The Time War, also called the Last Great Time War,^[1] is a conflict within the fictional universe of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The war occurs between the events of the 1996 film and the 2005 revived series, with the Time Lords fighting the Daleks until the apparent mutual destruction of both races. The war was frequently mentioned when the show returned, but was not directly seen until the show's 50th anniversary special.

Over the course of several episodes, the conflict is only implied by short clues and comments, particularly the discussion in the 2007 episode "The Sound of Drums", and part two of the 2010 episode "The End of Time". The Time War is finally depicted in the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", featuring the climax of the final battle and the Time Lords' fate.

The Last Great Time War pitted the Time Lords of Gallifrey against the Daleks of Skaro. The specific incident that sparked the conflict remains unclear, but according to executive producer Russell T Davies, the origins dated back to conflicts between the Doctor and the Daleks. In Genesis of the Daleks (1975), the Time Lords—having foreseen the possibility of the Daleks conquering the universe—send the Fourth Doctor into the past in an attempt to avert the Daleks' creation, to affect their development to make them less aggressive, or discover an inherent weakness they could exploit.^[2][3]

In retaliation for this ultimately unsuccessful mission, the Daleks attempt to infiltrate the High Council of the Time Lords with duplicates of the Fifth Doctor in Resurrection of the Daleks (1984), followed by an open declaration of hostilities by one of the Dalek Emperors in Remembrance of the Daleks (1988).^[3]

The Time War officially began with the extinction of several time-traveling powers allied with the Time Lords known as the Temporal Powers. With the Temporal Powers being wiped out one-by-one, the Time Lords formally declared war with the Daleks.^[3]

The 'duration' and extent of the War has been unclear, with the Daleks vanishing out of time and space to fight the War, would indicate that it is not waged in normal space-time.^[3] Nonetheless, there was fighting in a sufficient bulk of the cosmos, including on the planet Gallifrey.^[4] The Doctor claims to have fought on the front lines and was present at the Fall of Arcadia, Gallifrey's second city.^[4][5]

The Eighth Doctor at first was a conscientious objector, instead working to help where he could. His attempt to save a woman from a spaceship crashing towards the planet Karn fails, when she refuses his aid because he is a Time Lord, apparently believing that the Time Lords had become just as destructive as the Daleks. The Doctor is killed in the crash, but is temporarily restored to life by the Sisterhood of Karn, who finally convince him to fight for the sake of the universe. They further offer an elixir that would control his regeneration. The Doctor accepts, remarking that there was no need for a Doctor in a universe consumed by war, and regenerates into the War Doctor.^[3]

Davros, the creator of the Daleks, also fights during the war after his creations rehabilitated him to a leadership position. In the first year of the War, Davros' command ship is seemingly destroyed. Unbeknownst to the Doctor, who had tried to save him, Davros is rescued by Dalek Caan, via an emergency temporal shift.^[3]

The war results in countless millions dying endless deaths, as time travel is used by both sides to reverse battles that caused massive fatalities on both sides.^[6] These excesses of temporal warfare eventually leads to the whole of the conflict becoming "time-locked", so that no time traveller could go back into it.^[7] The Doctor describes the final days of the war as "hell".^[6]

As the war progresses, the Time Lords become increasingly aggressive and unscrupulous. Growing in desperation, they access and use a cache of forbidden doomsday weapons known as the Omega Arsenal, save one: "the Moment".^[4] Moreover, they resurrect the Master, a renegade Time Lord and nemesis to the Doctor, as they believe him to be the "perfect warrior for a time war". However, after the Dalek Emperor gained control of the Cruciform, the Master deserted his post.^[8]

Leadership among the Time Lords remained vague during the earlier phase of the war. Ultimately, Rassilon, founder of the Time Lord society and its time travel technology, is resurrected to assume leadership as Lord President.^[3] Refusing the possibility of his civilisation being destroyed by the Daleks, Rassilon prepares a doomsday scenario. It included sacrificing all of time itself, thereby destroying the Daleks and all life in the universe. The Time Lords themselves would have transcended into a non-corporeal collective consciousness that would be the only sentient form of life in existence. The Time Lords, apparently hardened by the horrors of war, give near-unanimous support for this plan – only two Time Lords dissented when the issue is put to a full vote.^[6]

While the High Council continues to lead Time Lord society during the war, a separate War Council is tasked with overseeing the war itself, as well as Gallifrey's defences. The War Council is led by an unknown Time Lord general. During the last days of the Time War, the War Council apparently becomes disillusioned with the High Council.^[4]

On the last day of the Time War, the Daleks launched what is said to be their biggest attack ever on Gallifrey. Dalek forces captured the city of Arcadia, then laid siege to the capital itself. The War Doctor stole an ancient Gallifreyan weapon known as the Moment, and intended to reduce Gallifrey into "rocks and dust" with the inferno wiping out the Dalek fleet.^[4]

Rassilon and his fellow councillors attempt to escape the Time Lock by retroactively planting a four-note drumbeat into the Master's brain as a child and cause his descent into madness. From there, once the signal is made tangible enough, a Whitepoint Star, a diamond only found on Gallifrey, is used to create a link between the final day of the Time War and Earth so the Master could release Gallifrey from the Time Lock. The plan ultimately fails, as the Doctor destroyed the diamond link and the Master apparently sacrificed his life to take revenge on Rassilon, sending the Time Lords back to their apparent doom.^[6]

However, as "the Moment" had a will of its own, it showed the War Doctor an alternative solution and ultimately enabled the first thirteen incarnations of the Doctor, to gather to save Gallifrey by freezing it in time and removing it from the universe. The sudden disappearance of Gallifrey left the Daleks firing upon and subsequently annihilating themselves, while the Time Lords remained; albeit powerless and forgotten.^[3]

As the War Doctor regenerates into the Ninth Doctor, his memory of saving Gallifrey is wiped as a means for his timeline to correct itself, leaving the Doctor with the belief he had in fact used the Moment to destroy Gallifrey, the Time Lords, and the Daleks. The Doctor is haunted with the false knowledge of his home planet's demise,^[3] with even some of his enemies using that guilt against him.^[8][9]

Throughout series 5, the Eleventh Doctor encounters cracks in "the skin of the universe".^{[10][11][12][13]} The Doctor learns that the cracks, which erase those they consume from history, are a result of the Silence causing the Doctor's TARDIS to explode on 26 June 2010.^[14] During the events of "The Time of the Doctor", the Doctor discovers one remaining crack on the planet Trenzalore, through which the Time Lords transmit the First Question: "Doctor Who?". The intention is for the Doctor to give his true name, which will verify to the Time Lords it is safe for them to return to the universe.^[3]

Fleets of various races, some being former War participants, gathered in Trenzalore's orbit to either prevent the Doctor from speaking his name, or resume the War if the Time Lords return. The Church of the Papal Mainframe undergoes a faith change into the Church of the Silence as a dedication to keeping the peace,^[14] with a rogue chapter led by Madame Kovarian unknowingly causing the events in series 5 and 6 and leading to the Doctor's arrival on Trenzalore.^{[14][13][15][16][17]} In the end, the Time Lords remain in exile and close the remaining crack, but not before granting the Doctor, old and weary from his years protecting Trenzalore, a new cycle of regenerations, which allow him to destroy the Dalek fleet surrounding the planet.^[14]

In the 2006 episode "Rise of the Cybermen" when the Tenth Doctor, Rose Tyler and Mickey Smith are trapped in an alternate reality, the Doctor explains that, when the Time Lords were around, travel between parallel universes is less difficult but, with their demise, the paths between worlds are now closed.^[18] The Time Lords could also prevent or repair paradoxes such as the one created by Rose in an attempt to save her father's life in a traffic accident.^[19]

Dalek survivors of the war appeared regularly across many episodes,^[3] until the Daleks trick the Eleventh Doctor into activating a Progenitor device which creates a new "Paradigm" of Daleks that destroy the previous Daleks and escape through time, forming a new race of Daleks.^[20]

After the Time War, the Doctor is convinced that he is the only surviving Time Lord, saying that he would know of any others if they had survived.^[1] The Doctor later encounters a man named Professor Yana who is revealed to be the Master. The Master had been hiding in human form at the end of the universe using a Chameleon Arch, having escaped the destruction of both the Time Lords and the Daleks. By taking human form, he avoided detection by the Doctor, who was apparently unaware of his nemesis' resurrection during the Time War. The Master had remained ignorant of the latter phase and outcome of the war until he emerged from hiding, when he is told by the Doctor many years later.^[21][8]

The timelines of other races and planets shift without the inhabitants of the worlds affected being aware of the changes in history, as they were a part of them. Most affected were the Zygons, who lost their home planet, Zygor, and attempted to conquer Earth for its resources;^[4] the Eternals, and the Gelth, who lost their physical form and were reduced to gaseous beings, who attempted to possess human corpses in 1869 using a Time Rift in Cardiff.

The Time War provides a convenient in-story explanation for any contradictions in series continuity: for example, writer Paul Cornell has suggested that Earth's destruction by an expanding sun in "The End of the World" five billion years hence, as opposed to the original depiction of its demise around the year 10,000,000 AD in The Ark (1966), can be attributed to changes in history due to the war.^[22] Steven Moffat, writer and later executive producer for Doctor Who, has gone further, arguing that "a television series which embraces both the ideas of parallel universes and the concept of changing time can't have a continuity error—it's impossible for Doctor Who to get it wrong, because we can just say 'he changed time—it's a time ripple from the Time War'".^[23][24]

The Last Great Time War also features in various Doctor Who spin-off media.

In a story arc stretching through several of the Eighth Doctor Adventures novels, the Doctor learns that, at some point in his personal future, a war will be fought between the Time Lords and an unnamed enemy. Russell T Davies commented that there is no connection between the war of the books and the Time War of the television series, comparing the wars with Earth's two World Wars. He also said that he was "usually happy for old and new fans to invent the Complete History of the Doctor in their heads, completely free of the production team's hot and heavy hands".^[25]

The sixth series of Gallifrey features the Daleks invading Gallifrey,^[26] but this invasion is undone thanks to Lord President Romana, Leela, K9 and Narvin, aided by Romana's future self. The ninth series more directly featured the Time War with Romana and Leela playing key roles,^[27] including Leela being sent on a mission with the Derek Jacobi Master, and the resurrection of Rassilon through a complex Time Lord project that allowed Rassilon's consciousness to take over the body of another Time Lord.

The Dark Eyes audio series is also in effect a lead up to the Last Great Time War from the Doctor's perspective, the first series being a complex plan by the Daleks to erase the Time Lords from existence.^[28] Dark Eyes 2 also sees the resurrection of the Master in preparation for the war.^[29]

Written by George Mann, this novel features the War Doctor and is set in the Time War. During the novel, the War Doctor and his new companion Cinder discover that the Daleks intend to use the temporal anomalies of a rift in time in the Moldox system, to develop a weapon that could completely erase Gallifrey and the Time Lords from history, with Rassilon's plan to stop the Dalek plot involving the destruction of the rift and all inhabited planets around it. The Doctor sabotages Rassilon's plan and uses the energy of the rift to erase the Daleks' scheme, but the actions of a Time Lord agent result in Cinder's death, leaving the War Doctor resolved to end the war once and for all as he recognises how far his people have fallen in the name of victory.^[3]

The War Doctor series was produced by Big Finish Productions following John Hurt's role as the War Doctor in “The Day of the Doctor”. Hurt reprised his role alongside Jacqueline Pearce as Cardinal Ollistra, who frequently sends the War Doctor on missions to give the Time Lords the upper hand over the Daleks. Following Hurt's death, the series ended after four volumes in February 2017. A follow-up series was subsequently launched featuring the Eighth Doctor and set during the early years of the Time War.^[30]

With the announcement of The War Doctor, Big Finish Productions also announced a prequel box set featuring the Eighth Doctor during the early days of the conflict, later expanded into a four-volume series.^[31] Paul McGann reprised his role with Rakhee Thakrar playing Bliss, his new companion.^[32] The third volume also features the return of the Valeyard, who is recruited by the Time Lords attempt to be a soldier in the War after he is 'recreated' through an accident when the Doctor uses a transmat while carrying a device that can manipulate biology.^[33]

The War Master series was released in December 2017. The release features Derek Jacobi reprising his role as The Master from the 2007 episode "Utopia" and follows the character during the Time War.^[34]

• Last Great Time War on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki