The Kotturuh crisis was a conflict in the Dark Times that started when the Kotturuh began dispensing mortality to the species of the universe. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times)
The crisis was escalated by the intervention of the Tenth Doctor. Travelling back in time to the Dark Times through the Time Fracture after declaring himself the "Time Lord Victorious", he attempted to rewrite history by stopping the Kotturuh. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) This caused temporal fluctuations which altered timelines across the universe. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) As a result, the crisis spread into the future, embroiling the Dalek Restoration Empire (PROSE: The Last Message) and multiple other incarnations of the Doctor. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks) In particular, the Eighth and Ninth Doctors allied with the Dalek Time Squad and a group of Vampires to investigate and resolve the situation, (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy; COMIC: Monstrous Beauty) with the involvement of the Daleks inadvertently turning the crisis into one of the origins of the Last Great Time War. (PROSE: Exit Strategy)
Beginning[]
The rise of the Kotturuh[]
A Kotturuh in the Dark Times. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times)
After a "millennia or two" of laying low in the Dark Times, according to River Song's estimation, the Kotturuh began spreading throughout the universe, distributing mortality to the species of the universe (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) according to their "Design". (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) They started on the planet Birinji. (PROSE: The Dawn of the Kotturuh) During the judgement on Birinji, one Kotturuh woman, Inyit, turned against her people's mission and tried to make them stop. This resulted in a war between the Kotturuh which left Birinji a dead world and Inyit cast out. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
Species reacted to the Kotturuh in different ways. The Eternals fled, losing the ability to live their own lives in the process. According to River Song, the Dæmons fought back and were rendered all but extinct (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) in a "private Gotterdämmerung" which left their home planet Dæmos littered with gigantic skeletons of the "battle forms" they had adopted. (PROSE: Interference - Book One) While Song's summary of history put the Kotturuh as the destroyers, (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) the War Master, as he recalled it, credited the the regulator with the Dæmons' annihilation. (AUDIO: The Sublime Porte)
Some bargained with the Kotturuh; the Osiran Sutekh gained ability to spread the Gift of Death for himself and the Great Vampires kept their immortality in return for adopting a lifestyle of feeding on other species. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) One species wiped out by the Kotturuh left a spaceship abandoned in space, loaded with art and a source of Huon energy as reminders of their lost civilisation. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times) The Kotturuh visited Gallifrey and judged its people as having much to offer in the future. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) The Gallifreyans called their new natural deaths "the Ultimate". (COMIC: Monstrous Beauty) The Kotturuh judged Destran, but discovered a young girl, Estinee, who was inexplicably immune to their touch, and took her prisoner. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) The Kotturuh judged Magnox, granting its people a lifespan of ninety years. (AUDIO: The Minds of Magnox)
The people of Eloii were rendered sterile and short-lived to enable a race that the Kotturuh preferred to colonise their world. Hana Fallomax survived with her father by fleeing into space. Together, they built a prototype lifeshroud using crystals from a meteor believed to have come from the Kotturuh home planet, Mordeela. Her father eventually succumbed to the Kotturuh's judgement and Fallomax dedicated herself to making more lifeshrouds to try to protect others against the Kotturuh. The prototype was dependent on the Mordeela crystals, which could defuse the Kotturuh's energies, but required regularly changing the crystals to fresh ones to work. She mined crystals from Mordeela using drones and discovered Estinee being held prisoner and rescued her. Fallomax hoped to make the lifeshrouds work without burning through crystals so quickly, but was unable to achieve this. She exploited Estinee's immunity to death to sell non-functional lifeshrouds on worlds about to be judged by the Kotturuh, using this scam to fund her research. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)
Intervention of the Time Lord Victorious[]
The Tenth Doctor takes on the title "Time Lord Victorious" (TV: The Waters of Mars)
In 2059, the Doctor rewrote history by saving Adelaide Brooke on Mars and declared himself the "Time Lord Victorious". (TV: The Waters of Mars) When he returned her home to Davies Street, a Time Fracture was created. (PROSE: What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious") Adelaide was appalled by his dismissive attitude to her fellow survivors and self-proclaimed dominance over history and committed suicide to correct the timeline. Horrified by his actions, and a summons by Ood Sigma which he believed heralded his death, (TV: The Waters of Mars) the Doctor used the Time Fracture to flee into the Dark Times. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) Understanding that the Tenth Doctor was afraid of death, the travel back to the Dark Times was plotted by his TARDIS, as she understood he needed to make a major mistake and be taught a lesson. (PROSE: What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious")
He arrived on the planet Andalia and witnessed Estinee demonstrating Fallomax's lifeshrouds. He saved her from Brian the Ood, who had been contracted by High Ambassador Chalskal to test the technology's efficacy by trying to kill Estinee. The Kotturuh arrived on Andalia and issued their judgement, to the Doctor's fury. They reclaimed Estinee and departed, but the Doctor and Brian followed them. On Mordeela, they encountered various remnants and saw Fallomax rescue Estinee with the mining drone again. They fled back to the TARDIS, where the Kotturuh confronted them, angry at the Doctor's meddling. They marked him with a upcoming date on Andalia. Refusing to be intimidated, the Doctor met Fallomax and agreed to help make the lifeshrouds work better. Chalskal also tracked them down and, upon learning Estinee had overheard his world was due judgement in a few weeks, demanded they work on the lifeshrouds on his flagship.
After some weeks of work, the Doctor found the lifeshrouds couldn't be made to work for more than a couple of hours and began searching for a more permanent solution by reverse engineering the Kotturuh's power. During this time, Brian discovered Chalskal actually wanted the lifeshrouds to arm his mercenary forces, the Victis Fleet, for a coup and hadn't actually warned his people about the Kotturuh's coming. After the Doctor and Fallomax decided to use the Ambassador as a test subject for their current lifeshroud prototype, which only lasted six hours before requiring new crystals, Brian manipulated him into giving the Doctor control of the Fleet, believing he was effectively going to war with the Kotturuh. Though uncomfortable at this turn of events, the Doctor nonetheless accepted it.
The Doctor realised he had a physical sample of the Kotturuh from their confrontation and decided to return to Andalia with Estinee and Fallomax to analyse the recent Kotturuh energies there. He devised a necrotic virus to attack the Kotturuh and came up with two solutions: one to impose an average lifespan, and the other to wipe them out by limiting their lives to just fifteen minutes. He hoped to use this to rewrite history for the better. The Kotturuh used their influence on Estinee to have her shift his TARDIS forward in time to their appointed date and to kill Fallomax. They confronted the Doctor outside his TARDIS and tried to make Estinee kill him, but she refused and used the gun to detonate her lifeshroud. The explosion broke the vial containing the Doctor's lesser solution, but provoked him to unleash the greater one. The Kotturuh crumbled to dust before his eyes, now only able to live for fifteen minutes, as he declared himself the "Time Lord Victorious" again for his victory over the Bringers of Death. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)
Rewriting of time[]
The Doctor's actions in the Dark Times caused significant fluctuations in time. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) Numerous planets' timelines were rewritten, including Atharna and Wrax. (AUDIO: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not, The Enemy of My Enemy) The Dalek Restoration Empire may have only existed because of the anomalies, (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) and, when he met with the Daleks, the Tenth Doctor, from before he journeyed to the Dark Times in his timeline, speculated they had no longer fought in the Last Great Time War because of the changes. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks)
Dalek conflicts[]
The Dalek Emperor arrives on Islos. (WC: The Archive of Islos)
The Emperor of the Restoration received a message being sent across the universe by an ancient Dalek drone. He deduced that the drone was a survivor of a Time Squad that had yet to be sent back in time. From the message, the Emperor learnt that history was under attack and that the Doctor was involved. To obtain more information, he led a fleet to claim the Archive of Islos. (PROSE: The Last Message)
After the Daleks threatened to destroy the Archive, the Archivians appeared to surrender, but the Daleks found the building empty, and the Chief Archivian revealed that an entity from outside time and space had agreed to transport the Archive's contents and the people of Islos to safety in return for the Daleks. The Entity emerged from a portal (WC: The Archive of Islos) and attacked the Daleks, forcing them to retreat back to Skaro. There, they called up more forces to fight the Entity, but found their firepower ineffective, forcing them to evacuate their home planet. The Dalek Prime Strategist went to acquire reinforcements from the Sentinel of the Fifth Galaxy, who was caring for ten-thousand dormant Daleks. However, the Entity arrived before him and took the Sentinel and dormant Daleks under its influence. After the Strategist refused its offer to become the new Emperor, the Entity's army attacked, fought by the Daleks led by the Executioner until the Strategist advised the Emperor to withdraw again. (WC: The Sentinel of the Fifth Galaxy)
With the Daleks being defeated by the Entity, the Strategist plotted to pit it against another enemy of the Daleks - the Mechonoids. Making it appear that the Daleks were nearly extinct, (WC: Day of Reckoning) he and the Emperor travelled to Mechanus, claiming to seek the aid of the Mechanoids. The Emperor spoke with the Mechanoid Queen in her star chamber whilst the Strategist demanded to see a scientist. Eventually, Mechanoid 2150 took the Strategist to inspect the orbital defences. The Silver Daleks escorting them grew impatient and began to fight the Mechanoids, who destroyed them. Observing the skirmish, the Queen noted no reinforcements coming to their aid and wondered if the Emperor and Strategist were now the only Daleks left. The power was suddenly drained from the Mechonoid City, leaving the planet defenceless, and the Emperor revealed to the Queen that he had deliberately led the Entity there. (WC: Planet of the Mechanoids) Whilst the Entity laid siege to the Mechanoids' hasty defences, Mechanoid 2150 and the Strategist discovered a way to identify the Entity's energy trace and sent parts of it back to its original dimension. As the Entity broke through the Mechanoids, the Queen abandoned the Emperor out in the open, resulting in him suffering numerous strikes. He was saved when Mechanoid 2150 and the Strategist managed to use the orbital array to send the entire Entity back to its dimension. Furious at the Daleks' trick, the Queen ordered the wounded Emperor and Strategist to leave and declared that the Mechanoids would be coming for the Daleks. (WC: The Deadly Ally)
The Emperor and Strategist returned to Skaro and recalled other surviving Daleks there. When the Mechanoids attacked, they were overwhelmed by the reinforcements, forcing the Queen and 2150 to retreat. They sought the Strategist, who revealed his schemes, and they tried to convince him to turn on the Emperor. He pretended to agree and they escorted him through the battle to another chamber, where he and 2150 planned to use the City's beam projector to send the Emperor through a portal to the Entity's dimension. At the last moment, the Strategist betrayed the Mechanoids and modified the beam to send the Mechanoids through the portal instead. The Emperor congratulated him on defeating two enemies of the Daleks, though reminded him that "superior beings" were harder to manipulate. As they inspected the battlefield, the Entity briefly possessed a ruined Mechanoid and teased them that they didn't know what was coming for them. (WC: Day of Reckoning)
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The Hond attack the Prime Strategist. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks)
This new threat was the Hond, a species from the Dark Times that had now returned and were also unleashed by the Dalek invasion of the Archive of Islos. In fact, the Emperor learned that the Entity had actually been a slave to the Hond. (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) The Daleks were attacked by the Hond after a failed attempt to ally with them. With the Daleks losing, and Skaro itself in danger of falling, the Strategist suggested the recruitment of the Doctor to help them. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks)
The Doctor's involvement[]
Saving the Daleks[]
A Grey Dalek leads Silver Daleks attempting exterminate the Tenth Doctor. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks)
At a point in his life long before he became the Time Lord Victorious, the Tenth Doctor was brought to Skaro to help the Restoration Empire resolve the coming attack on Skaro by the Hond. Though disturbed at the Restoration Empire's existence and their lack of knowledge about the Time War, the Doctor agreed to help them stop the Hond, which he believed should have been extinct. Working with the Strategist he investigated the Vault of Obscenities and discovered a way to pacify the Hond. This method succeeded just as the Hond approached Skaro's defences. A Grey Dalek turned on the Doctor and ordered his extermination, but he escaped with the aid of the Thirteenth Doctor. The Strategist defended this failure to the Emperor and suggested the Daleks make use of other Doctors. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks)
The Emperor created a Time Squad to investigate the temporal fluctuations and return them to the Daleks' advantage. The Squad included the Strategist, Executioner, a Scientist and time sensitive Silver Daleks. It was led by the Dalek Time Commander. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times) The Emperor also pre-recorded a message for the Commander and Executioner in the event of them failing to correct history. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
The Eighth Doctor's involvement[]
The Eighth Doctor and Brian on Atharna. (AUDIO: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not)
After the Eighth Doctor began noticing fractures in time, he warned the curator of the Verbier Museum of the Impossible, Anke Von Grisel, that the "dark times [were] coming". (PROSE: Canaries)
Whilst trying to visit the 700 wonders of the universe, the Doctor encountered the Network on a space station over Orriv. He attempted to contain it but was forced to flee when it duplicated itself. He subsequently worked with the Tenth Justice Fleet to warn travellers away from Orriv. (AUDIO: Echoes of Extinction) Seeking another wonder of the universe the Doctor travelled to Atharna, but discovered that the ocean world was now inexplicably a desert. Finding Brian the Ood and Felicity wounded, he helped them get to the nearest town, Moslin. Despite his desire to investigate the change to time, the Doctor became embroiled in Brian's contract against Felicity and her wife, eventually agreeing to take the assassin off-world if he abandoned the contract. However, as they boarded the TARDIS, it was pulled away by the Daleks, causing Brian to fall into the Time Vortex. (AUDIO: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not) After a "little nudge" by the Tenth Doctor's TARDIS, (PROSE: What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious") Brian ended up in the Dark Times. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)
Captured by the Daleks, (AUDIO: He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not) the Doctor was brought before the Time Commander. He was told about the Time Squad's mission and agreed to help their investigation. They travelled to Wrax to analyse the planet's altered timeline, though the Daleks were also interested in the Devolver, a superweapon on the planet. While the Strategist and the Doctor explored the Wraxians' gallery of artefacts from civilisations they had defeated, the Commander, Scientist, and Executioner met the Wraxian President. After tempting them with offers of an alliance and a demonstration of the Devolver, she trapped the three leaders with the intention of using the Devolver against them. The Commander ordered the Silver Daleks to invade Wrax to stop her, but the Strategist convinced him to let the Doctor negotiate. The Doctor agreed with the President that the Daleks would withdraw in return for the Devolver's dismantling, and, in exchange, the Doctor would tell the Daleks his theory regarding the source of the alterations. Secretly, the Commander sent the Executioner back to Wrax to use the Devolver against the Wraxians. (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy) The Devolver was left abandoned until being discovered by the Master, who created a smaller version that he could wield as a weapon. (AUDIO: Master Thief)
The Doctor told the Daleks the source of the alterations was in the Dark Times and connected his TARDIS to their timeship's engines so they could travel back there. (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy) To make sure the Eighth Doctor and Daleks could take part in her plan to teach the Tenth Doctor a lesson, the TARDIS permitted them to travel back. (PROSE: What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious") In the Dark Times, the Doctor and Time Squad eventually located the source of the alterations and travelled to Mordeela. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
The Ninth Doctor's involvement[]
Having been turned into a Vampire, Rose attacks the Ninth Doctor. (COMIC: Monstrous Beauty)
Before she allowed the Eighth Doctor to travel back, the TARDIS also believed it was about time for the Ninth Doctor to win a war fought against death, so she decided to allow him to travel back to the Dark Times. The TARDIS was bringing the Ninth and Eighth Doctors to the past through the Time Fracture so they could be the ones to teach the Tenth Doctor he had made a mistake (PROSE: What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious") Arriving in the Dark Times, the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler were caught up in the Eternal War between Gallifrey and the Great Vampires. They were captured by Gallifreyan forces commanded by Rassilon and escaped during an attack of Cucurbites. Rose was abducted by the Vampires, forcing the Doctor to turn back and aid the Gallifreyans. He conspired to steal Rassilon's spaceship with a Gallifreyan scientist, Androkan, who had despaired at what Gallifrey had become after the War and deduced the Doctor came from their future.
They followed the Curcubites to a coffin ship, unaware that Rassilon was tracking them, and infiltrated it. They found it run by Vampires who had been turned and enslaved by the Three Mad Sisters, who obeyed the Great One. After they were captured, Androkan was killed by Friar Grystok, an acolyte of the Sisters, who took the Doctor before them and revealed Rose had been turned by them. The Doctor held off the Vampiric Rose's attacks and managed to send her to sleep when Rassilon's forces began attacking the coffin ship. The Sisters died during the attack and the Doctor convinced a Vampire guard commander, Drogann, to seize the chance for freedom. Using a synth-blood the Doctor and Androkan had developed, Drogann freed the slaves whilst the Doctor sent out Rassilon's ship to distract the Gallifreyans so the coffin ship could escape. The Doctor used the synth-blood to cure Rose, but she passed out, needing some time to recover. He found a "nice moon" for Rose to recover on and left her in the care of Centia. (COMIC: Monstrous Beauty) Whilst she recovered, the Doctor stayed with the Free Undead as they searched for a planet to settle on. He felt something was wrong with the Dark Times and investigating this lead the Undead to Mordeela. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
Battle of Mordeela[]
- Main article: Battle of Mordeela
The Doctors and the Daleks during the crisis. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
The Tenth Doctor, having adopted Time Lord robes, returned to his fleet, which he had ordered to approach Mordeela. He intended to seal it off so no-one else could use the Kotturuh's power source and believed he could now completely rewrite history. As his fleet arrived, Kotturuh ships transmitted to the Doctor, begging him to show mercy as they died. He refused and prepared to order his ships to attack Mordeela, but the Dalek saucer led by the Eighth Doctor and the Vampire coffin ship commanded by the Ninth Doctor arrived in front of his fleet. The two Doctors begged their future self to halt his attack, but he dismissed them as a Kotturuh trick and ordered his fleet to fire. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)
This resulted in Mordeela exploding. The Daleks fired on the fleet and sent out Dalek Drones and scout ships, destroying many of the ships, whilst the coffin ship fired ineffectively at the fleet. Brian used ancient weaponry he had collected from numerous powers to strike back, forcing the Daleks back, and to shield the fleet. The Undead sent out the Bloodsmen, which were able to bypass the shields Brian had created and pick off the crew of the ships. Appalled at the escalating battle, the Doctors telepathically communicated to organise a cease-fire, but none were able to rein in their forces. Eventually all of the Victis Fleet except the Tenth Doctor's flagship had been destroyed or fled. Despite his ship's engines being damaged, the Tenth Doctor was able to deploy his weapon to seal the gateway with the ruins of Mordeela, which he used to mask their escape. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
Further adventures in the Dark Times[]
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The Tenth Doctor and Brian in the Dark Times. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times)
After the Battle, the Tenth Doctor, still wearing the Time Lord robes, fled alone to a desert planet where he was feasted on by ghosts, who convinced him he had saved them. Brian tracked him down and destroyed the ghosts, releasing the Doctor from their influence. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times) The Doctor and Brian then travelled together to Magnox, where the Doctor intended to ask the Minds of Magnox if he had done the right thing in destroying the Kotturuh. Whilst the Doctor gained an audience with the Minds, who laughed at his question and said he would have to find out the answer himself, Brian was contracted to join a team seeking to assassinate them. A Kotturuh ship commanded by Avkhan arrived, demanding the Minds tell them how to survive their death and defeat the Doctor or they would wipe them out. The Minds asked Avkhan to come to them personally, but were killed by Brian before he arrived. The Doctor used a data field to incapacitate Avkhan and the Minds' technology to temporarily halt the Kotturuh ship, giving him enough time to order an evacuation and return to his ship with Brian and two Magnoxians. Magnox was reduced to ruins by the Kotturuh, whilst the Doctor helped the survivors reach Islos. (AUDIO: The Minds of Magnox) The few remaining Kotturuh rededicated themselves to continuing judgements before they succumbed to the Doctor's death sentence. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
Travelling with the Vampires, the Ninth Doctor, accompanied by Ikalla, visited Parvanna, where they were hunted by an invisible creature, which the Doctor held off by keeping a sonic stake alight until their ship picked them up. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times)
Believing they had failed to correct the timeline, the Dalek Time Squad began a back-up plan of experimenting on the unique lifeforms of the Dark Times to weaponise them. (PROSE: Mission to the Known) The Time Commander also dispatched scout ships to kill the surviving Kotturuh, fearing their judgement on the Daleks. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) The Dalek Time Squad harvested Velosia under the pretence of saving their best and brightest from the oncoming Kotturuh. Once they left the planet, the Daleks harvested them, leaving the Velosians to face the Kotturuh's judgement without their best minds. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times)
The Eighth Doctor, meanwhile, found himself as little more than a prisoner, as the Daleks only needed him to ensure their eventual escape from the Dark Times, though did join their explorations. During one such exploration, he acquired a spider plant, (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) and discovered an abandoned spaceship left as a memorial. The Daleks attempted to absorb the Huon energy of the ship, forcing him to help them again when it went wrong. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times)
The Daleks targeted the Vampires for their experiments. The Squad attacked the Ninth Doctor's coffin ship, but the Eighth Doctor forewarned the Undead, allowing them to escape whilst he fled with his ninth incarnation in his TARDIS. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) After the Doctor left the Daleks, the Commander and Executioner received pre-recorded orders from the Emperor for the event of their failure. He instructed them to destroy Gallifrey to prevent the rise of the Time Lords. (PROSE: Mission to the Known) Whilst the Commander and Executioner pursued that plan, referred to as the "Ultimate End", the Strategist and Scientist continued the experiments. They were seeking to create a more biologically efficient form of Dalek known as the Dalek Symbiont. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
Together the Eighth and Ninth Doctors went in search of their tenth incarnation. Travelling to Hoolan, they discovered a malfunctioning time machine, whose pilot had attempted to witness the Big Bang, linking the Dark Times to the future. They repaired the time machine and sent her home. (COMIC: Tales of the Dark Times) They eventually tracked the Tenth Doctor to Entranxis and arrived as he was meeting the Death Brokers to acquire new weapons for his ship, which he had christened the HMS Donna. Dalek scouts also targeted Entranxis to capture Ikalla, who the Brokers had captured from the fleeing Undead. In the ensuing pursuit, the Ninth Doctor escaped with Ikalla, whilst the other Doctors fled to the Donna. A Kotturuh ship approached Entranxis as the Donna escaped, but was destroyed by the Daleks before they could judge the planet. The Ninth Doctor reunited with his other selves on the Donna, but was angered at their lack of compassion for the dying Kotturuh, so set out with Ikalla to help them. With their target lost, the Daleks deployed missiles to set Entranxis' atmosphere alight, wiping out the planet. Horrified, the Eighth and Tenth Doctors resolved to stop the Daleks. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
The Ultimate End[]
The Ninth Doctor and Ikalla's search for Kotturuh led them to Birinji, where they met Inyit, by now the last of the Kotturuh, who explained the truth of the Kotturuh's existence to them. Meanwhile, the other Doctors' pursuit of the Daleks led to the discovery of a damaged coffin ship, which had been raided by the Daleks. The Doctors discovered Bloodsmen onboard who revealed the Daleks had taken the Great Vampire the ship had been transporting and agreed to help the Doctors and Brian get onboard the Dalek saucer. The Doctors split up, with the Tenth Doctor and a Bloodsman investigating the experiments, and the Eighth Doctor and Brian ending up on the bridge, where the Eighth Doctor learnt the Commander was sending a scout ship to kill the last of the Kotturuh on Birinji before setting off for the Ultimate End. The Tenth Doctor witnessed the Strategist and Scientist extracting Great Vampire DNA and forcing it into a Dalek mutant, creating the Symbiont. The experiment drained the saucer's power significantly however, and, in the ensuing confusion, the two Doctors escaped with the Bloodsman whilst Brian hid. The Commander confronted the Strategist, revealing he had jeopardised the Emperor's plans. The Strategist countered that he had been unaware of those plans and showed the completed Symbiont to the Commander.
The Donna saved Inyit by destroying the Dalek scout ship and the Doctors regrouped, with the Tenth Doctor finally coming to regret his judgement on the Kotturuh after meeting Inyit. Brian contacted them, revealing he had wired himself to an explosive attached to the saucer's engines to protect himself from the Daleks and had learnt their destination - Gallifrey. Realising the Daleks intended to destroy their homeworld before the rise of the Time Lords, the Doctors went to its defence aboard the Donna, with the mercenary crew volunteering to help. Ikalla stayed behind to care for Inyit, who was reaching the end of her new lifespan.
The Tenth Doctor rescued Brian using the TARDIS before the Daleks could circumvent his trap and kill him. This led to the Strategist realising the Doctors would defend Gallifrey and deciding to enhance the Drones with the Symbiont's DNA, creating an army of undying Daleks, while the original Symbiont was sent to Birinji to kill Inyit.
In the Defence of Gallifrey, the Donna sustained significant damage, despite Brian deploying a Kastrian barrier and the aid of three Free Undead coffin ships. Realising the undead Daleks couldn't be stopped, the Doctors planned a desperate gambit of colliding the Donna with the saucer, in the hope that the paradox of multiple versions of the same TARDIS and Time Lord being destroyed would wipe out the Daleks. Their manoeuvre was rendered unnecessary when Inyit used her final energies to judge the Symbiont as it approached her, wiping out it and all the Daleks sharing its DNA. This killed many of the Drones and threw the Time Squad into a panic, fearing the judgement could spread to pure Dalek DNA. This led to their assault halting, despite the Strategist's demands to push the attack, giving the Eighth Doctor time to board the saucer with the aid of a Bloodsman and trigger a remote detonator for Brian's explosive. The explosion forced the saucer into the Time Vortex and away from the Dark Times, foiling the Ultimate End. In the aftermath, the two remaining Doctors abandoned the crippled Donna to burn up in Gallifrey's atmosphere and returned to Birinji in their TARDISes. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
End of the Dalek Time Squad[]
After it was thrown into the Time Vortex, the Eighth Doctor continued to sabotage the Dalek saucer, but tried to arrange his sabotage so it appeared to be a series of malfunctions rather than deliberate, as the Commander believed he had died in the initial explosion. The Squad was divided on how to deal with the situation; the Strategist and Scientist worked together on attempts to repair the ship, whilst the Commander had the Doctor's TARDIS brought to the bridge to force the Doctor to confront him, and gave the Executioner total freedom to purge the ship of all aliens. The Doctor infiltrated the Scientist's laboratory to sabotage it's artificial gravity, where he learnt about two aliens, Tiska and Groth, the Daleks had captive in cryogenic suspension, who had now been released due to their desperate repairs. He went to help the two, secretly leaving an improvised explosive attached to the Scientist.
The Eighth Doctor as the Dalek Time Squad's saucer is destroyed around him (AUDIO: Mutually Assured Destruction)
He helped the prisoners reach the bulkheads, purused by the increasingly insane Executioner, which was now damaging the ship further and killing Daleks in its rampage. The Commander was unable to rein it in, due to the earlier autonomy he had granted it, to the Strategist's frustration. After Groth was killed by the Executioner, the Doctor and Tiska reached the bulkheads, enabling the Doctor to detonate his device, which killed the Scientist and exposed the other half of the ship to the Vortex and broke the hull. With the timeship now breaking apart, the Strategist attempted to bargain with the Doctor for safe passage in his TARDIS. The Doctor played along, but, on the bridge, he revealed the deal to the Commander. This provoked a firefight between the Commander and Strategist, resulting in the Commander's death. The Drones turned on the Strategist as a traitor, creating a distraction which allowed the Doctor and Tiska to escape in the TARDIS. (AUDIO: Mutually Assured Destruction)
As the ship broke apart, the Daleks were torn apart by the Time winds. The Strategist managed to escape the Vortex by using Kotturuh crystals he had stored in his casing to power an emergency temporal shift. (PROSE: Exit Strategy) One Drone also survived, ending up adrift in space. It sent the message which the Emperor had received earlier in the crisis. (PROSE: The Last Message) It was eventually discovered in the Oort cloud by the Starship Future in 2985 and was brought aboard. It reconstructed its casing and attempted to cultivate a new Dalek army from the dormant colonists aboard. It was stopped by the Fourth Doctor, who it attempted to forewarn about his future as the Time Lord Victorious to avert his destruction of the Time Squad. Afterwards, the Doctor believed it defeated, but it had actually survived. (AUDIO: Genetics of the Daleks) It was later stopped by the Thirteenth Doctor. (A Dalek Awakens (escape game))
Resolution[]
Returning to Birinji, the Ninth and Tenth Doctors learnt of Inyit's death, with the Tenth Doctor expressing his remorse for his actions. Ikalla revealed Inyit had passed on her last energies to her. The Free Undead settled on Birinji under Ikalla's leadership, with her having become "something new" due to receiving Inyit's last energies. The Doctors realised that mortality would still enter the universe, but would now be an entirely natural process without anyone controlling it. Though happy with that change, the Tenth Doctor agreed he had gone too far and vowed not to alter history any further and the two incarnations made amends. After Brian decided to remain with the new settlers on Birinji, the Tenth Doctor departed the Dark Times alone, (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) while the Ninth Doctor returned to Rose. When she finally awoke, she noticed his battered appearance and he presented her with the spider plant. Together, they returned to his TARDIS and left the Dark Times. (COMIC: Monstrous Beauty)
Consequences[]
Salvage[]
Long after the Dark Times, Faction Paradox visited the ruined remains of the extinct Dæmons' homeworld and recovered the skeletons of the Dæmons who had died in titan-sized "battle forms" during the Dæmons' "Gotterdämmerung". They used these bones to create warships they used in the War in Heaven. (PROSE: Interference - Book One)
The Eleventh Doctor later visited the ruins of Magnox and recovered a surviving data drive, which he brought to the survivors on Islos. (AUDIO: The Minds of Magnox)
UNIT and the Time Fracture[]
The Time Fracture at a former UNIT Black Site. (WC: 14681 UNIT Field Log)
The Time Fracture, which the Doctor's actions had created, (PROSE: What the TARDIS thought of "Time Lord Victorious") was being observed at a former UNIT Black Site in 2020. (WC: 14681 UNIT Field Log) Various aliens began to manifest through it and arrive in London, including a Dalek, a Cyberman and a Time Lord. The former UNIT personnel were able to intercept them, but the Fracture kept growing. (WC: 14683 UNIT Field Log) Eventually, the Doctor sent a list of names of hundreds of individuals who could help resolve the Fracture and save the universe to the former UNIT site. Kate Stewart broke every security protocol they had to broadcast to the individuals to ask them to join Operation Time Fracture. (WC: 14684 UNIT Field Log)
By February 2024, extensive records of the crisis existed in UNIT's visual interface database of areas and enemies of interest, labeled as TLV Cards. They listed the Tenth Doctor in his Time Lord Victorious persona as a "known enemy" of UNIT, alongside the likes of the Kotturuh and Emperor of Restoration. (PROSE: Incoming Transmission - February Update Video [+]Time Lord Victorious (2024).)
The Last Great Time War[]
- Main article: Last Great Time War
The Capitol on Gallifrey, surrounded by downed Dalek ships, during the Last Great Time War. (TV: The End of Time)
Early in the crisis, the changes to history had made it so the Restoration Empire had no memory of the Last Great Time War in which the Daleks fought against the Time Lords. (COMIC: Defender of the Daleks) However, the course of history, minus the Kotturuh's role in spreading death, was restored to normal at the end of the crisis. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) Additionally, the Dalek Prime Strategist and, by his reckoning, the Emperor of the Restoration plotted for a war against the Time Lords after the Dalek defeat in the Dark Times, meaning the crisis had ensured the Time War would occur. (PROSE: Exit Strategy) After the fighting began, the Time War between the Daleks and Time Lords was effectively fought for all of eternity, with the Doctor fighting on the frontlines (PROSE: Engines of War) after regenerating to become a warrior. (TV: The Night of the Doctor)
During the War, the Time Lords looked into the past and future of their enemy, with a range of sources providing "recent intelligence" that indicated the Dalek Time Squad had somehow managed to enter the Dark Times, at the periphery of the temporal exclusion zone observed by most time sensitive races. Knowing that the Time Squad was ruthless even by Dalek standards and that they would use time itself as a weapon given their temporal position, they were included in a guide to the Daleks written for the War, with images provided labeling members of (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual) the Restoration Empire. (PROSE: The Restoration Empire) However, thanks to the Doctors' successful defense of Gallifrey in the Dark Times, its history remained safe from that specific threat, (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) although the Lords of Time were outmaneuvered and outnumbered in the War itself. (PROSE: Engines of War) Nevertheless, by most accounts, the conflict ended with multiple incarnations of the Doctor teaming up to freeze Gallifrey into a pocket universe, saving their homeworld and destroying nearly the entire Dalek race in its own crossfire. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
The Tenth Doctor’s final days[]
After leaving the Dark Times, the Tenth Doctor came to regret his actions during the crisis, believing him wiping out the Kotturuh had only made things worse. (AUDIO: Echoes of Extinction) He continued to defy Ood Sigma’s summons however, even despite encouragement from his fourth incarnation when they met during a Dalek attack on the Cathedral of Contemplation. (AUDIO: Out of Time) Among his detours, he saved a galaxy from being time locked by the Time Agency and named it Alison, (AUDIO: The Shattered Hourglass) helped Seruba Velak and Rivesh Mantilax escape the Viperox, (TV: Dreamland) encountered the Weeping Angels alongside his sixth incarnation, (AUDIO: Wink) travelled with Gabby Gonzalez and Cindy Wu, (COMIC: Revolutions of Fear, Arena of Fear) became trapped in the Pre-Time War universe for a time, (AUDIO: Dalek Universe) investigated Zygons invading England in 1562, becoming engaged to Queen Elizabeth I in the process, and worked with his past and future incarnations to save Gallifrey at the end of the Time War, though he could not retain his memories of that due to the timelines being out of sync. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Eventually the Tenth Doctor arrived on a spaceship approaching Orriv, the Ortega, and became embroiled in their hunt for the Network, a psychic entity which had wiped out the planet’s population. After it killed and possessed the crew, the Doctor devised a way to contain the Network and confronted it. Recognising the Network had become a murderer due to being inadvertently tormented, the Doctor offered to get it help if it allowed him to contain it, citing his recent experiences of meeting death with death only making things worse, which it accepted. As he returned to the ship, the Doctor heard a broadcast by his eighth incarnation on behalf of the Tenth Justice Fleet, warning people away from Orriv. Though tempted to respond after realising the events of the Kotturuh crisis and Time War that his younger self was about to endure, the Tenth Doctor chose not to. (AUDIO: Echoes of Extinction)
After more detours, including being lured into a trap by an alien attempting to steal his TARDIS, (PROSE: The Advent of Fear) reuniting with Lady Christina de Souza, (AUDIO: Last Chance) and rescuing Princess Cilia, the Tenth Doctor finally realised his time was up (PROSE: The Doctor on My Shoulder) and went to the Ood Sphere to meet Ood Sigma. There the Ood elders gave him a prophecy that “it was returning” and showed him the resurrection of the Saxon Master. Rushing back to 21st century Earth, he unsuccessfully hunted down the unstable Master, whose resurrection was failing, and was reunited with Wilfred Mott. He confessed to Wilf that things had gone wrong recently, even weeping, and his fears of his coming death or regeneration. After losing the Master again when he was captured by Joshua Naismith, the Doctor sought out Wilf and together they investigated the Naismith mansion. Discovering two Vinvocci exploiting Naismith’s attempts to repair the Immortality Gate, the Doctor realised what it was capable of but was too late to stop the Master using it transform the entire human race, save Wilf who took refuge in a radiation-shielded booth, into the Master Race.
The Tenth Doctor regenerates. (TV: The End of Time)
The Doctor and Wilf escaped with the Vinvocci to their spaceship and hid, until the Doctor was stirred into action when the Master broadcast that he’d found a White Point Star sent to Earth. The Doctor reached the Naismith mansion just as the Master used it to connect to the signal implanted in his mind by the Time Lords on the last day of the Time War, instigating the Ultimate Sanction. Facing down President Rassilon and a vanguard of Time Lords with Wilf’s gun, the Doctor was guided by the Woman into shooting the White Point Star instead, sending Gallifrey back into the War, with the Master saving the Doctor from Rassilon by taking the opportunity to exact revenge for his years of mental torment and going back with them. Astonished he was still alive, the Doctor was horrified that Wilf was stuck in a radiation booth which was about to flood, having taken the place of a frightened engineer during the chaos. Though he initially railed against his fate, the Doctor went into the opposite booth and released Wilf, fatally poisoning himself. (TV: The End of Time) Dying, the Tenth Doctor took the opportunity to visit all of his former companions (TV: Death of the Doctor) before finally regenerating into his next incarnation. (TV: The End of Time)
Return of a forgotten Faction[]
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Different and Same, whose bodies were made of paradox energy. (PROSE: The Paradox Moon)
As result of the Doctor's actions in the crisis, numerous artefacts from erased timelines began to surface. They were collected by Anke Von Grisel at her Verbier Museum of the Impossible. The Doctor had tried to warn her about the exhibits and asked to take them away in numerous incarnations, which she refused. Eventually, the Curator called Anke to confess that her exhibits existed because of his actions as the "Time Lord Victorious", which he feared had "opened a door" and "let something in". As he spoke on the phone, the two cultist masks in her collection came to life: (PROSE: Canaries) Siblings Different and Same, the last remnants of a forgotten time faction. (PROSE: The Paradox Moon)
The Thirteenth Doctor helped the Shadow Proclamation investigate the anomalous moon that appeared in their orbit. She discovered that it was a trap constructed by Siblings Different and Same, who were seeking revenge on the Doctor for ending the Time War. However, the Siblings' makeshift TARDIS backfired, and the Doctor took Different as a companion after Same sacrificed himself to save her. (PROSE: The Paradox Moon)
Behind the scenes[]
- The Kotturuh crisis and its repercussions drove the plot of the Time Lord Victorious multimedia project.
