The Last Great Time War: part III

The Fall of Arcadia, part I

Author's Note: The video is a fanmade Time War theme I found on YouTube that I thought fit well.

The War had no end or beginning. It was continuous and forever. Though the lower species could not see it, they were part of it. No event or history was immune to manipulation to the advantage of one side or the other. While mighty armadas blew each other and everything around them into vapor or out of the timestream, spies and assassins altered history from the shadows. Though not as spectacular, their work could be just as devastating. Nations and empires created, overthrown, or prevented, wars started or stopped, the fates of galaxies used as pawns in the elaborate game. Evolution itself was altered, species engineered into living superweapons. Everything on every scale was weaponized to create as much destruction and chaos to the other side as possible. A single person or team could change an event whose ripple effect would destroy billions.

And the ripple effects just kept piling up, changes and paradoxes turning timelines into loops, then cat's cradles, then Gordian knots, sending more waves of changes and paradoxes across creation. Planets, systems, galaxies, and even galaxy clusters would spontaneously blink in and out of existence. Skaro Degradations, Travesties, Meanwhiles and Neverweres poured into reality by the billions from the ragged, bleeding, infected wounds in time and space. Even the lower species who could not perceive the War directly were not immune to the horror. History unraveling beneath their feet, the changes forgotten in the waking world but remembered in Deja vu, conspiracy theories, and terrible nightmares. They did not know or understand what was happening, but they knew that it was wrong. The Nightmare Child fed on their terror and grew more and more, its appendages and extensions spreading through the cosmos like strands of mold through bread.

No universe, dimension or plane was unaffected as the War rolled on, the mighty combatants caring nothing for the innocents they trampled as they fought, powerful enough to ruin all creation but not to destroy each other. No matter how much they destroyed, the vast armies never stopped or slowed.

But now, something had changed. For the first time since perhaps the War began, there was a way to end it. To stop the carnage once and for all. What exactly that was remained to be seen.

-----

"We stand on the brink of extinction," said Narvin to the other surviving NTA leaders. "We've lost the Sanctuary, most of our worlds, and nearly half of our fleets. If we don't act now all is lost."

"What CAN we do," asked Zirnon, leader of the Warpsmiths. "Without our Eye of Harmony and the Sanctuary, how can we hope to survive? We don't stand a chance against either the Time Lords or the Daleks on their own, so how can we hope to defeat them both AND all of the eldritch abominations they've spawned?"

"We can't give up yet," said the Renegade. "While there's life, there's hope. We still have half the fleet, and Susan has discovered what is perhaps our greatest opportunity yet."

"The Daleks will soon breach Gallifrey's defenses," she said. "The Time Lords are losing ground. The whole War will soon converge upon them."

"When that happens," said the Renegade, "we must strike with everything we have. Send all forces to capture Gallifrey before anybody else does. Then, we will transmit a computer virus that will turn every existing TARDIS to our side."

"That might just be crazy enough to work," Narvin said. "Romana would be proud."

The Renegade nodded, his eyes watering. Romana was trapped on Skaro as it burned over and over again, keeping the billions of Daleks on Skaro trapped with her.

"But what if it DOESN'T work," said the former Cyber-Controller who, like the rest of his legion, had regained his emotions, and, after the War, planned to become fully biological again.

"And what of the effects of bringing the front line to Gallifrey," said someone else. "If Gallifrey falls, it takes with it one of the last strong anchors of stability. Even if its keepers have turned evil, the Eye of Harmony is one of the last few things holding creation together."

"That's why we need to seize it before anyone else does," said the Renegade. "With our varied technology, the power of the Eye, and millions of Time Lord warships, we will find and take the Eye of Discord as well."

"Then we will finally have the capability to start undoing the terrible damage this War has wrought," said Susan.

"How could that much devastation possibly be undone," said the leader of the Monan Host. "I fear that the space-time continuum can never be more than a crippled shadow of its former self, and that's if it even survives at all."

"Do not lose faith in the light." said Susan. "That is the path that the Time Lords and the precursors of the Daleks took."

"This may be our last hope for saving the innocents of Gallifrey and ourselves," said the Renegade. "We have to give it everything we've got, and we have to be ready. Get everyone to battle stations right now."