Time Lord

This article is about the civilisation from Doctor Who. For other uses, see Time Lord (disambiguation).

Template:Doctorwhorace The Time Lords are an ancient extraterrestrial race and civilization of humanoids in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' eponymous protagonist, the Doctor, is a member. Time Lords receive their name for their non-linear perception of time, which allows them to see everything that was, is, or could be at the same time, as shown in the 1996 movie Doctor Who. They developed a culture of custodianship and time-related technologies based on this perception which includes strictly-controlled time travel machines (known as "TARDISes") and monitoring devices to travel through time and to prevent time from being subverted or abused – although actual action was described as rare in practice due to their traditional policy of strict non-interference and neutrality. They can act to manipulate timelines of a wide range of events and individuals, so long as they do not cross back into their own timeline.

Originally they were described as a powerful and wise race from the planet Gallifrey, from which the Doctor was a renegade; details beyond this were very limited for the first decade of the series. They later became integral to many episodes and stories as their role in the fictional universe developed. Over subsequent episodes their history, their development of time manipulation, and their internal politics were touched upon, with Time Lord society portrayed as a stagnated ceremony-bound oligarchy and their past having descended into myth and legend. The Doctor became at times an ally, being appointed their president during his fourth incarnation and assisting them on many occasions. After the series was resumed in 2005, the Time Lords were presented as no longer existing, having been destroyed by the Doctor at some intervening point during the Last Great Time War in which they became corrupted and willing to sacrifice the entirety of time and space to save themselves. The Time Lords made a subsequent appearance as a race in 2010 when they schemed to escape the resulting time lock and resume their plan, as well as in the appearance of individuals such as the Master, and at times, inadvertent human-time lord hybrids.

A female time lord may be described either as a Time Lord or Time Lady.

Overview

At the start of the series, the Doctor was identified only as an alien; his home planet and race were not identified. After six years, in The War Games, other aliens from his world appeared and were known as the Time Lords, and it was a further five years before the name of his home planet (Gallifrey) was revealed in The Time Warrior. The nature and history of the Time Lords were gradually revealed as the television series progressed.

The Time Lords are considered one of the oldest and most technologically powerful races in the Doctor Who universe. The small number of beings that are more powerful than the Time Lords include the (now extinct) Osirans and higher powers of the universe such as the Black and White Guardians, and possibly the Eternals. Additionally, The People from the spin-off novels (which are of uncertain canonicity) had a non-aggression treaty with the Time Lords. In the very distant past, the Time Lords fought a genocidal war against the Great Vampires, which led to such a catastrophic loss of life that the Time Lords renounced violence. However, at some point they also entered conflict with the Racnoss, ultimately driving the race to near-extinction save for the Racnoss' Empress and the inhabitants of one vessel hidden deep within what would become the planet Earth ("The Runaway Bride"). In some spinoff media, the Time Lords are also allied with less developed "Temporal Powers." 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 self-appointed custodians of time developed in the spin-off media, but carried over into the television series; in The War Games the Time Lords return time-displaced humans abducted by the War Lord to their proper time zones on Earth.

In the 2005 television series, Gallifrey has been destroyed and the Time Lords are functionally extinct as a result of a mutually-destructive Time War with the Daleks, with only two Time Lords known to have survived: the Doctor and his nemesis, the Master. The Doctor's cloned "daughter" Jenny may also be considered to be a surviving Time Lord, though in "The Doctor's Daughter" the Doctor initially rejected the suggestion. The fate of a fourth member of the race, Time Lady Romanadvoratrelundar (Romana), a former companion of the Doctor, is unknown, as when the character last appeared in the television series she was residing in a parallel dimension. Two other Time Lord-like beings appeared in the episode "Journey's End": Donna Noble, briefly empowered with the mind and knowledge of a Time Lord, and a half-human clone of the Doctor. Donna's memories related to the Doctor, as well as her Time Lord knowledge, were buried in order to save her life, while the clone is currently living out his existence in a parallel universe with Rose Tyler. There is also the question of whether the Doctor's grand-daughter, Susan, was by nature a true Time Lord. She went off to live with a human, David Campbell, in the 22nd century at the end of "The Dalek Invasion Of Earth." Whether she had survived the Time War or if she was not even a part of it is also unknown.

In "Father's Day" 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", 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, and In "The Satan Pit", he states that his people "practically invented black holes. Well, in fact they did."

The End of Time saw the High Council of Time Lords led by a Time Lord President whom the Doctor named "Rassilon", attempting to escape the Time War by materialising Gallifrey in the place of Earth on Christmas 2009. However, the Doctor destroys the device which allows their passage into the present, sending them back into the events of the Time War.

At the end of "Day of the Moon", a mysterious young girl tells a homeless man that she is dying and then begins to regenerate. The identity of this girl is implied in the episode "A Good Man Goes to War", where it is revealed that the daughter of Amy Pond (Karen Gillan) and Rory Williams (Arthur Darvill), Melody Pond, who later goes by her transliterated name "River Song", has been born with Time Lord-like genetic traits. An old acquaintance of the Doctor's, Vastra (Neve McIntosh) reminds the Doctor that the Time Lord race developed due to their billions of years' exposure to the time vortex. The Doctor then recalls that Rory and Amy had spent their wedding night in the TARDIS; therefore it is theorised that River's conception mirrored that of the Time Lords' genesis and therefore she herself developed Time Lord genetic characteristics.

During the episode "The Doctor's Wife" it was revealed that several Time Lords and their TARDISes had been trapped and destroyed by an entity called House who lived in a separate bubble universe.

Physical characteristics

File:Bicardial.jpg

The Binary vascular system of a Time Lord (from "Dalek", 2005).

Time Lords look human (or, as the Eleventh Doctor tells Amy Pond in the The Beast Below, humans "look Time Lord", as Time Lords came first), but differ from them in many respects. Physiological differences from humans include two hearts which normally beat at 170 beats per minute, an internal body temperature of 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit) and a "respiratory bypass system" that allows them to survive strangulation. Time Lords can also survive full exposure to the vacuum of space with no ill effects, though when in a vacuum for an extended period a Time Lord must take a supply of air along, or suffocate. Time Lords also seem to have an increased resilience to higher frequencies of sound, as seen in "The Christmas Invasion" (although this may simply be the excess energy from his recent regeneration, or their hearing range may not go as high as a human's). and "Partners in Crime". If severely injured, Time Lords can go into a healing coma which lowers their body temperature to below freezing. In the serial Destiny of the Daleks, Romana was able to voluntarily stop both of her hearts beating, to fool the Daleks into believing that she was dead. The Doctor also shows a greater tolerance to cold compared to humans in Planet of the Ood and even Romana in The Ribos Operation, and in "42" the Doctor states he is able to survive at absolute zero for a short period of time. In "World War Three", the Doctor is able to shake off an electrocution attempt which is fatal to a number of humans, and appears unaffected by the energy whip wielded by the Sycorax in "The Christmas Invasion". In "Smith and Jones" the Tenth Doctor says that the radiation given off by X-rays pose no real threat to Time Lords, and proceeds to absorb an amount that would be lethal to a human, which he subsequently expels through his foot. Time Lords, or at least the Doctor, can read extremely quickly. The End of Time shows the Doctor as being capable of surviving (for a short period) a massive burst of radiation that would have killed anything else instantly. However, the radiation burst caused enough damage to start a regeneration cycle.

Time Lords are extremely long-lived, routinely counting their ages in terms of centuries; the Doctor claimed in The War Games that Time Lords could live "practically forever, barring accidents." The series has suggested that Time Lords have a different concept of aging than humans. In Pyramids of Mars, the Doctor considers an age of 750 years to be "middle-aged". In "The Stolen Earth", he refers to being a "kid" at 90 years old.

In The Daleks' Master Plan 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. The Fourth Doctor is briefly aged 500 years in The Leisure Hive, leaving him an old man but still active. A similar situation occurred in "The Sound of Drums", where the Master uses specially made technology to age the Tenth Doctor by a century, leaving him in a frail and helpless state. A further application of this technology in the following episode, "Last of the Time Lords", suspends the Doctor's capacity to regenerate, showing the effects of 900 years of life without regeneration.

In The Two Doctors, the Doctor states that the "Rassilon Imprimatur" allows Time Lords to safely travel through time, becoming symbionts with their TARDISes, and that the reason other species are incapable of developing time travel are that they lack the imprimatur. However, he implies later that he was lying about at least some of this information to mislead the Sontarans. At the beginning of The Trial of a Time Lord, the Doctor suggests that a number of elder Time Lords were able to use their combined mental energy to summon his TARDIS against his will.

In The Unicorn and the Wasp, the Tenth Doctor is able to overcome the effects of cyanide by "stimulating the inhibited enzymes into reversal", a process he referred to as going through "detox".

In the episode Cold Blood, the Eleventh Doctor experiences excruciating pain when the Silurian attempts to decontaminate him of surface bacteria. The Doctor states this would kill him, most likely due to the scanners being programmed to 'detox' humans and therefore being unaware of what elements the Doctor requires.

Mental powers

Time Lords can communicate by telepathy, and can link their minds to share information and enhance their powers. In Castrovalva, the Doctor activates the TARDIS' Zero Room mentally. Additionally, both the Doctor and the Master demonstrate significant hypnotic abilities which may be supplemented by their telepathic abilities.

These powers were elaborated upon from 2005. The Doctor is seen using this method to query a cat about the goings-on of the flat in "The Lodger". In "A Good Man Goes to War" and "Closing Time" he is apparently able to even understand babies. In "The Girl in the Fireplace", 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, the Doctor uses a similar method to read the mind of his companion Bernice Summerfield. In The End of Time the Master uses the same technique, allowing the Doctor to hear the drumming sound the Master constantly hears. The Doctor later displays his telepathic communion powers in "Fear Her" and in "The Shakespeare Code", where by using his mind melding technique he is partially able to relieve a man of his mental illness as he traces back through his memories. In "Planet of the Ood", he seems able to temporarily confer some degree of telepathy on his companion Donna Noble, so that she can hear the telepathic song of the Ood. When she is unable to bear the song, the Doctor removes the ability.

In "The Lodger", The Doctor (pressed for time and needing to convey a great deal of information to someone) smashed his forehead into another person's forehead, causing a massive instantaneous transfer of information. He then commented that was just the general background, then repeats the action to transfer further information pertinent to the episode. This seemed to cause him and the person intense physical pain, although unclear as to whether due to the physical pain of impact or the information transfer itself.

The Doctor also contacts the Time Lords by going into a trance and creating an assembling box in The War Games. In The Two Doctors, the Doctor engages in astral projection, but warns that if he is disturbed while doing so, his mind could become severed from his body and he could die. In "Last of the Time Lords", the Doctor telepathically interfaces with a network tapped into the human population who collectively chant his name. The focus of psychic energy granted the Doctor the ability to de-age himself, float through the air, deflect shots from the Master's laser screwdriver, and telekinetically disarm the Master while surrounded in a powerful blue glow.

In addition, Time Lords may be clairvoyant, or have additional time-related senses. In The Time Monster and Invasion of the Dinosaurs 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 both the Fourth Doctor and Romana notice distortions and jumps in time that no one else does. In the 2010 episode "The Lodger", the Doctor is the only one to notice (and remain free of) the time loops caused by the activation of the Time Engine.

In the 2005 series, the Ninth Doctor claims that he can sense the movement of the Earth through space as well as being able to perceive the past and all possible futures. 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. As the Tenth Doctor he repeats this assertion, adding also that he is somehow innately able to sense which events in time are 'fixed' and which are in 'flux'. In the original series episode "Warrior's Gate", Romana is called a 'time-sensitive' by a marauding slaver and, though she seems to deny this, is able to interface with his spaceship in ways that only a 'time-sensitive' is supposed to be able to. In "Utopia" the Doctor states that he finds it difficult to look at Captain Jack Harkness because Jack's existence has become fixed in time and space. The Tenth Doctor also mentions to Donna Noble, in the episode "The Fires of Pompeii", that Time Lords can perceive the past, present, and all possible futures simultaneously, as the Ninth Doctor had earlier told Rose Tyler:

Infused with the power of the time vortex, Rose Tyler: "I can see everything, all that is, all that was, all that ever could be."

The Doctor: "That's what I see, all the time. And doesn't it drive you mad?"

In the Series 4 episode "Journey's End", the Tenth Doctor was shown to use his telepathic abilities to wipe Donna Noble's mind of certain memories, specifically the memories of her travels in the TARDIS and to 'implant' a defence mechanism which is activated in 'The End of Time'. The War Games showed that other Time Lords are also able to erase people's memories, as in that story, Jamie and Zoe's travels with the Doctor were erased from their memory, and the council of Time Lords also put a memory block on the Doctor so he could not pilot the TARDIS. In the Series 5 episode "The Big Bang" the Doctor telepathically left a message in Amy Pond's head before sealing her into the Pandorica so that she would know what was happening when she woke up.

Regeneration

Main article: Regeneration (Doctor Who)

The Fourth Doctor regenerates into the Fifth Doctor (from Logopolis, 1981).

Time Lords also have the ability to regenerate their bodies when their current body is mortally wounded. This process results in their body undergoing a transformation, gaining a new physical form.

Regenerations can be traumatic events. In Castrovalva, 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. He comments that there is an excellent polygonal zero room beneath the junior senate block on Gallifrey. The Time Lord's personality also sometimes goes through a period of instability following a regeneration.

It was first stated in The Deadly Assassin that a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times before dying (thirteen incarnations in all). There were exceptions to this rule, however: when the Master reached the end of his regenerative cycle, he took possession of the body of another person to continue living. In "The Five Doctors", the Master was offered a new cycle of regenerations by the High Council to save the Doctor from the Death Zone, which may indicate that there are methods to circumvent the twelve regeneration limit. The Master says in "The Sound of Drums" that the Time Lords "resurrected" him to fight in the Time War, which appears to support this. It was revealed in "The Brain of Morbius" that the Time Lords also use the Elixir of Life in extreme cases, where regeneration is not possible. This may be the reason for additional regeneration cycles being granted. Also, all the Time Lords who fought in the Time War against the Daleks were issued a whole new set of regenerations. Therefore we can assume that The Doctor may have many more regenerations than the alloted twelve that each and every Time Lord possesses anyway.

Also in The Deadly Assassin, several Time Lords including the President are stated to have been "murdered" and are not stated to have regenerated. Although it is possible that all of the Time Lords killed were at the end of their regeneration cycles (somewhat more likely with a retiring President: potentially his reaching the end of his regeneration cycle was the very reason for his retirement), it is also possible that regeneration, regardless of how many regenerations the individual Time Lord has already undergone, is a conditional and non-inevitable phenomenon. This is stated in The End of Time when the Doctor explains to Wilfred Mott that a Time Lord can die before they have a chance to regenerate, in which case they die outright. In "The Deadly Assassin" at least one of the murders was carried out with a 'staser', possibly a weapon designed to both kill and prevent regeneration (stasers are also stated to have little effect on non-living tissue). Some victims, such as Runcible, were possibly "just Gallifreyans" and not Time Lords (see above), and so may not have had the ability to regenerate. In the season 4 episode "Turn Left", the Tenth Doctor's body is shown on a stretcher following the parallel events of "The Runaway Bride". A UNIT officer states that the Doctor's death must have been too quick to allow for regeneration.

In "Destiny of the Daleks", Romana showed the ability to rapidly change form several times in a row during her first regeneration, and apparently had the ability to change into whatever appearance she desired. When the Doctor remarks upon her ability, she comments that he should have stayed in university. However, despite showing several appearances, Romana regenerated only once on that occasion.

In "Utopia", the Master, just before regeneration, claimed that he would become "young and strong", implying that he could choose the form of his new body. However regenerations generally result in younger physical forms so this may just be coincidence.

Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear:

• In "The War Games", the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they first meet.
• In "Planet of the Spiders", the Third Doctor has trouble recognising his former mentor.
• In "The Deadly Assassin", Announcer Runcible, an old classmate, recognises the Fourth Doctor despite his changes in appearance and mentions that the Doctor appears to have had a "face lift" since they last met.
• In "The Armageddon Factor", Drax, another alumnus immediately recognises the Fourth Doctor, though the Doctor does not recognise him.
• In "The Five Doctors", the Third Doctor is unable to initially recognise the Master in his non-Gallifreyan body.
• In "The Twin Dilemma", the Doctor's old friend Azmael fails to recognise him, as the Doctor has regenerated twice since their last encounter.
• In "Survival", The Master recognises the Seventh Doctor on sight, although this may simply point to an earlier, unseen encounter.
• In the 1996 television movie, the Eighth Doctor is unable to recognise the Master while he possesses a human body.
• In "Utopia", the Tenth Doctor does not recognise the human form of the Master, although the Doctor did recognise him, and name him "Master", as soon as he recovered his Time Lord physiology and mind.
• In "The Sound of Drums", the Doctor states that Time Lords can "always" recognise each other, although, while on Earth, the Master used satellites with a telepathic network to mask his presence from the Doctor. The Doctor in this circumstance appears to only be referring to recognition of the individual as a Time Lord, not necessarily the specific identity.
• In "Time Crash", the Fifth Doctor could not instinctively recognise that the Tenth Doctor was a Time Lord, much less one of his own later incarnations.
• In "The Next Doctor", the Doctor initially seems unable to detect that Jackson Lake is not actually his regenerated future self.
• In "The End of Time", the Doctor recognises an unidentified elderly female Time Lord on sight, and also refers to the lead Time Lord by the name Rassilon (an earlier incarnation of Rassilon had appeared in "The Five Doctors". In the context of the story, however, he may have encountered both during the Time War, though he himself has regenerated since they last saw him.)

In "The Last of the Time Lords", when the Master is fatally wounded, he chooses not to regenerate, essentially committing suicide rather than regenerate and be kept prisoner by the Doctor forever. This again implies that regeneration is not inevitable and can indeed be refused. (However, given the later events of "The End of Time", it cannot be said with certainty that the Master actually refused regeneration, or if his "death" wasn't part of a larger scheme).

In "Turn Left", the Tenth Doctor is killed "too quickly for him to regenerate" in an alternate history where he is killed in his own rampage against the Racnoss without Donna to stop him and ultimately save his life. This death was presumably caused by flooding of the building, which the Doctor was aware of, and would not have happened any more suddenly than the Sixth Doctor's apparent death by trauma in "Time and the Rani" (although spin-off media have suggested that the assault on the TARDIS was not the sole reason for the Doctor's death). In "The Impossible Astronaut" a future version of the Eleventh Doctor is shot, causing him to begin his regeneration cycle. He is shot again before the regeneration completes, causing him to die instantly.

It's a bit dodgy, this process, you never know what you're gonna end up with.

— The Ninth Doctor in "The Parting of the Ways".

In cases of non-fatal injury, Time Lords who have recently regenerated can use left over cellular energy to heal and even regrow severed limbs, as seen in "The Christmas Invasion" where the Tenth Doctor regrows a hand. Also seen in "Journey's End", is the apparent ability to siphon off regeneration energy in order to cancel the effect of changing appearance; which requires them to have a "bio-matching receptacle" (in this case the Doctor's severed hand), which is usually impractical. It remains to be seen whether this technique counts as regenerating fully, and thus losing one of the Time Lord's inherent twelve regeneration allotment.

In "End of Time", the Tenth Doctor was able to postpone his regeneration long enough so that he could travel in time and space to see his past companions for one last time before he regenerated. However, this could have been because the radiation was slowly killing him – as is how radiation poisoning typically occurs in the real world – giving him enough time to say his goodbyes, or maybe Time Lords can temporarily stop their inevitable regeneration.

The Fifth Doctor also showed a similar ability in his final televised story "The Caves Of Androzani". Toward the end of episode 3 he is seen, apparently, fighting off the effects of an impending regeneration so he can return to Androzani Minor to save his companion Peri.

It is also worth noting that Time Lords appear to have the ability to stay conscious for moments after events that would outright kill other lifeforms instantly, giving them the opportunity to regenerate. In "Logopolis", the Fourth Doctor falls hundreds of feet to the ground, yet is still conscious and able to talk to his companions when they find him minutes later before he regenerates. In "The Caves of Androzani", the Fifth Doctor remains conscious throughout the entire course of his (eventually fatal) spectrox toxaemia, while his human companion Peri loses consciousness as the disease worsens. In "The Stolen Earth" the Tenth Doctor is shot by a Dalek's energy weapon, which has always been shown to instantly kill any other lifeform, yet is still conscious and able to return, with the aid of Rose, Donna and Jack, to the TARDIS in order to regenerate. Of course he was skimmed by the energy shot, while all others were shot in the middle of the back or in the chest, closer to vital organs. The Eleventh Doctor is also shot squarely by a weakened Dalek in "The Big Bang" and severely injured, but he manages to execute his plan to restart the universe nonetheless.

In "Death of the Doctor" (a 2010 The Sarah Jane Adventures serial), the Eleventh Doctor responds to a question from Clyde Langer by saying he can regenerate "507" times. Early news reports, before the episode was broadcast, suggested he would say there is no limit to the number of regenerations. Writer Russell T Davies explained in an interview with SFX that the line was not intended to be taken seriously and is instead a commentary. He insisted that the "thirteen lives" rule was too deeply entrenched in the viewer consciousness for his throwaway line to affect it.

Culture and society

The Time Lord homeworld, Gallifrey, is an Earth-like planet in the fictional constellation of Kasterborous. Its capital city is 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 technologically advanced communities, shunning life in the cities. The Outsiders have often been equated with the "Shobogans", a group mentioned briefly in The Deadly Assassin as being responsible for acts of vandalism around the Panopticon, but there is actually nothing on screen that explicitly connects the two.

It is implied (in The Invasion of Time and The Deadly Assassin) 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; in the episode "The Sound of Drums" The Doctor talks of 'children of Gallifrey' which implies that children are Gallifreyan before they are Time Lords. Although this is still unclear as in "Journey's End" the Daleks call the Doctor "the last child of Gallifrey" and in The "End of Time" a Time Lord on the high council states that a prophecy referring to the Doctor and the Master "speaks of two children of Gallifrey". Romana and the Doctor have also referred to "Time Tots", or infant Time Lords, and (in "Smith and Jones") the Doctor refers his compatriots and he playing "with Röntgen bricks in the nursery". In "The Sound of Drums", the Master is seen as a child, apparently at the age of 8.

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" and have an "infinite capacity for pretension". 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. Sutekh the Osiran decries them as "ever a perfidious species," while Brother Lassar, in the episode "School Reunion", 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. The Doctor states that the Time Lords were sworn never to interfere, only to watch ("The Sound of Drums"). 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); in "Earthshock", the Cyberleader, when notified of the arrival of a TARDIS, is surprised at the presence of a Time Lord, stating "they are forbidden to interfere". In "The Two Doctors", it is suggested that Time Lords are responsible for maintaining a general balance of power between the races of the Universe.

While interference is apparently against Time Lord policy, there are occasions when they do intervene, albeit indirectly through their CIA or Celestial Intervention Agency. The CIA has occasionally sent the Doctor on missions that required plausible deniability, as in "The Two Doctors", and sometimes against his will, Colony in Space and The Monster of Peladon. 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" even involves changing history to avert the creation of the Daleks, or at least temper their aggressiveness.

Children of Gallifrey are taken from their families at the age of 8 and admitted into the Academy. Novices are then taken to an initiation ceremony before the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality that looks into the time vortex. Of those that stare into it, some are inspired, some run away and others go mad. The Doctor suggests that the Master went mad, while admitting that he ran away.

Each Time Lord 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. In "The Deadly Assassin", it is explained that each chapter has its own colours; the Prydonians wear scarlet and orange, the Arcalians wear green, and the Patrexeans wear heliotrope. However, in that same serial, Cardinal Borusa, described as "the leader of the Prydonian chapter", wears heliotrope. Other Prydonians wear orange headdresses with orange-brown (not scarlet) robes. Other chapters 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. Also mentioned in the Deadly Assassin are 'plebeian classes'.

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; on Presidential Resignation Day, the outgoing President usually names his successor, who is then usually confirmed in a non-contested "election", but it is still constitutionally possible for another candidate to put themselves forward for the post, as the Doctor did in "The Deadly Assassin". In that story, the Presidency was described as a largely ceremonial role, but in "The Invasion of Time" the orders of the office were to be obeyed without question. In the event the current Lord President is unable to name a successor, the council can appoint a President to take his place. In "The Five Doctors", the council appoints the Doctor as president after Borusa is imprisoned by Rassilon, and later deposed him after he neglected his duties.

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, who 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.

Technology

The greatest example of Time Lord technology is the Eye of Harmony, a repurposed black hole singularity contained within the instrumentality below the Panopticon. Created by the founders of Time Lord society in the distant past, this is the source of their power and the anchor of the Web of Time itself.

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 Master rediscovers it, the Time Lords forgot that the location of the Eye of Harmony is beneath their capital. They also treated 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, allowing it to appear to be bigger on the inside. The Doctor states that transdimensional engineering was a key Time Lord discovery in "The Robots of Death". In the revived series, the TARDIS has an organic look, and the Doctor states in "The Impossible Planet" that TARDISes are grown, not made.

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. Stasers (possibly a portmanteau of stunner and laser, as they are used to stun targets) can be lethal energy weapons, specifically designed to prevent the unwanted regeneration of rogue Time Lords; staser beams also shatter the crystalline structure of non-organic targets.

Standard TARDISes do not generally seem to use 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. In the serial "Castrovalva" the Master's TARDIS is equipped with an energy field that he uses to temporarily disable or stun several human security guards outside the vessel, although it is unclear whether this is an original feature of the craft or a custom feature fitted by the renegade Time Lord.

One exception to the Time Lords' defensive weaponry is the de-mat gun (or dematerialisation gun). The de-mat gun is a weapon of mass destruction that removes its target from space-time altogether, as seen in "The Invasion of Time". 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 as well as hurling planets from one galaxy to another using a weapon referred only as a magnetron in the episodes "Trial of a Time Lord" and "Journey's End".

In the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel "The Ancestor Cell" by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole, 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, 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", written by Davies).

In "The End of Time", the Lord President is shown wearing a gauntlet with several powers, primarily the ability to disintegrate a target and the ability to reverse/revert changes made to the human race by the Master. Physically this resembles the Resurrection Gauntlet from Torchwood and Davros' gauntlet from the Series 4 finale, but this may be coincidental.

History

Main article: History of the Time Lords

The Dark Tower in the Death Zone on Gallifrey

Details of the Time Lords' history within the show are sketchy and are 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. 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. 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 anti-matter 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. In "The Satan Pit", the Doctor states that his race "practically invented black holes. In fact, we did", 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 (including the ability to "regenerate" to a limited degree, by rejuvenating their bodies when they grow too old). This met with disastrous results, (which is said by some to be the reason the Time Lords adopted a philosophy of "non-interference"). The Minyans destroyed themselves in a series of nuclear wars ("Underworld").

As of the current series, the Time Lords have, according to the Doctor, all perished at the conclusion of a Time War with the Daleks, leaving the Doctor the sole survivor and the last of his race. It was also revealed by the Beast that the Doctor was responsible for the extinction of both races.

However, there may have been survivors other than the Doctor. The fate of Time Lady Romanadvoratrelundar (Romana) – a one-time companion of the Doctor – is unknown, as in her last appearance in the television series ("Warriors' Gate") she was in the parallel dimension of E-Space. In the episode "Gridlock", the Face of Boe told the Doctor with his dying breath that "you are not alone". In the episode "Utopia" the Doctor learns that the Master survived. The Doctor had failed to sense him because he had used a chameleon arch to turn himself into a human (as the Doctor did in "Human Nature"), while hiding at the end of the Universe. While the Master is commonly presumed to have been the one to whom the Face of Boe referred (the Master's pseudonym was an acronym of the Face of Boe's final message), this also opens a possible plot hook for the similar survival of other Time Lords throughout time and space. The Master is supposed to have died during the events of "Last of the Time Lords"; shortly after having his plans of universal conquest foiled by the Doctor and his companion Martha Jones, the Master was shot by his human wife Lucy Saxon. He chose to repress his ability to regenerate and subsequently died, leaving the Doctor to mourn him and to burn his body on a pyre. However, a short scene at the end of the episode shows a female hand picking the Master's signet ring out of the ashes, while the Master's voice can be heard laughing in the background. The Master returns and plays a significant role in "The End of Time".

In the episode "The Doctor's Daughter", after landing on planet Messaline the Doctor was forced to place his hand inside a progenation machine, which used his DNA to create a new soldier, to fight in the war taking place. The new female soldier – his daughter, Jenny, possesses the DNA of a Time Lord. While the Doctor argues that a Time Lord is more than simply genetics, he is impressed by the superhuman abilities she displays, and intelligence on par with his own. By the end of the episode he becomes more willing to accept her as his daughter and a Time Lord. Donna Noble also gains the mind of a Time Lord or at least part of the Doctor's. After being trapped on the TARDIS as it is about to be destroyed, she is drawn towards the Doctor's hand, which was severed in the 2005 Christmas special and loaded with unused energy from a partial regeneration (see "Journey's End", 2008). Touching the hand triggers the remaining regeneration process, and causes a second Doctor to be created, one who is part human, borrowing traits from Donna just as she absorbs part of his mind.

"The End of Time" saw their first appearance in character since the series returned. The Time Lords portrayed were the high council of Gallifrey led by a resurrected Rassilon in the final days of the Time War. After hearing a prophecy from the Time Lady 'the Visionary' that the final day of the Time War would see the end of the Time Lord race barring two survivors, the Doctor and the Master, Rassilon devised a method to escape the Time Lock and materialise Gallifrey outside the Time War. He had the drum beat in the Master's head implanted in the past as part of a link between the Time Lords and Earth, and sent a White Point Star, a flawless uncut diamond found only on Gallifrey, to Earth in 2010 to be retrieved by the Master, and used in a machine to open a pathway for the Time Lords and Gallifrey to materialise. Rassilon states his intention is to bring about the end of time so the Time Lords can transcend to a noncoporeal state. As Gallifrey approaches Earth, the Doctor destroys the device, sending Gallifrey and the Time Lords back into the events of the Time War and leaving the fate of the Master unclear.

Partial list of Time Lords appearing in Doctor Who

• The Doctor
• Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter. She was the original Doctor Who companion and left the Doctor to remain on Earth.
• Jenny, the Doctor's partial clone and pseudo-"daughter", created by a machine that extracted the Doctor's DNA. She was killed and the Doctor mistakenly believed she did not regenerate or revive.
• The Meddling Monk
• The Master
• The Rani
• Romana (full name Romanadvoratrelundar)
• Omega
• Rassilon
• Borusa
• Runcible "the Fatuous"
• Rodan
• Nesbin – "The Invasion of Time"
• Presta – "The Invasion of Time"
• Azmael, whom the Doctor called "the best teacher [he] ever had", living under the pseudonym "Professor Edgeworth"
• K'anpo Rimpoche, also known as Cho Je, a hermit from the Doctor's childhood.
• Salyavin, also known as Professor Chronotis
• Morbius
• The War Chief
• The Inquisitor
• The Valeyard
• Chancellor Goth
• Chancellor Thalia
• Chancellor Flavia
• Councillor Hedin
• Castellan Spandrell
• Castellan Kelner
• Cardinal Zorac
• Co-Ordinator Engin
• Time Lord President – Assassinated in The Deadly Assassin
• Unnamed Time Lord Chancellor – The Three Doctors, The War Games
• Unnamed Time Lord President – The Three Doctors
• Unnamed Time Lord – Genesis of the Daleks
• The Castellan
• Drax
• Andred, Commander in "The Invasion of Time"
• Lord Gomer
• Maxil, Commander in "Arc of Infinity"
• Damon
• Hilred, Commander in "The Deadly Assassin"
• Unnamed Time Lords appearing in The End of Time:
  • The Woman
  • The Visionary
  • The Second
  • The Partisan
• The Doctor's companion, Donna, became part Time Lord after touching the Doctor's severed hand, which had regenerative energy locked within it.
• The Corsair, a Time Lord much admired by the Doctor. Stated to have regenerated as both male and female in the episode "The Doctor's Wife".
• Melody Pond, Amy and Rory's daughter, was conceived in the Doctor's TARDIS. Although she has human parents, her DNA was influenced by the Time Vortex and therefore has both human and Time Lord DNA.
• There is also a copy of the Doctor created when Donna touched the spare hand, but he is trapped in another universe with Rose Tyler for committing genocide.

Time Lords from spin-off media

• John and Gillian, the Doctor's grandchildren from the TV Comic comic strip
• Anzor from Mission to Magnus
• Ruath from the novel Goth Opera (full name Ruathadvorphrenaltid)
• Irving Braxiatel from the Virgin New Adventures and Bernice Summerfield audio dramas
• The Other from the novels Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible and Lungbarrow
• Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu from the novel The Pit
• Homunculette from the novels Alien Bodies and The Taking of Planet 5
• Savar from the novels Seeing I and The Infinity Doctors
• Iris Wildthyme from various novels, short stories and audio plays
• Larna from the novels The Infinity Doctors and The Gallifrey Chronicles
• The Magician from the Companions of Doctor Who novel Turlough and the Earthlink Dilemma.
• Valentine from Death Comes to Time
• The Minister of Chance from Death Comes to Time
• Casmus from Death Comes to Time
• General Tannis from Death Comes to Time
• Ratisbon from the novel Warmonger
• Saran from the novel Warmonger
• Serena from the novel World Game (full name Serenadellatrovella)
• CIA Coordinator Vansell from the audios The Sirens of Time, The Apocalypse Element, Neverland, the Doctor Who Unbound audio He Jests at Scars... and the novel Divided Loyalties (full name Sevansellostophossius)
• Marnal from the novel The Gallifrey Chronicles
• Ulysses from the novel The Gallifrey Chronicles (possibly the Doctor's father)
• Maven from the audio Omega
• Louis in Unregenerate!
• CIA Coordinator Harom from the single episode audio Urban Myths
• Cardinal Zero from the single episode audio story Circular Time: Spring – a similarly titled Time Lord (Zeuro) appears in the Doctor Who Unbound audio A Storm of Angels (although it is not established whether these are meant to be alternate versions of the same person)
• Straxus from the audio dramas Human Resources, Sisters of the Flame/Vengeance of Morbius and the Bernice Summerfield audio drama The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel
• Lucy Adams from the single episode audio story Forty Five: False Gods
• Muldwych from the novel Birthright – a possible exile who had his TARDIS taken away (it is strongly implied in Birthright and Happy Endings that Muldwych is a future incarnation of the Doctor)
• CIA Coordinator Narvin from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Liaison Officer Hossak from Gallifrey: Square One
• Commander Torvald from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Imperiatrix Pandora from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Castellan Wynter from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• The Archivist from Gallifrey: The Inquiry and Gallifrey: Lies
• Commander Hallan from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Cardinal/Chancellor Valyes from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Commentator Antimon from Gallifrey: Imperiatrix
• Lord/Cardinal/President Matthias from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Medic/Surgeon-Master Elbon from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Captain/Castellan Annos from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Captain/Commander Janartis from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Commentator Gerber from Gallifrey: Fractures
• Captain Henzil from the Gallifrey spin-off audio series
• Lord Delox from Gallifrey: Appropriation
• Captain/Commander Raldeth from The Sirens of Time, The Apocalypse Element and Gallifrey: Appropriation
• Guardsman Robersuun from Gallifrey: Mindbomb

See also

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

References

• Parkin, Lance (2006). Additional material by Lars Pearson. (ed.). AHistory: An Unauthorised History of the Doctor Who Universe. Des Moines: Mad Norwegian Press. ISBN 0-9725959-9-6.

External links

• Time Lord on Tardis Wiki, the Doctor Who Wiki