Order was a state in which things existed in an organised, predictable manner, known in a larger structural sense as cosmic order (GAME: A Brief History of Space and Time [+]Loading...["A Brief History of Space and Time (game)"]) and referred to as Law in relation to the Million Spheres. (PROSE: The Coming of the Terraphiles [+]Loading...["The Coming of the Terraphiles (novel)"]) The opposite of order was chaos, with the balance between order and chaos being a central structure of reality. (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"], PROSE: The Coming of the Terraphiles [+]Loading...["The Coming of the Terraphiles (novel)"])
Iris Wildthyme once claimed that synchronicity was the secret order within the disorder of the multiverse, being the structure on which the Totality and other universes were built. (PROSE: Flickering Flame [+]Loading...["Flickering Flame (short story)"])
Champions of order
Masters and servants
The Archangels of Law were related to the Realm of Law. (PROSE: The Coming of the Terraphiles [+]Loading...["The Coming of the Terraphiles (novel)"]) The White Guardian also represented law. (AUDIO: The Destroyer of Delights [+]Loading...["The Destroyer of Delights (audio story)"]) The Actuary once described the White Guardian as a "god of order". (AUDIO: The Institute of Forgotten Souls [+]Loading...["The Institute of Forgotten Souls (audio story)"])
By one account, the Sasquatch were an advanced multiversal race who were "masters and servants of a grand cosmic order" which permeated the multiverse. (AUDIO: Sting of the Sasquatch [+]Loading...["Sting of the Sasquatch (audio story)"])
The Guardian of Might, a powerful entity from before the universe, was a champion of Order, locked in eternal conflict with Morgwen, the Guardian of Magic, who championed chaos. (PROSE: Legends of Camelot [+]Loading...["Legends of Camelot (novel)"])
Norman of the Latter-Day Pantheon was the God of Order. However, the Latter-Day Pantheon were completely controlled by the beliefs of the humans around them, and were entirely shaped by what people believed they should be. (PROSE: Salvation [+]Loading...["Salvation (novel)"])
Guardians and architects
The Archons of the Morning Star
In one account, Urizen ruled the Morning Star even in "the Time before there was any Time to be had", and was said to be "larger than the land and sea, order and reason embodied"; in fact, "every atom of his being [was] immaculately placed". He sat upon a throne of satin and ivory. (PROSE: Our Finest Gifts We Bring [+]Loading...["Our Finest Gifts We Bring (short story)"])
The Eremites blamed Urizen for "snatching away" the gleaming future they had envisioned for the Homeworld. Their primary objection was that his anchoring did not only bind the Spiral Politic to an orderly set of laws, but also, as a trade-off, made the Great Houses themselves, (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) identified as Time Lords, (PROSE: Damaged Goods [+]Loading...["Damaged Goods (novel)"], The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) static and sterile. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) When the Time Lords first instated their non-interference policy, it was with the goal of guarding space and time and only interfering to maintain the cosmic order. (GAME: A Brief History of Space and Time [+]Loading...["A Brief History of Space and Time (game)"]) They ruled from the planet Gallifrey, but were sworn "only to observe" the workings of the universe. (TV: The Sound of Drums [+]Loading...["The Sound of Drums (TV story)"])
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 [+]Loading...["Neverland (audio story)"]) and controlled the entire Spiral Politic, up until the edge of their noosphere at the frontier in time. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) They fixed paradoxes (TV: Father's Day [+]Loading...["Father's Day (TV story)"]) and allowed travel between parallel universes. (TV: Rise of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Rise of the Cybermen (TV story)"]) After the near-extinction of the Time Lords during the Last Great Time War, these processes were in flux. (TV: Father's Day [+]Loading...["Father's Day (TV story)"], Rise of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Rise of the Cybermen (TV story)"])
They were variously known as the "architects of Reason", (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet [+]Loading...["Christmas on a Rational Planet (novel)"]) the Archons, (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"] etc.) the Archons of Time, (PROSE: The Bloodletters [+]Loading...["The Bloodletters (novel)"] etc.) the Authors of History, (PROSE: The Cactus and the Corpse [+]Loading...["The Cactus and the Corpse (short story)"]) and as the Chronarchs. (COMIC: 4-D War [+]Loading...["4-D War (comic story)"], PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice [+]Loading...["Going Once, Going Twice (short story)"])
The Great Vampires
"It was said" of the Spiral Yssgaroth that it had been built when the Yssgaroth "constructed their own history in opposition to the Archons'", spinning their own universe "off from that same raw material from which Urizen wrought Creation". (PROSE: The Claus-Rosen Bridge [+]Loading...["The Claus-Rosen Bridge (short story)"])
Some believed that, rather than being alive, the Yssgaroth were areas of hostile anti-structure produced by the collision of the Spiral Politic with the Spiral Yssgaroth, turned into monsters by the Great Houses' and lesser species' projections of their fears. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"])
Yssgaroth biomass was able to hybridise and corrupt ordinary biomass by contact. This property was called the "Yssgaroth taint", (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) and was caused by the application of the Yssgaroth observer effect on the Spiral Politic. (PROSE: The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic [+]Loading...["The Cosmology of the Spiral Politic (short story)"])
On Gallifrey, they were known as the Great Vampires. (TV: State of Decay [+]Loading...["State of Decay (TV story)"], PROSE: The Pit [+]Loading...["The Pit (novel)"], AUDIO: Damned If You Do [+]Loading...["Damned If You Do (audio story)"], et al.)
Behind the scenes
- Law was a central part of the cosmology of the Michael Moorcock Multiverse, having been introduced in the 1961 Elric of Melniboné story While the Gods Laugh. This version of Law was officially integrated into the Doctor Who universe with The Coming of the Terraphiles [+]Loading...["The Coming of the Terraphiles (novel)"], but Doctor Who essayists such as Elizabeth Sandifer in TARDIS Eruditorum have argued for Moorcockian Law having already been a key inspiration for the duality of the White and Black Guardians in Doctor Who season 16.
Footnotes
- ↑ See Urizen#Relationship to other figures for more information.