Time Lords

The Time Lords are a alien race that feature in Doctor Who.

History

The Time Lords were a powerful time-travelling species that were native to the planet Gallifrey. (Episode: The Time Warrior)

Long ago, an indigenous humanoid civilisation came to develop on the planet where it grew in advancement. During this time, a prominent scientist named Tecteun piloted the first ship into deep space where she sought to explore the universe. Her travels took her many years where on one world she discovered a portal to some unknown realm. By the doorway, she found a lone child by herself and without any adult to care for her. Tecteun decided to adopt the child as her own with the two continuing their journey across space. Eventually, they decided to return to Gallifrey with the child given a place in Shobogan society. On one day, the child accidentally fell off a ledge and seemingly died from the fall. The distraught Tecteun was by her daughter's side when she was shocked to see the child's body reform in a process that was Regeneration. This saw the child come back to life and within a new somewhat older body. Afterwards, Tecteun poured her time into endless study of her daughter to learnt the secrets of Regeneration that took many years. She ultimately came to reverse engineer the process which she tested on herself thus giving herself the power of Regeneration. Tecteun then began to impart this ability on the rest of her people but in an effort to maintain control she limited the number of Regenerations to 12 such attempts. Thus, modern Time Lord society was first born and myths spoke about this being rooted in the legend of the Timeless Child. (Episode: The Timeless Children)

Thousands of years ago, a Gallifreyan solar engineer named Omega was set on the task of detonating a star to be used as a power source that would allow his people mastery over time itself. He succeeded in causing the star to go supernova and was believed killed in the process but in reality he was lost into a black hole of anti-matter where he was forgotten whilst his people used his achievement to become the Time Lords. (Episode: The Three Doctors) According to legend, Rassilon with a great fleet had found the Eye of Harmony in the black void with it being returned to Gallifrey whereupon the people rejoiced at the achievement. (Episode: The Deadly Assassin)

In time, the Time Lords came to hold absolute power for some ten million years. (Episode: The Ultimate Foe) They adopted a strict policy whereby they would only observe the events of the wider universe and never become involved. (Episode: Underworld) Though adopting non-interference, they established the Celestial Intervention Agency to act in the cosmos when deemed necessary. (Episode: The Deadly Assassin) Another secret organization operated by the Time Lords was Division. (Episode: The Timeless Children)

A fugitive Time Lord by the name of the War Chief came upon the civilization of the conquering War Lords where he came to be an advisor to them and helped them construct space-time vessels known as SIDRATs. (Episode: The War Games)

The Time Lords came to face a crisis when their power was drained by Omega forcing them to rely on three incarnations of the Doctor to save them, after which they restored his freedom. (Episode: The Three Doctors)

Finally, the High Council's cover-up of a theft from the Matrix by relocating Earth and subsequent trial of the Doctor for discovering this injustice triggered a revolution on Gallifrey. (Episode: The Ultimate Foe)

The conflict between the Time Lords and the Daleks came to be referred to as the last great Time War. (Episode: Dalek) In desperation, the Time Lords sought to resurrect their greatest criminal namely the Master as they deemed in the perfect warrior to fight in the Time War. (Episode: The Sound of Drums) During the conflict, Rassilon came to return to power and led the Time Lords in the war that ravaged the cosmos. He sought to bring about the Ultimate Sanction to create a rupture which tear the Time Vortex apart allowing the Time Lords to ascend from beings of body to ones of pure consciousness. (Episode: The End of Time)

This resulted in the Siege of Trenzalore, the Doctor spending the next nine centuries defending the Time Lords from the New Dalek Paradigm threatening to cause a new time war. At the behest of Clara Oswald, the Time Lords saved the Doctor from what would have been his thirteenth and final death by granting him a new cycle of regenerations. (Episode: The Time of the Doctor) Within the time-locked Time War, Rassilon in desperation sought a means of escape for the Time Lords in order to prevent their impending destruction. Thus, they decided to manipulate the timeline of the Master and implant within his mind a signal that could be used in conjunction with a White-Point Star as a means of pulling Gallifrey back into the main universe above Earth. This act would have caused the Time War to spill out releasing its horrors into the universe though Rassilon had intended to cause the Time Vortex to rupture and pull apart with the Time Lords ascending into beings of pure consciousness. The process would have made them immune to the effects of time as reality collapsed on itself with this being part of Rassilon's Ultimate Sanction. The Doctor destroyed the signal receiver that anchored Gallifrey to Earth thus sending the planet back into the Time War where it was seemingly destroyed. (Episode: The End of Time)

However, intervention by thirteen incarnations of the Doctor had actually placed the Time Lords in a pocket universe. (Episode: The Day of the Doctor)

Confirming that he'd found the right universe, Rassilon returned Gallifrey to N-Space but moved it to the end of the universe for protection, at the same time locking the Twelfth Doctor in his confession dial to learn about the Hybrid. The Doctor eventually escaped, overthrew Rassilon, and used Time Lord technology to save Clara Oswald before fleeing Gallifrey once more in another stolen TARDIS. (Episode: Hell Bent)

After learning about the truth of the Timeless Child, the Master became unhinged and turned against the Time Lords where he ravaged Gallifrey thus leaving it in ruin. The Time Lords themselves were all killed as a result with their bodies stored for safekeeping by the Master. He came to use them after his alliance with the Cybermen where he had the bodies converted to become a new cybernetic race called the CyberMasters. In an effort to stop them, the Doctor detonated the Death Particle which purged all life on Gallifrey. (Episode: The Timeless Children)

Overview

Biology

The power to regenerate their bodies was one that was artificially distilled into the species with a limit of 12 regenerations given to the Time Lords. Following a regeneration, a Time Lord was able to change into a different ethnic race and gender. (Episode: The Timeless Children) Other Time Lords were able to tell if one of their own had experienced a regeneration and tell their identity despite their change in features. (Episode: The Sound of Drums)

They were noted for possessing at least three brain stems. (Episode: Extremis) They were capable of remarkable brain processing speeds and their nervous system was noted for being hyperconductive. (Episode: Nightmare in Silver) Time Lords were noted to be sensitive to time as they were able to see all that is, all that was, all that ever could be with ordinary races such as humans being driven mad by this power. (Episode: The Parting of the Ways)

Their capacity to regenerate made it incredibly difficult to kill a Time Lord. (Episode: Extremis)

Society

They were described as an immensely civilised race who controlled their environment, lived forever barring accidents and had the secret of space time travel. As a result they hardly ever used their great powers and consented to simply observe and gather knowledge. (Episode: The War Games) The ancient society of the Time Lords was said to be perfect and beautiful to behold as they were considered the oldest as well as mightiest race in the universe. Their homeworld of Gallifrey was called the Shining World of the Seven Systems and was from where they looked down on the galaxies below where they swore to never interfere but watch. (Episode: The Sound of Drums) It was known that they stamped down on unlicensed use of time travel. (Episode: The Time Warrior)

Children of Gallifrey were taken from their families at the age of eight where they entered into the Academy. Once there, the novices were taken to the initiation ceremony where they stared into gaps in the fabric of reality through which they could see the whole of the Time Vortex with one such tear being the Untempered Schism. (Episode: The Sound of Drums)

According to one account, a Time Lord was supposed to face death by meditation: repentance, acceptance and contemplation of the absolute (Episode: The Magician's Apprentice)

Once they had died, a Time Lord's mind and experiences were usually uploaded to the Matrix on Gallifrey. (Episode: The Deadly Assassin)

A leading body within their society was known as the High Council that consisted of a number of High Councillors. (Episode: The Deadly Assassin) The leader of the Time Lords was an individual who held the title of Lord President. (Episode: The Five Doctors)

Under the constitution, members of the inner council had to be unanimous in their decisions during an emergency session. The relevant clause allowed them to thus overrule the decisions of the President of the Council. (Episode: The Five Doctors) The Time Lords were custodians of the laws of time but in times of desperation they were known to break these rules. (Episode: The Three Doctors)

An agency within their society was the Celestial Intervention Agency (CIA) that was engaged in various operations. (Episode: The Deadly Assassin) A secret body among the Time Lords was the Division who did not officially exist where they intervened in events in other parts of the universe. This was despite Time Lord policy being that they were forbidden to intervene in the affairs of other civilisations. Its operatives went through years of service before having all their memories wiped of their activities. (Episode: The Timeless Children)

One item of importance in their society were small hand-held disc shaped devices known as confession dials. Once activated, the user went through an act of purification whereby they were exposed to their worst nightmares. Such was deemed their final act being the individual had their mind uploaded onto the Matrix. (Episode: The Magician's Apprentice)

Time Lords holding a trial was said to be a very rare event. Judgements could see the guilty facing dematerialisation with them appearing as if they had never existed. (Episode: The War Games)

The solar engineer Omega was considered a revered figure in Time Lord society as being the one who helped in their mastery of time. (Episode: The Three Doctors)

Technology

Their technology could be extended to their art allowing them to make paintings that were bigger on the inside as they were a slice of real time that depicted events. (Episode: Day of the Doctor)

They were known to make use of Validium that was a living metal that was used for defensive purposes and noted for being very dangerous to use. (Episode: Silver Nemesis)

A creation of the Time Lords was the Matrix that was a computer containing Amplified Panatropic Computations as trillions of electrochemical cells operating in a continuous system. These cells operated as a repository of deceased Time Lords whose brain patterns were uploaded through an electrical scan. Its function was to monitor life in the Capitol and use its combined knowledge along with experience to generate a course of action for the Time Lords. (Episode: The Deadly Assassin) These uploaded minds in the Matrix serve as a living computer was able to predict the future, generate prophecies from algorithms and rang the Cloister bells to warn of impending catastrophes. To protect it, it created projections of the dead as Cloister Wraiths or Sliders that operated as guards and a firewall against intrusion. (Episode: Hell Bent)

Prison ships used by the Time Lords utilised the same science as their vessels which meant that these craft appeared as small human sized casings but were much larger on the inside. (Episode: Doomsday)

Time Lord engineering allowed them to rip stars from their orbit and suspend them in a permanent state of decay as the exploding star was trapped in the act of becoming a black hole. (Episode: Journey to the Centre of the Tardis) This was achieved through the use of a stellar manipulator that was able to cause a star to go supernova with this being used as a power source for time travel. (Episode: Remembrance of the Daleks) This was the basis for powering their TARDIS's with an Eye of Harmony located inside to power their operations. (Movie: Doctor Who)

They were capable of generating force fields that could encompass entire planets allowing them to keep entire races trapped on their worlds to serve as prisons in containing them. (Episode: The War Games) The Time Lords were able to use temporal energy to bring different versions of an individual from different parts of the timeline to help in times of crisis. (Episode: The Three Doctors)

Chambers designed to hold items of importance were kept within the Time Vaults. Among them was the Omega Arsenal that contained all the forbidden weapons of the Time Lords who kept them locked away. This included the Moment that was the final work of the ancients of Gallifrey with it being a weapon so powerful that it was referred to as a galaxy eater. Its operating system was noted to had become sentient and legend said that it had developed a conscience. This resulted in the Time Lords locking it away as they feared the use of a weapon that could turn against them. (Episode: Day of the Doctor)

Members

• Tecteun : a female Shobogan who long ago encountered the Timeless Child and reverse engineered the power of Regeneration from her thus paving the way for modern Time Lord society. (Episode: The Timeless Children)
• Rassilon :
• Omega : a solar engineer who helped detonate a star that was used as a power source to master time travel where he became lost in a dimension of anti-matter and came to despise his people for abandoning him to that existence. (Episode: The Three Doctors)
• Borusa :
• Morbius :
• Doctor :
• Master :
• Corsair :
• War Chief : a male member of the Time Lords who decided to leave his race for reasons of his own leading to him being a fugitive that came to be an advisor to the War Lord civilization. (Episode: The War Games)
• Rani :
• Monk :
• Androgar :
• Drax : a renegade Time Lord who was once in the same class as the Doctor but came to depart Gallifrey where he was coerced by the Black Guardian's servant Shadow into creating the Zeos machine Mentallis. (Episode: The Armageddon Factor)

Notes

• The Time Lords were first referenced in the Doctor Who episode "The War Games".

In other media

Novels

• In Damaged Goods, the Time Lords were referenced in the setting of the Virgin New Adventures novel. A device of their civilization known as the N-Forms was shown that were able to attach themselves to objects on a molecular level where they opened dimensional rifts inside to kill their target.

Appearances

• Doctor Who: "The War Games"
• Doctor Who: "The Time Warrior"
• Doctor Who: "The Timeless Children" (2020)

External Links

• Doctor Who Wiki Entry
• Wikipedia Entry on Time Lords

This article is a stub. You can help Multiversal Omnipedia by expanding it.