Genocide of the Time Lords
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Enraged upon discovering the truth of the Timeless Child, the Spy Master took to razing his home planet Gallifrey to the ground. (TV: Spyfall [+]Loading...["Spyfall (TV story)"]) The Thirteenth Doctor believed that this was the second destruction of Gallifrey, following the so-called Fall of Gallifrey at the close of the Last Great Time War. (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon [+]Loading...["Fugitive of the Judoon (TV story)"])
Together with Ko Sharmus's use of the death particle, eradicating all remaining life on the planet, (TV: The Timeless Children [+]Loading...["The Timeless Children (TV story)"]) this was later remembered by the Fifteenth Doctor as the genocide of the Time Lords, making him the "last of the Time Lords" after all, (TV: Space Babies [+]Loading...["Space Babies (TV story)"], The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"]) all over again. (TV: The End of the World [+]Loading...["The End of the World (TV story)"], The Day of the Doctor [+]Loading...["The Day of the Doctor (TV story)"])
This destruction came in two massive waves, (TV: Spyfall [+]Loading...["Spyfall (TV story)"], The Timeless Children [+]Loading...["The Timeless Children (TV story)"]) eventually "rippling out" across space and time. (TV: The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"]) beginning with the Master's initial destruction, which he seemed to revel in, later recounting how he watched it all burn. (TV: Spyfall [+]Loading...["Spyfall (TV story)"], The Timeless Children [+]Loading...["The Timeless Children (TV story)"])
This all meant that the Fifteenth Doctor was all alone again, an adopted orphan without much hope of seeing his own people again, but with no choice but to keep on travelling in the TARDIS as he had before. As a result, he was (TV: Space Babies [+]Loading...["Space Babies (TV story)"], The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"], The Legend of Ruby Sunday [+]Loading...["The Legend of Ruby Sunday (TV story)"] / Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"]) always "moving on", exploring "new horizons", but hardly ever giving himself time to process his emotions, because that's who he felt "[he needed] to be". (TV: Rogue [+]Loading...["Rogue (TV story)"])
History
A day to come
Having been made aware of the Spy Master's razing of Gallifrey, the Thirteenth Doctor reasoned that both the Gallifreyan Gat and the Fugitive Doctor, whom she encountered in the 2020 Gloucester Incident, were from her own past, as Gallifrey had been destroyed "by a lunatic" in her time. She even made contact with Gat, showing her an image of the ruined Gallifrey in her own mind, but this was dismissed as mere "trickery". (TV: Fugitive of the Judoon [+]Loading...["Fugitive of the Judoon (TV story)"])
- Main article: Last days of the Time War
Far later in the timeline, the Curator discussed Gallifrey Falls No More — a painting which concerned the Fall of Gallifrey at the Time War's end — with Dr Henry Black, and revealed that it would be much better described as "Gallifrey Falls No More (Until the Next Time)". (PROSE: Dr Black [+]Loading...["Dr Black (short story)"]) As a future incarnation of the Doctor, (COMIC: The Then and the Now [+]Loading...["The Then and the Now (comic story)"], AUDIO: Crossed Lines [+]Loading...["Crossed Lines (audio story)"], The Keys of Baker Street [+]Loading...["The Keys of Baker Street (audio story)"]) indeed, an "extremely high" number of lives on from these events, (AUDIO: Lost Property [+]Loading...["Lost Property (audio story)"]) the Curator knew that discord would return to Gallifrey, following the end of the war. (PROSE: Dr Black [+]Loading...["Dr Black (short story)"])
After the Time War, Rassilon fixated on the Visionary's continued insistence that Gallifrey would fall, and that the Doctor and the Master alone would survive, as last of the Time Lords. He came to believe that the Hybrid of Time Lord legend would bring about their doom, and suspected that the Twelfth Doctor knew what it was. As a result, he ordered that the Doctor's current companion, Clara Oswald, be killed[disputed statement], and for the Doctor to be brought forward to disclose what he knew of the Hybrid.
This only resulted in the Doctor banishing Rassilon from Gallifrey, taking power once more, and manipulating the Eleventh General into extracting Clara prior to her death, in order to escape the planet together. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords [+]Loading...["A Brief History of Time Lords (novel)"], TV: Hell Bent [+]Loading...["Hell Bent (TV story)"])
Background
Needs something about the original "last of the Time Lords" arc, post-Time War, including the Doctor's survivor's guilt.
Following the Timeline Error Incident and the Twelfth Doctor's regeneration into the Thirteenth Doctor, the Time Lords identified Missy as the Master's most recent incarnation in their TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual, also identifying the Thirteenth Doctor as the current operator of the Doctor's TARDIS. (PROSE: TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual [+]Loading...["TARDIS Type 40 Instruction Manual (reference book)"])
Despite having lived as Missy, (PROSE: The Wonderful Doctor of Oz) a life where the Master had hoped to do good in the universe, (TV: The Doctor Falls) the Spy Master returned to his dark ways. (TV: The Timeless Children) Though the Twelfth Doctor observed that Gallifrey, having been relocated to a pocket universe at the end of the Last Great Time War, had returned to the Doctor's universe at the end of the universe, (TV: Hell Bent) the Master claimed to the Thirteenth Doctor that Gallifrey was still hiding in its "little bubble universe" when he returned to it. (TV: Spyfall)
First wave of destruction
Whilst there, he hacked into the Matrix where he found that Gallifrey was built from the Timeless Child, a foundling from an unknown realm who was adopted by the early Gallifreyan explorer Tecteun, who derived the ability of regeneration from the child, who would eventually become the Doctor. Angered that the Founders of Gallifrey had lied, the Master sought to "make them pay" and proceeded to raze Gallifrey, apparently killing all other Gallifreyans. Anticipating that they could be useful, he made sure to preserve the Time Lords' corpses, (TV: The Timeless Children) and helped himself to advanced Gallifreyan technology. (TV: The Power of the Doctor)
Aftermath
During the Kasaavin invasion of the universe, the Master made the Thirteenth Doctor aware that "someone" had destroyed Gallifrey. After she visited Gallifrey and saw the planet in ruins, the Doctor found a holographic message from the Master in the TARDIS in which he admitted responsibility. (TV: Spyfall)
Second wave of destruction
Eventually, the Doctor, whilst embroiled in the restoration of the Cyber-Empire, came across the Planet of the Boundary leading to Gallifrey. Emerging from the Boundary, (TV: Ascension of the Cybermen) the Master forced the Doctor to come with him to Gallifrey, where he revealed to her that she was the Timeless Child. When a Cybercarrier arrived on Gallifrey, the Master convinced the Cyberium, the artificial intelligence of the Cybermen, to take him as host, enabling him to use the resources of the Cybermen to convert the preserved Time Lord corpses into CyberMasters, modified Cyber-Warriors capable of regeneration. Ultimately, the Doctor escaped whilst Ko Sharmus detonated the death particle, wiping out all life on Gallifrey. (TV: The Timeless Children)
However, the Master survived and continued to lead the CyberMasters. Forming an alliance with the Daleks and regular Cybermen, who were led by a clone of Ashad he had created, the Master conceived an ill-fated plot to eliminate the Doctor by means of a forced regeneration, the technology for which he had acquired when he ransacked Gallifrey. The scheme ended with the defeat of the CyberMasters and the Master himself being gravely wounded. (TV: The Power of the Doctor)
Recovering from the genocide
Speaking with someone whom he believed was Donna Noble, the Fourteenth Doctor admitted that the TARDIS was now all he had left. When asked if he missed Gallifrey, the Doctor answered:
I suppose. I mean, yes, but... No, it got complicated.
Later, the not-thing using Donna's form made the Fourteenth Doctor acknowledge that Gallifrey was not his original home, as well as the devastation caused by the Flux, which he ought to have stopped; matters which weighed heavily on him. Despite not wanting to talk about these things with someone he felt could not understand, (TV: Wild Blue Yonder [+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"]) once he met the Fifteenth Doctor, who did, this ultimately led him down a path in which he chose to settle down and live alongside the Noble family, when a bi-generation granted him a unique opportunity to take a break and experience rehab "out of order". (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"])
Renewed but forever changed
The Fifteenth Doctor came into being with the results of this development, and told his fourteenth self that he would come to "fix [himself]". (TV: The Giggle [+]Loading...["The Giggle (TV story)"]) Renewed in this new form, he did seem capable of letting go and having fun, dancing in a club without hiding from the world at all. (TV: The Church on Ruby Road [+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"])
After learning her origins, how she was abandoned as a baby, (TV: The Church on Ruby Road [+]Loading...["The Church on Ruby Road (TV story)"]) he began to open up to Ruby Sunday about the genocide of the Time Lords. (TV: Space Babies [+]Loading...["Space Babies (TV story)"]) He later claimed that when the Time Lords were murdered, genocide "rolled across time and space like a great big cellular explosion", which may have killed Susan Foreman, along with the rest of his family. (TV: The Devil's Chord [+]Loading...["The Devil's Chord (TV story)"])
The Fifteenth Doctor felt he had no choice but to keep going, to keep venturing out to "new horizons", and tried to keep upbeat while doing so. According to Ruby, his young companion, this was to the Doctor's own detriment. After he lost Rogue, as well, she forced him to take a moment with his own feelings, offering up a close embrace, which he welcomed. (TV: Rogue [+]Loading...["Rogue (TV story)"])
Beginning to heal
The Doctor later decided to hold onto some hope that, one day, he would re-unite with Susan again. This change in perspective took place almost immediately after having defeated Sutekh, the God of Death himself, with the help of a few other survivors of Sutekh's own universe-wide massacre.
The Doctor noted that travelling with Ruby helped him to talk more about his family, but the two parted ways after she discovered her biological mother, Louise Miller, and became busy with her own family. (TV: Empire of Death [+]Loading...["Empire of Death (TV story)"])
Behind the scenes
Which Homeworld?
Simon Bucher-Jones suggested that the Gallifrey which was razed by the Master was one of the seven surviving duplicate Homeworlds.[1]
The Doctor's pain
The script for Wild Blue Yonder [+]Loading...["Wild Blue Yonder (TV story)"] acknowledges the "losses" which contributed to the Fourteenth Doctor's outburst of furious rage within the spaceship. Earlier, the Doctor acknowledged the absence of Gallifrey whilst speaking with Donna-2.[2]
Rwandan genocide
Russell T Davies's reframing of the Spy Master's razing of Gallifrey by connecting it with the death particle incident, and then directly (and repeatedly) having the Fifteenth Doctor call himself a survivor of this "genocide", speaks directly to Ncuti Gatwa's own personal history.
It is well-documented that Gatwa, who plays the Fifteenth Doctor, himself survived the Rwandan genocide. This topic has come up in interviews, and Gatwa is open about this part of his history. This was the reason for his emigration from Rwanda to Scotland as a child.
