Flavia
Flavia was a Time Lord. She served as High Chancellor before being appointed Acting President by the Fifth Doctor. (TV: The Five Doctors) She was twice deposed and re-elected, (PROSE: The Eight Doctors, AUDIO: Lies) after which Romana II became President. (AUDIO: Lies)
Biography
Early life
Like all Time Lords, Flavia was taken from her family at the age of eight for the selection process in the Drylands. Staring into the Untempered Schism as part of a Time Lord initiation rite, Flavia was inspired by what she saw in the Schism. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
Political career
Chancellorship
Flavia served as High Chancellor under President Borusa and sat on the Inner Council. (TV: The Five Doctors)
Flavia met with the Fifth Doctor when Borusa summoned the Doctor's other selves to the Death Zone. She was sympathetic towards him, letting him in the Lord President's room and talking to the guards for him. Following Borusa's defeat and entombment in the Dark Tower, the High Council granted Flavia the authority to make the Doctor President of the High Council. The Doctor used his emergency powers to put Flavia in charge, appointing her Acting President until he returned. He then escaped from his homeworld of Gallifrey, evading the responsibility of the office of Lord President. (TV: The Five Doctors)
As Acting President
Flavia's time as Acting President was a successful one in which the people of Gallifrey and the High Council were content and the planet prospered. She was able to achieve much and served for quite some time, forgetting that the office was not her own by right.
Eventually, Flavia became aware of murmurings that it was time for the High Council to make its own choice for President given that she had not been properly elected. In response to this, she resigned and offered herself up for re-election, expecting this to simply be a formality. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
Deposition
Unexpectedly, Flavia was defeated and deposed by Niroc through what she believed to be "fraud, chicanery, jerrymandering and jiggery-pokery". In reality, the CIA wanted a more easily controllable President to conceal the theft of important data from the Matrix. As an ex-President, she retained her place on the High Council, which President Niroc filled with sycophants.
After a judicial inquiry was called into the Sixth Doctor's behaviour, a temporal duplicate of the Sixth Doctor and the Eighth Doctor had Niroc call for a Presidential Inquiry into it. Flavia assisted them and became a leading member of the Council of Administration under a restored Borusa. She assisted in the reformation of Gallifrey and was re-elected as President. After several regenerations, she was elected once again. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
As President
When the Seventh Doctor was captured by the Committee of Three, his companions escaped and warned President Flavia of the danger. (PROSE: Blood Harvest)
Shortly afterwards, Ruath shot Flavia with a stunner to gain access to the Time Scoop. (PROSE: Goth Opera)
Flavia later learnt the Eighth Doctor was visiting his past seven selves for unknown reasons, bypassing all usual security protocols preventing such interaction. Flavia, despite the protests of the unscrupulous Time Lord Ryoth, decided to allow these visits to continue until they were proven to be a danger to Gallifrey. Once the visits were concluded, Flavia reflected that she wished the Doctor well in his future adventures. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
End of political career
President Flavia's reign was not conducive to success. She was overthrown by a coup, after which Romana II was asked to be President despite her lack of political experience (AUDIO: Lies) and invoked a right of challenge (AUDIO: Insurgency) against a male President, whom she defeated. (AUDIO: Lies)
According to another account, there was an election between Romana and a second individual to succeed a female President who had been found drunk whilst in charge of the Sash of Rassilon. (PROSE: Happy Endings).
A discrepancy between Flavia and Romana was created by the "Great Grey Eminence," who folded the Doctor's timeline on itself (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) to undo Romana's tenure and replace it with Flavia's, removing the changes to the "nice, sterile world." (PROSE: Unnatural History)
Other matters
At some point before or after her presidency, Flavia wrote a book titled Tales from the Matrix - True Stories from TARDIS Logs Retold for Time Tots. She was credited as "Loom Auntie Flavia." (PROSE: Apocrypha Bipedium)
Behind the scenes
- The character of Flavia filled in for that of Thalia, who had appeared in the earlier story, Arc of Infinity. The production team decided not to simply recast the role using the excuse of regeneration and made up a new character.
- According to various commentaries on the Series 1 and 2 DVDs, Russell T Davies refers to the lilting female vocal in the musical score as "Flavia's Theme." It plays when the Time Lord "the Woman" is revealed in The End of Time.
- According to The Brilliant Book 2012, a book that contains non-narrative-based information, after she became President, the Corsair tricked Flavia into revoking the censure put on them for the theft of the Portrait of Rassilon. She gave in to their smile and revoked the censure.
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