Ancient Gallifreyan

Ancient Gallifreyan
Main aliases:	Womb-Born
Biological type:	Gallifreyan
Affiliated with:	Gallifreyan Empire
Place of origin:	Ancient Gallifrey
Notable individuals:	Susan Foreman, Patience, 508th Pythia, Rassilon
First mentioned in:	Remembrance of the Daleks

In accounts of Gallifreyan history involving the Intuitive Revelation, Ancient Gallifreyans, (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, A History of the Universe) also known as the Womb-Born, "Gallifreyans of old", or Gallifreyan Elders, (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) were the race of Gallifreyans who existed in the Age of the Pythias before genetic changes led to their descendants being the Loom-Born Time Lords. The Ancient Gallifreyans were ruled by the Pythia, who had the most intense Ancient Gallifreyan traits. (PROSE: Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, Lungbarrow)

Nature

Physical

Ancient Gallifreyans were larger and more muscular than Time Lords, (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) and their women were typically significantly taller than their men. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, The Infinity Doctors)

They were unable to regenerate, but they had lifespans similar to a single Time Lord incarnation. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, Lungbarrow) One account, however, believed the Ancients were "true Immortals" compared to the more faster-aging Time Lords, with the phrase "immortal, barring accidents" originating from their era and describing how they could literally live forever if they weren't killed by external forces. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

Ancient Gallifreyans were capable of sexual reproduction, which was lost when they were replaced by the Time Lords. (PROSE: Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)

Non-physical

The Ancient Gallifreyans were highly telepathic, with the majority of the population constantly, uncontronllably sharing thoughts so they existed as a collective communal mind. A select few trained themselves to shut their minds off, becoming Individuals. (PROSE: Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)

Due to Gallifrey's time stream, the Ancient Gallifreyans were also time-sensitive long before the Time Lords, (PROSE: Lungbarrow) with early attempts at Time Travel being telepathy-based. Furthermore, connected to the other psychics of the universe, the Ancient Gallifreyans created a psychic Web of Time. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) Bernice Summerfield once claimed that the Time Vortex was a "transdimensional spiral" built by the Doctor's people, (PROSE: Just War) a feat which one history book attributed to the Ancient Gallifreyans; (PROSE: A History of the Universe) the proverb "time moves in circles" was considered "Pythian" (PROSE: Lungbarrow) or "old Gallifreyan", and it accurately described the Time Spiral which structured history. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

Decline

In the Intuitive Revelation, cultural changes instigated by Rassilon's Neo-Technologists led to the 508th Pythia's decline. Seeing Gallifrey was moving beyond Pythian culture, she cursed all Gallifreyans so that they could no longer reproduce. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, The Infinity Doctors) Susan Foreman's birth occurred at the moment of the Curse, making Susan the last Ancient Gallifreyan born. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) The last generation of Ancient Gallifreyans born before the Curse were known as the Elders of Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

Within a decade, the establishment of Chapterhouses solved infertility by creating the new Loom-Born Gallifreyans, who were physically weaker and far less telepathic than their forebears. (PROSE: Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background, The Infinity Doctors) While the Other believed that the surviving Womb-Born would be able to naturally live for at least several million more years, (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) the Elders of Gallifrey apparently died within the next twenty years. (COMIC: 4-D War)

Some accounts show that Womb-Born Gallifreyans actually remained capable of reproduction into Rassilon's presidency, and that there was a violent revolt in which Loom-Born enforcers of the Watch eradicated Womb-Born families to eradicate childbirth. (PROSE: Cold Fusion, The Infinity Doctors)

Patience survived living among the Time Lords for two million years after the Intuitive Revelation, watching 200 generations of Time Lords be loomed then grow old and die. She was taller than the average Time Lord, and would walk barefoot to minimize this difference. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

Genetic throwbacks

Time Lords capable of regeneration sometimes had incarnations which were genetic throwbacks to the Ancient Gallifreyans, whether in terms of physicality and/or telepathy. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks, Lungbarrow)

One of Omega's incarnations was considered to be a "genetic memory from the Dark Time. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks)

One of the bodies seen in Romana I's regeneration was a very tall woman dressed in Grecian robes. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks)

Innocet had an incarnation which was tall and telepathic, leaving her in-tune with Pythian tradition. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)