User:CzechOut/Sandbox
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| Slovak Republic | |||||||
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| Sudetenland | |||||||
| Trans-Carpathia | |||||||
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Origins of Czechoslovakia |
Sudetenland + other German territories |
Czechoslovak Republic (ČSR) |
Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (ČSSR) |
Czech and Slovak Federal Republic (ČSFR) |
Czech Republic
(since 1993) |
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| Czecho-Slovak Republic (ČSR) incl. autonomous Slovakia and Transcarpathian Ukraine (1938–1939) |
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part of the Ukrainian SSR |
Zakarpattia Oblast of Ukraine |
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| German occupation | Communist era (part of the Eastern Bloc) 1948–1989 | ||||||
Contents |
[edit] Overview of the modern Whoniverse
Despite the presence of many apparently supernatural elements, the universe of Doctor Who is fundamentally a rational one. Solutions to problems result from the application of science. Magic, in such a universe, doesn't exist; it's merely the result of a technological gap between the performer and the perceiver. Religion exists in many forms, but its specifics—such as why and how people worship the things they do—are also generally explained as having a scientific or factual basis.
As opposed to other science fictional universes, the Whoniverse's dominant conceit is that time travel is a conventional, rather than extraordinary, possibility for some of its inhabitants. More explicitly, time travel is the result of safe and relatively reliable technology, rather than happenstance or the application of previously-untested theories. Time travel has been around for thousands of years in the Whoniverse, and has been developed along several different paths. It is not the exclusive possession of a single individual or race. Nevertheless, the Time Lords of Gallifrey--of whom the Doctor is a member--are seen possess the safest, best developed method of time travel. However, these assertions are usually made by Time Lords themselves.
The Whoniverse is also a place teeming with life. An unknown, but ever-increasing, number of planets are shown to support life. Creatures of many types—reptileloids, insectoids, intelligent sea creatures, cybernetic creatures, non-coporeal beings and others—exist alongside humans. It has a more diverse biology than other science fictional universes, especially when compared to the more humanoid-centric view of the universe shown in Star Trek. Moreover, habitable planets are often shown to several intelligent species, often from very different paths of evolution.
Furhter, the Whoniverse is unusual for being literally a universe. Whereas the scope of most other science fiction "universes" is at most a single galaxy, inter-galactic travel is commonplace in the Whoniverse. In part this is due to the ease of such travel by the main character, but it has also been seen as an accomplishment of other inhabitants of the universe.
[edit] Main Inhabitants
Despite this broad canvas, certain creatures and planets have received greater definition than others.
[edit] Time Lords
As the Doctor's species, Time Lords occupy a pivotal role in the Whoniverse. They are seen as a technologically advanced, if staid, race. Tension exists between a minority of Time Lords who wish to use their technology to change history for subjectively beneficial purposes, and the majority, who prefer to observe. This has led to the creation of so-called "Laws of Time", which have a bearing in their decision-making process. Even the Doctor, a staunch member of the minority faction, feels some obligation to respect these Laws. Thus he and his companions are enjoined against changing their own personal timelines. This means that time travel is significantly muted in its power. It is not used as a means to "re-do" events that fail to conclude desirably for the time traveller. This inability to use time travel as an easy solution for death or imminent defeat has come to be explained by the shorthand phrase, "We're part of events now." The law is practically, but in no way officially, enforced by the presence of a race called the Reapers. Reapers feed off of the temporal paradoxes that result from breaking the Laws of Time, and thus threaten the lives of anyone attempting to do so.
While Time Lords. as the name suggests, shape the universe by introducing a source for time travel technology, they are also signficant for their work with dimensional transcendentalism. That is, they have the ability to make things bigger on the outside than not. The principal example of this are TARDISes, but other devices such as SIDRATs and the Genesis Ark, have occasionally appeared using this hallmark technology. Unlike time travel, dimensional transcendentalism has never been mastered by other races. Viewers thus know that when they see an object displaying this ability, it was made by Time Lords.
Time Lords are further unique in that they have the ability to regenerate.
Perhaps the most importatnt feature of the Time Lords to the modern Whoniverse, however, is that they are virtually extinct. This has changed the importance of Time Lords in the 2005 Whoniverse. They are now viewed as legendary or mythical by those societies that remember them at all. Their absence means that some things which were once possible in the Whoniverse, such as inter-dimensional travel and occasional violations of the Laws of Time, are now much more difficult. Now that they are gone, for example, they cannot hold back the Reapers if a temporal paradox occured.
[edit] Daleks
Another time-travelling race is the Daleks. They are significant to the shape of the universe in that they are the Time Lords' greatest enemies. At several points in the timeline of the Whoniverse, they have been known to seemingly every race they encountered.
[edit] Humans
The planet Earth is the most frequent setting for stories which take place in the Whoniverse. But the Earth, and the humans which inhabit it, are different to the real Earth in a number of ways.
Perhaps most significantly, humans are not only sentient species on the planet. Other species have evolved on the planet, or have been long-term settlers. Indeed, the "Whoniverse Earth" was in fact formed around a spacecraft from another planet. Despite the relative abundance of non-human sentients on this earth, it is a central tenet of the Whoniverse that non-human residents of Earth are unknown to most humans. Non-human Earth residents reveal themselves to human society only occasionally.
Further, Earth is routinely visited by all manner of species. Average citizens of Earth are generally unaware or in denial of these visits. Nevertheless the "Whoniverse Earth" is possessed of official governmental responses to these incursions, most notably in the form of UNIT and Torchwood. Despite the number of alien visitors over the years, general public recognition of aliens is a recent phenomenon. It dates from Christmas 2007, when images of the Sycorax were carried, and never subsequently denied, by the worldwide press.
The "present year" on Earth in any given Whoniverse adventure is usually only apparently the same one in which the episode was first broadcast. Though there are cases of stories, such as An Unearthly Child, in which the "Whoniverse year" is explicitly stated as the same as the "audience year", there have been long periods of time in which the "present day" on Earth was in fact the audience's relative future. From Spearhead from Space to The Hand of Fear, audiences were seeing Earth of the 1980s, instead of the 1970s.
Early in the 2005 revival of Doctor Who, the Doctor failed to return Rose Tyler to her relative present. He missed by a full year. Because of the sanction against retconning a personal timeline, the Doctor was unable to correct this mistake. The subsequent narrative dependance of Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures' on Doctor Who epsiodes involving Rose, this has had a long-lasting effect. The setting of the entire televised Whoniverse is thus now "one year later".
Time displacements such as these have forced writers to employ guesswork about the level of technology that humans had in the "present day". The Earth of the Whoniverse has been seen to have slightly more advanced technology than that which has actually obtained in the real world. In particular, the Britain of the Whoniverse was said to have its own manned space programme, and has been seen to operate unmanned space probes on its own, outside the aegis of the European Space Agency. Likewise, the wholly British organization, Torchwood, is routinely shown to be able to understand and operate complex alien technology.
Earth's past is also slightly different in the Whoniverse. Unexplained historical mysteries are frequently laid at the doorstep of alien incursion in the Whoniverse. Many cataclysmic evenets, such as the disappearance of the Marie Celeste, the starting of the Great London Fire, and William Shakespeare's unpublished play Loves Labours Wonne are said to be the result of alien intervention.
The future of humanity is largely a bright one. Humanity ultimately spreads to other galaxies, forming alliances and empires along the way. Though Earth itself explodes at some point, humans can be found trillions of years from the present day.
[edit] Events
The Whoniverse is shaped by events, as much as people.
[edit] The Time War
One of the central tenets about the modern Whoniverse is the notion of the Time War. Because that war has never been depicted, its effects on the shape of the Whoniverse is unclear. All we do know is that it ended with the Daleks and Time Lords plucked from existence. Its most important outcome was its emotional impact on the Doctor, adding a sense of profound loneliness to his character in the wake of becoming the last of the Time Lords. However, its larger role may be to act as a rebooting mechanism for the 2005 Whoniverse.
A prme example is the destruction of the planet Earth. In The Ark, this event was said to occur a few thousand years from the 1960s. However, in the modern era, this date has been set at about the year 5 billion A.D. It is assumed that the reason for this is that the Time War, by taking away two of the three major species in the Whoniverse, completely changed the time line of Earth.
But this is just an assumption. No explanation has been given for the two vastly different dates. To this extent, the Time War acts as a narrative wildcard, allowing 21st century writers of Whoniverse stories to pick and choose which features of the Whoniverse they wish to keep, and which they wish to discard.
