Human-Draconian War

The Human-Draconian War was a brief but devastating war between the expanding Draconian Empire and the Earth Empire. Some humans referred to it as the Dragon War. (AUDIO: The Draconian Rage) It began with a misunderstanding between human and Draconian ships.

A meeting between human and Draconian representatives had been planned, but both races' ships were damaged in a neutron storm. The Draconians arrived in a battle cruiser which had been stripped of its missiles, but their communications equipment was damage by the storm, so they were unable to call for help. The human ship, commanded by John Williams, was "helpless", and Williams believed that the approaching Draconian ship was planning to attack without realising that the Draconian representatives were actually onboard the ship as arranged, ignorant of Draconian culture where a noble would always travel in a battlecruiser from a position of strength. Williams believed his actions to be further justified when the Draconian ship didn't make contact, unaware of the damage the ship had taken,

He decided to attack the Draconian vessel, and destroyed it. Thus began the war. It lasted for three days and over 500 million humans and Draconians were killed. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Space War)

Although factions on both sides of the conflict opposed negotiations, eventually a treaty was signed establishing a frontier between the two empires to preserve the peace. The treaty also forbade subversion and espionage.

Twenty years after the peace treaty, the Daleks and tried to sabotage the treaty and start a new war by using hypnotism to make both humans and Draconians think they were seeing each other when their cargo ships were being plundered, when it reality it was down to the Ogrons.

The Daleks had hired the Master to undermine the treaty and start the war to make their conquest of the galaxy possible. (TV: Frontier in Space)

Jon Bowman was a veteran of the conflict. (PROSE: Prisoner of the Daleks)

Steven Taylor cited the conflict, along with the Second Dalek War and the Third Dalek War, as factors which put an end to Earth's expansionist phase, leaving planets like Mechanus uncolonised. (PROSE: The Chase)

Behind the scenes

 * In the televised version of The Chase from 1965, Steven merely makes reference to "interplanetary wars". By the time John Peel novelised the serial in 1989, the mythos was much larger, allowing him to replace the phrase with more specific examples like the Human-Draconian War.