Continuity
The epilogue of the novel offers a possible explanation to the fan asked question of how The Doctor can still exist after the destruction of Gallifrey in The Ancestor Cell. In that novel, time is reversed to stop Gallifrey or the Time Lords from ever existing, provoking confusion among fans. This novel shows The Doctor giving one of the council of Eight (Soul) some of his life energy to keep him alive. When Soul, with Miranda's daughter Zezanne leave in Sabbath's time ship (the Jonah), he takes on the form of an old man who resembles the First Doctor, they both lose their memories, but they believe they are the First Doctor and Susan and the Jonah arrives, disguised as a Police Box in 1963, with Octan's Starkiller (replacing the Hand of Omega). This potentially retcons the entire series, giving an alternative explanation to the Doctor's origins without the Time Lords. This however contradicts the revelations about Gallifrey's destruction in The Gallifrey Chronicles, where it is revealed that while Gallifrey was destroyed, the Time Lords were not erased from history. However, the cataclysm set up an event horizon in time that prevented anyone from entering Gallifrey's relative past or travelling from it to the present or future. The Time Lords also survived within the Matrix, which had been downloaded into the Eighth Doctor's mind, with the intention of restoring the Time Lords and Gallifrey.
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Famous quotes containing the word continuity:
“Continuous eloquence wearies.... Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.”
—Blaise Pascal (1623–1662)
“Every society consists of men in the process of developing from children into parents. To assure continuity of tradition, society must early prepare for parenthood in its children; and it must take care of the unavoidable remnants of infantility in its adults. This is a large order, especially since a society needs many beings who can follow, a few who can lead, and some who can do both, alternately or in different areas of life.”
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“Only the family, society’s smallest unit, can change and yet maintain enough continuity to rear children who will not be “strangers in a strange land,” who will be rooted firmly enough to grow and adapt.”
—Salvador Minuchin (20th century)