Theory:Timeline - The Doctor's early life

This page lists appearances of The Doctor's early life in the order in which they experienced them. This timeline is based upon observations of the Doctor Who universe and the events that occur during each of these stories. From these observations we have attempted to build a concise timeline. It is assumed, much like its TV story counterparts that for each novel, comic story and audio series their published/numbered order is the order they occur in. This does not apply to short stories which are often ambiguous about their placement. There are also many gaps between stories.

The Timeless Child

 * TV: The Timeless Children
 * The Shobogans are the indigenous inhabitants of Gallifrey. Tecteun, the first space traveller, crosses the Boundary to another galaxy and finds the abandoned Timeless Child, who becomes the source of the regenerative process.

The Division

 * The Child is recruited into the Division by Solpado, having achieved better test results than any other potential recruit. (TV: The Timeless Children)


 * PROSE: Cold Fusion
 * Patience's husband has recently regenerated into a new, taller and hairier incarnation. He feels he is getting old and is preparing for the birth of his first grandchild.


 * A female incarnation of the Doctor abandons her job working for Gat and goes into hiding on Earth under the identity of Ruth Clayton using a Chameleon Arch. She is accompanied and protected by her companion. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon)


 * TV: Fugitive of the Judoon
 * Following an encounter with the Thirteenth Doctor, Ruth Clayton resumes her true identity as the Doctor. Lee Clayton and Gat are both killed during the ordeal, while the Doctor escapes in her TARDIS.

Growing up again

 * The Doctor's early life is erased from his mind and he is forcibly regenerated into a young body. (TV: The Timeless Children)


 * PROSE: Lungbarrow
 * The Doctor is "born from the Loom of the House of Lungbarrow" on Gallifrey.


 * As a Time Tot, the Doctor plays hide and seek with the Rani for forty-two years. (COMIC: Weapons of Past Destruction)


 * The Doctor is told the story of Grandfather Paradox by his mother, (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) and sees flies swarm around the corpse of an elderly lady who had been covered in veils, giving him nightmares for years. (TV: Heaven Sent)


 * TV: Listen
 * The Doctor hasn't joined the Academy yet. He is weeping in a barn located in the Drylands.


 * Facing "the blackest day of his life," the Doctor visits the hermit on the side of the mountain from his family's house, who assists the Doctor with an epiphany by pointing at "the daisiest daisy". (TV: The Time Monster)


 * PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords
 * At the age of eight, the Doctor is taken from his caretakers for the selection process into the Academy. The Doctor reacts by running away.


 * The Doctor attends the Time Lord Academy as a member of the Prydonian Chapter, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) befriending the likes of the Master, and the Rani. (TV: The Sea Devils, The Mark of the Rani) He is personally taught by Borusa. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)


 * The Doctor spends four days trapped in the Cloisters, where he talks to the Cloister Wraiths, who tell him of the prophecy of "the Hybrid," and show him a secret passage out. According to his twelfth incarnation, the experience drove him "completely mad," and he was "never right in the head again" afterwards. (TV: Hell Bent)


 * PROSE: The Three Paths
 * At the age of thirty, the Doctor asks K'anpo Rimpoche the name of the mountain on which he dwells. He is attending the Academy, and has made several friends.


 * At the age of forty-five, the Doctor leaves the Gallifreyan equivalent of primary school. (PROSE: Shroud of Sorrow) At the age of fifty-eight, the Doctor ruins Valyes' summer project. (AUDIO: The Next Life) At the age of ninety, he visits the Medusa Cascade. (TV: The Stolen Earth)


 * COMIC: Vortex Butterflies
 * The Doctor is scolded by Borusa for his lack of respect, but is also taught how to appear to respect the traditions he loathes.


 * The Doctor conducts an experiment that creates a bacteria known as the Ablative, with the ensuing scandal nearly getting him expelled until it is covered up by the Academy. (AUDIO: Planet of the Rani)


 * The Doctor skips his time-travel proficiency lesson, and rejects an offer to retake the lesson, leaving him unqualified to operate a TARDIS. (PROSE: Festival of Death)


 * AUDIO: Master
 * Having been forced to kill their bully to protect the Master, the Doctor makes a deal with Death to have the memory transferred to the Master, and then has the exchanged erased from his memories.


 * PROSE: Tomb of Valdemar
 * The Doctor and the Master travel into Gallifrey's past in search of Valdemar.


 * PROSE: Harvest of Time
 * The Doctor and the Master work on the Consolidator together.


 * The Doctor and the Rani both attend the Prydonian Academy. (TV: Time and the Rani)


 * PROSE: Divided Loyalties
 * While studying at the Prydonian Academy, the Doctor crosses wits with the Celestial Toymaker for the first time, but his friends Rallon and Millennia are apparently killed. The Doctor is expelled from the Academy as punishment.


 * The Doctor attends "Time Lord University". (COMIC: The Friendly Place) He leaves education with the lowest possible pass mark on his second attempt. (TV: The Ribos Operation)

Life on Gallifrey

 * PROSE: Lungbarrow
 * The Doctor is disinherited from his ancestral House.


 * The Doctor works as a Scrutationary Archivist in the Bureau of Possible Events, (PROSE: Lungbarrow) and slowly rises high in the ranks of the Time Lords. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) When he learns about the miniscopes, he successfully campaigns to have them banned from the galaxy. (TV: Carnival of Monsters)


 * COMIC: Flashback
 * The Doctor saves a glowing life form from being killed by an old friend, but ruins his friendship with him as a result. The Doctor still has superior ranking on Gallifrey.


 * The Doctor fights in a war. (AUDIO: The Sontarans)


 * PROSE: Cold Fusion
 * Traveling back in time, the Doctor rescues Patience and her granddaughter from a danger on Ancient Gallifrey. The Doctor later marries Patience, and the two have thirteen children together.


 * AUDIO: The Toy
 * The Doctor brings his granddaughter to watch him and a group of Prydonians perform a ritual in Arcadia.


 * PROSE: The Longest Story in the World
 * The Doctor is living in a small house on a mountain with his "adopted granddaughter", who tells him tales of him "building" the TARDIS and leaving Gallifrey. When the High Council hear of her tales, and after "an incident" takes place outside the Capitol, they send armed guards after the Doctor.

Leaving Gallifrey

 * Due to conflicting accounts, each telling of the Doctor's fateful escape have been listed in order of release.


 * PROSE: Birth of a Renegade
 * In a story told by, the Doctor decides to leave Gallifrey in the midst of a civil war. He enters a TARDIS alone, and finds a young lady inside, who he adopts as his granddaughter.


 * COMIC: Time & Time Again
 * The Doctor and Susan escape from an explosion on Gallifrey, determent to keep the Hand of Omega safe.


 * PROSE: Nightshade
 * A flashback shows a lone Doctor discarding his Prydonian robes as he is departing Gallifrey after a meeting with likewise hooded elderly men.


 * PROSE: Lungbarrow
 * After an argument with his cousin, Glospin, the Doctor leaves Gallifrey with the Hand of Omega, and travels back to the Old Time, where he adopts Susan, the granddaughter of the Other.


 * TV: The Name of the Doctor
 * Set during The Beginning: The First Flight, after Susan step inside the first TARDIS, and before the Doctor takes her into a second one.


 * AUDIO: The Beginning
 * The Doctor, already with Susan and wearing Victorian era clothing, is being pursued by the Chancellery Guard whilst fleeing Gallifrey with a flying trunk containing the Hand of Omega.