Gallifreyan history
The planet Gallifrey, homeworld of the Time Lords, had a long and storied history (PROSE: The Crystal Bucephalus, et. al) across its time stream. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) Gallifreyan civilisation lasted billions of years.
By most accounts, it existed in the distant past at the dawn of time, (PROSE: The Crystal Bucephalus) with the Time Lords having been the "oldest" race in the universe, (TV: The Sound of Drums [+]Loading...["The Sound of Drums (TV story)"]) the first sapient life forms to evolve in the early universe. (PROSE: Crimes Against History [+]Loading...["Crimes Against History (short story)"]) Indeed, by the 20th century as the Fifth Doctor experienced it, there was no sign of any civilisation left on Gallifrey. (PROSE: Goth Opera) In contrast to this view, however, accounts using the TL timescale suggested that Time Lord history overlapped with human history, with the creation of the Eye of Harmony predating 0 AD, but the Doctor's native period existing a number of centuries beyond the 21st century of Earth. (PROSE: A Sourcebook for Field Agents [+]Loading...["A Sourcebook for Field Agents (novel)"])
Gallifrey's time stream was separate from the rest of the Web of Time, (PROSE: Lungbarrow) which the planet sat at the centre of. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Nature
Changeability
The Protocols of Linearity forbade the Great Houses from interacting out of sync with the history of their Homeworld. (PROSE: The Book of the War) However, while travelling into Gallifrey's distant past was nearly unheard of by the Doctor's time, it was possible in extreme circumstances; the Doctor themselves did so in several of their incarnations, including as the First Doctor (PROSE: Lungbarrow) and the eleventh. (COMIC: The Lost Dimension) According to one source, Gallifrey's history was in fact constantly shifting in great and small ways. (PROSE: Gallifrey: A Rough Guide) Indeed, the opening of From Urizen to Oblivion referred to the "often contradictory nature of the Gods' history". (PROSE: Night of the Yssgaroth)
Additionally, if one managed to gain access to the early Dark Times, before the Time Lords had risen to power and established the conventional laws of Time and logic, it was theoretically possible to retcon away Gallifrey's entire later history if one could annihilate the early Gallifreyans. This was attempted by the Dalek Emperor of the Restoration's Time Squad, who only failed due to several incarnations of the Doctor preventing them from harming the primitive Gallifrey in the first place. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
Dating
Dating Time Lord history was a difficult task. When telling a story drawn from the Matrix's archives, the Fourth Doctor once commented that it did not matter when it had taken place, as dates were held in little regard by a species of time travellers. (COMIC: The Stolen TARDIS)
Several different dating systems existed for the numbering of individual years. A number of innovations were made to calculate the time elapsed on Gallifrey in relation to time passed elsewhere, such as Rassilon's Chronometer of Absolute Time. (COMIC: The Tides of Time) The Celestial Intervention Agency's files gave dates followed by "TL", in which calendar the First Doctor's stealing the TARDIS was dated to "101,188 TL", (PROSE: CIA File Extracts) and the Eye of Harmony's sealing was "0 TL"; (PROSE: A Sourcebook for Field Agents [+]Loading...["A Sourcebook for Field Agents (novel)"]) other accounts show the Time Lords using "Gallifreyan Years" counting forward from Gallifreyan Year 0, the date of the creation of the Eye of Harmony. (COMIC: The Final Chapter) The latter system dated the Second Doctor's trial for interference to Gallifreyan Year 309906. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) "Gallifreyan Years" given for various events of Romana II's Presidency had formats such as "Gallifreyan Year 6796.8". (AUDIO: Neverland)
According to one account, the Time Lords' archives of the Second Doctor's trial recorded its verdict as "Malfeasance Tribunal order dated 309906", (TV: The Deadly Assassin) although other accounts instead treated the figure as a reference number for the trial itself rather than a date, speaking of "Malfeasance Tribunal 309906" (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) or "Malfeasance Tribunal order 30906". (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin)
By some accounts, Gallifreyan years lasted exactly as long as Earth years, due to the two planets sharing many physical similarities. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two, Dead Romance) Time on Gallifrey was sometimes measured in centuries. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
Gallifreyan history was seemingly described in human temporal terms in situations such as the Sixth Doctor accusing the Time Lords of having held "absolute power" for "Ten million years". (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"]) The Book of the War likewise gave "ten million years" as the span of the period of stagnancy dividing the anchoring of the thread from the broken generation and subsequent War in Heaven, though it pointed out that this was "a number so round that many feel it must have been picked by the Houses out of thin air, a purely arbitrary figure chosen just to suggest 'a very long time'". (PROSE: "The Imperator Presidency" [+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"The Imperator Presidency","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"}) On the Last Day of the Last Great Time War, Rassilon claimed that the surviving High Council had "a billion years" of Time Lord history "riding on their backs". (TV: The End of Time [+]Loading...["The End of Time (TV story)"])
In the context of the War in Heaven, The Book of the War made use of a completely different calendar, as it found no purpose in affording any space to events prior to the very first warning signs of the War. The Year +1 of that calendar was the year of the first offensive of the War; "Year -1" and so on and so forth were used for events predating the official beginning of the War. This timeline thus began at the first flaws in the breeding engines being noticed, in the form of numerous renegades-in-the-making among the newly-loomed (including the Imperator, the War King and Grandfather Paradox). This event was placed in "-1,152" by the timeline, and the Imperator's Presidency between "-870" and "-866"; the Book's timeline went as far as "Year +50" after the beginning of the War. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Predecessors
According to some accounts, an earlier race of Time Lords ruled over a previous universe which was destroyed right as the Big Bang gave birth to the Doctor's universe. A few of their numbers survived, including the military strategist Yog-Sothoth and other beings such as Nyarlathotep or Cthulhu, fleeing into the new universe where they acquired godlike powers and were known as the Great Old Ones. (PROSE: Millennial Rites, Divided Loyalties)
Gallifrey before the Time Lords
- Main article: Dark Times
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)
The Dark Times, also known as the "Old Times" or the "Age of the Pythias", 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. (PROSE: The Five Doctors)
Evolution of life on Gallifrey
Life on Gallifrey first evolved in -600,000,000 TL. (PROSE: A Sourcebook for Field Agents)
During the Last Great Time War, the Daleks tried to travel back to prehistoric Gallifrey to prevent the Time Lords evolving, during an era where a large lizard-like species existed on the planet. (PROSE: Engines of War)
The Gallifreyans were an ancient species, one of the first humanoid species to evolve. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising, TV: The Beast Below) The Eighth Doctor once told Sarah Jane Smith that in contrast to humanity evolving from apes, Gallifreyans "[weren't] descended from anything even remotely embarrassing", which he speculated was part of the reason for their arrogance. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two) Bearing this out, the Ninth Doctor, when disappointed with humanity, sometimes disdainfully referred to them as "apes". (TV: Father's Day)
One account suggested the inhabitants of Gallifrey were originally known as the Shobogans. (TV: The Timeless Children) During this era, Gallifreyans were also known as the Shadow People, caught between the warm darkness of magick and the cold light of science. (PROSE: So Vile a Sin) According to the Eleventh Doctor, there was an ancient Gallifreyan legend which suggested that the species descended from knitwear. (PROSE: "Birth of the Time Lords" [+]Part of Doctor, Doctor! 232, Loading...{"page":"28","namedpart":"Birth of the Time Lords","1":"Doctor, Doctor! (DWA 232 short story)","2":"''Doctor, Doctor!'' 232"})
Early Gallifreyan civilization
In -100,500,000 TL, the beginnings of civilisation evolved on Gallifrey. (PROSE: A Sourcebook for Field Agents)
During the Dark Times, the Kotturuh visited the Gallifreyans and judged them as having much to offer the universe. (PROSE: The Knight, The Fool and The Dead)
At one point, which the Tenth Doctor described as the "deep, distant past", he and Cindy Wu were dragged to Gallifrey where they bore witness to Time Sentinels throwing time sensitives into the Untempered Schism. (COMIC: Old Girl)
Before the stellar age, there were many brutal battles on Gallifrey which left battlefields riddled with arrows. (PROSE: The Third Wise Man)
By one account, the Gallifreyans had originally been a primitive tribe before the arrival of an old man from the Victorian era who introduced them to the concepts of civilisation and granting them the secrets of space/time travel. (PROSE: Human Nature)
In -99,998,000 TL, the first manned spaceflight and interplanetary probes were made. In -99,997,800 TL, the first manned interstellar probes left Gallifrey. In -99,997,400 TL, Gallifrey achieved faster-than-light space travel with the invention of the hyperdrive engine. (PROSE: A Sourcebook for Field Agents)
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) According to the Matrix, the first explorer to leave Gallifrey was Tecteun using what the Spy Master described as "dangerous, unsophisticated space travel". Tecteun explored worlds and galaxies, finding the Timeless Child beneath a gateway to another dimension. She would eventually return to Gallifrey with her child. (TV: The Timeless Children) A Time Lord emissary once reminded the Fourth Doctor that Gallifrey had "transcended such simple mechanical devices" as transmat beams when the universe "was less than half its present size". (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
Pythian Empire
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 Gallifreyans were involved in a large slave trade, with slaves brought back to Gallifrey and used in precursors to the Game of Rassilon. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) The Monaxi were large business partners with Gallifrey in this matter, causing much harm across the universe. (COMIC: Medicine Man)
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)
Founding of the Time Lords
Many accounts, many claims
Many accounts offered different perspectives on the origins of Time Lords society. While documents from this time would be the main source of information for later Time Lords, these documents were never completely true and a fragmentary vision of Gallifrey's past was common in the Doctor's era. (PROSE: Lungbarrow, A Brief History of Time Lords, The Scrolls of Rassilon)
Compounding this, key events of this era of history were often directly influenced by time travellers from the relative future, (COMIC: Star Death, The Lost Dimension, PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, The Scrolls of Rassilon) with Alice Obiefune noticing that reality was constantly shifting at the edges. (COMIC: The Lost Dimension) In later times, interventionists often planted new mythologies and false histories into the past via the caldera for political gain. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
Anchoring of the thread and opposition thereto
- Main article: Anchoring of the thread
- Main article: Time Wars
- Main article: Founding Conflict
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, leaving only seven survivors trapped in the Nameless City at the Great Desolation. (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 binding of Time, which had previously "run wild", was achieved through six Mouri in the Temple of Atropos on the artificial planet Time. (TV: War of the Sontarans, Once, Upon Time) Opposing this attempt to end the Dark Times, two Ravagers, Swarm and Azure, led the side of unbound Time in the Founding Conflict. They viewed spatial creatures like the Time Lords' attempt to control Time as "heresy". (TV: Once, Upon Time)
The Diaspora began as Great Houses fled the Homeworld in fear of the changes that had occurred. Amongst those who fled were the Eremites, who were regarded as the first renegades. (PROSE: The Book of the War) The Time of Chaos began. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
Time of Chaos
- Main article: Time of Chaos
During the anchoring of the thread (PROSE: The Book of the War) or another experiment, Rassilon accidentally opened a doorway into another universe. (PROSE: The Pit) The Great Vampires escaped and caused mass destruction. (TV: State of Decay) Gallifrey, 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) One account suggested Rassilon was a commander during the war. Her forces encountered the Ninth Doctor and Rose on a shadow planetoid. (COMIC: Monstrous Beauty)
Whilst the war raged, Gallifrey was attacked by the Dalek Time Squad who sought to prevent the rise of the Time Lords only for the Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Doctors to come to their homeworld's defence. Aboard the HMS Donna, and assisted by three coffin ships of Free Undead, they held the Daleks back until Inyit's final judgement killed most of the Dalek Drones who had been modified with Symbiont DNA. The Eighth Doctor then boarded their ship and caused an explosion, sending the Daleks careening into the Time Vortex and away from Gallifrey. (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass)
During the Time of Chaos, validium came into use by the Time Lords. (TV: Silver Nemesis) The First Doctor later took the validium with him when he left Gallifrey. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
The power of the Pythia declined and the Neo-Technologists, led by Rassilon, rose to power. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible) According to Omega's unreliable memories, Rassilon rose to power through a revolution that lit the Capitol ablaze. Omega begged for Rassilon to stop the bloodshed, but Rassilon argued it was the only way they could establish a government that would test their scientific theories. (AUDIO: Omega) The last Pythia committed suicide, cursing Gallifrey to sterility. 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)
Ordaining of Time Lord society
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) According to one account, Tecteun was involved in the foundation of the Time Lords after discovering regeneration by cracking the Timeless Child's genetic code. (TV: The Timeless Children)
To enable the Time Lords to travel through time without ill effects, Rassilon created the Rassilon Imprimatur. (PROSE: Interference - Book One) Some accounts suggested he was also involved in development of regeneration (AUDIO: Zagreus, Trial of the Valeyard) but another claimed that it came about from the First Tecteun's experiments on the Timeless Child. (TV: The Timeless Children)
In the “time of the Triumvirate”, the Time Lords grew afraid of Axos's feeding and moved against them, imprisoning them on a prison planet save one scion which escaped. (AUDIO: Hellbound)
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. According to one account, 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) It was later rumoured Omega's "death" had been arranged by Rasslion and carried out by Omega's treacherous assistant. (COMIC: The Lost Dimension)
Recruiting time sensitives from the outer regions beyond the Capitol, Rassilon began developing the Type 1 TARDISes, (COMIC: The Lost Dimension) using time-travel technology salvaged from Fenris' belt to create a navigational system. (COMIC: Star Death) The Archons claimed they had invented the seeds from which TARDISes grew. (PROSE: The Nameless City) After a failed test flight of a Type 1 by "Theta-Sigma", (COMIC: The Lost Dimension) the first successful flight of a prototype TARDIS took place on Henlen. (AUDIO: Collision Course) Twelve War TARDISes were subsequently created to use against the Vampires. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen)
The Eternal War came to an end after the creation of bowships, originally designed by General Skellis and ordered into construction by Rassilon. All the Great Vampires were killed, except the King who Rassilon spent a decade searching for in vain. (PROSE: The Multi-Faceted War) 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)
To stabilise Gallifreyan society after the Pythia's Curse, 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) In the time of the anchoring of the thread, (PROSE: The Book of the War) the Watchmakers eventually surrendered the creative and changeable parts of their minds. (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet) The first batch of loom-births produced aberrations and monsters; some were used as special operatives, but the majority were destroyed. Once the Breeding Engines were functional, the Houses created the Mappers, who became the first temporal explorers sent forth by the Great Houses into their domain, tasked with mapping out the meridians of Time and creating the first maps of the brand new Spiral Politic. Although they were successful, the Mappers all went insane some time after their mission was completed, and were subsequently forgotten, "like most Homeworld history". (PROSE: Going Once, Going Twice)
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 Eye acted as the "hitching post" for the Web of Time. (AUDIO: Neverland) With his Five Principles, Rassilon led Gallifrey into a more enlightened age, including the abolition of slavery. (AUDIO: Forever)
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. Rassilon's rule saw the end of the games in the Death Zone. (TV: The Five Doctors)
Twenty years after the loss of Omega, the Special Executive retrieved Fenris from the Time Vortex for interrogation. In the Question Hall of the Prydonian Chapter, the parahuman Viridian discovered he was working for the Black Sun. However before she could obtain more information, Black Sun assassins teleported into the Hall and massacred the assembled Time Lords, killing Fenris to silence him. They then departed, leaving the Time Lords no closer to understanding the Black Sun. (COMIC: 4-D War)
Sometime after the creation of TARDISes, the Time Lords and the Fledgling Empires waged the Racnoss Wars against the Racnoss, (AUDIO: Empire of the Racnoss) wiping out their species save the Empress and her children. (TV: The Runaway Bride) Officially all the Racnoss' Huon energy was destroyed, unofficially it was incorporated into Gallifreyan time travel machines. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
One of Rassilon's great engineers was Artron, who had been responsible for discovering artron energy. He eventually travelled to Kolstan where he experimented on the native Kolstani to see if their abilities with temporal energy could be used to enhance regeneration. He encountered the Bruce Master who attempted to force him to transfer the Kolstani's powers to him. Artron instead transferred them to himself, resulting in the Kolstani being starved of temporal energy and becoming the Ravenous. At the same time, Rassilon sent a fleet of timeships to destroy Kolstan. (AUDIO: Day of the Master) The Ravenous were attracted to the Time Lords to feed on their regeneration energy and became a collective nightmare for the Time Lords, attacking their pioneers. Rassilon led the near-genocide of the Ravenous, with all except one clan being wiped out. The survivors were imprisoned in a pocket dimension. (AUDIO: Deeptime Frontier) Artron's disappearance remained a mystery and a statue of him was displayed in the Panopticon. (AUDIO: Day of the Master)
Ten years after the Question Hall massacre, Gallifrey had its first formal contact with the Order of the Black Sun at trade negotiations over uranium on Desrault. The Time Lord and Black Sun ambassadors developed a good relationship and agreed to divide the uranium equally. The budding diplomatic partnership was sabotaged by the Sontaran ambassador Brilox, who used a psy-snare on Millenium (a parahuman who was part of the Time Lord delegation) and had her assassinate the Black Sun Elder at the closing ceremony of the negotiations. This began the Black Sun War, leading to the Order initiating the attacks that Gallifrey had already experienced in its past. (COMIC: Black Sun Rising)
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)
During Rassilon's rule, the Time Lords fought a war against the Vondrax. As the Time Lords were about to win, the Vondrax created a paradox which erased one of Rassilon's generals from the timeline. Only the general's wife could remember that he had ever existed, and in her attempts to change time to restore him she eventually became the Watchmaker. (AUDIO: Enemy Lines)
During a conflict with the Nestenes, the Time Lords managed to contain them to the Illia Galaxy. The Moment was created by Roppen and used by Rassilon to destroy the Nestenes in the Illia Galaxy. (PROSE: Pandoric's Box) According to the Eleventh General, the Moment was the "last work of the ancients of Gallifrey". (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
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, including the Minyans and inhabitants of Klist and Plastrodus 14. (TV: Underworld, PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)
Rassilon's rule began to move closer to despotism, with Gallifrey's borders being sealed. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) With hostility against the natural-born rising, Patience, one of the last womb-born Gallifreyans, was taken by her husband to the Machine for safety. (PROSE: Cold Fusion) According to one account, the slide into tyranny forced the Other to send his granddaughter and her nanny to the Spaceport for safety and cast himself into the Prime Distributor of the Looms. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
The Division was founded on Gallifrey, (TV: Survivors of the Flux) to intervene at times when policy and reality diverged. An incarnation of the Timeless Child was recruited into its ranks. (TV: The Timeless Children) Over time the Division grew in size and influence across the cosmos, (TV: Survivors of the Flux) recruiting agents from "every species". (TV: Village of the Angels) Notably the Division resolved the Siege of Atropos in which two Ravagers had discovered the Temple of Atropos and seized it, evicting the Mouri and endangering the Time Lords' structure of Time. Four agents of the Division, including the Fugitive Doctor and Karvanista, were dispatched. The Doctor's plan to restore the Mouri succeeded, though multiple Passenger forms filled with millions of hostages were killed by the Ravagers during the confrontation. (TV: Once, Upon Time) The Ravagers were imprisoned by the Division. (TV: The Halloween Apocalypse)
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
Little change in sight
Following the establishment of the Time Lords, Gallifrey entered a long period where very little changed. (PROSE: Lungbarrow [+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"]
The Scrolls of Gallifrey, which only contained information up to the beginning of the Sixth Doctor's lifetime posited that only a few generations existed between Rassilon and the First Doctor. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey [+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"]) The Fifth Doctor similarly once remembered that only a few thousand years had passed since Gallifreyans first pioneered the Time Vortex in the time of the other. (PROSE: Cold Fusion [+]Loading...["Cold Fusion (novel)"]) The Infinity Doctor and Marnal both came from a time two million years after the Time Lords began. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors [+]Loading...["The Infinity Doctors (novel)"], The Gallifrey Chronicles [+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"]) Meanwhile, at his trial, the Sixth Doctor accused the Time Lords of having held "absolute power" for "Ten million years", (TV: The Ultimate Foe [+]Loading...["The Ultimate Foe (TV story)"]) which would be corroborated by later Doctors (PROSE: Vampire Science [+]Loading...["Vampire Science (novel)"]) and The Book of the War. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) At yet another point, the final day of the Last Great Time War, Rassilon claimed that the surviving High Council had "a billion years" of Time Lord history "riding on their backs", a legacy which he refused to see perish at any cost. (TV: The End of Time [+]Loading...["The End of Time (TV story)"])
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 [+]Loading...["The Deadly Assassin (TV story)"])
The Great Schism
- Main article: Civil War
By some accounts, including Postar the Perfidious's Scrolls of Gallifrey, it was the President who had succeeded Rassilon, Pandad, (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey [+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"], AUDIO: Morbius [+]Loading...["Morbius (audio story)"]) who faced the rise of ambitious Time Lord 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. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)","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 [+]Loading...["The Brain of Morbius (TV story)"])
Although other versions of Morbius's history giving him other timeline placements suggested other scenarios, (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"]) according to the accounts which placed the Civil War in Rassilon's immediate aftermath, President Pandad exiled Morbius after he demanded the presidency. Morbius escaped his exile, and, travelling through time and space, massed his Cult into an "army of evil", intending to take the Capitol by force of arms and instigating a civil war. Pandad led the Gallifrey’s own army against him. (PROSE: The Legacy of Gallifrey [+]Loading...["The Legacy of Gallifrey (short story)"]) Outsiders were recruited to the fight with promises of the restoration of their Time Lord abilities.
The ensuing war was one of the first times the Time Lords used their powers over time for bloodshed. Events of the civil war included the Siege of Skaro, Declaration of Hate and the return of the vampires, who according to Captain Argento were on no-one’s side but their own. (AUDIO: Morbius [+]Loading...["Morbius (audio story)"])
Morbius's forces were finally defeated on Karn where he was captured, put on trial, and executed. (TV: The Brain of Morbius [+]Loading...["The Brain of Morbius (TV story)"]) However, Mehendri Solon removed Morbius's brain prior to his disintegration, and he began building a new body for Morbius; (TV: The Brain of Morbius [+]Loading...["The Brain of Morbius (TV story)"]) in parallel to this, an imprint of Morbius's mind was retained by Veritas, a Hydran follower of Morbius.
Time Lord forces remained on Karn for a time to help the Sisterhood of Karn resettle and capture any remaining loyalists, including Veritas. The battleship Proteus, captained by Captain Argento, was the last to depart for Gallifrey with Veritas aboard as a prisoner. The ship’s journey became prolonged due to the damage to the Time Vortex from the civil war, with the vessel eventually crashing on a planetoid containing the Temple of Morbius. Whilst Argento and Sister Gilda investigated the Temple, Veritas manipulated the crew to allow the prisoners to seize control and resurrected Morbius’ mind in the body of the First Mate Middlewitch. Discovering the resurrection, Argentine sounded the Horn of Rassilon she’d be given for her service in the war in a desperate call for aid. A Matrix projection of the Fourth Doctor, a future President of Gallifrey, was sent to her aid. He helped her and Gilda trap Morbius within the Proteus which Argento then crashed into the temple, killing him again. (AUDIO: Morbius [+]Loading...["Morbius (audio story)"])
Other accounts suggested Morbius's reign of terror occurred at a time much closer to the Doctor's day, either during the Doctor's lifetime (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius (novelisation)"]) or a short time before. (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"]) The Book of the War and related sources likewise documented a nigh-identical figure called the Imperator as a member of the "broken generation" also including Grandfather Paradox, the War King, (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) and the Doctor. (PROSE: Crimes Against History [+]Loading...["Crimes Against History (short story)"], Lungbarrow [+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"])
Further activities of the Division
A Gallifreyan councillor used the Division to attempt to eliminate Time Lord colonists who had left Gallifrey and established themselves on alien worlds, regenerating into increasingly alien bodies. His agent in the scheme, Taslo, was assigned to work with the Fugitive Doctor to carry out the operation, under the guise of the colonists threatening the Time Lords. The Doctor was sceptical and uncovered the truth, in doing so convincing Taslo to secretly help her evacuate the colonists whilst their planets were destroyed as ordered, ensuring they were safe. Though she exposed the councillor and had him arrested, the Doctor was dissatisfied with the Time Lords’ attitude and subsequently ran away from the Division. (COMIC: Origins [+]Loading...["Origins (comic story)"])
The Fugitive Doctor used a Chameleon Arch to hide on Earth in 2020. Division agent Gat pursued her with a platoon of Judoon and tracked her down, only to discover another Doctor in her company who revealed she came from a time where Gallifrey was in ruins. Gat attempted to kill the Fugitive Doctor; However, the Doctor caused her weapon to backfire. With Gat dead, the two Doctors escaped the Judoon. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon [+]Loading...["Fugitive of the Judoon (TV story)"])
The Division eventually wiped all the Doctor's memories of her origins and service for them, (TV: The Timeless Children [+]Loading...["The Timeless Children (TV story)"]) storing the memories within a Weeping Angel, who later went rogue, alongside all of Division's other knowledge. (TV: Village of the Angels [+]Loading...["Village of the Angels (TV story)"])
Undated events
- 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 [+]Loading...["Mawdryn Undead (TV story)"])
- 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 [+]Loading...["Vorton's Revenge (short story)"])
- After a schism developed in the Time Lords' College of Cardinals, Cardinal Thorac declared himself Lord President and established his own High Council on the planet Drornid. He put together an army with the hopes of overthrowing the Gallifreyan High Council. The Time Lords on Gallifrey dealt with this rival President by ignoring him. (PROSE: Shada [+]Loading...["Shada (novelisation)"], The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) Eventually the renegade President was dragged back to Gallifrey, leaving a lot of Gallifreyan time technology still on the planet. (PROSE: Alien Bodies [+]Loading...["Alien Bodies (novel)"])
- Ambitious Time Lady Pandora became President. She intended for Gallifrey to use its power to reshape the Web of Time and declared herself Imperiatrix, using an alien bodyguard to enforce her will. The High Council rebelled against her, triggering a civil war. Eventually they convinced the bodyguard to betray her. The bodyguard was returned home, but their planet was then trapped in a time loop. Pandora was erased, with the only evidence she'd ever existed being the ruined Vaults and a remnant of her consciousness in the Matrix. (AUDIO: Lies [+]Loading...["Lies (audio story)"])
- 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 [+]Loading...["The Macros (audio story)"], GAME: Shadows of the Vashta Nerada [+]Loading...["Shadows of the Vashta Nerada (video game)"])
- The Time Lords imprisoned the Kin. (PROSE: Nothing O'Clock [+]Loading...["Nothing O'Clock (short story)"])
- The Time Lords forced the Phaeron to shut down their wormholes. (PROSE: Deep Time [+]Loading...["Deep Time (novel)"])
- 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 [+]Loading...["Fiesta of the Damned (audio story)"])
- Cardinal Magos, one of Gallifrey's greatest scientists, was put on trial for experiments attempting to resurrect the dead as automatons. The High Council sentenced him to banishment. (AUDIO: The Castle of Kurnos 5 [+]Loading...["The Castle of Kurnos 5 (audio story)"])
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)
Morbius and the Imperator Presidency
Although other accounts presented Morbius as ancient history, a number of accounts suggested Morbius's reign of terror occurred at a time much closer to the Doctor's day than to Rassilon's, either during the Doctor's lifetime (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius [+]Loading...["Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius (novelisation)"]) or a short time before. (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"]) The Book of the War and related sources likewise documented a nigh-identical figure called the Imperator as a member of the "broken generation" also including Grandfather Paradox, the War King, (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) and the Doctor. (PROSE: Crimes Against History [+]Loading...["Crimes Against History (short story)"], Lungbarrow [+]Loading...["Lungbarrow (novel)"])
Though unprecedentedly young for a head of the Presidency, the Imperator had a strong personality and endless ambition, qualities which had not been seen among the Great Houses for generations. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)","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 [+]Loading...["The Brain of Morbius (TV story)"], The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"])
By some accounts, Morbius indeed succeeded in becoming President for a time. (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"]) During what would later be known as the Imperator Presidency, the Imperator appointed his Chatelaine, Thessalia, to lead the newly-created Order of the Weal, to prepare the Homeworld for a future war. However, Thessalia eventually denounced the Imperator to the High Council. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) Another account concurred that the High Council overthrew Morbius's rule and exiled him from Gallifrey. (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"])
Morbius escaped his exile, and, travelling through time and space, massed his Cult into an "army of evil", intending to take the Capitol by force of arms and instigating a civil war. By one account, the High Council was uncomfortable confronting him directly so created an alliance to fight his army by proxy, with the Fifth Doctor, who had travelled back in time to the war, being placed in charge of the Alliance Battle Fleet. (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"])
The planets Sylvana, Zandir, Tanith and Electra fell to Morbius. (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"]) Morbius's forces were finally defeated on Karn where he was captured, put on trial, and executed. (TV: The Brain of Morbius [+]Loading...["The Brain of Morbius (TV story)"]) The Book of the War likwise agreed that the Imperator was ultimately captured and executed, noting that it would have previously been unthinable for a member of the Houses to be sentenced to death by his own people; in an ironic twist of fate, the Imperator fell victim to the very renewed taste for violence he had preached. (PROSE: The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"])
However, Mehendri Solon removed Morbius's brain prior to his disintegration, (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"]) and he began building a new body for Morbius. (TV: The Brain of Morbius [+]Loading...["The Brain of Morbius (TV story)"])
After Morbius' death, his followers became known as the Cult of Morbius (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"]) in year 5725.3 of the Rassilon Era. (AUDIO: Neverland [+]Loading...["Neverland (audio story)"]) The cultural shift Morbius caused on Gallifrey resulted in the rise of interventionists. (PROSE: Warmonger [+]Loading...["Warmonger (novel)"], The Book of the War [+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"])
The Doctor's life on Gallifrey
- Main article: The Doctor's early life
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 War Chief 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‘s sentence was postponed by the CIA and he went for several missions for them. (PROSE: World Game, Players, That Time I Nearly Destroyed the World Whilst Looking for a Dress, Save Yourself) The Doctor‘s sentence of exile to Earth was later enforced, however he escaped before they could change his appearance and hid at the Carlton Grange Hotel. The Time Lords used animated scarecrows to lure him and forced his regeneration, placing him aboard his TARDIS (COMIC: The Night Walkers) which took him to 20th Century Earth where he joined UNIT as their scientific adviser. (TV: Spearhead from Space)
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 exiled Doctor contacted the Time Lords for assistance in stopping the Mim's invasion of Earth. A messenger met him who informed him the Time Lords would deal with the Mim's invasion flotilla but wouldn't interfere with events on the ground. (AUDIO: Shadow of the Past)
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) The messenger arrived in time to forewarn the Doctor about a trap the Master had left him at a radio tower. (TV: Terror of the Autons)
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 arranged the Doctor's trip to Peladon (PROSE: The Face of the Enemy) where he and Jo prevented schemes to stop the planet joining the Galactic Federation. (TV: The Curse of Peladon)
After the Amulet of the Wastelands was lost in Earth's history, the Conclave of Grails and Antiquities recruited the Doctor to retrieve it before it could be used to rewrite Earth's timeline. The Doctor found it in 1943 and prevented it being used by occultist Nazis. Leaving the Amulet in the care of a LCS Wing Commander, The Doctor informed the Time Lord messenger that the Time Lords would have to do without it. (AUDIO: Operation: Hellfire)
The Time Lords were easily rendered helpless when Omega began to drain energy from Gallifrey. They forced to rely on the Doctor, with the President authorising the allying of him with his previous two incarnations. The Doctors discovered that Omega was responsible and managed to end his energy drain. (TV: The Three Doctors)
After discovering the Master's role in the Daleks' Operation Divide and Conquer, the Doctor contacted the Time Lords. (TV: Frontier in Space) They piloted his TARDIS to Spiridon, where he prevented the Daleks awakening an army of ten thousand Daleks. (TV: Planet of the Daleks)
The Time Lords continued to give the Doctor missions after his third regeneration. Whilst the Doctor was travelling with 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 Ercos, 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) 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) Finally, the Time Lords diverted the Doctor to Karn where he aided the Sisterhood by stopping the decline of their sacred flame and prevented the resurrection of Morbius by Solon. (TV: The Brain of Morbius)
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)
The Fourth Doctor was once brought before the Convocation of Oblivion, chaired by the Zero Nun, to explain his actions. In response he told them of his encounter with the Scratchman. (PROSE: Scratchman)
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. The Master gained access to the Eye of Harmony after taking the Sash of Rassilon from the President's corpse and attempted to open the Eye, causing an earthquake. The Doctor stopped him, however half the Capitol had already been destroyed. With Goth dead, the Doctor was the only candidate left to be President however he didn't want this responsibility so 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, which he achieved by allowing them to materialise fully on Gallifrey so their home planet could be traced and placed in a time loop. 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) Following the invasion, Borusa was made Acting President of Gallifrey. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen)
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)
Borusa's presidency
Borusa was later officially inducted as 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, however Hedin ensured his survival. The Doctor dealt with Omega himself. (TV: Arc of Infinity [+]Loading...["Arc of Infinity (TV story)"]) Afterwards the Time Lords sent the Doctor to investigate another manifestation of Omega in the Sector of Forgotten Souls. (AUDIO: Omega [+]Loading...["Omega (audio story)"])
Some time later, one of the Rassilon-worshipping monkish covens, the cult of Rassilon the Vampire, got hold of a sample of the genetic material of the Great Vampire. One member of the cult consumed it, turning himself into a fully-fledged vampire, and began a killing spree. When the body of a Time Lord victim was found hanging from the gantries above the Panopticon, Cardinal Hemal decided to summon the Fifth Doctor back to Gallifrey with a distress signal. While he and Nyssa investigated, the vampire found his way into the Doctor's TARDIS, where he infected Tegan Jovanka. However, after returning to the ship, the Doctor and Nyssa were able to trick the vampire into stepping out into direct sunlight on Earth, destroying him and freeing Tegan. (COMIC: Blood Invocation [+]Loading...["Blood Invocation (comic story)"])
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. 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, giving Chancellor Flavia "full deputy powers until (he) returned", (TV: The Five Doctors [+]Loading...["The Five Doctors (TV story)"])
The Doctor's presidency
Due to the bungled succession, Flavia stepped down as Chancellor and Vorena took over. After he crossed the frontier in time, the Doctor was recalled to Gallifrey to fulfil his duties as President whilst his current companion Tegan became Ambassador to Earth. Guided by Castellan Lowri and Leela, he announced a plan to end the Academy's monopoly on awarding Time Lord status and fulfilled presidential duties such as a diplomatic mission, which was complicated by the Doctor‘s past with the other party. The Doctor faced protests on a visit to the Academy and had to intervene to stop Scandrius, a student inspired by him, causing a catastrophic paradox when he stole a TARDIS.
The Doctor's final presidential duty was opening the new Capitol building. After they began to encounter dimensional anomalies whilst touring the building, Vorena confessed the building was actually a giant TARDIS. She and her political allies has infiltrated the project to give the Doctor this power, so he could put right the evils of the cosmos. The Doctor refused her offer and escaped the malfunctioning TARDIS, which dematerialised with Vorena aboard. The Doctor gifted the relics of Rassilon to Lowri, handing the presidency to her, and then departed with Tegan in his TARDIS once more. (AUDIO: Time in Office)
Whilst Acting President, Lowri sent Leela to recruit the Doctor to stop Abby and Zara, whose powers were threatening time and space. (AUDIO: The Garden of Storms)
Corruption and revolution
Flavia eventually became Acting President. She became aware of murmurings that the High Council wanted to make its own choice for President, as she had not been properly elected. She offered herself for re-election to resolve this, unexpectedly losing to Niroc. Niroc's rise had been brought about by the CIA, who wanted a more easily controllable President. Flavia returned to the High Council, which Niroc began to fill with sycophants. (PROSE: The Eight 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)
A Time Lord on the High Council intervened to stop the Doctor altering the Vipod Mor's journey into the past, as it would be vital to the Big Bang. (AUDIO: Slipback)
An ambassador, Anzor, was sent to Magnus after the natives' petitioned the Time Lords for aid in their conflict. (PROSE: Mission to Magnus, AUDIO: Mission to Magnus)
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)
After the Sleepers stole secrets from the Matrix, the High Council decided to physically move Earth in order to contain their escape. Earth was dragged across two light-years. Most of the humans remaining on Earth were wiped out. Those that survived degenerated to a primitive, tribal culture. The planet came to be known as Ravolox, with Earth being completely forgotten. (TV: The Mysterious Planet)
The Doctor later stumbled across Ravolox and the K4 robot guarding the Sleepers' secrets. (TV: The Mysterious Planet) After this, and his meddling in the CIA's attempt to destroy the Nestene Consciousness, (PROSE: Synthespians™) the High Council decided to deal with the Doctor by putting him on trial. They made a deal with the Valeyard for him to prosecute and adjust the evidence in return for the Doctor's remaining regenerations. (TV: The Ultimate Foe)
The Doctor was summoned from Thoros Beta (TV: Mindwarp) to Space Station Zenobia where he was tried, with Inquisitor Darkel overseeing proceedings. The Valeyard presented his case with the Doctor's recent actions on Ravolox (TV: The Mysterious Planet) and Thoros Beta, which revealed that the Time Lords has extracted the Doctor moments before he could save his companion Peri from being killed. (TV: Mindwarp) The Doctor decided to use evidence from his future as his defence (PROSE: Interstitial Insecurity) however found the evidence had been altered upon presenting it to the court. (TV: Terror of the Vervoids) He was unable to prove this however and looked set to lose his case until the Master intervened. The Master revealed the fallibility of the Matrix by speaking from within it, provided witnesses to prove the Doctor's version of events, exposed the High Council's recent actions and the Valeyard's true identity. The Valeyard fled into the Matrix, with the Doctor pursuing him and stopping his plan to assassinate the court. (TV: The Ultimate Foe) Whilst he dealt with the Valeyard, the Eighth Doctor and a temporal duplicate of the Sixth Doctor (created in a failed attempted by the Valeyard to impose an alternate timeline where he was successful) forced Niroc to begin an presidential inquiry. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) The Master's revelations meanwhile caused a revolution on Gallifrey (TV: The Ultimate Foe) so the Eighth Doctor made deal with Rassilon for Borusa's temporary release in a saner incarnation to oversee the situation as numerous factions were now attempting to capitalise on the situation. Borusa convened the Council of Administration which officially deposed the corrupt High Council and ruled during the following interregnum. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
In the ensuing political chaos on Gallifrey, five iterations of Peri were created as various Time Lord factions modified her fate to suit their beliefs. These versions of Peri all co-existed in the same timeline. (AUDIO: Peri and the Piscon Paradox) During this period, a magnetron was used to return Ravolox to its original location, (PROSE: The Eight Doctors) the Valeyard was put on trial, (AUDIO: Trial of the Valeyard) Zenobia was decommissioned (AUDIO: The Brink of Death) and Rigan became Coordinator of the CIA, overseeing a project on Earth to transplant TARDIS minds into Human bodies which the Seventh Doctor put an end to. (AUDIO: Unregenerate!) The interregnum came to an end with new elections which returned Flavia to the presidency after which Borusa returned to Rassilon. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
During Flavia's presidency, the Committee of Three brought Agonal to Gallifrey to fight Rassilon so they could free Borusa. Having redeemed himself with Rassilon, Borusa refused to go with them and worked with the Seventh Doctor and Romana to defeat Agonal by linking their minds. In the aftermath Romana decided to remain on Gallifrey. (PROSE: Blood Harvest) Immediately afterwards, Vampire cultist Ruath used the Time Scoop to seek the Vampire messiah Yarven and targeted the Fifth Doctor. Romana was invited to join the High Council at the same time. (PROSE: Goth Opera)
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
Enter the new President
Romana II succeeded Flavia as Lady President (PROSE: Happy Endings) after a coup overthrew Flavia's government. (AUDIO: Lies, Insurgency)
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) During the ensuing caretaker presidency the Sirens of Time manipulated three incarnations of the Doctor to alter history to enable the Knights of Velyshaa to conquer Gallifrey. With the aid of the Temperon, the Doctors were able to correct the timeline. (AUDIO: The Sirens of Time)
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)
During Romana's presidency, the Temporal Powers and the Time Lords established greater relations thanks to more adventurous Gallifreyan students. Commended by Romana for their bravery, Gallifreyan students had started to study in new ways not outlined by the Great Curriculum. These same students also started sharing their knowledge with other Temporal Powers, with Vansell even claiming the CIA was helping them. In truth, Vansell wanted even stronger ties between Gallifrey and her allies, believing that the Time Lords had held themselves back by not removing the aggressors and injustices of history. (AUDIO: Neverland)
The Time Lords under President Romana agreed the Act of Master Restitution with the Daleks. (PROSE: Meet the Doctor) She summoned the Doctor back to Gallifrey to give him a mission to Skaro. His TARDIS instead brought him to the House of Lungbarrow, when the Doctor discovered what has become of his cousins since his departure. When he failed to arrive, Romana had Dorothee McShane transducted to Gallifrey, but she was intercepted by the CIA. Believing Romana was off-world and neglecting her duties, CIA Head of Allegiance Ferain launched a military coup, capturing Leela. After they were rescued by K9, Romana ordered Dorothee and Leela to find the Doctor.
They helped him and some of his cousins escape Lungbarrow before it collapsed. Ferain later agreed to stand down if Romana gave the Doctor the mission to Skaro. The Doctor set off for Skaro, with his companion Chris deciding to stay on Gallifrey. (PROSE: Lungbarrow) Another account suggested the President gave the Doctor the mission to Skaro after he captured the Eleven and had him imprisoned on Gallifrey, (AUDIO: The Eleven) whereas other accounts held that she simply contacted the Doctor's TARDIS to give him the mission, (PROSE: The TV Movie) or that Gallifrey was not involved in the Master's trial at all. (PROSE: The Novel of the Film)
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) According to the Book of Lies, 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) One incarnation of the Doctor, who existed at some point after the life of the Seventh Doctor, said that, by his time, Gallifrey had yet to repeal the First Law of Time. (COMIC: Party Animals) Later in the life of this incarnation, the planet was destroyed due to traumatic matters. As such, this future incarnation gave up his status as being part of his former identity's lifecycle so that a man in black could restore his homeworld, (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt) resulting in ensuing incarnations of the Doctor having no relation (TV: The Day of the Doctor) to the man who became known as "Fred". (PROSE: Cyber-Hunt)
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. (PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon) Later, he discovered that Romana was the current President. (WC: Shada, AUDIO: Neverland, Zagreus, PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon)
The Eighth Doctor recruited President Romana and her K9 to come with him to resolve a temporal discrepancy by finishing their adventure in Cambridge in 1979 which had been erased (WC: Shada) by Borusa time-scopping them. (TV: The Five Doctors) He brought them back to Gallifrey afterwards, in time to deal with an incident caused by a vampire cult led by Handrel. (PROSE: The Time Lord's Story)
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 six months later. She went with Leela into the Death Zone, After Leela has a dream where Rassilon seemingly communicated woth her, where they discovered a Matrix door to Rassilon's Foundry, where she met the Doctor in the throes of Anti-Time infection and calling himself Zagreus. Rassilon intended to use Zagreus to destroy the Divergence, however Zagreus turned on him and cast him into the Divergent Universe. Despite his infection eventually being stabilised by his TARDIS, the Doctor banished himself to the Divergent Universe and Romana told him that he would never be able to return. (AUDIO: Zagreus)
The new Coordinator
After the Anti-Time Crisis, Romana discontinued the use of the Oubliette of Eternity, having discovered it sentenced its victims to be Neverpeople, (AUDIO: Neverland) however the new Coordinator Narvin asked to use it one last time to erase Bellascon. (AUDIO: Erasure)
Whilst Narvin was Coordinator, the Time Lords fell under the influence of the Now, pan-dimensional parasites. Struggling to resist, Narvin orchestrated for an alternate version of the Doctor from a parallel universe, who was currently travelling in Gallifrey's universe with Bernice Summerfield, to be brought to Gallifrey in hopes of him finding a solution as the only unaffected Time Lord. (AUDIO: Gallifrey) After a failed attempt to capture them, (AUDIO: The Undying Truth) the Time Lords caught up with the Doctor and Benny after the Doctor activated a signal device. (AUDIO: Inertia) On Gallifrey Doctor was placed on trial for existing and appointed Benny his defender. Benny found the Time Lords' behaviour very odd and Narvin discreetly aided her by directing her to the archivist, who gave Benny enough knowledge about Gallifreyan law to find a way to transport the Doctor into the Matrix instead of being executed. He and Benny deduced the Now's influence and he devised a solution to force every Time Lord to regenerate with the Crown of Rassilon, though backed down when he realised it would wipe out the entire Now and kill many Time Lords in the process. Narvin initiated the plan himself to the Doctor and Benny's horror and revealed his true intentions, earning a punch from Benny. The Doctor and Benny then departed Gallifrey, (AUDIO: Gallifrey)
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, as it jumped forward in time when the countdown finished instead of detonating, 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 intended to set it there to expose Glower and Narvin's Project Alpha. 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. As Braxiatel did not recall actually having planted the bomb due to the project‘s discontinuing, Romana realised history had been changed ans confirmed from Narvin that Alpha had stopped due to the Timonic Fusion Device disappearing. She and Braxiatel corrected history by travelling back in time and stopping servitors stealing the Device to deliver to Free Time, resulting in Project Alpha going ahead and destroying the planet Minyos, which was covered up by the High Council at the time and the start of Narvin's career in the CIA. Darkel abandoned the inquiry, as due to the temporal machinations the Device on Gryben had now been both fake and real. (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. As she, Leela, Narvin and Torvald encountered Torvald's past self, it was revealed that Andred was not dead and had been impersonating Torvald for months, as he could not account for the younger Torvald's actions. It was also discovered that Torvald had been behind the theft of the Device to spark a crisis on Gryben, though he had not lived to see it through himself. (AUDIO: A Blind Eye)
Romana 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 biodata. 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. As his TARDIS was currently present on Gallifrey, it was assumed he had come from the future. (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 its secrets. By this time Romana was conversing with the future aspect of Pandora still in the Matrix, 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 Academy, caused by Antimon. This gained Darkel many followers and, after a second bombing in the scapheport, a full High Council session was called to deal with this crisis where Darkel intended to launch a coup. Guided by the future aspect of Pandora, Romana thought that the only answer was declare herself Imperiatrix and become a dictator, letting Pandora possess K9 to find the Great Key. Ar the session, Romana saw off Darkel's coup and 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, which Pandora demanded she connect to the Matrix first. In doing this, Romana allowed Pandora manifested herself completely through her first incarnation. She claimed her title back and declared civil war. (AUDIO: Imperiatrix) Pandora was supported by Darkel and Valyes. (AUDIO: Fractures)
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)
Dogma Virus Outbreak and Restoration of Romana
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 and being contained in a zombified state. 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 Biodata 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, however it was taken out of his hands when Elbon seized the cure and ran for the TARDIS. He was shot by a servitor Braxiatel had set to guard it from Arkadian, and regenerated into a zombie which dematerialised the TARDIS. Without a cure or way home, Braxiatel left it up to a Romana what they did now. (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) In the meantime, the Dogma Virus pandemic escalated when the contagious zombies escaped. (AUDIO: Panacea) Matthias ordered them quarantined in time locked facilities. After this was carried out, he resigned as President and went into exile. (AUDIO: Ascension)
Romana, Narvin and Leela 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 and now restored as President, she rewrote the biodata 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, seemingly trapping herself.
Narvin realised that Gallifrey would fall without her and sent Valyes to meet the Fourth Doctor and order him to avert the creation of the Daleks, not knowing that the Romana trapped in the Matrix was actually an avatar. In doing so Narvin accidentally started the Last Great Time War. (AUDIO: Ascension) Valyes told the Doctor that the Time Lords has foreseen a future where Daleks became the dominant lifeform in the universe and that they had brought him and his companions, Sarah Jane Smith, and Harry Sullivan, to Skaro during the creation of the Daleks. He informed them that they had to stop Davros' experiments and gave them a time ring 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) The Time Lords monitored the changes to history, with a few hundred worlds now saved from the Daleks, and supplied the Doctor with a replacement time ring after distortions from his alterations to history caused damage to it. (PROSE: A Device of Death) Another account suggested the mission had actually occurred earlier in Time Lord history and that it had been Ferain who had met the Doctor on Skaro. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
As President, Romana deployed Leela as an Time Lord agent to investigate time breaks in the 1890s (AUDIO: Dead Men's Tales) and someone impersonating her. (AUDIO: Emancipation) She and Leela together investigated the Sirens of Time's meddling with the Henlan test flight, working with nine incarnations of the Doctor to correct the timeline. (AUDIO: Collision Course) An earthquake occurred during this time, causing Narvin and Leela to shelter in the House of Heartshaven's cellar. (AUDIO: Erasure)
In the original timeline, Romana boarded a malfunctioning Monan vessel on the edge of Gallifreyan space, the Moros, intending to regenerate to save its failing engines and prevent a diplomatic incident. Leela followed her, forcing Romana to transmat her to safety on Legion. Alone, Romana regenerated into her third incarnation, saving the Moros. (AUDIO: Enemy Lines)
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)
T-Time and the new age
Micen Island
In one account, all but a few Time Lords were killed during the Seventh Doctor's lifetimes. These survivors were wandering renegade Time Lords, including the Doctor himself as well as the Minister of Chance, the Saints Antenor and Valentine, and Castellan Casmus. Though these were seemingly all that Tannis knew about, (WC: Death Comes to Time [+]Loading...["Death Comes to Time (webcast)"]) there were others in various states of exile, including the Horseman, the Sage of the Waves, the Pilot and the Summer King. (PROSE: The Minister of Chance [+]Loading...["The Minister of Chance (novelisation)"]) Tannis himself was another, secret, power-hungry survivor, who once referred to "the Time Lords of the Fraction" among the other survivors he'd quashed, without clarifying whether this was a name for the group which included the Doctor, Minister and so on, or a distinct designation. At any rate Gallifrey was intact if depopulated, with the Kingmaker still present in her cave on Mount Plutarch, ready to invest new Time Lords. (WC: Death Comes to Time [+]Loading...["Death Comes to Time (webcast)"])
Although whether this was the same event which wiped out the Time Lords, whether it predated that near-extinction, or whether it postdated it, was not clear, this account made much of the fact that at some point, the Time Lords tried to help the people of the planet Micen Island. Using their power too openly, they accidentally caused the population to be wiped out. In shame, the surviving Time Lords built the Temple of the Fourth on the depopulated Micen Island, then scattered as wanderers, renewing vows of non-interference: they could manipulate events, but not openly alter the course of history. Additionally, they were sworn not to travel without mortal companions to keep them grounded. (WC: "At the Temple of the Fourth" [+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"At the Temple of the Fourth","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"})
T-Time
- Main article: T-Time
The Seventh Doctor confronts the Minister. (WC: Death Comes to Time [+]Loading...["Death Comes to Time (webcast)"])
The Minister of Chance broke his vows, however, and began to use his powers more and more wantonly in well-intended effort to save lives. This caused temporal distortions and "corrupted Time". Tannis noticed these distortions and had the vampire assassin Nessican murder Antenor and Valentine, who'd been studying the distortions, making it appear as though the source of the distortions was a villainous mastermind trying to cover up its actions. This served as a distraction for the Doctor while Tannis continued amassing power as supreme general of the Canisian Empire, all without breaking the Laws of Time directly so that his actions would not be detected. Casmus, however, realised that "Time was against [them]". Foreseeing that the era of the Gallifreyan Time Lords was coming to an end, he rescued the Doctor's companion Ace from a Canisian prison ship where she'd wound up after wandering off, and took her back to Gallifrey to train her to become a new kind of Time Lord. She sent her to Anima Persis in his TARDIS, then, after she completed this final test, sent her into the cave of Mount Plutarch to face the Kingmaker, who approved her as a Time Lord. By the time she came out again, Tannis had murdered Casmus.
Meanwhile, the Doctor learned that Tannis had launched an invasion of Earth itself. After forewarning UNIT, who were able to dispatch the Canisian fleet on arrival, he went to Salisbury Plain where Tannis himself had landed, and, after a brief goodbye to Ace, confronted him. Breaking the laws and oaths, he used his power to save Ace then "rewrite the course of Time" to destroy both himself and Tannis (though he reminded Tannis that he had "been dead before"), having agreed with Casmus that their days were over and it was time for humans like Ace to inherit the universe in this "new age". (WC: Death Comes to Time [+]Loading...["Death Comes to Time (webcast)"])
The new age
- Main article: New age
However, the Minister of Chance, now in a new incarnation, continued travelling the universe using the formula for doors. (AUDIO: The Broken World [+]Loading...["The Broken World (audio story)"], etc.) He remained in contact with several additional survivors; these included the Horseman, who had willingly accepted exile to a ravaged planet in punishment for misusing his powers, as well as the Sage of the Waves, who had become a recluse in the Great Keep, the Summer King, who dwelled on the Isle of Apples, and the Pilot, who ran his barge on the alter-dimensional river Hex through which the Isle could be accessed. These survivors had been part of a dissipation pact, who agreed to lock most of their power away in talismans to reduce the temptation of using them frivolously; together, they killed another of their number who had taken a human wife and begun to misuse his powers. Unbeknownst to them, this renegade had a hybrid child, Rathen. As Rathen grew up, they began to realise the extent of what they could do, and tried to conquer the universe, causing further distortions which displaced several celestial bodies, (PROSE: The Minister of Chance [+]Loading...["The Minister of Chance (novelisation)"]) such as the one known as the "Near Cluster". (AUDIO: The Broken World [+]Loading...["The Broken World (audio story)"]) The Minister and the Horseman initially blamed one another for the act, but the Minister's companion Kitty allowed him to realise that there was another hand at work and they eventually identified and defeated Rathen, killing them beyond their ability to heal (AUDIO: Paludin Fields [+]Loading...["Paludin Fields (audio story)"], In a Barque on the River Hex [+]Loading...["In a Barque on the River Hex (audio story)"], PROSE: The Minister of Chance [+]Loading...["The Minister of Chance (novelisation)"]) using Nemorant. (PROSE: The Minister of Chance [+]Loading...["The Minister of Chance (novelisation)"])
Outcome
This sequence of events seemingly conflicted with the accounts of the Seventh Doctor's regeneration into the Eighth Doctor in 1999 San Francisco, (TV: Doctor Who [+]Loading...["Doctor Who (TV story)"]) and with the fact that the Eighth Doctor would go on to interact with an intact Gallifrey and Time Lords. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors [+]Loading...["The Eight Doctors (novel)"]) Indeed, after being exposed to anti-time, the Eighth Doctor of one reality where he interacted with Gallifrey saw an alternate reality where the Time Lords had "terrible mind powers", (AUDIO: Zagreus [+]Loading...["Zagreus (audio story)"]) matching the mysterious powers which, in this account, Time Lords were said to inherently possess as "God[s] of the Fourth", despite being sworn never to use them. (WC: Death Comes to Time [+]Loading...["Death Comes to Time (webcast)"]) On the other hand, according to one account relevant to the Eighth Doctor's life, the Doctor's parents Ulysses and Penelope Gate knew that Tannis was a future threat to Gallifrey which the Doctor would play a key role in defeating; (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles [+]Loading...["The Gallifrey Chronicles (novel)"]) another account dealing with this same version of the Eighth Doctor acknowledged the Canisian invasion as a recent event. (PROSE: Trading Futures [+]Loading...["Trading Futures (novel)"])
During a later stay in San Francisco trying to heal the scar in time left by his regeneration, the Eighth Doctor tried to call to the Time Lords for help, but his hypercube was intercepted by a youthful member of Faction Paradox, which should have been impossible after the Doctor sent it directly to Gallifrey. When the Doctor demanded answers from the boy, he suggested that this may have been because due to certain ongoing crises, Gallifrey was being "destroyed and undestroyed" repeatedly, with the Eighth Doctor currently existing in a Gallifrey-less universe wthout even realising it. (PROSE: Unnatural History [+]Loading...["Unnatural History (novel)"])
Maybe there's no one home on Gallifrey. Maybe they all left. Or maybe the whole planet’s being destroyed, and undestroyed, and destroyed, and you just caught them at the wrong moment.
Return of Omega
- Main article: Time War (Enemy Lines)
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 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 enemy launched a direct attack on the Homeworld which destroyed many technologies, including the Sash of Rassilon, Hand of Omega and De-mat Gun. Despite the attack having caught the Time Lords by surprise, the War King's preparations prevented Gallifrey's destruction. (PROSE: Alien Bodies, 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. The Army of One project saw the regen-inf soldier Chris Cwej multiplied into an entire army of Cwejen, with consequences that would outlast the War itself. 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...) ruled by Romana III, the Time Lords predicted the oncoming War by observing the war in the Obverse. (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) The Doctor preserved the minds of all the Time Lords by downloading the entire Matrix into his own mind, suppressing his memories. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles)
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)
In the post-War universe, the Time Lords appeared to have been erased from history. (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street) Four Time Lords were known to have survived, (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, The Gallifrey Chronicles) including the amnesiac Eighth Doctor. He encountered a fellow survivor, Marnal, on Earth. Marnal attempted to hold him accountable for the destruction of Gallifrey, however relented when the Doctor discovered the Matrix's presence in his mind with the aid of K9. Though Marnal subsequently perished during the Vore invasion of Earth, the Doctor intended to find a way to restore the Time Lords. (PROSE: The Gallifrey Chronicles) He had previously glimpsed restored Time Lords in the Tomorrow Windows. (PROSE: The Tomorrow Windows)
V-Time
According to one account, the planet was eventually restored to existence. During the period that followed, it was commonly referred to as the Base of Operations, and its inhabitants referred to themselves simply as the Superiors. (PROSE: A Bright White Crack) The original Chris Cwej was subjected to the V-Time Experiment, which stripped him of his flesh and transformed him into an artificial intelligence capable of possessing the bodies of other Cwejen. The Surgeon who performed the procedure told Cwej that the War had been an inevitable result of history balancing the Superiors with an equal but opposite Enemy, and that the solution was to "divide the War's W-Time into V-Time, leaving just the Superior perspective on reality". (PROSE: The V Cwejes)
In the years that followed, Cwej was one of the Superiors' most important agents in the outside universe, performing countless military missions, and otherwise dwelling in the virtual world known as the Vicinity. The possibility that the Enemy would resurface, reigniting the War in Heaven, remained a source of worry for the Superiors, and led them to interfere with timelines on War-damaged planets such as Golgalith. (PROSE: Crushing Reality)
When Cwej admitted to harbouring the interdimensional fugitives Larles and Kwol, the High President pronounced the V-Time Experiment a failure and sentenced Cwej to execution. However, the Vicinity rescued Cwej as it was being destroyed, and he returned in another body to shoot and kill the President. (PROSE: The Aftermath) As a result, the Cwejen population was stirred into an Uprising against the Superiors. Cwej went into hiding in a rebuilt version of the Vicinity. Meanwhile, a Cwej named Thomas Mackeray took command of the Uprising, which became increasingly violent.
Years later, Cwej was pulled out of hibernation by Christina Cwej; she brought him to Mackeray, who wished to recruit him. After an encounter with the Superior criminal Koschei, Cwej attempted to use the praxis-filled Tree of Life to rewrite history and erase the Uprising; however, Koschei distracted him telepathically, causing the Uprising to be only half erased, and leading to an unstable new status quo. Cwej then quit the service of the Superiors. (PROSE: Rebel Rebel)
The Last Great Time War
- Main article: Last Great Time War
After a timeline change by Braxiatel and the Watchmaker, meaning Romana didn't regenerate on the Moros and stepped down as President for Livia, (AUDIO: Enemy Lines) hostilities between the Time Lords and the Dalek Empire began to escalate. (AUDIO: Dark Eyes)
Various Time Lord factions began to prepare for war, which the Matrix had begun to predict. Cardinal Prime Padrac assembled a coalition of renegades to takeover Gallifrey and destroy the rest of the universe to safeguard the Time Lords. (AUDIO: Songs of Love) Their scheme was stopped by the Eighth Doctor and Helen. (AUDIO: Stop the Clock) Under-Cardinal Rasmus began research into alternate power sources, in case the Eye of Harmony was compromised, on Deeptime Frontier, which resulted in the release of the last surviving Ravenous. (AUDIO: Deeptime Frontier) Deputy CIA Coordinator Narvin undertook clandestine missions under the title "Coordinator in Extremis" to avert the war, which his superior Coordinator Romana was well aware of. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures)
Narvin recruited the Reborn Master to use the Eminence against the Daleks, (AUDIO: Eyes of the Master) however the Master went rogue, using the Eminence to his own ends, forcing Narvin to work with the Doctor to stop him. (AUDIO: Dark Eyes 3) Narvin would later recruit the Master again, in a later incarnation, to obtain swenyo needed for constructing battleships from Callous. By this point Narvin had accepted the war as an inevitability. (AUDIO: Sins of the Father) Eventually President Livia founded the War Council, which frequently came into conflict with the CIA and commenced Project Revenant to enable the resurrections of Time Lords. (AUDIO: Celestial Intervention)
The Daleks began attacking the Temporal Powers, (AUDIO: Desperate Measures) seeking to eliminate potential allies of the Time Lords. (AUDIO: The First Days of Phaidon) After the fall of Phaidon, President Livia called for a halt in the rivalry between the CIA and War Council, following the CIA's discovery of Project Revenant, and hours later officially declared the Last Great Time War against the Daleks. (AUDIO: Celestial Intervention)
In the early days of the War, the Time Lords fought the Daleks at Keetol, (AUDIO: The Heavenly Paradigm) the Spiral Furl, the Gates of Elysium, (PROSE: The Third Wise Man) the Obscura, (AUDIO: Soldier Obscura) Seramiphius V, (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) and Saracassar. (AUDIO: The Scaramancer) The Time Lords initially did not regard the conflict as a true war, rather a series of skirmishes. Despite the conflict dragging on some of the High Council kept believing just one more battle displaying Time Lord superiority would send the Daleks fleeing. (PROSE: The Third Wise Man)
The Time Lords turned away from governing established history and protecting the Web of Time, and instead threw all their resources into battling the Daleks and their allies. (PROSE: Ghost of Christmas Past) The War Council sent a reactivation signal to any surviving N-Forms, (AUDIO: Desperate Measures) and dreadnoughts including the Septima were assembled in the quantum yards to assault Seriphia. (AUDIO: Hostiles) A group of Gallifreyan children working in a munitions factory on Gallifrey were targeted by Daleks from a later point in the Time War and were saved by the War Doctor from the same future time period. (PROSE: The Stranger) The Time Lords achieved victories in the Nevarra Cluster and the Prylus system. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures)
The War Master was commissioned by the Time Lords to create the Rage (AUDIO: Darkness and Light) and war seeds. (AUDIO: War Seed) He was eventually recruited directly by the CIA, however quickly went rogue. (AUDIO: The Devil You Know) The Twelve was used as an agent of the High Council, equipped with a neural inhibitor to keep her other incarnations' personalities in check. (AUDIO: Planet of the Ogrons)
Two months into the War, Project Revenant was destroyed by the CIA to prevent the Daleks capturing it after they invaded the pocket dimension where it was housed, however its true purpose was served regardless as Rassilon was resurrected by the War Council. He was declared Lord President Eternal. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures) He established a new regime, making Livia his Prime Minister and dismantling the Chancellery Guard in favour of Cardinal Mantus‘s Interior Defence Unit. Rassilon declared that any worlds who refused to aid the Time Lords in their campaign would be considered enemies, (AUDIO: Havoc) and in the first year of the War he wiped out the Tharils, the Porfue and the Krajonnu so that they didn't threaten the Time Lords' supremacy. (PROSE: Lords and Masters) After learning that Rassilon had authorised the destruction of neutral planet Ysalus as an example, (AUDIO: Collateral) CIA Coordinator Romana attempted to assassinate him via the Sicari incursions. She failed, though forced him to regenerate, and was exiled from Gallifrey with her Deputy Narvin, with the CIA being subsumed into the IDU. (AUDIO: Assassins) After his regeneration, Rassilon largely distanced himself from the running of government, delegating to Livia and Mantus in the Capitol and the General and Ollistra in the field, and became obssessed with the idea of the Time Lords ascending to higher dimensions. (AUDIO: Homecoming)
In the course of their campaign, the Time Lords formed alliances and collaborated with many other powers. This included old foes of the Daleks such as the Thals, (AUDIO: Temmosus) and Anti-Dalek Force, (AUDIO: The Uncertain Shore) and localised resistance groups, such as on Uzmal. (AUDIO: Jonah) The Time Lords also worked with with the Nestene Consciousness, (PROSE: Decoy) and the Voord, (COMIC: Four Doctors) and employed a Tharil, Biroc, as a spy. (AUDIO: Lion Hearts)
The Doctor refused to join the Time Lords' cause, (AUDIO: Soldier Obscura) though his granddaughter Susan did answer their call to arms. (AUDIO: All Hands on Deck) Cardinal Ollistra attempted to conscript him on the Moon of Tenacity, but was forced to abandon the effort when the Daleks invaded. (AUDIO: The Conscript) The Doctor did occasionally work with the Time Lords away from the front lines, such as investigating Doctor Ogron, (AUDIO: Planet of the Ogrons) assisting the resistance on Uzmal, (AUDIO: Jonah) helping Major Tamasan track down Shonnath (AUDIO: Fugitive in Time) and attempting to save Osskah's world. (PROSE: Osskah) Over time the Doctor's stance against his people hardened after witnessing actions such as their occupation of Derilobia, (AUDIO: The Lords of Terror) devastation of Drakkis, (AUDIO: The Sontaran Ordeal) and bombings on Reave. (AUDIO: A Heart on Both Sides)
After his recreation, (AUDIO: Fugitive in Time) the Time Lords pressed the Valeyard into service. Without the Doctor's morality, the Valeyard won them many battles and managed to erase the Daleks completely by turning their own superweapon against them on Grahv, where the Time Lords promptly imprisoned him in a time lock. (AUDIO: The War Valeyard) As a side-effect of the superweapon, the Time Lords lost all memory of the Daleks, leaving them to decomission a war effort without understanding why they'd fought it, and their prisoner of war camps were filled with former conscripts who had surrendered after forgetting their superiors. Rassilon ordered they all be kept imprisoned, regardless of their cooperation, so the Time Lords could discover who their enemy had been. During this time the Eighth Doctor returned to Gallifrey, also losing his memory of the Daleks and subsequently working with the General and Cardinal Rasmus to investigate the unknown enemy, and the Twelve attempted to use a Dreadshade to force her way onto the High Council. Her attempt backfired when she reminded the Time Lords of the Daleks, restoring their memories and losing her control of the Dreadshade. The General believed that the Time Lords would now return to non-interference, however upon taking the Dreadshade away from Gallifrey the Doctor remembered the reason he had returned in the first place was to warn the Time Lords about the imminent restoration of the Daleks. (AUDIO: Dreadshade) Despite the Time Lords' efforts to prevent the Daleks' return to the universe at the Gulf of Ithon, the Dalek Time Strategist was able to stabilise the Dalek Empire's existence using dimensional engineering, recommencing the Time War. (AUDIO: Restoration of the Daleks)
After dying on Karn, the Doctor was finally convinced by the Sisterhood that he could not escape the War and regenerated into a warrior. (TV: The Night of the Doctor) After initially choosing to fight as a free agent, (AUDIO: Light the Flame, COMIC: Ambush) the War Doctor eventually fought alongside the Time Lords for centuries, including at Skull Moon (TV: Hell Bent) and the Keska incident, (AUDIO: The Thousand Worlds, The Heart of the Battle) gaining a reputation among Gallifreyan soldiers. (TV: Hell Bent) He served under the command of Commodore Tamasan and Cardinal Ollistra. (AUDIO: Warbringer, Only the Monstrous) Sontarans told legends of the Doctor leading the Time Lords into battle. (TV: The Sontaran Stratagem)
A resistance to Rassilon's rule grew from exiled Time Lords and aliens whose worlds had been devastated by his campaign. Rassilon issued two speeches in response, first condemning the resistance and calling for their extermination, rhetoric which unsettled Livia, and then denouncing them as irrelevant. The exiled Narvin agreed to help the resistance's plan to pollute the Time Vortex to deprive both sides of time travel (AUDIO: Deception) and they constructed a stealth Battle TARDIS primed to detonate, intended to be placed by the Untempered Schism. As the resistance initiated their plan, with Narvin and Leela piloting the TARDIS into Kasterborous, the Daleks launched a gambit to seize Gallifrey with null zone technology by using it to pilot a saucer right above Gallifrey, bypassing the Vortex and the Time Lords' defences. Whilst the Daleks waited for their null zone power source to recharge, Rassilon ordered the Fifth Battle Fleet to attack them, which proved futile, and then summoned more forces and conscripted Livia and Mantus into the fight. They were intercepted by Narvin and worked with him to detonate the Battle TARDIS onboard the saucer, as he realised the resistance's plan was useless if the Daleks could simply bypass the Vortex. After the incident Rassilon decided to take a more personal role in the conduct of the Time War, (AUDIO: Homecoming) personally overseeing Leela's conscription. (AUDIO: The Last Days of Freme)
The Time Lords allied with the Technomancers to resurrect their soldiers. After discovering this alliance, the War Doctor wiped the Technomancers out upon learning they were exploiting the arrangement to bring the Horned Ones into existence. For this Cardinal Ollistra had him imprisoned as a war criminal. (AUDIO: Legion of the Lost) To regain his freedom, Ollistra manipulated him into investigating the anima device (AUDIO: A Thing of Guile) and the Neverwhen, where the Doctor found hundreds of Time Lord soldiers stuck in a perpetual battle. (AUDIO: The Neverwhen) The Doctor continued to answer to Ollistra, stopping the Daleks invading Earth via the Shadow Vortex on her orders, (AUDIO: The Shadow Vortex) rescuing her from the Sontarans (AUDIO: The Eternity Cage) and helping her escape from the Time Strategist's forces which subsequently pursued them. (AUDIO: Eye of Harmony, Pretty Lies, The Lady of Obsidian) When the Dalek Time Strategist blackmailed the Enigma, Gallifrey was briefly overwritten to be a Dalek planet until the War Doctor convinced it to stand up to the Daleks and play no further part in the war, though he did suggest it could wipe out both sides to finally end the conflict. This caused him and Ollistra to fall out. (AUDIO: The Enigma Dimension) The War Doctor later attempted to stop Ollistra's plan to unleash the Great Vampires on a Dalek fleet. (COMIC: The Bidding War)
After more than 400 years of war, the Dalek Eternity Circle developed the Temporal Cannon in the Tantalus Eye, intending to fire it at Gallifrey and erase it from existence. After being warned of the scheme by the War Doctor, Rassilon devised a plan to foil their scheme by detonating the Tear of Isha in the Eye, wiping out numerous innocent planets in the process. In the ensuing Battle for the Tantalus Eye, the War Doctor saw to the destruction of the Cannon and Gallifrey's survival by alternate means. Appalled by the Time Lords' measures. Afterwards the War Doctor turned against his people, vowing to end the War for good. (PROSE: Engines of War) Rassilon officially declared the Doctor a traitor and exiled him from Gallifrey. (PROSE: The Whoniverse)
After they successfully assaulted Kasterborous, (PROSE: Dalek) the last days of the War saw the Daleks breach Gallifrey's defences, (TV: The Last Day) and invade Gallifrey's second city, Arcadia. The Doctor left a message for the Time Lords at the battle, "NO MORE", and then stole the Moment from the Omega Arsenal, intending to destroy both sides to finally end the War. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
Refusing to die, Rassilon initiated the Ultimate Sanction to end time itself to free the Time Lords from physical bodies. He implanted 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, beginning a chain reaction which would tear the Time Vortex apart. 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, with the Master turning on Rassilon and attacking him, resulting in him brought back to the Time War too. (TV: The End of Time)
Unable to breach the Capitol's sky trenches, the Daleks surrounded and bombarded Gallifrey. Thanks to the Moment, the Doctor found an alternative to destroying Gallifey. He worked with twelve of his other incarnations to freeze Gallifrey and the surviving Time Lords in time and transfer Gallifrey to a pocket universe, "like a painting", where it was safe from the Daleks, who destroyed themselves in their own crossfire. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) The shock from this transition caused various natural disasters to befall Gallifrey with rescue operations being overseen by the Twelfth Doctor who had summoned a "blizzard" of versions of himself from along his timeline. (PROSE: 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) For their part, the Time Lords considered themselves to be safe in their pocket universe, though not in a better position than before. While the Time Lords were readily capable of leaving this realm and returning to N-Space, they had no way of determining which of the nearby universes was theirs. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords)
However, at least one account showed that the widespread belief in the Time Lords' destruction was correct, (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Time War) with the Eleventh Doctor encountering a version of the Matrix which had been driven to demented sentience by the sudden death of all the Time Lords on Gallifrey at the hands of the Doctor. The upload of these millions of Gallifreyans' experience to the Matrix had overloaded its system and turned it into one jumbled, sentient entity thirsting for revenge; having been born of untold death, it knew no other purpose than to visit the same death on the rest of creation by enacting Rassilon's "Final Sanction" itself. (COMIC: Sky Jacks) The Twelfth Doctor would later state that Gallifrey had originally been destroyed, but he "broke every law of time and rewrote history" to save it. (PROSE: Big Bang Generation [+]Loading...["Big Bang Generation (novel)","Big Bang Generation"])
After the Last Great 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)
Return of Gallifrey
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) When the Matrix detected this breach, the Time Lords took control of the last of these cracks, hoping that the Doctor would answer and confirm that they had found the right universe. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) From the planet Trenzalore, the Time Lords sent out the message "Doctor who?" in order that the Eleventh Doctor might speak his true name and confirm that it was safe to return. 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 defended Trenzalore for hundreds of years in what became known as the Siege of Trenzalore. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) The New Dalek Paradigm, fearing that the Time Lords would destroy them upon their return, devoted the totality of its military might to ensuring that their foes would remain lost. (PROSE: Dalek: The Astounding Untold History of the Greatest Enemies of the Universe) The conflict endured to the point that the Doctor was dying of old age, no longer able to regenerate. At the behest of Clara Oswald, the Time Lords saved the dying Doctor's life by granting him the a new cycle of regenerations, allowing him to regenerate into the Twelfth Doctor and destroy the Daleks before closing the crack. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) The Twelfth Doctor later stopped the Daleks and Cybermen from taking control of the Gallifreyan starship Starbane. (GAME: The Doctor and the Dalek)
With Clara's pleas allowing the Time Lords to confirm that they had found N-Space, (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) 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) The Time Lords cured the Master of his "condition" and he soon left Gallifrey in a TARDIS in "a mutual kicking [him] out". (TV: The Doctor Falls)
Fearing that the Visionary's prophecy of "Gallifrey falling" would now come about by the Hybrid, Rassilon sought out information on the creature. Convinced by Missy that the Twelfth Doctor knew of it, (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords) Rassilon engineered a trap for his rival. Under his orders, Mayor Me, (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)
In his exile, Rassilon came across the last remnant of the Cybermen, entering into an alliance with them. With Rassilon's knowledge of Gallifrey's defences, the Gallifreyan Cyber Fleet invaded and quickly conquered the planet. The Cybermen rounded up the Time Lords and wired them into looms so as to feed their regenerative energy into the Eye of Harmony while using Gallifrey as their new capital to launch their assaults on all of space/time. The Twelfth Doctor and Rassilon eventually managed to negate this timeline of events, with the Doctor wondering if anyone but him had any memory of what had never happened. (COMIC: Supremacy of the Cybermen)
Shortly before its destruction, River Song returned to Gallifrey and absconded with the Black Scrolls of Rassilon. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times)
End of Gallifrey and the truth revealed
In retaliation for "the lie of the Timeless Child", a secret kept by the Founding Fathers of Gallifrey, the Spy Master revealed to the Thirteenth Doctor that he had returned to the planet, once again "hiding in its little bubble universe", and razed it to the ground, supposedly killing everyone there. Indeed, when the Doctor returned to Gallifrey after learning this, she found the Capitol in ruins. (TV: Spyfall [+]Loading...["Spyfall (TV story)"]) The Fifteenth Doctor later speculated the genocide had spread out across the universe beyond Gallifrey, wondering whether his granddaughter Susan had been caught up in it. (TV: The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"])
A ruined Gallifrey appeared to the Thirteenth Doctor across the Boundary shortly after Ko Sharmus showed it to her. The Spy Master, arriving on the planet of the Boundary via the Boundary himself, warned her that "everything [was] about to change… forever". (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen [+]Loading...["Ascension of the Cybermen (TV story)"]) The Master led the Doctor back to the ruins of the Capitol while inviting the Cybermen, led by Ashad, to the planet. The Master used the Matrix to show the Doctor the true history of Gallifrey and the Timeless Child which revealed that early in Gallifrey's history, the explorer and scientist Tecteun discovered the Timeless Child on another planet, a young girl with the ability to regenerate an infinite number of times. Tecteun's experiments on the child granted her the ability to regenerate as well with the Gallifreyans growing over time and declaring themselves Time Lords until Tecteun suggested giving themselves the ability to regenerate, though they limited it to twelve regenerations per Time Lord. The Time Lords eventually redacted the truth from the Matrix and the mind of the Timeless Child who would ultimately become the Doctor.
Using the cyber conversion machines on Ashad's Cybercarrier, the Master transformed the dead Time Lords into a race of CyberMasters: Cybermen with the ability to regenerate, in effect an invincible army. To stop him, the Doctor intended to detonate the death particle and wipe out all organic life on the planet while sending her companions home in a TARDIS. However, Ko Sharmus decided to sacrifice himself instead while the Doctor escaped the planet in another TARDIS. Ko Sharmus detonated the death particle in his last moments, wiping out all organic life left on Gallifrey, presumably including the Master and his army. (TV: The Timeless Children [+]Loading...["The Timeless Children (TV story)"]) Though the Doctor believed all life on Gallifrey had been destroyed thanks to Ko Sharmus and the death particle, (TV: Revolution of the Daleks [+]Loading...["Revolution of the Daleks (TV story)"]) the Master and his CyberMasters survived. The Master would later use technology he'd taken from Gallifrey in his plan to take the Doctor's body and identity through forced regeneration. (TV: The Power of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Power of the Doctor (TV story)"])
The Division still existed, now under the leadership of Tecteun, and decided to abandon the universe for the next one. To this end, (TV: Survivors of the Flux [+]Loading...["Survivors of the Flux (TV story)"]) they enacted a plan to destroy the universe by unleashing the Flux in space and releasing the Ravagers in time. (TV: Once, Upon Time [+]Loading...["Once, Upon Time (TV story)"]) The first Flux event failed to destroy the universe entirely due to colliding with the Doctor's TARDIS so the Division prepared a second. However, shortly before it was unleashed, the Ravagers used a psycho-temporal bridge to reach Division Control and killed Tecteun, seizing control of the Flux for themselves. (TV: Survivors of the Flux [+]Loading...["Survivors of the Flux (TV story)"])
Nevertheless, after an aftereffect of the Flux caused some words associated with the Thirteenth Doctor's memories to be "jumbled" and scattered throughout a book the Doctor had written, the clue associated with the anagram for "Gallifrey" and written from the Doctor's perspective was "a planet from my past — and future". (GAME: Flux Fixers [+]Loading...["Flux Fixers (game)"])
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 [+]Loading...["The Crystal Bucephalus (novel)"]) So was Ardethe. (PROSE: Deadfall [+]Loading...["Deadfall (novel)"]) Christine Summerfield wrote Dead Romance in the ruins of an abandoned Gallifrey after escaping the bottle universe (PROSE: Dead Romance [+]Loading...["Dead Romance (novel)"]) and before joining Faction Paradox. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire [+]Loading...["The Eleven Day Empire (audio story)"])
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 [+]Loading...["Singularity (audio story)"])
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 [+]Loading...["Zagreus (audio story)"])
According to a historical account, Gallifrey and the last of the immortals were all that remained in the universe near its end, following the loss of Utopia. (PROSE: The Whoniverse [+]Loading...["The Whoniverse (novel)"]) 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 [+]Loading...["Hell Bent (TV story)"])
Legacy
Some of the stories contained within the Cheshire House were of the Archons. You read them when visiting the house. (PROSE: I'm Dreaming of a Cheshire Easter [+]Loading...["I'm Dreaming of a Cheshire Easter (short story)"])
Other realities
In a possible future for the Eighth Doctor, (PROSE: The Tomorrow Windows [+]Loading...["The Tomorrow Windows (novel)"]) Gallifrey was invaded by an alien race. By that point, the Ninth Doctor had retired to live with the woman he loved, the daughter of the Lord President. The aliens killed most of the Time Lords, whom retreated into the Matrix, whilst the Doctor's love was "truly dead". The Doctor "[sent] the aliens packing" with the help of the Master, with the Master's final physical body being destroyed in the process. The Doctor used Matrix technology to store the Master in a robot made out of TARDIS materials. From inside the Matrix, the Time Lords used their power to send the Doctor off to sort the most dangerous problems in the universe. (PROSE: Doctor Who - The Ninth Doctor [+]Loading...["Doctor Who - The Ninth Doctor (short story)"])
