Forum:Parallel timelines

In The Fires of Pompeii, it was mentioned that the volcanic eruption caused a brief time rift, which made another parallel timeline where the Pyroviles rule Earth. Then I remember back to Doomsday, where the Doctor says "every decision you make creates another timeline" or something like that.

If so, does that mean there are millions other parallel timelines? Examples; if the Carrionites won in The Shakespeare Code, or if the Empty Child plague is never cured in The Doctor Dances. The evil dudeArnie 19:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It does mean that, but the series is, IMHO, somewhat contradictory on this notion.
 * Parallel worlds are closed, but yet it's possible for Donna to have one "created around her".
 * Also, travel between the worlds was said to be impossible in Rise of the Cybermen, before the walls were closed, but the Doctor manages it pretty damned easily at the end of Journey's End as they're closing again.
 * Moreover, the Doctor's stated belief that it's "impossible" to travel between worlds is laughed off by a bunch of mere humans working out of the Pete's World Torchwood. They can figure it out, but the Last of the Time Lords can't?
 * Plus, Donna's World is explicitly called a parallel world, yet Andrea Yates' World is explicitly denied to be one, despite both being caused by the intervention of the Trickster's Brigade.
 * And then there's the biggie. TIme Lords are inherently about the prevention of undesirable realities.  They massage the time stream until it does what it's "supposed" to.   It would seem to me to be a basic part of "Temporal Mechanics", a course often claimed to have been studied by the Doctor.  The sort of interdimensional rifts and cracks described in Doomsday would be the "Time Lord's Job #1", as far as I can see.  So why has it been such a source of drama in this series?  Don't get me wrong, RTD (or Tom MacRae) covered his ass by saying that interdimensional travel was no biggie back when the Time Lords were still around, but it still strikes me as odd that an individual Time Lord with a TARDIS sees parallel worlds as this Big Damn Deal.  If he's smart, Moffat will just move on from all this parallel madness for a bit until he has cause to explore it fully again.  But if he does decide to tackle it, I hope he provides some clearer definition between a fully different universe and the result of a simple change to our own timeline.   What's the difference between time being "in flux" and a parallel world, where a whole different set of temporal "rights" and "wrongs" apply?    Donna was significant enough that preventing her from meeting the Doctor changed the whole of reality, but removing Harriet Jones from power seems to have just altered a tiny part of the timeline (i.e. it was "compensated" for).
 * I think basically this whole, confusing issue is precisely why the original series stayed away from these type of storylines. Don't get me wrong, I like that the RTD era has brought us face-to-face with this stuff, but at this point in the development of the "effects of time travel" type of story, we are starting to see some logical problems.  Were I writing the show, I'd walk RTD's description of Donna's World back from being an actual parallel world to being our world changed by screwing with a "fixed" event.  Parallel worlds shouldn't be created by the events surrounding just one person, but the difference between so many different people's lives that the whole aggregate mass has a substantially different history.  Star Trek (and, by extension, Inferno) got this about right.  The Mirror Universe in that franchise is so completely different from the regular one, that it's very clear a LOT has changed.  RTD has veered a little too close to the insanity of the excesses of the DC multiverse by making Pete's World and Donna's World way too close to the Doctor's World.   Czech Out   ☎ | ✍  23:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)