θ Application for realityshifted
Timezone: EST
Other Characters: One half of a mischievous duo--the mature half (maturelildevil), a woman who supposedly has some damned thing on her back though no one can be bothered to tell her what (forever_noble), a nurse who is now a centurion who gets a lot of shit that happens to him but says damn it all in the name of love (dissedthesonic)
Character: The Tenth Doctor
Series/Fandom: Doctor Who
Deviance: D6. This is a Tenth Doctor who doesn't get to travel with Rose. He brings her home minutes after he regenerates, and ends up travelling with Harriet Jones instead. I'll detail out several other details in both the history and the reality description as Rose's absence causes a great deal of change that, if one really looks and analyses the change, truly effects the entirety of the Doctor's tenth incarnation, like she does in the canon version. Only, she does so in a completely different manner for this deviation. Her leaving at the start of this new incarnation closes many doors and avenues the Doctor's life would have gone through, but at the same time, others have opened up and it's the result of that one event that will be explored with this deviation.
Age: 901 (or so he says, but really, he lost track several regenerations ago and the 900 range sounded like a nice benchmark and doesn't make him feel as old as if he'd said he's over a thousand.)
Gender: Male
Species: Time Lord
Canon Used:
TV series-wise, everything up until partway through the Children in Need special where he's just moments into his new regenerative cycle. Because Rose chose to go home, several adventures won't happen or are changed. Oh yes, for past adventures in his previous incarnations, I also use events in the the Big Finish audios and Short Trips books, as well as any other books I can get my hands on (never minding it makes figuring out his encounters with both Shakespeare and Marlowe a real pill...)
Appearance:
Like a Tennant! He's a little over six feet tall, thin like a rail with lean muscle. Appears to be in his mid to late thirties, brown eyes. Has pale skin with freckles, especially on his face, and brown hair that practically has a life of its own. (Prefers to style it rather spiky as of late.) Wears a close-fitted brown suit with blue pinstripes, cream-coloured Converse trainers, and a long, light brown overcoat with big pockets, given to him by Janis Joplin. Also wears tortoise-shell specs when he's trying to concentrate or examine something--but mostly wears them to appear even smarter than he is. There's no prescription in the lenses.
Psychology:
The Doctor, in his tenth incarnation, is a genuinely friendly guy when one first meets him. Usually. There have been exceptions. Normally though, he's rather happy, jolly, and bubbly on the surface and is always filled with a nosy curiosity for the things around him. The universe, even after all his many years, can still fill him with wonder and excitement for all the things he's yet to see. He can, and will, poke his nose into things, whether he has permission to or not, because if there is anything he loves, he loves a good mystery and the thrill of solving it no matter how dangerous it is. He'll never say no to experiencing something new, as there are still things he hasn't tried yet.
He also loves a good joke, playing around with people, and has a brilliant and witty sense of humour, though he's been known to use horrible puns at the worst times (and, for that matter, at good times as well.) Really, he ought to lay off the bad puns altogether, but he just can't help himself. Really, he can't. Even said so himself. He can be quite cheeky too, but it's all part of his charm, really.
At times, he's really just a big kid. Turning up on Christmas day, no matter what year, is such a joy for him, especially if he arrives on Earth (or an Earth colony or some place that celebrates it.) At no other time of year can he see peace and happiness in the species he loves, and on the planet that is his second home. He very much enjoys hand holding, revelling in that sense of connection and warmth with another person, and of all of his previous selves, he just adores hugs. Congratulatory hugs, consoling hugs, hugs for the hell of it--he loves them all. There's a bit of desperation in these actions as he wants and yearns for these connections to people. He wants people to understand him and get things innately, and he appreciates, above all, anyone who is brave and clever in the face of adversity--and who would stay with him in spite of the potential dangers they'll face. Oh, and standing up to him or even solving something before he does, even if that is a blow to his ego. He admires all those things in people, but at the same time, he doesn't tolerate anyone who isn't willing to try to help. It irritates him. Waver for a moment or try to weasel your way out of doing something, and he'll write that person off as useless and ignore them. He doesn't have time to be wasting on such nonsense.
On the whole, he's chatty, sarcastic, and boy, can he babble on about nonsensical and sensible things. Often, his prattling is used as a means to distract his enemies, often angering them because honestly, he doesn't shut up once he's gotten going, but at the same time, he uses his babbling to discreetly pass along important information to his companion and allies. Oh yes, and he is unintentionally rude at times, and intentionally rude at other times. Sometimes he doesn't recognize when he is, and might need someone to point this fact out, but depending on the situation, he might feel bad, but most likely he won't.
He's filled with self-confidence, erring on the side of arrogance, and yes, he can be an insufferable, impossible, know-it-all dick. (It's all part of the rude thing, but he's always been a bit of dick. This incarnation is just more so than most of his past selves--with the exception of his sixth incarnation, especially those very early years.) He's very clever and he's very intelligent--and by very, I mean extremely, and when I say extremely, I mean he makes Einstein look like a half-wit (and that's on a bad day, mind you)--and has an intellect that registers far off the normal human scale of IQ testing. He's been known to say that he's a doctor of practically everything (or plain old 'everything' depending on his mood and the situation he's in), and that is no lie. He's technologically minded and can make anything out of nothing. One look at the TARDIS console will show how he's cobbled everyday ordinary things to operate his wonderful and powerful ship. But not only that, but he can create a device for just about any given purpose. You name it, he can make it. As much as he uses his sonic screwdriver, he does use those devices too...when he feels like it. He really is a genius, and he will tell you all this too without a hint of modesty or humility. He doesn't take too kindly to being wrong about some things or being unable to solve a problem right off the bat. But for other things, he welcomes the surprise. As much as he loves being right--and he does--he also loves that the universe still has things that can catch him off-guard.
He's also eager to explain to people, well at times, about the things that interest him (like how things work, why something is like it is or why he thinks it is, etc), but his explanations often fly over the heads of those he's explaining to (or come at really inappropriate times, i.e. while in the middle of running away from something because he'll never pass on the chance to show off how damn clever he is.) Often, he needs to translate his "simple" explanations filled with technobabble and jargon and, really, it usually only makes sense to him--to something even more simplistic and basic. It's a whole lot less fun, but he'll do it if asked, if there's time to, that is. And other times, he won't bother to explain the important things at all. But even a great mind like his can be a little forgetful and absent-minded at times, or even lack common sense in situations. At times, he's overlooked the most obvious thing--well, the most obvious thing to him. He can get annoyed with himself for his occasional, honest-to-god forgetful moments, and admonish himself, saying he's stupid. He'll neglect to tell people things that might be important at the time--like the next part of a plan, for instance--but ah, sometimes that's deliberate, so one never can quite tell with him. He's extremely good at feigning ignorance at any given time, sometimes so he won't have to answer a question and sometimes so he can be brought face-to-face with the baddy who's causing all the trouble (or someone who might seem bad but is actually on his side and didn't get the memo about that yet.)
He's also musically inclined, and this incarnation can play the organ/piano, but likes composing more than anything--whether he's any good at composing is another thing entirely. But he loves pop culture, especially 20th to 21st century Earth pop culture, but his random bits of knowledge extend far backwards and forwards into history and across the universe. He's also a notorious and horrible name-dropper, and it's been debated many times between his companions over the years about how truthful he is about this. He might be pulling their leg--or telling the truth--and he never lets on which way it really is. Only once they encounter said person will the truth come out. He also loves running--and thank goodness he does, because he does a lot of it in his day to day activities--and is highly energetic. Just watching him bounce around the TARDIS' console could make someone feel like they've run a marathon. But he you can bet he uses that energy wisely. He's constantly thinking and adapting his spur of the moment plans, and he has more trains of thought than a normal person can ever handle (and this leads to his babbling and getting sidetracked when a different thought pops into his head).
He's a big fan of bananas in any form, especially the daiquiri version, and cupcakes with the little edible ball bearings sprinkled on top. He's a big lover of just about anything-except pears. Pears are right out, and he's not as big a fan of sweets as he used to be, saying they're bad for his teeth--but the truth of this statement is really anyone's guess.
In complete contrast to his playful, happy self is this very serious side that lacks the kind of mercy he used to possess in previous incarnations, and at times, he shows absolutely no mercy for the people or creatures who have truly angered him. He can have an awful temper when people don't listen to him--even if what he says is for their own good, and dear lord how many times has he been right that X group will get in trouble if they do Y thing?--and unfortunately, when he's forced to act against his enemies, he has been known to get carried away and needs someone to tell him to stop. Unfortunately, the person who did that is no longer with him and he seems to have forgotten that little detail as he doesn't want any other companions and therefore, he doesn't have anyone to stop him. His anger has driven him to more violent means of solving problems and dealing with his enemies or anyone who seeks to harm someone else. He's been pushed very far by this point in his life, and while he hasn't gone quite over that edge just yet, there'll come a time in the future where something will finally cause him to snap.
One can easily describe him and his moods as manic. He can easily go from joking around one second, to being completely annoyed and serious the next. His moods flip-flop easily, making him pretty unpredictable in terms of his emotional state at any given point in time. This can unsettle those who aren't used to him or haven't seen him in action. And when he's in his element, oh, he's absolutely brilliant and can amaze the people who initially doubted him. Though...he sometimes has scared people with his ways, such as Queen Victoria with his flippant manner toward the danger they'd faced which earned him a knighthood and a banishment practically in the same breath.
While he's not the incarnation directly after that of the one who fought in the Time War, he still carries that emotional baggage with him. Not quite as on his sleeve as his ninth self, but it's still there. He's been called the lonely god (and Reinette's lonely angel) because he is the last of the Time Lords, and with that comes a very long life. It used to be known that a Time Lord could practically be an immortal if he was careful with his lives, and on Gallifrey, there were those who were a couple thousand years old, but the Doctor only has a few regenerative cycles left thanks to the sort of life he leads. He knows one day that his life will end and often when he's been mortally wounded, he doesn't know what sort of man he'll become or if he'll even be able to regenerate. Some injuries even a Time Lord can't overcome, and there have been times when he feared that he would, in fact, die for good. Instead, he's always survived his regenerations, no matter how painful they've been or how wrong they've gone, because he wants to continue living. He wants to continue exploring and seeing things, and as the last of the Time Lords, he's the only one who can preserve the Web of Time. It's his burden to bear.
He's very protective of those he cares for, as well as for the innocent parties that get caught up in the bad things that happen around him, and they occur quite often as his lifestyle attracts danger. In some parts of the universe, it is known that the Doctor brings death in his wake, but to be fair, the death bringers are usually there first and he walks into the middle of it. He can be very self-righteous in his sense of justice. He's often the only one willing to make the choice between what is right and wrong--and sometimes what is right might not be right in the moral sense, but right for what must be done to save the day. He's also the type who will purposefully taunt and provoke his enemies and not show any fear in front of them while doing so (he's very good at masking it) so he can gain an upper-hand on them. It's a tactic he's particularly fond of. He comes off as particularly scary when he's truly angry. His anger can range from slight annoyance to shouty indignant rage to seemingly-calm-but-boiling-hot-under-the-surface fury. Sometimes, he acts as though he has a death wish, often acting recklessly and always making up plans as he goes along. If he has to, though, he would--and has tried to--sacrifice his life because if his actions, resulting in his death, were the only things he could do so that others could live and he could stop the bad guys permanently, then so be it. He's yet to get it through his thick head that the universe needs him.
He detests firearms with a passion and really, weapons of any kind, but he can fight (and has fought) with a sword and quite possibly in hand-to-hand combat thanks to his third incarnation's knowledge of Venusian Aikido. He is, however, more likely to try to solve a fight through words and diplomacy before resorting to other means. At times, he's forced to run away and re-evaluate the situation once he's gathered more information--the first encounter usually serving that sort of purpose. But when it comes down to the final showdown, he's not running and shows no fear when facing his enemies head on. One must remember he is a man of "no second chances"--or so he tries to be. He does have a bit of a tendency to break his own rules, though he'll hold others to them without any leeway whatsoever. After he's exhausted most of his options of a peaceful resolution, he'll issue his one chance warning to stop what they're doing and straighten up to even the greatest of his foes. Unfortunately, the option to help them is usually thrown back in his face, which only leaves him with his final and least desirable option of punishing them in some way, shape or form.
He always talks about choice, and he'll talk about it to his friends, acquaintances, strangers and enemies. Everyone always has a choice--and he holds himself to this with every decision he makes. Some decisions are easier to make than others, like should he wear the brown or blue suit? Others...are very much not easy at all, especially when it comes to preserving the timeline. His decision often could mean the death of millions or only a hundred, and as time has gone on, this awful choice seems to crop up more and more. It comes down to what is ultimately the right thing to do at that moment, and it might not always be the best choice, but it is the right one--or so he believes at that moment. Others might not agree. Discovering what that right one is, though, is difficult and doesn't always make sense to those around him. But they don't get that he doesn't always like making those decisions, but he has to because no on else can or will. It's his duty as a Time Lord, and as such, he is bound by the Laws of Time set down by his people, even if he is the only one who can uphold them.
Deep down, he's still very much a very lonely old man and has admitted on the rare occasion that he's saddened when his companions leave him (with the exception of Adam, whom he was more than happy to see the back of after the stunt he pulled), and is the lonely 'god' or 'angel' as he's known in the legend involving the Face of Boe and according to Reinette, respectively. But he chooses to simply hides those feelings, compartmentalising them away by saying that everything is fine. It's far easier to pretend that he isn't lonely rather than acknowledging and doing something about it and face his loneliness. Having lived for many, many centuries, he's seen countless people live and die and leave him. They always leave him in the end, somehow, and he is very much aware that his time with any companion could come to an end at any given time and keeps them busy, allowing them to choose where to go or some sort of places where they would like to see so he can keep them with him for longer. Even the reason he'll give even his worst enemies a chance to live is so that there won't be any more death. It's a vain and naive wish, but then again, he can be exactly that.
It must be said that without his TARDIS, he would be truly lost. And very much stranded in one location and if there's one thing he can't abide, it's being stuck in one place and time for far too long. Especially against his will. It drives him mad being stuck in one place. Makes him feel trapped and he doesn't like that feeling. It makes him antsy and impatient, and in a way, reminds him of the restrictions of life before he stole his TARDIS and ran away. He'll try anything and everything to find a way out and back to his TARDIS. She is the only thing that will always be with him, and has been since the very beginning. She is his home, his oldest and greatest best friend, his ship, and as much as he takes care of her, she takes care of him. It's not quite the same as what a companion used to do for him, but he'll always value the connection to his ship above all else.
And thanks to her, he keeps on going, never stopping or staying for long--and he certainly doesn't stay to clean-up or straighten out the messes he made. He'll forever be the traveller and wanderer at heart. And he'll always keep on running.
Other Skills/Abilities:
He uses a sonic screwdriver that can do quite a lot of things (has thousands of uses for it, like unlocking things, using it to get medical read-outs on things, occasionally putting up the odd shelf or two, but it's not a weapon; it doesn't fire sonic beams or anything harmful). However! He can fight very damn well with a sword and has excellent hand-eye coordination. If he throws something or fires an arrow, his aim is always true and right on target.
Physically his body temperature is a lot lower than a human's (around 60F/15C); he can withstand temperatures as hot as 392F/200C and cold as absolute zero/-270C. He can also withstand extremely high levels of radiation (but up to a point, mind. There are levels that even his body can't safely process and will result in triggering a regeneration). He has a binary vascular system, and has possesses a lung bypass system, so he can feasibly go without air for up to twenty minutes if need be. Quite handy to possess, actually. He can also send himself into a healing coma at will if he's injured, and even if he doesn't, he recovers from flesh wounds a lot faster than a human would, with barely a scar to show for it. He also doesn't age all that fast, like an indeterminable amount of time had passed for the Doctor between the time he first met Donna and when he met her a second time (though only about a year or so had passed for her) and she said he looked exactly the same.
One major unique thing that comes from being a Time Lord is the ability to regenerate his body's cells if mortally wounded. Unfortunately, the process results in the loss of the current body as every single cell dies and has to be made anew, resulting in a different man with a slightly different personality getting up and walking away--though underneath the surface, it will always be the same man. The Doctor will always be the Doctor. He'll have the same memories and everything, just...with a different face and personality quirk brought to the forefront.
Doesn't need a lot of sleep or food in order to function. He eats and drinks more for pleasure and company. But it must be said that his alcohol tolerance is pretty damn high. It takes a hell of a lot of alcohol to get a Time Lord drunk. He's not one you want to go up against in a drinking contest because he will drink you under the table. Of course, he can pretend to have gotten drunk, as well, to keep with the mood of a party, but he can sober up fairly quick. (Though there is a caveat to the drinking thing in the weakness section.) Has advanced senses--for example, he can tell the chemical makeup of something just by licking it or even sniffing the air, and is fairly telepathic--however, he has to be touching the person with whom he wants to share a telepathic link with. How much he truly is is also debatable. He can hear and receive telepathic messages just fine (or he'll receive them on his psychic paper, which sort of acts as an answer phone at times for him.) As far as sight and hearing, these are more finely tuned than your average biped, and he can see well in the dark without the aid of a light. The use of a torch is normally for his companion's benefit. His quick reading skills are nothing to sneeze at, and neither is his memory for the things he's just read.
Another sense, and an incredibly important one for him, is the sense of Time. He can sense the passage of time: what is in flux, fixed, what should be, what can't, and all the possibilities in-between. For example, a fixed point in time would be the destruction of Pompeii. It has to happen and he can't prevent the deaths of upwards of 20,000 people (and in his known history, he's actually the one who causes it.) A point in time that's in flux, however, can be regarded as something as big as the appearance of aliens in Downing Street--or the death of someone who might not have impacted the world on an extremely grand scale. He considered the possible death of Agatha Christie as a point in flux because she still would become famous for her books--she was well on her way to when he did meet her--just not for how many she wrote.
He has very, very strong psychic defences, and only someone with equally strong abilities stands a chance of breaking through those defences and reading his mind. He can feel if someone's trying to break in and really, you don't want to break into a Time Lord's mind, especially one like the Doctor's. Nobody's been there to tidy up in a while, most likely! In all seriousness though, the Doctor is someone who, by this point in his life, has encountered just about all the different devices in the universe that can break through someone's mind barriers, like mind probes. Don't get him started on mind probes. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger, after all. There is the oft chance that he's let the barrier on his mind down--he does let the defences on the TARDIS down on occasion, even if that is a very bad idea--so there's a chance of getting a split-second glimpse of what's on his mind, but the moment he feels someone poking around, his mind will clam up tighter than a deadlock-sealed door.
On that same vein of psychic power, he can sense other Time Lords; he can feel their presence in the back of his mind. With other Time Lords, he can communicate with them telepathically, but only if one is touching the other's temples. He can use this same technique to scan someone's mind and memories--and he can also use it to suppress memories as well, as he's had to do to his best mate, Donna Noble. He was also trained in the art of psionics or hypnotism, but he doesn't like to do it (though he had no qualms about it in his fourth incarnation). He leaves hypnotism to the Master since that's his bag, not the Doctor's. But back to psychic connections! The connection with the Time Lords (or lack thereof in Ten's case since they're all gone) is very different from the connection he feels with his TARDIS. He can't--and won't even try--to fully express that connection. Theirs is a bond of countless different levels, and most of those are private; all of them intimate. It's a comforting presence, even if she can give him the silent treatment, and ohhh, he can tell when she's angry with him, but also when she's happy too.
Other Weaknesses:
As powerful and mighty as his sonic screwdriver is, he can't use it to open deadlocked sealed doors, windows, etc. It's actually quite annoying, but he's learned to live with that.
His tuxedo-he thinks it only brings him bad luck (and hasn't proven him differently yet), though whether that's isolated to the one he owns or any tuxedo he wears regardless of ownership is questionable, but all tuxedos will be considered bad luck until proven innocent.
At times, he has problems with ordinal lists and catches himself switching from numbers to letters, or vice-versa, then amending himself. It's all part of that occasional absentmindedness that has resulted in the TARDIS getting knocked out of the Time Vortex, the TARDIS getting penetrated by the bulkhead of the Titanic (the space cruiser version, not the one that's at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean), and several other instances such as those.
In a way, his friends can be only because their being captured or hurt is a way to provoke and injure him--and enrage him. One would think the villains would learn by now, but they haven't. But at the same time, mentioning certain names empowers him and makes him fight harder, so it's a bit of a double-edged sword in a way.
While his psychic abilities are strong, he can really only use his own through touch. (Unless he's trying to use his to communicate with another Time Lord--especially one of his previous selves--then that's a different story.) Also, though his psychic defences are strong, they do make him more sensitive to such presences.
The aforementioned caveat regarding alcohol is this: in previous incarnations, ginger beer has proven to get him absolutely stinking drunk--why is that? Nobody knows!--so trusting that it still can get him drunk in his current incarnation, he avoids it. Unless he wants to get drunk. (But more than likely, he'll just go for a lime soda or banana daiquiri for social drinking occasions, but he's not opposed to a pint either.) The only time the ginger beer fails to get him drunk is if he's detoxing his bodily systems since he expels all harmful toxins out of his body--including the chemical components in ginger beer. He can get hangovers just like anyone else though, especially after consuming a great deal of alcohol.
In the end, though, he can be mortally wounded like anyone else. (Doesn't like getting shot-had a bad experience getting shot once and doesn't care to repeat it.) Cut him, he bleeds. Punch him in the face, his nose might break (and if someone did, he might've deserved it.) His curiosity has and always will get him in trouble more often than not, and will walk into traps even if he's long since figured out that, surprise, it's going to be a trap. One thing that can really knock him flat is if his sense of time is taken away. It's happened before when he was stuck in a universe without time (really, time truly didn't exist; neither did the word) and to him, it felt like having a limb chopped off. And it hurts. Time sickness makes every single cell in his body ache with emptiness for what should be there but isn't, and at the same time, being in contact with someone who is made up of time (aka everybody), hurts him as well. It's a lose/lose situation, essentially. Ah yes, he also may or may not have a pesky, but deadly allergy to aspirin. At one time in his life, he was convinced of this fact, but he simply avoids it because why tempt fate that way? He's also decided to spurn anaesthesia, especially the Earth kind, as it simply doesn't work on him (see: the shooting incident mentioned earlier).
History:
In the beginning, the Doctor was born and raised on a planet in the constellation of Kasterborous named Gallifrey. When he was a mere child of eight, he, like the other initiates before and after him, were brought before the Untempered Schism before their entrance into the Academy and ever since then, he was running away. Running away from academic responsibility despite of his insanely vast intellect, and instead pulled pranks, skipped classes, and weathered the occasional bully. (How much responsibility shirking he did is up for debate, and really, how anyone who survived their many years in the Academy retained any semblance of sanity is a wonder from just how awful the students were to each other--and that was in their own chapter house!Imagine what they were like to the others!)
Eventually enough, he finally graduated on his second try (just barely, and again, whether it was intentional or not to barely pass or he was looking for a challenge because passing with flying colours was far too easy for him, well, he'd never tell), and in a naming ceremony chose the name "The Doctor", letting go of his Academy nickname of "Theta Sigma", or "Thete" to some. His real name, however, was and still is lost and buried for a very cryptic reason.
Slightly less cryptic (but not by much) was the time between his Academy days and when he left Gallifrey. During that time, though, he grew increasingly tired of the stagnation of Time Lord society and their stance on merely observing and preserving the Web of Time while others were free to interfere as they pleased. He longed to go out there and explore the universe for himself, but such things were frowned upon back then, and never mind he didn't have a TARDIS.
So...he stole a decommissioned Type-40 TTC and with his granddaughter, Susan, they found a way to escape, but in doing so, exiled the pair of them from their home. Life for them wouldn't ever be the same again.
And thus he truly began to live. He and Susan had countless adventures, experiencing things for themselves before they turned up in a 1960s junkyard in London, his TARDIS now continually bearing the exterior look of a 1950s Police Public Call Box. From there, he picked up the first in a very, very long line of companions. Most of them were human, but every now and then he travelled with humanoids from other planets and occasionally from different universes. He even travelled with a robot dog-shaped computer and a shape-shifting Whifferdill! But in taking companions who had a much shorter lifespan than he did, he also started on a lifetime's worth of friends who travelled with him for a time and then left him, and that started with Susan. For a time, he did travel with another Time Lord named Romana, who would have been able to stay with him throughout his lives had she not elected to stay in another universe known as E-Space. (She'd later return from E-Space to become the President of Gallifrey.)
With them, he saw many, many, many magnificent things in the universe; things that kept him going, wanting to see and experience more, and sharing them with those he chose to travel with (and on the rare occasion, the ones who stole away into his ship, be it on accident or on purpose). Earth quickly proved to be a favourite and beloved world of his, as the TARDIS continued to land there time and again (and that wasn't helped by the Doctor's meagre skills with piloting his ship in the early days), and would later became like a second home to him.
Of course...things weren't ever as simple or peaceful as that. Not by any means. The universe wasn't perfectly safe. In fact, he'd discover more and more dangers that existed as time went on, often battling enemies such as the Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, and so on and so forth. He even had to square off against fellow Renegade Time Lords, like the Meddling Monk, War Chief, The Rani, and of course, his best frenemy from his Academy days (along with the Rani), the Master. Unfortunately, the older he'd become and more regenerative cycles he'd used, the more enemies he'd gained. Different species began to hear of his name and deeds, earning him a bit of notoriety--both the good and bad kind. Some revered him. Some feared him and the danger that lurked in his wake. And some...had never heard of him before, him or the Time Lords.
And speaking of Time Lords... Just because he had left Gallifrey and was wandering all through the universe and time didn't mean the Time Lords didn't call on him from time to time. ...And time to time to time, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Really, he was one of the more reliable of the Renegades that they could use whenever the Time Lords couldn't afford to be officially involved. This was, of course, after they'd tried him for stealing his TARDIS and for breaking one of their rules, the rule of non-interference. As punishment, he was forced to regenerate and exiled to Earth with his knowledge of how to operate the TARDIS erased from his memory. Of course, after he and two of his previous selves helped save Gallifrey from Omega (and he'd later face the not-exactly-dead co-Founder again on his own), he was allowed to wander the universe again! Yeah! But the Time Lords occasionally threw dangerous missions his way because he was the only one they could trust to do it! Boo! (And he nominated himself for the Presidency, later became President of Gallifrey once, was offered it again, and nearly destroyed Gallifrey a few times in order to protect it from various enemies! ...Conflicted boo!) Oh yes, and they put him on trial. Again. Though, this time, it was all a ploy set up by a possible dark future version of himself, named the Valeyard, bent on stealing the remaining regenerative cycles the Doctor in his sixth incarnation had left so he could continue on living. Really, it all amounts to Time Lord shenanigans and using the Doctor as their whipping boy for their unpleasant tasks.
However, there was one mission he was sent on in his fourth incarnation that would haunt him for the rest of his regenerations evermore. He had to wipe the Daleks out forever at the moment of their creation, but in the end, failed to do so. He just couldn't do it. But time after time, it was these genocidal, xenophobic mutants in a metal casings that came back to cause trouble for him and the rest of the universe. Eventually, events between them and the Time Lords escalated to the point that a Time War--the last great Time War--erupted while the Doctor was in his eight incarnation. The effects of the Time War were seen throughout the universe and all of time itself, and the war changed the Time Lords for the worse. They used increasingly horrific means to combat the Daleks and the rest of their enemies (though some were barred from participating) until it came to the point where the Time Lords and the Lord President (who no longer was Romana, but Rassilon himself) were going to sacrifice Time itself and wipe everything out, leaving them the only beings left alive and living in a state of higher consciousness not tied to a physical body. Yes, this was an extremely mad plan, but by this point, the Time Lords had changed so much that they were willing to give up what they had protected for so very long just to get rid of the Daleks. The Doctor, however, hadn't lost himself, but was faced instead with a horrible choice yet again. In order to destroy one, he had to destroy the other, and he knew the the war had to end. Somehow, he'd been placed in the position where he was the only one able to do it.
So...he did. And Gallifrey burned.
Not much is known what happened to him after that and before he finally looked in a mirror and saw his new face, but at some point after he ended the war, he regenerated and was left to his guilt over what was done--and to the vast emptiness he felt in his mind because all the Time Lords were gone. Gallifrey was gone from that point on and he couldn't travel back to a time when it wasn't thanks to a Time Lock on the event and the affected planets, systems, etc. The Doctor travelled alone for a while with his TARDIS as his only remaining friend. He didn't like people getting too attached to him, and he to them. He'd lost all of his people and his home planet, after all.
But a chance meeting with a shop girl Rose (before he blew her place of employment up) somehow convinced him that maybe he didn't want to be alone any more, so...he gave her shot. Life improved somewhat gradually, as he got used to falling back into that old familiar routine of travelling with someone again. The danger was still there, and always would be. He met the lone Dalek survivor, much like himself, and once it died, he thought the Time War was finally done. Again. Unfortunately, there was yet another survivor and this one turned himself into the new Dalek Emperor and had been guiding the history of Earth for quite some time, even before the Jagrafess was installed in Satellite 5. The Doctor resolved to destroy them once and for all, and while he created a Delta Wave, which in the time frame he had, would have killed the Daleks and the people of Earth, he sent one companion to his death, a would-be companion to her death, and sent the other one home since he'd made a promise to keep her safe, and he kept it. Plus, he had to keep the TARDIS out of the hands of the Daleks in case anything did happen to him before he was able to use the Delta Wave. But she came back before he did, deus ex machina'ed the Daleks into dust, accidentally granted Jack immortality, and nearly killed herself in the process. Instead, the Doctor absorbed the energy she'd been infused with when she looked into the heart of the TARDIS and saved her life.
In doing so, his body's cells began breaking down as no one was ever supposed to absorb that energy and unfortunately, he was forced to regenerate again.
And this is where the alternate universe history would begin, but it's actually a bit too long for this entry, so! It is right over here!
Canon Point:
A little before this deviation's version of The Idiot's Lantern.
Reality Description:
The universe this version of the Doctor is from is virtually the same as the canon. Time travel still exists and functions in the same way: no crossing personal timelines. The Doctor especially can't do such a thing as part of those lovely laws about time travel his people had set up. The only time he can knowingly do that is for cheap tricks to prove that yes, he's a time traveller. (I talk about time travel in terms of the Doctor Who universe at greater length here, about four paragraphs in.) The TARDIS still manages to not always bring him to the places and times he seeks to go to, despite his best efforts; his hair still manages to defy gravity through use of some damn fine product; and yes, the Time Lords are still very much gone and he's the sole survivor.
All is right in terms of the canon universe there. Just about every person and thing he met/fought/encountered/snogged/etc, etc, etc, in the past is the same as the canon version (with some exceptions who'll be spoken about later). Yep, he's fought the Daleks all those times in the past in the same exact way with the same exact result, and yes, the Sontarans managed to sneak into Gallifrey while they were distracted by the shaking sheets of tinfoil known as the Vardans. Things like that.
The biggest difference here is the absence of certain elements from the canon world. (When I get a chance, I'll have to draw up a diagram of it all because it's very interesting to see what episodes will and won't happen as a result.)
Because of that one event--Rose leaving when she did and how she did--certain key events in the canon Doctor's life will never happen and the effect of that for this Doctor is staggering, though he'll never ever be aware of just how different it is. For one, the Doctor isn't woken up too early while he recovers from his regeneration to fight the killer Christmas tree, so he ends up awakening stronger and doesn't lose his hand in the fight with the Sycorax leader.
But the domino effect doesn't end there. Harriet Jones is never deposed as Prime Minister or voted out a year later, nor is she forced to contact a shadowy organisation to blow the Sycorax ship out of the sky because she knows from nearly the beginning of the crisis that the Doctor is there--and later on, events lead the Doctor to asking her to join him rather than his saying those six words that would have led to her canon downfall.
Since Harriet is with him, he would never have a reason to try to see Ian Dury in 1979 and turn up in Scotland 1879. This means that Torchwood will never have existed. At all. So there would have been no shadowy organisation for Harriet to order to fire on the Sycorax in the first place, plus the Doctor isn't considered an alien threat. (This means Queen Victoria and the rest of her line are kinda most definitely werewolves instead of being implied, oops. Unless Queen Victoria doesn't pass it along, but that's another issue entirely.) More importantly, he never crosses into a parallel world and meets a version of the Cybermen created on Earth instead of Mondas, Telos, etc, because he never has a cause to be distract right then and the TARDIS doesn't fall through the Vortex, into the Void, and into that parallel world. Because there is no Torchwood, the parallel Earth-created Cybermen are never brought over to his universe, and therefore the prison ship with the Cult of Skaro inside is never brought over either. That means no Battle of Canary Wharf, no tragic loss of a companion to a parallel universe with kickass zeppelins, no Daleks in Manhattan screwing around with the Empire State Building and most importantly, no Dalek by the name of Caan breaking through the Time Lock to reach Davros and bring him out of it before his supposed death in the first battles of the Time War. The stars will never go out, and the Earth and 26 other planets will never have been stolen in the first place. Sadly, the bees still are disappearing. And Adelaide Brooke will have something else inspire her to go into space instead of the sight of the Daleks sparing her life.
UNIT, still known as United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, has kept its status as THE handler of all things alien, be it the creatures themselves to every single bit of technology that finds its way there, as well as acting as the defenders of the world during alien invasions whenever the Doctor isn't there. It is still very much the organisation it was under Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. UNIT is still a small, militaristic organisation, though in recent years since that rift incident in Cardiff, they've had to expand a bit. They handle the cases the remaining groups of Torchwood would have handled had Torchwood existed. Captain Jack the Fact is, sadly, still a Fact, and he still does overshoot his intended time period with his vortex manipulator, but he never works as an agent of Torchwood, but he knew about UNIT and joined an outside branch of it for a time during the 70s (or was it the 80s?) to avoid the earlier version of the Doctor. He currently is attached to the London-based unit of UNIT as, what else, a Captain, but was away on a mission during the Sycorax invasion. When/if Jack will get to meet the Doctor again remains to be seen. He doesn't have his convenient Doctor-detector since the Doctor's hand was never cut off (and because of this, no second version of himself can ever be formed, but since the Daleks are very much gone--or rather, any deus ex machina incidents where they could pop up have been negated thanks to the new timeline of the Doctor's--there wouldn't have been a reason for that to happen in the first place.)
What else...oh yes. The Master. Sadly, at this time, there is no Mr Saxon and there won't ever be. Britain is very much on its way to being that Golden Age the Ninth Doctor spoke of, so there hasn't been an opening made for the Master to slip into and hide out until the Doctor's timeline catches up with his. Yet. As Jack hasn't met the Doctor again, there's been no reason for him to flee to the end of the universe to escape the Fact. The Master still is waiting in the form of Professor Yana, as that still is the Face of Boe's message to the Doctor, but things will be different. When he does appear, he won't have the power that he does in the British government. So no Lazarus project funding (that project barely gets off the ground before it fails). No shooting the Racnoss's ship out of the sky (some other trigger-happy minister will order that), no ageing the Doctor with his laser screwdriver. And no construction of the Valiant since that was one of his designs, and oh yes, no Arch Angel network. He may not even meet Lucy. Whether this version of the Master will be plagued by the drums put into his mind by Rassilon in the canon version remains to be seen.
But just because those events have been removed doesn't mean something equally nasty won't find a way to fill in the blanks. Time has a way of doing that. It has to preserve itself in some way. Some future events that have yet to happen to him still will, but may happen differently or without much change at all. He won't have lost Rose to the parallel universe. He kept his promise to Jackie and brought her home safe. Mickey is still in this universe, and it's very likely that he may have been recruited into UNIT at least as a technical advisor or code monkey of some kind thanks to his hacking into UNIT computer systems (really, accessing such files from a place like the Powell Estates is a bit...odd and makes him stand out). Sarah Jane won't have spent all those years pining away for the Doctor to return, nope. She'll still have kept up her investigative journalism, and after her meeting with the Tenth Doctor, she still will have her own adventures with Maria, take in a Bane-made human boy she'll name Luke, and deal with the awesomeness who also responds to "Clyde", and later on meet Rani--no, no, not that Rani--and have adventures with her as well.
As for the now former Torchwood people, Ianto and Lisa will never have been torn apart because the Battle of Canary Wharf never happened, and in that same vein, Martha's cousin, Adeola, is alive and well. Owen would have been recruited into UNIT after losing his fiancée to the alien brain parasite. Tosh wouldn't have been punished as severely as she had by UNIT when she stole the schematics for the sonic modulator. Instead, because this UNIT is more benevolent and won't have questionable attitudes towards such things as civil liberties and rights, she would have received a fair trial and a light punishment since her crime was done under duress of blackmail, and later Jack would have convinced his superiors to recruit her because of her obvious genius with technology and they need more people like her on their side (and this way, they can keep an eye on her as well.) And Gwen...Gwen will live a normal life with Rhys, still policing the streets of Cardiff with PC Andy.
Harriet's assistant, a senior aide named Alex Klein, is a trusted aide and has helped the Doctor and Harriet on numerous occasions, but he has refused the Doctor's invitation to join them as he thinks he encounters enough alien life for his liking there on Earth and besides, what sort of assistant would he be if he wasn't doing exactly that? So for now, it's the Doctor and Harriet, and occasionally, the Doctor returns to Earth so Harriet can visit her mum. He has yet to meet Martha or Donna, but they are in his future, even if his later adventures with them will be much different as he won't be upset over losing Rose in a parallel dimension.