Dark Times

The Dark Times, (PROSE: The Five Doctors, The Pit, TV: The Runaway Bride, The Infinite Quest) or Dark Time, (PROSE: The Eight Doctors, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, TV: The Infinite Quest) were a time of chaos and monsters that predated the Doctor's reality. (TV: The Infinite Quest) In terms of universal history, the Dark Times were billions of years before the 21st century. (TV: The Runaway Bride) Some accounts placed the Dark Time as being synonymous with the Old Time, (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) but others indicated they were distinct eras. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)

Additionally, some perspectives viewed this era as the pre-universe, (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) a time of chaos that not only predated Time Lord history, but was also "before there was any such thing as History", and where the laws of Time and reality of the later universe did not apply. (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy)

The Dark Times were a prehistoric period in Gallifreyan history. (PROSE: Introduction) Rassilon created the Time scoop in the Dark Times, (PROSE: The Five Doctors, The Eight Doctors) and his rise to power and foundation of Time Lord civilisation ended the Dark Times, (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, A Brief History of Time Lords) with the anchoring of the thread and Time Wars eradicating the monstrous creatures of the era and creating the Web of Time. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors, So Vile a Sin, et al.) After this, it was believed Time Lords were unable to time travel to the Dark Time, (PROSE: No Future, Goth Opera) but the Master (AUDIO: Lesser Evils) and multiple incarnations of the Doctor would do just that. (COMIC: Old Girl, PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times)

Beings of the Dark Times
The Hond were speculated by the Tenth Doctor to be one of the first species, as "the primordial ooze" given sentience. He suggested they’d been created in constant pain as a result of "the universe not quite knowing what life was like yet." (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks) The Kamishi, also known as the First Race, were one of the earliest known civilisations. (AUDIO: The Rulers of the Universe)

Species that flourished in the Dark Times included the Dæmons, Eternals, Gods of Ragnarok, (PROSE: No Future) Racnoss, (TV: The Runaway Bride, et al.) Nestene, (TV: The Infinite Quest) Qwerm, Narlok, (PROSE: River of Time) Osirans, (COMIC: Old Girl, PROSE: River of Time) Jagaroth, and Kastrians. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen) The Mandragora Helix also originated from the Dark Times. (PROSE: Beautiful Chaos)

At the "dawn of the universe", the Carrionites waged a war with the Hervoken. (PROSE: Forever Autumn) The Eternals were present during this time period, banishing both the Carrionites and the Hervoken to the Deep Darkness, although some of them escaped. (TV: The Shakespeare Code, PROSE: Forever Autumn)

Among the first species in the universe were the Kotturuh, who laid low for “a millennium or two” and then set out to distribute mortality to the beings of the universe, (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) starting on the planet Birinji. (PROSE: The Dawn of the Kotturuh) They drew their power from a realm accessible via their homeplanet Mordeela. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) This began the Kotturuh crisis. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times)

As the Kotturuh spread, various races responded in different ways. The Eternals fled, losing the ability to live their own lives in the process. The Osiran Sutekh bargained with them and gained the gift of death for himself. The Daemons tried to fight back, resulting in them eventually being driven to extinction. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) The Master witnessed a Kotturuh woman at work on the planet Alexis and attempted to influence her decision. (AUDIO: Lesser Evils)

The Great Old Ones were present in the universe at this time. It was during this time period, too, that the legendary spaceship Infinite was created. (TV: The Infinite Quest)

The elder books of the Dark Times, created by elder powers such as the Dæmons, Eternals, and Gods of Ragnarok, had details on how to capture and harness a Chronovore. Part of the necessary ritual, according to the books, involved spheres from the Sisterhood of Karn and a pentancle drawn in the blood of five species who "had their genetic destinies changed by the Capitol": Minyans, Silurians, Daleks, Humans, and Mandrels. (PROSE: No Future)

Gallifreyans in the Dark Times
Gallifrey was "born before the Dark Times". (COMIC: Agent Provocateur)

In the Dark Times, (COMIC: The Wishing Well Witch) Gallifreyans evolved under the influence of the Untempered Schism. (COMIC: Old Girl) The Tenth Doctor once encountered an amalgam of young Gallifreyans who had been thrown into the Schism during the Dark Times. (COMIC: The Wishing Well Witch) He and Cindy Wu later visited this era of Gallifrey, which was billions of years before the Doctor's native era and "before Rassilon and his Black Scrolls, before time travel was even invented". (COMIC: Old Girl)

Gallifreyans examining their own future wrote the Green Book of Gallifrey and the Black Book of Gallifrey, which foretold the Timewyrm devouring Rassilon at the end of the universe (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation) and the Event. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) Another Gallifreyan prophecy from the Dark Times said that a Vampire would survive on "a world that will be called Ravolox". (PROSE: Goth Opera)

According to one account, Tecteun was one of the first explorers to leave Gallifrey. (TV: The Timeless Children)

Under the rule of the Pythias, a line of female seers, Gallifrey built an interstellar empire. (PROSE: Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible)

The Kotturuh visited Gallifrey and, aware of the eventual rise of the Time Lords, judged its people as having much to offer. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) They imposed death, which the Gallifreyans called “the Ultimate”. (COMIC: Monstrous Beauty)

According to differing accounts, Gallifreyans caused the release of the Great Vampires into N-Space. (AUDIO: Project Twilight, PROSE: The Pit, Interference) The Great Vampires caused mass destruction and chaos throughout the cosmos. (TV: State of Decay) River Song believed they were forced to adopt a lifestyle of feeding on mortal beings as part of a deal with the Kotturuh to keep their immortality. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) The Eternal War began between Gallifrey and the Great Vampires, with Gallifreyan commanders leading the fight including Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu (PROSE: The Pit) and Rassilon. (COMIC: Monstrous Beauty)

Time Scoops were created in the Dark Times. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors, World Game)

The Kotturuh crisis escalates
The Tenth Doctor travelled back into the Dark Times via the time fracture, arriving on the planet Andalia. He witnessed a demonstration of Professor Fallomax’s lifeshroud technology on Estinee, which was disrupted by the intervention of Brian who was contracted to test the technology’s efficacy. The Kotturuh arrived on Andalia and judged the natives, to the Doctor’s horror, and took Estinee with them back to Mordeela. He and Brian followed them and witnessed Estinee being rescued by Fallomax. Learning Fallomax was developing the lifeshrouds to resist the Kotturuh, the Doctor decided to help. He spent days working in vain on the lifeshrouds, discovering they only appeared to work in demonstrations because of Estinee’s natural immunity to the Kotturuh, only succeeding in making the Mordeela crystals they depended on last a couple of hours longer. The Doctor realised he had a physical sample from a Kotturuh who had made physical contact with him and used that and data collected from Andalia to reverse-engineer their power as necrotic virus to inflict a lifespan on them. Brian took control of mercenary forces as he worked, believing the Doctor was effectively going to war with the Kotturuh. The Kotturuh confronted the Doctor on Andalia, attempting to force Estinee into killing him until she chose to take her own life to stop them. Infuriated, the Doctor unleashed his virus on them and sentenced them to a lifespan of fifteen minutes. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)

The Doctor’s actions in the Dark Times caused fluctuations in time, (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) rewriting the timelines of entire planets in the future including Atharna and Wrax (AUDIO: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not, The Enemy of My Enemy) and rewriting the Dalek Restoration Empire so they never fought the Last Great Time War. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks) Investigating the temporal anomalies in the future led to the Eighth Doctor and a Dalek Time Squad travelling back to the Dark Times to find the source. (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy) At the same time the Ninth Doctor and Rose arrived in the midst of the Eternal War. After helping Vampire slaves liberate themselves from the Sisters who’d turned them, the Doctor stayed with them aboard their Coffin Ship whilst Rose recovered from briefly becoming a Vampire. (COMIC: Monstrous Beauty)

As the Kotturuh died, the Doctor led the mercenary forces to Mordeela, intending to seal off the Kotturuh’s power source. His fleet was confronted by the arrival of a Dalek saucer, carrying the Eighth Doctor, and a Coffin Ship, commanded by the Ninth Doctor. Both of them pleaded with him to stop but he dismissed them as tricks and ordered his fleet to open fire. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) In the ensuing Battle of Mordeela, the Tenth Doctor’s fleet was reduced to just his ship however he succeeded in destroying the planet and using its ruins to plug the gateway before escaping. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)

The Tenth Doctor went to a desert planet alone and was feasted by ghosts, who fooled him into believing he’d saved a species. He was found by Brian who revealed the truth and destroyed the ghosts. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times) They continued travelling on the surviving mercenary ship, which he christened the HMS Donna. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) The Doctor and Brian visited Magnox, where the Doctor sought to ask the Minds of Magnox a question. (AUDIO: The Minds of Magnox)

The Dalek Time Squad began two competing strategies; the Strategist oversaw experiments to create a more biologically efficient form of Dalek, the “Symbiont”, from DNA of lifeforms unique to the Dark Times whilst the Commander and Executioner prepared to carry out the Emperor’s contingency plan, the Ultimate End. The Eighth Doctor found himself sidelined and was unaware of their schemes, though joined the Daleks’ explorations when he could. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) The Daleks harvested the population of Velosia under the presence of saving their best minds from the coming of the Kotturuh. Accompanied by the Doctor, the Time Squad explored an abandoned spaceship. The Doctor realised it had been left by a species wiped out by the Kotturuh as a reminder of their civilisation. The Daleks found a source of Huon energy aboard and attempted to absorb it. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times)

The Ninth Doctor continued to help the Free Undead search for a planet to settle on. He and Ikalla visited a planet where they were hunted by an invisible creature, which the Doctor held off by setting a sonic stake alight. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times) The Coffin Ship was eventually attacked by the Daleks, seeking a Vampire for their experiments, however the Eighth Doctor forewarned them, allowing the Undead to escape, and fled with his future self in his TARDIS. Ikalla was captured by the Death Brokers after escaping the Coffin Ship. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)

Together the Eighth and Ninth Doctors went in search of the Time Lord Victorious, travelling to the planet  Hoolan. They discovered a malfunctioning time machine bridging the future to the Dark Times, after its  pilot h ad attempted to witness the Big Bang. They fixed her time machine and sent her back to her home time period. ( COMIC :  Tales of the Dark Times ) They eventually tracked him down to Entranxis, where he was attempting to buy weapons from the Death Brokers. A Dalek scout ship invaded to capture Ikalla and the Doctors helped her escape. As they departed the Daleks destroyed an oncoming Kotturuh ship and then used missiles to set Entranxis’ atmosphere alight. The Doctors split up, with the Ninth Doctor seeking the Kotturuh to help them and the other two Doctors pursuing the Daleks. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)

End of the Dark Times
The Dark Times ended with Rassilon’s overthrow of the Pythia and the foundation of Time Lord civilisation on Gallifrey. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, A Brief History of Time Lords) Rassilon decided to make the universe rational, (PROSE: So Vile a Sin) resulting in the anchoring of the thread (PROSE: The Book of the War) and the creation of the Web of Time. (AUDIO: Neverland) All of the monstrous species of the Dark Times eventually died out. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen) After the Time Lords developed the bowship, the Eternal War ended in the deaths of all the Great Vampires, save the King (PROSE: The Multi-Faceted War) who escaped into E-Space. (TV: State of Decay)

The Racnoss were wiped out by the Time Lords' Fledgling Empires in the Racnoss Wars, which the Fifth Doctor characterised as “a long and bloody affair”. (AUDIO: Empire of the Racnoss) Two Webstars were known to have survived with their occupants in hibernation: those of the Empress and her children. The children’s Webstar arrived in the Sol system and became the first rock in the formation of Earth. (TV: The Runaway Bride)

The Jagaroth were among the last of this era's species to survive, but eventually they too went extinct when Scaroth hunted down Racnoss energy signals to Earth. (PROSE: City of Death)

A herd of War TARDISes once suggested to Compassion that one monstrous force survived: the Rassilon Imprimatur. From the TARDISes' perspective, the Imprimatur lived in the blood of the Time Lords and controlled them, "dancing to the old agenda of the Dark Times." (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

The Dark Times were followed by the Old Time. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) During the creation of the Hand of Omega, Omega's body was muscular and wide-shouldered, leading some Gallifreyan it differed from the regenerative norm because it was a "genetic memory" from the Dark Time. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks)

Artifacts of the Dark Times
The Black Scrolls of Rassilon were relics of the Dark Times. (PROSE: The Five Doctors, Divided Loyalties)

The Valeyard claimed that The Doctor's Black Scrolls contained knowledge from the Dark Times that the Doctor used to extend their life and create the Valeyard. (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard)

Returning to the Dark Times
During the Fifth Doctor's presidency, Scandrius once stole a TARDIS and accidentally sent it hurdling backwards in history, beyond even the Dark Time, where it created a paradox threatening the existence of Gallifrey. (AUDIO: Time in Office)

The Timewyrm once tried to return to the Dark Times to see the composition of the Green and Black books of Gallifrey, but was blocked by "fierce security and powerful temporal baffles". (PROSE: Timewyrm: Revelation)

The Monk mentioned to Ace that the Dark Times were "where none can visit". (PROSE: No Future)

Ruath once attempted to force the Fifth Doctor to pilot his TARDIS to the Dark Times to meet Rassilon and save the Great Vampires, but the Doctor thought that was impossible. (PROSE: Goth Opera)

Brian ended up in the Dark Times (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) after falling into the Time Vortex whilst trying to board the Eighth Doctor’s TARDIS (AUDIO: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not) and being given “a little nudge“ by the Tenth Doctor‘s TARDIS. (PROSE: What the TARDIS thought of “Time Lord Victorious“)

The Eighth Doctor and the Dalek Time Squad travelled back to the Dark Times by linking his TARDIS to the Dalek timeship’s engines. (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy)

A woman attempted to use a time machine to witness the Big Bang but hit the temporal barriers protecting the Dark Times. This resulted in her time machine becoming stuck on the planet Hoolan, now bridging between her present and the Dark Times. This catastrophe was resolved by Eighth and Ninth Doctors. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times)

When the Tenth Doctor and Cindy Wu visited Dark Times Gallifrey, the Doctor speculated that the time lock did not apply to pre-Time Lord Gallifrey. (COMIC: Old Girl) The Tenth Doctor would later access the Dark Times again via a time fracture. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)