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Was the Trenzalore shown in "The Name of The Doctor" an alternate future happening if The Doctor spoke his true name at the crack ? Or is it still his future ? What I mean to ask is, Trenzalore held a very dark ending for the Doctor, and the Trenzalore shown in "Name of The Doctor" looks somewhat similar to Gallifrey in its fall. So what about that? My speculation here is that:

  1. The Doctor did not speak his name, failed to regenerate and hence the mass devastation of Trenzalore and "the fall of the eleventh" resulting in his grave there.
  2. The Doctor did speak his name, Gallifrey returned, and Trenzalore got caught in the crossfire. And the rest goes similar to point 1, "fall of the eleventh" and so on.

So all in all, is the outcome of Trenzalore as shown in The Name of The Doctor related to the events of The Time of the Doctor? Would that have been the Doctor's fate had he not got the extra regenerations from Gallifrey?

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  • Would that have been the Doctor's fate had he not got the extra regeneration from Gallifrey?
    – Stark07
    Commented Dec 27, 2013 at 6:05
  • Note that you can edit your question at any time (as can other users, if they have enough rep). I’ve added your comment to the end of your question.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Commented Dec 27, 2013 at 12:24
  • Moffat was implying that the future is now changed and that never happened, but technically there's nothing stopping Trenzalore from still becoming a barren graveyard. River's grave was fake, so there's nothing stopping the other graves from being fake too.There's also nothing to stop some other catastrophe befalling Trenzalore. Also, if you assume it never happened, that means that how the Doctor first met Clara couldn't have happened, so he wouldn't have gone looking for her and then she wouldn't be around to win him the regenerations.
    – Pharap
    Commented May 28, 2014 at 11:32

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I just re-watched The Time of The Doctor. Noticed a couple of things The Doctor says.

  1. "This is where I end up.This face - this version of me. We saw this planet in the future,remember? All those graves.....one of them mine."

  2. "We saw the future, Clara.This is how it ends."

These two statements definitively answer that YES, the events seen in The Name of The Doctor would have occurred had The Doctor not received the new regeneration cycle. That was the original timeline. The Doctor dies there, with all those graves, his TARDIS, and the destruction of Trenzalore. That is why Clara says

"Help him change the future"

to the timelords through The crack. This sentence confirms that had The timelords not intervened, The eleventh Doctor would have died on Trenzalore, leaving his grave there. So basically, he has averted his own death. His fate with Trenzalore has changed. The prophecy of the silents was surprisingly fulfilled.

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  • If the Doctor's grave no longer exists, Clara couldn't have jumped into the time stream and ended up in the Dalek asylum or Victorian England, thus he wouldn't have met her and she couldn't have been there to help him at Trenzalore.
    – Pharap
    Commented May 28, 2014 at 11:39
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    It's Wibbly-Wobbley-Timey-Wimey. But the moment The Doctor got that regeneration cycle, that timeline was erased.
    – Stark07
    Commented May 28, 2014 at 11:41
  • Without going all war Doctor, that phrase is getting stale. It's all well and good saying a timeline no longer exists, but something has to replace it.
    – Pharap
    Commented May 28, 2014 at 11:54
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    Exactly... The timeline with Capaldi replaced it. Had the TimeLords not offered him the regeneration, The Doctor would have died there on Trenzalore, having spent all his regenerations. In that case, the happenings of "The Time of The Doctor" would have come to pass. But this was replaced by the new timeline where the TimeLords grant him regeneration once again, and he doesn't die, and Trenzalore is saved.
    – Stark07
    Commented May 28, 2014 at 14:47
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    In addition to the answer given, remember that in Name of the Doctor, the 10th, 11th and War Doctors hadn't saved Gallifrey yet. That was later, in "Day of the Doctor". My guess is that since the Doctors hadn't stored Gallifrey in the Pocket universe, there were no Timelords to grant the Doctor a new regeneration cycle, so he died in the original timeline. Now, because the Doctor saved the Timelords instead of destroying them, he was granted the new cycle and the future changed. My head hurts...
    – tilley31
    Commented Sep 8, 2014 at 21:03

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