Of the many, sometimes contradictory, accounts of Time Lord history, the most developed single vision may have been seen in the licensed spin-offs, in particular the Virgin New Adventures and
Virgin Missing Adventures novels and, to a lesser degree of consistency, their successors, the
BBC Books Doctor Who novels. Due to Virgin's low print runs, their general non-availability outside of Britain, and the fact that the vision has never been translated to screen, their influence is uneven within the global
Doctor Who fan community.
The Virgin novels, and by extension the BBC novels, took heavily from the so-called "Cartmel Masterplan" devised by former
Doctor Who script editor
Andrew Cartmel, which was supposed to explain the Doctor's origins and his ties to Gallifrey's ancient history. Elements of the Masterplan were supposed to be revealed over the course of Cartmel's tenure on the series, but ultimately, as the programme ceased production in 1989, only hints of it surfaced in
Seasons 25 and
26 and were never made explicit.
According to the novels, some millions of years ago the planet Gallifrey is home to a civilisation that can see all of the past and future. Ancient Gallifrey is also a matriarchy, ruled over by a mystical religion consisting of a cult built around the Pythia, a great and powerful priestess. Among the ancient Gallifreyans are time-sensitives, marked by their red hair, who pilot early Gallifreyan time machines. Rassilon is rumoured to have been one of these time pilots, who are known as Heroes (as much a title as a term of adulation). Rassilon, as a scientist, opposes the religious and monarchical power wielded by the Pythia.
Gallifrey begins its wars against the Great Vampires during this period. Rassilon commands a fleet of Bowships that wins the first war and his rationalist movement gains popular and political support as a result.
The rule of the Pythia is finally overthrown by Rassilon and two other scientists, Omega and "
the Other", a mysterious figure whose actual name has been lost to history. This marks the start of the Intuitive Revolution, turning Gallifrey into a society based on rationality and a
republic with an elected President, although a caste system remains. The three are ultimately responsible for Gallifrey's move towards a purely scientific society.
However, when overthrown the Pythia curses the people with sterility before casting herself into an abyss. The curse results in the still birth that night of every unborn child on Gallifrey, including Rassilon's own son. Persecuted, her priestesses and acolytes flee to a nearby planet where they become the Sisterhood of Karn (
The Brain of Morbius).
The Pythia's curse forces Rassilon to find a new way to reproduce, leading him to create the Looms, cloning machines that can create new Gallifreyans to replace the dead. The Looms are eventually incorporated into great Houses of Cousins, to regulate the population levels and organise the new society. Time Lords are born fully grown from the Looms, although they still need to be educated.
Rassilon, with the assistance of Omega and the Other, applies transdimensional engineering to the creation of TARDIS technology. Omega then proceeds to concentrate completely on his time travel experiments. The Other's role is unclear, but he seems to have held the alliance between Rassilon and Omega together, and is a part of the project that produces the Hand of Omega. Omega uses the Hand on the star Qqaba (named in the comic strip
Star Death by
Alan Moore,
DWM #47 and the novel
The Infinity Doctors by
Lance Parkin), and vanishes, presumed dead, in the resulting supernova which creates the Eye of Harmony. Rassilon then takes control of both the Eye and Gallifreyan society, and the Time Lords are now able to live up to their name.
Eventually, Rassilon's rule becomes dictatorial and reaches the point where he becomes obsessed with implementing his reforms and preserving Gallifreyan society as he sees it before the end of his life. Despite the Other's protests, bloody purges begin, and Rassilon begins to dabble in
immortality. Meanwhile, knowing that Rassilon will hold his family hostage to secure his cooperation, the Other tells his granddaughter
Susan to go into hiding. He then literally throws himself into the Looms, disintegrating and spreading his genetic code into the machines.
A year later, the Doctor arrives in his "borrowed" TARDIS from Gallifrey's future and discovers Susan on the streets of the city, where she has been living since failing to make it off-world. Somehow, Susan recognises him as her grandfather and he also knows her name. The Doctor then leaves Gallifrey's past, taking Susan with him into his exile. (Many of the novels (especially
Lungbarrow and
The Infinity Doctors) have implied that the Doctor may be the Other, genetically
reincarnated from the Looms, but the truth of the matter remains uncertain.
[1])
Rassilon, now absolute ruler of Gallifrey, leads the Time Lords in further wars against the Great Vampires and other otherdimensional beings released because of the use of time travel, whom he considers dangerous to the universe. Aside from the Bowships, the Time Lords also use N-Forms, extra-dimensional war machines developed by the Patrexes chapter that attack planets where they detected the presence of vampires. The Doctor encounters a reactivated N-form in the
Virgin New Adventures novel
Damaged Goods, by
Russell T Davies.
Eventually, the Pythia's curse is lifted with the arrival of the
Fourth Doctor's companion
Leela on Gallifrey. Leela falls in love and marries a Gallifreyan, Andred (
The Invasion of Time), and at the conclusion of the novel
Lungbarrow is pregnant — the first naturally conceived child on Gallifrey for millennia.
