History: When the universe was in it's infancy, one of the first civilisations arose on the planet Gallifrey.

They were
exceptionally long lived, naturally sensitive to the flow of time, and highly telepathic. For many long years the
Gallifreyans were ruled by a matriarchal cult led by the Pythia, who ruled through superstition and magic. Gradually an
opposing faction arose which embraced science, conquering space and establishing a Gallifreyan Empire. Most notably
a triumvirate of three young Gallifreyans came to the fore; the scientist Rassilon, the engineer Omega, and a third
individual whose name has been lost to history, remembered only as The Other. Together these three pioneered the
science of time travel. Foreseeing that her rule was ending, the 508th Pythia committed suicide, but not before using
her vast telepathic powers to curse her people with sterility; no more children would be born of the womb on Gallifrey.

Rassilon turned his attention to this problem, and created vast Looms of genetic material, capable of decanting new
Gallifreyans from the primordial soup within. His first few prototypes of the new "Loom-born" Gallifreyans would
eventually become known as the Special Executive. The later Loom-born had lesser telepathic abilities and shorter life
spans than their Womb-born counterparts, but could regenerate their forms. To keep the population under control,
Rassilon organised the Gallifreyans into Houses, and decreed that each House could have only 45 "Cousins" at any one
time.

The three friends' experiments into time travel continued, and they came to realise that a very special power source was
required to allow development of stable time travel. They would need to capture a black hole. So they developed a
stellar manipulator known as the Hand of Omega, able to blow up stars. Unfortunately sabotage by an outside agency
meant that Omega's ship was sucked into the newly created void, and he would long be believed dead. But his sacrifice
helped make the Gallifreyans Lords of Time.

Back on Gallifrey Rassilon had become a hero, and de facto ruler of the planet. Some nine years after the death of the
Pythia, he ordered a massacre of her remaining followers who were hiding in her temple. Rassilon felt no pity for her
acolytes as his wife had miscarried when the Pythia invoked her curse, but the Other could not stomach the new,
totalitarian regime he could see taking over his world. He ordered that his sole surviving relative (and the last child who
had been born before the curse), his grand-daughter Susan, be taken safely off-world, for he saw trouble in his planet's
future, and then he committed suicide by throwing himself into the Looms, mixing his genetic material with what was
already there.

The Other would be proven right; first Rassilon would lead a campaign against any alien powers he deemed might one
day threaten his new Gallifrey, exterminating a number of species such as the Charon and the Great Vampires; where
possible they would wipe them from history in what would later be termed the Time Wars. And secondly civil war
came again to Gallifrey when the Loom-born, tired of being treated as second class citizens, rose up to exterminate
their Womb-born fellows. Although Rassilon himself remained venerated as their "father", the rest of the Womb-born
were eventually thought to be wiped out, although in truth a handful of them survived, hiding themselves amongst the
rest of the population. Some of them survive to this day, millennia later.

1st Incarnation

History: Eventually the Time Lords adopted a policy of non-intervention. Forbidden to travel into their own past or
future, a people who prided themselves on observing and recording all history ironically (or conveniently) forgot much
of their own. Rassilon's era became known as the Old Time.

A little over one thousand years ago a new Cousin was born in the House of Lungbarrow. His true name is all but
unpronounceable to anyone who isn't Gallifreyan, and besides, his relatives soon took to calling him by the derisive
nicknames "Snail" and "Wormhole" because of the small indentation-like birth mark he had in the lower portion of his
chest. Being Loom-borns, none of them recognised what another species would have said was a belly-button. Unknown
to all, including the new born, the Other's genetic material had finally been fully restored to a new body. Snail never
fitted in and had no real friends amongst his Cousins.
As was expected Snail went to the Academy, the graduates of whom would rise above being simple Gallifreyans to the
thousand strong Time Lord elite, and there he gained a new name from his classmates: Theta Sigma, or Thete for short.
Enrolled in the Prydonian Chapter, whose members were renowned for being devious, he encountered Irving Braxiatel,
a kindred spirit a few classes above him, who also yearned for life beyond he stagnant atmosphere on unchanging
Gallifrey. He also fell in with a group of the brightest students who called themselves the Deca. Many of this group
would later leave Gallifrey and become renegades from their people. And it was while he was one of the Deca that
Thete finally chose a name for himself, rather than letting others pick for him; he became known as the Doctor.

Knowing that the head of his House, Quences, had ambitions of high office for him, the Doctor deliberately scraped a
minimum pass mark at the Academy. Angered, Quences disowned the Doctor, and without waiting for permission to do
so, had the family Loom decant a new Cousin to replace him. The Doctor informed the head of the Prydonian Chapter
of this breach of the rules, and then decided that the time was right to leave his homeworld. Stealing a TARDIS from
the repair bays (as the rest were too well guarded), he departed Gallifrey unaware that his House had been
excommunicated for creating a new Cousin, their names struck off all records and all his Cousins buried alive in the
House for their crime. They would remain there for hundreds of years.

The Doctor soon discovered he had a stowaway in his new TARDIS. The Hand of Omega, which had been in storage
for many years since its last use, had recognised in the Doctor the pattern of one of its makers, and followed him on
board. It overrode the safeguards that prevented travel into Gallifrey's past, taking the Doctor back to the Old Time.
There he soon encountered a young girl living on the streets. Susan, the Other's grand-daughter, had not made it off-
planet after all; the instant she and the Doctor met they recognised a connection between them, and when Susan called
him "Grandfather" somehow the Doctor knew she was correct no matter how much it defied logic.

Together they set off on journeys across the breadth of the universe, until Susan decided she wanted to try living as a
proper teenager for a while. The two Gallifreyans stopped off in 1963 England, and Susan enrolled in a local school,
Coal Hill. But her strange nature soon drew the attention of two of her teachers, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright,
who followed her home one night to the junkyard where the TARDIS had landed. The Doctor had used the prolonged
stay to arrange to hide the Hand of Omega on Earth, and possibly because of this and a fear that the teachers might
draw the attention of the authorities to the Hand, he took off with them inside the ship, kidnapping them.

Time passed. Susan left him, and Ian and Barbara, having long since earned his trust, eventually returned home. Other
companions joined him in his travels, and as he saw more of the universe, the Doctor increasingly encountered beings
of evil he felt had to be opposed. After a while his body, old when he had left Gallifrey, finally gave in to time, and he
regenerated for the first time.

2nd Incarnation

History: His new body had a tendency to act the fool while quietly manipulating events behind the scenes. He
continued his campaign against evil across the galaxy, and more companions came and went. Finally he faced a
problem that he could not deal with alone, and reluctantly called on the help of the Time Lords. They assisted him, but
then put him on trial for breaking their laws on non-interference. The Doctor argued that there were some evils that had
to be fought. In the end he won a partial victory. The Time Lords exiled him to a single planet and a single era, but it
was his favourite world, Earth, and the era had been chosen because it was a period when the planet would face regular
threats from alien incursions. They also forced another regeneration on him.

3rd Incarnation

History: The new incarnation of the Doctor arrived shortly after man had started to travel into space, drawing the
attention of other races. He agreed to help UNIT, a United Nations taskforce whose remit was to combat alien threats,
and worked to repair his TARDIS and beat his exile. After a couple of years his opportunity came when Omega
returned, angry at the Time Lords for abandoning him. Unable to deal with the threat themselves, the Time Lords
brought together all three versions of the Doctor to battle Omega. His success bought him his freedom; the Time Lords
restored his ability to travel in time and space.

4th Incarnation

History: Eventually the third Doctor died too, and a fourth version was born, consumed with a wanderlust that was
likely a reaction to his previous self's period of enforced stability. He finally returned home, only to be accused of
murdering the President of the High Council. In order to prevent his own execution he utilized a little remembered law
and declared his intention to stand for the post himself; until the election was over he was protected by legislation put
in place to prevent tyrants from murdering their rivals. But the killer turned out to be the other Presidential candidate,
who died while trying to eliminate the Doctor. As the only surviving candidate, the Doctor won by default. Elected to
the highest post in Gallifrey, the Doctor did the only thing he could; he ran. But even though he had deserted the post,
the title remained his, as the Gallifreyans had no rules to cover this kind of eventuality.

5th Incarnation