A/N: Just a little headcanon on what the Doctor was talking about in Doomsday. The weapon described in here was not my idea and was invented by BookkeeperThe, who was gracious enough to let me use it.
The Fall of Arcadia: Gallifrey's First Aggressive Move in the Great Time War and the Beginning of the Gallifreyan Victory
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Arcadia was a resource-rich planet on the outskirts of Gallifrey's influence. Originally a colonial planet, its value jumped at the discovery of Arcadian diamonds in its crust; the diamonds, the only substance in the universe to be able to store time energy and not just channel it, rapidly became Arcadia's biggest export and helped to ensure its independence.
Unfortunately for Arcadia, the Time War broke out not too long after. For the early years of the war – as far as such things can be measured – Arcadia maintained its independence and its safety. The presence of the diamonds had enabled Arcadia to purchase the best possible defence systems, and the Daleks gave them a wide berth. Arcadia refused to participate in the war at all, and refused to sell any more diamonds to the Gallifreyans, both as a means of preserving its independence.
As the war progressed, Gallifrey found itself in need of more sources of time energy than it had to hand, and the debates in the Council became more and more heated. Finally Lord President Romana found herself in an impossible position and turned the matter over to the Doctor, widely known as a bounder and a rogue anyway – no one would blame her for his decision. The problem was this: Gallifrey was losing to the Daleks, and losing badly. If they had access to the entire store of Arcadian diamonds, they might be able to return the war to an equal balance again. However, the Arcadians had raised shields and would not talk to anyone. The only weapons capable of penetrating the shields would destroy the planet and all of its diamonds as well. So: How were the Time Lords to acquire more diamonds?
Initially, the Doctor balked. He had been dragged back at the beginning of the war by Romana prior to her Presidency but had promptly vanished; with his TARDIS shut down, he couldn't leave Gallifrey, but he refused to be of any use to the war effort. Romana spent three days in seclusion with him, the content of which was never released, but at the end of that time, the Doctor took every piece of data the Council had on Arcadia and vanished into his TARDIS for the span of five months. By the time he came out again, the Daleks were all but on top of Gallifrey and the Council panicking. With barely enough members remaining to constitute a quorum, the Council appointed the Doctor as Lord President and asked him what to do.
Seeing no other solution, the Doctor reactivated his TARDIS and flew as close as he could to Arcadia; parked in orbit just outside the shields, he opened his doors and dropped the item he had spent five months inventing on the planet below. Job done, he flew back to Gallifrey, made his report to the Council and resigned on grounds of being a war criminal; he then returned to his TARDIS, now parked immediately outside the Council chambers. With no other choice, the Council accepted his resignation and reappointed Romana.
It took a week before Lord President Romana managed to get into the Doctor's TARDIS; a week beyond that until she could get any sort of a statement from him. In the intervening time, survey teams had been sent to Arcadia and discovered the planet wiped clean of all life but otherwise unharmed. According to the initial reports, any organism that was alive when the Doctor dropped his weapon had vanished, any that was already dead remained where it was. They said it looked like the Reapers had descended on that planet and been left unchecked; this theory was initially disregarded as the Arcadians had time travel and would have been able to turn back the Reapers.
When Lord President Romana returned, visibly shaken, the Reaper theory was verified. Her statement to the Council reads as follows:
"The weapon that cleaned Arcadia has been termed by its creator a Paradox Bomb. It consists of a black cube with one button. When the button is depressed, the cube releases an electromagnetic pulse that kills anyone within one hundred cubic meters. The holder of the bomb survives. Within the next five universal seconds, the bomb sends the holder fifty seconds back in time, creating a temporal loop until the holder can prevent themselves from pressing the button. The combination of crossed timelines and a paradox calls the Reapers in amounts too numerous for any defence system to stop. They wipe the planet clean of life, and then return to the Void.
"The designer of this weapon shall be recorded as the Doctor; he has refused to release the schematics or specifications. In the unlikely event that such a weapon is needed again, the Council will have to ask the Doctor's aid in recreating it. My recommendation as Lord President, however, is that the Council do its best to not need this weapon; the effects are too widespread, undiscriminating, and disastrous to use on a whim."
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Statement recorded by the Council Secretary in the 1530th meeting of the Council since the beginning of the Great Time War. Article written by the Council Historian in the days following the 1530th meeting of the Council since the beginning of the Time War.
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Notes added by the Doctor. Stardate unknown. Reference point unknown. At this point, I have had to eat three times since the destruction of Gallifrey. How long this is I do not know. This article was removed from the Matrix the day before Gallifrey was destroyed. No copies exist anywhere else. I am preserving it because I must remember what I have done and why I do not deserve the amount of luck the universe has chosen to give me. Stored inside the Primary Library of my TARDIS, Type 40. Notes end.
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