Time Lord
The Time Lords are a fictional ancient race of extraterrestrial people in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' main protagonist, the Doctor, is a member. Time Lords are so named for their command of time travel technology and their non-linear perception of time.[1][2] 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 universe developed. For the first eight years after the series resumed in 2005, the Time Lords were said to have been destroyed during the Last Great Time War at some point in the show's continuity between the television movie in 1996 and the show's revival. In 2013, the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor" concerned this supposed destruction and their eventual survival.
This article is about the species from Doctor Who. For other uses, see Time Lord (disambiguation).Time Lords
They developed a culture of custodianship and time-related technologies based on this perception which includes strictly controlled space/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. 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, fifth, and twelfth incarnations and assisting them on many other occasions.
Creation[edit]
In an audio commentary recorded for the 2009 DVD release of The War Games (1969), producer Derrick Sherwin mentioned how in a discussion with the serial's co-writer Terrance Dicks the previous day, Dicks was "absolutely certain" that Sherwin created the Time Lords for the serial, although Sherwin could not remember himself.[3] Later in the commentary, Dicks recalled Sherwin telling him in the discussions with Dicks and Dicks' fellow co-writer Malcolm Hulke that because the Doctor had always been established as being on the run from his own people, that if he has to appeal to them, the Doctor would be in trouble.[4] In a 2016 interview with The Essential Doctor Who magazine, Dicks mentioned how when Sherwin and he were discussing The War Games one day, Sherwin said, "He belongs to this mysterious race called the Time Lords, doesn't he?" with "everything" ultimately coming from that discussion.[5] In The War Games DVD commentary, Sherwin mentioned that he recalled hearing about the Time Lords at the beginning of the series, but as no one else remembered this, it "might have come out of [his] dreams".[4]
Elaborating on this genesis in a 2014 interview in Doctor Who Magazine, Sherwin said of The War Games, "It was a case of what shall we do, how can we end this? Let's go back to the beginning and say [the Doctor] was a Time Lord, a renegade Time Lord, a pain in the arse for the other Time Lords who stole his TARDIS and buggered off around the universe. So if he's going to be called to book let's bring in the Time Lords."[6]
Culture and society[edit]
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 as revealed in The Invasion of Time. There are also Time Lords, such as The Doctor, The Master, The Rani, etc., who, having rejected the rules of the Time Lords' High Council (for what-ever their reason), cast-off or-else stop using their name and take-on a new name or title, and only to use their original ones under certain circumstances (i.e. marriage, as-why River Song knew The Doctor's real name). Their new names are indicative of the characters and goals--The Doctor, who chooses to help others (a 'doctor the word for healer and wise man', as River Song put it), and The Master, who wished to dominate others. The Doctor also testified, in "The Day of the Doctor", that his taking-on the name of 'Doctor' was also a promise to himself ("Never cruel nor cowardly", "Never give up. Never give in"). Likewise, if a Time Lord undertakes an action that goes against the name they took on, they cast it off and take-on a new one, as mentioned in The Beast Below ("Look, three options: One, I let the Star Whale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three, I murder a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can... and then I--I find a new name, because I won't be "The Doctor" anymore"); and in The Name of the Doctor and The Day of the Doctor, it's highlighted that, when The Doctor became The War Doctor ("A Warrior", "Doctor No-more"), he stopped thinking of himself as The Doctor until after the climax of The Day of the Doctor ("I am The Doctor again").
The Doctor Who Roleplaying Game by FASA equates the Outsiders with the "Shobogans", a group mentioned briefly in The Deadly Assassin[61] as being responsible for acts of vandalism around the Panopticon, but there is actually nothing on screen that explicitly connects the two.
In "The Timeless Children" (2020), it is revealed that the Shobogans were the first race of peoples who resided on Gallifrey, only becoming the Time Lords after gene-splicing the ability to regenerate from the Doctor.[105]
Romana and the Doctor have also referred to "Time Tots", or infant Time Lords,[106][107][note 2] and (in "Smith and Jones") the Doctor refers his compatriots and he playing "with Röntgen bricks in the nursery".[50] In "The Sound of Drums", the Master is seen as a child, apparently at the age of 8.[22]
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"[108] and have an "infinite capacity for pretension".[109]
The Sixth Doctor has also characterised the Time Lords as a stagnant and corrupt society, a state caused by ten million years of absolute power.[110] Sutekh the Osiran decries them as "a perfidious species,"[111] while Brother Lassar, in the episode "School Reunion",[112] 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.[22] 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; in Earthshock,[113] 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,[54] 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,[54] and sometimes against his will, as in Colony in Space[114] and The Monster of Peladon.[115] He is also sent on a mission in The Mutants [116] 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[117] 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.[22][118] 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.[22][119]
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,[61] 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'.[61]
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.[61] In that story, the Presidency was described as a largely ceremonial role, but in The Invasion of Time[108] 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",[84] 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 Chancellery Guard, in charge of the security of the Citadel, whom the Doctor has referred to as the leader of a trumped-up palace guard. According to the constitution, if while in emergency session the other members of the High Council are in unanimous agreement, even the President's orders can be overruled.[84][120]
Technology[edit]
The Moment was claimed by the Time Lords to be the most powerful weapon in the Universe and capable of destroying entire galaxies. The Moment was locked in Gallifrey's Time Vaults, specifically in the Omega Arsenal. The Moment is so powerful that the weapon's operating system became sentient, leading the Time Lords to wonder "How do you use a weapon when it can stand in judgement of you?" and that "only one man would be mad enough to try it". In the 50th anniversary special "The Day of the Doctor", the War Doctor breaks into the Omega Arsenal, steals the Moment and is about to destroy both Time Lords and Daleks alike to stop the Time War before the Moment engineers a meeting with his succeeding regenerations to convince him otherwise.[36][121]
Another impressive example of Time Lord technology is the Eye of Harmony, a repurposed black hole singularity contained within the instrumentality below the Panopticon. This is the source of their power and the anchor of the Web of Time itself, created by Rassilon and the co-founders of Time Lord society in the distant past. The Time Lords were accomplished stellar engineers and could control the development of stars with devices like the Hand of Omega, which was shown to be capable of forcing a star to go supernova. The Eye of Harmony exists within the Doctor's TARDIS as a collapsing star suspended in a permanent state of decay, hence harnessing the potential energy of a collapse that would never occur.[122] Whether these are all aspects of the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey or individual stars in their own right is not made clear on screen. [note 3]
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.
In the revived series, there were instances in which evil alien species have stolen Time Lord technology for their own purposes but such is its complexity that they are unable to operate it, as illustrated in "Doomsday" when the Genesis Ark was stolen by the Daleks and even they could not open it. Furthermore, the Genesis Ark was just one Time Lord prison that held millions of Daleks, demonstrating "bigger on the inside than it is on the outside" Time Lord technology.[124][125] The classic series also makes reference to the inability of other races to successfully use Time Lord technology, with The Two Doctors [54] stating that even if a race managed to copy and build their own TARDISes, they would be ripped apart by the molecular stresses of time travel as all TARDISes have a fail-deadly approach to unauthorised use unless primed with a Rassilon Imprimatur, creating a symbiotic link to a specific Time Lord.
The great defence system of Gallifrey is a quantum forcefield known as the Transduction Barrier, a perfect defence shield preventing all matter and energy, even TARDISes, from passing through without authorisation. The Time Lords are further protected by phasing the entire region around Gallifrey into a temporal domain known as Inner Time, effectively separating the homeworld from interaction with the rest of the Universe. During the final hours of the Time War, the High Council of Gallifrey refer to defenses called 'Sky Trenches' which appear to be at least somewhat effective against invading Daleks and/or their ships, as seen in "The Day of the Doctor".[36]
TARDISes are characterised not just by their ability to travel in time, but also their dimensionally transcendent nature. A TARDIS' 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.[123][126] In the Ninth[76] and Tenth Doctors' episodes,[42] the TARDIS has an organic look, and the Doctor states in "The Impossible Planet" [127] that TARDISes are grown, not made. It is seen in "The Name of the Doctor" [128] that as a TARDIS dies, its 'dimension dams' can break down causing a 'size leak' wherein the exterior dimensions of a TARDIS begin to expand to match its inner dimensions.
Fitting their generally defensive nature, Time Lord weapons technology is rarely seen, other than the staser hand weapons used by the Guard within the Capitol.
Standard TARDISes do not 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,[63] 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.
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.[108] 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 Trial of a Time Lord.[55]
In the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Ancestor Cell by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole,[129] 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,[130] 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,[131] written by Davies).
In "The End of Time",[32][132] Rassilon is shown wearing a gauntlet with several powers, primarily the ability to disintegrate a target and the ability to reverse changes made to the human race by the Master. When Rassilon throws the white point star into the hologram of the Earth, the diamond is able to arrive at the planet by following the Master's signal, travelling through the time-locked war to the post-war universe.
Gallifreyan paintings were unique in that they were in 3D, as they acted as snapshots of a single moment in time by use of stasis cubes. This meant that they could be used as rudimentary time travel, by freezing a person inside a painting and then letting them out at the required point in time. An example of this is Gallifrey Falls No More as seen in "The Day of the Doctor".[36]