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Post by Null and Void on Dec 5, 2009 17:57:40 GMT
Stupid Time Lord Tricks
...or, How I survived the Last Great Time War.
So, you want to roleplay a Time Lord in the universe of Doctor Who, but all the Time Lords are gone… what does one do? Well, there are a surprising number of options, actually. Consider these possibilities.
1) The Doctor is wrong. He may only *think* he’s the last of the Time Lords. His proof seems to be that he’s no longer in telepathic contact with the rest, but, lets face it… he pulled the trigger that wiped out Gallifrey. How many Time Lords do you think would WANT to communicate with him after that? Surviving Time Lords may be hiding, not just from the Doctor, but from other enemies looking to exploit the fact that they are at their most vulnerable point *ever*. Besides, if even a single Dalek (to say nothing of the Emperor of the Daleks) can survive… so can a Time Lord.
2) The Chamelaeon Arch. It worked for the Master. Rewrite your genetic structure to that of another species, and hide away the essence of your true self. On of the best places to hide would be where no one would expect to find a Time Lord, thus the Master’s gambit of hiding at the End of the Time and Space worked particularly well.
3)A Bio Damper. This device hides the genetic makeup of a person wearing one, effectively making them invisible to scans that would detect their presence. A Time Lord wearing such a device would be very hard to locate using any sort of advanced technology.
4) A Perception Filter. While its unlikely a Time Lord could be fooled by such a thing (It certainly didn’t fool the Master), one would assume they would have to be actually expecting one in order to cancel its effects. Time Lords would likely find this to be a nearly fool-proof way to hide.
5) The Void. If the Cult of Skaro can work out how to build a ship that would travel through the Void, it is completely conceivable that the Time Lords could do so as well. We’ve see, in the past, that TARDISs are capable of removing themselves from Time and Space… A Time Lord could easily find his way there.
6) E-Space. There is still one large CVE open to drain off entropy. We’ve seen its difficult to traverse as well. A Time Lord could be trapped in just such a pocket universe.
7) Parallel Universes. There are an infinite number of parallel worlds, and the Doctor said that when the Time Lords were still around it was ‘easy’ to travel between them. Some Time Lords could easily have escaped destruction by travelling sideways into one of these universes. Conversely, it is a certainty that other Universes have Time Lords of their own… and could find themselves unexpectedly dropped through into the Doctor’s Universe. Examples could be Pete’s World, Avalon, and the Inferno Universe.
8) Anti-Matter Universe. Omega was able to survive there for what appears to be thousands or tens-of thousands of years before he was finally eaten away by the anti-matter. A Time-Lord could conceivably have found himself falling into the Eye of Harmony, either by accident or design, and found himself there. He could return via the Arc of Infinity well after the end of the war.
9) Body Snatching. This is a method likely only to be employed by the most unscrupulous of Time Lords, but we have seen that Time Lords *can* in fact hijack the bodies of others… for example, when the Master possessed the body of Councilor Tremas of Traken. A Time Lord would find himself distinctly limited by such a body… unable to regenerate, and most likely a lot more fragile than his original form; but alive, nevertheless.
10) Escaped prisoner of some powerful being. The Time Lords have been around a long time, and there are a lot of very powerful creature out there that could still capture and hold them. Examples could be The Black and White Guardians, The Eternals (including the Celestial Toymaker), the Master of the Land of Fiction, The Daemons, The Chronovores, the Gods of Ragnarok, or the Osirians. Some could have been removed precisely in order to preserve them from destruction… others could have been trapped or enslaved, and the Time War fractured things enough to allow them to get away.
11) Genetic Duplication or Preservation. Just as Jenny was created from the Doctor’s genetic makeup, so too might others be created. This could even be extended to cloning practices as well. The trick would be in retaining the knowledge of the original for the clone, but one could easily imagine a MacGuffin with the ability to copy a TimeLords mind into a new body.
12) Out of Time. The Time Lords kept careful control over travel into Gallifrey’s past and future. However, it is possible that by accident or design, a Time Lord may have breached these barriers and somehow managed to ‘skip’ the Time War altogether. Such a Time Lord would be a living paradox however, and that would have consequences of its own. Alternately, the TARDIS has shown that it has an ability to remove itself from time and space entirely (See Logopolis for an example of this). A Time Lord in such a position may have watched the end of the War like a spectator.
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Eternally Lost Zeppo
3rd Incarnation
The Lonely God
Posts: 246
Favourite Doctors: David Tennant, Matt Smith, Peter Davidson
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Post by Eternally Lost Zeppo on Dec 5, 2009 18:16:07 GMT
I missed a lot of Season Three due to poor TV reception and my not having discovered iPlayer at the time, so could you remind me how the Master was supposed to have masked his presence from the Doctor when they were in modern day Earth? It probably came up in the three part finale but I've since forgotten.  |
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Post by Null and Void on Dec 5, 2009 18:25:06 GMT
I believe it was due to a low level hypnotic signal being broadcast from a subwave on the Archangel satellite network. It was essentially a super-perception filter.
I'm not sure they explicitly stated that this was the way it was done, but I believe it was strongly implied.
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Post by kaemaril on Dec 5, 2009 22:48:34 GMT
I believe it was due to a low level hypnotic signal being broadcast from a subwave on the Archangel satellite network. It was essentially a super-perception filter. I'm not sure they explicitly stated that this was the way it was done, but I believe it was strongly implied. Sound of Drums: |
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Post by Null and Void on Dec 5, 2009 23:22:19 GMT
I believe it was due to a low level hypnotic signal being broadcast from a subwave on the Archangel satellite network. It was essentially a super-perception filter. I'm not sure they explicitly stated that this was the way it was done, but I believe it was strongly implied. Sound of Drums: Thanks for the direct quote! |
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Post by allivingstone on Dec 6, 2009 1:19:51 GMT
Just a thought (and another possible explanation for Time Lord characters).
The Doctor may not be as alone as he assumes since Dalek Caan successfully broke the 'time lock' on events within the Time War. Caan changed established history by preventing Davros' death in the War. What other established events may also have been affected?
Is Gallifrey definitely still gone?
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Post by thebrokenone on Dec 6, 2009 2:03:04 GMT
For that answer we will have to tune into the last 2 specials over xmas(or whenever bbc america decides to show it in the us).
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Jason_WPGL
2nd Incarnation
Lord of CthuWho
Live Full, Die Empty
Posts: 152
Favourite Doctors: 2, 4, 6, 8, War, 11, 12
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Post by Jason_WPGL on Dec 6, 2009 3:35:16 GMT
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Post by Kit on Dec 6, 2009 5:53:31 GMT
You know, while I'm all for player character Time Lords in the game, I'll be a happy person if they do not return in the show. Sure, they are made to sound cool in the Davies era series, but IMHO they've been incompetent wankers since at least Deadly Assassin. I dont miss them.
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Post by kaemaril on Dec 6, 2009 11:01:23 GMT
10) Escaped prisoner of some powerful being. The Time Lords have been around a long time, and there are a lot of very powerful creature out there that could still capture and hold them. Examples could be The Black and White Guardians, The Eternals (including the Celestial Toymaker), the Master of the Land of Fiction, The Daemons, The Chronovores, the Gods of Ragnarok, or the Osirians. Some could have been removed precisely in order to preserve them from destruction… others could have been trapped or enslaved, and the Time War fractured things enough to allow them to get away. Re-reading that, I just had a daft thought. The Time lords have their own powerful being. What was Rassilon doing during the time war? We know from the Five Doctors that he's not quite as dead as the time lords usually think ... Surely Rassilon (tech level 11 in the game, incidentally, is ancient time lord ... i.e., the big R and Omega) might have come up with some contingency plan to save some or all of the timelords ... which, if it relied on secrecy, the Doctor (or indeed anyone else) might not have been privy to. I'd love it if the 'He' in the 'He will knock four times' is actually Rassilon, wanting a quiet word with The Doctor about what happened during the time war. How scary would that be, to have Rassilon himself pissed at you? Ah, well, it'll never happen ... but it would have been really interesting to have 'the Lonely God' throw down with the nearest thing to an actual God the timelords have  |
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Post by kaemaril on Dec 6, 2009 11:13:27 GMT
You know, while I'm all for player character Time Lords in the game, I'll be a happy person if they do not return in the show. Sure, they are made to sound cool in the Davies era series, but IMHO they've been incompetent wankers since at least Deadly Assassin. I dont miss them. I think Mr Finch had it right in his chat with the Doctor, didn't he? "And what of the time lords? I always thought of you as such a pompous race. Ancient dusty senators so frightened of change and ... chaos. And, of course, they're all but extinct... only you. The last. ... Fascinating. Your people were peaceful to the point of indolence. You seem to be something new. Would you declare war on us, Doctor?' |
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Post by Null and Void on Dec 6, 2009 16:56:41 GMT
I'd love it if the 'He' in the 'He will knock four times' is actually Rassilon, wanting a quiet word with The Doctor about what happened during the time war. How scary would that be, to have Rassilon himself pissed at you? Ah, well, it'll never happen ... but it would have been really interesting to have 'the Lonely God' throw down with the nearest thing to an actual God the timelords have Exactly... and I'm hoping its not Rassillon who spirited them away but Omega. I *really* want to see a Time Lord society thats not been brought back by the 'benevolent' Rassilon, but the utterly Mad Omega... a darker, nastier society of time lords founded by their first fallen hero, that may recognize the Doctor's accomplishment in the War, but also are *really* unhappy about the course he chose. Can you imagine a Gallifrey that worships a mad God as its saviour, which is less tolerant of temporal interference after the mess the Doctor has made of time, and also utterly paranoid that another race might rise up like the Daleks to challenge them again? THAT would be a scary villain, and keep the Doctor the outsider he needs to be. I'm rooting for the return of Omega! |
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Post by kaemaril on Dec 6, 2009 18:48:44 GMT
Exactly... and I'm hoping its not Rassillon who spirited them away but Omega. I *really* want to see a Time Lord society thats not been brought back by the 'benevolent' Rassilon, but the utterly Mad Omega... a darker, nastier society of time lords founded by their first fallen hero, that may recognize the Doctor's accomplishment in the War, but also are *really* unhappy about the course he chose. Well. hold your horses. Rassilon isn't all lovey-dovey, either. He's got a bit of a dark side to him, judging from what he does to Timelords who seek the secret of immortality ;D I'm not sure we could rely on Rassilon being all that benevolent - either to the Doctor, or to the cosmos in general. But do you really need the 'mad' Omega for them to be darker and nastier? Upon their reurn from exile and/or oblivion what wouldn't Gallifrey do to ensure its safety this time around? Previously the timelords were unassailable, the mightiest force in the galaxy - and then they were essentially humbled by the Daleks, albeit they took them with them. What would Gallifrey do to ensure that no race ever became a threat to them ever again? And what if such a Gallifrey were to return, and determine that someday in the far distant future humanity might become such a threat? You don't need Omega to make them a race to be feared, or to make the Doctor take a stand against his own people ... |
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Post by Null and Void on Dec 6, 2009 19:43:46 GMT
Exactly... and I'm hoping its not Rassillon who spirited them away but Omega. I *really* want to see a Time Lord society thats not been brought back by the 'benevolent' Rassilon, but the utterly Mad Omega... a darker, nastier society of time lords founded by their first fallen hero, that may recognize the Doctor's accomplishment in the War, but also are *really* unhappy about the course he chose. Well. hold your horses. Rassilon isn't all lovey-dovey, either. He's got a bit of a dark side to him, judging from what he does to Timelords who seek the secret of immortality ;D I'm not sure we could rely on Rassilon being all that benevolent - either to the Doctor, or to the cosmos in general. But do you really need the 'mad' Omega for them to be darker and nastier? Upon their reurn from exile and/or oblivion what wouldn't Gallifrey do to ensure its safety this time around? Previously the timelords were unassailable, the mightiest force in the galaxy - and then they were essentially humbled by the Daleks, albeit they took them with them. What would Gallifrey do to ensure that no race ever became a threat to them ever again? And what if such a Gallifrey were to return, and determine that someday in the far distant future humanity might become such a threat? You don't need Omega to make them a race to be feared, or to make the Doctor take a stand against his own people ... Oh, I know they don't *need* it to be Omega to be darker and nastier... I just like the idea. It has a sort of poetry to it is all. The Fallen hero, once more returned to an exalted state, despite a minor handicap of being totally nuts after millennia by himself. It resonates with me... the whole idea of The Lonely God that dogged the Doctor through his 10th incarnation could be mirrored in Omega's exile. Its ... Operatic. A recipe for future tragedy. Rassillon could do exactly the same thing... I'm just bored with Rassillon. Omega is such a tragic figure on the other hand... something of a genuine gothic tragedy, in fact, that I find him a much more compelling figure. |
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Post by blinovitch on Dec 11, 2009 17:15:08 GMT
12) Out of Time. The Time Lords kept careful control over travel into Gallifrey’s past and future. However, it is possible that by accident or design, a Time Lord may have breached these barriers and somehow managed to ‘skip’ the Time War altogether. It's a pet theory of mine that K'anpo, the Time Lord from Planet of the Spiders, achieved nirvana, translating out of existence entirely, prior to the Time War's effects. He could return bodhisattva-style if it ever became necessary. |
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Dec 11, 2009 18:30:39 GMT
An idea I came up with in my 30 Episodes With Retro-Pulp Titles brainstorm had a twist on the Chameleon Arch idea - a human massively enamoured of the legends of Time Lords uses Gallifreyan technology to take on the mantle of a Time Lord, usurping the power and position for her own ends. |
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drnate
2nd Incarnation
Posts: 30
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Post by drnate on Dec 15, 2009 11:34:58 GMT
If one of my players wanted to be a Time Lord, I would just allow it and his or her backstory would develop as the game went along. I think that it would lead to a more organic reason for another time lord to exist than picking something in advance from that (admittedly good) list of ideas in this thread.
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Post by Curufea on Dec 15, 2009 19:56:16 GMT
It's a pet theory of mine that K'anpo, the Time Lord from Planet of the Spiders, achieved nirvana, translating out of existence entirely, prior to the Time War's effects. He could return bodhisattva-style if it ever became necessary. If you go by FP mythos, the Celestis (the CIA) also achieved this. Not only that, but a large proportion of Faction Paradox itself aren't Galifreyan, or aren't 100% Time Lord. Also - on a side note, Time Lords are time travellers. The only set time is that of Gallifrey. You could encounter a Time Lord in any time period that you like. However, subjectively they left Gallifrey before the war, and will one day go back there to die in the conflict. |
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Post by Curufea on Dec 16, 2009 5:34:03 GMT
Another idea that occurred to me - it has all the hallmarks of an over-engineered, unnecessarily complicated, Faction plot. "Message from the Rump Parliament, Godfather!", the energetic Litle Sister exclaimed, handing the paper over to Godfather Morlock.
Taking it from her hand, he casually admired his handwritting.
"Thank you sister", said the Godfather, "You know, there are times I do wish I wasn't quite so prone to writing laconic missives to myself. I have things well in hand."
He turned back to his laboratory table, dismissing the Sister with a vague gesture. Once again falling into intricate study of the prize biodata extracts so recently acquired. The body, of course, would have been ideal, but the extract will have to do after that fiasco with Little Brother Manjuele and the Shift. The amount of times the renegade had be imprisoned or poked at by lesser species that recovering biodata without direct interference in the end proved the easier course.
Next to the vials, was the arm. Not a easy retrieval job that.
But, thank the spirits, thought Godfather Morlock, not one I needed to do. What else are initiations for, but to send potential Brothers and Sisters into radiation torn battlefields and almost dead worlds such as Skaro?
His time was far too valuable as it was, his skills far too precise. It was not his plan, nor was he on the committee to create the organisation. Such a supercilious name "Shadow Proclamation". As if it didn't scream out to all "This is the Faction faking authority, fear us Homeworlders". It was Dronid all over again - a vapid re-imagining.
Neither was it his job to seek out the lesser species and provide "help". "Oh, lesser species, we will be taking care of the renegade who protects this planet - this planet that is shunned by the Great Houses for this very reason. Fear not, use as you will, and if in doubt we have implanted trigger phrases in his biodata that you can abuse."
He had merely to modify the memories of two individuals, the rest would look after itself. He doubted they would ever go look for themselves to see if the planet was still there, and the xenophobic inhabitants would never contact them just to put their minds at ease. Indeed, knowing the War King, he would no doubt find it amusing in the extreme.
Godfather Morlock sutured the temporal structure of their biodata with a concoction he liked to call "The Melodrama of the Time War".
When is a war not a war?
ie - It's a plot by the Faction to set up their puppets - the Shadow Proclamation. The resources needed would be the Doctor's biodata, Davros' biodata and sending some information to random expansionist races about the vulnerability of earth and that they should use the phrase "time war" where necessary. The costs - Negligible The look on the Doctor's face - Priceless. Unfortunately it means Gallifrey was never attacked, it was all a fiction. When Davros created the Emperor, he also believed this fiction - and as these two were the source of the entire Dalek race, they all believed the fiction. As for the Master, he played along, because, well - "evil" and all that |
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Dec 16, 2009 12:56:09 GMT
... I just went from not getting all this Faction Paradox stuff to actively disliking them.  |
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Post by Null and Void on Dec 16, 2009 13:19:12 GMT
Eh... thats a little complicated and silly, even by Faction standards.
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Post by Curufea on Dec 16, 2009 20:50:46 GMT
Yeah, but I thought I'd attempt it - on another board I suggested they were brainwashed, so I naturally thought it would be the Faction that did it. Although I do think it is in keeping with "This Town Will Never Let Us Leave" - for pretty much the same reasons ... I just went from not getting all this Faction Paradox stuff to actively disliking them. Which is understandable - they aren't nice guys. They're kind of a chaotic version of the Master. While the Faction and the Doctor are both renegades - the Doctor believes in the Web of Time, and the Faction are pagans. The Doctor fixes paradoxes, the Faction makes them. |
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Post by renegadetimelord on Feb 8, 2010 21:40:55 GMT
You can add Artificial Universes to the options, like I. M. Foreman's Bottle from 'Interference'. I certainly considered using it as an option to allow (some) Time Lords to escape the Time War.
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Post by Marnal on Feb 9, 2010 1:47:10 GMT
The whole point of the novel “Dead Romance” was that the Time Lords were setting up a survival colony in a bottle universe so that some of them would survive the Time War. Given that they succeeded it’s really just a question of who finds Christine Summerfield’s notes (i.e. the text of the book) and then uses them to find the Bottle Universe. ;D - Marnal Gate "I was told by the producer that the guiding principle was to make the scripts complex enough to keep the Kids interested and simple enough for the Adults to understand!" -Douglas Adams on writing Doctor Who For Everything about the TARDIS check out www.whoniverse.net/tardis/ For all things Gallifreyan check out meshyfish.com/~roo/index.html |
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Post by hopeless on Feb 13, 2010 18:26:38 GMT
I was figuring the doctor wasn't the only timelord to be actively involved in the war.
I was thinking several groups were sent to help organise the lesser races for the war and some escaped death or capture using either the arch to hide since whilst its supposed to hide their genetic ancestry that certainly doesn't stop them retaining the knowledge but enough of the true nature held in a "fob" or whatever they use to remain in hiding perhaps some are opened by their descendants after all would they know how long to hide?
Conceivably the shadow proclamation may have been set up by these survivors to explain how that lady sensed there was something wrong with Donna and yet remain unexplained.
I was thinking having one come back to help as he knows there are others but has yet to restore themselves to avoid discovery but has the knowledge to travel and investigate covertly...
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Post by Craig Oxbrow on Feb 13, 2010 18:56:32 GMT
I'm running a game about a Time Lord and travellers doing their best to deal with someone causing alternate realities to move on the real one...
And the Time Lord himself will soon realise that he's only loose in the world due to the reality attacks as well.
So more generally, a villain could be responsible for imprisoning a Time Lord.
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Post by da professor on Feb 20, 2010 10:28:10 GMT
I'm using something based on the End of Time, someone slipping out during a brief opportunity. Too much more might start into spoiler territory.
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