B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  Rassilon was credited with many scientific achievements: He created the transduction barriers surrounding Gallifrey. These prevented the unauthorised landing of a TARDIS or similar vehicle. A quantum force field also existed as a barrier against more conventional threats. [66] Rassilon introduced the symbiotic nuclei - the Rassilon Imprimature - into the genetic make-up of Time Lords, allowing them to fully travel through Time. [67] Rassilon also discovered the secret of temporal fission. [68]

  Rassilon invented the Demat Gun, a weapon that required the Great Key to function. This weapon was so powerful that the Great Key was hidden from all future Presidents by successive Chancellors. [69] A Time Lord Tribunal could impose the penalty of dematerialisation on other races or individuals, such as the War Lord. [70]

  Rassilon created a servant, but she gained free will and rebelled, killing a few thousand Time Lords. Rassilon thought he’d killed Pariah - as she was now known - but she escaped to Earth in 1879. Subsequently, Rassilon created Shayde, a more loyal servant. [71] A legend said that Rassilon banished the Mimic - a mindless creature that could copy concepts, but had no imagination of its own. It would reappear in sixteenth century London. [72]

  ... of Rassilon

  Rassilon was associated with many relics and concepts, all of which had “stupendous power”. Many were lost, or their true purpose was unknown. [73]

  These included the Sash of Rassilon, the Great Key of Rassilon, Rassilon’s Star (the Eye of Harmony) and the Seal of Rassilon. [74] The Sash of Rassilon could alter the biodata of Time Lord President to allow better access to the Matrix. [75]

  The Seal of Rassilon was also known as the omniscate. [76] The pattern for the Seal of Rassilon scrambled the neurosystems of beings from outside our Universe, such as vampires, to ward them off. [77]

  Other relics and items included the Wisdom of Rassilon, the Rod of Rassilon (“Rassilon’s Rod!” was also a mild Gallifreyan expletive) [78], the Record of Rassilon, the Directive of Rassilon [79], the Tomb or Tower of Rassilon, the Game of Rassilon, the Black Scrolls of Rassilon, the Harp of Rassilon, the Coronet of Rassilon and the Ring of Rassilon. [80]

  The fifth Doctor played “Rassilon’s Lament” on the Harp of Rassilon. [81] Traditional Gallifreyan waltzes were known as the Foxtrots of Rassilon. [82] The Rassilon Imprimature mapped Time Lords on to the Vortex. [83] There was also the Key of Rassilon (not the Great Key, but one which allows access to the Matrix) [84]... the Legacy of Rassilon [85]... the Loom of Rassilon’s Mouse [86], the Horns of Rassilon, also known as the Sign of Rassilon (a magical warding sign) [87]... Rassilon’s Red, Gallifrey’s finest vintage wine [88]... the Runes of Rassilon [89]... and the Equation of Rassilon, which allowed for travel through a time corridor. It “is and isn’t” a scientific formula. [90]

  The Time Lords signed the Pact (or Treaty) of Rassilon with the Sisterhood of Karn, protecting them in return for the Elixir of Life. [91] The Master destroyed TOM-TIT with a Profane Virus of Rassilon, which was designed to prevent Gallifreyan technology falling into alien hands. [92]

  = In an alternate version of Gallifrey, Rassilon became a vampire and turned many of his contemporaries - including Lord Prydon, who then killed him. The transduction barriers were altered so no sunlight would shine on Gallifrey, and an ongoing war broke out between Prydon’s vampires and the “True Lords of Gallifrey” led by Majestrix Borusa. [93]

  = Another alt-Gallifrey never developed time travel because Rassilon used the still-developmental Eye of Harmony to trap the Krillic: 13,007,058,211 ravenous beings of pure thought. [94]

  Rassilon as Ruler

  Rassilon became President of Gallifrey. [95] Rassilon was the first - and to date only - Lord High President. [96] Rassilon was also a legislator. In his time, five principles were laid down. [97] Rassilon’s Five Principles led Gallifrey to a more enlightened social order. [98] History says the Timescoop was destroyed after Rassilon’s Reformation. [99] Gallifrey gave up slavery during the time of Rassilon. [100]

  The Constitution was drafted. Article Seventeen guaranteed the freedom of political candidates. [101] Only a unanimous vote of the High Council could over-rule the President. [102] Thanks to Rassilon, TARDIS databanks contained 18,348 coded emergency instructions. Older TARDISes (Type 40 and older) had a magnetic card system, the Record of Rassilon, which contained emergency instructions regarding the Vampires. [103] The “Rules Governing Time Lords” were probably drafted at this time. [104]

  Article Seven of Gallifreyan Law forbid Time Lords from committing genocide. [105] The death penalty was abolished, except in extreme circumstances such as a threat to Gallifrey or genocide. [106] Time Lords posing as deities in other cultures were guilty of a Class 2 intervention, the penalty for which was vaporisation. Altering the axial rotation of a planet was a Class 1 intervention. [107] Gallifrey outlawed use of “manumitters” - devices that severed the telepathic link between a Time Lord and their TARDIS, but could cause catastrophic damage to space-time if the Ships weren’t fully powered down first. [108] It was “universally” forbidden to keep in captivity a coffin-loader - the ultimate form of scavenger - let alone a whole colony of them. [109]

  The prison planet Shada was set up to house the most dangerous criminals in the universe. A key to the facility was encoded in the pages of Rassilon’s book, The Worshipful and Ancient Law of Gallifrey, which was housed in the Panopticon Archive. [110]

  Rassilon decreed that no Time Lord should travel into Gallifrey’s past. [111] Rassilon’s technology stopped Time Lords from investigating their own futures. [112] Rassilon built the Oubliette of Eternity, which exiled prisoners to the Antiverse. He was known as the Conqueror of Yssgaroth, Overpriest of Drornid, First Earl of Prydon, Patris of the Vortex and Ravager of the Void. [113]

  The Eternal Wars

  “The myths of Gallifrey talk about nameless horrors infesting our universe that were only defeated through the might of the Time Lords.”

  Rassilon’s experiments created holes in the fabric of space-time, which consequently unleashed monsters from another universe. For over a thousand years, across the cosmos, the Ancient Gallifreyans fought the Eternal Wars against the monsters from another universe. These included the Vampires and the Yssgaroth. The great general Kopyion Liall a Mahajetsu was said to have died during this time, but he’d secretly survived. The Matrix contained no record of this war. When Rassilon overthrew the Pythia, Gallifrey was cursed with a plague from which only a few survived. Some suggested that Rassilon himself released the virus to wipe out all who knew of his mistake - they further claim that Rassilon deliberately sealed Omega in his black hole. [114]

  When Rassilon was young, a Vampire army swarmed across the universe. Each Vampire could suck the life out of an entire planet.

  “Energy weapons were useless, because the monsters absorbed and transmuted the energy, using it to become stronger. Therefore, Rassilon ordered the construction of bowships, swift vessels that fired a mighty bolt of steel that transfixed the monsters through the heart - for only if his heart be utterly destroyed will the Vampire die... The Vampire Army: so powerful were the bodies of these great creatures, and so fiercely did they cling to life, that they were impossible to kill, save by the use of bowships. Yet slain they all were, and to the last one, by the Lords of Time - the Lords of Time destroying them utterly. However, when the bodies were counted, the King Vampire, mightiest and most malevolent of all, had vanished, even to his shadow, from Time and Space. Hence it is the directive of Rassilon that any Time Lord who comes upon this enemy of our people and of all living things shall use all his efforts to destroy him, even at the cost of his own life...”

  This war was so long and so bloody, that afterwards the Time Lords renounced violence forever. [115]

  Members of the Prydonian and Arcalian chapters crewed the bowships. N-forms were developed to fight vampires by the Patrexes Chapter. N-forms existed in pocket universes and could quickly extrude a vast killing machine onto planets infected by vampirism. Th
ey were programmed to kill all life on planets where vampires were detected. [116]

  Warships were built to act as carriers for the bowships. [117] A marginal illustration in one book of legends showed a bat overcoming an owl. The owl was a traditional symbol of Rassilon; the bat of the Vampires. Some Gallifreyan heretics to this day worship Rassilon the Vampire, believing the Great Vampire bit Rassilon, and that Rassilon himself became a vampire towards the end of his life. [118] When the Time Lords were in their infancy, they defeated the Baobhan Sith - a race with parasitic DNA and a hunger for blood - but only after the Sith feasted upon some of their number. [119]

  A powerful rival race would have evolved after the Time Lords, but Rassilon trapped them in a moebius loop. They became known as the Divergents. [120]

  Four of the outer worlds built temples to honour Rassilon in his own time. [121] Rassilon discovered the secret of perpetual regeneration - “timeless, perpetual bodily regeneration, true immortality” - but knew that only the power-mad would attempt such a thing. Rassilon prevented at least four such Time Lords from discovering the secret of true immortality. [122]

  The Time Lords used to worry because time moved at different speeds in different parts of the galaxy, and ripples from the centre of the galaxy affected the past. When all was well, the universe was effectively immortal as it constantly regenerated itself. The Time Lords understood this, and from this learned to regenerate themselves. [123] Regeneration was a function of a Time Lord’s tri-strand DNA, and its nucleo-lingua symbiotica. [124]

  The Neverpeople - a group of exiled Time Lord criminals - falsified legends which stated that Rassilon fought and prevailed against the destroyer Zagreus in the Antiverse, but was entombed in a Zero Cabinet. This was part of the Neverpeople’s plan to lure Time Lords into the Antiverse and facilitate their escape. [125]

  Rassilon’s consciousness survived within the Matrix, from which he was able to watch over the whole of time and space. He was one of three Matrix Lords, along with Morvane and Bedevere. All three were Higher Evolutionaries. [126] Upon his death, Rassilon was entombed in the Dark Tower, where he remains to this day in eternal sleep. Legends state that anyone who reaches the Tower and takes the Ring of Rassilon will gain immortality. Gallifreyan children were familiar with the story and learned a nursery rhyme:

  “Those to Rassilon’s Tower Would Go... Must choose: Above, Between, Below.” [127]

  There were six vast statues in the Panopticon. These honoured the Founders of Gallifrey. Omega’s statue was in the southern corner, Rassilon was opposite. Another was that of Apeiron (who wore combat boots). There was a nursery riddle that, when solved, revealled the identity of all six... although the Doctor couldn’t remember all of it:

  “Neath Panopticon dome Rassilon faces Omega... But who is the other?... brother.” [128]

  The six statues represented the six Gallifreyan Colleges. [129] While both Rassilon and Omega were virtually canonised, if not deified, there were no further records of the Other in any of the histories. Speculation said that he left Gallifrey altogether. Legend said that he grew weary of being an all-powerful player at the chess game of the Universe. Instead, he longed to be a pawn on the board in the thick of the action. [130]

  The Ancient Texts

  The Book of the Old Time was the official version of Rassilon’s achievements, and a modern transgram had been made of it. [131] The Black Scrolls of Rassilon contained a forbidden account of the same period, including the secrets of Rassilon’s power. [132] There were many R.O.O. texts (those dealing with legends of Rassilon, Omega and the Other). [133]

  The Red Book of Gallifrey concerned the Dark Time and talked of Rassilon the Ravager, Omega the Fallen and the Other. It also contained magical incantations. [134] The Green and Black Books of Gallifrey discussed legends of the future, including the Timewyrm. [135] There was a book called The Triumphs of Rassilon. [136]

  There were records known as The Other Scrolls. [137] There was a prophecy that the Time Lord who found the lost scrolls of Rassilon will lead Gallifrey from darkness. [138] One book, bound in reptile skin and with an embossed omniscate on the cover, survived until the end of the universe. It contained one last prophecy, which terrified the Doctor when he read it. [139]

  Between the Ancient and Modern

  The Time Wars were fought in the generation after Rassilon. The Tomb of the Uncertain Soldier in the Capitol honours a Gallifreyan who died during the Time Wars, cancelling out his own timeline for the greater good of Gallifrey. The Time Lords’ Oldharbour Clock is the only surviving relic from an alternate universe wiped out in the Time Wars. Unknown to anyone, the clockwork figures had evolved into the most intelligent beings on the planet. [140] The Doctor said he witnessed Gallifrey’s Time Wars first-hand, although the Time Lords wiped the wars from their history books. [141]

  Omegon was a Time Lord who created the system that gave the Time Lords time travel, and harnessed the power of a thousand suns for them. They made him Emperor, then plotted to destroy him and exiled him into a bubble in time. From there, he plotted his revenge. [142] The Pyralis, energy beings who mimicked other races, swarmed throughout Kasterborous and were defeated after a century-long war. They were imprisoned within a temporal void for millennia, but their obelisk-shaped dimensional gateways remained dormant on some worlds. [143]

  The Time Lords time-looped the Fifth Planet, home of the Fendahl, twelve million years ago. [144] When the Gallifreyans were new to space/time exploration, they discovered the inhabited world of Minyos and were worshipped by the population there. In return, they gave technology to the Minyans. [145]

  The Time Lords used their great powers to help the people of Micen Island, in Orion. This led to chemical and biological warfare on the planet. The Time Lords renounced interference, erecting the Temple of the Fourth as a monument. A small number of Time Lords, though, felt the need to atone for past sins, and covertly intervened in the universe’s affairs. [146]

  Because of their great powers, and their tendency to lead to corruption, Time Lords were discouraged from emotion and affection. They were trained with a series of tests, including a journey to Anima Persis. They were mentored by older Time Lords, but the final judgement on whether an individual can be a Time Lord (and the punishment of any Time Lords who misuse their power) was handled by the mysterious Kingmaker, an ancient crone. [147]

  Time Lords appear to have possessed mental blocks that prevented their interfering in history. However, if one of these blocks was broken, the others soon shattered. [148] Three centuries after Rassilon’s death, Rassilon’s Rampart was built to defend against the lawless Shobogans. [149]

  It took fifty generations for TARDISes to become an acceptable form of travel, and another twenty for them to be used to participate in history. [150] The “living soul” of each TARDIS was an eleventh-dimensional matrix. [151] All TARDISes had a preset circuit - a time-track crossing protocol - that prevented travellers from visiting the same space-time location more than once. Doing so would result in recursion effects of completely unknown and unpredictable consequences. The Daleks didn’t use such a system, meaning they could sometimes overlap their journeys and history. [152]

  Epsilon Delta was a Time Lord from the Ancient Time who gained a double beta in cybernetics. He stole a TARDIS and adopted the name “the President”. He settled in St Matthew’s College, Oxford. [153]

  The shanty township of Low Town sprang up at the base of the Capitol Dome, and was settled by normal Gallifreyans, Outsiders and those seeking a life free of the restrictions of Time Lord society. The Capitol once had a Harbour. [154] A suit of armour belonging to Tegorak gathered dust in one storeroom, as did a giant stuffed bird. [155]

  Time Lords dabbled at breaching the higher dimensions, but the Dimensional Ethics Committee banned the work. [156] At some point, the Biblioclasm claimed the Endless Library. The Watch checked every night to prevent such a thing happening again. A quarter of a million years ago, the Time Lords were afflicted wi
th the Blank Plague. The Time Lords fought military campaigns against Rigel, Gosolus and about a dozen other worlds. [157]

  The Time Lords developed the blackstar, a weapon to crack Dyson Spheres. [158] Gallifreyan artifacts included Pandeka’s staff and an artifact associated with Helron. [159]

  “The Stolen TARDIS” [160]

  A Gallifreyan student named Plutar was failed because he wanted to meddle in the affairs of other planets. He was put to work maintaining TARDISes. Meanwhile, a ship landed outside the Time Lords’ city, and the lizard-like Sillarg fooled those present into watching a space circus while he moved to steal a TARDIS. He stole one that Plutar was working inside, but it malfunctioned and took them to the distant past of Gallifrey. Plutar warned the authorities on their return, whereupon Sillag was arrested and his memory of Gallifrey erased. Plutar was asked to reapply to the Academy.

  “Minatorius” [161]

  A young Time Lord visited the planet Minatorius, and died to prevent a reactor there from going critical.

  Gallifrey’s history was spotted with a few presidential assassinations. [162]

  The Matrix

  The Time Lords built the Matrix, a form of computer that could - amongst other things - store the minds of dead Time Lords. [163] When the Matrix was young, it began to break down as thousands of Time Lord minds resented their deaths. The Time Lords cleaned the Matrix by isolating its dark part: the Dark Matrix. It was caged and forgotten about beneath the Citadel, sealed with a great key held by the Keeper of the Matrix. [164]