Howling:Question about Gallifrey
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Hey there. I recently got "Universe Sandbox" from Steam. As some may know, it allows you to simulate planets and the universe, with real physics. My question is, does anyone have the following info for Gallifrey?
Mass
Diameter
Density
Total Velocity
Rotation Period
SPOILERS FOR THE END OF TIME
What I want to do, is introduce Gallifrey into the orbit of Earth, so that I can see what would happen had Gallifrey not been returned
I'm afraid I don't think the necessary data are available. About all that seems to be known is that Gallifrey's diameter is several times greater than Earth's. The surface gravity seems to be about the same as Earth's, though, which could (if the diameter were known) be used to calculate an approximate mass and density. --89.242.75.233 12:50, July 28, 2011 (UTC)
Further thoughts: For the surface gravity to stay the same, the mass has to increase in proportion to the square of the radius (or diameter) but the volume increases in proportion to the cube, so the density varies in inverse proportion to the radius. That means Gallifrey must be considerably less dense than Earth, which fits with the idea that it's very, very much older. (In The Runaway Bride, Gallifrey was said to be one of, perhaps the main one of, the planets that defeated the Racnoss and a Racnoss ship fleeing that defeat "became the centre of the Earth" at its initial formation.) If Gallifrey is that much older than Earth, there would have been fewer heavy elements available at the time of Gallifrey's formation -- stars would have had less time to make the heavier elements. --89.242.75.233 13:36, July 28, 2011 (UTC)
Unfortunately, on TV, they've given us very little detail about Gallifrey, and what they've given us is contradictory. If you turn to the novels and audios, there's a lot more information—but it's even more contradictory. Gallifrey's year is identical to Earth's, and that it's several times longer. It has only one continent, and people from the northern continents vacation on the southern one. Its solar system (as you speculate) is low on heavy elements because it's from a previous generation of stars, but it has naturally-occurring elements from a sea of stability beyond our currently known periodic table. No animal has ever gone extinct on Gallifrey, and yet we're told of at least two extinct species. And so on.
As for the very old bit: All the evidence is that Rassilon lived only about 5-10 millennia ago. In particular, every Rassilon Era date ever given was well under 7000. Of course we know that Time Lords or late proto-Time Lords fought not just the Racnoss, but countless other species (e.g., the Great Vampires) going back to the Dark Times of the early universe, "long before any of this galaxy's stars existed". But that probably just means that they went back in time to defeat their enemies when they were just getting started (hence "time wars"), especially since the alternative would mean that they'd already evolved on Gallifrey before its own two stars or even its galaxy had come into existence.
Finally, remember that the Time Lords are (at least according to them) the universe's foremost stellar and gravitational engineers. They could easily make sure that the net gravitational impact on Earth would be nothing. And they obviously did so—otherwise, Earth would have been at least flung out of orbit, if not torn apart, long before the episode had even gotten going. Of course once they transcended beyond physical form they wouldn't have bothered keeping that balance together, but since that would have destroyed all life in the universe anyway, it wouldn't have been our worst problem. --173.228.85.118 03:13, July 30, 2011 (UTC)
