Romana III (The Shadows of Avalon)
Romanadvoratrelundar's third incarnation was, like her predecessor, also President of Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) She led Gallifrey through its darkest hour, (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) adopting the title of War Queen of the Nine Gallifreys and going to lengths which put her at odds with the Doctor. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) Other accounts documented a Matrix projection of a different possible Romana III, who was eventually erased from time by Irving Braxiatel. (AUDIO: Renaissance, Enemy Lines, etc.)
Biography
War Queen of the Nine Gallifreys
In preparation for the coming War, Lady President Romana II decided that she had to adopt a body and persona "more suitable" for warfare, thus regenerating of her own free will into a new form who became War Queen of the Nine Gallifreys in preparation for the upcoming war. She had a harder personality than Romana II and was less friendly towards the Eighth Doctor. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) Mother and Father saw that the War Queen's Homeworld was only a sheath echo believing itself to be the original. (PROSE: The Story So Far...)
She dispatched Cavis and Gandar to Avalon and eventually turned up herself to take possession of Compassion after Compassion transformed into a TARDIS. Romana believed Compassion could give the Time Lords a tactical advantage in the War. Instead, the Eighth Doctor and Fitz fled inside Compassion. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
As the War approached, the Edifice appeared in the skies of Romana III's Gallifrey. The structure created temporal pulses that began washing over the planet, causing civil disorder and mass superstition. In her 150th year as President, she was challenged by former President Greyjan in a Faction Paradox scheme to take over Gallifrey and re-write its history. The Eighth Doctor destroyed the planet to prevent this. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) Marnal later showed the amnesiac Eighth Doctor these events, where Romana and one of her soldiers, Mali, tried to restore Gallifrey from one of the Nine Gallifreys. They discovered that Faction Paradox had wiped their Nine Gallifreys from history. Romana wept, knowing that her planet was doomed, and she sent K-9 into the Doctor's TARDIS to kill the Doctor and prevent his future self from destroying Gallifrey.
Soon after, Faction Paradox skulltroopers closed in on Romana and Mali and fired two shots. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)
Death and regeneration
Romana III survived and lived to be an old woman. She visited Ponch on a planet orbiting the last sun before the universe's heat death, where he lived among the last humans. She described it as a "godless age". She hadn't seen the Doctor in centuries, and she didn't know where he was.
Romana disguised her TARDIS as the inn Janua Foris so she could tell Ponch about his past life as Huvan during her earlier incarnation's encounter with Valdemar. She used a psychic attack to convince Ofrin to let her keep telling the story, though she died in the snow before she could finish. Later, Ponch found her in her TARDIS in a younger body. (PROSE: Tomb of Valdemar)
Personality
Romana III could be manipulative and ruthless, justifying her actions as doing the best for her people, and acting as a servant of history. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) A part of her was guilt about her actions, musing whether corruption was the curse of the Presidency. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
Appearance
As War Queen, Romana was petite, with black hair and a snub nose. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) She had a fringe, fierce green eyes, and a tattoo of the Prydonian Seal on her left ankle. She wore pearls. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
Romana told Ponch that she had copied her appearance from Miranda Pelham, noting that she'd done it before and would probably do it again and that Miranda was "such a lovely-looking woman". Ponch (PROSE: Tomb of Valdemar) and Cuthbert Simpson both regarded Romana as "beautiful"; (PROSE: The Banquo Legacy) the Eighth Doctor noted that she looked like his mother. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell)
Having survived the War in Heaven into old age, this incarnation's hair had grown a thick chestnut color, and her skin had developed dark creases from the intense heat. Her movements were hindered by arthritic pain. (PROSE: Tomb of Valdemar)
Behind the scenes
- Writers involved in the future War arc of Eighth Doctor Adventures novels based Romana III's described appearance on that of the American silent film actress Louise Brooks, although upon meeting this incarnation for the first time the Eighth Doctor noted that she now looked worryingly like his mother.
- While neither have been depicted in a visual medium and thus have not been officially connected, Paul Cornell's The Shadows of Avalon and Simon Messingham's Tomb of Valdemar were both released on the same day and depict a third incarnation of Romana who has grown estranged from the Doctor.
- James Goss created Juliet Landau's Trey incarnation of Romana for the Big Finish audio stories. It was unclear which incarnation of Romana she was, and Goss initially contrasted her with "other future Romanadvoratrelundars" such as the "brilliantly glacial flapper", Romana III, who first appeared in Paul Cornell's The Shadows of Avalon. (VOR 56) However, Lady Trey was later definitively shown to be the third Romana in Enemy Lines.
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