Theory:Timeline - Last Great Time War

This page lists appearances of the Last Great Time War in the order in which it occurred. This timeline is based upon observations of the Doctor Who universe and the events that occur during each of these stories. From these observations we have attempted to build a concise timeline. It is assumed, much like its TV story counterparts that for each novel or audio series their published/numbered order is the order they occur in. This does not apply to short stories which are often ambiguous about their placement. There are also many gaps between stories.

The layout of this timeline is in part based on the observations on Doctor Who Reference Guide and Doctor Who - The Complete Adventures, as well as Lance Parkin's AHistory and other sources that allow us to make observations. None of these sources should be used solely as a source or considered a "true" timeline for stories.

A Prelude to the War

 * TV: Genesis of the Daleks (Fourth Doctor, Daleks & Davros)
 * The Time Lords fire the proverbial first short of the war by instructing the Doctor to wipe out the Daleks before they are even created.


 * TV: Resurrection of the Daleks
 * The Daleks attempt to send duplicates of the Doctor and his companions to assassinate members of the High Council. Their plan fails as one of their own duplicates destroys the ship that the duplicates of the Doctor and his companions were on.


 * TV: Remembrance of the Daleks
 * The Doctor tricks Davros into using The Hand of Omega to turn Skaro's sun into a supernova, thus destroying Skaro.


 * AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element
 * The Daleks attack Gallifrey, and imprison Romana for twenty years.


 * PROSE: Birth of a Legend
 * The Emperor Dalek states that a great war with an Ancient Enemy has been foretold, a war that will be waged throughout all time and all space. The Cult of Skaro is formed, so the Dalek race will survive.


 * AUDIO: Arbitration
 * The Daleks infiltrate the Axis, and attack Gallifrey.


 * AUDIO: Renaissance
 * AUDIO: Ascension
 * Vayles is sent to meet the Fourth Doctor and to instruct him to destroy the Daleks before they were created, as a method of preventing the infiltration of the Axis.
 * TV: Genesis of the Daleks (Time Lords)


 * AUDIO: The Death of Hope / The Reviled / Masterplan / Rule of the Eminence (Narvin)
 * Narvin from the future (AUDIO: Desperate Measures) attempts to prevent the War.


 * AUDIO: Call for the Dead


 * AUDIO: The Glittering Prize


 * AUDIO: The Persistence of Dreams


 * AUDIO: Sins of the Father
 * The Time War has yet to be formally declared but tensions are rising between the Time Lords and Daleks. Narvin gives the Master a Chameleon Arch.

The First Segment of the War

 * AUDIO: Celestial Intervention
 * Time Lords under Livia officially declare war on the Daleks, after they obliterate many other Temporal Powers. The War Council secretly operates a project in the Death Zone that could result in the resurrection of the dead Time Lords.


 * AUDIO: Soldier Obscura
 * Follows on from Celestial Intervention. Ace and Braxiatel on a mission for Romana. She mentions that the Doctor refuses to help. Braxiatel wipes out Ace's memory and leaves her on the 20th century Earth, while telling Romana that she was killed by the Daleks.


 * AUDIO: Master of Worlds''
 * The Master has his TARDIS and has been hiding from the Time War in a parallel universe.


 * AUDIO: Beneath the Viscoid
 * The Master's escapade before Arcking.


 * AUDIO: The Devil You Know
 * Follows on from Soldier Obscura. The Master allows himself to be summoned to Gallifrey. He and Leela participate in a mission to recover vital information about a potential weapon that could end the Time War. He then throws Leela into the Time Vortex and decides to head for Arcking.


 * AUDIO: The Good Master
 * The Master's adventure on Arcking. He saves Cole Jarnish, who joins him in the TARDIS.


 * AUDIO: The Sky Man
 * Follows directly on from The Good Master. The Master decides to use Cole in his scheme to end the Time War, allowing him to meddle in time as much as possible in order to create more energy from the paradox that he became.


 * AUDIO: The Heavenly Paradigm
 * Follows directly on from The Sky Man. The Master kills Cole in order to power up the weapon that could end the Time War. When his plan fails, he escapes the war using the Chameleon Arch.


 * AUDIO: Desperate Measures
 * Follows on from The Devil You Know. Ace and Leela are lost and Braxiatel escapes the war. Livia steps down as Lady President and Rassilon returns to lead Gallifrey, which was the Livia's plan all along. The Doctor still refuses to help. Two months have passed since Celestial Intervention.


 * PROSE: The Third Wise Man
 * Traveling to the first year of the Time War, the Doctor answers a summons from Davros, and attempts to save him from the Nightmare Child at the Gates of Elysium, but appears to fail. Davros is then saved by a damaged Dalek Caan.


 * AUDIO: All Hands on Deck
 * Susan receives a tesseract that says "Gallifrey needs you to fight the Daleks" and learns that the Doctor for a long time was creating diversions so that he could remove the cubes from her flat. Time Lords already asked the Doctor to help, but he refused. She decides to return to Gallifrey.


 * AUDIO: A Heart on Both Sides
 * The Doctor travels incognito with Nyssa for a long time on her hospital ship, protecting her from the Time War.


 * PROSE: The Stranger
 * The War Doctor travels back in time to the First Segment of the Time War to save Gallifreyan children.

Rassilon's Return

 * AUDIO: The Starship of Theseus / Echoes of War / The Conscript / One Life
 * The Doctor encounters Cardinal Ollistra, whom he will confront on numerous occasions in his next incarnation.


 * AUDIO: The Lords of Terror / Planet of the Ogrons / In the Garden of Death /Jonah
 * The Doctor's travels with Bliss continue.


 * COMIC: The Forgotten (flashback)
 * The Doctor escapes the cell and recovers the Key of Rassilon.


 * PROSE: Natural Regression
 * The Doctor's TARDIS is caught in the temporal wave caused by the Dalek's use of the Time Destructor.


 * AUDIO: The Sontaran Ordeal
 * The Doctor is trying to minimise the damage caused by the Time War.


 * AUDIO: The Rulers of the Universe
 * The Doctor mentions that there is a war on.


 * AUDIO: Day of the Vashta Nerada
 * The Doctor comes across a Time Lord-backed operation overseen by Cardinal Ollistra.

The War Doctor

 * TV: The Night of the Doctor
 * The Eighth Doctor regenerates into the War Doctor.


 * PROSE: A Prologue
 * COMIC: Four Doctors
 * The young looking War Doctor makes a decision. In one outcome, he ends up a Dalek spy.


 * COMIC: Pull to Open (flashback)
 * The Doctor fights various battles with the Squire.


 * COMIC: Outrun
 * The Doctor isn't aware of who wrote the term "Exterminhate" on a wall, placing it before The Organ Grinder, where he meets the Volatix Cabal.


 * COMIC: The Then and the Now
 * Along with, the Doctor lands on the Overcast homeworld during the Time War, where his actions on the planet unleash the Malignant.


 * COMIC: The Organ Grinder
 * COMIC: First Rule


 * COMIC: Kill God
 * COMIC: Fast Asleep
 * COMIC: Gently Pulls the Strings
 * COMIC: Physician, Heal Thyself
 * COMIC: The Bidding War
 * Ollistra orders the release of the Great Vampires against the Daleks. Arriving on Zenobia II, the War Doctor protests to Councillor Voltrix in Ollistra's absence.


 * AUDIO: The Innocent / The Thousand Worlds / The Heart of the Battle
 * AUDIO: Legion of the Lost / A Thing of Guile / The Neverwhen
 * AUDIO: The Shadow Vortex / The Eternity Cage / Eye of Harmony
 * AUDIO: Pretty Lies / The Lady of Obsidian / The Enigma Dimension
 * COMIC: Four Doctors
 * The War Doctor is fighting in the War.


 * PROSE: Engines of War
 * Takes place 400 years after The Night of the Doctor.

The Fall of Arcadia

 * TV: The Last Day
 * Takes place at the Fall of Arcadia before the scenes in The Day of the Doctor.


 * COMIC: Sky Jacks
 * Priyan tells Engin that Rassilon is initiating the Ultimate Sanction, placing it just before The End of Time.


 * TV: The End of Time
 * Set on the last day of the Time War. Dalek saucers are already on Gallifrey, placing it after The Last Day.


 * TV: The Day of the Doctor
 * The General states that the High Council's plan has failed, therefore placing it later in the last day of the Time War than The End of Time.