This article is part of my Doctor Who Guide.
This is a discussion of the Time Lords as has been officially established in the new and classic TV series. Although several novels have gone into further detail concerning the beginnings of Time Lord history, these will not be discussed in great detail since their canonical status is in question. If that bothers you, sorry. It's just how I do things.
GALLIFREY & THE TIME LORDS
When he first appeared, the Doctor said only that he was an exile and was from "another world, another time." In the Second Doctor's adventure "The War Games"
, six years after the first episode had aired, we learned his people were called Time Lords.
As the Doctor explained in that story: "The Time Lords are an immensely civilized race. We can control our own environment. We can live forever, barring accidents, and we have the secret of space-time travel. Well, we hardly ever use our great powers. We get sent simply to observe and gather knowledge." The Doctor explained further that it was forbidden for a Time Lord to interfere with the lesser races of the universe (though we would later learn that exceptions were made to this rule).
It was not until "The Time Warrior" (TV story 70)
, over ten years after the show's first episode had aired, that we learned the Time Lords lived on a planet called Gallifrey. Years later, in the Fourth Doctor adventure "Pyramids of Mars" (TV story 82)
, he revealed that the planet Gallifrey was located "in the constellation of Kasterborus." In "The Invasion of Time" (TV story 97)
, it was indicated by the cover piece on the Eye of Harmony (more on the Eye later) that Gallifrey was one of six planets in its solar system.
In the TV story "The Sensorites", the Doctor's granddaughter Susan talked about her home world and said "The sky is orange. And the leaves on the trees are silver." The Doctor made a similar statement in the new series in the episode "Gridlock"
when he described his home to a companion. The Doctor also mentioned that the planet definitely had mountains, as he had grown up near or on the mountains of South Gallifrey (established in the TV stories "The Time Monster" and "State of Decay").
In "Gridlock", the Doctor described his planet in further detail: "[On Gallifrey,] the sky's a bunt orange, with the Citadel enclosed in a mighty, glass dome shining under the twin suns. Beyond that, the mountains go on forever. Slopes of beat-red grass capped with snow ... The second sun would rise in the south and the mountains would shine. The leaves on the trees were silver and when they caught the light every morning it looked like the forest was on fire."

In the TV story "The Sound of Drums"
, the Doctor again described his home world: "We used to call it the shining world of the seventh system. And on the continent of Wild Endeavor, in the mountains of Solace and Solitude, there stood the Citadel of the Time Lords ... The oldest and most mighty race in the universe, looking down on the galaxies below. Sworn never to interfere, only to watch."
As we learned more about the Time Lords, it was obvious that the Doctor had been exaggerating (as he often does) when he said that his people could live forever. Though they were gifted with the power to regenerate their form, they could only do this 12 times and each body would eventually wear out. For this reason, certain Time Lords sought to achieve true immortality, such as the Master and another Time Lord featured in the TV special "The Five Doctors."
In "The Deadly Assassin"
and "The Invasion of Time"
, there were references to a transduction barrier and a quantum force-field around Gallifrey that seemingly prevented invasion and presumably also kept anyone from traveling to Gallifrey's past (an understandable precaution from a society of time travelers).
IN THE BEGINNING ...
But how did the society of Time Lords begin? Well, it truly started with the scientists Omega and Rassilon.
"A long time ago, on my home planet of Gallifrey, there lived a stellar engineer called Omega ... It was Omega who created the supernova that was the initial power-source for Gallifreyan time travel experiments. He left behind him the basis on which Rassilon founded Time Lord society.And he left behind the Hand of Omega ... Not his hand literally, no, no.It was called that because Time Lords have an infinite capacity for pretension. The Hand of Omega is a mythical name for Omega's remote stellar manipulator, a device used to customize stars with." - The Seventh Doctor, from "Remembrance of the Daleks"
Omega's device caused the star to erupt like a supernova and then collapse into a black hole. Rassilon stabilized this into a power source strong enough to make time travel possible. It seemed that Omega was destroyed in the same explosion, but later it was discovered that he had survived, taken through the event horizon and into an anti-matter reality.
In "The Three Doctors" (TV story 65)
, we heard some of the story from Omega's own words. "It was an honor! Or so I thought then. I was to be the one to find and create the power source that would give us mastery over time itself ... I was sacrificed to that supernova. I generated those forces and for what? To be blown out of existence into this black hole of anti-matter? My brothers became Time Lords, while I was abandoned and forgotten!"
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