Ulysses

Ulysses was a Time Lord explorer.

Biography

Ulysses was one of the first Time Lords to give himself a new name, which he picked from an Earth adventurer. It was on Earth that he married Penelope Gate, a human from 1883. Ulysses and Penelope were friends of Mr Saldaamir and the three of them often went exploring together. Ulysses, Saldaamir and Penelope also associated themselves with Lady Larna, who was from their future. Unbeknownst to the High Council, Penelope gave birth to a son, the Doctor.

When fellow Time Lord Marnal threatened to expose them, they used the telepathic circuits of his TARDIS to wipe his memory and dumped him on Earth in England, 1883 with Penelope's mother. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)

Appearance

On Gallifrey, Ulysses was powerfully built with white hair and a clipped beard. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)

Behind the scenes

• Ulysses was to have been the name of the Doctor's father in an early script of the Doctor Who television movie and Ulysses also appears to be the father of the Master, making the Master and the Doctor half-brothers. The search for Ulysses by the Eighth Doctor would have appeared in a story arc in the planned late 1990s revival of Doctor Who for which the one-off television movie would have served as the pilot. The line was cut from the final script. A passing reference by the Eighth Doctor that he remembered spending time with his father on Gallifrey remained in the finished film. Lance Parkin utilised these ideas when he wrote the novel The Gallifrey Chronicles.
• The Nth Doctor describes an earlier version of the TV Movie pilot in which Ulysses had, as described in the books, gone to live on Earth as a radical Berkley professor nicknamed "Doctor Doomsday".