User:TheChampionOfTime/Rassilon (The Five Doctors)
A work in progress alongside User:TheChampionOfTime/Rassilon (Star Death) and User:TheChampionOfTime/Rassilon (Seasons of Fear) to clear up ambiguities with my proposal on Talk:Rassilon, since the structure and content of these pages is the most controversial. Seems like the sort of thing that's easier to show rather than describe.
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The Rassilon interred in the Tomb of Rassilon was the final incarnation of Rassilon's original lifetime, and by some accounts his only incarnation. His powerful mind survived after death in an Eternal Sleep which allowed him to continue to interact with the world into the Doctor's era.
Biography
Origins
Youth as Rassilon's only incarnation
Rassilon was born the child of a suet shredder. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) At some point Rassilon had a wife with whom he had a daughter that was stillborn due to the Pythia's Curse. (AUDIO: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
Vampire War
- Main article: Eternal War
According to an untrustworthy history provided by Faction Paradox,
Some account showed that during an early experiment (PROSE: Interference: Shock Tactic, The Pit) Rassilon accidentally unleashed the Great Vampires into the universe, beginning the Eternal War. (PROSE: The Pit)
Nevertheless, according to other accounts, the vampires' conflict with Gallifrey had already begun before Rassilon took power, and, indeed, before the Gallifreyans became Time Lords; (PROSE: Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background, Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) one account specified it as one of countless wars fought by the Gallifreyan Heroes, cementing Rassilon as the greatest Hero. (PROSE: Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background)
The campaign was largely successful, but the King Vampire was not found. (TV: State of Decay [+]Loading...["State of Decay (TV story)"], PROSE: Interference - Book One [+]Loading...["Interference - Book One (novel)"])
According to Faction Paradox-influenced transmissions from Anathema, during the war, Rassilon had been exposed to vampire biodata in what he described as inoculation. (PROSE: Interference - Book One [+]Loading...["Interference - Book One (novel)"]) The Book of the War reported rumours that his side had, in fact, extracted and modified their power of regeneration from the vampires. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) As their name implied, the Cult of Rassilon the Vampire on Gallifrey, one of the hundreds of minor committees which worshipped and studied Rassilon from a variety of perspectives, believed that Rassilon had indeed become a vampire, and venerated him as such. (COMIC: Blood Invocation [+]Loading...["Blood Invocation (comic story)"], PROSE: Goth Opera [+]Loading...["Goth Opera (novel)"]) The Faction-influenced transmission claimed that Rassilon fought side by side with "the Engineer" during the war, with the conflict ending once they had sealed off connections to the Vampire's universe with artificial planets, one of which was the Earth. (PROSE: Interference - Book One [+]Loading...["Interference - Book One (novel)"])
When Rassilon returned from the War, he led the overthrow of the matriarchal society of the Pythia with his Neo-Technologists. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
Intuitive Revelation
- Main article: Intuitive Revelation
Rassilon emerges as a high-ranking Hero following his defeat of a Vampire invasion which threatened the galaxy. Viewing the Pythias as a threat to Gallifrey's true destiny as a supreme power, he masses a group of supporters (PROSE: Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background [+]Loading...["Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background (short story)"])
and deposes the Pythia, initiating the Intuitive Revelation. The Pythia had embodied the planet's fertility, and indeed in some way was "Gallifrey" herself, so when the 508th Pythia kills herself she curses Gallifrey to be sterile. Unborn babies die in wombs and no more children exist, forcing Rassilon to find an immediate solution. (PROSE: Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background [+]Loading...["Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background (short story)"])
According to the histories that Rassilon himself wrote, the Pythia retaliated by cursing Gallifreyans to be sterile. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) However, the sterility may have, in reality, been a result of the anchoring of the thread. (PROSE: The Book of the War) Rassilon solved the problem by creating the Great Houses and building the Looms that artificially birthed new Time Lords. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
As the Time Lords banished the last fragment of impossibility from the universe, Rassilon said: "Now, see what we have created, we have built a world of reason triumphant. And it is good." (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet )
Early rule
Early in his rule, Rassilon repeatedly rejected offers to become absolute ruler of the planet, insisting he cannot rule alone and founding the High Council. The Council's members represent the Chapterhouses, who are comprised of groups of the ancient Families of Gallifrey. This connection between government and Family plays into Rassilon's plans to save the population. Pythia's surviving sisters in the Sisterhood of Karn attempt to hold Gallifrey to ransom using the Elixir of Life, but Gallifrey instead develops genetic banks known as looms. Every Family receives a Family Loom from which a set quota of Family Members can be generated, creating a world in which Cousin is the only familial relation. As the Looms are installed in Family Houses, the Houses are adapted into living bio-architectures with a low degree of sentience in all their furnishings, acting as vague replacements for any parental functions that Cousins cannot fulfil. One Cousin of each generation is to be selected as a Housekeeper. Thus, a new form of Family is created defined by the Cousins, the Loom, and the House.
The Chapters are given Academies whose leaders are appointed Cardinals to serve on the Council in the newly-built Capitol. Gallifreyans in lower positions supporting the Council are Ordinals, and below the Ordinals are the plebians. Rassilon has the Matrix developed as an extra-dimensional computer net containing all Gallifreyan knowledge, able to give judgement on the past and predict the future. In many ways, the Matrix replaces the Pythia, taking on the embodied role of "Gallifrey", the essence of the planet and culture.
To achieve these reforms, Rassilon formed an inner sanctum which formulated plans before they were shown to the Council. Of the two other members, one was Omega, Rassilon's Cousin and the chief of the scientific fraternity, and the third was a mysterious figure remembered only as "the Other". This Triumvirate seek to create a new form of time travel which relies on science rather than Pythian telepathy. Omega develops the Hand of Omega to create a supernova, and in using the Hand is lost. The sacrifice offers unlimited power to the Gallifreyans, allowing them to become Time Lords.
When early Time Lords cause the destruction of Minyos, Rassilon and the Other are faced with re-evaluating Rassilon's dream of Gallifrey as a supreme power, instead contemplating becoming guardians of time and space. For Gallifrey's safety, they decide on the latter. Motivated by this decision, Rassilon enters the black hole left by Omega and sealed its singularity into the Eye of Harmony. Bringing the Eye home, Gallifrey's existence is thus balanced against the colossal energy of the black star, becoming unassailable. The Eye's stability influences Gallifreyan culture from this point forwards, slowing down cultural development and making telepathy dwindle.
A final product of the Intuitive Revelation, Validium, is decided to be too dangerous and so it is hidden in an asteroid. (PROSE: Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background [+]Loading...["Gallifrey - Notes on the Planet's Background (short story)"])
the Doctor, by more than one account, was the reincarnation of the Other. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
Rassilon publicly wept for the loss of Omega. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
Later Presidency
Either at the end of this single incarnation's life or at the end of a longer lifetime composed of many regenerated incarnations, Rassilon took on the appearance that he would have until his death as he entered the later period of his Presidency.
According to Postar, Rassilon, confident in his power, created the Death Zone, a region of Gallifrey devoted to "the Game of Rassilon" The Dark Tower he had built in its centre had a link to the Eye of Harmony through which it could Time Scoop individuals from all over time and space, who would be made to fight to the death for the privilege of being returned home. Many tried to get him to stop the games, but only after a group of Cybermen nearly destroyed the Dark Tower did Cardinal Pandad succeed in persuading him of the foolishness of his actions, as, had the Cybermen succeeded in destroying the Tower, they might have released the power of the Eye of Harmony, and, through exposure to it, gained the same immortality and temporal abilities as the Time Lords. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey) However, all of this contradicted the research of another Time Lord historian, who claimed that the Game and Death Zone predated Rassilon's Presidency — and, indeed, that he had made his name, and earned his seat on the High Council, by campaigning for its abolition. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
Nearing apparent death
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According to the Scrolls of Gallifrey, as this Rassilon was nearing the end of his incarnation, expecting to be able to regenerate again, he put it off when he learns of a creature called the Fendahl rampaging on the fifth planet in the Sol system in Mutter's Spiral. To defeat it, the High Council decides to disintegrate the planet, put a force field sealing its former location from the outside universe, and permanently reverses Time within that spot so that the Fendahl would never have existed. This brute-force approach is seen as a victory by the Patrex councilman Morbius, but is not approved of by Rassilon. When he learns that an Arcalian senate on the planet Minyos has been destroyed, he decides enough is enough and edicts a series of Laws of Time. Satisfied with his work at long last, Rassilon relinquishes the Presidency to Pandad, letting Time Lord government settle in a new and complicated form involving a President, a Chancellor, a Castellan and the High Council.
Though retired and once more working on his own scientific undertakings, Rassilon takes Chancellor Azmeal into his confidence, instructing him of the whereabouts of the Great Key but also decreeing that from this day forwards, no Chancellor knowing the secret of the Key will be allowed to ascend to the Presidency. The project Rassilon is working on turns out to be another bid at immortality: the Matrix, a sort of "psychic history book" into which the minds of dying Time Lords could be uploaded. Rassilon leaves it dormant and refuses to share its workings with anyone, ruling that as the first and greatest of the Time Lords, he should have the privilege of being the first one to achieve digital immortality as well, if and when a time of true death arose for him. Indeed, as he attempts a thirteenth regeneration, Rassilon realises the regeneration cycle granted by exposure to the Eye of Harmony only grants twelve renewals, and a thirteenth is impossible. He teaches Azmeal the workings of the machine and lets his mind pass into the Matrix; his body is transported to the Dark Tower, which becomes known as the Tomb of Rassilon. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey [+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"])
After he discovered that the regeneration cycles granted by the Eye of Harmony only allowed for twelve renewals, Rassilon, desperate to extend his life, created the Matrix to record the minds and memories of dying Time Lords, allowing the disembodied Time Lords to remain conscious within the Matrix, with Rassilon first among them as the leader of the Matrix Lords. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey)
The Death Zone which had previously been the site of bloody games involving mere Gallifreyans. (PROSE: The Scrolls of Rassilon)
After decreeing the three fundamental Laws of Time to prevent any of his successors failing as he had, Rassilon, now in his thirteenth incarnation, abdicated from the Presidency in favour of Pandad, further shaping the political system of Gallifrey by creating the positions of Chancellor and Castellan. The former individual would be told of the location of the Great Key to the Eye of Harmony, but on the condition that they never become Lord President. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey)
discovering to his dismay that the regeneration cycles granted by the Eye of Harmony only allowed for twelve renewals. Gaining the trust of Chancellor Azmeal, Rassilon, once more desperate to extend his life and power, created the Matrix, in which the minds and memories of dying Time Lords would be recorded. Though Azmeal presented the project to the High Council as a "psychic history book", the truth was that the disembodied Time Lords would remain conscious within the Matrix, with Rassilon first among them as the leader of the Matrix Lords. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey)
Before his death, Rassilon prepared his tomb to test those who sought the gift of immortality, (PROSE: Pandoric's Box) Following the death of his thirteenth incarnation, (PROSE: Pandoric's Box)
One stated that the Time Lords had revolted and imprisoned him in the Dark Tower in the Death Zone. (TV: The Five Doctors)
Rassilon's Eternal Sleep
- Main article: Rassilon's Eternal Sleep
(TV: The Five Doctors [+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"])
(PROSE: Punting [+]Loading...["Punting (short story)"])
Many rumours surrounded Rassilon's death (or lack thereof).
Early grants of Immortality
The Tomb of Rassilon had the faces of three Time Lords whom Rassilon had granted immortality. (TV: The Five Doctors [+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"])
Running the CIA
Around the time of the Doctor and Susan's escape from Gallifrey, Rassilon oversaw the Matrix Lords' use of the APC Net to boost their mental powers and continue to influence the outside universe. They also created the Celestial Intervention Agency to act on their behalf in the land of the living. CIA operatives were often unaware that they were working for Rassilon rather than for the Lord President or some other Time Lord superior. Hence, Rassilon continued to rule Gallifrey, subtly shaping its history as he saw fit, though not all of the Presidents were aware of this.
To keep the balance of the universe, Rassilon created two projections of absolute good and absolute evil and gave them the Key to Time to stop the universe and put things right if the balance between chaos and order was upset. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey)
Besides the CIA, Rassilon wished to have a free agent in the outside universe, and decreed that it should be a minor renegade known as the Doctor. Using his influence, Rassilon began manipulating the Doctor's life in his second incarnation, though it was not until he faced the Great Intelligence in the London Underground that the Doctor began to suspect he was being used. The CIA eventually contacted him an official basis, and sent him on a mission to prevent the Sontarans from gaining mastery of time travel. In the process, the Second Doctor accidentally broke the First Law of Time (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey) by meeting the Sixth Doctor. (TV: The Two Doctors)
After the Doctor proved instrumental in ending the threat of Omega, (TV: The Three Doctors) which the Matrix Lords had been unable to predict due to the anti-matter universe he was trapped in being inimical to Gallifrey's very nature, Rassilon authorised Socra to reveal the CIA's existence to President Pandad IV, and make it public, if it was necessary to convince the President to free the Doctor from his exile. However, while the Doctor's exile was lifted, Pandad IV declined the offer to go public, feeling that widespread knowledge of the CIA would risk lessening the population's faith in the Presidency. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey)
Borusa's Game of Rassilon
Chancellor Borusa, who had known the secrets of the Great Key and the Sash, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) eventually became Lord President of the High Council. This outraged Rassilon, as it broke the regulations he had put in place to avoid all powers being concentrated in any other individual but himself. Claiming to his fellow Matrix Lords that he foresaw a time when Borusa's presidency would lead Gallifrey to destruction, (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey) even though his government had succeeded in saving Gallifrey from Omega a second time, (TV: Arc of Infinity) Rassilon reactivated the Death Zone for the first time since his physical death, and beguiled Borusa with the promise of immortality to be dispensed in the Dark Tower.
Borusa first sent two of his own High Council into the Death Zone, Thalia and Zorac, but they were struck down by bursts of psychic energy converted into elemental weaponry that resembled lightning bolts, fired by Rassilon himself from the astral plane of the Matrix. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey) After Borusa finalised his scheme by sending the five first incarnations of the Doctor to serve as his scouts, he confronted a projection of Rassilon hovering above Rassilon's ancient body, who cursed him with the immortality of a living statue in punishment for his hubris. The Doctors were returned to their travels, (TV: The Five Doctors) and, with Rassilon's blessing, Flavia became the new President of the High Council, returning to the old traditions by obtaining an intelligent cat to act as her advisor, whom she decided to name "Doctor". (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey)
Rassilon also granted the First Doctor the ability to pilot his TARDIS effectively in gratitude for stopping Borusa, allowing tie up some of the loose ends he had left while he was approaching his first regeneration. (PROSE: The Witch Hunters) The final loose end tied up by Rassilon was to allow the Tremas Master to escape Gallifrey unscathed, an act which was recorded by the Celestial Intervention Agency, although they were mystified by it. (PROSE: CIA File Extracts)
Facing Agonal
Helping the Eighth Doctor
When the Bruce Master's last trap left the Eighth Doctor suffering from amnesia, Rassilon's spirit guided the Doctor to various locations where his past selves were about to face crucial dangers or defining moments. In the process, the Doctor made "improvements to the pattern of history" for Rassilon. At the end, Rassilon guided the Doctor to Sam Jones. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors [+]Loading...["The Eight Doctors (novel)"])
After President Romana reconciled Gallifrey with the Sisterhood of Karn, lifting the Curse of Pythia, (PROSE: Lungbarrow) the Book of Lies said that, from within his tomb, the "Great Grey Eminence" made a deal with Faction Paradox to fold the Doctor's timeline back on itself and return Gallifreyan history to passionless sterility. (PROSE: Unnatural History) who he knew would never dare to "screw" the Doctor. After Gallifreyan history was rewritten, (PROSE: Unnatural History) Flavia was the current President, and Rassilon, (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) still regarded as the "Eminence" in the Book of Lies, had been taught the ways of paradox. However, these changes to Gallifrey's history were unstable, with the Book of Lies even refusing to confirm whether they truly "happened" in a traditional sense. Indeed, the Doctor wasn't sure if Flavia or Romana was President, (PROSE: Unnatural History) or if he had parents or been born of a Loom. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
Fate
When his people made contact with him to request that he lead them into battle against the Dalek Empire in the Last Great Time War, Rassilon agreed. (PROSE: Engines of War)
Rassilon's mind eventually broke free from the Divergent Universe and was reincorporated with his Matrix projection. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures) As part of Project Revenant, the High Council imprinted Rassilon's Matrix projection onto Admiral Valerian of the House of Rassilon, resurrecting Rassilon into a new body at the cost of Valerian's life. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures)
Legacy
After the war, Rassilon wrote the Record of Rassilon, giving a brief history of the war and instructions to all Time Lords to kill the King Vampire if ever they came across him. (TV: State of Decay [+]Loading...["State of Decay (TV story)"])
- In Interference - Book One, Sam Jones experiences a "transmission" from the Remote which depicts key moments in the Eternal War. Some details of the transmission are historically inaccurate, in part due to propaganda from Faction Paradox. Other details are filtered through Sam's cultural perceptions; for example, she sees Rassilon as being played by Brian Blessed.
Appearance and clothing
Their thirteenth incarnation had a bushy moustache that connected to mutton-chop sideburns as well as long, arched eyebrows. (PROSE: Pandoric's Box)
Behind the scenes
Death
People with major involvement in the DWU and in Doctor Who Magazine, when asked in TEDW 7, were divided over whether the Rassilon seen in the television story The Five Doctors is actually alive or an artificial intelligence or if he had ever died prior to The Five Doctors.
- According to DWM editor Tom Spilsbury, it hadn't occurred to him before that he was anything other than being alive, and that "it might come down to semantics over what being alive means."
- Doctor Who scriptwriter Gareth Roberts believed that Rassilon is dead and the face that appears is "a clever AI."
- Head writer and executive producer Russell T Davies believed that Rassilon is "clearly alive", with his big face in the story being "A projection from the Matrix. A mental life extending beyond the body's death."
- Novelist, audio writer and comic writer George Mann believed that Rassilon was dead, but the Time Lords had figured out a way of "resurrecting dead people in extreme circumstances," doing "something horrible and timey wimey".
- Novelist, audio writer, comic writer and DWM columnist Jacqueline Rayner described his condition as "a permanent sleep which is pretty much indistinguishable from death", and that "He's immortal, but he has no awareness," and when the trap inside the Tomb of Rassilon is triggered, "he becomes semi-aware so he can oversee or judge what's going on, before going back into his eternal sleep again".
- DWM deputy editor Peter Ware believed that Rassilon is dead by the time of The Five Doctors, and his dead mind is speaking from the Matrix to the Doctors and Borusa. He mentions the line from the television story Hell Bent — "Rassilon the resurrected," as further proof that he had died.
- Doctor Who scriptwriter Mark Gatiss quipped that Rassilon is "biding his time until he regenerates into [actor] Daniel Craig."
- Head writer and executive producer Steven Moffat, who also wrote Hell Bent, understood that Rassilon was "alive, but in 'eternal sleep'," having got up from his eternal sleep to participate in the Time War, "And got killed. And resurrected. Because that happened a lot in the Time War."
- According to scriptwriter Terrance Dicks, who wrote The Five Doctors, Rassilon has "gone to a higher plane where he's a benevolent being who can, if he feels it's a big enough crisis, intervene".
Other matters
- This version of Rassilon appears in the parodic BBV Productions film Do You Have a Licence to Save this Planet?. Rassilon was created in name only by Robert Holmes for The Deadly Assassin; other creations of Holmes appear licensed in the film, but a license for Rassilon is not given in the film's credits.
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Category:Time Lord Presidents Category:Immortals Category:Residents of Gallifrey Category:Incarnations of Rassilon
