Omega
- This article is about the character. For the Big Finish Audio see Omega (audio story)
Originally a great cosmic engineer and co-founder of Time Lord society, circumstances bent the mind of Omega, so that he threatened the universe.
Biography
The life of Omega
Cosmic engineer
Omega was one of the most significant figures in Gallifreyan history. During the Dark Times, it was Omega , in collaboration with Rassilon (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks) who enabled the people of Gallifrey to achieve time travel. (DW: The Three Doctors) Rassilon (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks) and the Other would assist him in this task. (NA: Lungbarrow)
Omega created the Hand (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks), a stellar manipulator capable of causing stars to go supernova. With the power unleashed in this way, they hoped to generate enough power to make it possible to travel through time. (DW: The Three Doctors) To do this, they would cause the star known as Qqaba to go supernova. (DWM: Star Death, PDA: The Infinity Death)
- This may relate to the Eye of Harmony, a black hole captured and fixed beneath the Panopticon and said to power all of Time Lord civilization, including TARDISes.
The "death" of Omega
Officially, Omega died when the star exploded. (DW: The Three Doctors) A number of inconsistent accounts exist describing this event.
In one, Fenris, an mercenary working for the Order of the Black Sun (enemies of the Time Lords from the future) caused the lapse of Omega's ship through an act of sabotage. (DWM: Star Death)
Omega himself, however, described the event differently. (BFA: Omega)
Within the black hole
The Hand of Omega survived and returned to Gallifrey. It was eventually obtained and hidden by the Doctor (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)
Omega himself had gotten transported through the black hole into another universe composed of anti-matter. Omega shaped the universe by force of will and access to the black hole's singularity. He could even create life of a simple kind. Radiation destroyed his body, so that the gauntlets, armour and helmet he had designed to protect him from the corrosive effect of the anti-matter now constituted his physical form. In the beginning, he shaped his new world into a paradise, but as the centuries rolled by he grew weary and depressed, feeling abandoned by his fellow Time Lords, and the landscape slowly transformed into a drab, grey desert. The universe that had become his home was unstable, unable to exist without the will of a powerful mind to give it form; he was trapped. (DW: The Three Doctors)
Against the Time Lords
Eventually, Omega hit upon a plan of revenge. But if he could capture a Time Lord, he could force them to take his place, allowing him to leave and wreak vengeance on Gallifrey. He drained power from the Time Lords as a means to stop them for interfering. Omega sent an amorphous life form through the black hole UNIT HQ, where he had detected the Doctor currently serving a sentence of exile on Earth. The High Council decided to send the prior incarnation of the Doctor to Earth to help rectify matters and his first self to advise them.
Omega's amorphous servitors brought both incarnations of the Doctor into his domain. Any matter object or person would convert into anti-matter instantly. Omega forced them to agree to his plan. However, when he removed his helmet to prepare his departure, he discovered that the anti-matter universe had completely dissolved his physical body, so that could not leave his universe. Consumed by rage and despair, Omega swore to destroy all things. The Doctors offered freedom to Omega freedom, in actuality the Doctor's old recorder which the Doctor's TARDIS had protected from conversion into anti-matter. When Omega touched the matter object, the resulting explosion caused an explosion. (DW: The Three Doctors)
Omega was thought destroyed, but certain elements within Time Lord society sympathised with his plight. He held out hope that he still lived. One such Time Lord was Hedin of the High Council, whose faith was rewarded when he made contact with Omega, who had somehow survived, still trapped in the universe of anti-matter. Omega had devised a new plan to escape hos prison; somehow he had gained control of the dimensional gateway known as the Arc of Infinity]], through which he could enter the universe of matter. In order to have a physical form, however, Omega needed to bond with another Time Lord, impossible without precise biological data about his subject. Hedin transmitted the Doctor's bio-data extract to Omega for this purpose, seeing a chance for his hero to have revenge on the Time Lord who had defeated him.
Omega landed his TARDIS, shielded by the Arc, in Amsterdam on Earth, securing the area with the aid of his new servant, the Ergon. This would be the location of his physical manifestation. He steered the Fifth Doctor's TARDIS into the Arc and established an initial link with him, but this was detected by the High Council, who (unaware of Omega's true identity) brought the Doctor to Gallifrey in order to kill him, severing the link. This was all part of Omega and Hedin's plan: they rigged the execution so that it would hide the Doctor and Omega in the Matrix, safe from Time Lord detection.
Omega blackmailed the Doctor to force him not to interfere with the transfer by holding his companion Tegan hostage, but this gave the Doctor vital clues as to Omega's physical location. Omega shifted the Arc to Gallifrey in order to gain control of the Matrix, using its power through his link to the Doctor to fuel his transfer through the Arc, but the Doctor tracked him down and sabotaged his equipment in Amsterdam, forcing Omega to step into the physical universe before the transfer can be made stable. His new body was a replica of the Fifth Doctor's, but quickly begins to decay back into anti-matter. Again thwarted and mad with defeat, Omega willed the acceleration of his conversion to anti-matter in order to destroy the Earth rather than return to the universe of anti-matter, but was destroyed by the Doctor with the Ergon's Matter conversion gun. (DW: Arc of Infinity)
