B00DPX9ST8 EBOK (291 page)

[
637
] “Twenty years” before Mrs Ransandrianasolo is born, according to
Return of the Living Dad
(p164).

[
638
]
The Crystal Bucephalus -
referred to as “shortly before the Second Dalek War” (q.v. The Dalek Wars).

[
639
]
The Colony of Lies

[
640
]
Benny: Old Friends
. When this occurs is unclear, but by 2562, the lemurs’ offspring are holding down jobs on the spacelanes.

[
641
]
The Also People
(p170).

[
642
]
Theatre of War
. The date of publication is given as both “2566” (p36), and “2466” (p135). While the first date is actually in Benny’s home era, the intro pages to Big Finish’s Benny short story anthologies take such continual delight in pointing out that
Down Among the Dead Men
was “published originally in 2466, which is odd given that it is now 26—”, the latter date has become a lot harder to discount. Appendix II of
Sky Pirates!
is “A Benny Bibliography”, and contains further details.

[
643
] Dating
Colony in Space
(8.4) - We see a calendar being changed from “Monday 2nd March 2472” to the next day. Ashe tells Jo that they left Earth in “seventy-one”. Hulke’s novelisation sets this story in “2971”.

[
644
] “Some five hundred years” before
The Mutants
, according to the Administrator.

[
645
] “Five hundred years” after
Return of the Living Dad
(p61).

[
646
] “Seventy-two” years before
Return of the Living Dad.

[
647
] “Almost thirty-five years” before
The Taking of Chelsea 426
(p74). It’s notable that Mars is not thought to support plant life in this era - we know from
Benny: Beige Planet Mars
that by 2545, a settlement equipped with photon missiles is in operation there.

[
648
]
Burning Heart
(p174).

[
649
]
K9: The Korven
. The Korven are a threat and possibly even continue to control areas of the Earth at least until 2618.

[
650
] “Three cycles” (presumably years) before
The Game
.

[
651
] Dating
The Game
(BF #66) - Lord Carlisle was born 2414 and started his career as a peacemaker around age 20 (so, circa 2434). On Disc 1, Track 70, he says he has been working as a mediator for “fifty years”.

[
652
] Dating “Junkyard Demon” (
DWM
#58-59) - No date is specified, and it’s hard to place it with any certainty because we don’t know how long the Cybernauts have been deactivated on A54. The sequel, however, places it in the same period as
The Tomb of the Cybermen
. The Cyberman resembles - with modifications - the ones from
The Tenth Planet
, and says they will “once again rule time and space”. Zogron is “one of the pioneers of our interstellar empire”. A54 orbits Arcturus.

[
653
] Dating “Junkyard Demon II” (
DWM Yearbook 1996
) - It’s “four months” since “Junkyard Demon”. Joylove is working for Eric Klieg and the Brotherhood of Logicians, setting this story shortly before
The Tomb of the Cybermen
.

[
654
] Dating
Leviathan
(BF LS #1.3) - One of the salvagers says that it’s now the twenty-fifth century. The Leviathan left Earth in the twenty-second century and was to spend some “centuries” in transit.

[
655
] Dating
The Tomb of the Cybermen
(5.1)
-
The story is set “five hundred years” after the Cybermen mysteriously died out according to Parry, although the Cybermen don’t indicate how long they’ve been in their tombs. No reference is made to the Cyber War [q.v.], so we might presume it is before that time (the disappearance of the Cybermen after the Cyber War wasn’t a mystery). The Cybermen’s history computer recognises the Doctor from “the lunar surface”, so the Cybermen went into hibernation (shortly?) after
The Moonbase
. This would make it at least 2570, but we know that
Earthshock
is set in 2526. The Cybermen in
Earthshock
refer to the events of
The Tomb of the Cybermen
, so
The Tomb of the Cybermen
must be set before 2526 (although they also refer to
Revenge of the Cybermen
, which there’s reason to believe is set later). Either Parry is rounding up or he doesn’t know about the events of
The Moonbase
. As ever, no-one refers to stories made after this one, such as
Silver Nemesis
and
The Wheel in Space
.

Another option is that the Cybermen in
Earthshock
are time travellers. There’s some circumstantial evidence for this - it explains how their scanner can show a scene from
Revenge of the Cybermen
, which is almost certainly set after 2526, and it may go some way to explaining how the freighter travels in time at the end - but there’s nothing in the script that supports this, and if they have a time machine capable of transporting a huge army of Cybermen, then it’s hard to believe that the best plan they can come up with is the one that they’re implementing. Then again, even without a time machine, their plan makes no apparent sense.

Radio Times
didn’t give a year for
Tomb
, but specified that the month the story is set is “September”. The draft script for serial 4D (at that point called
Return of the Cybermen
), suggested a date of “24/10/2248” for the story.
Cybermen
sets the story in “2486”,
The Terrestrial Index
at “the beginning of the 26th century”. “A History of the Cybermen” in
DWM
#83 preferred “2431”, whereas
The Discontinuity Guide
settles on “2570”.
Timelink
says “2526”,
About Time
“early 2500s”.

[
656
]
Attack of the Cybermen

[
657
] This is the native time of the first Doctor’s companion Vicki, who joins the TARDIS in
The Rescue
. We learn about her clothing and schooling in
The Web Planet,
and her visit to the Beatles Museum and familiarity with Venderman in
The Chase
. In that story we also learn that Vicki used to live close to a medieval castle.

[
658
]
Byzantium!

[
659
]
The Plotters

[
660
]
Frostfire.
The “alien invasion” presumably refers to the Dalek invasion of the twenty-second century.

[
661
]
The Eleventh Tiger

[
662
] Dating
Judgement of the Judoon
(NSA #31) - The year is given. A couple of Draconians are seen at Terminal 13, even though “first contact” (at least, officially) between Earth and Draconia doesn’t happen until around 2520 (
Frontier in Space
).

[
663
] The IMC armoury attached to the gardens has gone unused for “twenty years or more” (p88) before
The Taking of Chelsea 426
, so it’s been at least that long since the oxygen gardens were established.

[
664
] Dating
The Rescue
(2.3) - Vicki states that the year her spaceship left Earth was “2493, of course”. The draft script suggested that Vicki and her fellow space traveller, Bennett, have been on Dido “for a year”, but there is no such indication in the final programme. Ian Marter’s novelisation is set in 2501.
The Making of Doctor Who
, the various editions of Lofficier and
The Doctor Who File
set the date of “2493”.
The TARDIS Special
“c.2500”. Peel’s novelisation of
The Chase
says that Vicki is from “the twenty-fourth century”.

[
665
]
Superior Beings

[
666
] About a century before
Benny: Down
.

[
667
]
Peacemaker

[
668
] Dating
Set Piece
(NA #35) - The Ants kidnap the Doctor, Benny and Ace in “the twenty-fifth century” (p33).

[
669
] “Eight years” before
Sword of Orion
.

[
670
] Dating
Attack of the Cybermen
(22.1) - No date is given on screen, but the story takes place after
The Tomb of the Cybermen
as the Controller remembers surviving that story. Although the Cybermen know of Lytton’s people, and he is fully aware of the situation on Telos, it doesn’t appear that
Resurrection of the Daleks
is set in this period... in that story, Stien says that the Daleks captured people from many different periods (while never really explaining why), so this could well be Lytton’s native time (Lytton talks of humans as his “ancestors”, so his home planet - Vita 15, in star system 690, with the satellite of Riftan V - is a human colony).

The previous edition of
Ahistory
dated
Attack
to circa 2530, but Big Finish’s
Cyberman
mini-series (set circa 2515) occurs after an asteroid strike obliterates Telos an estimated five to ten years beforehand, and so
Attack
must take place prior to that point. There is little room to navigate around this, as the lead characters in
Cyberman
not only go to Telos’ fragmented remains, they find its Cyberman-filled tomb floating about in space. Strangely enough,
Attack
has no direct interaction between the Telos Cybermen and the Earth of the future, so it’s entirely possible that the Telos Cybermen were re-frozen in
The Tomb of the Cybermen
, then awoke some years afterwards and upgraded themselves (and their electrocuted Controller), and then were re-entombed in
Attack
prior to Telos’ annihilation.

All previous versions of
Ahistory
took into account Lytton’s comment in
Attack
that the Cybermen are the “undisputed masters of space” (odd in itself, as
Attack
has them in an extremely weak position). However, er, no such comment actually appears in the TV story. Eric Saward’s novelisation of
Attack
has Lytton tell Griffiths that the Cybermen are the “Undisputed masters of the galaxy!”, but that’s it. Sorry!

[
671
] At least ten years, if not more, before
The Taking of Chelsea 426
(p37).

[
672
] “Over seven hundred years” (p117) before
Death Riders
. The participants in this conflict are identified as being nonhuman.