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'''A BRIEF HISTORY OF GALLIFREY'''
'''THE DOCTOR WHO UNIVERSE'''


The early inhabitants of the planet Gallifrey possessed formidable mystical powers, which they used to reach out into the depths of space in search of other life forms. They were successful in making contact with a number of non-corporeal entities, such as the Fendahl -- a gestalt creature consisting of twelve aspects around a focal point. The malevolence of the Fendahl was so frightening that it was forever remembered in Gallifreyan mythology. The early Gallifreyan mystics were also able to contact another group of mystics on a nearby planet, the Sisterhood of Karn, which possessed an Elixir of Life that made them immortal. The Sisterhood jealously guarded the secret of their elixir, and not even the other inhabitants of Karn knew of it -- only the mystics of Gallifrey.
If DOCTOR WHO is unfamiliar to you, these explanations of a few central themes will help you to understand references in TIME LORD.


Eventually, the Gallifreyans developed primitive space travel technology, and they began to explore their own solar system and those orbiting nearby stars. In time, they managed to reach the planet Karn, and while promising diplomatic relations with the Karn government, the Gallifreyan expeditionary force was actually looking for the Sisterhood and their Elixir of Life. Fearing exposure, the Sisterhood agreed to share the elixir with the Gallifreyans in exchange for their silence. However, the Elixir of Life did not grant immortality to the Gallifreyans, but instead triggered a mutagenic change in their body chemistry resulting in a twelve-regeneration life-cycle, thus granting every Gallifreyan thirteen lives. They would thenceforth use the elixir only in times of acute regenerative crisis. Possessed of such long life-spans, the Gallifreyans were able to develop their science and technology exponentially, and they soon advanced beyond any other civilization known to them. Only the secret of time travel continued to elude them. However, with this advancement came a high level of arrogance, and the Gallifreyans began to misuse their great power disgracefully. They set up an impenetrable force field around part of the wilderness of Gallifrey and constructed an ominous Dark Tower at its center, which was full of fiendish traps. They called this region the Death Zone, and collected sentient beings from across the universe via the Time Scoop, a long-range teleportation device, to fight and die in the Gallifreyan version of a gladiatorial arena. Into this world was born the greatest single figure in the history of Gallifrey, Rassilon.
<u>GLOSSARY</u>


Rassilon was a young scientist when Gallifrey found itself at war with a race of space-borne Giant Vampires, each of which could suck the life out of an entire planet. Believing themselves to be the only civilization advanced enough to destroy these monsters, the Gallifreyans launched an all-out space war, but found even their technology was not enough to destroy the Vampires. The war took a terrible toll on Gallifrey, and they began to fear all was lost, until Rassilon, working with a brilliant engineer named Omega and others, developed a living metal they called vallidium, which was in fact possessed of a crude sentience and geared toward one single goal, destruction. Out of vallidium was constructed a fleet of dagger-shaped ships called Nemesis that sought out the Giant Vampires and impaled them through the heart, killing them. Only the Vampire King escaped, disappearing into another universe through a charged vacuum emboitment (CVE). The war was won, but sickened by the carnage, the Gallifreyans renounced violence forever.
Gallifrey - Gallifrey is a planet in the same spiral galaxy as our own -- the galaxy that we call the Milky Way. The Gallifreyans, a species that resembles human beings in physical appearance, evolved intelligence and developed civilization way before anyone else in the galaxy: the Doctor once said that they achieved space flight while humans were still living in caves.


Hailed as heroes, Rassilon and Omega and their colleagues sought new peaceful applications for vallidium. They found its unique properties allowed them to construct the most powerful and sophisticated remote stellar manipulator the universe had ever seen. They believed that, coupled with new developments in transdimensional engineering, this technology could finally grant them mastery over time travel. They undertook a project to accomplish this, and Omega himself was selected to take the remote stellar manipulator to an uninhabited star and detonate it, creating a supernova. However, Rassilon knew Omega well, and recognized that the stellar engineer had an inclination to megalomania, and he feared Omega would use this new science to set himself up as a god. Therefore, he arranged it so that, whether he succeeded or failed, Omega would never return from his mission. The detonation was a success and the supernova was created, but Omega was thought killed, though he was actually thrown into the anti-matter universe. The Gallifreyans used the energy generated by the supernova to power their first time travel experiments, which were successful. Rassilon then took the space fleet out to the supernova, recovered the remote stellar manipulator, and used it to convert the supernova into a black hole. To avoid Omega's fate, Rassilon protected himself with what would come to be known as the Sash of Rassilon, a technological masterpiece that prevents the wearer from being sucked into another dimension. They then contained the nucleus of the black hole within a transdimensionally-engineered obelisk, which they brought back to Gallifrey. Rassilon was able to stabilize all the elements of the nucleus and set it in an eternally dynamic equation against the mass of the planet. He placed this obelisk within what would come to be called the Eye of Harmony, around which was built the enormous complex known as the Panopticon. The doors to the Eye of Harmony were sealed with the Scepter of Rassilon, and its vast powers could be accessed only through the object called the Great Key.
Time Lords - As if the development of interstellar travel was not achievement enough for Gallifreyan civilization, there followed an even more golden age of technological progress. Two scientists, Rassilon and Omega, perfected the techniques of time travel and created the time machines known as TARDISes. At about the same time Gallifreyan society began to split into two and the educated, time-travelling elite minority became almost a distinct race. They called themselves Time Lords.


With the power now available through the Eye of Harmony, Rassilon oversaw the construction of a fleet of transdimensionally-engineered time capsules, with which they could travel throughout time and space and conduct detailed surveillance of the various cultures they encountered. One of the first uses made of the technology, however, was to find the home planet of the legendary Fendahl and destroy it, creating an asteroid belt between two planets that would eventually be named Mars and Jupiter. Rassilon and his associates were troubled by this act, and decided to take over the government and completely reorder Gallifreyan society. Rassilon declared that a new era had begun on Gallifrey and they had become Time Lords.
A Time Lord's life span is much longer than that of an ordinary Gallifreyan or human: his body has tremendous powers of recovery and is very long-lasting, and when it eventually wears out it regenerates into a new form. A Time Lord can therefore live for thousands of years. This longevity, coupled with scientific knowledge, gives the Time Lords a feeling of detachment from mere mortals. Time Lords live and work in a highly formalized society in the Citadel on Gallifrey, and pay little attention to the rest of the planet or the rest of the universe.


Rassilon and his associates drew up a new constitution that laid down the Five Great Principles, and united the various domed city-states under a single government, which had two branches: a governing body called the High Council of the Time Lords, and an independent law-enforcement body called the Time Lord Tribunal. The city-states now became colleges or chapters, each one represented on the High Council. The oldest and most prominent of these, and the one from which Rassilon and his inner circle came, was Prydonia, traditionally represented by the colors scarlet and orange. The two other most important chapters were Arcalia, represented by green, and Patrex, represented by heliotrope. There were four lesser chapters, but each one had its own Academy of Time, at which young Gallifreyans would study in order to join the ranks of the Time Lords, the upper crust of the Gallifreyan social hierarchy. Rassilon himself sat at the pinnacle of that hierarchy as Lord President of the High Council. Under him was a Chancellor, then Cardinals representing each chapter as well as various Councillors. The seat of government was within the Panopticon building, near the Eye of Harmony, which sat at the center of the Capitol, flanked by the Archive and Communication Towers. The peace and order of the Capitol was maintained by the Chancellery Guard, an elite squad under the command of the Castellan. The Capitol was itself located within a vast enclosed area called the Citadel, roughly the size of a small continent, ringed by mountains on the southern hemisphere of Gallifrey.
TARDIS - The letters TARDIS are an acronym, standing for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. A TARDIS is a Time Lord's time and space machine and represents the summit of Gallifreyan technology. It is, in effect, an artificial universe of potentially infinite size, with computing power so great that it can decipher the whole of the past, present and future of our own universe. Not surprisingly each TARDIS is an intelligence, albeit an artificial and alien one. It has the power to materialize a part of its physical structure anywhere in space and time, and it can adapt its appearance to blend in with the surroundings in which it materializes. Although its physical manifestation is usually small, it can expand its interior to any size. ('It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!' is the usual amazed reaction of anyone other than a Time Lord when first entering a TARDIS.)


Under Rassilon's guidance, the Time Lords began their explorations, and early on they encountered a planet called Minyos. The Time Lords decided to use their advanced technology to help the people of Minyos, who regarded them as gods. They provided them with medical and scientific aid, better communications and weapons, but the Minyons were not ready for such advancements, and a terrible war broke out that destroyed the entire planet. Realizing their mistake, the Time Lords adopted a strict policy of non-interference, pledging to do no more than observe and gather knowledge. This was a very controversial decision, however, and it was debated and argued for a long time. Rassilon conceded that those opposed to the policy had a good point, that the Time Lords had a moral duty to protect less advanced civilizations. He also felt it was important to monitor other cultures that might themselves develop time travel technology. Therefore, he created a covert operations bureau under control of the Tribunal called the Celestial Intervention Agency. The C.I.A. even came eventually to operate without time capsules, using instead Time Rings to move single individuals around the cosmos. Rassilon also realized that, as word of the Time Lords spread throughout the universe, Gallifrey might be vulnerable to alien attack. Therefore he created a quantum force field called the Transduction Barrier to surround and protect the entire planet, making the night sky a burnt orange from that time onward. Even their own time capsules could not come and go while the Transduction Barrier was raised, which also made the unauthorized use of a time capsule nearly impossible.
Each TARDIS, however, is usually manned by only one Time Lord because Time Lords are solitary by nature. And because Time Lords have little interest in the universe, very few TARDISes are used. The Doctor's TARDIS is a Type 40, an obsolete model which has a number of interesting features that are missing on more recent versions. The Doctor's TARDIS is also in need of an overhaul: hardly any of its circuits work properly and the chameleon circuit, which allows the TARDIS to change its appearance, has broken completely: the Doctor's TARDIS is stuck in the shape of a blue police telephone box of the sort that used to be a common sight on London's street corners a few decades ago.


The Time Lords began to amass so much information that data storage became a problem. Therefore Rassilon and his scientists created a vast organic virtual-reality supercomputer called the Matrix. All the knowledge, information, and wisdom of every Time Lord could then be stored within the Matrix for posterity. And when a Time Lord reached the end of his final regeneration, his mind could be scanned into a part of the Matrix called the Amplified Panatropic Computation Net, so that none of his experience would be lost. They then made bio-data extracts of every living Time Lord, color-coded by their chapter, to be kept on file within the Matrix as well. It was decided that the sitting President of the High Council would have direct access to the Matrix through a cybernetic coronet, in order to help him rule more effectively. However, absolute power began to affect Rassilon's judgment as the centuries passed, and he began researching the only discovery that could outstrip the realization of time travel: the power to have one’s thoughts transform reality itself. An early test proved successful, the Coronet of Rassilon allowing him to control the minds of others. To cover up the nature of his research, Rassilon made a public display of creating his own tomb out of the long-abandoned Dark Tower within the Death Zone, all the while hoping to achieve immortality. Paranoid that others might seek immortality as well, Rassilon laid a complex trap to lure in and dispose of any who would seek to live forever themselves. He also had a trusted associate create a De-Mat Gun, a dematerialization ray, powered by the Great Key itself. His inner circle became concerned that Rassilon would want such a powerful weapon built, and they began to quietly investigate Rassilon's research. They were dismayed when they discovered the nature of his experiments, and how far along he was in achieving his goal. They alerted the rest of the High Council, who deposed the now insane Rassilon and shut him up in his tomb in perpetual suspended animation. However, the High Council believed his inner circle knew too much, and they turned on them as well. However, Rassilon's inner circle managed to escape, vanishing without a trace. To prevent future Presidents from gaining absolute power, it was decided that the Great Key would be hidden, the secret of its whereabouts charged to each successive Chancellor of the High Council.
The Doctor - Although most Time Lords are content to while away their long lives in the formal splendour of the Citadel on Gallifrey, a few of them find the place intolerably dull. Some of these renegade Time Lords leave the Citadel and opt for a hermit's life in the wilds of Gallifrey; others, driven by ambition and hatred, set off into time and space to carve out empires of their own. The Time Lord known as the Doctor, perhaps the most brilliant, erratic and mysterious of them all, also 'borrowed' a TARDIS to escape from Gallifrey, but he has made it his mission to protect the weak and combat evil throughout the universe. He has developed a particular affection for the unpredictable inhabitants of the planet Earth, who are threatened throughout their history by alien invaders and by the results of their own waywardness.


The truth of Rassilon's fate was hidden as well, becoming the stuff of rumor. Officially, he was a hero to his people, and many of his personal items became revered artifacts, such as the Sash, the Scepter, the Great Key, and his book The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, which was stored in the Panopticon Archives. The remote stellar manipulator was named the Hand of Omega, though it was eventually lost and nearly forgotten. His final research was collected and locked away, and would come to be known as the Black Scrolls of Rassilon. Eons then passed as the Time Lords went about observing the cosmos. But the systems laid down by Rassilon allowed a creeping corruption that deepened over time, and the deceit and clandestine outrages committed by the High Council worsened, as is often the result of social engineering. Eventually, the High Council came under the leadership of Lord President Morbius.
Companions - Time Lords are solitary, but the Doctor enjoys company, particularly that of humans. In his travels he has met and befriended hundreds of beings, humanoid and otherwise, and sometimes he invites one or two of them to accompany him in his TARDIS. He is hardly ever without at least one companion, usually a young human. The Doctor's companions are usually confused by their adventures and have no hope of understanding the technology that the Doctor uses. Their simple-mindedness, fear and innocence often lead them into danger, thus complicating the Doctor's plans and often jeopardizing their success. Their courage and ingenuity, however, are often very helpful to the Doctor and he seems to find his companions invigorating and amusing. They provide a focus for his general concern for the well-being of the universe.


During this time, another Time Lord named Salyavin found that he possessed the unique ability to project his mind into other minds. Not content with the mundane existence on Gallifrey, he decided to seek personal power, and developed a reputation for style, flair, and panache. He finally unearthed the legendary Hand of Omega, intent on using it as a devastating weapon, similar to the doomsday device of the planet Uxarieus. Salyavin was ultimately defeated and imprisoned on the planet Shada. However, possession of the Hand of Omega soon corrupted Morbius as well. He became a ruthless tyrant with a band of fanatical followers. He also formed a personal army of unscrupulous mercenaries and laid waste to several planets. Believing that the Sisterhood of Karn could grant him immortality, Morbius attacked and devastated the planet, wiping out the entire civilization. The Sisterhood survived, however, due to the last-minute intervention of the other Time Lords, who finally defeated Morbius and had him executed, placing his body in a dispersal chamber to be atomized. These events led a group of Time Lords to reject their own society completely, and they ventured out into the untamed wilderness of outer Gallifrey to live a simple, tribal existence, calling themselves the Shobogans.
<u>THE TIME LORDS</u>


Some time later, a young Time Lord would arrive on the scene who would one day call himself the Doctor. He belonged to the Prydonian chapter, and as such attended the Prydon Academy of Time, after spending some of his youth in the mountains outside the Citadel. At the Academy he met a disaffected mathematical genius who would eventually call himself the Master, an overzealous neurochemistry student who would one day be exiled to the planet Miasimia Goria where she would adopt the title of the Rani, a jovial technical whiz named Drax, and a fatuous brownnoser named Roncible. He would be taught idealism by Azmael and pragmatism by Borusa. After graduation, he remained active in Time Lord politics, feeling they had a moral duty to use their power to be a force for good in the cosmos, rather than passive observers. He made friends with an up-and-coming Time Lord named Hedin, and a communications expert named Damon. He also became very close to a young female who would eventually call herself Susan. When the Doctor was 236 years old, a crisis arose as the sitting Lord President of the High Council decided to use the Hand of Omega to prevent any other civilization from developing time-travel technology, and thus pose a potential threat to the dominion of the Time Lords of Gallifrey. The Doctor and the Master, still best friends, decided the time had come to take decisive action. They hatched a plan to steal the Hand of Omega and hide it away forever. They were successful in gaining possession of the device, but at the crucial moment, the Master betrayed the Doctor, wanting to use the weapon for his own ends. The two allies turned on each other, and the Master was captured by the Chancellery Guard. The Doctor, however, managed to steal an obsolete Type 40 time capsule from a repair bay, and he and Susan took the Hand of Omega away from Gallifrey. The Time Lords pursued them, able to track the Hand of Omega on their scanners, and the Doctor and Susan led a fugitive existence for some time. Finally, on some unknown planet, the Doctor discovered a large metal box that, when he placed the Hand of Omega within it, shielded the device from the Time Lords' scans. They next materialized on Earth in the year 1963 and resolved to stay a few months and catch their breath. The Doctor made arrangements to have the box buried in a nearby churchyard, but when his time capsule was discovered by two human schoolteachers, they left Earth, and his arrangements had to be completed by his future self, some 700 years older. The Hand of Omega was then returned to Gallifrey, and the Time Lords called off their manhunt.
The Time Lords, the ruling elite of the planet of Gallifrey, are the undoubted masters of time travel in the DOCTOR WHO universe, yet even they do not understand all of its intricacies. Great pioneers such as Rassilon and Omega have mastered elements of it and passed on the benefits of their knowledge and achievements to their successors. Armed with this knowledge, the Time Lords have established themselves as invigilators of the laws of time, their own regulations about what can and cannot be done to the fabric of time and space.


The Doctor was eventually forced to contact the Time Lords, however, and the Time Lord Tribunal arrested him, tried him, and sentenced him to exile on the planet Earth. The Tribunal periodically enlisted the Doctor's help in certain matters, both before and after his exile was remanded. The Tribunal granted him his freedom after he saved Gallifrey from Omega, seeking revenge from the anti-matter universe. Also, the High Council found it useful to allow the Doctor to intervene in unjust situations on an unofficial basis, to keep opposition to the non-interference policy to a minimum. The Doctor and the Master both returned to Gallifrey on opposite sides of a plot to assassinate the Lord President of the High Council. The Master was driven off, but not before his tampering with the Eye of Harmony left half the Capitol in ruins, with countless lives lost. The Doctor later returned to Gallifrey to defeat an invasion attempt by the Sontarans. Omega made a second attempt to leave the anti-matter universe, forcing the High Council to bring the Doctor back to Gallifrey, where he discovered his old friend Hedin was acting on Omega's behalf, believing the Time Lords owed him more than to leave him trapped in a state of semi-existence. Still later, Borusa proved to have gone insane as well, and like others before him, sought the secret of immortality. He reactivated the Death Zone by patching it in to the Eye of Harmony, causing a tremendous power drain, and then used the Time Scoop to collect the first five of the Doctor's incarnations to unravel the secrets of the Tomb of Rassilon for him. Borusa fell into Rassilon's trap, however, and his life-force was absorbed into the tomb itself.
Headed by the High Council of Time Lords, which is led by the president, Gallifreyan society has stagnated. A strict policy of non-interference in the affairs of the universe has turned the Time Lords from innovators into mere observers and preservers of the balance of time. If they intercede it is only to correct an abuse of the laws of time, but even then they prefer to use a free agent, such as the Doctor, to do their dirty work.


The Doctor's presence on Gallifrey becoming more frequent, the High Council feared his investigative nature would lead him to uncover more of their corruption, which had reached new heights under the presidency of Borusa. They therefore rigged another trial, hoping to put the Doctor out of the way once and for all, and to act as prosecutor, they enlisted an entity calling himself the Valeyard, who was finally revealed to be some strange amalgam of the Doctor's own darker thoughts, drawn from near the end of his life. Acting from his own motives, the Master revealed the nature of this conspiracy, at which point insurrection broke out on Gallifrey and the High Council was summarily deposed. This scandal almost certainly led to a revision of the constitution and the formation of a new, more accountable government for the Time Lords.
The High Council consists of the president, chancellor, castellan and the cardinals of Gallifrey's Academy. The president is the figurehead of Gallifreyan society and has wide-ranging powers. His badges of office are the Sash of Rassilon, an ornate, wide segmented band of gold-coloured metal reputedly with the power to protect its wearer against even a black hole; the Rod of Rassilon, which allows access to the energies of the black hole that provides Gallifrey with its power; and the Coronet of Rassilon, which enables the wearer to gain access to the matrix.
 
The chancellor is, in effect, the president's conscience; in a way he is more powerful because he sees that the president's wishes are fulfilled. He secretly guards the Great Key of Rassilon from the president so that the powers of Rassilon can never again be wielded by one individual. The chancellor's badge of office, an oval gold medallion on a chain, is also a personal force field (Strength 10) that can be extended to protect one other person next to the chancellor.
 
Security is the main concern of the castellan, who has the forces of the Citadel Guard at his disposal as well as an extensive network of surveillance cameras. He is also responsible for the maintenance of the transduction barrier, a great force field that protects Gallifrey from attack. Citadel Guards are distinctively dressed in red tunics trimmed with white, red trousers tucked into red leather boots, white cloaks, and red dome-shaped helmets. Officers additionally wear a silver-coloured breastplate to denote their rank. Each guard is armed with a staser, a low-powered blaster that inflicts 6 Wounds on kill and 3 Wounds on stun. A section of the Citadel Guard is under the direct control of the president.
 
Within the Citadel, the city of the Time Lords, life is very much devoted to introspective studies at the Academy, Gallifrey's centre of learning. The Academy comprises three colleges -- Prydon, Arcalia and Patrex -- at which young Time Lords receive a thorough education into the history and nature of the universe. Academic life, however, is anathema to some Time Lords, who become renegades: the Doctor, the Master and the Meddling Monk are among those that wander through time and space; other Time Lords have left the Citadel to become close to nature, and prefer to live rough in the wilds of Gallifrey.
 
The amplified panatropic computations network, commonly known as the matrix, typifies Time Lord stagnation. It is the electronic memory used to record and preserve the experiences of all Time Lords; it contains details and the mind prints of every Time Lord except those, such as the Master, who are clever enough to erase their patterns. A Time Lord can be connected to the matrix, allowing him to enter it as a virtual reality; if more than one mind is connected at a time, the weaker one will be subjected to the reality imposed by the other.
 
<u>TIME AND TIME TRAVEL</u>
 
Time is a flexible medium. Mason's temporal analysis compares it to an elastic membrane that will yield if pushed, but will spring back once its limits are reached to return to equilibrium. The effect is to propel the affected sector of space and time back to the point at which interference began: time, quite simply, catches up with the meddlers. The consequences of becoming caught in the temporal inrush are a matter of conjecture, but it is suspected that extreme ageing of those alien to the time and space would occur -- a fatal effect over a period of several centuries! It is possible extensively to deform the temporal membrane only by pushing against different parts of it, in effect spreading the load.
 
It would be easy to abuse the ability to travel freely in time, and part of the reason why the Time Lords seldom do so is out of a sense of responsibility. Instead they vigorously police time travel to put a stop to infringements of the laws of time. If they travel, they do so in TARDISes, sophisticated time machines that are virtually self-sufficient micro-universes.
 
The most important regulations governing time travel are the first and second laws of time and the Blinovitch limitation effect. The first law of time simply states that no one should be allowed to meet themselves. The law has been broken on several occasions: the Doctor has been permitted by the Time Lords to meet other incarnations of himself; the Brigadier met himself in Mawdryn Undead, with traumatic consequences.
 
Blinovitch's limitation effect is a simple observation that it proves impossible to keep going back to the same point in time in order to have a second, third or even fourth attempt at getting something right or averting a catastrophe. It combines with the first law of time to prevent temporal mishaps. It first manifests as temporal and spatial displacement from the intended time zone, and in its ultimate form becomes a time loop.
 
In addition, the second law of time states that no one can interfere with their time line, the measure of relative continuity. This prevents a time traveller, say, going back to kill his father at a time before the traveller was born. If he were to do so, then logically he would never have existed and his father could not be killed by his hand. Anyone's time line diverges from their ancestors' time lines only at the point of birth, and until then is dependent on them. The second law of time prevents discontinuity in a person's time line and avoids paradoxes.
 
Each TARDIS has built-in controls that prevent the abuse of the first and second laws of time and take evasive action to another time and space should the Blinovitch limitation effect begin. Within these limits, time travellers can come and go as they please in space and time according to Mason's temporal analysis.
 
Time travel, however, is not instantaneous. Occupants of a time machine will notice the passage of time as normal, and will need to eat, rest and keep themselves occupied on their journey. In TIME LORD, however, the journey is rarely important except when scenes relating to an adventure need to take place. After all, the point at which the TARDIS is going to arrive is often known in advance, and it is from there that the adventure continues.


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Revision as of 18:35, 29 December 2009

THE DOCTOR WHO UNIVERSE

If DOCTOR WHO is unfamiliar to you, these explanations of a few central themes will help you to understand references in TIME LORD.

GLOSSARY

Gallifrey - Gallifrey is a planet in the same spiral galaxy as our own -- the galaxy that we call the Milky Way. The Gallifreyans, a species that resembles human beings in physical appearance, evolved intelligence and developed civilization way before anyone else in the galaxy: the Doctor once said that they achieved space flight while humans were still living in caves.

Time Lords - As if the development of interstellar travel was not achievement enough for Gallifreyan civilization, there followed an even more golden age of technological progress. Two scientists, Rassilon and Omega, perfected the techniques of time travel and created the time machines known as TARDISes. At about the same time Gallifreyan society began to split into two and the educated, time-travelling elite minority became almost a distinct race. They called themselves Time Lords.

A Time Lord's life span is much longer than that of an ordinary Gallifreyan or human: his body has tremendous powers of recovery and is very long-lasting, and when it eventually wears out it regenerates into a new form. A Time Lord can therefore live for thousands of years. This longevity, coupled with scientific knowledge, gives the Time Lords a feeling of detachment from mere mortals. Time Lords live and work in a highly formalized society in the Citadel on Gallifrey, and pay little attention to the rest of the planet or the rest of the universe.

TARDIS - The letters TARDIS are an acronym, standing for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. A TARDIS is a Time Lord's time and space machine and represents the summit of Gallifreyan technology. It is, in effect, an artificial universe of potentially infinite size, with computing power so great that it can decipher the whole of the past, present and future of our own universe. Not surprisingly each TARDIS is an intelligence, albeit an artificial and alien one. It has the power to materialize a part of its physical structure anywhere in space and time, and it can adapt its appearance to blend in with the surroundings in which it materializes. Although its physical manifestation is usually small, it can expand its interior to any size. ('It's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside!' is the usual amazed reaction of anyone other than a Time Lord when first entering a TARDIS.)

Each TARDIS, however, is usually manned by only one Time Lord because Time Lords are solitary by nature. And because Time Lords have little interest in the universe, very few TARDISes are used. The Doctor's TARDIS is a Type 40, an obsolete model which has a number of interesting features that are missing on more recent versions. The Doctor's TARDIS is also in need of an overhaul: hardly any of its circuits work properly and the chameleon circuit, which allows the TARDIS to change its appearance, has broken completely: the Doctor's TARDIS is stuck in the shape of a blue police telephone box of the sort that used to be a common sight on London's street corners a few decades ago.

The Doctor - Although most Time Lords are content to while away their long lives in the formal splendour of the Citadel on Gallifrey, a few of them find the place intolerably dull. Some of these renegade Time Lords leave the Citadel and opt for a hermit's life in the wilds of Gallifrey; others, driven by ambition and hatred, set off into time and space to carve out empires of their own. The Time Lord known as the Doctor, perhaps the most brilliant, erratic and mysterious of them all, also 'borrowed' a TARDIS to escape from Gallifrey, but he has made it his mission to protect the weak and combat evil throughout the universe. He has developed a particular affection for the unpredictable inhabitants of the planet Earth, who are threatened throughout their history by alien invaders and by the results of their own waywardness.

Companions - Time Lords are solitary, but the Doctor enjoys company, particularly that of humans. In his travels he has met and befriended hundreds of beings, humanoid and otherwise, and sometimes he invites one or two of them to accompany him in his TARDIS. He is hardly ever without at least one companion, usually a young human. The Doctor's companions are usually confused by their adventures and have no hope of understanding the technology that the Doctor uses. Their simple-mindedness, fear and innocence often lead them into danger, thus complicating the Doctor's plans and often jeopardizing their success. Their courage and ingenuity, however, are often very helpful to the Doctor and he seems to find his companions invigorating and amusing. They provide a focus for his general concern for the well-being of the universe.

THE TIME LORDS

The Time Lords, the ruling elite of the planet of Gallifrey, are the undoubted masters of time travel in the DOCTOR WHO universe, yet even they do not understand all of its intricacies. Great pioneers such as Rassilon and Omega have mastered elements of it and passed on the benefits of their knowledge and achievements to their successors. Armed with this knowledge, the Time Lords have established themselves as invigilators of the laws of time, their own regulations about what can and cannot be done to the fabric of time and space.

Headed by the High Council of Time Lords, which is led by the president, Gallifreyan society has stagnated. A strict policy of non-interference in the affairs of the universe has turned the Time Lords from innovators into mere observers and preservers of the balance of time. If they intercede it is only to correct an abuse of the laws of time, but even then they prefer to use a free agent, such as the Doctor, to do their dirty work.

The High Council consists of the president, chancellor, castellan and the cardinals of Gallifrey's Academy. The president is the figurehead of Gallifreyan society and has wide-ranging powers. His badges of office are the Sash of Rassilon, an ornate, wide segmented band of gold-coloured metal reputedly with the power to protect its wearer against even a black hole; the Rod of Rassilon, which allows access to the energies of the black hole that provides Gallifrey with its power; and the Coronet of Rassilon, which enables the wearer to gain access to the matrix.

The chancellor is, in effect, the president's conscience; in a way he is more powerful because he sees that the president's wishes are fulfilled. He secretly guards the Great Key of Rassilon from the president so that the powers of Rassilon can never again be wielded by one individual. The chancellor's badge of office, an oval gold medallion on a chain, is also a personal force field (Strength 10) that can be extended to protect one other person next to the chancellor.

Security is the main concern of the castellan, who has the forces of the Citadel Guard at his disposal as well as an extensive network of surveillance cameras. He is also responsible for the maintenance of the transduction barrier, a great force field that protects Gallifrey from attack. Citadel Guards are distinctively dressed in red tunics trimmed with white, red trousers tucked into red leather boots, white cloaks, and red dome-shaped helmets. Officers additionally wear a silver-coloured breastplate to denote their rank. Each guard is armed with a staser, a low-powered blaster that inflicts 6 Wounds on kill and 3 Wounds on stun. A section of the Citadel Guard is under the direct control of the president.

Within the Citadel, the city of the Time Lords, life is very much devoted to introspective studies at the Academy, Gallifrey's centre of learning. The Academy comprises three colleges -- Prydon, Arcalia and Patrex -- at which young Time Lords receive a thorough education into the history and nature of the universe. Academic life, however, is anathema to some Time Lords, who become renegades: the Doctor, the Master and the Meddling Monk are among those that wander through time and space; other Time Lords have left the Citadel to become close to nature, and prefer to live rough in the wilds of Gallifrey.

The amplified panatropic computations network, commonly known as the matrix, typifies Time Lord stagnation. It is the electronic memory used to record and preserve the experiences of all Time Lords; it contains details and the mind prints of every Time Lord except those, such as the Master, who are clever enough to erase their patterns. A Time Lord can be connected to the matrix, allowing him to enter it as a virtual reality; if more than one mind is connected at a time, the weaker one will be subjected to the reality imposed by the other.

TIME AND TIME TRAVEL

Time is a flexible medium. Mason's temporal analysis compares it to an elastic membrane that will yield if pushed, but will spring back once its limits are reached to return to equilibrium. The effect is to propel the affected sector of space and time back to the point at which interference began: time, quite simply, catches up with the meddlers. The consequences of becoming caught in the temporal inrush are a matter of conjecture, but it is suspected that extreme ageing of those alien to the time and space would occur -- a fatal effect over a period of several centuries! It is possible extensively to deform the temporal membrane only by pushing against different parts of it, in effect spreading the load.

It would be easy to abuse the ability to travel freely in time, and part of the reason why the Time Lords seldom do so is out of a sense of responsibility. Instead they vigorously police time travel to put a stop to infringements of the laws of time. If they travel, they do so in TARDISes, sophisticated time machines that are virtually self-sufficient micro-universes.

The most important regulations governing time travel are the first and second laws of time and the Blinovitch limitation effect. The first law of time simply states that no one should be allowed to meet themselves. The law has been broken on several occasions: the Doctor has been permitted by the Time Lords to meet other incarnations of himself; the Brigadier met himself in Mawdryn Undead, with traumatic consequences.

Blinovitch's limitation effect is a simple observation that it proves impossible to keep going back to the same point in time in order to have a second, third or even fourth attempt at getting something right or averting a catastrophe. It combines with the first law of time to prevent temporal mishaps. It first manifests as temporal and spatial displacement from the intended time zone, and in its ultimate form becomes a time loop.

In addition, the second law of time states that no one can interfere with their time line, the measure of relative continuity. This prevents a time traveller, say, going back to kill his father at a time before the traveller was born. If he were to do so, then logically he would never have existed and his father could not be killed by his hand. Anyone's time line diverges from their ancestors' time lines only at the point of birth, and until then is dependent on them. The second law of time prevents discontinuity in a person's time line and avoids paradoxes.

Each TARDIS has built-in controls that prevent the abuse of the first and second laws of time and take evasive action to another time and space should the Blinovitch limitation effect begin. Within these limits, time travellers can come and go as they please in space and time according to Mason's temporal analysis.

Time travel, however, is not instantaneous. Occupants of a time machine will notice the passage of time as normal, and will need to eat, rest and keep themselves occupied on their journey. In TIME LORD, however, the journey is rarely important except when scenes relating to an adventure need to take place. After all, the point at which the TARDIS is going to arrive is often known in advance, and it is from there that the adventure continues.

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