User:SOTO/Forum Archive/Inclusion debates/@comment-33695797-20200703215633

There was a bit of discussion about this on the talk page a while back, but I wanted to bring it here and settle it. Should TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual be a valid source?

So, right now is currently seen as a reference work. First off, I want to say that this is definitely wrong. "This is a work of non-fiction" is just false. It is an in-universe manual. At no point does it mention Doctor Who as a TV series or any episodes or real-world people. There are plenty of examples from the book, but the best one comes from one of the first pages: "The case studies contained within this manual are drawn from real-world events from the relative timeline of this TARDIS Type 40 TT Capsule." If that doesn’t convince you this is fiction, I don't know what will.

Also, this isn’t only an instruction manual. It's not what the First Doctor would find when he stole the TARDIS telling him how to pilot it. It's presented as an index file created by the Time Lord Academy to describe this specific TARDIS and its history to educate prospective time travelers about TARDISes, the Doctor, and the laws of time.

With that out of the way, this passes rule 4 of our validity policy. Rules 2 and 3 are also not points of contention. But there's one more issue to address, namely Rule 1 of our "four little rules": Only stories count.

We have at least two other examples, perfectly valid, that are comparable to this: The Book of the War and A Brief History of Time Lords. They're not typical prose stories, but they do have a narrative. I'll bring up Lawrence Miles's quote about The Book of the War: "...it's a continuity in a book, it's an encyclopaedia to the War Era universe. It's got a structure rather than a plot, the way history's got a structure or a Bible's got a structure. Some parts of the universe are cross-referenced with other parts, and it all comes together to make up this great big … vision."

- Lawrence Miles

Now obviously this quote was written about The Book of the War, and not TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual. But I'd argue the latter has more of a narrative than the former. Admittedly I have not read The Book of the War, but from what I can gather it is an encyclopedia. TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual is more than this; yes, at its core, it's a description of the TARDIS. But it creates a narrative to explain this, rather like a textbook would. (That actually would be a much better name for this book IMO, something like The TARDIS Textbook.) And we do have a valid in-universe textbook, that being A Brief History of Time Lords.

The various aspects of the TARDIS are described in an order and manner such that it creates a coherent narrative for the reader to understand. Furthermore, specific episodes are referenced and told as mini-stories to demonstrate these aspects. As an example for all of this, it does not just say "the chameleon circuit is what makes the TARDIS change form. Handle with care" as would be expected in a typical instruction manual. It explains what the chameleon circuit is, what it does, how it works, how it was created, and provides a "case study" for it— this being "The Cryon Incident", a description of the events of Attack of the Cybermen.

So while this isn't a full on novel, it isn't just an instruction manual. As I said, it's akin to a textbook, so it has a narrative. (Not to mention it has a wealth of information that would help this wiki as an encyclopedia...) So it passes Rule 1. It passes rules 2 and 3 without doubt, and it's set in-universe so it passes rule 4. So that's why I think this book should be valid.