Gallifreyan history
The planet Gallifrey, homeworld of the Time Lords, had a long and storied history. Gallifreyan civilisation lasted billions of years, existing in the distant past at the dawn of time (PROSE: The Crystal Bucephalus) so that by the 20th century there was no sign of any civilisation on Gallifrey. (PROSE: Goth Opera)
- Due to the use of time travel by the Time Lords and the lack of outside points of reference, some historical events can be hard to date accurately, if at all.
The Dark Times
The Gallifreyans were an ancient species, one of the first humanoid species to evolve. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising, TV: The Beast Below) The Daleks tried to travel back to prehistoric Gallifrey to prevent the Time Lords evolving. (PROSE: Engines of War)
The Dark Times, also known as the "Old Times" or the "Age of the Pythias", (COMIC: Agent Provocateur) were divided into the Time of Empires and the Time of Chaos. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) The history of this period was recorded in the Black Scrolls of Rassilon, which became forbidden by the time of the Doctor. (TV: The Five Doctors)
Time of Empires
Before the anchoring of the thread, the universe was unstructured and chaotic. (PROSE: The Book of the War) There were no laws of physics, only infinite possibility. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) During this era, Gallifreyans were known as the Shadow People, caught between the warm darkness of magick and the cold light of science. Magick dominated Gallifreyan culture for a long time, (PROSE: So Vile a Sin) but their technological advancement was also unparalleled. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) A Time Lord emissary reminded the Fourth Doctor that Gallifrey had perfected the transmat beam when the universe was less than half its "present" size. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) Empowered by the transmat and other techniques of interstellar travel, Gallifreyans spread throughout the universe, subjugating or shepherding all new species they encountered. They built alliances with any powers they couldn't conquer, creating the Fledgling Empires. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) Soon, their colonies were spread throughout the galaxy. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
The Fledgling Empires waged a war against the Racnoss, wiping out their species (TV: The Runaway Bride) while harnessing their Huon energy for the first time machines. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) The Gallifreyans fought against the Old Ones. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two)
Despite being protested by some, slave trading was common in Gallifreyan colonies. Gallifrey was ruled by the Pythia, a line of female seers who divined the future and ruled Gallifrey. They also perpetuated mysticism on Gallifrey and opposed the use of reason. Many Gallifreyans worshipped the Menti Celesti. Telepathy was used for communication rather than speech, and few individuals kept their own secrets. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) Gallifreyan religious classes, including priests, monks and wardens of the church, had a high place in Gallifreyan society until after the rise of the Time Lords. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two)
Anchoring of the thread
- Main article: Anchoring of the thread
As new cultures evolved and began to impose their own understandings and versions of meaning onto the universe, a definite framework began to emerge. Since these other species could be completely different to the people of the Homeworld, their assembled history was feared to grow unkind to the Empire. Indeed, some unclassifiable events were glimpsed in the formative future, the first time technology was developed and used to avert such events. (PROSE: The Book of the War) The first time machine, the Time Scaphe, was powered psychically rather than technologically. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) The Archons claimed that the Time Lords didn't discover time travel for themselves, but developed it after they declared war on the Archons and stole their technology. (PROSE: The Nameless City)
To permanently fix the problem, Rassilon decided to make the universe rational. (PROSE: So Vile a Sin) By conducting the anchoring of the thread, the Homeworlders created history with themselves at the centre. Their laws became the laws of time and physics. (PROSE: The Book of the War) This caused whole civilisations to disappear and drove the children of Pythia to powerlessness as they lost their power of precognition. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) The Diaspora began as Great Houses fled the Homeworld in fear of the changes that had occurred. (PROSE: The Book of the War) The Time of Chaos began. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
Time of Chaos
During the anchoring of the thread, (PROSE: The Book of the War) Rassilon accidentally opened a doorway into another universe. (PROSE: The Pit) The Great Vampires escaped and caused mass destruction. (TV: State of Decay) The Time Lords, led by Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu, tried to stop them, leading to the thousand year Eternal War. They eventually pushed them back into their own universe, (PROSE: The Pit) plugging the holes with planets. (PROSE: Interference - Book One)
The power of the Pythia declined and the Neo-Technologists, led by Rassilon, rose to power. After the last Pythia committed suicide, members of the Pythian order fled to Karn and became the Sisterhood. War and chaos threatened the empire; an ice age began and Gallifrey's colonies demanded their freedom. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) When Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu returned to Gallifrey after the war, he discovered that religion had fallen out of favour and Rassilon had risen to power. He then left to guard the final opening. (PROSE: The Pit)
During the Time of Chaos, validium came into use by the Time Lords. (TV: Silver Nemesis) The First Doctor took the validium with him when he left Gallifrey. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
The Rassilon Era
The Time Lords had three main founders: the technological polymath Rassilon, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) the stellar engineer Omega, (TV: The Three Doctors) and an other. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) They lived at the same time. (COMIC: Star Death, TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) There were three other Founders of Gallifrey, but no one could agree who they were; (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) candidates included Apeiron, Pandak, and Eutenoyar. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors, PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) The Nechronomancers worshipped a paradoxical seventh founder. (PROSE: And To Dust We Shall Return)
Omega used two stellar manipulators, the "hands" of Omega, to detonate a star (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks, PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) known as Qqaba, to create a black hole from which the Time Lords drew the power for time travel. Omega travelled into Qqaba to detonate it. Fenris, a time-travelling assassin sent by the Order of the Black Sun, sabotaged the shielding on Omega's ship and Omega was pulled into the newly created black hole. Through sheer force of will, Rassilon kept the Gallifreyan space station from being pulled into the black hole. He then found Fenris and banished him into the Zone of No Return. (COMIC: Star Death) Although he survived in the anti-matter universe, Omega was presumed dead. (TV: The Three Doctors, AUDIO: Omega) Rassilon would later use time-travel technology salvaged from Fenris' belt to create a navigational system for TARDISes. (COMIC: Star Death)
In the time of the anchoring of the thread, (PROSE: The Book of the War) when the Watchmakers surrendered the creative and changeable parts of their minds, (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) the last Pythia cursed Gallifrey with sterility before killing herself. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) To stabilise Gallifreyan society, the looms and Great Houses were created, (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) and the High Council dissolved the monasteries and churches of Gallifrey. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two)
Beginning of Rassilon Era
In year zero of the Rassilon Era, (COMIC: The Final Chapter) Rassilon retrieved the Eye of Harmony and stored it in a vault beneath the Time Lord capitol as a source of power. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
The Matrix was set up during the reign of Rassilon. Following damage to the Time Vortex, a robotic construction, Dawn 726-Alpha Continua, was set up to repair the damage. (COMIC: Dawn of Time!)
The Game of Rassilon was a blood sport played in the Death Zone on Gallifrey using the Time Scoop, which relocated beings from all of time and space (except for Daleks and Cybermen, considered too dangerous to try to contain) and placed them in the Death Zone to fight each other to the death. (TV: The Five Doctors) Rassilon's rule saw the end of the games in the Death Zone. (TV: The Five Doctors)
The Time Lords tried doing business with the Hoothi. The Hoothi caused a war on one of the worlds with which Gallifrey was negotiating, and later attacked Gallifrey itself using a Time Lord ambassador as a host. The Time Lords struck back with a counterattack and put the Hoothi worlds in a time loop. The Hoothi were forced to leave the galaxy. (PROSE: Love and War, AUDIO: Love and War)
When the natives of Exclon began attacking and looting neighbouring planets, the Time Lords launched a full scale attack on Exclon and devastated it. (PROSE: Vorton's Revenge)
The Time Lords forced the Phaeron to shut down their wormholes. (PROSE: Deep Time)
Beginning of non-interference
After dreaming of a future Time Lord empire that used its power to suppress the weak of the universe, Rassilon instituted the non-interference policy. (COMIC: The Final Chapter) It would be remembered that policy was created due to the damage that had been done by the Time Lords to other species using time travel. (TV: Underworld, PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)
150 million years BC, Rassilon defied the non-interference policy and led the Time Lords against the Mad Mind of Bophemeral in the Millennium War. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)
One legend said that despite Rassilon's great achievements, the Time Lords rebelled against him and imprisoned him in the Dark Tower in the Death Zone. Rassilon survived both in the tower (TV: The Five Doctors) and in the Matrix. (COMIC: The Tides of Time, AUDIO: Neverland et al)
Eons of stability
Millennia of isolation induced a complacency among the Time Lords. Their technology and power stagnated, even as other races became more powerful and dangerous. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
- The specific order of the following events is unknown.
- Mawdryn and a group of scientists tried to steal the secrets of regeneration from Gallifrey, stealing a metamorphic symbiosis regenerator, but they were unsuccessful and they became stuck in a cycle of never-ending mutated regeneration. (TV: Mawdryn Undead)
- The Time Lords tried to prevent human researches centred on the USS Eldridge, which was tearing a hole in space. Though they succeeded, the ship was believed to be lost. (AUDIO: The Macros, GAME: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada)
- The High Council of Time Lords foresaw a future where every planet in the universe was infected by God Seeds and decided to break their law of non-intervention to conduct a universe-wide purge. The purge was not completely successful as at least one God Seed survived. (AUDIO: Fiesta of the Damned)
Changing times
After eons of cultural stasis, irregularities appeared in the breeding-engines, creating a generation of renegades. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
As recorded by Marnal in The Monkey to Time Saga, the Time Lords of this era began having visions of a future where they were erased save for only five survivors, their primate shadows ruling the spaces between history under a great Black Eye. Most of Gallifrey dismissed the visions. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)
The Imperator Presidency
One of the mutations in the Looms was a member of House Dvora (PROSE: The Book of the War) named Morbius. (TV: The Brain of Morbius) He had a strong personality and endless ambition, qualities which had not been seen among the Great Houses for generations. He quickly rose to power over the High Council (TV: The Brain of Morbius, The Book of the War) and led the Imperator Presidency. (PROSE: The Book of the War) He wanted the Time Lords to abandon their non-interference policy and intervene in the outside universe in their own self-interest, and he campaigned for conquest of the lesser species. He gathered an army of mercenaries to himself, making extravagant promises to them about time travel and immortality. (TV: The Brain of Morbius, The Book of the War) He also appointed Thessalia to lead the newly-created Order of the Weal, to prepare the Homeworld for a future war.
However, Thessalia denounced the Imperator to the High Council, (PROSE: The Book of the War and he fled the planet with his army of mercenaries, wreaking havoc on the outside universe. He was eventually captured, put on trial, and executed (TV: The Brain of Morbius, PROSE: The Book of the War) on Karn. However, Mehendri Solon removed Morbius' brain prior to his disintegration, (PROSE: Warmonger) and he began building a new body for Morbius. (TV: The Brain of Morbius)
After Morbius' death, his followers became known as the Cult of Morbius (PROSE: Warmonger) in year 5725.3 of the Rassilon Era. (AUDIO: Neverland) The cultural shift Morbius caused on Gallifrey resulted in the rise of interventionists. (PROSE: Warmonger, The Book of the War)
The Doctor's life on Gallifrey
When the Doctor was very young, Ulysses was told by Larna, a Time Lady from the future, that the fate of Gallifrey was mixed with that of the Doctor and that the Doctor would have a part to play in its downfall and resurrection. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)
After the Time Lords developed a chemical that could turn vertebrate blood into acid, the Doctor successfully campaigned for it to be banned. (PROSE: The Age of Ambition) The Doctor also convinced the Time Lords to put aside their non-interference policy and ban miniscopes from the universal market. (TV: Carnival of Monsters)
Madrigor became the youngest Gallifreyan to be appointed a Time Lord. He began secretly using his TARDIS to steal from other planets. The other Time Lords discovered Madrigor's thievery and he was tried and found guilty. Before he could be punished, Madrigor ran away from Gallifrey and hid on Lunargov III. (PROSE: The Time Thief)
According to one account, near the end of the Doctor's time on Gallifrey, the Master led a student revolt against President Pundat the Third. They wanted to restore "Rassilon's Law" by replacing Pundat with a descendant of Rassilon. After Pundat died of stress, the rebels found the last living relative of Rassilon: a seven-year old Time Lady named Larn. The students attempted a coup, but were stopped by citadel guards. During the coup, the Master managed to assassinate the new president Slann. Shortly afterwards, both the Doctor and the Master left Gallifrey. Lady Larn stowed away on the Doctor's TARDIS. (PROSE: Birth of a Renegade)
According to another account, the Doctor and Susan left Gallifrey during a major conflict. Fearing that one of the sides would get the Hand of Omega, the Doctor and Susan stole a TARDIS and took the hand far away from Gallifrey. (COMIC: Time & Time Again)
Other accounts indicate that the Doctor and Susan did not leave Gallifrey during or shortly after a major conflict. (TV: The Name of the Doctor, PROSE: Lungbarrow, AUDIO: The Beginning)
The Doctor's missions for the CIA
Although the Second Doctor tried to avoid the Time Lords during his travels, he was forced to contact his people when he encountered a situation too difficult to sort out on his own. The renegade Magnus had allied himself with the War Lords to collect soldiers from various battles from Earth history to create an army to conquer the universe. The Time Lords came and erased the War Lords from time. They returned all the soldiers and the Doctor's companions to their native times and places. The Doctor was put on trial for stealing his TARDIS and sentenced to forced regeneration and exile to Earth in the late 20th century. (TV: The War Games)
The Doctor managed to negotiate with the CIA and he went for several missions for them before his exile. (PROSE: World Game, Players)
The CIA discovered that the Second Doctor had created a paradox shortly before encountering the War Lords during a visit to London in 1688. They sent an agent to meet with Jamie McCrimmon near the end of his life. The agent restored Jamie's memories and had Jamie tell the story of his visit to 1688. The Doctor, Jamie and Zoe had met King James II shortly before the Glorious Revolution. Jamie had created an alternate timeline by encouraging James not to flee England. In the new timeline, the Doctor never met Jamie and therefore nobody encouraged James II to stay in England. The agent stabilised the timelines while the Doctor fixed history in the past. The agent then removed Jamie's memories of the Doctor and left. (AUDIO: The Glorious Revolution)
The Doctor's exile had unforeseen consequences. His presence on Earth changed history when he inspired Liz Shaw to create renewable energy using alien technology. After she left the Doctor, Liz began working with the United Nations to create twenty one SunTrap stations across the planet. Helios last of the Solarians was attracted to Earth by the solar energy stations and took control of its governments. After trapping the Doctor, he shaped the population of Earth into the perfect army to get revenge on the Time Lords for destroying his species' home Qqaba.
Using technology from the Doctor's TARDIS, Helios' battle fleet came to Gallifrey and burst the transduction barrier with plasma beams. The High Council of Time Lords hid from the attack in a fallout shelter and traced the invaders back to Earth. Realising their mistake, they sent the Third Doctor on a mission into his future to murder Helios before he could attack Gallifrey. The Doctor was successful and the Time Lords took him back to his "native" time with evidence of the potential future. He showed this evidence to Liz Shaw and set history back onto the correct course by convincing her to become a writer instead.
The Gallifreyans became furious that their planet was almost destroyed by Time Lord meddling. The CIA redirected the revolution against the clergy. Several cardinals were executed and the Supreme Pontiff of Time was paraded around the citadel on a pike staff. Due to the Doctor's skill in saving Gallifrey, the CIA decided to continue to give him missions. To ensure the Doctor was kept busy between missions, they released the Master from Shada. A messenger was sent to inform the Doctor that the Master was coming to Earth. (PROSE: Prisoners of the Sun)
In year 5892.5 of the Rassilon Era, the Master stole information on the Doomsday Weapon from the Matrix. (AUDIO: Neverland) After he went to Uxarieus to get the weapon, the Time Lords temporarily fixed the Doctor's TARDIS and took him and Jo Grant to Uxarieus. The Doctor stopped the Master and destroyed weapon before it could be used. (TV: Colony in Space)
The Time Lords were easily rendered helpless when Omega began to drain energy from Gallifrey, and were only saved by the intervention of the Second and Third Doctor. (TV: The Three Doctors)
The Time Lords continued to give the Doctor missions after his third regeneration. After the Time Lords foresaw a future where Daleks became the dominant lifeform in the universe, they brought the Doctor, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry Sullivan to Skaro during the creation of the Daleks. Ferain informed them that they had to stop Davros' experiments and gave them time rings to escape. The Doctor was unable to stop the creation of the Daleks, but still changed history by forcing Davros to rush the creation. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks, PROSE: Lungbarrow)
Later, when the Doctor was travelling with just Sarah Jane, the Time Lords took control of his TARDIS and brought the two of them to several points in history. First, they were to taken to the planet Ecros, where they stopped the Daleks from drilling into the planet's core and turning it into a missile to fire at Earth. (COMIC: The Dalek Revenge) The Time Lords then directed them to Station 251, a Bendriggan space dock which had been infected with a virus deadly to Bendriggans. The entire Bendriggan race would have landed on the station and died, but the Doctor made contact with the leading ship and saved the species. (COMIC: Virus) Finally, the Time Lords brought the Doctor and Sarah Jane to the Italian village Borosini in the summer of 1944. There, they helped the villagers take back an entire shipment of artwork stolen by Nazis. The Doctor brought the art into his TARDIS and returned it after the war ended. (COMIC: Treasure Trail)
The CIA came to regard the Doctor as their most talented agent. When he was nearly killed on Beta Osiris, a Time Lord interfered with events and inadvertently saved the Doctor's life. (PROSE: Scarab of Death)
Constitutional crisis
The Time Lords faced "the most dangerous crisis in their long history" when, during the President's resignation, he was assassinated by Chancellor Goth before he could name his successor. Goth was plotting with the Decayed Master to frame the Fourth Doctor and take power uncontested. The Doctor ran against Goth in the election to buy himself time to investigate the death; he succeeded in unraveling the scheme, but in the process, the Master killed Goth, leaving the Doctor as the next President. Because the Doctor didn't want this responsibility, he left in his TARDIS. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
With both of the other candidates unexpectedly withdrawn from the race, Greyjan the Sane, a Time Lord academic who never seriously intended to become President, was left in charge of Gallifrey. His Presidency lasted for only three years before he killed himself, distressed by his visions of war. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)
The Capitol was severely damaged when the Eye of Harmony was opened. Overseer Luther designed a grand reconstruction of the city. The Watchtower was built on top of the ruins of the Panoptican. The Watchtower was secretly a huge TARDIS that got its power directly from the Eye of Harmony which Luther planned to eventually use to take over Gallifrey. (COMIC: The Final Chapter)
When the Fourth Doctor returned to Gallifrey, he found the planet without a President and led by Lord Chancellor Borusa. Claiming his right to the Presidency from the old election, he briefly became the 407th President (TV: The Invasion of Time, PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) as part of a plot to defeat a Vardan invasion. This invasion was a front, however, for a Sontaran invasion of Gallifrey. Although defeated, these invasions exposed weaknesses in Gallifrey's defences. (TV: The Invasion of Time)
Gallifrey was again invaded, this time by the Dominators, who "flooded" the Capitol with Quarks, 39 of which were destroyed by Leela and K9 Mark I. Though the Fifth Doctor would claim that there was never "any serious risk of us being conquered", one of the Quarks was fitted with a bomb which heavily damaged the Capitol, necessitating the construction of a replacement building. (AUDIO: Time in Office)
The Killer Cats of Gin-Seng rose up against the Time Lords (AUDIO: Erasure) in the Crisis of Gin-Seng, (AUDIO: The Last Fairy Tale) which was stopped by the Fourth Doctor. The CIA erased all records of this incident. (AUDIO: Erasure) The cats later evacuated the planet in fear of the future Time War. (PROSE: The Return of the King)
Following the Sontaran/Vardan invasion of Gallifrey Borusa was made acting President of Gallifrey. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen) He was later officially inducted as Lord President of Gallifrey and dealt with Omega's attempted incursion into normal space via the Arc of Infinity. Omega utilised the Fifth Doctor's biodata extract (supplied by Hedin) to do so. To prevent Omega's incursion Borusa ordered the Doctor's termination. (TV: Arc of Infinity)
Once again, a group of Gallifreyans began pushing to make the President of Gallifrey a descendant of Rassilon. The Tremas Master tried to use this movement to become the next president. He kidnapped Lady Larn, the last descendant of Rassilon, and allied himself with the Cybermen. He was going to gain the support of the rebels with Larn and use the Cybermen as his personal army. The Fifth Doctor stopped him before he got to Gallifrey. (PROSE: Birth of a Renegade)
Following another regeneration Lord President Borusa began to investigate the legacy of Rassilon, specifically immortality. Borusa sought to be "President Eternal" ruling Gallifrey forever. Utilising the time scoop he summoned four of the Doctor's incarnations to the Death Zone, using them gain access for him to the Tomb of Rassilon. Ultimately Borusa gained the immortality he sought by Rassilon, entombed as a living statue on Rassilon's sarcophagus. (TV: The Five Doctors)
Following the close of the crisis induced by Borusa the full High Council utilised its emergency powers and made the Doctor President of Gallifrey. The Doctor departed briskly leaving Chancellor Flavia, giving her "full deputy powers until (he) returned", (TV: The Five Doctors)
After years of planning their revenge, the natives of Exclon created a spacecraft strong enough to destroy the Time Lords. Using a gravity controller, they brought the Sixth Doctor's TARDIS to Exclon. They planned to use the Time Lords' trust of the Doctor against them by saying that they had formed a peace treaty with the Doctor. While testing the spacecraft was being tested, it accidentally caved-in a cave in which the Doctor was being kept. He managed to escape before he could be used against the Time Lords and the natives of Exclon were all killed when the caves collapsed. (PROSE: Vorton's Revenge)
The High Council detected violent temporal disturbances on Marinus caused by a worldshaper. They sent a Time Lord to investigate, but he was attacked by Voord. The Sixth Doctor, Peri Brown, and Frobisher followed a distress signal from his TARDIS to Marinus and found his corpse. They then left the planet, picked up Jamie McCrimmon, and returned. Jamie sacrificed his life to destroy the worldshaper and time stabilised. A group of Time Lords then came to the planet to clean up the worldshaper technology and prevent the Doctor from interfering with Cyberman history. (COMIC: The World Shapers)
Later, the High Council decided to physically move Earth in order to preserve secrets stolen from the Matrix. (TV: The Mysterious Planet)
These revelations caused a revolution on Gallifrey. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
By the Rassilonian year 10639.5, centuries after the Capitol was redesigned by Overseer Luther, the Doctor was thought by some to be a myth. Elucidator Ziggi wrote the book Doctor Who?: In Search of the Old Times Fraud. This group were surprised when a wounded Eighth Doctor was brought to Gallifrey by the Higher Evolutionaries with Fey Truscott-Sade and Izzy Sinclair.
As the Doctor recovered, Luther decided that it was the perfect time to initiate his plan to rewrite Gallifrey's history. The Final Chapter assembled in the Watchtower over the old Panoptican. Draining power directly from the Eye of Harmony, the Final chapter journeyed to the Rassilonian year zero. The Doctor, Fey, Izzy, and Shayde managed to get into the Watchtower before it dematerialised. As the tower left Gallifrey it tore apart the entire Capitol. In the past, Shayde pretended to be the Doctor and jumped into the Watchtower's time column. He then redirected the Watchtower back to the now ruined present Gallifrey. (COMIC: The Final Chapter)
Romana's Presidency
Romana II succeeded Flavia as Lady President (PROSE: Happy Endings) after a coup overthrew Flavia's government. (AUDIO: Lies, Indurgency)
In year 6776.7 of the Rassilon Era, (AUDIO: Neverland) Romana was on a routine visit to Etra Prime when it disappeared. She was imprisoned there by the Daleks for twenty years. (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element)
In year 6796.8 of the Rassilon Era, (AUDIO: Neverland) the Sixth Doctor arrived on Archetryx during the Archetryx Convention. Vansell was at the convention spying on the other temporal powers' time machines. When Romana escaped the Daleks back to Gallifrey, they followed her and tricked Vansell into allowing them on the planet thinking them to be a deposition from the Monan Host. When on Gallifrey they slaughtered the Chancellery Guard as they needed the use of the Eye of Harmony, which was keyed to Evelyn Smythe's retina scan due to restricting the Dalek Movement around Gallifrey, in order to stop the Apocalypse Element's destruction of the Seriphia Galaxy this action killed all the Daleks on Gallifrey. (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element)
When Leela's pregnancy ended the Pythia's curse, Romana negotiated peace with the Sisterhood of Karn and ended the long rift that existed between them and the Time Lords. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) However, from within his tomb, the "Great Grey Eminence" was upset by the return of life to Gallifrey, so he made a pact with Faction Paradox to fold the Doctor's life back upon itself and undo the changes. (PROSE: Unnatural History) Rassilon's spirit guided the amnesiac Eighth Doctor to make "small improvements to the pattern of history," after which Flavia was the current President and the Doctor went to travel with Sam Jones (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) rather than someone who would try to "screw" him. However, the Eighth Doctor was later able to remember both Flavia and Romana as the current President, (PROSE: Unnatural History) and he had memories of parents as well as being born of a Loom. Later, he discovered that Romana was the current President. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
Anti-time crisis
On his travels, the Eighth Doctor saved Charlotte Pollard on the R101. (AUDIO: Storm Warning) According to Romana and Vansell this action wouldn't normally have changed the Web of Time, but the Neverperson Sentris used this event to break into the universe and caused an anti-time incursion which stretched the web to its limits. Vansell set the Matrix to remembering the correct path of history. At this point the matrix was predicting only one future, Romana becoming Imperiatrix. (AUDIO: Neverland)
A fleet of TARDISes began patrolling the Time Vortex to find the Doctor and Charley. (AUDIO: Embrace the Darkness) Using many Battle TARDISes the Celestial Intervention Agency captured the Doctor and Charley and planned to use Charley as a way to enter the universe of anti-time. Vansell thought that Rassilon was in this universe and planned to bring him back. This was a ploy by Sentris as the casket containing the supposed Rassilon was an anti-time bomb, which the Neverpeople planned to detonate passed the transduction barrier, as Gallifrey was the only place in the universe that hadn't been tainted by anti-time. The Doctor used his TARDIS to contain the explosion. (AUDIO: Neverland)
Irving Braxiatel was tasked with tracking the remnants of the Doctor's TARDIS, and notified Romana when it disappeared. She went with Leela into the Death Zone, where she discovered a Matrix door to Rassilon's Foundry, where she met the Doctor. Having been infected with Zagreus, he banished himself to the Divergent Universe and Romana told him that he would never be able to return. (AUDIO: Zagreus)
Free Time Movement and the return of Pandora
Soon after on the planet Gryben, the Time Lords holding planet of unlicensed travel through the Time Vortex, the Free Time movement obtained a Timonic Fusion Device and planned to detonate it and destroy the Time Lords. The current Celestial Intervention Agency Coordinator Narvin sent Torvald and Leela there to discover its location. Whilst on this mission it was discovered that the Monan Host had agents on the planet, and if Narvin used the Battle TARDISes in orbit to stop the escalating actions of the human Nepenthe he would have provoke the third space war. To counteract this Romana head to the planet knowing that if the TARDISes had to bomb the planet the action was just as they chose to kill their president. The Timon Fusion Device was found to be a contrivance and there was no real threat. Narvin then initiated a presidential inquiry into Romana's actions. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice)
Leela was then sent to investigate a temporal summit to see if it was a neutral as it was supposed to be, considering the actions of the Archetryx Convention. There Leela discovered that time was being rewritten to make the summit go smoothly. This removed the accidental death of an exotic dance by the Nekkistani ambassador Flinkstab and the murder of Pule of Unvoss. Leela told Romana of this and she arrived at the summit to expose Hossak as well as Narvin's actions after the Dalek attack on the Monan Host world as the Monan V'rell was committing terrorist acts because of it. (AUDIO: Square One)
By now Romana's inquiry was ready and Inquisitor Prime Darkel, who had previously resided over the Sixth Doctor's trial, was presenting the case for the prosecution. In obtaining evidence for his mistress, K9 Mark II accidentally set of a data bomb in the Matrix. It was extrapolated that Irving Braxiatel had set it there after the outcome of Project Alpha to expose Glower and the high council's actions in the destruction of Minyos. In discovering this information, Romana found that Braxiatel was transgressing the laws of time by conversing to his past and future selves in creating the Braxiatel Collection. (AUDIO: The Inquiry)
Mephistopheles Arkadian invited Romana to France in 1939, as she would find something useful about the Free Time movement and the CIA agent Torvald. It was also revealed to her that Andred was not dead. (AUDIO: A Blind Eye)
Romana then decided to allow non-Gallifreyans to attend the Time Lord Academy much to the disdain of Darkel. It was at this time that an ancient evil from Gallifrey's past started to regain a presence by hijacking Narvin's brainwaves. As Leela was combing the catacombs after discovering that her husband was not dead, she encounter Pandora, Gallifrey's first Imperiatrix was manifesting itself in the Matrix. Romana had encountered Pandora in her youth and was given the Imperiatrix Imprimatur. Pandora wanted to make herself corporeal by taking over Romana's biogdata. K9 managed to squeeze her back into the Matrix. (AUDIO: Lies) Leela and Romana went to Davidia to recuperate, when a rogue TARDIS passed through the security barriers and a severely burnt Time Lord came out. (AUDIO: Spirit)
On returning back to Gallifrey, Darkel manipulated the situation to put Castellan Wynter, who was inexperienced, in charge of the investigation of the burnt Time Lord. She also persuaded Romana to allow Braxiatel to become chancellor. Meanwhile the student Gillestes tried to poison the water in the name of Free Time, though Andred stopped her. K9 analysed the poison and found it to be the Dogma Virus. Pandora then invaded Wynter's mind who went mad and tried to stop her but drinking the Dogma Virus vial, crushing his hands and burning himself with K9's laser becoming the burnt Time Lord he was investigating. Pandora managed to escape the matrix using Braxiatel's ambition, but Braxiatel stopped her. He had to be banished to stop her manifesting again, as she was still in his minf, and Darkel had his chancellorship stripped from him. (AUDIO: Pandora)
Leela then started teaching at the academy as Braxiatel's last request. Here she taught about how to live in Time Lord society. With the new Chancellor Valyes, Darkel proceeded to try to find any ways to get the alien students of the planet. In the process she caused the death of Taylor Addison who was trying to keep his friends together throughout this time, he discovered a chamber under the Panopticon and was killed trying to find it's secrets. By this time Romana was conversing with Pandora, usually through K9, to find a way to stop this insurrection. It was during one of these conversations she was briefly taken over by Pandora and killed Andred. Darkel openly challenged her presidency, and started an election. (AUDIO: Insurgency)
After this challenge, there was an open terrorist attack on the alien students caused by Antimon. This gained Darkel many followers and a full high council session was called to deal with this crisis. Romana thought that the only answer was become the Imperiatrix, and become a dictator. Antimon revealed himself to be a Free Time agent and planned to kill the high council, Romana and Darkel. Romana had to free K9 of Pandora to allow him to stop the bombs, in doing this Pandora manifested herself completely through her first incarnation claimed her title back and declared civil war. (AUDIO: Imperiatrix)
Romana spent most of the civil war destroying infrastructure of the capitol, on one such mission she instructed Leela and Narvin the destroy the Artron forum. After the failure of the mission, leaving Leela blind and Narvin severely injured, they fled to the outlands and to the Anomaly Vaults to find a way to defeat Pandora. In the vaults they discovered the CIA assassin Aesino and became trapped in the vaults. They escaped via the use of Braxiatel's transmat that K9 gave Romana to the academy. (AUDIO: Fractures) Pandora accelerated her attack by creating a technological variant of the Dogma virus. Darkel tried to trick Matthias into infecting Romana with the virus but instead infected Hallan. Romana then won the war by trapping Pandora in the Matrix and then wiping it clean. (AUDIO: Warfare)
With the matrix lost to them and the technological variant of the virus infecting systems across the Capitol, Gallifrey was prone to invasion. The Sunari, Nekkistani and Warpsmiths of Phaidon took advantage of this and invaded to emancipate their students who were caught up in the war. Romana was incapacitated due to her defeat of Pandora, and Valyes became acting president and planned to resign and give the presidency to Darkel. Mathias used the situation to become de facto vice president of Gallifrey and negotiated a peace settlement. (AUDIO: Arbitration) There was a power struggle, and a presidential elections was called, with Romana, Darkel, and Matthias contesting the role. Matthias found a loophole and got Romana's candidacy revoked as she would have been impeached. Darkel also had Romana's presidency annulled up to the point Pandora escaped from the Matrix. Because of this Braxiatel returned to the planet as chancellor and became president. Darkel tried to get him to loose control of the part of Pandora in his mind, which occurred and she was killed as a result. Braxiatel then resigned and named Matthias as is successor. (AUDIO: Mindbomb)
To gain capital for the planet, Matthias invited Mephistopheles Arkadian to the planet to sell of Pandora's temporal weaponry. Romana then started to investigate the Dogma Virus infestation, and discovered that a large proportion of the population were infected in this. Elbon was trying to find a cure. As part of the bargain with Arkadian, Romana was sent with Elbon to deliver the weapons to the buyers as they had the cure to the Dogma Virus. Meanwhile Leela and Narvin weren't sure about Arkadian and chased him to the Biog data Archive just when it was time scooped by Braxiatel. Braxiatel then asked for a decision on whether to use the cure for the Dogma Virus. (AUDIO: Panacea) Romana, Braxiatel, Narvin and Leela then went to the Axis to explore alternative Gallifreys for a better cure for the Dogma Virus. (AUDIO: Reborn, Disassembled, Annihilation, Forever, Emancipation, Evolution, Arbitration)
They returned to the main universe after the Dalek invasion of the Gallifrey they settled on. (AUDIO: Extermination) On returning to a ruined Gallifrey, Romana encountered her next incarnation who told her that they needed to rebuild Gallifrey, and transplanted her capitol with the current one. Trying to keep the Eye of Harmony and Transduction barrier from destroying Gallifrey she accidentally killed the Unvossi ambassador who came to the planet. When the balance between the Eye and the Barrier became unstable Romana managed to fix it but the dimensional forces started her regeneration. (AUDIO: Renaissance) This occurred in the Matrix.
Romana returned to Gallifrey and discovered the state that the Dogma Virus had left the planet in. Having discovered a workable cure, she rewrote the biog data of the Time Lords and destroyed the virus. It was during this time that Slyne, a Castellan from an alternate Gallifrey, opened the Matrix and allowed the Daleks to invade. Leela gave Romana a message from her future incarnation saying that her plan was ready. Romana lured the Daleks into the Matrix and sealed herself in there trapping herself. Narvin realised that Gallifrey would fall without her and sent Valyes to tell the Fourth Doctor to avert the creation of the Daleks. Not knowing that the Romana trapped in the Matrix was an avatar, Narvin accidentally started the Last Great Time War. (AUDIO: Ascension)
War on Gallifrey
For centuries, Time Lords like Greyjan the Sane (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) and Thessalia had been predicting that their civilisation would be ravaged by a great war. (PROSE: The Book of the War) Matrix prophecies increasingly predicted that Gallifrey itself would be destroyed. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors, The Gallifrey Chronicles, AUDIO: The Crucible of Souls) After the Seventh Doctor regenerated into the Eighth, (TV: Doctor Who) these events came to pass. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, TV: The Night of the Doctor)
Return of Omega
Sometime after Romana II regenerated into her third incarnation while fixing the engines of the Moros, (AUDIO: Enemy Lines) a threatening anomaly began growing in Mutter's Spiral. Romana discovered that the Adherents of Ohm were still active on Gallifrey and were planning the return of Omega. One of their members, Tauras, took Celestial Intervention Agency operative Ace to Earth and used the Hand of Omega to create a black hole to Omega's domain. Omega then possessed Tauras and, despite pursuit from Narvin and Romana, escaped in Ace's TARDIS. Romana, Ace, and Narvin tried to follow but were trapped in the black hole until Romana was rescued by Irving Braxiatel. (AUDIO: Intervention Earth)
After the return of Omega, a war began that devastated Gallifrey. However, Braxiatel went back in time and stopped Romana II from regenerating on the Moros, then guided her in stepping down from the Presidency in an attempt to avoid the start of the conflict. (AUDIO: Enemy Lines)
The War in Heaven
- Main article: War in Heaven
The Homeworld's most infamous renegade returned several times over the course of decades with warnings of an enemy preparing for war against the Great Houses. These warnings were largely ignored, climaxing in the Head of the Presidency's attempt to disprove the rumours through the Faraway Declaration. However, the Declaration instead proved the enemy's existence and demonstrated their malice, and the Homeworld began to prepare for war with the former renegade becoming the War King. (PROSE: The Book of the War) In fear of the fight to come, the Celestial Intervention Agency preemptively erased themselves from time to become the noncorporeal Celestis. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)
Increased tensions between enemy representatives and Time Lord forces on Dronid climaxed in the Cataclysm and the beginning of the War in Heaven. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Book of the War) Immediately, the House Military engaged the enemy across the Spiral Politic, including the Thousand-Year Battles on Utterlost, Kaiwar, and Mohandassa. However, the approach of this "First Wave" was ineffective against the enemy, leading to further innovations in subsequent Waves. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
The War in Heaven brought substantial changes to Gallifreyan society. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Taking of Planet 5) Many renegade Time Lords like Borusa and the Rani returned to Gallifrey to help train soldiers, (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5) By the Fourth Wave, the House Military had begun recruiting "regen-inf" soldiers from the lesser species and, even more radically, incorporating foreign biodata into the Looms. Many Newblood Houses were created, and the identities of the six ruling Houses was in constant flux, with a deep divide opening between the traditional political Houses and the new, Military ones. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
During the War, several duplicates of Gallifrey were constructed. These were collectively known as the Nine Gallifreys, (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) although there were truly far more than nine. Many of these duplicate Homeworlds believed themselves to be the original, creating their own cloneworlds in kind. (PROSE: The Book of the War) On one duplicate, (PROSE: The Story So Far...) the Time Lords predicted the oncoming War by observing the war in the Obverse, and President Romana regenerated into a more ruthless third incarnation in preparation. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) However, before the fighting reached her Gallifrey, it was attacked by Faction Paradox forces led by Mother Mathara. To prevent the Faction from taking control, the Eighth Doctor destroyed Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)
In the sixth decade of the War, the Homeworld was fighting against the enemy on 920 fronts. (AUDIO: Body Politic) House Lolita gained support among the War Council after its sole member, the rogue timeship Lolita, destroyed Faction Paradox's Eleven-Day Empire. (AUDIO: The Shadow Play, In the Year of the Cat) She successfully infiltrated several societies throughout the Spiral Politic, becoming Queen of England, (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat) President of the United States, (PROSE: Head of State) and, after killing the War King, Lady President of the Homeworld. (AUDIO: Body Politic) However, she was defeated by the combined forces of Horus and the Osirian Court in a plot organised by Cousin Justine of Faction Paradox. (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh)
The Last Great Time War
- Main article: Last Great Time War
Growing hostilities between the Time Lords and the Dalek empire escalated into a war that would be remembered as the Last Great Time War.
In the early days of the war, Rassilon was resurrected and instigated as the president of Gallifrey. (PROSE: Engines of War)
After more than 400 years of war, (PROSE: Engines of War) the Time Lords grew mad, and sought to end time itself to free themselves from physical bodies.
To avert their destruction, the Time Lords sent a four-beat signal into the Master's mind and then sent a White-Point Star diamond to 2009 Earth. With the drumming as a signal and the diamond as a connection, the Saxon Master, who had survived the war, broke the Time lock at the end of the war and pulled a group of Time Lords through to Earth, and also pulled Gallifrey through. However, Gallifrey was returned to the last day of the Time War inside the Time lock when the Tenth Doctor destroyed the White-Point Star within the Nuclear Bolt that was generating the signal. (TV: The End of Time)
During the Eleventh Doctor's timestream, he and all of his prior incarnations (as well as his successor incarnation, unbeknownst to him) came together to freeze Gallifrey and the surviving Time Lords in time; and transferred Gallifrey to a pocket universe, "like a painting", where it was safe from the Daleks, who destroyed themselves. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) Due to the memory of these events being wiped from every incarnation before the Eleventh Doctor, the Ninth Doctor believed himself responsible for the destruction of both the Time Lords and Gallifrey. (TV: The End of the World, Dalek)
After the Time War
While the Time Lords were hiding in the pocket universe, most believed them to be dead. (TV: The End of the World, et al) Their position as keepers of the Web of Time was fought over by many time-active races, including the Cybermen, the Sontarans, and the Unon. The Time Agency eventually asserted themselves as the new protectors of time. (COMIC: Weapons of Past Destruction)
After the Eleventh Doctor's TARDIS was destroyed by the Silence, a number of cracks in the fabric of reality appeared in the universe. (TV: The Big Bang) The Time Lords began reaching out through a crack on the planet Trenzalore; sending the message "Doctor who?" in order that the Eleventh Doctor might speak his true name and return them to the universe. The message was received by a great number of species. Some came to Trenzalore to fight the Time Lords should they return. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) Others, such as the Voord, feared that the Time Lords would restore history to as it was before the Time War and hid. (COMIC: Four Doctors)
Rather than restart the Time War, the Doctor refused for hundreds of years. The Time Lords did save the dying Doctor's life by granting him the a new cycle of regenerations, allowing him to regenerate into the Twelfth Doctor before closing the crack and sealing themselves away in the pocket universe. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
Shortly afterwards, the Time Lords and Gallifrey left the dimension they were frozen in, returning to the universe, but were now at the extreme end of the time continuum, "for its own protection". (TV: Hell Bent) They restored Marinus to as it was before the Time War. (COMIC: Four Doctors)
They hatched a plan to get the Doctor to confess what "the Hybrid" was. Mayor Me, under Rassilon's orders, (TV: Hell Bent) tricked the Twelfth Doctor into having a teleport bracelet attached to his arm, and was teleported (TV: Face the Raven) inside his confession dial where he was tortured to confess what he knew about the Hybrid. Instead, he gradually tried breaking out of a wall of azbantium inside the dial through repeatedly burning his old body to create a new one. (TV: Heaven Sent) After approximately 4.5 billion years, (TV: Hell Bent) the Doctor broke free. (TV: Heaven Sent) Rassilon was then dethroned from his position by the Doctor and the Time Lords, and the Doctor later ran with Clara Oswald to a later period of Gallifrey in a TARDIS. (TV: Hell Bent)
It was eventually revealed that after the failure of the Final Sanction, the Time Lords fixed the Master's "condition" stemming from his botched resurrection. He then left Gallifrey in his TARDIS in "a mutual kicking [him] out". As a result of the Time Lords intervention in this way, the Master regained his health and original personality. (TV: The Doctor Falls)
After the end
New Alexandria, the planet on which the Crystal Bucephalus was located, was built in the ruined remains of Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Crystal Bucephalus) So was Ardethe. (PROSE: Deadfall) Christine Summerfield wrote Dead Romance in the ruins of an abandoned Gallifrey after escaping the bottle universe (PROSE: Dead Romance) and before joining Faction Paradox. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire)
According to the Somnus Foundation, when the end of the universe began to occur, the Time Lords left this reality along with some species that they deemed worthy of survival, which did not include humanity. (AUDIO: Singularity)
According to one account, apparently 60 billion years after 2367 AD, at the end of the universe, Gallifrey had been destroyed and Winkle's Wonderland had been relocated there. The Divergence made an attempt to break free at the end. (AUDIO: Zagreus)
5 minutes before "Hell", Gallifrey was maintained by a reality bubble when Me was the only being left in the ruined Cloisters. Me watched stars die, and later left Gallifrey at the final moments before the universe's end with the Twelfth Doctor and Clara Oswald in a TARDIS after the Doctor's memory of Clara was wiped by a neural block. Clara and Me later returned to Gallifrey, "the long way around". (TV: Hell Bent)
Other realities
There were an infinite number of possible versions of Time Lord history. In every single reality, Omega became trapped in the anti-matter universe.
In one history, Rassilon never existed and Omega was the sole founder of the Time Lords. In another, Rassilon was a woman and Omega's lover. In another, Rassilon continued to rule Gallifrey after his death from within the Matrix. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)
In "a tiny reality", Gallifrey was not a planet, but a diamond that drifted through space. (AUDIO: Zagreus)
In an alternative timeline, Rassilon failed to finish the Eye of Harmony before his death and Gallifrey never achieved time travel. (AUDIO: Forever)
In a timeline created by the Black Guardian, the Doctor never left Gallifrey and became a President. Because the Doctor never interfered with their history, the Daleks grew to become more powerful than the Time Lords. The Time Lords lived in fear of the Dalek Empire and tried to appease them. (COMIC: Time & Time Again)
In another alternate timeline created by the Sirens of Time, the Knights of Velyshaa conquered Gallifrey. However, the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Doctors, with the help of the Temperon, averted this. (AUDIO: The Sirens of Time)
In an alternate timeline where the Daleks were peace-loving academics, the Time Lords were on good terms with them, their President having been cured by Dalek surgeons. (PROSE: The Ripple Effect)
In a timeline Timothy Dean showed John Smith to prevent him giving the Aubertides the pod containing Time Lord biodata, the Aubertides had conquered Gallifrey. With the power of regeneration they multiplied quickly, and once they went to Gallifrey using the Doctor's TARDIS they took over with sheer force of numbers. A gigantic crystal memorial was constructed for Aphasia. In an attempt to get information about the Matrix Greeneye tortured the President by beginning to cut off her head, but stopping before he could prevent her from regenerating. (PROSE: Human Nature)
External links
- RASSILON, OMEGA and that OTHER Guy -a very well-researched and detailed history of the Time Lords and Gallifrey which includes both canonical and non-canonical sources
