Hand of Omega

Hand of Omega
Main aliases:	Omega device, Ark of Ohm
Type:	Stellar manipulator
Made by:	Omega, Rassilon and the other
First appearance:	Remembrance of the Daleks
Appearances:	see list

The Hand of Omega, known as the Omega device by the Daleks, was a remote stellar manipulator, used by Omega and Rassilon in the antiquity of Gallifrey. It had the ability to turn stars into supernovas in order to fuel Gallifreyan time travel.

Characteristics

Appearance

The Hand lay in a dull, bronze coloured, metal box the size and shape of a coffin. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)

Powers and abilities

The Hand could manipulate the life cycle of stars. It also had some basic sentience, was capable of levitation and could follow voice commands. It was even able, by order of the Seventh Doctor, to make Ace's baseball bat into a weapon capable of damaging Daleks. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)

History

Origins

Omega himself stated that the Hand was literally the hand of Vandekirian, Omega's treacherous associate, which Omega had placed in the stellar manipulator. The name "Hand of Omega" was chosen by Rassilon for political reasons. (AUDIO: Omega)

Rassilon and Omega worked on the project together, (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) with some involvement from "the other". (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) While telling Ace about the Hand, the Seventh Doctor hinted that he had participated in its creation. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) One account depicted the Other as a figure distinct from the Doctor, but who was reloomed into the Doctor. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) Others spoke of the "eternal return" which meant that an infinity of Doctors existed across the many eons and timelines of Gallifreyan history, with the "modern" Doctor sometimes being able to access the memories of previous iterations including a version who was married to Patience in very early Gallifrey. (PROSE: Cold Fusion, The Infinity Doctors)

Acquisition by the Doctor

According to one account, the Hand was hidden by Rassilon, but escaped. The ancient alarms left by Rassilon were not known and could not be shut off, leaving the Hand to lurk around the rooms of the First Doctor, whom the Hand remembered as the Other. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)

According to another account, the Hand had ended up in the City Obsidian in the Imperial Edifice of Infinite Steps. On the instructions of a future Doctor, the Corsair stole it to deliver it to the First Doctor, who had yet to leave Gallifrey. The Corsair speculated that she was probably responsible for the Hand being in the City Obsidian in the first place, wondering if in her future she’d have to go back to steal it from Rassilon and Omega. (PROSE: One Virtue, and a Thousand Crimes)

During a period of violent unrest on Gallifrey, the Doctor made off with the Hand, rather than have it fall into the clutches of any of the factions. He subsequently began his self-imposed exile with Susan. (COMIC: Time & Time Again)

According to another, contradictory, account, the First Doctor acquired the Hand of Omega whilst on Earth in 1963, when it was given to him by his seventh incarnation. (PROSE: Echoes of Future Past)

When the Doctor returned to London in November 1963 to collect it during his seventh incarnation, it lay in a funeral parlour (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks).

The Doctor was setting a trap for the Renegade and Imperial Dalek factions and the Imperial Dalek leader, Davros. Davros had hoped to use the Hand to transform (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) the second sun of the Dalek homeworld Skaro, (PROSE: The Stranger) turning it into a power source for time travel. However, the Doctor had altered the Hand's programming. Instead of enhancing Skaro's sun, it went supernova, vaporising Skaro and presumably the Daleks themselves. The Hand of Omega returned to Gallifrey afterwards. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)

After defeating WOTAN on 20 July 1966, the First Doctor checked to see if the Hand of Omega had been buried in Shoreditch Cemetery as per his instructions, only to discover that it had been removed. He determined that his future self would arrive at an earlier point in order to deal with it. (PROSE: The Rag & Bone Man's Story)

The Dalek Prime later claimed that the sun which the Hand had turned supernova was not Skaro's, but Antalin's, a decoy planet. (PROSE: War of the Daleks)

According to rumours, the Enemy destroyed the Hand of Omega at the start of the War in Heaven. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)

In the early stages of the Last Great Time War, Dalek agents duped Susan Foreman into returning to August 1963, hoping that she could lead to the Hand of Omega during the Shoreditch Incident only for the Eighth Doctor to intervene. He tricked the Daleks into letting him and Susan leave 1963 whereupon he delivered the Daleks a fake Hand. Once they discovered the deception, the Daleks attempted to exterminate him however he escaped. (AUDIO: The Shoreditch Intervention)

Other universes

In an alternate universe, there were two Hands of Omega. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

Behind the scenes

• A scene which shows the Other present during the creation of the Hand appears in the Remembrance of the Daleks novelisation, the first ever work to mention the Other in any media, although the production team had already conceived of the character when working out the Doctor's backstory.