Time Lord

The Time Lords are a fictional, ancient extraterrestrial species in the British science fiction television
series Doctor Who, of which the series' 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 fictional universe developed.
For the first eight years after the series resumed in 2005, the Time Lords were said to have been
destroyed during the fictional Last Great Time War at some point between the original series'
cancellation in 1989 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.

Contents
1 Creation
2 Overview
3 Physical characteristics
3.1 Mental powers
3.2 Regeneration
4 Culture and society
5 Technology
6 History
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 Bibliography
11 External links

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.[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]

Overview
Early on in the series, the Doctor was identified as a human being;[7] however, his home planet,
which from the start of the series is explicitly established as not being Earth,[8] 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,[9][10] 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.[11][12] In The
Time Warrior (1973–74), the name of the Doctor's home planet, Gallifrey, was revealed on screen for
the first time.[13][14] The nature and history of the Time Lords were gradually revealed as the
television programme progressed.

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."[14] The Tenth Doctor says in "The Sound of Drums"
(2007) that they are "the oldest and most mighty race in the universe".[15] 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",[16] 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.[17] 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."[18] 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.[citation needed] In some
spinoff media, the Time Lords are also allied with less developed "Temporal Powers".[citation
needed] 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.[19]

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),[20] and
mentions in "Dalek" (2005) that the Time Lords "burnt" with the Daleks at the end of the "Last Great
Time War",[21] and the Tenth Doctor tells the Master in "The Sound of Drums" (2007) that the Time
Lords are "dead" and "[a]ll [they've] got is each other."[15] The Doctor describes himself as the last
of his kind and his planet burnt on numerous other occasions, as do other individuals, such as the
Krillitane Mr Finch in "School Reunion" (2006).[22]

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.
[23]

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."[24]
In "The Satan Pit" (2006), the Tenth Doctor states that his people "practically invented black holes.
Well, in fact, they did."[25] Both the Beast (in "The Satan Pit")[26] and the Doctor (in "The Sound of
Drums" and "The Doctor's Wife", 2011)[27][28] 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.[29]

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.[30]

Seal of The High Council of the Time Lords.

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.[31]

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.[32]

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.[33]

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.[34] 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.[31][35]
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 was gone. The War Doctor does not retain the memory of these events and spends
centuries believing he burnt Gallifrey until the Eleventh Doctor's time because of the time streams
being out of sync after meeting his future selves. 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 is successful, the
Eleventh Doctor has now set out to find Gallifrey and restore the Time Lords.[35]

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.
[17] After escaping his confession dial in "Heaven Sent" (2015), still furious over the death of Clara
Oswald in "Face the Raven" (2015),[36] 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.[17]

Physical characteristics

The binary vascular system of a Time Lord (from "Dalek", 2005).[21]

Time Lords and human beings look alike,[37][38] however they differ in many respects. Physiological
differences from humans include two hearts which normally beat at 170 beats per minute,[39] an
internal body temperature of 15 degrees Celsius (59 degrees Fahrenheit)[citation needed] 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.[40] Time Lords also seem to have an
increased resilience to higher frequencies of sound, as seen in "The Christmas Invasion"[41] and
"Partners in Crime".[42] 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,[43] 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[44] and "Planet of the Ood"[45] and even Romana in The Ribos
Operation,[46] and in "42",[47] the Tenth Doctor states he is able to survive at absolute zero for a
short period of time. In "World War Three",[48] 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".[41] 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.[49] The End of
Time[31] 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[10] 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 Pyramids of Mars,[50] the Fourth Doctor considers an age of 750 years to be "middle-
aged". In "The Stolen Earth",[51] the Tenth Doctor refers to when 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[34][35] and Eleventh Doctor,[52] 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.[note 1]

In The Daleks' Master Plan,[54] 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.[55] 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.[15] 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.[56]

In The Two Doctors,[57] the Second 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 is 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,[58] the Sixth Doctor suggests that a number of elder Time
Lords were able to use their combined mental energy to summon his TARDIS against his will.

Time Lords can survive, but not function properly, without two hearts.[37][59][60] In "The
Shakespeare Code",[59] the Tenth Doctor has only one heart working. He knows this and tries and
fails to stand up, until both of them start working again. Also, in "The Power of Three",[60] after a
massive electric current is passed through the Eleventh Doctor, he is left with only one heart in
working condition and is unable to carry on for a long period of time.

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".
[61]

In the episode "Cold Blood",[62] 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.

A Time Lord is able to conceal their Time Lord nature, and become a human, by using the Chameleon
Arch – a device that stores their "essence" and memories in an innocuous device such as a fob watch,
and replaces them with false counterparts until the object is later re-opened. The process allows
them to disguise themselves as humans physiologically and psychologically, meaning they only have
one heart and are stripped of non-human powers, and of any memory of having been a Time Lord.
This story element was notably featured in Series 3; the Doctor uses it to hide himself from the
Family of Blood and becomes a schoolteacher in Edwardian England.[63][64] His nemesis the Master
used it to disguise himself as a human to escape the Time War.[65]

Mental powers
Time Lords can communicate by telepathy,[37][66] and can link their minds to share information and
enhance their powers.[67] In Castrovalva,[68] 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.[69]

These powers were elaborated upon from 2005. The Eleventh Doctor is seen using this method to
query a cat about the goings-on of the flat in "The Lodger".[70] In "A Good Man Goes to War" [33]
and "Closing Time" [71] he is apparently able to even understand babies, as well as horses in "A Town
Called Mercy".[72] In "The Girl in the Fireplace",[73] 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,[74] the Doctor uses a similar method to read the mind
of his companion Bernice Summerfield. In The End of Time,[75] the Master uses the same technique,
allowing the Tenth Doctor to hear the drumming sound the Master constantly hears. The Doctor
later displays his telepathic communion powers in "Fear Her" [76] and in "The Shakespeare Code",
[59] 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",[45] the Tenth Doctor 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. This telepathic ability is also extended to other alien species to some extent. In the same
episode, he is able to "hear" the Ood's telepathic song where the humans could not.

In "The Lodger",[70] the Eleventh 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.

The Doctor also contacts the Time Lords by going into a trance and creating an assembling box in The
War Games.[10] In The Two Doctors,[57] 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.[56]

In addition, Time Lords may be clairvoyant, or have additional time-related senses. In The Time
Monster,[77] and Invasion of the Dinosaurs,[78] 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,[79] both the
Fourth Doctor and Romana notice distortions and jumps in time that no one else does. In the 2010
episode "The Lodger",[70] the Eleventh 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[80] as well as being able to perceive the past and all possible futures.[81] He is also able to
concentrate and time his motions well enough to step safely through the blades of a rapidly spinning
fan,[20] and later claims that if any Time Lords still existed, he would be able to sense them.[15] 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'.[82] The Eleventh Doctor slightly amends what
was said earlier in "The Doctor's Wife",[32] saying that he could only sense if there were other Time
Lords in this universe. In the original series episode Warriors' 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.[83] In "Utopia",[65] the Tenth Doctor
states that he finds it difficult to look at Captain Jack Harkness because Jack's existence has become
fixed in time and space.

In the Series 4 episode "Journey's End",[30][84] 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.[31] The War
Games [10] 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" [85] 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.

Time Lords, or at least the Doctor, can read extremely quickly.[86]

Regeneration
Main article: Regeneration (Doctor Who)

The Fourth Doctor regenerates into the Fifth Doctor (from Logopolis,[87] 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 and a new personality; a Time Lord who was pleasant and polite in his previous regeneration
might express surprise when his new form turns out to be prone to saying rude things.[citation
needed]

Regenerations can be traumatic. In Castrovalva,[68] the Fifth 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.[41]

It was first stated in The Deadly Assassin[66] that a Time Lord can regenerate twelve times (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.[88] In
The Five Doctors,[89] 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" [15] that the Time Lords
"resurrected" him to fight in the Time War. It was revealed in The Brain of Morbius [90] that the Time
Lords also use the Elixir of Life in extreme cases, where regeneration is not possible. It is confirmed in
"The Time of the Doctor" [52] that a Time Lord can normally regenerate only twelve times but that
the Time Lords have the ability to grant more regenerations: at the behest of Clara Oswald they
granted the Doctor himself a new cycle when he was at the point of death from old age, having used
up his entire cycle.

Also in The Deadly Assassin,[66] several Time Lords including the President are stated to have been
"murdered" and are not stated to have regenerated.

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 Tenth Doctor explains to Wilfred Mott that a Time Lord can die before they have a chance to
regenerate, in which case they die outright.[75] 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).[66] In the Series 4 episode "Turn
Left",[91] 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,[43] 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",[65] the Master, just before regeneration, claimed that he would become "young and
strong", implying that he could choose the form of his new body. The human-Time Lord hybrid River
Song in "Let's Kill Hitler" claimed she was "focusing on a dress size", but subsequently weighed
herself, seeming unsure of how her new body had truly developed.[92] The Doctor said on several
occasions he wished he was "ginger", which he has seemed unable to control in previous
regenerations.[31][41] In "Last of the Time Lords",[56] 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.

Upon encountering the remains of fellow Time Lord the Corsair in "The Doctor's Wife", the Doctor
refers to the Corsair as both male and female, hinting that Time Lords can switch genders upon their
regenerations;[32] this is confirmed in "Dark Water", in which the Master, previously seen in various
male incarnations for over forty years,[1][65][66][88][93] returned as a female.[94]

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

In The War Games,[10] the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is
implied that the Doctor knows him when they first meet.
In The Three Doctors,[67] the Second Doctor recognises the Third Doctor immediately, despite the
fact that the Third Doctor is a future incarnation of himself. Omega is similarly able to recognise the
two Doctors as the same man.
In Planet of the Spiders,[95] the Third Doctor has trouble recognising his former mentor.
In The Deadly Assassin,[66] 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,[96] Drax, another alumnus immediately recognises the Fourth Doctor,
though the Doctor does not recognise him.
In The Five Doctors,[89] the Third Doctor is unable to initially recognise the Master in his non-
Gallifreyan body.
In The Twin Dilemma,[97] the Doctor's old friend Azmael fails to recognise him, as the Doctor has
regenerated twice since their last encounter.
In The Two Doctors,[57] when the Sixth Doctor and Second Doctor first meet, they are initially quiet
until they face each other and simultaneously yell at each other, each recognising immediately the
other.
In Survival, the Master recognises the Seventh Doctor on sight.[98]
In Doctor Who (1996), the Eighth Doctor is unable to recognise the Master while he possesses a
human body, only recognising the Master when he corrects Grace's grammar.[1]
In "Utopia",[65] 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",[15] 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. However, when he sees the Master on
television, he recognises him.[15]
In "Time Crash",[99] 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",[100] the Tenth Doctor initially seems unable to detect that the human Jackson
Lake, who identifies himself as the Doctor, is not actually his regenerated future self.
In The End of Time,[31] the Doctor immediately 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.
Rassilon and the woman recognised the Doctor on sight as well, but the Doctor's presence,
regardless of incarnation, was expected.
In "The Day of the Doctor",[35] the War Doctor recognises neither the Tenth Doctor nor the
Eleventh, initially assuming them to be future companions. Likewise, earlier on, when the Tenth and
Eleventh Doctor's first meet, the Tenth Doctor does not recognise his successor at first, but after the
Eleventh Doctor's reaction upon seeing him, he is quick to realise who the Eleventh Doctor is.
In "Dark Water",[94] the Twelfth Doctor is unable to recognise the Master until she reveals her
identity.
In "Turn Left",[91] the Tenth Doctor is killed in his own rampage against the Racnoss without Donna
to stop him and ultimately save his life. A UNIT soldier speculates that he died "too fast for him to
regenerate". In "The Impossible Astronaut",[101] 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. However, in "The Wedding of River Song",[102] it is revealed this was a
shape shifting android the Doctor used to fake his death, making this questionable.

“ 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".[81]
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.[41] 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.[30] However, this "non-regeneration" was revealed as "counting" towards the Doctor's
twelve possible regenerations during the events of "The Time of the Doctor".[52][103]

In The 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.
[31] 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.[104]

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,[87] 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,[105] 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",[51] the Tenth Doctor is shot by a Dalek's energy weapon, which has
almost always been shown to instantly kill any other lifeform, yet is still conscious and able to return,
with some assistance, to the TARDIS in order to regenerate. However, 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.[85]

In Death of the Doctor (a 2010 The Sarah Jane Adventures serial),[106] 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.
[107] 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.[108] It is revealed in "The
Time of the Doctor" [52] that this was in fact false and that due to his various regenerations, the
Eleventh Doctor was in fact his last incarnation. However, the Time Lords intervened through a crack
in time to grant him a full new regeneration cycle.

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
as revealed in The Invasion of Time. The Outsiders have often been equated[by whom?] with the
"Shobogans", a group mentioned briefly in The Deadly Assassin[66] as being responsible for acts of
vandalism around the Panopticon, but there is actually nothing on screen that explicitly connects the
two.

Romana and the Doctor have also referred to "Time Tots", or infant Time Lords,[109][110][note 2]
and (in "Smith and Jones") the Doctor refers his compatriots and he playing "with Röntgen bricks in
the nursery".[49] In "The Sound of Drums", the Master is seen as a child, apparently at the age of 8.
[15]

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"[111] and have an "infinite capacity for
pretension".[112] 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 and the Key of Rassilon.
[citation needed]

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.[113] Sutekh the Osiran decries them as "a perfidious
species,"[114] while Brother Lassar, in the episode "School Reunion",[115] 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.[15] 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,[116] 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,[57] it is
suggested[by whom?] 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,
[57] and sometimes against his will, as in Colony in Space[117] and The Monster of Peladon.[118] He
is also sent on a mission in The Mutants [119] 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[120] 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.[15]
[121] 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.[15][122]

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,[66] 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[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] 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'.[66]

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.
[66] In that story, the Presidency was described as a largely ceremonial role, but in The Invasion of
Time[111] 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,[89] 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.[89][123]

Technology
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.[35][124]

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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] 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.[125] 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.
[citation needed] In the spin-off fiction,[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]
They also treated such ceremonial symbols as the Key and Sash of Rassilon as mere historical
curiosities, being unaware of their true function.[citation needed]

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.[127][128] The
classic series also makes reference to the inability of other races to successfully use Time Lord
technology, with The Two Doctors [57] 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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed] 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".[35]

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.[126][129] In the Ninth [80] and Tenth Doctors'
episodes,[41] the TARDIS has an organic look, and the Doctor states in "The Impossible Planet" [130]
that TARDISes are grown, not made. It is seen in "The Name of the Doctor" [131] 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. Stasers (possibly a portmanteau of
stunner and laser, as they are used to stun targets[citation needed]) 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.[citation needed]

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.[citation needed] In the novels,[citation needed] the Eighth Doctor's companion
Compassion, a living TARDIS, has enough firepower to annihilate other TARDISes. In the serial
Castrovalva,[68] 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.[111] 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[citation needed] 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.
[58]

In the Eighth Doctor Adventures novel The Ancestor Cell by Peter Anghelides and Stephen Cole,[132]
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,[133] 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,[134] written by Davies).

In The End of Time,[31][135] 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".[35]

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.[67] 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.[112] 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.[citation
needed] Rassilon, the ultimate founder of Time Lord society, then took a singularity (assumed by fans
and the spin-off media[citation needed] 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.[66]

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.[note 4][136]

In "Dalek" (2005), the Ninth Doctor explains that his people perished along with the Dalek race in the
"Last Great Time War", leaving the Doctor the last of his race.[21] In "The Satan Pit" (2006), the Beast
identifies the Tenth Doctor as "[t]he killer of his own kind."[25] In "The Sound of Drums" (2007), the
Master reveals he escaped the war by turning himself into a human following the Dalek Emperor
taking control of the Cruciform.[15] In The End of Time (2009–10), the Time Lords, after attempting
to break out the time lock of the Time War and become creatures of consciousness, are shown being
sent back into the War on the last day through the Tenth Doctor's intervention. The Master also
disappears along with them. Rassilon describes Time Lord history in this story as having lasted "a
billion years" up until the end of the Time War.[137]

In "The Day of the Doctor" (2013), thirteen incarnations of the Doctor are shown successfully
attempting to freeze the Time Lords and their home world of Gallifrey in time, by transporting them
to a "parallel pocket universe" using their TARDISes. Because the time streams are out of sync, the
Doctor does not retain the memory of this until his eleventh incarnation. 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. While the plan is being outlined, the War Doctor
notes that to the rest of the universe, it only appears as if the Time Lords and Daleks had mutually
destroyed each other, when in fact, the Daleks had fired upon themselves in the crossfire after
Gallifrey vanished, ending in the destruction of most of their own race, but not the Time Lords.[138]
In "Death in Heaven" (2014), the Master, now regenerated into a female form called "Missy",[139]
[140] explains that when the Doctor saved Gallifrey, this caused the Doctor to save her as well. She
bluffs the Twelfth Doctor into thinking that Gallifrey has returned to its original co-ordinates, but
when the Doctor goes looking, he finds nothing there.[141]

In "Face the Raven" (2015), the immortal Ashildr makes a deal to have the Doctor's TARDIS keys and
confession dial taken and to teleport the Twelfth Doctor away in exchange for her trap street's
safety.[142] In "Heaven Sent" (2015), the Twelfth Doctor escapes his confession dial and finds himself
near the Citadel on Gallifrey. He tells a young child to inform the Time Lords that he knows what they
have done and that he has returned "the long way around". He then tells the Time Lords through his
confession dial the hybrid they fear "is me".[36] In "Hell Bent" (2015), Gallifrey is revealed to have
come back from the pocket universe it was frozen in and exist at the end of the universe. Rassilon is
revealed to have been the one who had the Doctor teleported into the confession dial.[17]