Theory:Doctor Who prose discontinuity and plot holes/Timewyrm: Exodus


 * In The War Games, the Time Lords put a forcefield around the War Lord's planet, preventing anyone getting on or off. Yet the War Chief somehow got both to the planet, and from there to Earth after this forcefield was in place.
 * Perhaps it is a one-way forcefield: people can reach the planet(presumably with suitable enough difficulty as to deter most) but no-one can leave. As to how the War Chief was then able to get to Earth along with some of the War Lord aliens, he is a Time Lord, and thus may know ways around such technology.
 * But there wouldn't have been "some of the Ware Lord aliens" to reach the planet with. They had been erased from existence.
 * The Timewyrm could have (inadvertently or not) altered the timeline so that the War Lord aliens were not erased from existence, but simply put in exile.


 * The War Lord and his men were clearly travelling to and from the planet by SIDRATs, yet the War Chief and some guards departed the war games by a spaceship.
 * Well the War Chief had to be recruited to allow the SIDRATs to be made workable, so presumeabley the spaceship was their form of transportation prior to the SIDRATs' creation.
 * But that would have been some time before. During The War Games (TV story) themselves, SIDRATs were used exclusively.
 * They could have had an old spaceship on standby. There's no real reason for the spaceships to be completely junked, even if SIDRAT travel was more efficient.
 * The people themselves would still have had spaceships. However, it was made clear that all travel between the abse where the war games were being orchestrated and their home planet was by SIDRAT.
 * Given that it was a rather poor imitation of a TARDIS/based on TARDIS principles, surely the SIDRATs would have been suitably dealt with by the Time Lords. One then assumes that, believing the War Chief dead, the Time Lords then allowed the War Lord guards to board a ship and limp back to their own planet before enacting the forcefield that traps them there.
 * The War Lord guards were erased from existence, they would never have existed. Plus that doesn't answer where the ship magically appeared from.
 * The ship already existed and was the War Lords original form of transportation pre-SIDRAT, it just wasn't in use.


 * In The War Games, the Time Lords erased The War Lord, The Security Chief, and all their accomplices from history. They explicitly state that it will be like they never existed at all. Yet somehow, The War Lord has a son, who not only exists, but remembers all the events of The War Games. To say nothing of the fact that he's now allying himself to the very man who was using his father, and openly betrayed him.
 * I would speculate that, as a lesson to the War Lord aliens, the Time Lords bent the rules a bit, permitting the aliens to remember the horrific erasure their leader had suffered and to discourage such behaviour. As to the War Lord's son allying himself with the man who betrayed his father, he most likely viewed the War Chief as a means to an end, one that the War Chief was needed to help achieve. Or he's just not the brightest spoon in the cutlery drawer.
 * Firstly that's a very big(and bizarre) speculation. The War Lord and all his associates were dematerialised, and made as though they never existed. But the really big point(and the one both you and Terrance Dicks can't seem to grasp) is this...If the War Lord never existed, how could he have a son? Because for the War Lord's son to exist, his father must have existed. But his father never existed. So the stupidity about him managing to get through the forcefield, remembering the War Games and allying himself with the War Chief are bad enough, but his very existence itself contradicts the War Games.
 * Oh, I can grasp the paradox of the situation perfectly well, it's dear old Terrance that got us into this mess in the first place. Ultimately any way to fix it is going to be bizarre speculation because there is no feasible way for it to work. If the properties of the forcefield allow for the paradox, then surely leaving the planet would result in the son's erasure from time. Short of a paradox machine implanted inside of him, there's really no answer that can be given.
 * Presumably the Timewyrm's interference/existence changed the timeline in such a way that the Time Lords deemed exile and execution a more appropriate punishment.


 * The Fourth Doctor's cameo/message takes place directly after The Invasion of Time (TV story), but he is described as wearing his burgundy costume from Season 18.
 * As noted, this whole story is such a discontinuous mess that we can only accept that the Timewyrm's actions changed the entire nature of the universe, and all who dwell in it, and when the Seventh Doctor and Ace finally defeat the Timewyrm, everything is put right, meaning that at the end of the fourth novel, nothing in any of the four Timewyrm books ever really happened. The face that the Fourth Doctor is wearing the wrong outfit is a clue to the fact that the whole universe, including the future(and the past) is still royally screwed up, and that the Doctor and Ace are effectively in a parallel universe, at leats until they can finally defeat the Timewyrm once and for all.