Gallifreyan Civil War

Gallifreyan Civil War
Dates:	Rassilon Era
Location:	Gallifrey
Combatants
Traditionalists
Radicalists
Leaders
Pandora, Darkel, Valyes
Romana II, Narvin, Matthias
Strength
Parts of the Chancellery Guard
Parts of the Chancellery Guard, Celestial Intervention Agency
Result
Destruction of the Matrix Death of Pandora Release of the Dogma Virus Limitation of the Free Time movement

You may be looking for Morbius's Civil War, from earlier in Gallifreyan history.

In addition to the Civil War caused in Gallifrey's earlier days by Morbius, there were at least two Gallifreyan Civil Wars, both engendered by Pandora.

First Civil War

The first Civil War happened when ambitious Time Lady Pandora ascended to the presidency and aimed to make Gallifrey use its temporal power to change the Web of Time for her own ends, declaring herself Imperiatrix. She used an alien bodyguard to enforce her will by killing her opponents. The High Council turned against her, beginning a civil war which devastated the Capitol.

The Council eventually convinced the bodyguard to turn on Pandora and she was captured. The bodyguard was allowed to return to her home planet, however the Time Lords trapped it in a 6.8 second time loop. Pandora was dispersed so completely that she had never existed, with the only reminder that she’d ever existed being the ruined parts of the Capitol which became the Vaults. However, a copy of her consciousness survived in the Matrix, trapped within a Dark Partition. Over time, Pandora gained strength and tried to escape. (AUDIO: Lies)

Second Civil War

Prelude

Pandora manipulated Time Lord genetics to produce a potential host through the centuries until the result was Romana. During her time at the Time Lord Academy, Pandora's voice enticed Romana into visiting the Vaults. Pandora told Romana of her Imperiatrix Imprimatur, and of her destiny to rule Gallifrey under her influence. Her tutor Braxiatel learned of the encounter and hypnotised Romana to forget the incident. He resolved to stay close to her to watch for any sign of Pandora’s influence, however Romana was taken off Gallifrey by the White Guardian. During her subsequent travels with the Doctor, Pandora’s influence over Romana was reawakened by the Shadow torturing her. She regenerated to suppress it again.

During her presidency, Romana incited controversy by allowing aliens to attend the Academy, with Darkel becoming a rallying figure for the opposition. During this time, Leela and K9 Mark I explored the Vaults and were lured into a Matrix door by Pandora. Romana and her K9 investigated Leela’s disappearance and encountered Pandora, who revealed the truth by summoning a Matrix projection of Romana’s first incarnation. The two Romanas collaborated to trick her into allowing K9 Mark II to identify her wavelength, enabling him shutdown the partition. Though Pandora had been trapped again, K9 advised Romana not to access the Matrix until he had installed new defences. (AUDIO: Lies)

However, Darkel later released her, aiming to use her release to remove Romana from the presidency. (AUDIO: Imperiatrix) Pandora attempted to latch on to Castellan Wynter as a host, prompting him to mutilate himself and consume a sample of Free Time’s Dogma Virus to fight back. Abandoning him, Pandora tore out the minds of numerous Chancellery Guards until she was confronted by newly-inaugurated Chancellor Braxiatel. He trapped Pandora in his mind and went into exile from Gallifrey. (AUDIO: Pandora) Braxiatel had only contained two aspects of Pandora; her past and present. The future aspect of the entity remained in the Matrix. As the crisis over Free Time within the Academy escalated, Romana took to consulting with it via K9, as it spoke cryptic hints about the future. (AUDIO: Insurgency) Unknown to her, Pandora was also communicating with Darkel and manipulating her campaign against Romana. With Darkel now challenging her to an election whilst Free Time bombings continued, Pandora was able to convince Romana to seize power as Imperiatrix. Pandora aided K9 in locating the Great Key, so Romana had all the relics of Rassilon. (AUDIO: Imperiatrix)

The conflict

At the assembly of the High Council where Darkel planned to remove Romana by a vote of no confidence, Romana revealed she posssessed all the relics of Rassilon. Citing ancient laws, she dissolved the Chapters and declared herself Imperiatrix. The ceremony was interrupted by CIA Coordinator Narvin warning of bombs within the cameras recording the meeting, being injured by one. He revealed he’d supplied CIA codes to Darkel to aid her campaign, enabling Romana to order her loyalist guards she’d had smuggled into the meeting to arrest Darkel. Commentator Antimon then revealed himself as a Free Time terrorist and activated the bombs. Romana turned to K9 to deactivate them, however Pandora had seized control of him and refused to yield unless Romana put on the Coronet of Rassilon and connected to the Matrix. Romana complied, enabling K9 to deactivate the bombs, and Pandora used this opportunity to physically manifest through Romana, in the form of her first incarnation. Romana ordered Pandora arrested and had her and Darkel taken to the cells. Pandora escaped with the aid of K9, having left protocols in him to make him loyal to her, and had him capture Romana so she could oust her. This ignited civil war. (AUDIO: Imperiatrix)

Imperiatrix Pandora was supported by Chancellor Valyes and Darkel, who Pandora had released, whilst Romana was allied with Coordinator Narvin, Commander Hallan and Councillor Matthias. During the war, Pandora force-regenerated many Time Lords in order to swell her forces using her own variant of the Free Time Dogma Virus, while Romana resorted to destroying the infrastructure of the planet. Romana also scrambled the Rassilon Imprimaturs of TARDISes to stop the war becoming a time war. Romana lost most of the guards loyal to her when she sent them to defend the alien students at the Academy from execution by Pandora’s regime. The treatment of the students caused many Temporal Powers to send war fleets to Gallifrey’s orbit.

During an attack on the artron microform, Narvin was injured and Leela lost her sight, forcing them to take refuge in a neutral medical station in the Outlands run by Elbon. Romana and Hallan went to the Anomaly Vaults to find Wynter's TARDIS, believing it to be the only functional TARDIS on Gallifrey, but found it had been used on Aesino, a weapon the Celestial Intervention Agency was planning to use in their missions. Pandora became aware of their mission, but chose to let the, continue knowing what was awaiting them in the Anomaly Vaults. After they fled the medical station due to an attack by Pandora’s guards, Narvin and Leela were visited by K9 who revealed he’d begun to resist Pandora’s protocols and gave them a transmit to rescue Romana from the Vaults. Romana was attacked the sentience that controlled the vault, as it deemed her an anomaly due to her first incarnation co-existing. Narvin and Leela arrived in time to rescue her and they escaped from the vault using the remains of the TARDIS, arriving in the ruined Academy. The sentience remained in Romana’s mind however. (AUDIO: Fractures)

From their base in the Academy, Romana's allies planned to fight back against Pandora and Darkel, with Narvin placing the Academy in a Matrix partition to protect it. Darkel’s forced surrounded it and she lured Narvin out to talk under parlay, though secretly placed a bug bomb on him. Romana planned to use the Matrix against Pandora. Travelling with Narvin and Leela to the control centre of the APC Net via the Matrix, she tricked Pandora into entering the Matrix with the aid of K9. There Leela killed her physical form to force her mind back into the Dark Partition, however Pandora latched onto Romana and sought to possess her fully. As she attempted to impose her will, Pandora discovered the sentience and it attacked her, as she was the true anomaly. The sentience’s atrack caused Pandora’s mind to be pulled back into the Dark Partition of the Matrix, and Narvin then set the Matrix to self-destruct to prevent her reappearance. Wounded, both physically and psychologically, Romana found herself reconstituted in the Presidential suite. (AUDIO: Warfare) The Matrix was actually only damaged by the battle. (AUDIO: Ascension)

Aftermath

In the immediate aftermath of Pandora’s downfall, President Romana was deemed too ill to serve and Chancellor Valyes claimed the title of Acting President, claiming he’d been forced into serving Pandora. K9 began clearing out a technological variant of Pandora’s Dogma Virus from the Capitol computers. The virus shutdown the Transduction Barrier, enabling Sunari forces to transmat down from orbit. Commander Maxil led the Chancellery Guards against them. After raising temporary transduction barriers to contain the invaders, Councillor Matthias manipulated the subsequent diplomatic talks and constitional disputes in the reconvened High Council to give himself the power of the Vice President, enabling him to call an election. K9 brought the Transduction Barrier back online, however Matthias had forgotten to warn the Temporal Powers which had approached the Capitol resulting in their ships being destroyed. (AUDIO: Appropriation)

In the subsequent election, Matthias and Darkel stood as candidates and conspired to have Romana disqualified. Matthias tricked Darkel into agreeing to strike all of Romana’s actions since the initial escape of Pandora from the record, which enabled Braxiatel to return to Gallifrey as it meant that his dismissal and exile had been rescinded and he was still Chancellor, and thus the rightful President following Romana’s removal. Furious, Darkel goaded him into losing control of the aspects of Pandora within his mind however he revealed he’d just been the lock, the entity had actually patched onto Darkel during its escape. Lacking reason without the future aspect, the entity burnt out Darkel’s mind, killing her. Still having to contain a portion of the creature, Braxiatel returned to exile and named Matthias his successor as President. (AUDIO: Mindbomb)

Under Matthias’ presidency, Gallifrey faced the outbreak of the original Free Time Dogma Virus due to two pig-rats carrying it, which had escaped from the Academy during the civil war. From his collection, Braxiatel manipulated events to acquire the biodata archive as an ark for the Time Lords, with Romana, Narvin, Leela and K9 ending up alongside him. He offered Romana a choice between distributing the cure to the Dogma Virus he’d discovered, which would end regeneration, or to let the Time Lords die and result using the archive. (AUDIO: Panacea) Romana instead opted to go on an expedition to the Axis, to explore alternate Gallifreys in hopes of finding a way to save the original. (AUDIO: Reborn, Disassembled, Annihilation, Forever, Emancipation, Evolution, Arbitration) Meanwhile on Gallifrey original, President Matthias oversaw the quarantining of those infected with the Dogma Virus in time locked facilities and then resigned and went into exile in the wastelands. (AUDIO: Ascension) After foiling the Daleks’ attack on the Axis, (AUDIO: Extermination) Romana, Leela and Narvin returned to Gallifrey with a way to cure the virus and trapped the Daleks’ invasion force in the Matrix. Afterwards Romana was finally restored as President. (AUDIO: Ascension)