The One (Death Comes to Time)

You may wish to consult The One for other, similarly-named pages.

The One was the Time Lord Castellan Casmus's name for the "great unity based on logic" into which the Time Lords kept the universe structured through their power to directly alter "Time, the substance of the universe". It was an ordered intelligence encoded in the patterns of Creation.

Nature

Casmus described the One to Aceas "the prime mover, the cause of all things, (…) the deep, sublime intelligence of the universe". He added that "where there is intelligence, there is a pattern, and where there is a pattern, there is predictability"; before one ventured into altering the patterns, a Time Lord's foremost power was to see these patterns directly so as to anticipate events. Casmus claimed that "the power of the One" was what gave the non-physical rules of the universe, such as gravity, their substance, (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)"}) matching the Second Minister of Chance's explanation of his kind's powers as the direct manipulation of the non-physical data sets which commanded the fundamental particles of creation to act in one way or another. (PROSE: The Minister of Chance ^[+]Loading...["The Minister of Chance (novelisation)"], etc.) Casmus's parting words to Ace were a reminder that she was "part of a great Unity based on logic", with Casmus adding that "in a logical universe, in the end, Reason prevails". (WC: "No Child of Earth" ^[+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"No Child of Earth","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"})

The Kingmaker summarised a Time Lord's duties to Ace as: "you will be alone and live for the many, and the One. You will possess great power, and great responsibility". (WC: "No Child of Earth" ^[+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"No Child of Earth","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"}) The whispering, chattering telepathic voices of the ghosts which Ace heard on Anima Persis included repeated murmurs of "what is the One?", with the ghosts then coming to the conclusion that "the One is the power". (WC: "Death Comes to Time" ^[+]Part of Death Comes to Time, Loading...{"namedep":"Death Comes to Time","1":"Death Comes to Time (webcast)"})

In the same account which documented all of this Gallifreyan philosophy, the Santines' solemn farewell to the dying was "May you find the One". (WC: At the Temple of the Fourth ^[+]Loading...["Death Comes to Time (webcast)","At the Temple of the Fourth"])