I am going through a bit of a phase, thinking about the Time War and what we actually know about it. So I thought it might be fun/useful to collect views and information here about what we know. If you do add a fact, please can you reference the source (e.g. a specific episode or interview etc).

1. Two of the Doctor's incarnations where involved in the Time War - the eighth Doctor and the 'War Doctor' (The Night of the Doctor/The Day of the Doctor).

2. The dying eighth Doctor realised he needs to be more of a fighter in order to make the tough decisions needed to end the war, and so asks the Sisterhood of Karn to give him a potion that will effect his regeneration and turn him into a warrior (The Night of the Doctor).

3. As Gallifrey falls, Romana is no longer President. A Time Lord named Rassilon is president, who may or may not be the legendary Gallifreyan (The End of Time).

4. Davros died during the first year of the Time War, when his command ship "flew into the jaws of the Nightmare Child" at the Gates of Elysium, despite the Doctor's failed efforts to save him. But he was pulled out of the Time War by Dalek Caan despite it being time-locked (Journey's End).

5. The Master was resurrected to fight in the Time War, but fled once the Dalek Emperor took the Cruciform. He utilized a Chameleon Arch to hide at the end of the Universe in the form of Professor Yana. He did not learn of the War's outcome until his following incarnation (Utopia / The Sound of Drums)

As I'm someone who is inflicted with over-thinking I try not to think about the time war and how it affects things as my some what basic brain can't cope with the implications, contradictions and knots that I tie myself up in.

Couldn't the Timelords go back in time to when Skaro was being formed and blow it to kingdom come or just place a little virus on the planet after its first formed that prevents any Dalek/Thals/Dals/Kaled like life forms from ever evolving, Simple as pie.

They wouldn't do it themselves... but they would get The Doctor to try

I believe RTD once saw Genesis as the start of the war. Would actually be quite the thing that the Time Lord's combined fear of the Daleks and aversion to intervention set off the chain of events they attempted to have The Doctor prevent.

They were quite happy to destroy the Universe and bring about the end of all things when backed in to a corner, though

They couldn't because that is a classic time travel paradox - if they'd gone back to stop the daleks ever existing then they wouldn't eventually be around to fight the timelords so the timelords would never have any reason to go back in time to skaro so they would exist and so on and so on.

If you give the Engines of War and credence, the Time Lords tried multiple methods to prevent the creation of the Daleks, none of which succeeded. In one form or another, they would always come to be.

It begs the question just how does a Time War work if you can't go back and change things.

Like any other war - you want to push your opponents into destruction or surrender without competely obliterating reality in the process. You may not be able to stop the Daleks from existing, but you might be able to stop them conquering a particular race, or building a particular factory, or having developed a certain technology.

The actual mechanics of the war are couched in vagueness and metaphor because no-one can really have a clue how it's supposed to work.

Which is a good thing. I like to think every depiction of the Time War in any medium, no matter how lateral in it's material, is Vanilla in the grand scheme things, and all the serious stuff is just totally incomprehensible.

Clearly (and I use the word with a sarky laugh) there must have been some things prevented from existing at some point, because there was a Could-have-been King and his army of Meanwhiles and Never-weres. (The End of Time)

There was the statement that millions were dying and being brought back to life every second. That was pretty ominous.

(Also Engines of War is great)

By the last days of the war it sounds like both the Time Lords and the Daleks were creating paradox's left, right and centre in their efforts to "win".

I get the impression it was stuff like:

Time Lords lose a battle on Monday? no problem, travel back in time to Sunday night and change the outcome.

Now the Daleks lose so they travel back to Sunday lunchtime and change things again.

And on, and on...

The suggestion was that many of the combatants would be aware that they were both alive and dead - which probably would be enough to send you quite mad.

The Doctor had been working on a complicated calculation since his first incarnation that would enable him to trap Gallifrey and everyone on it in a single moment in time, keeping them in a tiny pocket universe outside of their own. Trapped but safe.

Thirteen incarnations of the Doctor came together at this crucial moment to make Gallifrey disappear. The surrounding Dalek warships were obliterated by their own crossfire - and it appeared to everyone else that both species had been wiped out.

On the Dalek's cross-fire: That line sounded a bit stupid to me, especially since it looked more like they were destroyed in the resulting shock-wave when Gallifrey was sent to another dimension.

Yes, quite possibly.

Also, would be interested to know if anyone has details which explain:

1/ the survival of the Emperor Dalek
2/ the survival of all four members of the Cult of Skaro
3/ the survival of all the Daleks inside the Genesis Arc

A Dalek fighter pod was seen escaping the blast. They carried a couple of Daleks each. It implies that others could have survived - including the Emperor's ship (said to have "fallen through time") .

Apparently the Genesis Ark was stolen during the war - the Cult of Skaro escaped with it in their Void Ship to flee it's ultimate conclusion. So the Daleks inside were presumably already in there as prisoners. So they buggered off before the last day

Maybe the Emperor's ship tried to do an "Emergency Temporal Shift" once the crossfire started?

Same with the lone damaged Dalek that ended up in Van Stratten's museum.

As already mentioned, the Cult stole the Genesis Arc and then hid themselves away in the Void before the end of the war.

Thinking about the calculation to move Gallifrey... isn't it the TARDIS that has been doing the sums? As she doesn't view time as a straight line (warning timey-wimey) once Eleven started her working on the calculation she would have "always" been working on it.

Once the Elevens TARDIS had worked out it would take 13 TARDIS's to move Gallifrey it would just be a matter of her flashing up a message for each Doctor showing him what to do and where to go. I suppose they would then forget what they had done, because like the War Doctor and Ten they couldn't retain the memory.

It could easily have been the dimensional shift itself that caused the temporal rips that the 'Metaltron' and Emperor fell through.