Time Lord
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The Time Lords, (TV: The Three Doctors) also known by many other names like "the Sun Builders", (PROSE: Out of the Box) "the Watchmakers", (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet, et. al) the Gods of the Fourth, (WC: Death Comes to Time) the Superiors, the "Shadow People", "the House-Dwellers", "the Lords of Jewel", (PROSE: A Bright White Crack) the Archons of Time, (PROSE: The Bloodletters) and the "Race of Temporal Supremacy", (PROSE: Ring Theory) were inhabitants of the planet Gallifrey, who were most famous for the creation and attempted monopolisation of time travel technology. (COMIC: Time Bomb!, TV: The Time Warrior, PROSE: The Crystal Bucephalus et al.) They created and upheld the Laws of Time (TV: The Three Doctors, Attack of the Cybermen) after establishing the Web of Time to keep the universe rational. (TV: Once, Upon Time; PROSE: So Vile a Sin)
Time Lords were sensitive to timelines, being able to see "all that is, all that was, all that ever could be," (TV: The Parting of the Ways) but also "what must not [be]". (TV: The Fires of Pompeii) They had an instinctive urge to stay away from events that would always happen. (TV: The Waters of Mars) They were seen as immortal, or nearly so, (TV: The War Games, Last of the Time Lords) partially due to their ability to regenerate. (TV: Planet of the Spiders) They had a great place in the mythologies and cultures of other civilisations, being outright called "the Gods" by several species, including the Minyans (TV: Underworld, COMIC: Omega) and the Gendar. (PROSE: Out of the Box)
The ancient Time Lords were known to take part in battles and conflicts, often helping to hunt species known to be dangerous. (PROSE: Pandoric's Box, et al.) One of the last of these was a war against the Great Vampires, which was so long and bloody that they turned against violence in general. (TV: State of Decay) One account of this war called them the angels. (PROSE: Head of State) For at least part of their history, the Time Lords adhered to a strict policy of non-interference. (TV: The War Games) Despite their attempts to keep up an appearance of being uninterested in the affairs of others, they still sent discreet missions where other Time Lords would act on their behalf. (TV: Colony in Space, The Two Doctors, Genesis of the Daleks, et al.) On one occasion, the Fourth Doctor was instructed to intercept the creation of the Dalek race, (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) a step which eventually led to a war between the two species. (COMIC: Hunters of the Burning Stone, et al.)
By the time of the Sixth Doctor, the Time Lords had reigned in "absolute power" for ten million years. (TV: The Ultimate Foe, PROSE: The Book of the War) During the final day of the Time War, it was claimed the history of the Time Lords spanned "a billion years". (TV: The End of Time)
History
- Main article: Gallifreyan history
Time Lord civilisation was founded in the Old Time, by Rassilon, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) Omega (TV: The Three Doctors) and an other, (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks) after the overthrow of the Pythia. (PROSE: Cat’s Cradle: Time’s Crucible) Through Tecteun's experiments on the Timeless Child, the Time Lords gained the ability to regenerate. (TV: The Timeless Children) In the anchoring of the thread, the Time Lords imposed rationality on the universe and created the Web of Time, (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet, The Book of the War, AUDIO: Neverland) controlling time through the Mouri in the Temple of Atropos. (TV: Once, Upon Time)
The ancient Time Lords fought the Eternal War, (TV: State of Decay, PROSE: The Pit) Racnoss Wars (AUDIO: Empire of the Racnoss) and the Time Wars. (COMIC: 4-D War, Black Sun Rising, PROSE: Sky Pirates!, River of Time, AUDIO: Enemy Lines) Rassilon also led the Time Lords against the Ravenous, killing most of the species but sparing one family to maintain the moral high ground, (AUDIO: Deeptime Frontier) and oversaw the Alliance of Races's campaigns against the Hyperions and Cybock Imperium. (COMIC: Terrorformer, Gangland)
The Time Lords held absolute power for some ten million years. (TV: The Ultimate Foe, PROSE: The Book of the War) They adopted a strict policy whereby they would only observe the events of the wider universe and never become involved. (TV: Underworld) In spite of this two secret Time Lord organisations, the Division and Celestial Intervention Agency, were known to exist to interfere in the cosmos when deemed necessary. (TV: The Deadly Assassin, The Timeless Children) Their eons of stability were threatened by the rise of the Imperator, (PROSE: The Book of the War) Morbius, who was eventually exiled and finally defeated on the planet Karn. (TV: The Brain of Morbius, PROSE: Warmonger)
The Time Lords faced numerous crises during the Doctor's era. One account claimed the Doctor departed Gallifrey after a failed revolution. (PROSE: Birth of a Renegade) After the Doctor was tried and exiled, (TV: The War Games) the Time Lords faced a crisis when their power was drained by Omega forcing them to rely on three incarnations of the Doctor to save them, after which they restored his freedom. (TV: The Three Doctors) Greater crises followed with Goth's assassination of the President and the Decayed Master's subsequent attempt to use the Eye of Harmony which destroyed half the Capitol, (TV: The Deadly Assassin) an invasion by the Vardans and Sontarans, (TV: The Invasion of Time) the Crisis of Gin-Seng, (AUDIO: Erasure) a second manifestation of Omega (TV: Arc of Infinity) and President Borusa's insane plot to claim immortality. (TV: The Five Doctors) Finally the High Council's cover-up of a theft from the Matrix by relocating Earth and subsequent trial of the Doctor for discovering this injustice triggered a revolution on Gallifrey. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
After Romana became President, the Time Lords began to be more involved in the wider cosmos, resolving the rift with the Sisterhood of Karn, (PROSE: Lungbarrow) forming an alliance known as the Temporal Powers (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice) and allowing non-Gallifreyans to study at the Academy. (AUDIO: Lies) During this time, the Time Lords were attacked by the Daleks, (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element) anti-time, (AUDIO: Neverland, Zagreus) and Free Time. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice, Insurgency) The Pandora entity escaped the Matrix, seizing power as the Imperiatrix. This caused a civil war on Gallifrey, (AUDIO: Imperiatrix, Fractures) which Romana eventually prevailed in. (AUDIO: Warfare) In the aftermath Matthias became President, (AUDIO: Appropriation, Mindbomb) however his era was short-lived due to the Dogma Virus pandemic. (AUDIO: Panacea) After curing the virus and stopping the Daleks, who had been sponsoring Free Time and created the virus to enable them to invade Gallifrey, Romana was restored as President. (AUDIO: Ascension)
In her third incarnation, President Romana faced a third manifestation of Omega (AUDIO: Intervention Earth) and began preparing the Time Lords for the War in Heaven. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) This started a series of events which resulted in Gallifrey’s seemingly total destruction by the Doctor, (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) though he preserved the Time Lords by downloading all their minds from the Matrix into his own mind. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) In the post-War universe, the Time Lords appeared to have been completely wiped from history. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street) Despite this, there still existed four remaining Time Lords. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, Trading Futures, The Gallifrey Chronicles) The Time Lords were eventually restored to existence. (PROSE: The Tomorrow Windows)
The existence of Romana's third incarnation was erased by Braxiatel who changed history to stop her second regeneration, claiming to be averting a future war on her future self’s orders, and had her resign the presidency for Livia. This new timeline was stabilised by the Watchmaker. (AUDIO: Enemy Lines) Under Livia's presidency, the Time Lords began the Last Great Time War against the Daleks, (AUDIO: Celestial Intervention) during which Rassilon was resurrected to rule Gallifrey again as Lord President Eternal. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures) After centuries of conflict across time and space that ravaged the whole universe, the Time War culminated in the Fall of Gallifrey in which it appeared, and was assumed by the Doctor for a time, that the Time Lords were all but wiped out along with the Daleks. (TV: The End of the World, The End of Time) However, intervention by thirteen incarnations of the Doctor had actually placed the Time Lords in a pocket universe. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Readily able to leave the pocket universe but unable to confirm which reality was N-Space, the Time Lords took control of a time field in a nearby universe, through which they broadcasted the Question from the planet Trenzalore, hoping that the Doctor would hear their call and confirm that it was safe to return. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) This resulted in the Siege of Trenzalore, the Doctor spending the next nine centuries defending the Time Lords from the New Dalek Paradigm threatening to cause a new time war. At the behest of Clara Oswald, the Time Lords saved the Doctor from what would have been his thirteenth and final death by granting him a new cycle of regenerations. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) Confirming that he'd found the right universe, Rassilon returned Gallifrey to N-Space but moved it to the end of the universe for protection, at the same time locking the Twelfth Doctor in his confession dial to learn about the Hybrid. The Doctor eventually escaped, overthrew Rassilon, and used Time Lord technology to save Clara Oswald before fleeing Gallifrey once more in another stolen TARDIS. (TV: Hell Bent)
The Time Lords were finally wiped out by the Spy Master, who devastated Gallifrey after learning the secret of the Timeless Child. (TV: Spyfall) He later used Cyber-technology to make the CyberMasters out of his people's corpses. (TV: The Timeless Children) The Division still existed in secret however and embarked on a plan to destroy the universe, releasing the Flux in space and two Ravagers in time, planning to move on to the next one. (TV: Survivors of the Flux)
Life cycle
- Main article: Gallifreyan physiology
The Eleventh Doctor once said to a group of humans, "We were all jelly once. Little jelly eggs, sitting in goop", indicating that Gallifreyans began as ovum similar to Earth mammals. (TV: The Rebel Flesh) Time Lords could also be born from individual Family Looms, machines that operated on genetic banks that would weave random patterns until forming a new person. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, Cold Fusion, Lungbarrow) According to some accounts, the commonness of Looms rendered traditional family units redundant for Time Lords; by the time the Doctor and Susan left Gallifrey, Quadrigger Stoyn claimed that "no one [had] grandfathers". (AUDIO: The Beginning)
Provost-Major Beltempest listed Time Lords separately when he said: "My Time Lords, ladies, gentlemen, and those of indeterminate gender". (PROSE: Happy Endings) Female Time Lords were also referred to as Time Ladies, although the Master's first female incarnation Missy referred to the term as "old-fashioned". (TV: City of Death, Dark Water) Biological sex and gender could change from one regeneration to another. (TV: The Doctor's Wife, Dark Water, Hell Bent, Twice Upon a Time, et al.)
Biological sex is flexible among my people, and gender is merely a social construct.
Young Gallifreyans were known as Time Tots, (PROSE: Big Bang Generation, AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard, COMIC: Weapons of Past Destruction, WC: Shada) loomlings, (PROSE: Unnatural History) or children. (PROSE: Of the City of the Saved..., Against Nature) Some Time Tots were loomed. (PROSE: Apocrypha Bipedium) In many cases, their life cycle seemed to include a phase similar to human childhood. Like human children, Gallifreyan children slept in cribs. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) Children were entertained with nursery rhymes (TV: The Five Doctors, AUDIO: Zagreus) and stories such as Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday. (TV: Night Terrors, PROSE: Snow White and the Seven Keys to Doomsday) There were specialised books for Gallifreyan children, including Every Gallifreyan Child's Pop-Up Book of Nasty Creatures From Other Dimensions. (AUDIO: Shada, WC: Shada, PROSE: Shada) Many Time Lords were once physically children and at least some lived in homes with others of their own gender before going off to join the Academy or the army. (TV: The Sound of Drums, Listen) Many Time Lords were loomed as full grown adults. (PROSE: Lungbarrow, Against Nature)
The Tenth Doctor considered himself a "kid" at 90, (TV: The Stolen Earth) but after the age of two hundred years, the Third Doctor no longer saw himself as young anymore, (TV: The Time Warrior) although 200 year old Time Lords were considered "boys" and referred to as Junior Time Lords. (PROSE: The Three Doctors) They could live for hundreds of years before regenerating. (TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen) Handrel claimed that Time Lords could live around ten thousand years before regenerating. (PROSE: The Time Lord's Story) The Eleventh Doctor physically lived for at least 1,200 years before having to regenerate, resulting in an advanced physical age. However, this was partially due to the fact that for 900 of those years, he was under extreme stress, as well as him no longer being able to regenerate and so his incarnation continued past the point where age would have required him to regenerate. Notably, by the end of that incarnation, he was dying of old age and when he was granted the ability to regenerate once more, he immediately started to do so. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
Time Lords, once they had reached old age, were allowed to leave Gallifrey and retire on another planet. This was very rarely done; Chronotis was the only person known to take up the offer. (PROSE: Shada)
According to Missy, a Time Lord was supposed to face death by meditation: repentance, acceptance and contemplation of the absolute (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) while in an earlier incarnation, the Master commented that Time Lords should face death with dignity. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
Time Lords had some control over their own deaths, some would elect a specific "Death-Day," which would allow them time to read their will to their family in their ancestral home, to die after a time of contemplation and acceptance, and then to have their mind transferred to the Matrix. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
When a Time Lord eventually died with their regenerations exhausted, they could release one last burst of regeneration energy which would see their last body vanish, leaving only the clothing they had been wearing. (PROSE: Shada) Accordingly, in the alternate timeline where he died on Trenzalore, the Doctor's tomb did not contain a body (which the Doctor said would have been "boring"), but rather an embodiment of the deceased's time stream. (TV: The Name of the Doctor) However, one had to will this to happen prior to death, (PROSE: Shada) and if a Time Lord's death did leave behind a body, it was considered necessary to destroy their corpse soon afterwards. This was because, by harvesting the body, one could gain the ability to regenerate and cheat death. River Song claimed many were prepared to go to war to obtain even a single Time Lord cell. (TV: Last of the Time Lords, The Impossible Astronaut, PROSE: Shada)
Once they had died, a Time Lord's mind and experiences were usually uploaded to the Matrix on Gallifrey. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) Though usually confined to this virtual world, some of the deceased Time Lords would again walk the material plane in the form of the mechanical Cloister Wraiths, (TV: Hell Bent) and although Time Lords were connected to the Matrix throughout their lives, (AUDIO: Pandora) the Time Lords also had a rite called Soul Catching, which was done to dying Time Lords before they were assimilated into the Matrix. This allowed them to assimilate their memories before they died. (PROSE: The Devil Goblins from Neptune, TV: Hell Bent)
Culture
Art
Time Lords appreciated music, as indicated by such artefacts as the Harp of Rassilon. (TV: The Five Doctors) They also appreciated art, although painting on Gallifrey was done by computer. (TV: City of Death) Time Lord art, known as stasis cubes, were unique in that they were in 3D, as they acted as snapshots of a single moment in time. This meant that they could be used as rudimentary time travel, by freezing a person inside a painting and then letting them out at the required point in time. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
By the time of the Doctor the Patrexes Chapter specialised in art and aesthetics. (PROSE: Damaged Goods)
Education
One of the major institutions of the Time Lords was the Time Lord Academy. It was split up into Chapters, each of which was identified by its distinctive colours. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) The subjects at the academy ranged from the study of cosmic science (TV: Terror of the Autons) to Veteran and Vintage Vehicles (TV: The Pirate Planet) to Gallifreyan flutterwings. (TV: The Pirate Planet)
Children began instruction at the Time Lord Academy, at the age of 8, in a special ceremony. The Gallifreyans would be forced to look into the Untempered Schism, which showed the entirety of the Time Vortex and the power that the Time Lords had. The Gallifreyans subjected to its terrifying effects would react differently: "Some would be inspired, some would run away, and some would go mad." (TV: The Sound of Drums) They would then spend "centuries" studying at the Academy. (COMIC: Mortal Beloved)
Time Lords took a variety of classes at the Time Lord Academy of which one was recreational mathematics, which included the study of Happy prime numbers. (TV: 42)
For reasons unknown to Time Lords, a mammoth that fell on and killed a Cro-Magnon became a fixed point. Videos of the event were played for young Time Lords "as a sort of learning experience." (PROSE: Keeping up with the Joneses)
Immediately after being doused with roentgen radiation, the Tenth Doctor told Martha Jones that he used to play with roentgen bricks in the nursery. (TV: Smith and Jones)
Food and sustenance
Gallifreyan physiology provided for a diet similar to the human one (TV: The Keys of Marinus, Boom Town, The Eleventh Hour), including fruit and flesh, but the Time Lords had long lost the habit of feeding with raw or complex food by the time of the presidency of the Fourth Doctor. Freeze-dried pills were employed instead. (TV: The Invasion of Time) Fruit and meat would be eaten on formal occasions, such as holidays, Name Days of Family and Death Days. Such food included fish, Trumpberries, Magenta Fruits and Pig Rats. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) A Time Lord's tastes - similar to their appearance and mannerisms - were greatly influenced by their regeneration, altering which food and drink they preferred and even which ones they could no longer tolerate. (TV: The Eleventh Hour, The Impossible Astronaut) With an enhanced sense of one's internal state and advanced knowledge of chemistry, a Time Lord could - via smell and taste - identify chemical substances and even what chemicals were needed in the body to alter a physical condition. (TV: The Christmas Invasion, The Unicorn and the Wasp)
Dress
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At events like the resignation of a Lord President, Time Lords who attended wore long robes in bright colours. The different colours signified the Chapter that each Time Lord belonged to: Prydonians wore robes of scarlet and orange; Arcalians wore green; Patrexes wore heliotrope; Scendeles robes changed from light pink to a darker shade of red; Dromeians wore grey, black and silver; and Ceruleans wore subdued blue colours. (TV: The Deadly Assassin, PROSE: Lungbarrow, The Ancestor Cell) In addition, most high-ranking Time Lords donned a decorative headdress and crest, complete with a scarlet cap. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) The Tenth Doctor claimed his people had once worn these robes when going into battle, but by his era they were purely ceremonial. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead) A Time Lord historian speculated that, while the elaborate robes had originally been meant for grand occasions, Rassilon's obfuscated legacy had caused their meaning to be lost and they had become everyday dress. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
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During the time when the Time Lords acted as the interventionist Gods of Minyos, early in their history, (TV: Underworld) they wore golden robes with fine crystalline, organic-looking ornaments, most strikingly on their headdressess. (COMIC: Omega)
In the Time War, Gallifreyan residents of the Capitol and Arcadia, including children and the military, wore red clothes. This was mimicked in the scarlet dress of military and government officers. (TV: The Day of the Doctor, The End of Time)
The Doctor repeatedly stated that he disliked Time Lords' hats, calling them "funny" (TV: Time Crash) and "dreadful". He also said that Time Lords had "no dress sense" (TV: Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS) and considered them a "stiff-necked lot" (AUDIO: Living Legend)
Of those Time Lords seen repeatedly visiting other worlds, such as the Doctor and Romana, they tended to adopt the local dress of their preferred destination - in the Doctor's case, that of Earth - that mixed well with the locals, though Romana adopted the same largely to mimic him. (TV: Destiny of the Daleks)
During and after the War in Heaven, Time Lord dress appeared to hold significant ritualistic value. Agents of the Enemy, or possibly even the Enemy themselves, wore Time Lord regalia in parody of their adversaries. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) In the Post-War universe, the Onihr treated the collars, skullcaps, and robes as relics necessary to achieve mastery of time. (PROSE: Trading Futures) Mysterious alien creatures in Mestizer's manor dressed in the collars and robes when she planned to use the Doctor's Cabinet of Light. (PROSE: The Cabinet of Light)
Romance
Due to the fact that a Time Lord could unwillingly swap genders with regeneration, the Time Lords were less concerned about gender roles, despite still calling themselves Lords. (TV: World Enough and Time) Missy once explained that Time Lords were not like animals which were obsessed with sex and mating. (TV: The Magician's Apprentice) The Twelfth Doctor admitted he had a "man crush" on the Master back during their academy days because of how wonderful he was. (TV: World Enough and Time)
Politics
Domain
The Time Lords ruled from the planet Gallifrey, where they would watch the workings of the universe. (TV: The Sound of Drums) Though they once had a mighty empire during the Dark Times, the empire collapsed after the fall of the Pythia. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
Time Lords were originally flexible about manipulating the outcome of certain moments in history. However, they eventually came to fear the consequences of their meddling, noticing how dangerously a change to time could backfire. It became clear that the race had been too reckless when the Time Lords helped the Minyans evolve faster, but found the results disastrous; this led to their non-interference policy. (TV: Underworld)
During Romana’s presidency Gryben, a planet used by the Temporal Powers as an enclave for unauthorised time travellers, was Gallifreyan territory. (AUDIO: Weapon of Choice)
During the Last Great Time War, their domain was referred to as an empire, (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) and the Time Lords were known to annex other planets in pursuit of the war effort. (AUDIO: All Hands on Deck, The Lords of Terror)
The Time Lords were said to have control over much of the structure of the universe. They had set up the Web of Time (AUDIO: Neverland) and controlled the entire Spiral Politic, up until the edge of their noosphere at the frontier in time. (PROSE: The Book of the War) They fixed paradoxes (TV: Father's Day) and allowed travel between parallel universes. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) After the near-extinction of the Time Lords during the Last Great Time War, these processes were in flux. (TV: Father's Day, Rise of the Cybermen)
Government
The Time Lords were led by the High Council. The Council consisted of the Lord or Lady President, the Lord or Lady Chancellor (or High Chancellor), the Castellan and Lords Cardinal. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) Collectively, the Lord President and his or her closest associates from the ruling Houses were called "the Presidency". (PROSE: The Book of the War)
The "three most superior Time Lords" held the title of First Time Lord, Second Time Lord and Third Time Lord, (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Doomsday Weapon) with these three most powerful members of the High Council being known as "the Inner Council". The Lord President was the most powerful member of the Council and had near absolute authority, and used a link to the Matrix, a vast computer network containing the knowledge and experiences of all past generations of Time Lords, to set Time Lord policy and remain alert to potential threats from lesser civilisations. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) The Lord or Lady Chancellor was next in power and handled many of the government functions. The Castellan controlled the Chancellery Guard and therefore the safety of Gallifrey. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)
The rest of the High Council was made up of the Lords Cardinal, which represented the various Gallifreyan Chapters. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) There was at least one Cardinal Prime. (AUDIO: Songs of Love)
During the Last Great Time War, the Visionary was also a member of the council. She acted as a prophet, recording the future, but only with vague predictions written on paper. (TV: The End of Time)
During the War in Heaven, the War Council seemingly replaced the High Council, debating plans for House Military advances under the supervision of the War King. (AUDIO: Body Politic) In the Last Great Time War, the War Council, also known as Gallifrey High Command, were a separate entity from the High Council; the General ignored the High Council's plans to save Gallifrey. They also possessed the ability to give "all thirteen" Doctors the go-ahead to freeze Gallifrey in a pocket universe. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
During the War in Heaven, Gallifreyan civil servants were all equipped with a psychic tripwire to prevent them from revealing confidential information. Should any of this information be revealed, the tripwire was triggered leading to the civil servant suffering psychic seizure leading to eventual death. (PROSE: Alien Bodies)
The Saxon Master claimed that if the Tenth Doctor killed Rassilon, the Lord President at the time, he would become Lord President himself. (TV: The End of Time) When the Twelfth Doctor later overthrew Rassilon with the help of Gallifrey's military, he did indeed become Lord President. As Lord President, he had the power to banish both Rassilon and the High Council despite the High Council's status on Gallifrey. (TV: Hell Bent)
Justice
The protection of the Time Lords was carried out by the Chancellery Guard. They protected the Capitol, investigated crimes and captured criminals. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) More secretive or questionable matters were handled by the Celestial Intervention Agency, which was created to be a covert arm of the High Council to safeguard the Time Lords' interests. (TV: Shada) Much of what they did went against the official non-interference policy, leading them to use agents such as the Doctor, an unofficial practitioner of the unofficial Gallifreyan policy, whose connection to Gallifrey's rulers could be reasonably doubted. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
Tens of thousands of years before the Doctor's time, criminals were trapped in Shada, with the intent being that they would be kept there until a suitable punishment could be decided. By the Doctor's time, this method had been phased out and replaced with disintegration. (PROSE: Shada) Morbius was executed this way, but managed to survive as just a brain. (TV: The Brain of Morbius)
There were two forms of illegal intervention, both punishable by vaporisation. A Class One was affecting the material properties of a planet, such as axial rotation. A Class Two was when a Time Lord claimed themselves to be a god on a planet. (AUDIO: False Gods)
There were a number of punishments known to be issued by the Time Lords:
- The Spy Master recalled forced regeneration was a punishment for severe crimes. (TV: The Power of the Doctor) For his breaking of the non-interference policy, the Second Doctor was forced to regenerate. (TV: The War Games)
- The Time Lords were known to exile criminals. The second part of the Second Doctor's sentence was exile to Earth with a non-functioning TARDIS. (TV: The War Games) Cardinal Magos was banished from Gallifrey following his experiments attempting to revive the dead. (AUDIO: The Castle of Kurnos 5)
- The removal of any remaining regenerations a Time Lord possessed was the sentence for committing genocide. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids, The Ultimate Foe)
- The Time Lords were known to execute criminals by vaporisation. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) After the Imperator led his army of followers and mercenaries on a crusade against hundreds of cultures around the Spiral Politic, he was tried and publicly executed. (PROSE: The Book of the War) One account held the Second Doctor had initially been sentenced to death for his breach of the non-interference policy, (PROSE: World Game) and the Fourth Doctor was threatened with vaporisation whilst accused of assassinating the President. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) An attempted execution was actually carried out on the Fifth Doctor following a Warrant of Termination being issued by the High Council to prevent Omega's return, however he was secretly moved to safety in the Matrix. (TV: Arc of Infinity) The Unbound Doctor later went through a similar scenario after being tried for existing in the wrong universe. (AUDIO: Gallifrey)
- The Time Lords could erase a subject from existence entirely. For the countless crimes the Master committed, his punishment would have been the reversal of his time stream, such that he had never existed. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Terror of the Autons) A similar punishment was carried out on the War Lord for his interference in human history which led to the deaths of thousands; he (and several of his guards) were dematerialised out of existence. The War Lord homeworld had a force field placed around it. (TV: The War Games) Similarly the Imperiatrix Pandora was executed in such a way she’d never existed. (AUDIO: Lies) The Oubliette of Eternity was used to erase criminals from time, though unbeknownst to the Time Lords its victims actually became Neverpeople. (AUDIO: Neverland) A similar device capable of erasing the target from existence, the Sword of Never, was used by the Convocation of Oblivion. (PROSE: Scratchman)
Leisure
Young Time Tots were known to keep rovies as pets. (AUDIO: No Place Like Home) Stories of the Shakri were told to the young ones to keep them fearful of doing anything that might get their species eliminated. (TV: The Power of Three) They were also told fairy tales involving a mythical race known as the Toclafane. (TV: The Sound of Drums)
Academy students sometimes played a dangerous game called "Eighth Man Bound". The multidimensional game of Perigosto, played with a ball and a specialised Perigosto stick, was also a favourite, as was a complicated board game called Sepulchasm. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
During a darker, more barbarous time in the planet's past, Time Lords enjoyed watching time-displaced individuals fight to the death in a dedicated area called the Death Zone, but that practice had been entirely abandoned by the Doctor's day. (TV: The Five Doctors)
Science and technology
The Time Lords were superlatively advanced in many fields of science, including mathematics, (TV: 42) biology, (TV: Evolution of the Daleks) xenobiology, (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) chemistry, (TV: The Crimson Horror) and physics to such an extent that, when at Poseidon, Director Jessop regarded any species that had a grasp on science as profound as the Tenth Doctor's to be on par with the gods. (COMIC: The Lost Dimension) Even Susan, still considered a youth by Gallifreyan standards, was able to, using scrap metal, engineer a machine whose basic science was beyond the knowledge of 22nd century Earth, (AUDIO: After the Daleks) and was considered an expert in nanotechnology. (AUDIO: The Sleeping Blood)
Even the Daleks, the rival race of the Time Lords, respected their foes' scientific genius, eager to exploit the genius of a Time Lord, (TV: Evolution of the Daleks) and acknowledging that Time Lord technology could perform feats beyond Dalek science. (AUDIO: The Enemy of My Enemy, PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) The Time Lords themselves however noted that some aspects of Dalek technology, such as the New Dalek Empire's magnetron, were superior to their Time Lord counterparts. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)
Transport
The most characteristic technology used by the Time Lords was their time travel technology of the TARDISes. The TARDIS was derived from the early Gallifreyan technology of the Time Scaphe. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) The TARDISes were one of the few types of technology that was updated, from the obsolete Type 40 (TV: The Ribos Operation) to the more advanced Type 57 (TV: Warriors of the Deep) along with the Type 70 and the humanoid Type 103. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) Battle TARDISes and War TARDISes also existed. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5, Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen, AUDIO: Neverland) The Celestial Intervention Agency used time stations, large high-powered TARDISes, as mobile bases of command. A Class 7C station was used during the investigation of anti-time. (AUDIO: Neverland)
During the Eternal War, the Time Lords developed the bowship to use against the Great Vampires. (TV: State of Decay, PROSE: The Multi-Faceted War) They were later used in the Last Great Time War (PROSE: A Brief History of the Time Lords) including at the Fall of Arcadia. (PROSE: A Prologue) After being overthrown, Rassilon was exiled in a bowship. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen)
The Celestial Intervention Agency operated a space station, Space Station Zenobia. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) The station was capable of being relocated (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard) and of creating time corridors and was equipped with a Seventh Door to the Matrix. (TV: The Ultimate Foe) The station was later decommissioned and dismantled, (AUDIO: The Brink of Death) though a second one, Zenobia II, was in use during the Time War. (COMIC: The Bidding War)
One of the newer technologies developed within the Doctor's lifetime were the Time Rings. (PROSE: Legacy) These Time Rings were small devices attached around the wrist, allowing a person to travel through time without being in a time machine. (TV: Genesis of the Daleks) They could also be made as small as finger rings that could be touched together to enable time travel. (PROSE: Happy Endings, AUDIO: The Grel Escape)
The Time Lords also possessed a form of portal technology that could be used for rapid troop deployment. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen)
Stellar manipulation
The Time Lords had the capability to control and use the power of stars. The Tenth Doctor went so far as to claim that the Time Lords "invented" black holes. (TV: The Satan Pit) When he threatened Ra and the Ship of a Billion Years with the 59th Time Fleet, the War King said that solar engineering was one of the Great Houses' first great achievements. (AUDIO: Body Politic) Faction Paradox's propaganda alleged that it was Gallifreyan experiments with black holes that had first unleashed the Great Vampires. (PROSE: Interference - Book One)
Using the Hand of Omega, the Time Lords could speed up the development of stars. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) One such star had been exploded but its development into a black hole had been frozen, trapped in a permanent state of decay and was kept either under the Panopticon as the Eye of Harmony to power the civilisation of the Time Lords, or in TARDISes to use as their power source.[disputed statement] (TV: The Deadly Assassin, Journey of the Centre of the TARDIS)
Weaponry and defences
In ancient times, the Time Lords created powerful weapons and defences such as the De-mat Gun, which could erase its target from history, (TV: The Invasion of Time) and validium, a living metal considered the ultimate defence. (TV: Silver Nemesis) The disciples of Omega spent four generations installing the transduction barriers around Gallifrey, which kept the planet slightly out of phase with the rest of the universe (AUDIO: Renaissance) and contained four barriers designed to stop outsiders. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen) The "last work of the ancients of Gallifrey" was the Moment, known as the "galaxy eater"; a superweapon so advanced it’s operating system became sentient, developing a conscience. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) Rassilon used it against the Nestenes. (PROSE: Pandoric’s Box)
By the Doctor's era, despite being one of the most powerful species in the universe the Time Lords had little in the way of defences and their conventional warfare technology was lagging behind many other civilisations. (TV: The Invasion of Time) Few Time Lords, even Chancellery Guards, had any real combat experience. (AUDIO: The Apocalypse Element) This may be due in part to the transduction barrier, which was almost completely impenetrable by outside forces, or their general policy of non-interference. (TV: The Invasion of Time)
The most common sidearm used by Time Lords were stasers, which were carried by the Chancellery Guards (TV: The Deadly Assassin) and Time Lord soldiers during the Last Great Time War. (AUDIO: The Conscript, Day of the Vashta Nerada) Stasers fired a type of directed energy, which was relatively harmless to inorganic matter but caused massive tissue disruption to living creatures. (TV: The Deadly Assassin) However when Gallifrey was invaded by the Sontarans, stasers proved ineffective on Sontaran armour, forcing the Fourth Doctor to recover the De-mat Gun. (TV: The Invasion of Time) Another sidearm used by the Time Lords was the Lord President's personal security sidearm. This gun had no stun setting and a single shot from it would immediately force a regeneration in any Time Lord shot with it. (TV: Hell Bent)
However, as war approached, the shortcomings were remedied. During the War in Heaven, the weapons of the Time Lords were considered "legendary"; they had built defensive arrays the size of star systems and created armaments that took apart entire galaxies. (PROSE: Alien Bodies) The Time Lords created the Cold, a validium based weapon that could break through the space/time continuum. When activated it would suck its target and everything in its vicinity into another universe where it would be destroyed. (PROSE: Interference - Book One) Other accounts described the Time Lords, especially the Celestis faction, as being knowledgeable enough to construct and weaponize abstract concept and ideas called conceptual entities to their advantage. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
The Last Great Time War caused many great and terrible weapons to be wielded by the Time Lords to the point that time itself was described to have been weaponized. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor, et al.) Over a million Battle TARDISes were deployed along with every other type of TARDISes the TIme Lords had at their disposal. (AUDIO: Sphere of Influence, PROSE: Peacemaker) The Time Lords used all the forbidden superweapons contained in the Omega Arsenal on Gallifrey for the conflict, aside from the Moment. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
The Capitol during the Last Great Time War was protected by a set of dual turrets set around it. They were used to destroy attacking ships. (TV: The End of Time) The Capitol and Arcadia were also defended by sky trenches, multi-layered armoured shields in the atmosphere. Arcadia was believed to be the "safest place on Gallifrey" due to its four hundred sky trenches, however on the last day of the War the Daleks managed to breach them. (TV: The Last Day) The Capitol's sky trenches continued to hold even as the Daleks bombarded the planet. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
During and after the Last Great Time War, Lord President Rassilon wielded a Gauntlet which was capable of destroying a person by shooting out electricity and also reverted the Master Race to its human form. (TV: The End of Time) It was also able to remove a person from history. (PROSE: Engines of War)
Miscellaneous technology
Some other Time Lord technology included the Matrix (TV: The Deadly Assassin), the Genesis Ark (TV: Doomsday) and the Chameleon Arch. (TV: Human Nature)
The Time Lords developed a chemical that could turn vertebrate blood into acid, but the Doctor successfully campaigned it to be banned. (PROSE: The Age of Ambition)
Rassilon also invented Gallifrey's genetic looms, the devices used to birth new Gallifreyans after the Pythia's curse. Looms were no longer used after the Curse was lifted following President Romana's negotiations with the Sisterhood of Karn. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
Race or rank?
Overview
More info from Interference and Gallifrey should be added.
Several accounts described the Time Lords as the name of the species, seemingly synonymous with "Gallifreyan", (TV: Smith and Jones, Utopia, Knock Knock, Pyramids of Mars) or, in a slightly differing version, as a distinct race of Gallifreyans. (TV: The Sound of Drums, Planet of the Dead, The Time Warrior, School Reunion, Human Nature, Before the Flood) In contrast, many other accounts suggested that Time Lord was a rank or a social class. (TV: The Invasion of Time, Listen, Hell Bent; PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords, K9 and the Time Trap, The Infinity Doctors, Interference, The Book of the War; AUDIO: Time in Office, The Eleven Day Empire, Body Politic, Words from Nine Divinities; COMIC: The Stolen TARDIS)
The Book of the War synthesised these two perspectives by positing that the Great Houses were a meta-culture, having become something more than a biological species at the anchoring of the thread. (PROSE: The Book of the War) The Tenth Doctor described a Time Lord as "so much more" than just biology, instead being a "sum of knowledge, a code, a shared history, [and] a shared suffering." (TV: The Doctor's Daughter)
The Time Lords were referred to by rank, as "Lords," by their sentient technology such as validium. (PROSE: The Parliament of Rats) Other time active cultures, like the Pageant, also referred to the Time Lords in this manner, addressing them as aristocracy. (PROSE: The Man in the Velvet Mask)
Time Lords received the symbiotic nuclei after initiation, which allowed them to safely use TARDISes and regenerate. (PROSE: Love and War, Interference) After a Time Lord's first regeneration, their DNA would change; for instance, they would grow a second heart. (PROSE: The Man in the Velvet Mask, PROSE: The Shadows Of Avalon, The Book of the War) However, Newblood Great Houses, like those developed shortly before and during the War in Heaven, (PROSE: The Book of the War) bred their members with a second heart, as well as increased control over regeneration. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet, The Book of the War)
Other sources suggested that the ability for a Time Lord to regenerate came from evolution caused by exposure to the Vortex through the Untempered Schism. Melody Pond's human DNA was able to develop many of the characteristics of Time Lord DNA (such as regeneration) simply by being conceived in the Time Vortex. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War, et al.)
Many Gallifreyans were not Time Lords. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors, AUDIO: Thin Ice, Insurgency, et al.) The Fourth Doctor once claimed "not everyone on Gallifrey [was] a Time Lord — some [didn't] want to be — and those who [did had to] go through the Academy". (COMIC: The Stolen TARDIS) One of the members of the Outsiders claimed that they were once Time Lords before "dropping out". (TV: The Invasion of Time) A man said that the First Doctor would never "make a Time Lord" at the Academy, so he would have to join the military. (TV: Listen)
Non-Gallifreyan Time Lords
There are many records of Time Lords who were either completely or partially not Gallifreyan. The Fourth Doctor specified himself as a "native Gallifreyan Time Lord", implying the existence of other kinds of Time Lord. (PROSE: A Letter from the Doctor)
According to one account, the Doctor belonged to an unknown species, residing in another dimension. They were found as a child by the First Tecteun, an early Shobogan explorer, and subsequently brought back to Gallifrey. When it was discovered the child possessed the ability to regenerate, this was studied extensively, and the ability was eventually given to select native Gallifreyans. Over time this led to the creation of the Time Lords, of which the Doctor was one. (TV: The Timeless Children) The Doctor's origin story, however, was always in flux, (PROSE: Celestial Intervention - A Gallifreyan Noir) with other equally-true accounts of the Doctor's birth painting them as a half-Time Lord half-human, (TV: Doctor Who) a Loomed Time Lord whose white-, long-haired self was the reincarnation of the Other but also the first to call himself the Doctor (PROSE: Lungbarrow) or even a human. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Daleks)
During the Imperial-Renegade Dalek Civil War, Davros, who had crowned himself the emperor of the Imperial faction, sought to lead his Daleks against the Time Lords to become the new Lords of Time. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) Dorothy "Ace" McShane became a Time Lord after attending the Time Lord Academy. (AUDIO: Dominion) Upon completing her training, she joined the Celestial Intervention Agency and was given a TARDIS with a functioning chameleon circuit. (AUDIO: Intervention Earth)
During various missions for Gallifrey, K9 Mark I was briefed by Time Lords that resembled non-Gallifreyan species. (PROSE: K9 and the Zeta Rescue)
The renegade Great House of Paradox often inducted members of the lesser species into their ranks, going so far as to actually incorporate them into the House's bloodline. (PROSE: The Book of the War) The War King said that, while members of Faction Paradox were not members of the Homeworld by blood-right, they had been adopted and given the inherent advantages of all members of the Great Houses, so they were equal to even the members of the War Council. (AUDIO: Words from Nine Divinities)
During the War in Heaven, military Houses like House Xianthellipse experimented with hybridisation to create Newblood Houses better adapted for war. (PROSE: The Book of the War) Each of House Meddhoran's members had foreign biodata from species, including the Raithaduine. (PROSE: Against Nature)
House Lolita had a seat on the War Council, (AUDIO: Body Politic) even though its founder and only member, Lolita, (PROSE: The Book of the War, AUDIO: The Shadow Play) was a 101-form timeship. (AUDIO: The Shadow Play, PROSE: Of the City of the Saved...)
The Osirian Court was so powerful that it was almost a Great House. (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years)
On Gallifrey, the prophecy of the Hybrid spoke of a being who was created from "two warrior races". Many, including the General and Davros, speculated that the Hybrid was supposed to have been crossed between the Daleks and the Time Lords, (TV: Hell Bent, The Witch's Familiar) and Davros briefly believed he had in fact fulfilled the prophecy in the form of Daleks invigorated by regeneration energy stolen from the Twelfth Doctor, though the regenerated Daleks never got the chance to fulfil the end of the prediction by standing in the ruins of Gallifrey, and they never displayed other Time Lord characteristics than their regeneration. (TV: The Witch's Familiar)
Time Lord and human hybrids were known to exist, (PROSE: Lungbarrow, The Gallifrey Chronicles) though in only a handful of cases in the history of the universe. (PROSE: The Book of the War) By many accounts, the Doctor himself was half-human on his mother's side. (TV: Doctor Who, PROSE: Alien Bodies, The Infinity Doctors, Unnatural History, The Shadows of Avalon, Grimm Reality) Ashildr speculated that this made the Doctor himself the aforementioned Hybrid of Gallifreyan lore. (TV: Hell Bent)
Since River Song was conceived on board the Doctor's TARDIS while it was travelling through the Time Vortex, she possessed certain genetic characteristics of a Time Lady, which were brought to the fore by experimentation by the Church. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) This enabled Melody to regenerate at least twice, into Mels and River Song, before sacrificing her remaining regenerations to revive the Doctor. (TV: Day of the Moon, Let's Kill Hitler) She retained her respiratory bypass system. (AUDIO: I Went to a Marvellous Party) In her River Song incarnation, she possessed an augmented lifespan that left her as over two hundred years old not long before her death without much ageing from the time she had regenerated into this incarnation. However, it was unclear if this augmented lifespan was a result of her Time Lord DNA or if it was something that River had acquired over her lifetime by other means. (TV: The Husbands of River Song)
A "generated anomaly", Jenny, the artificially created daughter of the Tenth Doctor, had two hearts, but was not considered a true Time Lord by the Tenth Doctor, who claimed that Jenny was merely an echo of himself and that being a Time Lord was "so much more" than that, though as he later admitted to Donna Noble, "when I look at [Jenny] now, I can see them. The hole they left, all the pain that filled it." Jenny was later revived from a bullet wound with a release of bright energy, although this may have been the doing of the Source rather than any form of Time Lord regeneration. (TV: The Doctor's Daughter)
The Tenth Doctor said his "Time Lord DNA" was mixed up in the composition of the Dalek-humans' human and Dalek DNA after he got in the way of the lightning strike that created the Dalek-humans. (TV: Evolution of the Daleks)
The Meta-Crisis Doctor, a single-hearted, non-regenerating Time Lord/human hybrid, was created by a biological meta-crisis in which Donna Noble and the Tenth Doctor's DNA merged. He was born from the Doctor's eleventh regeneration. After committing genocide against Davros' new Daleks, he was left on an alternate Earth where he began a life with Rose Tyler. Donna Noble said that Davros giving Donna's synapses "that little extra spark, kicking them into life" by waking up the dormant regeneration energy in her head had made her "part human, part Time Lord." The Tenth Doctor said this event made her a "human being with a Time Lord brain." However, her human brain was unable to process the Time Lord influence beyond a few hours, so the Doctor was forced to wipe her memory of her adventures of him. (TV: Journey's End)
Behind the scenes
Starships and Spacestations
According to the non-narrative source, REF: Doctor Who: Starships and Spacestations, which this wiki does not count as valid, the Time Lords had little interest in creating forms of transport other than TARDISes. As such, they relied on them instead of other methods of travel.
How to Be a Time Lord
Depending on the chapter, the non-narrative source How To Be a Time Lord: Official Guide by Craig Donaghy seems to refer to Time Lords both as a species as well as something that a resident of the planet Gallifrey or anyone else can become after going through the Time Lord Academy.
In the chapter "The Time Lords", the Time Lords are referred to as both "a hugely advanced and civili[s]ed species" as well as "the leaders of the planet Gallifrey". The chapter "Time Lord Biology" describes a Time Lord's — and not a Gallifreyan's — biological difference to humans. The chapter "Companions" reaffirms that River Song had "Time Lord DNA" as a result of being made in the TARDIS. The chapter "Time Lord Myths and Legends" again calls the Time Lords a "species". Conversely, the chapter "The Time Lord Academy" mentions that "[t]he Time Lord Academy [was] a school for training young Time Lords," that "[i]n order to become a Time Lord, one must successfully complete training at the Academy and swear to serve Gallifrey," and also that "[a]ll trainees at the Time Lord Academy must pass an exam to prove they have the knowledge and skills required to become a Time Lord."
At the end of the book, the Time Lord Pledge mentions that studying the book and learning its lessons means that the reader is "now ready to become a Time Lord", while the Doctor's Certificate says that "[n]early anyone can be a Time Lord".
Other information
According to production notes in The Complete History volume 67, writer Neil Gaiman's line in the Doctor Who television story The Doctor's Wife, in which Amy Pond tells Rory Williams that Time Lord was "just what they're called", is intended to mean that "Time Lord" is just a name and nothing more.
Various Doctor Who spin-offs that do not have the rights to use the name of "the Time Lords" have needed to find indirect ways to use the species through other licensed elements (such as the individually-licensed concept of "the Great Houses") or other ways to incorporate the lords of Gallifrey. For example, in the Faction Paradox series, their faction is usually referred to as simply the Great Houses, with their planet called simply the Homeworld. Individual members are thus known as "Homeworlders" or "members of the Great Houses", or on occasion by the title of "Sun Builders" (introduced in The Book of the Peace and subsequently used under license from Jacob Black in other DWU spin-offs, such as P.R.O.B.E.). Cutaway Comics' Omega comic series, having the legal right to feature Omega and the Minyans, referred to Omega's people as simply "the Gods", relying on Underworld itself establishing that the Gods of Minyos were the ancient Time Lords. Cwej: The Series features a group known as the Superiors, a species which Koschei is a part of. The novel The Bloodletters copied this convention and also used the term "Archons of Time", equating its Homeworlders/Archons with the Time Lords via the licensed usage of the Colonel.
External links
- Great Houses at the Faction Paradox wiki
- Time Lord at Memory Beta, the wiki that covers all licensed Star Trek works
- Time Lord at the Doctor Who: Lockdown! wiki
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