A History of the Whoniverse

The Twenty-fourth Century (2301-2400)

By the beginning of the twenty-fourth century, suspended animation spacecraft were totally obsolete, as super light drives had become faster and faster. [Thus, even the slowest warpship was cheaper than a lagship.]

The Highest Science page 49.

c. 2305

Professor Amy Saraband begins co-ordinating archaeological digs. Over the next fifteen years she will co-ordinate twelve digs.

Fifteen years before Kursaal page 3.

c. 2305

Gray Corporation acquires Saturnia Regna, which they plan to develop into a leisure world.

More than a decade before HALF appeared on the planet, according to Kursaal page 16.

2309

Humans invent duronite, an alloy of machonite and duralinium. Duronite is so strong that it would require nuclear fission to break it open.

Duronite was invented about 400 years after Birthright (page 66).

2314

De Witte is believed to have produced a plan of the Pentallanion Theatre of Menaxus at this date.

According to page 35 of Theatre of War.

2315

Professor Bernice Summerfield publishes the book An Eye for Wisdom: Repetitive Poems of the Early Ikkaban Period.

SLEEPY (page 102).

Di Pietro Palladio writes a letter applying for to become Admissions Overseer at the Pentallanian Theatre on Menaxus.

This letter is dated 2315 on page 148 of Theatre of War.

c. 2317

HALF (Helping All Life Forms) begins a direct action campaign against the construction work on Saturnia Regna to turn it into a leisure world called Kursaal.

Three years before Kursaal page 16.

c. 2318

Kadijk's wife leaves him.

Two years before Kursaal page 20.

c. 2320

HALF's direct action campaign on Kursaal steps up a gear. Over the next two months, there will be six acts of sabotage.

According to pages 17 and 23 of Kursaal.

c. 2320

KURSAAL

Security forces on Kursaal capture or kill the HALF activists who have been disrupting the construction of the leisure world in the wake of their recent disruption of the comms system and murder of the only news crew on the planet. HALF are also blamed for the disappearance of Maximilian Gray, the man in charge of the project. HALF's leader Bernard Cockaigne is then pardoned by the company in a private deal.

It is unclear when this is set. Kursaal is clearly a human colony, it is an era where big corporations have immense power, Ogrons and Alpha Centurans are among the visitors to Kursaal in the later segment, and flitters - which are standard transport technology in the 30th Century are in use on Kursaal. The alien presence on Kursaal suggests that it isn't the height of the Earth Empire, so I've chosen an era not long after The Leisure Hive when Leisure Worlds are just taking off.

c. 2323

Kursaal opens as a leisure planet. This year, several Jax Drones escape from the ZooPark, and a certain group of Service Quarters are built, one of which will house Bernard Cockaigne. Somewhere around this point, an intensive care unit is opened with brand new equipment.

The Doctor estimates that they have arrived a few years early on page 29 of Kursaal, and it was due to open in three years time from page 17. The breakout and service quarters are both dated as twelve years ago on pages 198-199 and 217-218 respectively. The intensive care unit is said to be a decade old on page 195.

2330

THE HAPPINESS PATROL

The government of Terra Alpha falls overnight.

The date is uncertain. It's 'several centuries' in Ace's future and interplanetary travel is by 'Rocket Pods'. Trevor Sigma dismisses Earth as not a significant power, but then Terra Alpha is clearly a pretty isolated colony. The Galactic Census Bureau is based at galactic centre. The story is set 'a long time' before Decalog 2: The Trials of Tara. It's certainly long enough for the Kandyman's remains to travel as far as Tara.

c. 2335

Commander Kadijk begins planning a top-secret operation to bust the drug barons working out of Kursaal. It is codenamed Operation Bluebeard

Six months before Kursaal page 230.

c. 2335

KURSAAL

On the planet Kursaal, a number of events occur on the same day. These include all sixty of the wolves in the ZooPark disappearing, a shuttle thought to contain security chief Kadijk, crashing into the ThemePark area of Kursaal, and Operation Bluebeard, in which a number of regional drug barons are arrested by the security forces.

Both the Doctor (page 185) and Kadijk (page 231) say that this is fifteen years after the first part of the book.

2342

The Rutan attack a Sontaran cruiser. The Sontarans find one survivor - Major Karne - in an escape pod. Unknown to them, Major Karne actually died in the attack, having been replaced by a Rutan spy.

This is the prologue to Lords of the Storm. There are two different dates given for this. Loxx has been working with Karne for 10 years (page 9), meeting him during this event. Karne has been in Sontaran form for nearly 30 years (page 263). I go with this date, suggesting that Loxx and Karne are not posted together for some time after this.

2345

Darius Cheynor is born.

He is 42 on page 6 of Infinite Requiem.

2350

Earth was at war with the Jullatii. Humanity's victory was, in part, due to the bosun cannon, which had been designed by INITEC.

According to Vaughn in Original Sin (page 287).

By the mid-24th century, Earth had undergone a lot of changes. Southern England was now taken up with a huge Central City, which replaced London. Part of what had been West London, including Perivale, was taken up with a vast forest. [This was intended to be a recreational nature reserve.]

In The Sensorites, London has not existed for 400 years, but been replaced by a Central City. In The Dimension Riders (page 68), we learn that Perivale is part of a large forest.

Marjorie Postine was a child who was fascinated by guns. At school she was academically poor, and had trouble making friends. She made some friends by rent-a-beating - beating up people for a small fee. She received electroshock therapy after one serious incident, and her parents sold her to the military. She would later survive being on the front line in seventeen major conflicts.

According to The Highest Science pages 178-179, which date this as the mid-24th Century, and page 22.

2355

DECALOG 3: FEGOVY

A robot called Fegovy invites several groups to bid for an item known as Face of Humanity. He intends to trap them and claim bounty.

There is no date on this story. It features spacefaring humans. It must, however, be sufficiently before Decalog 3: Continuity Errors to allow the New Alexandrians to organise their vast collection of knowledge into the library seen in that story. Placing it here gives them three centuries in which to do it.

2355

Pandit Lal starts working at the BRW laboratories, in the biochemical division. His speciality is Polymerase chain reactions.

Sixteen years before Lords of the Storm (page 47).

2360

Humans colonise Tairngaire.

Over 300 years before Shadowmind (page 32).

2360

Karne and Loxx are first posted together.

Loxx has been working with Karne for 10 years by the Prologue of Lords of the Storm (page 9) - in 2370.

c. 2361

Klift is born.

The Highest Science. He is aged 40 years on page 30, making him physically 68 on page 32. So he was 28 when he went into the sleep capsule in 2389.

2362

Chandra starts working in a complex on Agni, a moon of the gas giant Indra in the Unukalhai system.

Lords of the Storm. This is eight years ago (page 7) from 2370 (page 6).

2368

Ambika's wife dies in a shuttle crash. Following this, her daughter Nur has to take on occasional ceremonial duties.

Lords of the Storm. This is said to be three years ago on page 26. On page 72, this is said to be a couple of years ago.

December 2370

The Sontarans capture the human complex on Agni.

This is the prologue to Lords of the Storm. The year is on page 6. This is said to be two months ago [from 2371] on page 68. I'm arbitrarily assuming that the two months are December and February rather than November and January.

February 2371

LORDS OF THE STORM

There are a number of abductions from the colony world Raghi, a moon of the gas giant Indra. At the same time, a new disease breaks out. Soon after this, an administration ship attempts to visit Agni. It is attacked, and those on board manage to escape back to Raghi. They report that the Sontarans, a race hitherto unknown to humanity, have taken over the base. A mission is launched to rescue the hypnotised crew on Agni. It finds the Sontarans have left the Agni base, their plan almost complete. They have tagged the Raghi population to appear as Sontarans. They intend to lure a Rutan fleet to Indra, where they will destroy it by using captured Tzun technology to ignite Indra. The Sontaran plot is defeated when the Tzun nacelle is destroyed by a kamikaze attack in Indra's atmosphere. The humans then make a deal with the Rutan, giving them information about the Sontarans plans and location in exchange for overlooking the colony.

According to the Doctor it is 2371 (page 23). Events in 2370 are described as being 2 months ago on page 68.

In the latter part of the century, there was a war around the Tokl Rim Worlds.

Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp.

3rd July 2377

TRIAL OF A TIME LORD: MINDWARP

On Thoros-Beta, a scientist named Crozier had been experimenting with brain transfer. His experiments are stopped by the intervention of King Ycranos of Krontep and the Time Lords.

The Valeyard says that it's the 24th century, last quarter (2374-2400), fourth year (2377), seventh month (July), third day.

2378

THE ANDROIDS OF TARA

On the planet Tara, Count Grendel unsuccessfully attempts to take the throne from Prince Reynart.

Romana says that they have travelled 400 years in time, presumably into the future.

The adventurer Jonquil the Intrepid tracks down two vampires - Lord Jake and Lady Madeleine - and kills them. Their descendants are rumoured to survive as the Ipsissimus order of vampires.

According to Managra, which dates it as the 24th century.

29 March 2381

THE DIMENSION RIDERS

The Survey Corps ship Icarus arrives to investigate a distress signal from space station Q4, to find it aged to death and full of desiccating corpses. They discover that the events were due temporal disruption, connecting the station to Earth 1993.

The 22nd of March was one week ago (page 76). In Infinite Requiem (page 15), we are told that this was 6 years before 2387.

Rosheen creates a new identity for herself, erasing her previous records - including minor electronic crimes committed in her teens, in order to get a job at McDrone Systems. Whilst there, she meets Klift - a man with a mind almost equal to her own - and they plan the fraud of the century. They lift an enormous, untraceable sum of money which causes the central markets to collapse. Their new-found wealth attracts police attention, and they emigrate to the North Gate - a string of planets that is home to many wealthy, influential, and notorious individuals.

A couple of years before they are recruited by Sheldukher (c.2389), according to The Highest Science pages 27-28.

2386

Unreal transfer is discovered.

According to Romana in The Leisure Hive.

Slow time compression is first theorised. It is not long before someone builds the first slow time converter.

According to the cell in The Highest Science (page 203).

29th May 2387

INFINITE REQUIEM

On the planet Gadrell Major, there was a war between human forces (led by Darius Cheynor) and the Phracton Swarm. The Phractons believed there were large deposits of porizium ore. Darius Cheynor is instrumental in engineering peace with the Phractons, before he is assassinated by a rogue Phracton faction.

The date is given on pages 5 and 273.

2388

DECALOG 2: THE TRIALS OF TARA

On Tara, Count Grendel again tries to take power - taking advantage of the disappearance of Reynart.

This is ten years after The Androids of Tara, and an unspecified "long time" since The Happiness Patrol.

2389

The notorious criminal Sheldukher plans his biggest coup yet. Having assembled a team of accomplices (Marjorie Postine - a dangerous warrior, and Roshine and Klift - infamous geniuses who masterminded a major money transfer crime, he raided Checkley's World and stole project FXX Q84, known as the Cell. He also erased almost all the records of the Cell and killed its creators. He then used the Cell to help him find the legendary Sakkrat, home of the Highest Science. This quest would take the Cell nearly 300 years whilst the others were in suspended animation. Meanwhile, people from Checkley's World set a trap for him - making the planet Hogsumm resemble the Sakkrat legends and planting a trap for Sheldukher there.

The Highest Science. This raid is dated on page 229. Sheldukher's ship has been travelling through space looking for Sakkrat for nearly three centuries on page 55 - their arrival at Hogsumm is dated as 2680 on page 17.

2400

THE PIT

The Seven Planets of the Althosian binary star system declare independence from the corporations, who respond by cutting off supplies. Soon afterwards, an unknown force destroys the entire system.

On page 9, Benny says that this is both '50 years'' before her time (and thus the early 26th century) and '2400'. I'm going with the latter date as, at this point in the novels, Benny's native time was meant to be somewhat earlier.