Time works

Lots of writing done today: a thank you letter, a note for the ex-pats, a final draft of a feature that’s now gone for approval, and the third episode of The School. I also nipped down the hill to take apart a bed.

So don’t think you’re getting an original post tonight. Sod that.

Instead, here’s something written on 16 May 2005 for a mailing list (which I sent to a couple of other people too). Father’s Day had been on two days before.

People were arguing that the time-stuff didn’t make sense. I’d delivered Time Travellers two weeks before, and so had this kind of stuff in my blood.

(Since learnt that Father’s Day did have lots of explanation in it originally, but it all got cut to move the thing along. And all the better for it.)

Father’s Day timeline

How I thought it went (but what do I know?):

Rose watches her dad die but mucks up holding his hand, so asks for another go.

The Doctor says okay, but warns her that they should stay back from their earlier selves, because meeting other selves is bad. (Cf. Mawdryn Undead).

Rose, however, runs forward and changes history: not just the history of her dad dying, but also of her earlier self standing by and watching passively. The first time round, she didn't see herself run in front of her, and she saw her dad die.

So she's over-written that past version, so the past pastDoctor and pastRose wink out of existence.

That change (both the Doctor winking out of existence and Pete staying alive) create a hole in time. Normally, this would ring a bell on a desk of some poor civil servant on Gallifrey, who'd then despatch someone to sort out Time Being Sodded Up.

(Or, at least, having seen that it was the Bloody Doctor Again, to fill in the usual form).

But there's no Gallifrey, so Other Things come along instead, things attracted to Kooky Time Shit. These may be related to Chronovores, or they may be some other kind of time monster altogether. They feed on history, so they eat people who are older - thus the groom's dad and the vicar over anyone else.

And Mickey gets to live because he's younger than anyone else. (Though, er, his mates being eaten before his mum rather gets in the way of that theory.)

Anyway. The monsters are eating people, changing history with every bite. Which makes time go haywire - so the radio picks up music from Rose's own time, while the mobiles pick up Alexander Bell. The monsters eat more people and time somersaults over itself.

The TARDIS, which (as I'm sure we all know) exists outside of time and space but with an outer-plasmic shell (the police box) that creates a portal to a specific place, loses it's link (so the shell is just a shell, not a shortcut through to the console room).

And it all gets a lot worse, and the monsters get stronger, when Rose again, er, touches herself. If you see what I mean.

You've then got the Killer Car that's chasing Pete. I'll get to why it's following him in a sec, but when Pete throws himself in front of it, everything works out. Why?

Because if he's died - as he was meant to - not only does he cancel out the Things-Are-Wrong-Because-He's-Alive glitch, he also cancels out the Multiple Doctors and Roses. If he's died in front of the church, Rose would never have been taken back to see him die on that other street, and therefore it never happens and blah.

So the car is following Pete, I'd argue, because time is stretched to breaking point. It's like pressure on a vacuum. And the car hitting Pete is the easiest outlet for all the pressure on time to escape to.

QED.

Well, it makes sense to me anyway.