Time Lord

The Time Lords are a fictional group of humanoids, originating on the planet Gallifrey, seen in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. The Doctor himself is a Time Lord, albeit in self-imposed exile from his own people. The female members of this group, such as Romana, are sometimes called Time Ladies, particularly in the tie-in fiction related to the programme. Time Lords are so called because they are able to travel in and manipulate time through technology to a far greater degree than any other civilization. Although correctly spelled without a hyphen, it is common to see the name spelled Time-Lord.

Overview

The nature and history of the Time Lords were gradually revealed as the television series progressed. Each story to feature them and their home planet added additional layers of complexity and intrigue, stemming from the dissatisfaction of various scriptwriters wrestling with the question of why the Doctor is in exile in the first place. Among other things, Time Lords are increasingly revealed as being corrupted by their inaction and Time Lord society as stagnant. Over the course of the show's initial 26-year run, it was never made entirely clear what purpose or mission the Time Lords served, or what exactly they did with their mastery over time. Nor, ultimately, was it ever explicitly made clear what had caused the Doctor to leave his people, although it is suggested in some stories, such as in the Fifth Doctor serial Resurrection of the Daleks,^[1] that he had grown tired of the strictures of Time Lord society.

The Time Lords are normally considered one of the oldest and most technologically powerful races in the Doctor Who universe. The small number of beings more powerful than the Time Lords includes the (now extinct) Osirians and higher powers of the universe such as the Black and White Guardians^[2] and, from the spin-off novels, which are of uncertain canonicity, The People, with whom the Time Lords signed a non-aggression treaty.^[3] The power of the Time Lords appears limited by their policy of non-interference with the universe and sometimes by intense internecine division.

However, the view that they are, to a degree, custodians of time developed in the spin-off media. This is also suggested in the television series; in The War Games^[4] the Time Lords return time-displaced humans abducted by the War Lord to their proper time zones on Earth. The name of the Time Lords' central hall, the Panopticon, suggests that they are perpetual observers of all existence.

In Father's Day^[5] the Ninth Doctor remarks that prior to their destruction, the Time Lords would have prevented or repaired paradoxes such as that which attracted the Reapers to 1987 Earth. In Rise of the Cybermen,^[6] the Tenth Doctor mentions that while the Time Lords were around, travel between alternative realities was easier, but with their demise, the paths between worlds were closed.

Physical characteristics

Time Lords appear human, but differ from them in many respects. Racially, all the Time Lords in the television series so far have been portrayed by white actors, although a black Time Lord appeared in the spin-off novel The Shadows of Avalon^[8] by Paul Cornell, and Time Lord founder Rassilon was portrayed in several audio plays by black actor Don Warrington.

Time Lords are extremely long-lived, routinely counting their ages in terms of centuries. It is not known how long a Time Lord can live, although the Doctor claimed in The War Games^[4] that Time Lords could live forever, "barring accidents." In The Daleks' Master Plan^[9] the First Doctor is able to resist the effects of the Time Destructor better than his companions, who are visibly aged by it; one of them, Sara Kingdom, ages to dust before the Destructor device can be reversed. In School Reunion^[10] the Tenth Doctor says to Rose Tyler, "I don’t age. I regenerate. But humans decay. You wither and you die."

Other physiological differences from humans include two hearts (which normally beat at 170 beats a minute), an internal body temperature of 15 degrees Celsius and a "respiratory bypass system" that allows them to survive strangulation or even extended exposure to a vacuum. A commonly held piece of fan continuity is that Time Lords only grow their second heart during their first regeneration.^[11] If severely injured, Time Lords can go into a healing coma which lowers their body temperature to below freezing. In World War Three,^[12] the Doctor is able to shake off an electrocution attempt which is killing a number of alien specialists, and appears unaffected by the 'energy whip' wielded by the Sycorax in The Christmas Invasion.^[13] Time Lords, or at least the Doctor, can read extremely quickly (seen, for example, in The Runaway Bride,^[14] when the Doctor reads several webpages in a few seconds). They appear to have greater physical stamina than humans and need considerably less sleep. In Smith and Jones the Tenth Doctor says that X-rays pose no real threat to Time Lords, and exhibits an ability to exorb and then expel an amount that would be lethal to a human.

Time Lords can also communicate by telepathy. The Doctor's granddaughter, Susan Foreman, displays psychic abilities in The Sensorites.^[15] In both the final episode of Frontier in Space^[16] and the first of Planet of the Daleks, the Doctor communicates with the Time Lords via telepathic circuits in the TARDIS, the Time Lord time machine. In The Deadly Assassin,^[17] the Doctor mentions that Time Lords are telepathic. Additionally, in The Three Doctors,^[18] the Doctor's first three incarnations communicate with each other telepathically. This ability is exhibited by the Doctors during other occasions where multiple incarnations are present in one location and used primarily as a means of updating the other selves to the current situation. In Logopolis,^[19] the Doctor hints at a kind of shared consciousness among Time Lords when he comments of the Master: "He's a Time Lord. In many ways, we have the same mind." In The Girl in the Fireplace,^[20] the Tenth Doctor reads the mind of Madame de Pompadour, and in the process, to his surprise, she is able to read his mind as well. In Paul Cornell's Virgin New Adventures novel Love and War,^[21] the Doctor uses a similar method to read the mind of his companion Bernice Summerfield.

The Doctor also contacts the Time Lords by going into a trance and creating an assembling box (suggesting telekinesis as well) in The War Games.^[4]

In addition, it is implied that Time Lords may be clairvoyant, or have additional time-related senses. In The Time Monster^[22] and Invasion of the Dinosaurs^[23] the Third Doctor is able to resist fields of slow time, being able to move through them even though others are paralysed. In City of Death^[24] both the Fourth Doctor and Romana notice distortions and jumps in time that no one else does. In the 2005 series, the Ninth Doctor claims that he can sense the movement of the Earth through space^[25] as well as being able to perceive the past and all possible futures.^[26] He is also able to concentrate and time his motions well enough to step safely through the blades of a rapidly spinning fan and later claims that if any Time Lords still existed, he would be able to sense them.

The biological imprint (also known as bio-data) of a Time Lord, which also defines his personal history, is kept in the Matrix, a computer network that contains the sum total of all Time Lord knowledge. The unauthorised extraction of a Time Lord's bio-data is tantamount to treason.^[27]

The Doctor states in The Mind of Evil^[28] that a pill (apparently aspirin) could kill him. It is not known whether this is a susceptibility shared by all Time Lords, or merely something like an allergy unique to the Doctor.

No explanation is given in the series as to why Time Lords look human, nor why the universe seems filled with predominantly humanoid species. The Virgin New Adventures novel Lucifer Rising^[29] by Andy Lane and Jim Mortimore suggests that the Time Lords were the first sentient life-form. As such, their evolutionary pattern was imprinted on the universe's morphogenetic field, making the development of humanoids far more likely. The Big Finish Productions audio play Zagreus^[30] offers a more sinister explanation, that the xenophobic Rassilon seeded the universe with biogenic molecules so that (save for worlds where humanoids could never evolve) only intelligent species that approximated the Gallifreyan humanoid norm would develop. The canonicity of these accounts, as with all spin-off media, is unclear.

Regeneration

Main article: Regeneration (Doctor Who)

Time Lords also have the ability to regenerate their bodies when their current body has become too old or is mortally wounded. This process results in their body undergoing a transformation, gaining a new physical form and a somewhat different personality.

Regenerations can be traumatic events, and have been known to fail. In Castrovalva,^[31] the Doctor requires the use of a Zero Room, a chamber shielded from the outside universe that provides an area of calm for him to recuperate. The Doctor's personality also sometimes goes through a period of instability following a regeneration, but it is not clear if this is true of all Time Lord regenerations.

It was first stated in The Deadly Assassin^[17] that a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times before dying (thirteen incarnations in all). There were exceptions to this rule, however: when the renegade Time Lord called the Master reaches the end of his regenerative cycle, he takes possession of the body of another person to continue living.

In Destiny of the Daleks,^[32] Romana II has the ability to regenerate several times in a row and has the ability to change into whatever appearance she desires. This brings up many questions about the regeneration process.

Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear in the television series. In The Deadly Assassin^[17] an old classmate of the Doctor's does not recognise him in his fourth incarnation. However, in a later serial, The Armageddon Factor,^[33] another classmate immediately recognizes the Doctor, who ironically does not recognize him. In The Five Doctors,^[34] the Third Doctor is also unable to initially recognise the Master in his non-Gallifreyan body. Similarly, the Eighth Doctor is unable to recognise the Master while he possesses a human body in the 1996 television movie.^[35] However, the Master recognises the Seventh Doctor on sight in Survival,^[36] although this may simply point to an earlier, unseen encounter.

Culture and society

The Time Lord homeworld, Gallifrey, is an Earth-like planet in the "constellation" of Kasterborous. Its capital city is also called Gallifrey (sometimes referred to as the Citadel), and contains the Capitol, the seat of Time Lord government. At the centre of the Capitol is the Panopticon, beneath which is the Eye of Harmony. Outside the Capitol lie wastelands where the "Outsiders", Time Lords who have dropped out of Time Lord society, live in less technological tribal communities, shunning life in the cities. The Outsiders have often been equated with the "Shobogans", a group mentioned briefly in The Deadly Assassin^[17] as being responsible for acts of vandalism around the Panopticon, but there is actually nothing on screen that explicitly connects the two.

In general, the Time Lords are an aloof people, with a society full of pomp and ceremony. The Doctor has observed that his people "enjoy making speeches"^[37] and have an "infinite capacity for pretension".^[38] The Time Lord penchant for ceremony extends to their technology, with various artefacts given weighty names like the Hand of Omega, the Eye of Harmony or the Key of Rassilon.

The Doctor has also characterised the Time Lords as a stagnant and corrupt society, a state caused by ten million years of absolute power.^[39] An alien in the episode School Reunion^[40]describes the Time Lords as "a pompous race" of "ancient, dusty senators... frightened of change and chaos" and "peaceful to the point of indolence". Their portrayal in the series is reminiscent of academics living in ivory towers, unconcerned with external affairs. It has been suggested that, since perfecting the science of time travel, they have withdrawn, bound by the moral complexity of interfering in the natural flow of history (compare with the Prime Directive from Star Trek).

Another explanation might be that they simply find the outside universe distasteful. While interference is apparently against Time Lord policy, there are occasions when they do intervene, albeit indirectly. The Time Lords occasionally send the Doctor on missions that required plausible deniability, as in The Two Doctors,^[41] and sometimes against his will, like in Colony in Space^[42] and The Monster of Peladon.^[43] He is also sent on a mission in The Mutants which was intended to help preserve the existence of a unique race, which was being destroyed by the excesses of the Earth empire. The Doctor's mission in Genesis of the Daleks^[44] even involves changing history to avert the creation of the Daleks, or at least temper their aggressiveness. In fanon, these apparent violations of neutrality have been attributed to the Celestial Intervention Agency, an organisation mentioned in The Deadly Assassin.^[17]

It has also been hinted that the terms "Gallifreyan" and "Time Lord" may not be synonymous, and that Time Lords are simply that subset of Gallifreyans who have achieved the status of Time Lord via achievement in the Gallifreyan collegiate system; the Time Lord Academy is mentioned a number of times in the series. Both Romana and the Doctor have also referred to "Time Tots", or infant Time Lords,^[45] which suggests that the Time Lords may also be a hereditary, aristocratic class among Gallifreyans.

Time Lord society is closely modelled on academic hierarchies. Each belongs to one of a number of various colleges or chapters, such as the Patrexes, Arcalian, and the Prydonian chapters, which have ceremonial and possibly political significance. Each chapter also has its own colours; the Prydonians wear scarlet and orange, the Arcalians wear green and the Patrexeans wear heliotrope. Others mentioned in spin-off novels include the Dromeian and Cerulean chapters. The Prydonian chapter has a reputation for being devious, and tends to produce renegades; the Doctor, the Master and the Rani are all Prydonians. The colleges of the Academy are led by the Cardinals. Ushers, who provide security and assistance at official Time Lord functions, may belong to any chapter, and wear all-gold uniforms.

The executive political leadership is split between the Lord President, who keeps the ceremonial relics of the Time Lords, and the Chancellor, who appears to be the administrative leader of the Cardinals and who acts as a check on the power of the Lord President. The President is an elected position and on Presidential Resignation Day, the outgoing President usually names his successor, who is then also usually confirmed in a non-contested "election". However, it is still constitutionally possible for another candidate to put themselves forward for the post, as the Doctor did in The Deadly Assassin.^[17] In that story, the Presidency was described as a largely ceremonial role, but in The Invasion of Time^[37] the orders of the office were to be obeyed without question.

The President and Chancellor also sit on the Time Lord High Council, akin to a legislative body, composed variously of Councillors and more senior Cardinals. Also on the High Council is the Castellan of the Chancellory Guard, in charge of the security of the Citadel, whom the Doctor has referred to as the leader of a trumped-up palace guard. According to the constitution, if while in emergency session the other members of the High Council are in unanimous agreement, even the President's orders can be overruled.^[34]

Technology

Paradoxically, although the Time Lords are a scientifically and technologically advanced race, the civilisation is so old that key pieces of their technology have become shrouded in legend and myth. In the spin-off fiction, an edict and general aversion against exploring Gallifrey's past also contributes to this. Accordingly, until the Doctor rediscovers it, the Time Lords do not know the location of the Eye beneath their Capitol. They also treat such ceremonial symbols as the Key and Sash of Rassilon as mere historical curiosities, being unaware of their true function.

TARDISes are characterised not just by their ability to travel in time, but also their dimensionally transcendent nature. A TARDIS's interior spaces exist in a different dimension from its exterior, which is how its interior can be much vaster than its outside dimensions would imply. The Doctor states that transdimensional engineering was a key Time Lord discovery in The Robots of Death.^[46]

Fitting their generally defensive nature, Time Lord weapons technology is rarely seen other than the staser hand weapons used by the Guard within the Capitol. Standard TARDISes do not have any on-board weaponry, although War or Battle TARDISes (armed with "time torpedoes" that freeze their target in time) have appeared in the spin-off media. In the novels, the Eighth Doctor's companion Compassion, a living TARDIS, has enough firepower to annihilate other TARDISes.

One exception to the Time Lords' defensive weaponry is the de-mat gun (or dematerialisation gun), a weapon of mass destruction that removes its target from space-time altogether, as seen in The Invasion of Time.^[37] The de-mat gun was created in Rassilon's time and is a closely guarded secret; the knowledge to create one is kept in the Matrix and is available only to the President. To make sure this knowledge is not abused, the only way to arm a de-mat gun is by means of the Great Key of Rassilon, whose location is only known to the Chancellor. As a means of extreme sanction, the Time Lords have also been known to place whole planets into time-loops, isolating them from the universe in one repeating moment of time.

In the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Ancestor Cell by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole,^[47] the Time Lords are shown to house other weapons of mass destruction in a stable time eddy known as the Slaughterhouse. In the Doctor Who Annual 2006,^[48] a section by Russell T. Davies says that during the Time War, the Time Lords used Bowships (used against the Great Vampires in an ancient war), Black Hole Carriers and N-Forms (war machines first mentioned in the Virgin New Adventures novel Damaged Goods,^[49] written by Davies).

History within the show

Main article: History of the Time Lords

Details of the Time Lords' history within the show are sketchy and as is usual for Doctor Who continuity, fraught with supposition and contradiction. The Time Lords became the masters of time travel when one of their number, the scientist Omega created an energy source to power their experiments in time.^[18] To this end, Omega used a stellar manipulation device, the Hand of Omega, to rework a nearby star into a new form to serve that source.^[38] Unfortunately, the star flared, first into a supernova, and then collapsed into a black hole. Omega was thought killed in that explosion but unknown to everyone, had somehow survived in an antimatter universe beyond the black hole's singularity. Rassilon, the ultimate founder of Time Lord society, then took a singularity (assumed by fans and the spin-off media to be the same one as Omega's) and placed it beneath the Time Lords' citadel on Gallifrey. This perfectly balanced Eye of Harmony then served as the power source for their civilisation as well as their time machines.^[17] In The Satan Pit, the Doctor states that his race "invented black holes", presumably a reference to the singularity created by Omega.

At some point in their history the Time Lords interacted with the civilisation of the planet Minyos, giving them advanced technology. This met with disastrous results, the Minyans destroying themselves in a series of nuclear wars (Underworld^[50]). As a result, the Time Lords apparently adopted an official policy of neutrality and non-interference, acting only as observers save in cases of great injustice.

As of the current series, the Time Lords have apparently all perished at the conclusion of a Time War with the Daleks, leaving the Doctor the sole survivor and the last of his race.

Partial list of Time Lords appearing in Doctor Who

• The Doctor
• Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter. She chose to live with a human on Earth, which has given rise to the debate as to whether she was a Time Lord or "just" a Gallifreyan.
• The Meddling Monk
• The Master
• The Rani^[51][52]
• Romana (full name Romanadvoratrelundar)
• Omega
• Rassilon
• Borusa^{[17][37][27][34]}
• Azmael, whom the Doctor called "the best teacher [he] ever had", living under the pseudonym "Professor Edgeworth"^[53]
• K'anpo Rimpoche, also known as Cho Je^[54]
• Salyavin, also known as Professor Chronotis^[45]
• Morbius^[55]
• The War Chief^[4]
• The Inquisitor^[56]
• The Valeyard^[56]
• Chancellor Goth^[17]
• Chancellor Thalia^[27]
• Chancellor Flavia^[34][57]
• Castellan Spandrell^[17]
• Castellan Kelner^[37]
• The Castellan (unnamed)^[27][34]
• Drax^[33]

Time Lords from spin-off media

• Arguably, John and Gillian, the Doctor's grandchildren from the TV Comic comic strip
• Valentine from Death Comes to Time
• The Minister of Chance from Death Comes to Time
• Casmus from Death Comes to Time
• Tannis from Death Comes to Time
• Iris Wildthyme from various novels, short stories and audio plays
• Irving Braxiatel from the Virgin New Adventures and Bernice Summerfield audio dramas
• The Other from the novel Lungbarrow
• Homunculette from the novel Alien Bodies and The Taking of Planet 5
• Marnal from the novel The Gallifrey Chronicles
• Larna from the novels The Infinity Doctors and The Gallifrey Chronicles
• Ruath from the novel Goth Opera (full name Ruathadvorphrenaltid)
• Savar from the novels Seeing I and The Infinity Doctors
• Serena from the novel World Game (full name Serenadellatrovella)
• Ulysses from the novel The Gallifrey Chronicles (possibly the Doctor's father)
• Vansell from various audio dramas and the novel Divided Loyalties
• Ratisbon from the novel Warmonger
• Saran from the novel Warmonger
• Straxus from the audio drama Human Resources

Footnotes

References

See also

• List of actors who have played the Doctor
• Time War (Doctor Who)

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