Talk:Time Lord: Difference between revisions

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==How do they Time Loop planets==
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Has it ever been explained by exactly what technological means the Time lords create time loops that encompass planets. I really hate the whole ''lords'' of time excuse (like their title makes up where technology doesn't) or some obscure reference to "great power". Everything the time lords do has some device behind it. I once remember in Invasion of Time the Doctor said the Matrix would rig up a loop, but they didnt say what device actually did the looping. Is their any expanded universe material or known speculation on how exactly time lords are capable of this?
== Jenny ==


== Time Lords a race? ==
: A "generated anomaly", [[Jenny (The Doctor's Daughter)|Jenny]], the artificially created daughter of the [[Tenth Doctor]], had two hearts but was not a full Time Lady, and [[Martha Jones]] suspected she was unable to regenerate. She was shot, and was believed by the Doctor to be dead. However, soon after her death, she came back to life with an energy release in a process which appeared similar to regeneration, but without the change of appearance. ([[TV]]: ''[[The Doctor's Daughter]]'')


Are the Time Lords a race, because some sources e.g. [[REF]]: [[Doctor Who: The Encyclopedia]] says that they are but various sources mentioning before the [[Last Great Time War|Time War]] e.g. [[DW]]: ''[[The Invasion of Time]]'' seem to suggest that they are more of a society? Which of it is it to be? Or is it not certain?
''The Doctor's Daughter'' doesn't really come to a conclusion that I can think of as to whether Jenny "counts" as a Time Lord and whether or not the "shared suffering" explanation was an excuse, but assuming "Time Lord" is used in the sense of a species, the Doctor was the only biological parent of Jenny, so in what way could she only be part-Time Lord (and by extension, partially something else)? Wasn't the point of the scene with the double heartbeat to show that Jenny was like the Doctor, whatever you want to call it biologically speaking? Also, does anything in the narrative say what brought her back and whether or not it was "similar to regeneration"? -- [[User:Tybort|Tybort]] ([[User talk:Tybort|talk page]]) 22:26, December 19, 2014 (UTC)


Also is under the Infobox Race category is a Female [[Time Lord]] called a [[Time Lady]] because humans are sometimes called Man and a male human is also called a man but women is not a species name so is [[Time Lady]]? --[[User:Skittles the hog|Skittles the hog]] 19:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
== Readding to lead ==


::Ugh, not this again. Seems like this is EVERYWHERE on the net. Here are my remarks from the talk page on the main Wikipedia article about Time Lords:
Reinserting this part of the lead which was removed on 16 July on the really weak and unsatisfying rationales by [[User:OttselSpy25|OttselSpy25]]: "Total rewrite. There is no need to mention such insignificant things in this lead as one source saying that the Time Lords invented black holes. Also, having paragraphs filled with direct quotes honestly is boring," and "Really that again is a statement that really doesn't serve to be in the opening paragraph" (although I'm withholding readding the part specifically about black holes for now).


:::I have ''never'' understood this claim. What ''is'' it about ''[[The Deadly Assassin]]'' and ''[[The Invasion of Time]]'' that makes people think that all Gallifreyans aren't Time Lords? I think the article would benefit of some very specific quotations from the script and critical sources to clear this up. The most I've ever come away with from these two Fourth Doctor serials is that the chapters represent socio-political strata in Time Lord society, not that you have to be part of one of these houses to be a Time Lord. Indeed the group living outside the Citadel in ''Invasion'' are ''specifically'' said to be TIme Lords, not mere Gallifreyans. This rather firmly attests that Time Lords are not just "the ones in the high collars", nor do they all belong to one of the "Chapters". It's rather like Harry Potter. You can be a witch and not a student at Hogwarts. LIkewise you can be a Time Lord and not a member of a Chapter. In both these serials we're simply seeing the Time Lords in the middle of political crises, so you get a disproportionate view of the electoral college, as it were.
: They were sensitive to [[timeline]]s, being able to see "All that is, all that was, all that ever could be." ([[TV]]: ''[[The Parting of the Ways (TV story)|The Parting of the Ways]]'') ... According to the [[Third Doctor]], the Time Lords were "very keen to stamp out unlicensed time travel". He equated them to "galactic ticket inspectors". ([[TV]]: ''[[The Time Warrior (TV story)|The Time Warrior]]'')


:::Given that there are specific mentions of "Time Lord physiology" throughout the series, Time Lords are at least a race (in the sense of species). But the new series has been extremely helpful in positively asserting that the Time Lords are indeed a race. Mr. Finch positively identifies the Doctor as "a Time Lord" (not Gallifreyan) and says in ''[[School Reunion]]'', "And what of the Time Lords? I always thought of you as such a pompous race." Likewise, Jabe in "[[The End of the World (TV story)|The End of the World]]" is clearly looking for identification of the Doctor's species when her little "Blackberry" tells her the Doctor is a Time Lord. There really can be no doubt that the Time Lords are a race, and this article needs to reflect that.
A total of 53 words not counting citations were removed or changed, 44 from a single paragraph consisting of short quotations of which I'm reinstating. Forty-four. It's absurd and incredibly subjective to call something on a page with barely any lead at all boring or insignificant or "a statement that really doesn't serve to be in the opening paragraph". Observing time including potential futures and premonitions, along with making sure people who don't know what they're doing interfere with time, is absolutely a part of their modus operandi and not obscure or insignificant. -- [[User:Tybort|Tybort]] ([[User talk:Tybort|talk page]]) 22:57, July 26, 2017 (UTC)


:::As for the possibility that there are ''multiple'' species on Gallifrey, well, I think the article needs to give us a lot more than just "it is heavily implied". Where in ''Invasion'' or ''Assassin'' or ''Trial'' is it implied? How is it implied? Does it just come down to the fact that some of the Time Lord characters in ''Assassin'' die without regenerating? Cause if so, the threat of a non-regenerative death has been cited as a possibility at least as far back as ''Castrovalva'', confirmed as possible in ''The Caves of Androzani'', and was definitively shown as an option in "Last of the Time Lords". The Master clearly had the knowledge to suspend the Doctor's regenerative process in "Last", and so logically could have employed it in ''Assassin''. Thus, the fact that "Gallifreyans" actually died in ''Assassin'' doesn't mean they weren't Time Lords. In fact, if you think about it, Time Lord police couldn't have just ordinary guns. They would '''have''' to have weapons which suspended regeneration; otherwise, shooting someone wouldn't be an effective deterrent. '''[[User:CzechOut|<span style="background:blue;color:white">Czech</span><span style="background:red;color:white">Out</span>]]''' [[User talk:CzechOut|☎]] | [[Special:Contributions/CzechOut|<font size="+1">✍</font>]] 03:18, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
: I tend to agree with [[User:Tybort|Tybort]] on this. Comparing black holes with the controversy over species vs. rank, a casual reader could be much better served by the information about black holes. I think we all got too embroiled in our internal debates of the finer points of DWU lore and forgot that the primary goal of the wiki is to provide information to a wider community, including new viewers/readers/listeners. The question of rank vs. species has its own section and that's where it belongs given that a) it does not have a clear answer and b) it is very rarely relevant to a given story. With the first three years of the show needing no more information than "my people" remarks and the first two years of the revived show dropping vague hints, even the existence of Time Lords is not necessarily crucial to every single story. How many stories depend on Time Lords being a species but not a rank or vice versa? Why should a novice in DW be first treated to conflicting accounts regarding a question he/she never asked? The phrase "inhabitants of Gallifrey" was coined specifically to allow such a reader to learn basic knowledge regarding Time Lords without getting bogged down on boring details.  
: An encyclopaedic article on Shakespeare should not question his authorship in the lead but should devote a separate section to it, exactly as is done in [https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Shakespeare Britannica]. This wiki is an encyclopaedia of ''Doctor Who'', so the same guidelines should be applied. The number of regenerations controversy is not discussed in the lead. The born vs. woven controversy is not discussed in the lead. Even the discussion of Time Lord vs. Time Lady is not currently present in the lead (though Time Lady should be added an alternative name). All these questions are not in the lead because they are not central to understanding who Time Lords were. Neither is the rank vs. species discussion. [[User:Amorkuz|Amorkuz]] [[User talk:Amorkuz|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 00:06, July 30, 2017 (UTC)


:: I frankly disagree. I removed most of the introductory paragraphs because they were heavily based on direct quotes from the TV show. This makes for ugly coverage. One can discuss scenes without quoting them in-text every time. The sentence "the Time Lords... were most famous for the... attempted monopolisation of time travel" tells the reader the exact same information as the Third Doctor quote down at the end of the next paragraph (which ''isn't'' about their creation of Time Travel) but without being a huge quote.


::::My understanding has been that all Time Lords are a Gallifreyan and the only race native to that planet. Not all Gallifreyans/natives are Time Lords. The Time Lords are a "group" of Gallifreyans who are in many ways superior. I've seen references to there only being about 1,000 Time Lords around at any given time.
:: Furthermore the information about them ''inventing'' black holes was mentioned ''once'' in a story that wasn't about Time Lords. It's not opening-paragraph information, and it's not something that many fans need to know. It reads less like an essential fact about understanding the species and more like a ''super-boring'' tid-bit. "Fun fact that I couldn't fit anywhere but the lead!" It's not needed.


::::Further, I've heard the terms Time Lord, Lord of Time, Time Lady, and Time Tot all used to describe members of this group. I suspect their species name would be a bit more exact if it went from person to person - titles are more colloquial and are subject to differences from the gender and maturity of the subject.
:: What do people need to know about the Time Lords? That they invented Time Travel, according to the sources which involve them (and those are all that matter), and the ins and outs of that. You can also discuss their ability to regenerate, their senses of time-related things, and how they've policed the existence of Time Travel. But when you start getting into things like "Hey, in one story the Doctor said that they invented black holes", then it just stops being intro-worthy. I would go as far as to say that if that line were included in a novel or audio book, no one would ever have included it in the opening paragraph.


:::In The Doctor's Daughter the Doctor refers to the Time Lords as more than a race. He says they are "a shared history, a shared creed, a shared suffering" or something very similar to that. Hardly definitive, but it hints.
:: I don't take back any of my edits, no matter how many characters they might include.


::::Sorry for any misspellings, I'm very tired and headed for bed. These are just my two cents. Hope it helps. --[[User:TheOmnius|TheOmnius]] 07:54, 6 February 2009 (UTC)
:: The discussion about the Time Lord's culture and the existence of non-Gallifreyan Time Lords is essential to discussing their existence as a species. Sure, it should be worded better to just talk about the [[Academy]] and the culture of the race while also touching upon the other stuff. But it hardly needs to be purged. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 00:25, July 30, 2017 (UTC)


:Just interjecting here, not taking a side, but Amorkuz, I'm a bit confused by what you're saying. You say you agree with Tybort that black holes belong in the intro more than the race/species debate, when Tybort [http://tardis.wikia.com/index.php?title=Time_Lord&diff=2393605&oldid=2388684 tried to make the intro paragraph solely about said debate]?
:(For what it's worth, my personal opinion is that the current intro is wayyyy too big and goes into a lot of completely unnecessary details about the Time Lords' evolution and history, which is completely irrelevant to 99% of the stories in which they appear, but I'm not going to try to pitch my own version just because it seems everyone's very excited about it.) [[User:NateBumber|NateBumber]] [[User talk:NateBumber|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 01:21, July 30, 2017 (UTC)


My understanding is that the Time Lords are the race and that the so called "Gallifreyans" are just Time Lords who don't want to be called Time Lords because they don't like being considered the same as the Time Lords in the Capitol, whose desisions they disagree with. Gallifreyan is also just another one of many names atributed to the nomadic Time Lords who are also called Outsiders and Renegades. I'm A Hydroponic Tomato! [[User:Bigredrabbit|Bigredrabbit]] 01:15, November 29, 2009 (UTC)
== Monopolisation? ==


One of the Big Finidh Audios, Omega, says that Time Lords are Gallifreyans who own a TARDIS.[[User:TemporalSpleen|TemporalSpleen]] 20:40, May 18, 2010 (UTC)
: The Time Lords... were most famous for the creation and monopolisation of [[time travel]] technology. ([[COMIC]]: ''[[Time Bomb! (comic story)|Time Bomb!]]'', et al.)


:Going back to this argument, [[NSA]]: ''[[The Last Dodo]]'' has the in-universe ''[[The I-Spyder Book of Earth Creatures]]'' listing for Time Lord, which flatly makes them a species:
Um? Even without getting into the Time War and the Time Lords' death/running away to the end of the universe, there were the Daleks, and Magnus Greel, along with the Sontarans and War Lords to a limited degree, who have deliberate control over time travel. Is this like very, very early in Gallifrey's history? There's at least five pre-Christopher Eccleston Dalek stories I can think of where Daleks travel through time, and three of them were before the name "Time Lord" existed. -- [[User:Tybort|Tybort]] ([[User talk:Tybort|talk page]]) 23:16, July 26, 2017 (UTC)
::'''Time Lord'''
: At least six when we get into the ''DWM'' comic. -- [[User:Tybort|Tybort]] ([[User talk:Tybort|talk page]]) 23:27, July 26, 2017 (UTC)
::Location: worldwide
::The Time Lord is a rare bipedal, bicardial mammal.  It frequently mingles with herds of Homo sapiens, but can be distinguished from them by its unique physiology and distinctive fearless behaviour.  It is between approximately 1.5 and 2 metres in height, and can have white, black, brown or blond hair.  It is most commonly found in Europe, especially the United Kingdom.


::'''Addendum''':
::Per ''[[Dead Romance (novel)|Dead Romance]]'', the Daleks negotiated with the Time Lords for permission to use time travel. And the fate of the War Lords is an example of the Time Lords regulating time travel. [[User:TheChampionOfTime|<span style="font-family:Old English Text MT">CoT</span>]]  [[User talk:TheChampionOfTime|<span title="Talk to me">?</span> ]] 23:28, July 26, 2017 (UTC)
::It has been suggested that the Time Lord is of non-terrestrial origin.  However sightings spanning several millennia indicate that, even if it did not originate on Earth, it should now be classified as an immigrant species. 


:So there ya go. Absolutely in-narrative, absolutely clear. Time Lords are a species.  {{user:CzechOut/Sig}}&nbsp;<span style="{{User:CzechOut/TimeFormat}}">'''02:44:03 Thu&nbsp;'''08 Sep 2011&nbsp;</span>
::: OK, I'm gonna need more context than that. (Also, I don't deny they monitor and help regulate time travel, I'm just questioning the phrasing "monopolisation".) -- [[User:Tybort|Tybort]] ([[User talk:Tybort|talk page]]) 23:55, July 26, 2017 (UTC)


::Yes, but ''The I-Spyder Book of Earth Creatures'' also can't tell that the Time Lords aren't from Earth. If they can be wrong about the major issue of home planet, I don't see why they can't be wrong about a minor issue of classification. The source is just incorrect in-universe. -<[[User:Azes13|Azes13]] 04:02, September 8, 2011 (UTC)
:::: It's a phrase pulled from the actual cited comic.


==Topics for separate articles==
:::::'' "My friends, until now, the commodity we know as '''time''' has been monopolised by the Time Lords of Gallifrey."'' - [[Josiah W. Dogbolter]], ''[[Time Bomb! (comic story)|Time Bomb!]]''


this could use splitting up, due to the volume of information.
:::: Furthermore, the phrase monopolisation explained in the best detail possible what the Time Lords do and why they do it. At most, you could change it to say "creation, policing, and monopolisation of", but monopolisation still hits the nail on the head. Just as much as it was for order, it was also for ultimate power. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 00:05, July 27, 2017 (UTC)


*Time Lord history
I see a problem when a word "monopolisation" used in one story and an explanation for time travel of Daleks used in another story are propagated to the lead against multiple other accounts and variant explanations. Both facts are certainly valuable additions to the page in a local capacity, but do not really reflect the whole 50+-year history of DWU. There is a [[First Doctor]] [[The Anachronauts (audio story)|story]] dealing with humans developing independent time travel capabilities with Time Lords not appearing even as a name. (In fact, there are multiple conflicting accounts of the "first" time travel independently developed by the humans.) There is a [[The Time of the Daleks (audio story)|story]] where Daleks are developing their own time travel capabilities (not very successfully) independent of Time Lords. [[Eight Legs]] could travel through time. Even individual organisations like [[Rulers of the Universe]] did their time travel with impunity completely unperturbed by the Time Lords (and yes, it was before the disappearance of Gallifrey, given the presence of the [[Eighth Doctor]].
**Dark Times/time of Rassilon
**the Doctor's time
**Time War (already have this article)


*Time Lord government/politics
With 58 members in the category [[:Category:Time-travelling species|Time-travelling species]], it's hard to imagine something further away from a "monopoly". The Time Lord "monopoly" on time travel may exist in those two sources (and several others) but is demonstrably absent in the wide DWU. As such, it should not be in the lead, which is about the DWU as a whole and, hence, cannot give preference to one source over another. "Tight control over time travel" relays the same idea without contradicting multiple sources. [[User:Amorkuz|Amorkuz]] [[User talk:Amorkuz|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 23:35, July 29, 2017 (UTC)
*Time Lord physiology
*Time Lord culture
*Time Lord appearances in various media


--[[User:***Stardizzy***|***Stardizzy***]] 18:43, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
: At most then, we should use the phrase "attempted monopoly." Whether you want to debate if they have been able to control time based off of the MASSIVE amount of stories that we cover, they ''try their best'', and most sources covering them interacting with other species of Time illustrates them in that way. Either way, we have an in-universe valid source calling it a monopoly, thus "attempted monopoly" is wholly acceptable. [[User:OttselSpy25|OS25]][[User Talk:OttselSpy25|🤙☎️]] 23:53, July 29, 2017 (UTC)


:So much for the race the writers wanted to make so mysterious... anyway, I agree, but culture, government/politics and physiology could all be merged with [[Gallifreyan]], which is currently lacking, although it is not always clear which parts of them apply to all Gallifreyans and which just to the elites. {{:User:Ghelæ/sig}} 18:46, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
== Titles as Names? ==


== Template ==
Mostly just throwing something out there, but could the fact that Time Lords seem to readily accept titles as names for themselves be worth mentioning? The Doctor and Master don't seem to be isolated cases, cause the General, the Corsair, the Rani, and the Eleventh Doctor's joking (we assume) reference to 'the Uncle' which he says is a 'Time Lord thing' all are examples of other Time Lords who do this. Or not, I'm not married to this. [[User:Meganerd18|Meganerd18]] [[User talk:Meganerd18|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 07:20, July 7, 2018 (UTC)


i've added a species template into the article, but i have left blank some parts that need filling in (as i dno't know the answeres) --[[User:Sichamousacoricothingmabob|Si]] 11:47, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
==Time Lords ate Pig Rats?==
:Actually, Time Lords aren't the species - that's the [[Gallifreyan]]s - instead, they're more of a rank like a king or a politician. {{:User:Ghelæ/sig}} 12:11, 18 February 2007 (UTC)
The "Food and sustenance" section says the Time Lords would eat various kinds of fruits, fish, and "[[Pig-rat]]s" on formal occasions. Yet the article 'Pig rats' says nothing of the animal being a favoured prey animal of the Time Lords. In which place does it mention this? [[Special:Contributions/2A02:C7D:BB52:9200:7D20:323E:36EA:1798|2A02:C7D:BB52:9200:7D20:323E:36EA:1798]]<sup>[[User talk:2A02:C7D:BB52:9200:7D20:323E:36EA:1798#top|talk to me]]</sup> 11:14, May 26, 2019 (UTC)


== Time Lords as a God analogy? ==
== Removed disputed tag ==


It's obvious that at least some of the time they do the Time Lords up as gods of the universe, but is it the overall intention? The excuse used for Near-Humans (Namely: Time Lords evolved early, and other races evolved to be similar) is very much a "Created in His Image" type thing, and the "Protector of the Universe" combined with Destroyer of Races puts the Doctor, as the last time lord, in a sort of godlike mediator position. However, The Satan Pit seems to suggest that there are greater powers in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in even his philosophy. In short, my question is this: Is The Doctor, and by extension, are the Time Lords, intended to be seen as god, gods, or the closest thing we're going to get to gods? Or are they just another race, but really really smart? [[Special:Contributions/24.205.50.170|24.205.50.170]] 03:49, 6 September 2008 (UTC)
I have edited the following paragraph to remove the "disputed" tag:


"Aliens posing as gods -- it wouldn't be the first time." (Sarah Jane Smith, ''The Curse of Clyde Langer''.) In ''Underworld'', the Minyans are explicitly said to have regarded the Time Lords as gods, with undesirable results, and it's clear, too, that the Time Lords themselves came to the conclusion that this wasn't a good idea. They're powerful but they're not '''that''' powerful, compared with (say) the Guardians. The point about ''The Satan Pit'', (above) is a good one and effectively rules out the capital-G God interpretation. The small-g god interpretation depends more on the individual's idea of what a "god" is than on what the Time Lords are. In some circumstances, the Time Lords would certainly be seen as godlike -- but in  
:Using the [[Hand of Omega]], the Time Lords could speed up the development of stars. ([[TV]]: ''[[Remembrance of the Daleks (TV story)|Remembrance of the Daleks]]'') One such star had been exploded but its development into a black hole had been frozen, trapped in a permanent state of decay and was kept either under the [[Panopticon]] as the [[Eye of Harmony]] to power the civilisation of the Time Lords, or in TARDISes to use as their power source.{{disputed}}<!--See talk page.--> ([[TV]]: ''[[The Deadly Assassin (TV story)|The Deadly Assassin]]'', ''[[Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS (TV story)|Journey of the Centre of the TARDIS]]'')
some circumstances, so would humans with access to 20th-century technology, let alone 21st-century technology. In the show itself, the Time Lords have always been shown as having real limitations. I don't think they're ever meant to be seen '''by the audience''' as gods, even when the story has them being seen that way by characters within it. --[[Special:Contributions/89.242.70.111|89.242.70.111]]<sup>[[User talk:89.242.70.111#top|talk to me]]</sup> 14:34, March 6, 2012 (UTC)


== White Point Star ==
There was a note to see the talk page, but there seems to be nothing relevant on either this page or the archive. The statements so tagged are accurate according to the cited episodes. --[[User:Metz77|Metz77]] [[User talk:Metz77|<span title="Talk to me">☎</span>]] 01:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
I watched The End Of Time part two with subtitles on: the subtitles showed it as 'Whitepoint' Star. [[Special:Contributions/80.225.142.0|80.225.142.0]] 18:21, January 2, 2010 (UTC)
 
== Time Lords are a race! ==
 
Again in [[DW]]: [[The End of Time (TV story)| The End of Time]] [[Tenth Doctor| The Doctor]] calls the [[Time Lord]]s a race, I quote, "There not just bringing back THE SPECIES. It's Gallifrey!" in [[DW]]: [[The Sound of Drums]] the Doctor calls them the most mighty race in the Universe. Note the word RACE. Surely the TV Series is more Cannon than the books and other spinoff media? Especially the more recent episodes.--[[User:Gallifreyispowerful|Gallifreyispowerful]] 11:53, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
 
:All things are generally equal. (See [[Tardis:Canon policy]] for more info)
:A race and a species are two different things, a race is a large group of people distinguished from others based on a common heritage (wikitionary), whilst a species is even wider and is a group of plants or animals that have a similar appearance (again wikitionary). Of course you can get more specific about species.
:If you want to look at just TV media in [[DW]]: ''[[The Invasion of Time]]'' there was a distinction made between Gallifreyans and Time Lords, when Leela asks one of the Outlers if they're Time Lords he replies "We were." Which along with novels and audios backs up that it's a cultural fraternity of people. --[[User:Tangerineduel|Tangerineduel]] 15:57, January 5, 2010 (UTC)
 
::Hmmm. If "all things are equal", why does this article's lead still unequivocally state that the species is Gallifreyan? At the very least this article should express some doubt as to what a Time Lord is. RTD has been absolutely consistent, from his second episode to his last, in portraying the Time Lords as a race. And by this, he's not using some trumped up wiktionary definition, but an actual definition I can find in the OED:
::::(in nontechnical use) each of the major divisions of living creatures: ''a member of the human race | the race of birds''
::There has never been an instance, not one, in the history of the BBC Wales version of DW in which this definition couldn't be applied to the words ''Time Lord''. I appreciate that there are other definitions out there, including that of "subspecies" which would fit in nicely with what's been said above, but that's not what RTD has been using. An ordinary viewer encountering ''Doctor Who'' solely through the BBC Wales version will think, Time Lords:Gallifrey::Humans:Earth. Period. It's very simple. To the ordinary viewer's mind, there's no ambiguity there whatsoever. Since 2005, we've heard Daleks, Sontarans, Racnoss, Krillitanes, and various others described as races and species alike. We know, in this science fictional setting, that's what race usually means. RTD isn't applying some super technical, biological definition, just a commonly-understood one. In the same way that we might be called "Earthlings", Time Lords might be called "Gallifreyans", but that doesn't change the fact that we are biolgically human and the Doctor is biologically a Time Lord. RTD has never backed away from that; in fact that's the ''explicit'' point of ''[[The Doctor's Daughter]]''.
 
::Come to that, I can't readily think of a time in the BBC Wales version when the word ''Gallifreyan'' has ever actually been used . . . at all. Maybe it's been used to describe a writing system or a bit of tech. But I don't think so. I'm pretty sure RTD has been so consistent about the use of ''Time Lord'' that he's never actually let the adjective ''Gallifreyan'' come anywhere close to a script.
 
::So for this article to arrogantly continue advancing its interpretation of the word based upon one line from ''The Invasion of Time'' — and the books and CDs that have trickled therefrom — is a bit churlish, and, actually, old-fashioned. Personally, I don't think that all stories are equal when it comes to this particular topic. I think that the article should be rewritten to emphasize the dominant opinion given by televised DW, with a section given to "other interpretations". Because you're talking about one line in one story of the [[1970s]], and a few things written in other media. And RTD's interpretation of the words ''Time Lord'' is foundational to modern ''Doctor Who''.
 
::The fact that the Doctor is '''the last of his species''' is the dominant character trait of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors. This concept doesn't mean so much if the Doctor is merely the last of his "community" or "cultural group", as is suggested by the previous poster. I mean, "I'm the last of the Flemish" is quite a different thing from "I'm the last of the Humans". '''[[User:CzechOut|<span style="background:blue;color:white">Czech</span><span style="background:red;color:white">Out</span>]]''' [[User talk:CzechOut|☎]] | [[Special:Contributions/CzechOut|<font size="+1">✍</font>]] 05:28, January 30, 2010 (UTC)
::As I mentioned above, it was stated in (BFA: Omega) that Time Lords were Gallifreyans who had a TARDIS. This would presumably have been a rarer and more privelaged position earlier in Gallifreyan history, and as they moved on more Gallifreyans would get TARDISes, to the extant that most would have one and Time Lord would become synonymous with Gallifreyan.[[User:TemporalSpleen|TemporalSpleen]] 20:49, May 18, 2010 (UTC)
 
== Gallifreyan Plus? ==
 
So after watching A Good Man Goes to War... the Doctor basically said that Time Lords had their DNA altered through billions of years of being exposed to the time vortex and the untempered schism. This means that they're not just Gallifreyans with the ability to Time Travel... they are genetically different. So shouldn't they definitely be a different species rather than a group? [[User:The Thirteenth Doctor|The Thirteenth Doctor]] 12:19, June 5, 2011 (UTC)
 
We already knew that the Gallifreyans evolved over time. The fact that this was due to exposure to the time vortex changes nothing. Gallifreyan is still the species. [[Special:Contributions/90.220.167.26|90.220.167.26]] 12:42, June 5, 2011 (UTC)
:Yes but what I'm saying is, the page still lists them as a ''group'', not an individual species. --[[User:The Thirteenth Doctor|The Thirteenth Doctor]] 13:54, June 5, 2011 (UTC)
 
== Could Humans have evolved into Time Lords? ==
 
We saw Amy and Rory's baby evolve into a Time Lord and The Doctor said that his race evolved into what they are the same way so my question is could the human race have simply evolved into Time Lords and over the course of millions of years forgot?[[User:MrAnonymous|MrAnonymous]] 02:17, June 12, 2011 (UTC)MrAnonymous
 
No, though they look the same, they're completely different race. [[User:Cortion|Cortion]] 17:02, June 14, 2011 (UTC)
 
The fact that Time Lord society apparently pre-dates humanoid life on Earth by some margin doesn't help. (The main article claims they held absolute power for somewhere on the order of ten million years. For reference, the earliest known example of humanoid life is roughly four million years old.)[[User:Raven&#39;s wing|Raven&#39;s wing]] 06:45, September 8, 2011 (UTC)
 
I think it's possible. In "The End of Time" episode The Doctor says humans evolve and change but keep going back to their standard form. I think it's possible that in our future while traveling through space our species lands on a nice big planet orbiting a binary star system. The system eventually drifts near galactic center, but more importantly the time vortex forms, over a few generations the human colonies mutate into time lords. Just because their order has been around so long doesn't mean the Time Lords necessarily predate humanity; it just means at some point they travelled back to before their ancestors colonized the planet.
: What. [[User:Raven&#39;s wing|Raven&#39;s wing]] 07:19, September 26, 2011 (UTC)
 
== Jenny and River Song ==
 
Both of these characters are Time Ladies.  Regardless of how they are created, they show all the characteristics of the classic Time Lord/Lady.  Thus they should be removed from the list of partial time lords.  [[Special:Contributions/214.13.69.132|214.13.69.132]]<sup>[[User talk:214.13.69.132#top|talk to me]]</sup> 13:42, March 6, 2012 (UTC)
 
In respect of Jenny, we have the Doctor's own assertion that she's '''not''' a Time Lord, because there's more to it than biology -- shared culture, etc. The same applies to River, with the addition of biological factors: "You can't just cook yourself up a Time Lord." --[[Special:Contributions/89.242.70.111|89.242.70.111]]<sup>[[User talk:89.242.70.111#top|talk to me]]</sup> 14:08, March 6, 2012 (UTC)

Latest revision as of 01:35, 9 July 2023

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 Archives: #1

Jenny[[edit source]]

A "generated anomaly", Jenny, the artificially created daughter of the Tenth Doctor, had two hearts but was not a full Time Lady, and Martha Jones suspected she was unable to regenerate. She was shot, and was believed by the Doctor to be dead. However, soon after her death, she came back to life with an energy release in a process which appeared similar to regeneration, but without the change of appearance. (TV: The Doctor's Daughter)

The Doctor's Daughter doesn't really come to a conclusion that I can think of as to whether Jenny "counts" as a Time Lord and whether or not the "shared suffering" explanation was an excuse, but assuming "Time Lord" is used in the sense of a species, the Doctor was the only biological parent of Jenny, so in what way could she only be part-Time Lord (and by extension, partially something else)? Wasn't the point of the scene with the double heartbeat to show that Jenny was like the Doctor, whatever you want to call it biologically speaking? Also, does anything in the narrative say what brought her back and whether or not it was "similar to regeneration"? -- Tybort (talk page) 22:26, December 19, 2014 (UTC)

Readding to lead[[edit source]]

Reinserting this part of the lead which was removed on 16 July on the really weak and unsatisfying rationales by OttselSpy25: "Total rewrite. There is no need to mention such insignificant things in this lead as one source saying that the Time Lords invented black holes. Also, having paragraphs filled with direct quotes honestly is boring," and "Really that again is a statement that really doesn't serve to be in the opening paragraph" (although I'm withholding readding the part specifically about black holes for now).

They were sensitive to timelines, being able to see "All that is, all that was, all that ever could be." (TV: The Parting of the Ways) ... According to the Third Doctor, the Time Lords were "very keen to stamp out unlicensed time travel". He equated them to "galactic ticket inspectors". (TV: The Time Warrior)

A total of 53 words not counting citations were removed or changed, 44 from a single paragraph consisting of short quotations of which I'm reinstating. Forty-four. It's absurd and incredibly subjective to call something on a page with barely any lead at all boring or insignificant or "a statement that really doesn't serve to be in the opening paragraph". Observing time including potential futures and premonitions, along with making sure people who don't know what they're doing interfere with time, is absolutely a part of their modus operandi and not obscure or insignificant. -- Tybort (talk page) 22:57, July 26, 2017 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Tybort on this. Comparing black holes with the controversy over species vs. rank, a casual reader could be much better served by the information about black holes. I think we all got too embroiled in our internal debates of the finer points of DWU lore and forgot that the primary goal of the wiki is to provide information to a wider community, including new viewers/readers/listeners. The question of rank vs. species has its own section and that's where it belongs given that a) it does not have a clear answer and b) it is very rarely relevant to a given story. With the first three years of the show needing no more information than "my people" remarks and the first two years of the revived show dropping vague hints, even the existence of Time Lords is not necessarily crucial to every single story. How many stories depend on Time Lords being a species but not a rank or vice versa? Why should a novice in DW be first treated to conflicting accounts regarding a question he/she never asked? The phrase "inhabitants of Gallifrey" was coined specifically to allow such a reader to learn basic knowledge regarding Time Lords without getting bogged down on boring details.
An encyclopaedic article on Shakespeare should not question his authorship in the lead but should devote a separate section to it, exactly as is done in Britannica. This wiki is an encyclopaedia of Doctor Who, so the same guidelines should be applied. The number of regenerations controversy is not discussed in the lead. The born vs. woven controversy is not discussed in the lead. Even the discussion of Time Lord vs. Time Lady is not currently present in the lead (though Time Lady should be added an alternative name). All these questions are not in the lead because they are not central to understanding who Time Lords were. Neither is the rank vs. species discussion. Amorkuz ☎ 00:06, July 30, 2017 (UTC)
I frankly disagree. I removed most of the introductory paragraphs because they were heavily based on direct quotes from the TV show. This makes for ugly coverage. One can discuss scenes without quoting them in-text every time. The sentence "the Time Lords... were most famous for the... attempted monopolisation of time travel" tells the reader the exact same information as the Third Doctor quote down at the end of the next paragraph (which isn't about their creation of Time Travel) but without being a huge quote.
Furthermore the information about them inventing black holes was mentioned once in a story that wasn't about Time Lords. It's not opening-paragraph information, and it's not something that many fans need to know. It reads less like an essential fact about understanding the species and more like a super-boring tid-bit. "Fun fact that I couldn't fit anywhere but the lead!" It's not needed.
What do people need to know about the Time Lords? That they invented Time Travel, according to the sources which involve them (and those are all that matter), and the ins and outs of that. You can also discuss their ability to regenerate, their senses of time-related things, and how they've policed the existence of Time Travel. But when you start getting into things like "Hey, in one story the Doctor said that they invented black holes", then it just stops being intro-worthy. I would go as far as to say that if that line were included in a novel or audio book, no one would ever have included it in the opening paragraph.
I don't take back any of my edits, no matter how many characters they might include.
The discussion about the Time Lord's culture and the existence of non-Gallifreyan Time Lords is essential to discussing their existence as a species. Sure, it should be worded better to just talk about the Academy and the culture of the race while also touching upon the other stuff. But it hardly needs to be purged. OS25🤙☎️ 00:25, July 30, 2017 (UTC)
Just interjecting here, not taking a side, but Amorkuz, I'm a bit confused by what you're saying. You say you agree with Tybort that black holes belong in the intro more than the race/species debate, when Tybort tried to make the intro paragraph solely about said debate?
(For what it's worth, my personal opinion is that the current intro is wayyyy too big and goes into a lot of completely unnecessary details about the Time Lords' evolution and history, which is completely irrelevant to 99% of the stories in which they appear, but I'm not going to try to pitch my own version just because it seems everyone's very excited about it.) NateBumber ☎ 01:21, July 30, 2017 (UTC)

Monopolisation?[[edit source]]

The Time Lords... were most famous for the creation and monopolisation of time travel technology. (COMIC: Time Bomb!, et al.)

Um? Even without getting into the Time War and the Time Lords' death/running away to the end of the universe, there were the Daleks, and Magnus Greel, along with the Sontarans and War Lords to a limited degree, who have deliberate control over time travel. Is this like very, very early in Gallifrey's history? There's at least five pre-Christopher Eccleston Dalek stories I can think of where Daleks travel through time, and three of them were before the name "Time Lord" existed. -- Tybort (talk page) 23:16, July 26, 2017 (UTC)

At least six when we get into the DWM comic. -- Tybort (talk page) 23:27, July 26, 2017 (UTC)
Per Dead Romance, the Daleks negotiated with the Time Lords for permission to use time travel. And the fate of the War Lords is an example of the Time Lords regulating time travel. CoT ? 23:28, July 26, 2017 (UTC)
OK, I'm gonna need more context than that. (Also, I don't deny they monitor and help regulate time travel, I'm just questioning the phrasing "monopolisation".) -- Tybort (talk page) 23:55, July 26, 2017 (UTC)
It's a phrase pulled from the actual cited comic.
"My friends, until now, the commodity we know as time has been monopolised by the Time Lords of Gallifrey." - Josiah W. Dogbolter, Time Bomb!
Furthermore, the phrase monopolisation explained in the best detail possible what the Time Lords do and why they do it. At most, you could change it to say "creation, policing, and monopolisation of", but monopolisation still hits the nail on the head. Just as much as it was for order, it was also for ultimate power. OS25🤙☎️ 00:05, July 27, 2017 (UTC)

I see a problem when a word "monopolisation" used in one story and an explanation for time travel of Daleks used in another story are propagated to the lead against multiple other accounts and variant explanations. Both facts are certainly valuable additions to the page in a local capacity, but do not really reflect the whole 50+-year history of DWU. There is a First Doctor story dealing with humans developing independent time travel capabilities with Time Lords not appearing even as a name. (In fact, there are multiple conflicting accounts of the "first" time travel independently developed by the humans.) There is a story where Daleks are developing their own time travel capabilities (not very successfully) independent of Time Lords. Eight Legs could travel through time. Even individual organisations like Rulers of the Universe did their time travel with impunity completely unperturbed by the Time Lords (and yes, it was before the disappearance of Gallifrey, given the presence of the Eighth Doctor.

With 58 members in the category Time-travelling species, it's hard to imagine something further away from a "monopoly". The Time Lord "monopoly" on time travel may exist in those two sources (and several others) but is demonstrably absent in the wide DWU. As such, it should not be in the lead, which is about the DWU as a whole and, hence, cannot give preference to one source over another. "Tight control over time travel" relays the same idea without contradicting multiple sources. Amorkuz ☎ 23:35, July 29, 2017 (UTC)

At most then, we should use the phrase "attempted monopoly." Whether you want to debate if they have been able to control time based off of the MASSIVE amount of stories that we cover, they try their best, and most sources covering them interacting with other species of Time illustrates them in that way. Either way, we have an in-universe valid source calling it a monopoly, thus "attempted monopoly" is wholly acceptable. OS25🤙☎️ 23:53, July 29, 2017 (UTC)

Titles as Names?[[edit source]]

Mostly just throwing something out there, but could the fact that Time Lords seem to readily accept titles as names for themselves be worth mentioning? The Doctor and Master don't seem to be isolated cases, cause the General, the Corsair, the Rani, and the Eleventh Doctor's joking (we assume) reference to 'the Uncle' which he says is a 'Time Lord thing' all are examples of other Time Lords who do this. Or not, I'm not married to this. Meganerd18 ☎ 07:20, July 7, 2018 (UTC)

Time Lords ate Pig Rats?[[edit source]]

The "Food and sustenance" section says the Time Lords would eat various kinds of fruits, fish, and "Pig-rats" on formal occasions. Yet the article 'Pig rats' says nothing of the animal being a favoured prey animal of the Time Lords. In which place does it mention this? 2A02:C7D:BB52:9200:7D20:323E:36EA:1798talk to me 11:14, May 26, 2019 (UTC)

Removed disputed tag[[edit source]]

I have edited the following paragraph to remove the "disputed" tag:

Using the Hand of Omega, the Time Lords could speed up the development of stars. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) One such star had been exploded but its development into a black hole had been frozen, trapped in a permanent state of decay and was kept either under the Panopticon as the Eye of Harmony to power the civilisation of the Time Lords, or in TARDISes to use as their power source.[disputed statement] (TV: The Deadly Assassin, Journey of the Centre of the TARDIS)

There was a note to see the talk page, but there seems to be nothing relevant on either this page or the archive. The statements so tagged are accurate according to the cited episodes. --Metz77 ☎ 01:35, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

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