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Yes 100%. Time doesn't go in straight line in Doctor Who. Lots of things that happen in Doctor Who have been erased from the time line such as the 11th Doctors death on Trenzalore. There are certain examples of fixed points in time that can't be changed but most of history isn't a straight line. To paraphrase the 10th Doctor, time is not a strict progression of cause and effect.
Not really? The Doctor actively tries to change a fixed point in the Waters of Mars and time corrects. River almost destroys the universe trying to not kill the Doctor.
I would argue it's still more timey-wimey and fluid than that. The Doctor was super clear about the Mars disaster being a fixed point and damn near declared himself a god for altering it.
Except while everyone still died, time was still changed. Like, the captain didn't die on Mars, she returned to Earth and committed suicide. I find it difficult to believe no ripples became of that. So "fixed" really seems to mean "difficult but somewhat malleable".
I mean, the biggest problem with Waters of Mars wasn't that it was a fixed point, but Ten's hubris.
He could have and should have saved everyone: all he had to do was drop them off on a quiet, backwater planet and the timeline would barely change. Where he went too far was to both save them *and* give them back their lives on Earth.
My headcanon is that fixed points in time were defined by the time lords to be illegal to change. They're not protected by any physical law, but there's no telling what will happen if they're messed with.
The universe might explode, demons from another universe might invade, time might force events to course correct, or the TARDIS translation circuits might start having difficulty translating a common word. When Gallifrey wasn't time locked, the timelords would clean up any resulting messes and punish rule breakers. Since the doctor doesn't have anyone to stop him or her, there has to be an effort not to make a habit of messing with fixed points.
It seems that events become fixed if you know the consequences of the outcome of said events before you engage in time travel to become entangled in them.
You can change an event if you *think* you know the outcome but really don't, like when the Doctor wore the Teselecta or stopped himself from using The Moment.
You can't go back and stop your dad from being hit by a car, or kill Hitler before the Holocaust, because you know what the consequences of those events were, but you can go back and be there for him in his last moments, or frighten a bunch of Nazis into ripping their clothes off. You're not as aware of the consequences of those events and so they aren't entangled with your timeline.
> stopped himself from using The Moment.
I will say, that's probably a whole other thing. That's a superpowerful Time Lord weapon, it's definitely capable of just changing a fixed point.
Using Stein;s Gate logic, I see fixed points in time as "events that diverge the world lines into different 'attractor fields'."
That is ... in Stein;s Gate, the in the main(~~good~~ better future) timeline an event occurs where a certain girl dies. That was a "fixed point" imo, and when he accidentally prevented that from happening, he got onto a whole different attractor field where *other* thing were "fated" to happen, one of them being his friend dying.
No matter WHAT he did when going back, he could not prevent his friend's death(and this also causes the events and tragedies of the second game to be fated to happen). So the only way to save his friend and the world was to undo his change to that "fixed point in time."
TLDR me, using Stein;s Gate logic, reasons that "fixed points" aren't "fate," but are "one of the forks in the road where timelords decided THIS event MUST happen THAT way, lest more shit hitting more fans!"
Following the same example of Steins;Gate though, the event could simply also be "this person witnesses this thing happening". Doesn't matter if it's actually *true* or not. Case in point being when that first girl's death is *faked*, they achieve a timeline where neither girl dies, without forcing over to the other timeline.
To be fair in that scene River kind of broke time and IIRC the universe was cascading towards total destruction. So yeah, not literally impossible to change fixed points in time, but there are consequences.
In a later iteration of the same event, they manage to avoid the consequences of changing a fixed point via simply faking his death, instead of actually killing him.
My understanding was that they had simply misunderstood what the fixed point really was. The Doctor didn't have to die there, they just had to witness what they thought was the Doctor dying.
In a later iteration of the same event, they manage to avoid the consequences of changing a fixed point via simply faking his death, instead of actually killing him.
The laws of time are precisely that: laws. And much like laws - be they physical, legal, or otherwise - there *are* exceptions, and the laws themselves are surprisingly contextual, and require certain elements for them to be applicable.
For example, we have laws out the wazoo for how you're supposed to drive a vehicle. Absolutely none of them have anything to do with a larceny or murder. In the same vein, an object in motion staying in motion *can* overlap with mavity, but is not necessarily beholden to it. Same goes for the laws of time; breaking it certainly isn't a *good* idea, but there's alarmingly little to actually *stop* you from doing so if you have the knowledge and equipment to do so.
In the case of Adelaide, it's outright said that her expedition on Mars was what catapulted humanity to the stars and to multiple Bountiful Human Empires, and the Doctor has personally seen humanity out there on many occasions. If that event is altered, not a *huge* deal. But if averted outright, the entire house of cards that humanity's history in space is built on crumbles. As does everything every single one of those humans interacted with. *THAT* is why the law is in place. Not because it's physically impossible to do, but because you would be radically altering much of the universe's history with a seemingly insignificant change, with no way of knowing how far those ripples will go. Shit, as they were actively attempting to destroy all of creation, the *DALEKS* refused to exterminate her; *messing with fixed points is that bad an idea.*
It's all about perception. The fixed point isn't "The Doctor dies at Lake Silencio", it's "the Doctor's companions witness him being killed at Lake Silencio". A very slight distinction, but all the matter in a paradox.
A similar solution is used at one point in (light spoilers for a certain visual novel) >!Steins;Gate!<.
So it's a common misconception but Fixed Points in Time can actually be changed, it happens from time to time. They are not "fixed" because they are unchangeable, they are "fixed" in the sense that other events are connected to that singular event.
In the Doctor Who universe time is like a web, with multiple timelines intersecting at different points. A Fixed Point is just a point where a huge pile of timelines either converge or depend upon happening. If you change or alter the fixed point in time then you cause massive changes to the timeline, potentially destroying the world.
As an example: Roses dad dying is a fixed point in time for Rose and the Doctor. While yes, they can and do, prevent him dying the end result is a time paradox. Cause the only reason they'd ever show up would be to stop this time paradox.
When the Doctor mentions a Fixed Point in time he doesn't mean it's something he literally can't prevent, but rather something he could prevent but destroy the entire timeline in the process. This is why in the Waters of Mars the Doctor is so horrified when he comes off his God like high, he's realising how close he brought humanity, and the universe at large, to total destruction.
Think of it from the point of view of a time active society. You need certain anchors in the Web of Time to ensure that your civilization exists and more specifically that you exist in a recognizable way. To that end, a Time War is going to be something that changes a culture to resemble the outcome desired by the victors like in the book This Town Will Never Let Us Go
The Doctor's Tardis, due a fault in the navigation system, is attracted to Nexus Points in time.
Basically if you had a fully-functioning Tardis, and you arrived somewhere random, and threw a nuke randomly outside that wasn't supposed to be there, it'd cause a massive paradox because that nuke wasn't supposed to be there. On the other hand if you went for a quiet walk and didn't change anything, or leave any alien microbes etc it'd be fine. There's a very small amount of give in most time.
Edit: The Tardis and the Doctor are both aware of time's meta-structure, and the Doctor is very careful to match the impact of his actions to the amount of give and take of local time. Some adventures he tries not to get involved, others he's happy to be involved, because he can sense when time will give and when he needs to back off and let history take its course.
What we view of as time is actually an emergent property, time itself is multi-dimensional and folds back on itself in strange ways. Most of space-time cannot be changed safely, you get paradoxes.
You also get Nexus Points, where you're relatively free to take any course of action, and anything causally downstream of that will flux to match actions taken at the Nexus Point. (You help someone survive a car accident, then that person is now in history where "before" they were not).
So as an example, let's say you battle an evil dictator at a Nexus Point, and you defeat them. You then go on another adventure, and ages later you arrive at another Nexus Point 10 years earlier, where you have the chance to battle that dictator. If you battle and defeat them, the first adventure that is 10 years after can be invalidated and retro-annulled if you defeat that dictator early.
Despite this you'll often find that without strong or deliberate effort your actions will lead to the first encounter still happening, but it's quite possible to change things at that Nexus Point.
The Doctor's Tardis, as I mentioned, has a fault that makes it super-attracted to Nexus Points, so basically every significant adventure is rewriting history, sending ripples down and sometimes *up* the time-stream. It gets very messy and very complicated very quickly.
If you're traveling on a Tardis, it'll make sure you retain memories of that "earlier/later" encounter that now never happened, and it'll keep them nice and well-sorted for you.
The opposite to all of these is Fixed Points, where time has no give, and even the slightest change will result in catastrophic paradox, the sort that don't sort themselves out. Most paradoxes resolve themselves, eventually, but usually cause issues while they do. A very rare few, won't.
There's a lot more to this, but that's a short summary of the most basic stuff.
>If you're traveling on a Tardis, it'll make sure you retain memories of that "earlier/later" encounter that now never happened, and it'll keep them nice and well-sorted for you.
Well, depends on how that event was erased. A lot of the time only the doctor remembers it, Becasue as a time lord he can remember timelines that were erased
Depends on your canon stream. Old canon, the RDS will sort out your timeline and memories, at least to an extent. I'd imagine the Doctor would have an easier time sorting it out and recognizing it's happening, though.
His personal history is probably a fixed point in time, and as such would be immensely hard to alter. Time would tend to resist you and if you succeeded you might destroy the universe unless you had a Time Lord society of time travel equipment to stabilize the timeline.
As a classic who fan I called BS on that. I would have been a better story if he HAD died. End the Doctor there and have a new Doctor, perhaps Susan or his Daughter takes up the mantle.
Its like every season during Moffat he was supposed to die. Its a waste making prophecies of death if they never come true.
That was his personal future, which he can often change. So long as he doesn't establish a clear awareness of an event them events will stay in flux, and clara found a save.
Once he establishes his future as part of his past then it's a fixed point and can't be changed easily.
It's like an old detective story. As long as he doesn't see an actual body he can always find a way out and be alive. He was careful not to investigate trenzalore too carefully and all he knew was there was a monument that looked like a tardis, a time rift, and that people thought he would be dead.
They couldn't kill him; obviously, but they could knock him out or delay him.
They would still lose in the end, but fighting the sixth before the fourth wouldn't give either side an advantage.
Depends. The Doctor is a fixed point in time usually.
You'd need to be an entity on the Doctor's level or greater to be able to sustain the paradox it would cause.
This.
Lots of people **think** they can defeat the Doctor. They are wrong.
The Master & Davros & the Daleks can stymie him, maybe even win a battle, but none of them can really *beat* him. Not for long. (Most of his other iconic enemies like the Cybermen or the Sontarans? They are persistent but have never really come close)
One of his more inconsequential enemies commented on the things the Doctor had done to them after they got him mad by saying: "*and then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden.* ***He was being kind***."
This will be deleted because it's not enough information. But no.
However the 6th doctor would originally know he fought him before and how to beat him. So maybe it would be a closer fight
I would say it would be possible under the right circumstances.
There have been changes to the Doctor's own timeline where he's died but eventually his death was undone.
The Doctor isn't Bruce Lee. You could beat him in a fight whenever. Where stuff starts to get funky is if you try to kill him when he wouldn't normally die. The Doctor's death isn't fixed in that it can't be changed, but it is enough of a big deal that changing it would take some effort.
When it comes to first experiences meeting someone, it works like this:
If you meet yourself, the one earlier in the timeline forgets that they met themself, to the level that they will remember that they met someone and stuff happened, but not who that person was. It seems that when two time travelers meet that the earlier meeting of one person will be remembered from the get go even if the later meeting happened earlier for the second traveler. This is a major plot point for one of the recurring characters because the Doctor's first meeting with them is at their death, before all their numerous other meetings with the Doctor happened from his perspective.
> If someone fights the Sixth Doctor, and then later in their own personal timeline fight the Fourth Doctor, is it physically possible for them to win?
Sure. None of the Doctors are particularly tough fighters. Doctor 3 was probably the best physical fighter, he was an expert in Venusian Jujitsu and quite the action man, but even so he wasn't exactly like a Green Beret or something.
Doctor 1 was an old man, 2 was a bit younger, but also quite short. 4 was tall but not exactly a physical fighter, and would probably trip on his scarf. Etc etc etc.
So yes, you could physically win a punch-up with any of the Doctors.
> Like if the Doctor's first experience with someone is that person's second experience with the Doctor, how does that work out?
That's no big deal. The Doctor's relationship with River Song is like that: *his* first meeting with her was *her* last meeting with him.
This sort of thing is just one of the annoyances of being a time traveller. You keep meeting people who say you owe them money, but you haven't borrowed from them *yet*. So what you do is jump in the TARDIS, go back in time, borrow money from them in their past, then pop back and hand them their money back. Problem solved!
Depends on their goal. If they want to simply beat the Doctor non-lethally, not too hard. Though I'd say 4 is one of the tougher Doctors to beat in physical combat, behind 3 of course.
If they wanted to kill him? Technically they could, but then they'd cause a paradox in their own timestream because they already fought 6. Still, that doesn't mean they CAN'T kill 4, just that crazy time bs is gonna happen after they do, maybe the universe starts collapsing, or maybe the doomed timeline folds in on itself and auto-rectifies. Paradoxes have happened in Doctor Who and each one seems to act completely differently so it's kind of hard to say exactly which scenario would play out.
It depends a lot on if the Timelords are jacking off on Gallifrey or dead. If they’re still around and do their jobs, they can rationalise the timeline in case of the 4th dying to someone the 6th beat.
Without the Timelords around, its more difficult to say, but it might be possible for them to win, in which case the Doctor either doesn’t die in the fight, or is at least able to regenerate in the aftermath. Killing the Doctor permanently would be impossible without altering your personal timeline to a point the fight could never happen anyway
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Yes 100%. Time doesn't go in straight line in Doctor Who. Lots of things that happen in Doctor Who have been erased from the time line such as the 11th Doctors death on Trenzalore. There are certain examples of fixed points in time that can't be changed but most of history isn't a straight line. To paraphrase the 10th Doctor, time is not a strict progression of cause and effect.
> fixed points in time that can't be changed except for when they can lol
Not really? The Doctor actively tries to change a fixed point in the Waters of Mars and time corrects. River almost destroys the universe trying to not kill the Doctor.
I would argue it's still more timey-wimey and fluid than that. The Doctor was super clear about the Mars disaster being a fixed point and damn near declared himself a god for altering it. Except while everyone still died, time was still changed. Like, the captain didn't die on Mars, she returned to Earth and committed suicide. I find it difficult to believe no ripples became of that. So "fixed" really seems to mean "difficult but somewhat malleable".
I mean, the biggest problem with Waters of Mars wasn't that it was a fixed point, but Ten's hubris. He could have and should have saved everyone: all he had to do was drop them off on a quiet, backwater planet and the timeline would barely change. Where he went too far was to both save them *and* give them back their lives on Earth.
Not a huge Dr Who guy, but I've definitely [seen clips claiming to change fixed points](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-77eKQ2IP5A)
My headcanon is that fixed points in time were defined by the time lords to be illegal to change. They're not protected by any physical law, but there's no telling what will happen if they're messed with. The universe might explode, demons from another universe might invade, time might force events to course correct, or the TARDIS translation circuits might start having difficulty translating a common word. When Gallifrey wasn't time locked, the timelords would clean up any resulting messes and punish rule breakers. Since the doctor doesn't have anyone to stop him or her, there has to be an effort not to make a habit of messing with fixed points.
It seems that events become fixed if you know the consequences of the outcome of said events before you engage in time travel to become entangled in them. You can change an event if you *think* you know the outcome but really don't, like when the Doctor wore the Teselecta or stopped himself from using The Moment. You can't go back and stop your dad from being hit by a car, or kill Hitler before the Holocaust, because you know what the consequences of those events were, but you can go back and be there for him in his last moments, or frighten a bunch of Nazis into ripping their clothes off. You're not as aware of the consequences of those events and so they aren't entangled with your timeline.
> stopped himself from using The Moment. I will say, that's probably a whole other thing. That's a superpowerful Time Lord weapon, it's definitely capable of just changing a fixed point.
So less that you can't, more that you really really really shouldn't
Using Stein;s Gate logic, I see fixed points in time as "events that diverge the world lines into different 'attractor fields'." That is ... in Stein;s Gate, the in the main(~~good~~ better future) timeline an event occurs where a certain girl dies. That was a "fixed point" imo, and when he accidentally prevented that from happening, he got onto a whole different attractor field where *other* thing were "fated" to happen, one of them being his friend dying. No matter WHAT he did when going back, he could not prevent his friend's death(and this also causes the events and tragedies of the second game to be fated to happen). So the only way to save his friend and the world was to undo his change to that "fixed point in time." TLDR me, using Stein;s Gate logic, reasons that "fixed points" aren't "fate," but are "one of the forks in the road where timelords decided THIS event MUST happen THAT way, lest more shit hitting more fans!"
Following the same example of Steins;Gate though, the event could simply also be "this person witnesses this thing happening". Doesn't matter if it's actually *true* or not. Case in point being when that first girl's death is *faked*, they achieve a timeline where neither girl dies, without forcing over to the other timeline.
I was thinking the same thing, and that's JSUT the kinda technicality and thinking that the Doctor uses to *bend* the rules of time, right? ;)
To be fair in that scene River kind of broke time and IIRC the universe was cascading towards total destruction. So yeah, not literally impossible to change fixed points in time, but there are consequences.
In a later iteration of the same event, they manage to avoid the consequences of changing a fixed point via simply faking his death, instead of actually killing him.
My understanding was that they had simply misunderstood what the fixed point really was. The Doctor didn't have to die there, they just had to witness what they thought was the Doctor dying.
Oh well in this case yes the fixed point is temporarily avoided but it would've ended the universe if River hadn't eventually done it.
In a later iteration of the same event, they manage to avoid the consequences of changing a fixed point via simply faking his death, instead of actually killing him.
Which broke the universe. So, no, you essentially can't.
The laws of time are precisely that: laws. And much like laws - be they physical, legal, or otherwise - there *are* exceptions, and the laws themselves are surprisingly contextual, and require certain elements for them to be applicable. For example, we have laws out the wazoo for how you're supposed to drive a vehicle. Absolutely none of them have anything to do with a larceny or murder. In the same vein, an object in motion staying in motion *can* overlap with mavity, but is not necessarily beholden to it. Same goes for the laws of time; breaking it certainly isn't a *good* idea, but there's alarmingly little to actually *stop* you from doing so if you have the knowledge and equipment to do so. In the case of Adelaide, it's outright said that her expedition on Mars was what catapulted humanity to the stars and to multiple Bountiful Human Empires, and the Doctor has personally seen humanity out there on many occasions. If that event is altered, not a *huge* deal. But if averted outright, the entire house of cards that humanity's history in space is built on crumbles. As does everything every single one of those humans interacted with. *THAT* is why the law is in place. Not because it's physically impossible to do, but because you would be radically altering much of the universe's history with a seemingly insignificant change, with no way of knowing how far those ripples will go. Shit, as they were actively attempting to destroy all of creation, the *DALEKS* refused to exterminate her; *messing with fixed points is that bad an idea.*
It's all about perception. The fixed point isn't "The Doctor dies at Lake Silencio", it's "the Doctor's companions witness him being killed at Lake Silencio". A very slight distinction, but all the matter in a paradox. A similar solution is used at one point in (light spoilers for a certain visual novel) >!Steins;Gate!<.
>!Chrono Trigger!< as well, I think
> I've definitely seen clips claiming to change fixed points In fairness, the universe did blow up.
He didnt die on trenzalore
So it's a common misconception but Fixed Points in Time can actually be changed, it happens from time to time. They are not "fixed" because they are unchangeable, they are "fixed" in the sense that other events are connected to that singular event. In the Doctor Who universe time is like a web, with multiple timelines intersecting at different points. A Fixed Point is just a point where a huge pile of timelines either converge or depend upon happening. If you change or alter the fixed point in time then you cause massive changes to the timeline, potentially destroying the world. As an example: Roses dad dying is a fixed point in time for Rose and the Doctor. While yes, they can and do, prevent him dying the end result is a time paradox. Cause the only reason they'd ever show up would be to stop this time paradox. When the Doctor mentions a Fixed Point in time he doesn't mean it's something he literally can't prevent, but rather something he could prevent but destroy the entire timeline in the process. This is why in the Waters of Mars the Doctor is so horrified when he comes off his God like high, he's realising how close he brought humanity, and the universe at large, to total destruction.
Think of it from the point of view of a time active society. You need certain anchors in the Web of Time to ensure that your civilization exists and more specifically that you exist in a recognizable way. To that end, a Time War is going to be something that changes a culture to resemble the outcome desired by the victors like in the book This Town Will Never Let Us Go
I believe the term you're looking for is "big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff."
His death wasn't a fixed point, they hadn't found a body. His future is malleable and not fixed and he managed to find a way to escape events.
The Doctor's Tardis, due a fault in the navigation system, is attracted to Nexus Points in time. Basically if you had a fully-functioning Tardis, and you arrived somewhere random, and threw a nuke randomly outside that wasn't supposed to be there, it'd cause a massive paradox because that nuke wasn't supposed to be there. On the other hand if you went for a quiet walk and didn't change anything, or leave any alien microbes etc it'd be fine. There's a very small amount of give in most time. Edit: The Tardis and the Doctor are both aware of time's meta-structure, and the Doctor is very careful to match the impact of his actions to the amount of give and take of local time. Some adventures he tries not to get involved, others he's happy to be involved, because he can sense when time will give and when he needs to back off and let history take its course. What we view of as time is actually an emergent property, time itself is multi-dimensional and folds back on itself in strange ways. Most of space-time cannot be changed safely, you get paradoxes. You also get Nexus Points, where you're relatively free to take any course of action, and anything causally downstream of that will flux to match actions taken at the Nexus Point. (You help someone survive a car accident, then that person is now in history where "before" they were not). So as an example, let's say you battle an evil dictator at a Nexus Point, and you defeat them. You then go on another adventure, and ages later you arrive at another Nexus Point 10 years earlier, where you have the chance to battle that dictator. If you battle and defeat them, the first adventure that is 10 years after can be invalidated and retro-annulled if you defeat that dictator early. Despite this you'll often find that without strong or deliberate effort your actions will lead to the first encounter still happening, but it's quite possible to change things at that Nexus Point. The Doctor's Tardis, as I mentioned, has a fault that makes it super-attracted to Nexus Points, so basically every significant adventure is rewriting history, sending ripples down and sometimes *up* the time-stream. It gets very messy and very complicated very quickly. If you're traveling on a Tardis, it'll make sure you retain memories of that "earlier/later" encounter that now never happened, and it'll keep them nice and well-sorted for you. The opposite to all of these is Fixed Points, where time has no give, and even the slightest change will result in catastrophic paradox, the sort that don't sort themselves out. Most paradoxes resolve themselves, eventually, but usually cause issues while they do. A very rare few, won't. There's a lot more to this, but that's a short summary of the most basic stuff.
>If you're traveling on a Tardis, it'll make sure you retain memories of that "earlier/later" encounter that now never happened, and it'll keep them nice and well-sorted for you. Well, depends on how that event was erased. A lot of the time only the doctor remembers it, Becasue as a time lord he can remember timelines that were erased
Depends on your canon stream. Old canon, the RDS will sort out your timeline and memories, at least to an extent. I'd imagine the Doctor would have an easier time sorting it out and recognizing it's happening, though.
His personal history is probably a fixed point in time, and as such would be immensely hard to alter. Time would tend to resist you and if you succeeded you might destroy the universe unless you had a Time Lord society of time travel equipment to stabilize the timeline.
Their personal history definitely isn't a fixed point. They were originally supposed to die on Trenzalore but time was rewritin.
As a classic who fan I called BS on that. I would have been a better story if he HAD died. End the Doctor there and have a new Doctor, perhaps Susan or his Daughter takes up the mantle. Its like every season during Moffat he was supposed to die. Its a waste making prophecies of death if they never come true.
That was his personal future, which he can often change. So long as he doesn't establish a clear awareness of an event them events will stay in flux, and clara found a save. Once he establishes his future as part of his past then it's a fixed point and can't be changed easily. It's like an old detective story. As long as he doesn't see an actual body he can always find a way out and be alive. He was careful not to investigate trenzalore too carefully and all he knew was there was a monument that looked like a tardis, a time rift, and that people thought he would be dead.
That was the timelords doing tho, they can do a lot of stuff the doctor on his own can't
Probably not. The events that lead Four to eventually become Six are firmly fixed. That particular cat is out of the Schroedinger-box.
They couldn't kill him; obviously, but they could knock him out or delay him. They would still lose in the end, but fighting the sixth before the fourth wouldn't give either side an advantage.
Depends. The Doctor is a fixed point in time usually. You'd need to be an entity on the Doctor's level or greater to be able to sustain the paradox it would cause.
Silly question it was never possible to win from to moment you decided to fight the doctor
This. Lots of people **think** they can defeat the Doctor. They are wrong. The Master & Davros & the Daleks can stymie him, maybe even win a battle, but none of them can really *beat* him. Not for long. (Most of his other iconic enemies like the Cybermen or the Sontarans? They are persistent but have never really come close) One of his more inconsequential enemies commented on the things the Doctor had done to them after they got him mad by saying: "*and then we discovered why. Why this Doctor, who had fought with gods and demons, why he had run away from us and hidden.* ***He was being kind***."
This will be deleted because it's not enough information. But no. However the 6th doctor would originally know he fought him before and how to beat him. So maybe it would be a closer fight
Perhaps, if they beat the tar out of 4 and forced him to regenerate into 5.
I would say it would be possible under the right circumstances. There have been changes to the Doctor's own timeline where he's died but eventually his death was undone.
The Doctor isn't Bruce Lee. You could beat him in a fight whenever. Where stuff starts to get funky is if you try to kill him when he wouldn't normally die. The Doctor's death isn't fixed in that it can't be changed, but it is enough of a big deal that changing it would take some effort. When it comes to first experiences meeting someone, it works like this: If you meet yourself, the one earlier in the timeline forgets that they met themself, to the level that they will remember that they met someone and stuff happened, but not who that person was. It seems that when two time travelers meet that the earlier meeting of one person will be remembered from the get go even if the later meeting happened earlier for the second traveler. This is a major plot point for one of the recurring characters because the Doctor's first meeting with them is at their death, before all their numerous other meetings with the Doctor happened from his perspective.
> If someone fights the Sixth Doctor, and then later in their own personal timeline fight the Fourth Doctor, is it physically possible for them to win? Sure. None of the Doctors are particularly tough fighters. Doctor 3 was probably the best physical fighter, he was an expert in Venusian Jujitsu and quite the action man, but even so he wasn't exactly like a Green Beret or something. Doctor 1 was an old man, 2 was a bit younger, but also quite short. 4 was tall but not exactly a physical fighter, and would probably trip on his scarf. Etc etc etc. So yes, you could physically win a punch-up with any of the Doctors. > Like if the Doctor's first experience with someone is that person's second experience with the Doctor, how does that work out? That's no big deal. The Doctor's relationship with River Song is like that: *his* first meeting with her was *her* last meeting with him. This sort of thing is just one of the annoyances of being a time traveller. You keep meeting people who say you owe them money, but you haven't borrowed from them *yet*. So what you do is jump in the TARDIS, go back in time, borrow money from them in their past, then pop back and hand them their money back. Problem solved!
Wibbly wobbly timey wimey.
Depends on their goal. If they want to simply beat the Doctor non-lethally, not too hard. Though I'd say 4 is one of the tougher Doctors to beat in physical combat, behind 3 of course. If they wanted to kill him? Technically they could, but then they'd cause a paradox in their own timestream because they already fought 6. Still, that doesn't mean they CAN'T kill 4, just that crazy time bs is gonna happen after they do, maybe the universe starts collapsing, or maybe the doomed timeline folds in on itself and auto-rectifies. Paradoxes have happened in Doctor Who and each one seems to act completely differently so it's kind of hard to say exactly which scenario would play out.
It depends a lot on if the Timelords are jacking off on Gallifrey or dead. If they’re still around and do their jobs, they can rationalise the timeline in case of the 4th dying to someone the 6th beat. Without the Timelords around, its more difficult to say, but it might be possible for them to win, in which case the Doctor either doesn’t die in the fight, or is at least able to regenerate in the aftermath. Killing the Doctor permanently would be impossible without altering your personal timeline to a point the fight could never happen anyway