Curious about your DWU maps (Gallifrey and Skaro) as was looking for some better alternatives than the oft circulated Gallifrey Map where one of the continents is just Pangaea.
Hey! So I've made a few iterations on Gallifrey so far. I actually posted my first rough draft all the way back in 2018 😳. Here's the most recent one though, which I shared recently - a map of the greater region surrounding the Capitol.
The full post of this is here, which includes a comparison with previous versions and a link to a full size image file, which people are welcome to print and use for their own purposes! It also includes a small world map in the bottom, which is itself an updated version of previous world maps I've made, though the last version I shared was just a sketch, and I've yet to do another fully updated one.
I've only done one take on a Skaro world map thus far, but you can find it here.
I assume in your ask you're referring to the Time-Lord-Rassilon Gallifrey maps?
I've never thought of the Time-Lord-Rassilon continents of Absolute Beauty, Serene Isolation, and Endless Philosophy looking like Pangaea, but I do see what you mean. In fairness, my Wild Endeavour could look a little like Afro-Eurasia if you squint, even if it's mostly taken from actual visual references of Gallifrey. (The main thing doing this is the Sea of Life, which seperates the northern continent from Southern Gallifrey in a way that looks a little like the Mediterranean, even if the actual shapes are very different and it opens to the ocean to the East rather than West.)
They were a great inspiration for me, bui I was keen to try and make a version that is a) less fanon based, b) updated to take into account as much evidence as accurately as possible, and c) more realistically scaled when it comes to the information we do have. When it comes to my maps (and actually all my speculation, especially with regards to Gallifrey, its language, culture etc.) I like to take in as much evidence as possible, even stuff that would otherwise be dismissed. For example, the landmasses seen, while partially based on actual information in prose/descriptions, are heavily derived from the actual visuals used for Gallifrey and Skaro (from places like The Dalek Chronicles, TV Movie, or even Good Omens's Gallifrey cameo or the EVE Online crossover)! Obviously these are often contradictory, so the big challenge comes in trying to combine as much possible and reason through any contradictions. I'd also try and think scientifically to fill in the blanks, thinking about how the potential plate tectonics of the planets might work.
For example: with Gallifrey's world map appearance, I mostly pull from Day of the Doctor and EVE Online, which use an actual realistic habitable terrestrial design for Gallifrey, rather than the more generic one we see in Invasion of Time and The End of Time, which lacks any clear landmasses.
Compare the coastline in the top right of the left DOTD image with the non-Wild Endeavour continents in my map! Meanwhile the right image gives the sea we see west of Trigovia. These have been lined up close together partially for compatability, but also partially by considering the lighting we see in these scenes.
(Fun fact: I actually reached out to Milk VFX to see if there was anyway I could see any other behind-the-scene materials beyond the effects breakdown they did for DOTD, to try and get some more planet details that aren't visible in the episode's shots. They actually did go out of their way to reply, which was really nice of them, but unfortunately they weren't able to do so, since a) the files associated with their work on DW, while not deleted, are archived away on their servers, and b) they wouldn't be allowed to as those resources are still copyright to the BBC. Obviously this wasn't a suprise and was very much what I expected to hear, if I even got any response at all, but I figured it was worth a shot. 🤷♂️)
In my head, I excuse it by imagining we're actually seeing the transduction barrier in the first two images, since that plays a big role in both stories (having to be taken down to allow the Vardans and Sontarans in in TIOT, and presumably protecting Gallifrey from the rigours of the Time Vortex during its de/rematerialisation in TEOT). This also makes sense if we think about how huge Gallifrey is compared to Earth in the latter, despite sources like the EDAs and The Infinity Doctors suggesting Gallifrey is roughly Earth-size - clearly the transduction barrier has been expanded as a protective and defensive measure.
Anyway, going back to evidence, I actually apply this mixed TV/Expanded Universe/Visual Reference method everywhere else too. Many of the details of the Capitol and Dryland areas are derived directly from the filming locations and CGI used in episodes like Hell Bent, combined with descriptions from places like Lungbarrow. I even use sources like the Guide to Gallifrey DWM illustrations, which gives us the big flat region south of the Capitol (also implied by the Citadel being visible in from Lungbarrow and the Barn), which I've given a placeholder name of "The Steppe of Rulers", inspired by the source image below:
While I generally avoided going full fanon with continent names and such (though I was tempted to give a shoutout to the TLR map using the same continent names, I opted against it to avoid passing on misconceptions and to avoid any appearance of plagiarism), I did include a few placeholder names like the above, mostly used for descriptive purposes to indicate the significance of a particular region. "Presusis" is the biggest example of this, since unlike e.g. "Fettaris", which is at least derived from the canon Fettarian Pass, or "Saga", which is based on a name used for the Capitol in Iris Wildthyme, which I thought worked quite well if you think of it as the name of the region containing the Capitol, Presusis is purely made up based on the Rassilon-like character of Presus from the Gallifreyan legend Blind Fury, which is also where Slothe and the surrounding area comes from. I needed a name for the region containing said town, so I chose to name it after Presus to note his significance, like with the Steppe of Rulers. I also figured it made sense, given locations like Prydonia being named after Prydonius and/or Lord Prydon.
(I will also add that, in the most recent Gallifrey map, there is also one piece of pure fanon. Since it was done as part of a zine, I offered to use the other writers/artists fan locations to help fill in the map as a shoutout and to fit in nicely with the other stories. I only got a response from one person, who asked if I could add their fan House of "Brightash", which I added on the shoreline of the Lune Forest. Everything else is directly, or at least derived, from actual DW stories though.)
While there was less evidence for the Skaro map, it was easier in some ways, thanks to the pre-existence of Terry Nation's Dalography maps and Strata of Skaro, which are directly integrated into my design.
The rest was similarly derive from a mix of on-screen and comic designs (the "Canyons of Terror" continent comes directly from the TV movie CGI, which - fun fact - was difficult to work with thanks to being lazily mirrored to make Skaro's surface.
Both the Skaro and Gallifrey maps are things I'd love to put more work into expanding in the future. Ideally I'd like to find some nice software that lets me easily make a Google Map style zoomable map, that I could use to easily sketch in details at different levels, like fans have done for things like Skyrim. That way I'd be able to integrate my world and Capitol maps together and potentially add details to other regions of the planet (maybe even collaboratively mapping the whole planet! This could even include some of the fanon locations from places like the TLR map, though ideally there'd also be a way to filter those out or make it clear what's "canon", in so much as that world applies to DW, and what's not). 🙂 Unfortunately, while I've found a few ways of making those kinds of maps, none have really had all the features or user-friendliness to make it feasible.
I'd also like to make some other maps eventually, both geographical and astronomical. For example, based on the look we get at it in World Enough and Time (shout out to David Gian-Cursio for unwrapping the rotating model we get into a partial world map here), I'd love to do a full Mondas map where all the locations are like alternative history versions of those on Earth (e.g. Albion for Britain? - though a different name might be better given all our versions of King Arthur's legend in DW, plus it's a bit "Fable") and playing around with the continental differences.
Funnily enough, it kind of resembles the Earth map we see in Steven Universe, with a similarly crunched Africa, hole in Siberia, and stretched out South America.
I'd also love to do some other planets. Some possible ideas include:
Ancient Earth (obviously kinda easy, but would be fun to try and map out all the Silurian and Sea Devil settlements - big challenge would be setting on an era for a world map, given how many times the Silurians have been assigned to).
Ancient Mars (similarly easy, but would be cool to map out Ice Warrior settlements and maybe meld in some of the other DW-adjacent Mars lore, like with Iris Wildthyme, War of the Worlds, and Captain Scarlet - I also love scientific speculation on Mars's wet past, so it could be based around that).
Karn (a bit difficult, but we have a number of orbital images now, plus you could tie in all the Seven Keys to Doomsday stuff too, and maybe add some Pythia references in location names).
Rhodia (we actually have a fair amount of information for Rhodia, between the sight from space and the off-handed mentions we get about the Rhodians and Quill)
Planets we got regional maps for in DWM: Marinus, Dulcis, and Spiridon.
Planets with little-to-no geographical information, but would be fun to develop: Sontar, Trenzalore, The Library, Midnight, Venus, New Earth, San Helios, Peladon,
The other thing I'd really like to do would be some system or galactic maps. Given how many planets we know are in the Milky Way, or at least the Local Group, it should be more than more possible to make a Star Wars or Mass Effect style map of it. I'd also like to map out Gamma Kasterborous, Skaro's system, Raxacoricofallapatorious and Clom's, the Akhet system etc. thinking about the actual physics and nailing down some proper distances, masses, ellipticities and so on, as I did with my Gamma Kasterborous Astrophysics paper I posted the first sections of.
Even local maps, like of the Capitol, Paradise Towers or Coal Hill Academy/Shoreditch would be neat to work on. TBH, once I eventually get some time to think about Class: Ongoing again (no promises as I'm likely to remain busy for the next month or so moving overseas and starting my new research job, but I still really want to finish Episode 5 and relaunch it - recently I've had a bit of an urge to do so using some sort of ARG like the one we got to participate in a couple years ago, which could include a Coal Hill Academy website and building map?), the latter might be the next map I work on?
Anyway, I guess what I'm saying is if someone reading this is connected to the BBC, Penguin, Obverse, Panini or whoever, please commission me to research and design a proper detailed Doctor Who Atlas, unlike the somewhat disappointing illustrated one we got in 2021. 🥺
