Talk:Time lock

A lot stated in this article seems to be interpretive and not based on canon demonstrations. For instance, in the new series so far, The Doctor only meets three Time Lords. One is a clone of himself (Jenny), and so doesn't count. One is the Master, and the Master's presence is explained by him deserting and hiding out in human form at the end of the universe, presumably sneaking past the restrictions of the Time Lock. The third is the Doctor's own Fifth incarnation, and since the Doctor is not subject to the Time Lock, there's no reason he can't meet his former selves.

However, the strong indication that The Doctor is effectively alone in the universe, despite the non-subjective nature of other Time Lords including the Rani, the Monk, Romana, assorted Chancellors, and so on, therefore dictates that if he has reason to believe that he cannot bump into these beings ever, that not only is the Time War locked out from being able to be time travelled to, the participants are prevented not only from being able to time travel OUT of it, but also *from ever having done so previously*

The only way this makes any sense is if Gallifrey, Skaro, and other places participating in the Last Great Time War have been ripped out of time completely, effectively locking them and the rest of the universe into two different time streams, perhaps with the Time War locked into a closed loop even. Therefore, in the current universe, Romana, for instance, *never existed* (presumably with the side effect that The Doctor, while able to meet with his fifth incarnation, cannot always meet with his fourth incarnation, at least not any time that Romana was travelling with him).

Clearly The Doctor can travel to times before the Time War, as demonstrated in several episodes: The Runaway Bride (the formation of Earth), The Fires of Pompeii, The Wire, and so on. (Blink had him sent back to 1969, but the Weeping Angels, being from the earliest times of the Universe, may not be subjected to the restrictions of a Time Lock, so this cannot be counted -- however, the TARDIS *did* travel back to that time to retrieve The Doctor and Martha after this, and since the Fourth Doctor was made President of Gallifrey, while the First Doctor met Daleks for the first time "thousands of years in the future" (according to his statement in The Dalek Invasion of Earth) after leaving Earth from 1963, we can conclude that if these times are reachable, the time that the Time War takes place is likely reachable, but that The Time War itself is *not*).

Since we know that the participants in the Time War (other Time Lords) cannot (in theory) escape the Time Lock, and the Doctor sees himself as alone in the universe and does not see running into other Gallifreyans as a likelihood (and previously even as a possibility), and since in his Ninth incarnation he's amazed that even one Dalek escaped and states with certainty that it is the only one of its kind in the Universe (a fact the Dalek verifies), then the Time Lock cannot be simply a restriction against time travel to the time of the Time War. Certainly there must be other Daleks in the universe, after all, because they are going to invade Earth in 2150 A.D. but since the lone Dalek states that there are not, this event has been utterly removed from future-history in all ways.

Of course, the concept that the Time Lords have locked the Time War in such a way as to make Time Lords not have existed would therefore clearly create a paradox in that there were never Time Lords to do this in the first place. Perhaps it is the reason the Doctor has escaped the same fate: if he did the locking, there's a fixed point in spacetime that is responsible for initiating the lock (turning the Key of Rassilon to do so, perhaps). On the other hand, if he is not actually responsible for the lock itself, it is then a strong indicator that there is a currently functioning Paradox Machine active on Gallifrey, on the other side of the Lock (and therefore also locking it further, that if deactivated the paradox would ensue that would prevent the unlocking).

I'm interested to see how Stephen Moffat gets past all these troubles. While he can feel free to black box things away as "wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff humans wouldn't understand" he does, of course, have to make an effort. Further, knowing his writing, he will for his own sanity. 173.12.172.149 02:13, September 27, 2009 (UTC)

I don't understand why a Time Lord would be restricted to having to time travel after it was put into place. From what I can learn, it seems that the Time lords locked a certain place/time in history so that no interference could take place, such as the devastating effect Dalek Caan had when his emergency temporal rift transported him back to the time war. The Master may well have travelled out of Gallifrey or any other affected area before the lock was put into place. The same might well've happened with the Doctor, because for all extents and purposes he was present in Gallifrey, or at least on the battlefield of the war whilst it was raging, so logic would say that he wouldn't be exempt from the lock, but it appears he is.

A time lock, to me, doesn't mean that what existed or happened in the area effected is gone. It just means that it cannot be changed once more. To the Doctor, creating a time lock upon that period of time, which is suggested due to his resignedness about ending the Time war with such a heavy price, may have meant locking the entire race of time lords within that time also. This may be what he means by "The last of my race".

There was more I was going to say, but I must leave. Rorybob 12:29, January 2, 2010 (UTC)

I agree with 173.12.172.149 that there's still explanation needed of this. By all accounts, events which predated the time-lock still happened. These include events in the past and the future (so there's no real reason to say that the time war happened in the present as we understand that concept).

So one would expect that the Doctor could travel to the 1970s and met with the Master on Earth, or interrupt himself while he was in the middle of a conversation with Gallifrey. However not only would that mean interference with people who would eventually be part of the time war (though, as sometimes said, these points may be fixed) but it would contradict the idea of the Doctor being truly alone because he could just go back and talk to other Time Lords.

Somehow, the Doctor must be being prevented from doing so. Maybe meeting other Time Lords who would be part of the time war, from his perspective, after the time war, would create a paradox and tear the universe apart. In effect, since all Time Lords who'd previously been in the universe would be in a 'higher dimensional sense of time', from the past of the Time Lords in the time war, the Doctor would be changing his own past.

Unfortunately, everything we can say is only speculation and so we can only wait and hope that an explanation is eventually given. However, given the time war is no longer a major theme of the show, it's possible that we'll never be given an explanation (and that one doesn't exist, for example about the whole UNIT dating thing). 58.110.182.64 05:18, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

Fixed points in time
The sentence about fixed points in time hasn't made any sense since this edit, even though it's subsequently been edited a bunch of times. I think I've edited it into what people were trying to say.

However, I'm not sure how it's relevant in the first place.

Before these changes, it was speculation that the concept of a time-lock was in some unspecified way related to the concept of a fixed point in time. (I think that speculation is based on Jack one being described as time-locked, and once as a fixed point in time, but I'm not sure, and the article never makes that connection.)

After the changes, it doesn't even say that; it just describes fixed points in time, without giving any indication that they might have anything to do with being time-locked.

And honestly, I don't think the two concepts do have anything to do with each other (beyond being timey-wimey plot devices that RTD came up with to avoid explaining complicated things where the answer would just bore people, if he even had one). A separate article on fixed points in time might make sense, but I don't think it belongs here.

However, this was added back in July 2008, and subsequently edited by a lot of people who are major contributors to the site, so I'm not entirely sure about removing it without waiting for someone to comment. --Falcotron 11:40, May 6, 2010 (UTC)

If a Time Lock cannot be traveled to by the TARDIS, how does the Doctor get to Lake Silencio so he can be killed? Also, how come the Doctor can't simply travel, and see other TIme Lords from before the Time War. Also, partially unrelated point, if it causes a paradox to happen if you touch yourself (as shown in DW:"Father's Day"), how come in the time of the Eleventh Doctor, they touch past versions of themselves a number of times?

96.252.61.72talk to me 20:18, September 1, 2012 (UTC)

Last of the Time Lords
I think maybe Gallifrey is always time-locked to a certain extent (pure conjecture). After all, none of the time lords know the future of Gallifrey. I think we're all misinterpreting "time-locked." Maybe everyone in the Time War is allowed to leave; they just can't influence the war (for example, maybe Davros could leave whenever he wanted; he just couldn't call in reinforcements from different times). The reason why the time lock exists in the first place is so that only people from their natural times could participate in the Time War. Everyone has a natural time, even the Doctor. He can't cross his own time stream or visit a medieval Gallifrey. He always returns to a Gallifrey that is just a few years older than the Gallifrey he left. I think the past Time Lords were still traveling in time, the Doctor just doesn't want to visit them because he could accidentally tell them about the future, and it might be too sad for him. I don't think he can visit time lords that aren't from his natural time for that reason. CloneMarshalCommanderCody ☎  22:25, August 1, 2014 (UTC)


 * Per Tardis:Discussion policy, "pure conjecture" is not allowed on article talk pages. Please take this discussion to Howling:The Howling if you wish to continue. Thanks. Shambala108 ☎  23:03, August 1, 2014 (UTC)


 * Most of the stuff on this talk page is pure conjecture. Anyhow, we should explain the time-lock on the time war more. The point is that something is preventing the Doctor from visiting Time Lords from before the time-lock, so although we can't make assumptions, we should note that and provide a link to Time stream or some other article dealing with stuff like that. That's what I was curious about and what made me visit this page in the first place, and I think that's what the previous discussion on this page was getting at as well. CloneMarshalCommanderCody ☎  04:11, August 2, 2014 (UTC)


 * Policy is policy, regardless of whether admins and other users catch violations. If you want to continue speculation about this topic, take it to the Howling. In the article itself, we can only explain the time-lock based on what we know from the stories. Shambala108 ☎  04:22, August 2, 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes. I agree. My conjecture was barely relevant to this article, and I should have gone to the Howling. Anyway, we can't make guesses about why the Doctor can't just visit past Time Lords, but we do know that he never has visited a past time lord on screen and that it may be because of the time-lock. And for not visiting his past incarnations (except for weird situations like in The Day of the Doctor (TV story)), we should reference Time stream. I think all that should be included. CloneMarshalCommanderCody ☎  19:36, August 2, 2014 (UTC)