B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (308 page)

[
1167
] Dating
The Dark Path
(MA #32) - There is no exact date, but the Galactic Federation exists (p3) and it is over “three hundred and fifty years” after the turn of the thirty-first century (p175) which was “nearly half a millennium ago” (p178), which all suggests it’s set in the thirty-fifth century. It’s “a thousand years” since the Doctor first visited Draconia, which
Paper Cuts
helps to date to circa 2040. Terileptus is the homeworld of the Terileptils (
The Visitation
).

[
1168
]
The Face of the Enemy

[
1169
] Dating
The Demons of Red Lodge and Other Stories
: “The Entropy Composition” (BF #142b) - No year is given. Mention is made of swing musician Benny Goodman having died in 1986, so it’s after that. The Terileptus event horizon is said to be “the most magnificent sunset in this part of space-time” - presuming that the event horizon forms after Terileptus’ destruction in
The Dark Path
, the Concordium sequences must take place after 3400. Even so, this placement is more guesswork than not.

[
1170
] “Ten years” before
Snakedance
.

[
1171
] Dating
The Menagerie
(MA #10) - It is “centuries” (p67) after Project Mecrim was initiated in 2416. The Doctor suggests that it happened “a millennium or three” (p126) and “hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago” (p102).

[
1172
] Dating
Snakedance
(20.2) - The story has been long held to be undatable due to the lack of concrete dating clues, and partly because it can’t even be established if the Manussans are human or not.
The Cradle of the Snake
ascribes the end of the Manussan Empire to “Manussan Year 2326”. The Federation’s records begin some “six hundred years” after that catastrophe, and as the Federation is now exactly “five hundred years” old,
Snakedance
must happen a total of eleven hundred years after the Mara’s takeover. So, presuming for the moment that the “Manussan years” mentioned in
The Cradle of the Snake
are the same as Earth years,
Snakedance
would occur circa 3426.

While it’s admittedly a stretch to think that Manussan years and Earth years
are
equal (if that’s the case, what purpose does the different terminology serve?), the thirty-fifth century is a reasonably good fit for
Snakedance
. The Manussans do, to all intents and purposes, appear to be of human descent - the design of their clothing and environs suggests India, Punch and Judy shows are performed, and Earth flowers (including birds of paradise) are on display in the marketplace. Generally speaking, Manussa feels like a human colony cut off from Earth and left to its own devices after humanity’s initial expansion into space (as with, to pick an example, Terra Alpha in
The Happiness Patrol
). A potential snag is that the twenty-third and twenty-fourth centuries (going by
The Cradle of the Snake
’s dating) seems a little early for humanity’s descendents to have already established “an empire” - then again, we’ve no idea what actual scale the “Manussan Empire” entails. The grandiosely named “Federation” in
Snakedance
, after all, seems to consist of only three planets. Reference is made to the “leaders of the colonial worlds” in
The Cradle of the Snake
, but for all we’re told, there might only be two of those.

About Time
suggested that the twenty-seventh or twenty-eighth centuries were “an obvious estimate” for
Snakedance
, thinking it fair to assume that the Doctor takes Tegan to Manussa after events in
Kinda
, while concurring that the dating question largely hinged on whether or not the Manussans are human.
Timelink
presumes that
Snakedance
follows on immediately from
Arc of Infinity
, and that as the Doctor was teaching Tegan and Nyssa how to read “starcharts”, meaning no temporal displacement has occurred, and it’s still 1983 (
Timelink
’s preferred dating for
Arc of Infinity
) when they arrive on Manussa. Although as
Timelink
itself admits, it’s a huge coincidence that without benefit of time-travel, the TARDIS has arrived at the five hundredth anniversary celebration of the Mara’s defeat.

[
1173
]
The Cradle of the Snake

[
1174
] “Fifty years” before “The Company of Thieves”.

[
1175
]
Zygons: Absolution

[
1176
] Dating
Paradise 5
(BF LS #1.5) - It’s “the thirty-fifth century”. The Galactic Federation is getting started around this time, and the Earth Alliance (prominent in the
Dalek Empire
audios) is presumably a smaller organisation within the larger Federation framework.

[
1177
] Dating
Terminus
(20.4) - Once again, an arbitrary date. The date from the Virgin edition of this chronology was adopted by
Asylum
, which is set in 3488, “six years” later.
The Terrestrial Index
saw Terminus Inc. as one of the “various corporations” fought by the Doctor in the late “twenty-fifth century”. The FASA Role-playing game gave the date as “4637 AD”.
Timelink
doesn’t assume that the characters are human and sets it in 1983.

[
1178
]
The Darkening Eye
. Nyssa’s life and death “trading” ability - which we don’t actually see put into effect, so she might only suspect she has the talent - stems from events in the main story of this audio, which are undatable. The Dar Traders’ abilities are outlined in
The Death Collectors.

[
1179
]
The Five Companions
. Nyssa says that she “left the Doctor a very long time ago”, so this could occur at virtually any point in her life after
Terminus
.

[
1180
]
Zygons: Absolution

[
1181
] Dating
Asylum
(PDA #42) - The year is given. It is “six years” since
Terminus
.

[
1182
] Dating
Circular Time
: “Winter” (BF #91) - Nyssa implies that it’s been “a few years” since her stay at Terminus and the Corporation Wars - allowing for
Asylum
, it’s actually been more like eight or nine.

[
1183
]
Cobwebs
, in which Nyssa tells the Doctor that Lazar’s Disease “ended, almost fifteen years ago. Since I developed a vaccine, there hasn’t been a new case for over two decades.” In other words, she developed a vaccine twenty years before she again meets the Doctor, then spent five years dealing with - and curing - all the people who caught the disease before the vaccine was available. This does, however, clash with account in
Asylum
, which claims that Nyssa developed a vaccine for Lazar’s about six years after
Terminus
.

[
1184
]
The Cradle of the Snake

[
1185
] Dating
Cobwebs
(BF #136) - It’s “forty years, two months, two days” before the latter part of the story, which occurs “about fifty years” after
Terminus
. “The Company” isn’t necessarily the same unseen corporation mentioned in
Terminus
, but it seems a reasonably safe bet.

Confusingly, Nyssa tells Turlough, “So, you’re travelling with the Doctor now...” as if she remembers meeting him in
Mawdryn Undead
, but - somehow - doesn’t recall that he joined her, the Doctor and Tegan on their adventures. Nyssa also claims that she doesn’t age at the same rate as humans, which is why Tegan claims that she’s “looking pretty good” for someone who’s about seventy, but this contradicts the Doctor’s comment (
Circular Time:
“Autumn”) that humans and Trakenites have about the same lifespan (perhaps Trakenites don’t actually live longer than humans, but remain heartier than humans as they age).

[
1186
] Dating “Ship of Fools” (
DWW
#23-24) - The story is set after “Throwback”, but no date beyond that is given. The story is set around six hundred and fifty-eight years after human space liners stopped using human pilots, but this isn’t very helpful - it’s possible human pilots were reintroduced (particularly if enough ships piloted by robots like this one were lost). It does mean that it can’t possibly be set before around 2800, however.

The closest period to this seen in a TV story is
Terminus
, which takes place at a time where ships are piloted automatically, span the galaxy and are threatened by pirates. “Unnatural Born Killers” and “The Company of Thieves” follow this story, but there’s no indication how long it is between stories (and it could be many centuries, given that Kroton is effectively immortal).

[
1187
] “The Company of Thieves”

[
1188
] Dating “Unnatural Born Killers” (
DWM
#277) - see dating notes on “Ship of Fools” (
DWW
).

[
1189
] Dating “The Company of Thieves” (
DWM
#284-286) - No date is given, but it’s after “Unnatural Born Killers” and all previous Kroton stories. The pirates are scared of Cybermen, perhaps suggesting this is still within the period of the Cyber Empire (see “Did the Cybermen Ever Have An Empire?”). Pedants might note that the eighth Doctor doesn’t recognise Kroton even though the fourth Doctor “introduced” his original appearance in a
DWW
framing sequence.

[
1190
] “Five hundred years” before
The Book of the Still.

[
1191
]
Mission to the Unknown, The Daleks’ Master Plan
.

[
1192
] Sara Kingdom speculates that the clock was built “centuries” before
The Guardian of the Solar System
- which would match with the claim that all of Mavic Chen’s predecessors were tasked with protecting it.

[
1193
] Dating
Zygons: Absolution
(BBV audio #17) - Shaw left the Space Corps in 3487; while it’s not specified how much time has passed since then, he seems to have one of the original colonists, and New Eden is nine years old. “Interplanetary Mining” is presumably the Interplanetary Mining Corps seen in
Colony in Space
. The New World translation of the complete Bible was introduced in 1961.

[
1194
] At least “fifty years” before
The Chase
, according to Steven Taylor. There’s a possibility that Steven is mistaken about the Mechanoids’ origin.

[
1195
] Dating
Sisters of the Flame/The Vengeance of Morbius
(BF BBC7 #2.7-2.8) - It’s repeatedly confirmed that it’s been “centuries” since
The Brain of Morbius
. Morbius’ stellar manipulator is akin to Hand of Omega from
Remembrance of the Daleks
, although Morbius’ manipulator is as big as a moon (
Orbis
). The Doctor suggests that the Hand of Omega itself is “long gone”, suggesting that it was either lost or destroyed after returning to Gallifrey in
Remembrance
. Straxus previously appeared in
Human Resources
.