Just a few odd things today...

[fajrdrako]

Keeping the world clean...

I keep seeing people using brooms today. Maybe that's not so unusual... as I left my apartment, a man was sweeping the driveway. (Probably our new cleaner, I haven't seen him yet.) As I was taking the bus to work, a woman was sweeping the sidewalk outside her shop. And just now I passed our cleaner at work, sweeping out the foyer by the front doors. None of this is unusual, but I did think, "Why do I keep seeing this?" I thought perhaps it was a hint from the cosmos that I should sweep my own floors, but I did that yesterday - it isn't as if I'm overdue.

Flist comments

Saw a couple of things on my flist. One person said the chapters of her work in progress had 'different ratings, depending on content'. Well, yes, isn't that the whole point of ratings? To indicate something about the content?

Torchwood/Doctor Who comments and questions

Another person wondered what Ianto was doing in the Year that Never Was. But Ianto never had a Year that Never Was because he was the part of the year that wasn't. Only the Doctor, Martha, Jack, Tish, and Francine remember that year, right? I'm not sure about Lucy Saxon.

The question in my mind - and I'm not sure I've ever heard an answer to it - is this: Jack left Torchwood hanging onto the TARDIS, went to the far future, then came back to our time (or whatever passes for the present in Doctor Who and Torchwood) and then the Year that Never Was happened. That non-year came to an end, the world was restored to the point just before the Toclafane came. Jack then returned to the Hub in "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang" some six months or so after he left. Seems to me there's almost six months of jack's life unaccounted for there.

It would be nice to think he got to spend some time with the Doctor. But I wonder.

Am I right about where the Year that Never Was was reset to? The Torchwood crew never did go to the Himalayas, right? Did the American President survive in the new reality? Presumaby he did.... Or people would be wondering why he was missing. Dead. Whatever.

Comments

[louiex.livejournal.com]

If I remember correctly, the Doctor said they were brought back to just before the Toclafane showed up before the public and the moment the paradox machine was turned on (so that would be at 8:02am). This WOULD mean that TW was in the Himalayas (supported by an upset report on the TW site by Owen about their time in the mountains searching for nothing), but the American president still would have been killed (by, technically Toclafane that shouldn't exist).

:D

Oh WHO you make my head hurt :D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Okay.... the death/non-death of the President misled me. Now that you mention it, I recall Owen's comment about the Himalayas... heh. At least they got out of Cardiff for a change.

[rivier.livejournal.com]

I think Torchwood did go to the Himalayas, or at least, they set off there. The YTNW starts its ticking clock from the moment after the Master shoots the President. We know that because, when the year resets, the first thing we can hear on the Valiant is someone blustering on the radio about the President having just been shot, if I remember right. Which means that everything up to then that we see in the DW timeline, from Jack jumping the TARDIS to the year-in-loop, happened - including Jack trying to get in touch with his team, and Saxon gleefully telling him that he'd sent them on a wild-goose chase.

My own guess on the timeline, and it is really guessy, is that for Torchwood, Jack is gone for no more than three months tops, from some vague time mid-January until several weeks after that. While he's gone, there's a General Election, Saxon sweeps to power, sends the team off to get them out of the way, and then starts on his power-trip of gassing the Cabinet, etc. The Doctor, Martha and Jack arrive back on Earth about then - for Jack, that's again, some vague several weeks / few months after he left the Plas. They then are on Earth for a few days while they get close to Saxon, get caught, get taken to the Valiant... [insert YTNW]... and then they come back for a few more days, enough for them to try to settle Mathat's famiily back home without them all having mental breakdowns. And then Jack goes home.

I also think Lucy Saxon wwould remember the YTNW, as would everyone on the Valiant and still alive at that point (i.e. the Master's goons, basically), because they'd have been isolated in the same paradox bubble around the TARDIS. When the year reset, they'd just find themselves surrounded by all the Valiant crew including everyone who the Master had undoubtedly bumped off in the meantime.

I tend to think Jack didn't get any time travelling with the Doctor (bt yes, I would think that!) In practical terms, because there's no time between his grabbing the TARDIS and that sequence of events up to the YTNW and its reset. After that, I don't think either that the Doctor would have left Martha alone with her family trying to not all freak out - or, indeed, that Jack didn't make his decision to stay in Cardiff at some point during that year and, having made it, would have deferred getting back to the team by going off to spend a bit of quality time with the Doctor. It just seems improbable to me that he'd have hung in chains and worse for that year, knowing (thinking?) at that point that the Doctor still thought of him as a wrong thing, but still wanting to try to stay with him - then be back at the reset point, then go off for a little holiday with the Doctor and *then* decide that, no, in spitre of being asked, he'd probably better get back to Torchwood.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The moment after the death of the President - okay.

Yes, I think Lucy would remember TYTNW, but I thought the UNIT soldiers and Valiant crew didn't remember it. Am I wrong abut that? That adds up to a lot of people remembering!

So where do you think Jack was in the time he was away from the Hub? Even if it's three months rather than six, it doesn't add up.

And time spent with the Doctor, for anyone, isn't so much a 'holiday' as an 'adventure'. Though Donna did manage to get her time at the spa.

[rivier.livejournal.com]

Not the UNIT soldiers - there wouldn't have been any left alive on the Valiant after a year with the Master! It's only those people who were alive and on the Valiant at the point when Jack zapped the TARDIS who would have been preserved, if you like. They would find themselves back at the point when the President was killed, and everything else there intact as it had been in that moment, UNIT crew and all. In effect, the only thing that would have changed was that collected set of memories for the Doctor, Martha and family, Jack, Lucy, and any Master minions on the Valiant - probably not to many of those by then, either! And I bet Jack just Retconned the lot of them.

On Earth's timeline, Jack was away for three months. In Jack's own timeline, he was away for what, in reality, was a couple of days + a year (that then reset) + a few more days. So, if you were talking real dates, say, he sees the TARDIS on January 20th, and then because he's on a time machine that takes him to the end of the Universe and back via the vortex wriststrap, the few days with the Doctor and Martha for Jack, are actually a few months on Earth. They come back on, oh, 20th March, something like that, say. There is no equivalent for Jack to the three months that have passed on Earth - he was travelling on TARDIS time.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Not the UNIT soldiers - there wouldn't have been any left alive on the Valiant after a year with the Master!

So who were the men who went with Jack to destroy the TARDIS? The various people on the Valiant who weren't related to Martha?

Now, it's like Jack to retcon a bunch of soldiers.

Where do you get 'three months' for the time Jack was away? I thought there was something that indicated it was longer, but I confess I can't recall what it was!

On Earth's timeline, Jack was away for three months. In Jack's own timeline, he was away for what, in reality, was a couple of days + a year (that then reset) + a few more days.

So where is the extra time? Did Jack's time-manipulator get them back to London eleven weeks after he left the Hub? Is that where the missing time was?

then because he's on a time machine that takes him to the end of the Universe and back via the vortex wriststrap, the few days with the Doctor and Martha for Jack, are actually a few months on Earth.

Okay, that makes sense. I'm not sure it's canon, though. But TARDIS time can explain everything, in its way.

[rivier.livejournal.com]

So who were the men who went with Jack to destroy the TARDIS? The various people on the Valiant who weren't related to Martha?

Yep, pretty much! Any of the Master's 'people' who knew which side to back when the battle's on the turn. There mustr have been a few, like Lucy, who would have appeared loyal while knowing that their chances of surviving with him weren't good, and who were just biding their time until they could support someone trying to overthrow him.

Where do you get 'three months' for the time Jack was away? I thought there was something that indicated it was longer, but I confess I can't recall what it was!

Well, I don't think there is anything definitive in canon. There are hints - for example, the Election posters for Vote Saxon could be seen at one point in the Captain Jack Harkness ep, and there are (if you're being really pedantic) constitutional laws in the UK governing the period of time between when an election can be called, and when it has to happen, and it's a pretty short period of time, several weeks rather than six months. Saxon couldn't have started electioneering (no posters or anything else) more than five or six weeks before the election date - and Jack and co. return just after the election has been won. There was also a missing persons poster for Jack in the old (Season One) Hub archives which gave his last seen date as 26th January, something like that. Which doesn't help with the end date, I know, but it's clearly not height of summer or aututmn / winter when Jack returns.

On gut feeling, three months for me gives the Jack-less team time to regroup, get closer and just about muddle by without him. Any longer, and I think their chances of surviving would have been diminished significantly, just by the odds getting longer with each incident to deal with. Also I simply don't think Jack would have been accepted back if it had been more than that few months. Though that part is all my own conjecture! I can't recall seeing anything in canon which set a hard and fast time gap - I do recall seeing TPTB say they weren't going to ever be clear how long he was gone.

So where is the extra time? Did Jack's time-manipulator get them back to London eleven weeks after he left the Hub? Is that where the missing time was?

There is no extra time! Time is relative to the individual. Jack's timeline - his own calendar, if you like - takes place over the few days we see on DW, complete with a missing-year insert. The moment he sets foot on the TARDIS - and, indeed, the moment he uses the manipulator - he is no longer accountable to the chronology of Earth, if you like, any more than the Doctor is. If you forget the Year That Never Was, and imagine an AU where Jack meets the Doctor and goes off for a thousand year long adventure, it could happen because the TARDIS can simply bring him back at any time - five minutes after he left, three months, twenty thousand years. Ditto the manipulator - and so, yes, I think that it simply returned Jack, the Doctor and Martha back to Earth at trhe point of time they really needed to be there to deal with Saxon - i.e., as things were about to kick off after the election.

So, from Ianto's perspective, for example, it's been three months (or six, or whichever you choose) since he saw Jack. From Jack's perspective, it would only have been five or six days, if that pesky reset year hadn't happened in the middle.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

there are (if you're being really pedantic) constitutional laws in the UK governing the period of time between when an election can be called, and when it has to happen, and it's a pretty short period of time

My first thought was, "Ah-hah, I bet it's the same as we have in Canada," but from the Wikipedia information (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_elections#Timing) it would appear to be less - seventeen days:

The Prime Minister asks the Monarch to dissolve Parliament by Royal Proclamation. The Proclamation also orders the issue of the formal Writs of Election which require an election to be held in each constituency. The election is held 17 working days after the date of the Proclamation, as regulated by the Representation of the People Act 1983, s. 23 and Schedule 1 ("Parliamentary election rules"), rule 1 ("Timetable").

In Canada, the timeframe is 36 days.

[fruitbat813.livejournal.com]

Everybody who was on the Valiant should remember the year that never was.

The American president is still dead.

Torchwood did go to the Himalayas. That happened before the paradox machine became active, just like the death of the president.

We don´t know exatly how long Jack was gone. Depends on how long before the election it was when Jack jumped on the TARDIS and how much time had passed since the election when they returned from the far future. In his personal timeline, Jack only spent a few days with the Doctor, not counting the year that never was.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Everybody who was on the Valiant should remember the year that never was.

That's a lot of people.

In his personal timeline, Jack only spent a few days with the Doctor, not counting the year that never was.

Yes, exactly. That's where my confusion lies. We know he went straight out of the Hub to the TARDIS. And then a few days with the Doctor before TYTNW. So why, from the point of view of the Torchwood Team, was it several months?

[benbenberi.livejournal.com]

Everybody who was on the Valiant should remember the year that never was.

That's a lot of people.

Yeah, it is a lot of people. They've never dealt with that.

They also ignore the question of all the people who were physically present on the Valiant in the original timeline, who are not physically present when the year resets itself. Presumably those who died during the YTNW (i.e. most of them) have been un-deaded, like the rest of the population -- but there was a pretty big crowd on the Valiant the first time around who obviously weren't there when the do-over started. So where do they reappear, and how do they account for the sudden change of scene?

So why, from the point of view of the Torchwood Team, was it several months?

*waves hand vaguely* Maybe he took a few months holiday after he left the Doctor? Lord knows the poor man needed some tropical down-time after the year he just had...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

They've never dealt with that.

Which makes it fun as a fanfic theme.

Presumably those who died during the YTNW (i.e. most of them) have been un-deaded, like the rest of the population

It would have to be that way, though I'm a little perplexed as to how the universe made sense of the death of the President.

So where do they reappear, and how do they account for the sudden change of scene?

Confusion? Mass amnesia?

Maybe he took a few months holiday after he left the Doctor? Lord knows the poor man needed some tropical down-time after the year he just had...

Nice thought. Recovery time would be good - getting back into shape after a year motionless in chains, recovering from whatever the Master did to him.

This makes me speculate what form a 'holiday' would take for Jack.

[rivier.livejournal.com]

Recovery time would be good - getting back into shape after a year motionless in chains, recovering from whatever the Master did to him.

Physically, though, he wouldn't have anything to recover. The paradox of what Rose did to him is that Jack himself resets to more or less precisely how he was physically at the point when she restored him to forever life the first time. Anything the Master might have physically done to Jack, from a sore back to having all his entrails draped around the flight deck, would just resolve with each death - Jack always comes back from death minty-fresh and whole of limb. And we know he's shot dead in his last escape attempt, the red herring before Martha's return, so he would have had nothing to recover from after that.

Mentally... it's also possible that Jack 'resets' in some sense. If being buried alive and dying incessantly for two thousand years didn't seem to have any noticeable effect on his mental health - and he springs out of that cold storage completely ready to go kick fraternal ass - then would a year of creative torture have really done that much either? Jack does seem to find people killing him to be slightly, well, almost amusing at times. He's also the man who shot himself dead on a nightly basis while playing undercover carny.

All the canon I can think of seems pretty clear - Jack mentions, without huge angst, that he had time to think, and in that time, he chose to return to Torchwood. It just doesn't seem to suggest to me that he was traumatised, that he needed to recover or be nursed in some way, by the Doctor or anytone else. He just wants to go home to his people after it's all over.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Physically, though, he wouldn't have anything to recover.

Good point. He just recovers. That persumably includes muscle tone, malnutrition, whatever. How handy.

I think Jack probably does 'reset' mentally to some extent, but even without that, he seems to have good psychological powers of recovery from horrors. (I'm thinking of his experiences as a boy-soldier when his friend was tortured to death.)

I think Jack makes sure that his traumas don't show, and people would be surprised to know which parts of his experience really bother him and which don't.

I think canon implies strongly that Jack goes right from that last scene in Cardiff with Martha and the Doctor to the Hub; the others are out chasing Blowfish and he catches up to them that evening at the hostage incident in "Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang". Which leaves a few hours fudge-factor at most. And then he relives that day again after the episode - !

Ah, time travel. Such invigorating fun.

Good thing Jack doesn't need sleep.

[aeron-lanart.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that most of the 3 months happened *before* TYTNW; Jack's wrist device probably not being the most accurate thing time travel wise even after the Doctor's jiggery pokery (he arrived a century early for the Doctor remember, and he wasn't travelling from as far forward in time). The election campaign was just starting at the end of S1 Torchwood (there's a Vote Saxon poster on the outside of the dance hall in CJH) and that certainly wouldn't have gone on for more than 3 months due to the way the UK does these things.

Basically the answer to your question is 'Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey stuff happened'.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Do we know how long Saxon was PM before Jack, the Doctor and Martha arrived back in London?

Basically the answer to your question is 'Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey stuff happened'.

So true!

I feel this gives me a certain leeway in canon for fitting in fic.

[aeron-lanart.livejournal.com]

I think they arrived back only a few days if that after he'd won the election. I'd need to re-watch to be more certain.

The DW/TW timeline is so convoluted that I don't think anyone reading a fic would be too picky about a few weeks here or there. Timelines make your head hurt.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Timelines: the more you think about them, the more confusing they become.

[rivier.livejournal.com]

They arrive back just as the joyous news of Saxon's election victory is being hailed on the streets or in the newspapers, certainly something Martha sees just when they get back and I can't for the life of me remember what. So, about a day at the most, I believe.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Not long, then. And just as well.

I believe they see a news item about Saxon becoming the new PM, as if election results are still fresh news.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

One could argue there is a difference between content and the way it is expressed. So perhaps in chapter 1 the characters go off together to spent the night while in chapter 2 we can read in exquisite detail how the same two characters pleasure each other for 25 pages long. I guess rated individually these two chapters would be rated differently while the content was the same, lets say it was even about the same bout of lovemaking (like that book by that French author I can't remember right now, describing the same incident from the perspective of all involved.)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I can agree that content and the expression of content can be quite different. It just seems strange to me to give a rating that isn't a ration, or to make ratings for one posting to cover ratings for another posting, as when people say, "later chapters will be R" without categorizing this particular chapter.

Which all fuels my belief that ratings are silly in the first place, but yes, I know, they're necessary.

I've heard about a legendary shower-sex scene in (I think) The Sentinel fandom that was something like 60 pages long.

[wijsgeer.livejournal.com]

I'd say if it is about chapters of 1 story you should give them the same rating. I mean, if it is a story which contains sex and violence that are even remotely relevant for the plot (or even just overall atmosphere) it doesn't make much sense to read just parts of it.

If you write self contained stories in 1 universe you can give them separate ratings and then the reader can choose what to read (assuming the ratings are a way to help the reader distinguish what s/he want to read and avoid).

[attolia.livejournal.com]

If you ignore TYTNW, it's similar to what happened to Rose when she first traveled with the doctor (and was gone a year, present time, instead of just a day): 3 days after Abbadon, Jack traveled to the end of time and then came back to a time some unspecified weeks or months after he had left. Neither the Tardis nor the vortex manipulator seem to be particularly precise time travel mechanisms.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Neither the Tardis nor the vortex manipulator seem to be particularly precise time travel mechanisms.

No. It isn't like Mussolini's trains. In fact, they seem to drop their riders off in strange and odd places. Look at the TARDIS taking Rose and Ten to 1879 when they aimed at 1979 - !

[beccaelizabeth]

the reset went to just before the six billion Toclafane showed up, therefore just after the US President died.
I always figured the Toclafane that did that arrived in the TARDIS
and when the reset happened they weren't in the Valiant so they vanished with the alternate timeline.

There's no six month gap in Jack's life, it's just time travel jumped the gap.

Team Torchwood went to the Himalayas and Owen wrote up a report on the website.
http://community.livejournal.com/iantos_desktop/4818.html
"On our way back, they told us Harry Saxon had won the election, then he murdered the American President, then he was shot dead by his wife. A week really is a long time in politics."

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

What a wonderful Owen quote! I'd read it, but had forgotten it entirely.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

*amused spluttering!*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I wonder what happened to Lucy Saxon after that?

[dewline.livejournal.com]

Maximum security lockup for her.

Pity about Saxon's predecessor's fate. She deserved better. A return to her old job in particular.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Maximum security lockup for her.

In the UNIT dungeon?

Pity about Saxon's predecessor's fate. She deserved better.

Harriet Jones? She was magnificent. I liked the way she died a hero.

There must have been someone between her and Saxon, though. We just never met him/her/it.

I wonder who's Prime Minister now.

[dewline.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking Mrs. Saxon's now an involuntary guest of Her Majesty. You kill a sitting PM, even if he did just murder a sitting US President hours before...and there will be consequences.

And my sense is that the Valiant, the venue of both crimes, is on loan to UNIT from the RN. Valiant crew were wearing insignia that suggested a strong UK affiliation, as well...so the legal situation may indeed be more complex than either of us believed. The US public opinion of Mrs. Saxon may have an international PR bearing on matters, too.

I go any further on this, and I be asking for trouble. At least one Whovian scriptwriter I know of is on LJ, too nowadays...and he's also writing Capt. Britain and MI-13.

Speaking of the Valiant again...

[dewline.livejournal.com]

...I hope they figured out a way to get her airborne again without running off of the TARDIS.

Re: Speaking of the Valiant again...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I hope they figured out a way to get her airborne again

They must have, because we see the Valiant in action in "The Sontaran Stratagem". I was relieved.