surface in that.
Actually was able to add another shot from EVE Online, to shape the south of Wild Endeavour a bit more, as well as the south pole:
With that in mind, here’s my very rough initial sketch of the continents (you can see where I’ve smudged it to tweak shapes and sizes). I made some small tweaks compared to the sources to allow for spherical artefacts, lighting, compatability with other sources/descriptions, but I think it matches up to the above pretty well:
Will be expanding on this of course. Here’s my to-do list:
Started work on Gallifrey map v2, now with more visual references. >:)
It’ll also be much more detailed - I’m hoping to try using fictionalmaps.com to make a zoomable version, even though most of the planet other than the Capitol/Prydonia and Arcadia will be empty of detail, unless I or someone else does some fanon worldbuilding for regions like Anarcos or Capari where we have little more than a name.
Background is my previous version, which I’ve been using as a reference for working out placements and stiching parts together. Main goal is to use the new sources to help fill in the parts where I had to rely purely on descriptive sources (ie. most of Wild Endeavour).
Here’s my original sketch map for v1, for comparison:
If you’re wondering why I’m not using End of Time or Tecteun’s story in The Timeless Children, at this point I’m working on the assumption that the ‘surface’ seen in those is the Transduction Barrier (which has some interesting timeline implications for Rassilon’s era). Hence why it glows so much in both, plus why Gallifrey’s so huge in the prior when most sources suggest it’s roughly Earth-size. This is also why neither show visible oceans/landmasses but other sources do.
I could use the ship-approaching scene from Invasion of Time, but based on the star movement we only actually see a very small part of the surface in that.
EVE: Online x Doctor Who initial thoughts and rambling
Still in the process of examining and breaking down Gallifrey’s appearance in EVE: Online. I’d like to get to it myself but haven’t managed yet since I’m new at the game, so for now have been relying on gameplay videos online. This does mean there may be stuff I’m missing, perhaps overlooked by the experienced EVE players whose videos I was watching.
Initial thoughts?
As far as I can tell there’s basically no lore or story, which is a bit disappointing given it was advertised as featuring remnants from the Time War. The main takeaway is the loot (some Eve: Online stuff (which I guess you could argue absorbs EVE’s lore into the Doctor Who universe: it’s also called an “interstellar convergence” not a multiversal one) and some Who-themed outfits and skins, though I did find a scrap piece of a Dalek plunger so there may be more unique stuff?), gameplay, and the Gallifrey maps.
I’m mostly positive on the latter. A bit disappointed that it’s not an explorable system, but rather isolated regions with a surrounding skybox, though the different “warp matrix filaments” do lead to different positions around Gallifrey, so you do get to see it from multiple perspectives.
They also clearly went with style over substance, which has pros and cons. On one hand, I clearly can’t use sizes or distances for analysis as everything is way too close together to work physically.
On the other hand - a lot is visible!
For example?
Polarfrey (!!!)
Well granted, it’s not labelled as that or anything, but that’s the best fit for the planet in Gamma Kasterborous.
In fact, I think the artist must have done some research, as they didn’t do a bad job with the system.
Gallifrey with it’s two moons and rings (a bit thicker than they probably should be, but again, I’ll let it pass for visuals). The moons match up pretty nicely with sources. Right is obviously the very large and close coppery Pazithi Gallifreya. Left is the other, thus-far unnamed smaller moon.
Interestingly, the colours vary a lot from different perspectives. Just above the atmosphere of Gallifrey, everything is very red, suggesting perhaps an effect of the upper atmosphere or transduction barrier, or maybe just relative desaturation due to the surrounding warp convergence and nebulae. The second moon also looks more grey than blue, which fits quite nicely with its differing depictions.
While not much detail is clear from high orbit, low orbit does show visible bodies of water! It seems to only be a small portion of the surface visible though.
There’s also this planet, which I think is either Karn or Tersurus. It seems to be opposite the suns, I think, which suggests one of those outer planets, plus it doesn’t match the inner Venus-like planet seen in Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy.
So yeah, either a somewhat desaturated Karn, or Tersurus mixing its Big Finish and Fatal Death designs. Both also have at least one moon, which matches up.
Background visuals are also very played up, considering Gallifrey’s supposed to be sat in the dying days of space.
My many possible Watsonian explanations:
This could simply be an effect of the Convergence, which does create smaller nebulae and wormhole-like structures.
This Gallifrey could be yet another cloneworld (probably not, but always a nice fallback theory).
Gallifrey is no longer positioned at the end of the universe (which would have interesting implications, given that red-grassed planet Bel visited in the present day in Flux).
This is Gallifrey at another point in its history than the Doctor’s present (but clearly post-Time War - arguably disproven by the presence of 13th Doctor-styled loot?). Maybe this is set between DayandTime of the Doctor, and the EVE universe is one the Time Lords explored trying to find their way back into N-Space? Or the EVE universe IS the universe Gallifrey was stored in after Day?
Gallifrey’s system briefly popped into the EVE universe for another reason, or just as a natural effect of the convergence? Maybe it’s the same kind of convergence that led to the events of Assimilation^2, hence the mix of EVE: Online and DW items - it’s a temporarily merged ‘amalgam’ universe akin to the Star Trek/Doctor Who universe in that comic?
Possible Division/Flux related shenanigans, given we were just exploring the idea of re-establishing in a whole new universe (though my interpretation was that it would have been the post-universe, which would have a greatly different appearance and physics).
I’m looking at redoing them, adding lots of new locations from new sources, or ones I didn’t orginally include (Trigovia, Gin-Seng, Capari, Anarcos etc. - also hopefully using the book image from Good Omens to improve on the continental map) and fixing some issues (eg. I originally had Olyesti on the western coast of Wild Endeavour when The Infinity Doctors says it was to the East).
Rather than just judging by eye based on photos, I’m also looking at using techniques like photogrammetry to help map out locations like the mountains around the Capitol, so the distances and heights are as accurate as possible (the exact size of the Citadel dome is very important for working out, for example, the distance between the Capitol and the Lungbarrow barn). Above are screen captures for the two iterations of the Capitol I’ve looked at so far: The Name of the DoctorandDay of the Doctor, which I thought I’d share!
The models are mostly unedited, except for some messy details around the dome I manually removed, since this software doesn’t work very well with the glass distortions (hence why the space directly behind the Citadel in both cases is much emptier).
The blue cones are the camera perspectives for each of the screen shots used to construct the 3D models.
Introducing version 2.0 of my fantasy-style map of Central Gallifrey!
This is my attempt to create as close to a ‘true’ map of the Capitol and its surroundings as possible, using every source available ranging from The Timeless ChildrentoFind Your Fate, DWM’s Gallifrey: A Rough GuidetoLungbarrow,Seasons of WartoIris Wildthyme, plus a bit of conjecture where necessary. This current version is more or less complete until more information arises, though I may add some more scene illustrations in the future.
Feel free to let me know if you have any suggestions / questions, or have spotted something I’ve missed!
Been doing some research while brainstorming for June’s short trip opportunity and…
Do we all agree that Ellie Martin almost certainly really is (blonde?) Sam Jones in-universe?
The new name is presumably part of an attempt to preserve her in the timeline after the Council of Eight’s alterations despite original!Sam’s fate in 2002 (and whatever happened to the timeline post-EDAs); a better solution than being kept on the time vortex airship in Repercussions.
In fact, given that Sarah Jane is different from the VNAs/EDAs too (eg. not being married, much closer to her new series status quo) and the connection with the He Jests at Scars world, I bet this is a Time War thing (likely making the latter another Time War spin-off timeline). Being in the time vortex, the airship was probably put under threat by the war so either Eight or War had to work out another solution for its occupants.
This is the reason why she seemingly out-of-nowhere becomes a companion of the Valeyard’s in the He Jests timeline and, despite never knowing him as such, insists on calling him the Doctor and assuming better of him.
Mind you, we don’t know how deep this ‘timeline witness protection’ goes though, so who knows how aware she is herself of any of this.
First of all, I was thinking about the “Time” we saw in Flux. While TARDIS wiki and others have taken her to be Time the Eternal, who we met in the VNAs, a lot doesn’t match up perfectly.
There’s never any previous indication of that Time having to be imprisoned by the Time Lords, nor is she particulalrly connected to the pre-Anchoring universe. In fact, if anything, she seems quite the opposite, taking up the Seventh Doctor as her Champion, whose duty was to protect history.
Now, a lot of this can arguably be put down to different forms. since we see members of the Menti Celesti being ‘born’ in the VNAs (and we have met multiple versions of Death, from Torchwood’s grim reaper to the goth girl resembling Death from The Sandman at Benny’s wedding), but it’s still not a perfect match.
Instead I have an alternative suggestion: the “Time” in Flux is actually the Carnival Queen.
I’m the one who starts the carnivals, Christopher Cwej. The one who makes the music that plays when civilizations fall. Sister to superstitions, grandmother of gynoids. The spirit imprisoned in every piece of clockwork.
Both were imprisoned by the Time Lords around the time of the Anchoring of the Thread to make the universe logical and establish the laws of physics as we know them. The Carnvial Queen also seemed to be captured on a desert world set out of time.
Her personality and history matches the Time we meet a lot better than VNA!Time. She attempts to escape back into the universe for much the same reason the Ravagers wanted to free Time - to undo the Anchoring.
– All that time. All that time I’ve been trapped here, shut off from the universe outside. Ohh, I’ve managed to influence things a little. Pushing a few irrational ideas out into the Majestic Clockwork. Little spanners in the works. A sorceress here, an alchemaître there, a pocket universe somewhere else. I’ve whispered words into the occasional ear. I’ve even managed to nurture a few, ah, special powers. Latent abilities, waiting to be triggered, wrapped in little genetic parcels marked ‘Do Not Open Till Xmas’…
– But I could never venture out into the rational universe. Not without an invitation.
Though she pushes it as a paradise, there is of course a lot of danger in an irrational universe, as we get to see a glimpse of in Flux, let alone all the Eldritch beings that would be able to exist again.
Interestingly, the “Watchmakers” in Christmas on a Rational Planet also refer to “their temple” a couple of times. They also grant Catcher a gun from their temple which marks him clearly as an agent - an “electro-static galvanistic rifle“.
Perhaps the kicker though? Just as the TARDIS seemed sick throughout Flux and into Eve of the Daleks, so too was the TARDIS directly threatened by the unleashing of the Carnival Queen to the point she even gives Chris false memories to be sure he’ll choose order over chaos, out of self-preservation.
No?’ The mouth twitched at the corner. ‘Please, Doctor, consider the situation. The “force” in the desert, as you describe it, wanted to create an irrational universe. Yes?’
‘Yes, yes.’
“And who has the most to lose from that? Consider what the TARDIS represents. The ship is the ultimate expression of reason. Its heart is made of mathematics, its architecture the very model of order.’
This isn’t to say that this Time / the Carnival Queen couldn’t in a sense still be the Time of the VNAs. If we are imagining the Menti Celesti split into multiple incarnations, then it’s just as reasonable that Time could have been split into the rational Gallifreyan God and an irrational imprisoned demon.
In fact, they almost definitely ARE linked. It’s already known that Time was born from Time Lord dreams and while the Carnival Queen was “born from the irrational parts of their souls”, she too is linked to Time Lord dreams in some way:
‘You’re the one the Watchmakers… I mean, you’re the thing that…’
– That they couldn’t live with . They don’t remember me at all now, and don’t even let themselves dream of me. On their homeworld, buried in the deepest archives, there are books, that only the Highest of the High are ever allowed to read. The only books that describe the old time before the days of the clockwork universe, locked away from the eyes of the world.
Side note: the “Highest of the High” and the “Deepest Archives”? 100% the Division.
The Missing Link of TARDIS Evolution?
I am far from the only person to have spotted some similarities between the “Passenger-forms” (which, we should note, sounds quite similar to the “N-forms” used first against the Great Vampires then later in the Time War) and TARDISes, which themselves can be humanoid.
Well while thinking about the previous theory, I considered the “Gynoids”, the Carnival Queen’s granddaughters. They’re kinda set up as a gender-essentialist manifestation of feminity in the universe, vs the ‘orderly masculinity’ of the Time Lords. Which, is uh…
But getting past that, there’s a lot more interesting about them. For one thing, they can change their forms:
It had just lain there, pockmarked and sand-blown, its big, bloated body expanding and contracting, like a sea creature washed up on a beach and gasping for water. Quite dead, the Doctor had insisted, though he couldn’t tell the cause. Its movement had been some kind of automatic function, the thing constantly adjusting and re-adjusting its shape even after death, still uncertain of the exact form it should take.
They also aren’t built, but exist independently of a creator:
‘Gynoids aren’t “built”. Only androids are “built”. Gynoids just are.’
And are bigger on the inside…
There was a whole new world trapped inside every little piece of glass, and whenever the pieces locked together to form a ‘circuit’, an entire alien universe was born inside its body, the shape becoming something totally new and unfamiliar, sculpted by different laws of physics. Roz felt she was just looking at a fragment of the thing, if ‘thing’ was a big enough word, one face of something that had a million faces. And was that all the gynoids really were? Walking windows, that you could look through to catch glimpses of something bigger and older and stranger?
You should see what I’m getting at. TARDISes too are largely considered female (not that TARDISes would have gender identities anything like humans or other species, but they have usually been referred to as “sisters” or by “she”), of course dimensionally transcendental, and can change their form. They also are speculated to exist, in a sense, beyond their creation by the Time Lords, according to Toy Story. They also, again, can be humanoid.
InChristmas on a Rational Planet, where we learn about these Gynoids, we even also see an “un-TARDIS” which literally manifested seemingly on its own, without being manufactured (which I’d argue also sounds a lot like I.M. Foreman’s Travelling Show).
The fact that the Gynoids are described as Cacophany’s granddaughters also rather evokes the idea of the TARDISes being children of the Matrix, as if establishing a lineage between them.
Then add Passenger-forms in as well. Physically, they may not seem to exactly have the more stereotypically ‘feminine’ forms of Gynoids or TARDISes (‘masculine’ TARDISes seem to exist to some extent too though) but there is a pretty strong resemblance in abilities and their roles in regards to the Carnival Queen / Time. And hey, who knows, it’s not like we know that much about Passengers:
But there’s one more creature / technology that resembles all of the above. Feminine-seeming, glass robots, capable of shapeshifting, time manipulation, perception filters. Literally full of people, who interestingly are being preserved in a manner akin to Matrix soul-catching.
Am I suggesting that Testimony’s glass avatars are literally TARDISes? Not exactly. But I think, in the same way we see certain themes echo through some of the major time-sensitive civilisations that could have been / could become the Lords of Time (eg. regeneration/renewal, central databases/afterlifes, bridges to the next universe), the avatars may well be humanity’s technology equivalent to the gynoids or TARDISes.
And perhaps these are all indeed parts of the one conceptual species with multiple possible histories we know primarily as TARDISes, depending on the time track of the universe (pre-Anchoring, post-Anchoring, War in Heaven, post-Ancestor Cell, Time War etc.)?
Maybe they really do, quite literally, form a meta family of sorts?
“However, there are other things that can have distortional effects on the continuum.’
Question: Does Army of Ghosts canonise the in-universe narrative of the original Ghostwatch as part of the DW Universe?
It’s certainly possible the real-world Screen One broadcast never took place in the DWU, as it would have been in pretty bad taste for the DW!BBC to name a new factual show after the fictional one, considering the controversy of the broadcast.
Instead, could the new Ghostwatch arguably be the same show in-universe, dealing with ‘real’ ghost appearances, either having been airing since the Pipes inicident in 1992 or being revived for the 2007 ghost shifts?
Update on my Tolkien-style “Map of Central Gallifrey”:
Still incomplete, but made a lot of progress since my last post.
Prydonia and Saga are basically complete, while Mancipia and Presusis still need doing.
Redid trees at the same time as I added the Lune Forest, replacing the standard ‘pine’ trees with a smaller rounder look that I felt fit the climate a bit better, and also coloured them silver with some shimmers of other colour varying by tree.
Not made much progress on it yet, but I have started adding some little illustrations based on certain scenes, to show where they occur. So far I’ve got the Untempered Schism and the War Doctor’s walk to the barn. Next up will be the site of the Timeless Child’s cliff fall - which I place as taking place between Prydos and Mount Lung, on the slope of Mount Cadon, based on the scenery, the direction of Tecteun’s approach, and some implications from the House in Flux.
Need to redo Prydos and Riff City. Also need to decide on whether to include the transtube or not. I think it looks a bit messy overlapping with the geography, but it would be nice to have it. What do you think?
Still, overall, pretty happy with the progress. Quite tired of drawing mountains at this point, but they’re mostly done with the Southern Mountains complete.
Do you ever just think about all the implications of the Veil in Heaven Sent…?
(First time I’ve ever ‘properly’ digitially painted or drawn anything, so be gentle. Been experimenting in Krita with my drawing tablet between mapwork, having given up on getting it to work in photoshop, and felt ready to give this a go after wanting to do something similar for a while.)
Rough WIP of the new Tolkien-esque Capitol region map!
Made to be as ‘canon’ as possible, incorporating loads of visual details from landscapes seen in the show, descriptions from the books, audios and comics, and even semi-official elements like the Forge of the Chronosmiths and Perendosi Beach from Seasons of War, being careful to blend everything together.
I realise it’s quite unclear at the current resolution. I’m not too bothered with that at the sec, as I just wanted to give a glimpse at the detail and expanded scale I’m going for with this one. This is far from a completed version. You can see plenty of my working notes scattered about: 'huge open plain’ isn’t exactly a gallifreyan name!
I’m considering maybe doing prints when it’s done, considering this is one of the few things I do that isn’t photomanipulating copyrighted material (I did make a print of the Class Ongoing poster, but only for myself ). Only thing I might need to check is if the font / brushes are ok.
So like/reply if you’re interested I guess? I’d love to make a nice polished poster version once the rest is filled in.
