The Other

The Other
Species:	Time Lord
Place of origin:	Gallifrey
First mentioned in:	Remembrance of the Daleks
Appearances:	PROSE: The Scrolls of Rassilon PROSE: Cold Fusion PROSE: Lungbarrow PROSE: The Infinity Doctors

You may be looking for the modified human species.

The Other was one of the original founders of Time Lord society, along with Rassilon and Omega. The birth and origin of the Other remained a mystery for later Time Lords.

Biography

Life

The Other was seen as a maverick amongst his fellow Time Lords. He grew up in a time long after Rassilon had lived, and saw the legacy he had created for his people. The Other came to know that he would, in his future, play a part in the events leading to the creation of the Time Lords. Rassilon would later believe that the Other had fallen out with his people and intended to get back at them by erasing them from history.

The Other travelled back in time to seven days after Rassilon had returned from the Vampire wars and took power. He brandished a pass signed by Rassilon himself that allowed him access to all areas of the Citadel. The Other offered advice to Rassilon for the next few months, but was sparse on any detailed information. (PROSE: The Scrolls of Rassilon)

The Other was influential during the Dark Times on Gallifrey after the cult of Pythia had ended. He and the Hand of Omega shared some sort of a bond. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

When Omega's plans to detonate the Q star were close to fruition, the Other explained his origins to Rassilon. The Other pleaded with Rassilon to make the Time Lords less powerful and less stuck in their ways, believing that in doing so the Time Lords of the future he came from would be open to new ideas. Rassilon refused to abandon his philosophies, intending for Gallifrey to become the powerful society that he had always planned.

The Other arrived in Rassilon's quarters angry about the release of the virus that gave the Gallifreyans the ability to regenerate, as it wiped out a large proportion of the population upon its release.

Shortly before the detonation of the Q star, the Other materialised his TT capsule on Rassilon's ship, and once again pleaded with him to alter the course of established history. Finally understanding that Rassilon would not change his mind, the Other left in his ship. However, respecting the Other's audacity, Rassilon decided to ensure Gallifreyan society would never tolerate tyranny, leading him to write the first Law of Time. (PROSE: The Scrolls of Rassilon)

As Rassilon's rule moved closer to despotism and Gallifrey's borders were sealed, the Other attempted to escape the planet by hurling himself into the Looms to await his eventual reconstitution. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

Influence on the Doctor

Accounts differed as to results of this. Some implied that he was re-Loomed some ten million years later to the House of Lungbarrow as the Time Lord who became known as the First Doctor. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) Without realising it, the Doctor retained memories of his earlier self. This showed when, as the Fifth Doctor, he met Patience. (PROSE: Cold Fusion) By his seventh incarnation, he seemed once more to have realised his earlier identity or else Lady Peinforte could not have threatened him with revealing it. (TV: Silver Nemesis) Cavis and Gandar hinted in their conversations at the Doctor being the Other. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)

At some point, Patience was married to a Doctor who resembled (PROSE: Cold Fusion) one of the faces seen during the Fourth Doctor's mindbending contest with Morbius on the planet Karn. (TV: The Brain of Morbius)

The Watch raided their home and demanded that their daughter-in-law's pregnancy be aborted. A man resembling the First Doctor arrived and intended to get Patience and her granddaughter (who had already been born) to safety. (PROSE: Cold Fusion)

When the Seventh Doctor transformed himself into a human named John Smith he removed almost all of his memories, although he was unable to remove the ones from before he was born. The Doctor's TARDIS, under the alias of "Verity", kept these memories out of John Smith's head. (PROSE: Human Nature)

Influence on Gallifrey

Scholars later called documents concerning Rassilon, Omega and the Other the ROO texts. (PROSE: Goth Opera)

A minor Gallifreyan festival known as Otherstide was celebrated yearly in his honour. It coincided with the Doctor's naming day. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

Secret societies on Gallifrey were dedicated to the worship of Rassilon, Omega, and the Other. (AUDIO: Intervention Earth)

Other universes

In an alternate universe, the Other spoke to Omega's wife, Patience, and implied that the Fragment (the surviving portion of a collection of prophecies by ancient Gallifreyan seers) was a forgery. The Other was later present at this universe's Qqaba when Omega was lost. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

Behind the scenes

• The first intentional and direct mention of the Other appeared in Ben Aaronovitch's Target Books Remembrance of the Daleks, in the form of a brief flashback to the time of Rassilon. Andrew Cartmel and Ben Aaronovitch had already worked out a backstory to the Doctor into which the Other figured.
• According to REF: The Gallifrey Chronicles, the Other had a detailed knowledge of Gallifreyan history and imparted some of that knowledge to Rassilon. The Other first became known to Rassilon in the weeks before Omega destroyed the star Qqaba to bring Gallifrey its power over time.
• The Other was allegedly originally a part of the Cartmel Masterplan. It is speculated that he was intended to be revealed as being an incarnation of the Doctor, either through paradoxical creations of another version, in some sort of previous incarnation, or as a future role undertaken by the Doctor, presumably creating an ontological paradox. However, these plans never came to fruition when the show was cancelled in 1989, and this plan, if it ever existed, has presumably not been considered since. (DWM 341)