Barusa

Barusa
Species:	Time Lord
Job:	Cardinal, Lord President
Place of origin:	Gallifrey
Children:	Ulysses
Grandchildren:	The Master, the Doctor
Appearance:	The Chronicles of Doctor Who?

Incarnations of Borusa
Alternate timelines

In one of the infinite parallel universes of "possible space", (COMIC: Fire and Brimstone) the history of the Doctor was recorded by his grandfather and companion, the Time Lord Cardinal Barusa. (PROSE: The Chronicles of Doctor Who?)

Biography

Early life

Barusa spent his twelve initial incarnations on relative peace, although one of his regenerations was, to his later embarrassment, something of a megalomaniac. He attained the ranks of Cardinal and, ultimately, Lord President of the Time Lord Council. He had a son, the Time Explorer Ulysses, who in turn begat a legitimate Time Lord son, the Master, but also a half-human child, the Doctor, with the human peasant-girl Annalisse. After regenerating on Earth as a boy in "tragic circumstances", the Doctor was taken back to Gallifrey to be raised as an orphan unknowing of his true parentage. (PROSE: The Chronicles of Doctor Who?)

Death and a new lease of life

Eventually, Barusa, feeling that his final regeneration was near, announced in the Panopticon that he wished to break with tradition and name the Doctor as his successor instead of the Master. Faced with bitter disagreement in the crowd, the Doctor took to the stand and delivered an impassioned speech shaming the Time Lords for failing in their duties. This inadvertently turned the majority against him and the Doctor was exiled to the forbidden desert outside the Domed City. There, he wandered for months, nearing death.

Barusa, hoping to win time before the Master officially took the Presidency, clung on to life for all this time. This proved fortunate when the Doctor snuck back into the Domed City, revealing that he had been found, near-dead, by the Outcasts, a secret sect who guarded the secrets of the Tomb of Rassilon. With their help, the Doctor had found the Scrolls of Rassilon and brought them back to the Domed City; they spoke of Gallifrey's salvation by a child of the Blue Planet who would lead it out of the darkness. Barusa revealed to him that he was Ulysses's son and half-human himself, before passing away.

As the Presidency transferred to the Master, the Master ordered the Doctor executed and the Doctor had to flee, stealing a TARDIS. The instant of his leaving Gallifrey coincided with Barusa's final regeneration, during which his soul left his body. However, instead of taking root in the crystals of the Domed City, Barusa's spirit somehow found itself drawn to the Doctor's TARDIS, merging with it and becoming the Doctor's first and constant companion on his flight through time and space.

Early on in their journeys, the Doctor and Barusa decided to visit the last known coordinates of Ulysses before his disappearance, which turned out to be the Cairo Museum in 1994. There, they found a sarcophagus whose painted face resembled Ulysses's, which turned out to be empty but also to contain a message from Ulysses confirming that he was alive and promising that one day, he and his son would meet again. (PROSE: The Chronicles of Doctor Who?)

Meeting the Daleks

The Daleks encountered by this Doctor. (PROSE: The Chronicles of Doctor Who?)

One day, the Doctor's TARDIS was drawn off-course and back to Gallifrey, where the Doctor was summoned before the Time Lord Council. To his and Barusa's surprise, the Master acknowledged the Doctor as his brother and embraced him, offering him a full pardon in the eyes of Gallifreyan law in exchange for going on a few missions on the Time Lords' behalf. The first concerned a species of warmongering cyborg killers who the Master had learned were threatening the outer edges of Gallifrey's galaxy: the Daleks.

The Doctor and Barusa were sent back in time to the Daleks' home planet of Skaro before the Daleks' creation to try and avert it. After discovering that the seemingly benevolent Kaled scientist Davros was actually working on the creation of the Daleks, the Doctor attempted to denounce him to the Kaled High Council, only for Davros to leak the Kaled base's location to their enemies the Thal, resulting in all Kaleds save for Davros and his creations being destroyed. The Doctor later tried to sneak back into the incubator room where more Daleks were being hatched, only to be confronted by Davros, who had let him in as a trap and wanted to feed him to the Daleks. Before he could do so, a further double-cross occurred as the Master himself materialised and revealed to the Daleks how Davros had betrayed their ancestors. The Daleks destroyed their creator and pledged allegiance to the Master, who would go on to have them chase the Doctor through time. The Doctor finally detonated the incubator room, though he could not destroy the Master and the already-living Daleks. He considered going further back in time to undo the entire chain of events, but ultimately could not find the strength to bear the responsibility of altering the history of the galaxy on such a massive scale. (PROSE: The Chronicles of Doctor Who?)

Chased by the Daleks

The Doctor and Barusa continued looking for Ulysses through time and space in the The Doctor's TARDIS, now pursued by the Daleks. They went on many adventures, including encounters with the pirate Blackbeard in 18th century Spain — who turned out to have been Ulysses in disguise —, the war criminal Magnus Greel in 20th century New York City, the marauding cyborgs know as the Cybs, an alien who has merged with a light-house keeper in 1906, an "evil force" known as the Toymaker, the gunslinger Doc Holliday, a group of Neanderthals in Tibet, and with a colony ship where the whole population of the future Earth is frozen in cryo-stasis, only to be preyed on by parasitic insect creatures.

On one occasion, the Doctor also spent some time trying to talk Napoléon Bonaparte into calling off his attack at the Battle of Waterloo, desperate to prevent the deaths of millions. However, Napoléon was unwilling to trust the mysterious stranger, to the Doctor's frustration. When the Doctor walked out of the tent early in the morning and back to the TARDIS, he found Barusa trying to repair the TARDIS's chameleon circuit so that the ship would cease being stuck as a police box, something the Doctor told him off for doing. In turn, Barusa scolded him for meddling in history once again. Eventually the Doctor agreed to leave this timezone with no further meddling to focus on finding Ulysses. (PROSE: The Chronicles of Doctor Who?)

Return to Gallifrey

Eventually, the Doctor and Ulysses were reunited at last, "with great joy". They returned to Gallifrey, bringing with them "all the strength and curiosity that had been lost... (...) passion and, even more importantly, compassion". With Ulysses to prove his lineage, the Doctor was allowed to replace the Master as President and wear the Sash of Rassilon. As the Time Lord population's divides healed, so did the "bottomless crevasses" that were threatening to tear Gallifrey itself apart close again. Barusa's spirit transferred itself from the crystals of the TARDIS to those of the Domed City. Some years later, he dictated a history of his travels with the Doctor to a scribe, also including, in his narrative, extracts from the journal he had kept throughout these adventures. (PROSE: The Chronicles of Doctor Who?)