Time Lords

The Time Lords are a fictional ancient race of extraterrestrial people in the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. Time Lords are so named for their command of time travel technology and their non-linear perception of time.

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.

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

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. 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. 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. 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 isdreams".

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 he Doctorwas 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."

Overview

Early on in the series, the Doctor was identified as a human being; however, his home planet, which from the start of the series is explicitly established as not being Earth, was not named. In ''The War Games'' (1969), the Doctor's people appeared, who from then on are known as a race called Time Lords, and in ''Spearhead from Space'' (1970), the Doctor's earlier description of himself as a human is retconned when the Third Doctor explicitly states that he is not human. In ''The Time Warrior'' (1973–1974), the name of the Doctor's home planet, Gallifrey, was revealed on screen for the first time.

The Time Lords are considered one of the oldest and most technologically powerful races in the ''Doctor Who'' universe. In ''The Time Warrior'', the Time Lords are characterised by Sontaran military intelligence, quoted by Commander Linx, as "a race of great technical achievement, but lacking the morale to withstand a determined assault". In "The Witch's Familiar" (2015), Davros mentions a prophecy on the Doctor's world that spoke of a hybrid made up of "two great warrior races forced together to create a warrior greater than either", which is "half-Dalek, half-Time Lord", while in "Hell Bent" (2015), the General, while describing the prophecy of the Hybrid, mentions the Time Lords as one of two warrior races along with the Daleks. In " Before the Flood" (2015), the Fisher King describes the Time Lords as "cowardly, vain curators, who suddenly remembered they had teeth, and became the most warlike race in the galaxy". 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. In ''The War Games'', the Second Doctor mentions that the Time Lords' "great powers" are hardly ever used due to their policy of non-intervention into the affairs of other planets, and that they instead observe and gather knowledge. Because of this, holding a trial is a "very rare" event for the Time Lords. Exceptions to this policy are made only in extreme circumstances when they feel they have to, such as where the Doctor calls them for help in the serial.

At the start of the 2005 television series, Gallifrey was thought to have been destroyed and the Time Lords functionally extinct as a result of a mutually destructive Time War with the Dalek race; the Ninth Doctor describes his planet as "just rocks and dust" in " The End of the World" (2005), and mentions in "Dalek" (2005) that the Time Lords "burnt" with the Daleks at the end of the "Last Great Time War", and the Tenth Doctor tells the Master in "The Sound of Drums" (2007) that the Time Lords are "dead" and "all hey'vegot is each other". The Doctor describes himself as the last of his kind and says his planet burned on numerous other occasions, as do other individuals, such as the Krillitane Mr Finch in " School Reunion" (2006).

In "Father's Day" (2005), the Ninth Doctor remarks that before Time Lords were "all gone", they would have prevented or repaired paradoxes such as that which attracted the Reapers to 1987 Earth.

In "Rise of the Cybermen" (2006), the Tenth Doctor mentions, "When the Time Lords kept their eye on everything, you could pop between realities, home in time for tea. Then they died, and took it all with them. Walls of reality closed, the worlds were sealed. Everything became that bit less kind." In "The Satan Pit" (2006), the Tenth Doctor states that his people "practically invented black holes. Well, in fact, they did." Both the Beast (in "The Satan Pit") and the Doctor (in "The Sound of Drums" and "The Doctor's Wife", 2011) believe the Doctor ended the War by killing all of the Time Lords and many of the Daleks.

The Tenth Doctor's artificially created "daughter" Jenny is speculated by Donna Noble in "The Doctor's Daughter" (2008) to be a surviving Time Lord, though the Doctor initially rejects the suggestion.

Two other Time Lord-like beings appeared in "Journey's End" (2008): Donna, briefly empowered with the mind and knowledge of a Time Lord, and a half-human clone of the Tenth Doctor. Donna's memories related to the Doctor, as well as her Time Lord knowledge, are buried in order to save her life, while the clone lives out his existence in a parallel universe with Rose Tyler.

" The End of Time" (2009–10) shows the High Council of Time Lords, led by Lord President Rassilon, attempting to escape the Time War by materialising Gallifrey in the place of Earth at Christmas. However, the Tenth Doctor destroys the device which allows their passage into the present, sending them back into the events of the Time War.

During the episode "The Doctor's Wife" it is 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.

In " A Good Man Goes to War" (2011), it is revealed that the daughter of Amy Pond and Rory Williams, 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, Madame Vastra, 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 by Vastra that River's conception mirrored that of the Time Lords' genesis and therefore she herself developed Time Lord genetic characteristics.

In "The Night of the Doctor" (2013), it is shown that the Eighth Doctor regenerates into the War Doctor to fight in the Time War. Many years later, as shown during "The Day of the Doctor" (2013) and also described by the Partisan in "The End of Time", the War Doctor originally planned to use a Time Lord weapon known as the Moment to destroy the Time Lords and Daleks. However, after being shown the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors during "The Day of the Doctor", he works together with them to change the assumed outcome of the Time War: thirteen incarnations of the Doctor team up together to freeze Gallifrey in time and place it outside of their universe (protecting it and the remaining Time Lords), while the Daleks destroy themselves in their own crossfire once Gallifrey is gone. The War Doctor does not retain the memory of these events and the Doctor spends centuries believing he burnt Gallifrey until the Eleventh Doctor's time; this is because the time streams are out of sync after the War Doctor meets his future selves and the altered events are only known to the Doctor once they occur in the Eleventh Doctor's experience and become part of his memory. Indeed, earlier on in the episode, both the Tenth and the Eleventh Doctors mistakenly believe that the War Doctor killed all of the Time Lords on the last day of the Time War. After being informed that the plan to save Gallifrey was successful, the Eleventh Doctor sets out to find Gallifrey and restore the Time Lords.

In "The Time of the Doctor", the Doctor visits the planet Trenzalore where he discovers a question being broadcast through all of time and space through a crack in the universe: "Doctor Who?" The Doctor realizes that the Time Lords are attempting to return to the universe and will come back if he speaks his true name. Due to "half the universe" surrounding Trenzalore, a siege begins that lasts centuries as the Doctor knows that if the Time Lords return, the Time War will begin anew. With the Doctor on the verge of death, Clara Oswald pleads with the Time Lords through the crack to intervene and save the Doctor. Through the crack, the Time Lords grant the Doctor a new regeneration cycle, saving his life before sealing the crack again.

In "Hell Bent" (2015), it is revealed that Gallifrey returned to the universe around the time of its end. After escaping his confession dial in " Heaven Sent" (2015), still furious over the death of Clara Oswald in "Face the Raven" (2015), the Doctor manages to depose Rassilon—who had put the Doctor there to begin with for questioning—and exile him in "Hell Bent" before running off again.

Physical characteristics

Time Lords and human beings look alike, however they differ in many respects. Physiological differences from humans include two hearts which normally beat at 170 beats per minute, and a "respiratory bypass system" that allows them to survive strangulation. The Twelfth Doctor was able to survive direct exposure to the vacuum of space in "Oxygen". Time Lords also seem to have an increased resilience to higher frequencies of sound, as seen in "The Christmas Invasion" and " Partners in Crime". If severely injured, Time Lords can go into a healing coma which lowers their body temperature to below freezing which the Doctor did in ''Planet of the Daleks''. 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 ''The Seeds of Doom'' and "Planet of the Ood" and even Romana in ''The Ribos Operation'', and in " 42", the Tenth 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. "The End of Time" shows the Tenth 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.

Time Lords are extremely long-lived, routinely counting their ages in terms of centuries; the Second 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 ageing from humans. In "The Stolen Earth", the Tenth Doctor refers to when who he thought was his original incarnation was a "kid" at 90 years old. However, within a specific incarnation, a Time Lord is able to age, albeit much more slowly than a human. The War Doctor and Eleventh Doctor, over the course of the Last Great Time War and the Battle of Trenzalore, respectively, are seen to age within their respective incarnations to what would appear to a human to be old age; both conflicts are suggested within the series to last hundreds if not thousands of Earth years.

In ''The Two Doctors'', the Second Doctor states that the "Rassilon Imprimatur" allows Time Lords to safely travel through time, becoming symbionts

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