“Faction Paradox doesn’t do things for the sake of power, or out of any inherent sense of sadism. It seems to do them because it wants to make a point. Because the universe would be lacking if nobody did it. Because, quite simply, it’s a carnival. And even the very word ‘carnival’, with its overtones of death, flesh and pointless ceremony, would on [the Homeworld] suggest something so disgusting that only the outcaste would consider it.” [446]
The Elysians were a secret society on Gallifrey run by a man called Luther. They rejected the traditional houses, were sick of the non-intervention code, and styled themselves as “the Final Chapter”. They planned to capture Gallifrey in a coup using unregistered clones. The first was the son of Uriel, named Xanti. Uriel, Xanti’s father, volunteered for incarceration in a mental asylum: the Quantum of Solace. [447]
The Deadly Assassin
“Through the millennia, the Time Lords of Gallifrey led a life of peace and ordered calm, protected against all threats from lesser civilisations by their great power. But this was to change. Suddenly and terribly, the Time Lords faced the most dangerous crisis in their long history...”
The fourth Doctor received a telepathic message, warning him that the President was going to be assassinated. He returned to his home planet, only to find himself implicated in the assassination. The President had been due to resign anyway after centuries in office, and the murder appeared motiveless.
The Doctor’s old enemy, the Master, had lured him back to frame him for the murder. The Master had exhausted his regenerations, and had been found by Chancellor Goth on the planet Tersurus. Goth had been favoured to succeed the outgoing President, but he had discovered that another was to be nominated instead. In return for Goth’s help, the Master killed the incumbent President.
The Master wanted full access to various items such as the Sash of Rassilon, as he needed to find a way to prolong his life. He discovered that he might regenerate again if he had a powerful enough source of energy - the Master selected the Eye of Harmony. He believed the Sash would protect him if he unleashed the Eye’s power. The Doctor prevented the Master from destroying Gallifrey, but the Master escaped.
Around this time, the Doctor began to learn more about the Time Lords’ ancient past.
“It was a chance encounter with the Book of the Old Time that had first nudged the Doctor’s own thoughts back towards his world’s archae-barbaric past. A suspicion had been born in his mind that before regeneration there had been reincarnation. Some memories might be more than racial inheritance. Nothing lasts that does not change.” [448]
Borusa regenerated at some point between this and the Doctor’s next visit to Gallifrey. [449]
Image of the Fendahl / Underworld
Soon after learning of his planet’s past, the fourth Doctor began to encounter survivors from his race’s ancient history: the Fendahl and the Minyans.
The Invasion of Time
The fourth Doctor was contacted by the Vardans, a race capable of travelling down energy waves, including thought. The Vardans had infiltrated the Matrix, and now wanted to commence a physical invasion of Gallifrey. The Doctor pretended to collaborate with the Vardans and claimed the Presidency of Gallifrey. He then returned the Vardan invasion force to their home planet and time-looped it. The Sontarans had been manipulating the Vardans all along, and attempted to invade Gallifrey themselves. This incursion was also repelled. Leela and K9 elected to stay behind on Gallifrey.
The Doctor was the 407th President. [450] During his short tenure, his biodata was altered by contact with the Sash of Rassilon. [451] While in the Matrix, the Doctor became aware of the Timewyrm. He sent his future self a warning about it. [452] Romana was not directly affected by the Sontaran invasion. [453]
Leela and Andred, a member of the Chancellery Guard, married soon afterwards, but the Doctor was unable to attend the ceremony. [454] Borusa became President and regenerated once again. [455]
K9 Mark 1 was sent on independent missions in situations classed as too dangerous for Time Lord intervention. [456]
K9 and the Time Trap [457]
K9 met with the Rigellian Fleet Commander to discuss the disappearance of the Rigellian Seventh Fleet. Between galaxies, K9’s spaceship - the K-NEL - was sucked into a time trap, and K9 discovered ten thousand alien ships that had also been caught there, including the Rigellians. Omegon, a figure from early Time Lord history who was exiled here, was amassing the ships to form a warfleet and launch an attack on Gallifrey. K9 sacrificed K-NEL, using it to ram and destroy Omegon and his ship. As a reward, the Rigellians gave K9 K-NEL Mark 2 - the same ship, but with racing stripes.
K9 and the Zeta Rescue [458]
K9 had now saved the Time Lords “many times”. He tested the Mark 2 K-NEL, and was sent to investigate massive explosions in the Zeta Four Sector - if Zeta Canri went nova, the whole galaxy would be blown apart. At the heart of the devastation, K9 discovered a prison ship of the Megellan Empire, the sworn enemies of the Time Lords. He rescued Dea, an ambassador from Telios. Nuclear war had wiped out the Telians and Megallans, and K9 and Dea watched the two leaders kill each other in a final duel. The few survivors were given medical treatment.
The Key to Time
The White Guardian picked Romana to aid the fourth Doctor and recover the six segments of the Key to Time. [459]
Romana’s torture by the Shadow broke the conditioning that had made her forget the Imperiatrix Pandora. Fearing that Pandora would manifest through the Imperiatrix Imprimature within her, Romana forced her own regeneration. Her memories of Pandora were again scrambled, and her genetic link to Pandora went dormant. [460]
Luther designed the reconstruction of the Capitol over the hulk of the old, including the Watchtower, over the old Panopticon. [461] The development of fungal brains eluded Gallifrey, as such networks were notoriously unstable. [462]
A schism in College of Cardinals led to a rival President setting himself up on Drornid. The Time Lords ignored them, and they eventually returned home. [463] Drornid was also known as Dronid. [464]
Shada
The fourth Doctor and Romana prevented Skraga of Drornid from using the powers of the Time Lord mind criminal Salyavin to impose himself as the “universal mind”.
With the quest for the Key to Time long-completed, the Time Lords recalled Romana. Before she could return, the TARDIS fell through a CVE into E-Space. [465]
State of Decay
The fourth Doctor, Romana, Adric and K9 destroyed the Great Vampire, who had survived the war with the Time Lords and fled to E-Space.
“The Tides of Time”
The fifth Doctor continued at times to be addressed as “the President” of the Time Lords. He said of Gallifrey, “When my wanderings are over, I will make my home here.”
The Time Lords installed a defence system onboard the TARDIS without telling the Doctor. In an emergency, it would automatically summon Shayde to the ship. [466]
“The Stockbridge Horror”
The fifth Doctor arrived on Gallifrey seconds after Tubal Cain’s missiles froze time in the Capitol. Within the time warp, the Doctor repaired the TARDIS. When the effect wore off, the Doctor was arrested and brought before a secret court for his interference with the timeline. Shayde disposed of evidence pertaining to the case, resulting in the Doctor’s release.
Tubal Cain was demoted to run the Quantum of Solace. [467] It was possible for Time Lords to “transform” into - or otherwise hybridise with - other species during regeneration. [468]
Circular Time: “Spring”
Cardinal Zero was a Prydonian, and a member of the Council of the Great Mother - a group focused upon the politics of regeneration. He was in the running for a High Council seat when he abandoned life on Gallifrey, instead living in a rainforest on an alien world. The Time Lords dispatched the fifth Doctor and Nyssa to talk Zero into returning home, lest his actions damage the time-stream.
The Doctor and Nyssa found Zero living among a race of avian-p
eople; Temporal Projectionists on Gallifrey had foretold that this species would progress from steam to orbital space flight in less than three generations. The avians themselves foretold of a prophet who would “lead them back to the sky”, and Zero arranged his death using a local poison. He theatrically fell into a lake - which was actually his TARDIS - and regenerated inside it into a half-Time Lord, half-avian being. Events compelled the Doctor and Nyssa to leave, and Zero - hailed as the prophet of the avians - set about boosting their development and refining their judicial system along more civilised lines.
Arc of Infinity
Omega had survived, and convinced a member of the High Council, Hedin, that he had been wronged by Gallifrey. With access to a biodata extract, Omega would be able to bond with a Time Lord, re-entering our universe. Hedin chose the fifth Doctor as Omega’s target - when the High Council discovered this, they recalled the Doctor’s TARDIS to Gallifrey (only the third time this had been done in the planet’s history) and lifted the ban on the death penalty. Killing the Doctor, they believed, would break the renegade’s link with our universe. The Doctor survived vaporisation by entering the Matrix, where he discovered Omega’s plan. He tracked Omega to Amsterdam, where the renegade’s new body proved unstable and disintegrated.
Time Lords could potentially live for millennia. [469]
“Blood Invocation”
The fifth Doctor, Tegan and Nyssa responded to an emergency signal from Cardinal Hemal. A Time Lord had been found, drained of blood, and the Doctor realised there were vampires abroad. The Doctor discovered acolytes of the Cult of Rassilon the Vampire and had them rounded up. Meanwhile, Tegan was bitten by a vampire Time Lord who had gained access to the TARDIS. The vampire took the Ship to Earth... but disintegrated because he landed in the daytime.
The Five Doctors [470] / The Five Companions
Borusa regenerated once more. He had become dissatisfied with ruling Gallifrey. Now he wanted “perpetual regeneration”: a secret discovered by Rassilon that allowed true immortality, not simply the vast lifespans granted to other Time Lords. Borusa discovered the ancient Timescoop machinery and restarted the Game of Rassilon, pitting the first, second, third and fifth Doctors and their friends - Susan, the Brigadier, Sarah Jane, Tegan and Turlough - against a selection of old enemies in the Death Zone on Gallifrey.
The fifth Doctor escaped a group of Cybermen by transmatting to the Capitol, but en route was diverted into a pocket dimension containing an alternate Death Zone environment: a collection of fused spacecraft and space stations. More of the Doctor’s friends - Ian Chesterton, Steven Taylor, the incarnated “house” version of Sara Kingdom, Polly Wright and Nyssa - had been transported into the holding dimension, and aided him against foes that included Daleks, dinosaurs and members of the Sontaran Sixth Column. Time Lord technicians sent the Doctor’s friends home, and the Doctor continued on to the Capitol...
Rassilon gave Borusa the immortality he sought, transforming him into a living statue. He also sent the first, second and third Doctors - and their associates - back to their native times. Chancellor Flavia declared the fifth Doctor as President, but he left Gallifrey with Tegan and Turlough before he could take up office, and appointed Flavia to rule in his stead.
The Doctor was the 409th President. [471] Type 57 TARDISes were in operation at this time. [472]
Flavia didn’t chase the Doctor because she wanted the Presidency for herself. Her reign was one of prosperity. [473]
The Time Lords tasked the fifth Doctor with investigating time warps on Earth. [474] The fifth Doctor knew about the Shadow Proclamation, and that the Judoon had a contract with them. [475]
Resurrection of the Daleks
The Daleks planned to assassinate the High Council of the Time Lords using duplicates of the fifth Doctor and his companions, but the Doctor prevented this.
Type 70 TARDISes were better suited than Type 40s to apply brute force and penetrate distortion grids that prevented space-time travel. [476]
The Axis of Insanity
The Axis was an interdimensional nexus akin to a giant tree, whose branches linked to alternate realities that were usually the result of time experiments gone wrong - especially those conducted by the Time Lords. The Axis prevented such errant realities from interfering with the primary timeline.
The scientist Jarra To conducted experiments with a Timescoop that brought dragons - the Firebreed - from the past of her homeworld of Pangorum to the present. Jarra To killed the Time Lord Protok when he attempted to intervene, and although the Time Lords closed off Jarra To’s timeline, she escaped from it into the Axis - where she gained fantastical abilities and adopted multiple guises. As the nihilistic Jester, she killed the Overseer - a multi-faceted being from the dimension of Guardas, whose consciousness stabilised the Axis. This threatened to bring down the barriers separating timelines within the Axis, an act that would have spread madness through the whole of creation. Tog, a native of Pangorum, sacrificed himself to kill Jarra To. The fifth Doctor, Peri and Erimem, relegated Protok’s TARDIS to a pocket dimension that held hundreds of inert TARDISes whose operators were deceased. The Doctor also went to the Grand Prosideum on Guardas to request installation of a new Overseer.
“Urban Myths”
The fifth Doctor cured an outbreak of the Tule-Oz virus on the planet Poiti, but three CIA agents (Commander Edge, Commander Harom and Kettoo) became infected with a benign strain of the germ. The Tule-Oz virus made the agents believe that the Doctor and Peri had devastated Poiti, but the Doctor provided an antidote for the agents and their superior, Inquisitor Auron. At this time, top-secret correspondence was automatically routed via the nearest Type 40 TARDIS to incidents away from Gallifrey.
Attack of the Cybermen
The Cybermen invaded the sixth Doctor’s TARDIS and cut short a signal he sent to the Time Lords asking for help. [477]
Mission to Magnus
The Seven Sisterhoods of Magnus petitioned the Time Lords for permission to incorporate time travel into their conflict with the neighbouring planet of Salvak. Anzor, as an envoy of the High Council, was sent to Magnus in a Type 60 TARDIS. He denied the Sisterhoods’ request on the grounds that, “It is forbidden to alter history. My job is to prevent time tampering, except in the most exceptional circumstances.” The Doctor revenged himself on his school tormentor by sending Anzor and his TARDIS back to the Mesozoic Era.
The Phylesians made immortal temporal phoenix birds fly in time loops, creating quills capable of rewriting time. The Time Lords were thought to have destroyed all such devices, but at least one survived. [478]
New surveillance methods were developed, increasing the range of information that the Matrix could harvest. The Matrix could now record events that occurred within a certain vicinity of a TARDIS. [479]
“The World Shapers”
The Time Lords sent an agent in a new TARDIS to investigate time disturbances on Marinus. That Time Lord died, but the sixth Doctor, Frobisher and Peri arrived and took on the assignment. At its conclusion, a delegation of senior Time Lords met up with the sixth Doctor and offered false assurances that they would nip the creation of the Cybermen in the bud.
The Celestial Intervention Agency worried that the Ravolox Affair would be exposed. They spread rumours that Flavia wasn’t legitimately President, and she ordered an election to settle the matter. The Agency fixed the election, installing their supporter, Niroc. [480]
The Doctor’s Second Trial
The Trial of a Time Lord / The Ultimate Foe
The sixth Doctor discovered that the planet Ravolox was in fact the Earth in the far future, but he didn’t know what had moved the planet two light years or, more importantly, why. Despite this, the High Council became worried that the Doctor knew too much, and they brought him to a vast space station. The Doctor at first learned that he was to undergo an impartial enquiry into his activities. He also learnt that as he had neglected his duties, he had been deposed from the Presidency.
&n
bsp; The prosecuting council, named the Valeyard, successfully argued that the Doctor was guilty of interference on a grand scale, and the enquiry became a trial. It was revealled that the Doctor’s actions on Thoros Beta had threatened the course of universal evolution. The Time Lords intervened directly, killing the scientist Crozier, the Mentor Kiv and possibly the Doctor’s companion Peri. When the Doctor’s own evidence proved that on another occasion he had committed genocide - wiping out the Vervoids to save the Earth - he faced a death sentence.
The Doctor claimed that the Matrix was being tampered with. The Keeper of the Matrix was brought in as an expert witness, but the Master suddenly appeared on the Matrix screen, demonstrating that it was indeed possible to breach the security of the Time Lords’ master computer. The Master explained that Andromedans had previously entered the Matrix from their base on Earth and stolen valuable scientific secrets. To protect their position, the High Council had covertly ordered Earth’s destruction.
The Master’s greatest bombshell was the identity of the prosecuting council: the Valeyard was an amalgamation of all that was evil in the Doctor, somewhere between his twelfth and final incarnation. [481] The Master had encountered the Valeyard before, and knew that the High Council had brought him in to frame the Doctor, in return for which the Valeyard would gain the Doctor’s remaining regenerations.
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