Board Thread:The Panopticon/@comment-24894325-20170121220436/@comment-24894325-20170124160032

No, here I disagree. It is sufficient to find a novelisation published before Toy Story.

I would agree with you if we didn't know whether it was intended as the Doctor's TARDIS. But on that we all seem to agree. Out-of-universe, this seems clear. The problem is that the author's intent is not acceptable evidence. What we search for, therefore, is in-universe evidence. But for the in-universe evidence, it should immaterial whether the author was aware of it, right? In fact, maybe it does not even matter when the novelisation was published.

Think of it this way: the Ship is a proper name, just like the Doctor. If I read about the Doctor in two different stories I assume them to be the same person unless stated otherwise or unless there are two "the Doctor"s already present.