The Time War on Gallifrey, discussion welcomed

[solas]

Hello all.

I've run into an interesting situation regarding the Time War as I had a very good character concept put to me by a player. The player wanted to be a Time Lord, but somehow escaped from the Time War. There were a few occasions this could've happened (including Gallifrey's return in End of Time, but this character has fled as things get more and more out of control.

Over a reasonably lengthy discussion, we added what we both thought may've happened, and I'd like to present it for both discussion and possible story ideas for GM's and Players who are interested in this period.

First of all, I've personally not read anything that contradicted the fact of Romana being Lord President (and possibly the last one) before the Time War began. My friend added that the treaty brokered with the Daleks was likely due to the capture of the Master in an audio story and this was at least going to be a respite before further hostilities.

The speculation we came up with was as follows:

1) The Master escapes his capture (obviously) and this incites the Daleks or has given them information on how to confront the Time Lords directly. They begin to do so, but Romana (and probably a very small contingent of like-minded individuals) advocate fighting them as they have before without going too far.

2)As the situation escalates and The Doctor, The Master and presumably any other Gallifreyan at risk (this would include Susan, any other 'rogue' Time Lords and associates) are brought in to help, the natural arrogance of the Time Lords is confronted by the notion that this once-insigificant race is now challenging their 'rightful' place in the universe. Factional thinking begins to develop with liberals (such as Romana and the Doctor), ultra-conservatives (possibly in the High Council and others) and moderates who are going to follow a recognised leadership.

3)The Master flees the Time War. As the situation becomes desperate, the conservatives look to their great immortal leader Rassilon to save them. The liberals see the danger in Rassilon returning and in an act of conscience, Romana abdicates her position as the only other alternative to leaving the post is death. Rassilon returns and is outraged by the turn of events and begins to take more and more radical action. It begins with Rassilon forcing his authority on the Council, then escalates with him either shouting down dissent or beginning to execute them.

4)Being a telepathic society, paranoia begins to filter through the people. A thought of disunity can be even sensed amongst other Time Lords and fear and suspicion begins to spread. As the tactics based on arrogance and outrage begin to break the very laws of time and space (the use of resurrecting billions in recurring seconds being amongst the worst), the Doctor is given 'The Moment', an obviously pivotal event/weapon/ability that may end the war. As the war continues, the events of The End of Time play out.

5)The Doctor (in his eighth regeneration) decides that the Time Lords have become utterly corrupt and without redemption and decides to use 'The Moment' or some other means to time-lock the Time War, The Time Lords and the Daleks forever. Those who can have fled, either through time or have chosen to hide themselves forever with Chameleon Arches. The act the Doctor takes kills him and forces him into his ninth regeneration. He dies once more before confronting the Time Lords again in his tenth regeneration which brings about his death and eleventh regeneration.

I mention the Chameleon Arch here as my player wishes to start out as a hidden Time Lord, his fear rampant over the Time War and the wrath of Rassilon...and the Doctor. It occurred to me then that if you had the opportunity, you would RUN from this sheer insanity and destruction. I do intend to use Romana in my game (as I can't see her standing by and would likely be siding with the Doctor, though I haven't thought through if she would agree with him time-locking the Time War.)

I'd be very interested in what people think!


S.

[Craig Oxbrow]

That all sounds about right.

Have you seen Meet The Doctor, RTD's sketch of the Time War from the 2006 Doctor Who Annual? It mentions Romana as President trying to stop the War before it starts, as well as describing some of the physical battles and time-rewriting tactics the two sides used.

Since you're planning for her to appear, having her abdicate rather than die makes sense. Of course, the War being what it is, she could die and still turn up.

One small addition, in Dalek the Doctor says he escaped "not by choice". Maybe he was sent away, taking the Moment with him, to put the Time Lock in place.

(I can see the Doctor and a few remaining allies running back to the TARDIS, pursued by Daleks and Time Lords alike, and worse. Valiant last stands, all to get the Moment out and stop Rassilon's insane plan. The Doctor opens the door, reaches back for the last survivor - Romana maybe? - and a Dalek beam strikes her. She stretches out her hand, holding the Moment, gasps "take it!" and pushes him inside. The windows of the door light up with blasts and echoing screams...)

[rodreis]

I started a campaign where one of the characters finds himself a timelord that using that pocket watch became human. After various adventures investigating, he discovers that the Time War started and for some reason the Doctor saves him and sends him to Earth. At one point he returns to Galifrey and from there he fights alongside the Doctor in War.

[rev503]

a couple of thoughts on how I'd play it

1) The Daleks somehow read from the Doctors mind or the Masters mind during his visit that the timelords actively and officially interfered with the evolution of the Dalek race. The may have made a breakthrough in time travel tech and realised that in another timeline the Doctor sparked off a Dalek Civil war

2) Timelords for the first time since they became timelords have someone that can actually beat them coming to call (ignoring all the novelisation stuff which I never liked) and..well..freak. They Ressurect the Master, call in the Doctor and any other timelords who are "travelling" and make the decision to pull their older and more powerful forebears (Rassilon, et al) into it - which long term is a mistake because Rassilon and co aren't the sanest bunch of people.
Meanwhile the Daleks are using their Time travel technology to happily gather every Dalek that ever lived, upgrade them to latest spec and point them at whater needs to be exterminated - thus starting the superparadox that only gets resolved by time looping the whole war and generating all the timporal anomolies (the neverwas king etc.)
3) The middle of the time war...races snuffed out of existance, planets gone, some timelords like the Master run for cover as it gets nastier and nastier, otehr timelords are left behind in wounded tardises until they can regenrate and heal their tardises to get back into teh war.
4) Rassilon takes over. using timelord telepathy and propaganda (any refusal to support our troops is teason, we need to all do what needs to be done and save our misgivings for the victory party) lets him turn a democratic oligarchy into a dictatorship where even the most insane and evil plans are welcomed as long as they lead to victory. All of a sudden the concept of an entire race being erased from existance becomes acceptable losses.
Any Player timelords probably come from this or the previous period and have taken steps to cut themselves off from teh timelord groupmind somehow to avoid being arrested as traitors
5) The Doctor (who has experience at humming along without timelord notice) finds himself after a battle at the far side of the medusa cascade, and uses the opportunity to timeloop the whole war.

[DonnaDoctor]

When I saw that the Master was back in a form that could regenerate, my theory was always that at some point, The Lord President or High Council of Time Lords decided to pierce Rassilon's Forbidden Zone on Gallifrey and took the secret of true immortality for themselves. True arrogance sets in as the Time Lords, now truly immortal, believe themselves to be the equals of the gods. As evidence of just how corrupt they have become, they give the Master a new cycle of regenerations (and perhaps a lesser Ring of Rassilon, along him to come back from the dead?).

[whichdoctor]

Some events from the original series run may also have played a part in the Time War:

1. "Genesis of the Daleks" The Fourth Doctor's mission to destroy the Daleks before they even got started may have been the opening salvo of the war, or at least the incident that started pushing the two races towards conflict.

2. "The Chase" The Daleks' determined effort to eliminate the First Doctor may have been part of the war, perhaps in retaliation for the events of "Genesis".

3. "Remembrance of the Daleks" The Seventh Doctor destroys Skaro.

4. The prelude to the Doctor Who TV movie: The Seventh Doctor attends the Master's execution at the hands of the Daleks on Skaro and agrees to take his remains back to Gallifrey. This may have been part of a period of detente between the two races.

[Eryx]

Mar 18, 2010 18:54:43 GMT DonnaDoctor said:

When I saw that the Master was back in a form that could regenerate, my theory was always that at some point, The Lord President or High Council of Time Lords decided to pierce Rassilon's Forbidden Zone on Gallifrey and took the secret of true immortality for themselves. True arrogance sets in as the Time Lords, now truly immortal, believe themselves to be the equals of the gods. As evidence of just how corrupt they have become, they give the Master a new cycle of regenerations (and perhaps a lesser Ring of Rassilon, along him to come back from the dead?).

The Time Lords already seem to possess the ability to achieve immortality (in a way). In the Five Doctors, they council offers the Master a whole new set of regenerations in return for his help.

[lunahq7]

^.^

Hmm...the Romana angle sounds interesting. I have a possible player who is a HUGE Dr. Who fan and seems to know just about everything ... so in order to entertain him, I'll need to be GOOD.

Because I don't want to have the Doctor involved in each adventure, I was planning on having the players start as academy students just before the Time War starts. They get involved in the fight against the Daleks, and the Doctor possibly rescues them. He sets up the time lock, but as it is being set up, he finds the students, and rushes them toward a time doorway. He tells them that they need to go through the doorway before he changes his mind, then hands them a phone. He tells them to use it only if they REALLY need help.

The students are pushed into a TARDIS in a universe where they are survivors of the Time War. The Doctor in this new universe was not responsible for them, but wwhen he meets them, his opinion will be "Sounds like a responsible idea, after all, I did it."

What do ya think?

John B.

[rev503]

Its funny...I remember when i was a kid watching the Three Doctors during its first screening in Australia latching onto some line Omega came out with which left me with the impression that Rassilon (whose in fairness wasn't even mentioned) was a complete bastard and the to-be-timelords that overthrew him to form the council did some major rewriting of history/The APC Matrix/Memories to the point where the no-one actually knows the history of Gallifrey.

One of my ideas for a second season of my DWATIS game (assuming I get through the first) is a situation where all the nasty stuff that was being kept quiet by the Timelord Council or hidden chapters starts to surface now that the timelords are gone and letting the players find a few surprises to shake their worldview.

[Curufea]

I'm still sticking to my opinions that the Daleks weren't behind the Time War, but merely the foot soldiers of a greater power - I still can't reconcile their blundering bullying ways with the intelligence that would be required to take out a race that has had Time Travel longer than they had even existed.

If you go by some of the 8th Doctor books, there are ways for Time Lords to be immune to the effects of a Time War - to cut themselves off from the web of time such that any attack on the ancestors of Gallifrey, or any moment in time, wouldn't actually affect them. These methods were taken by both the CIA to become the Celestis, and the higher ranks of Faction Paradox.

[asariel]

Jun 16, 2010 1:50:23 GMT Curufea said:

I'm still sticking to my opinions that the Daleks weren't behind the Time War, but merely the foot soldiers of a greater power - I still can't reconcile their blundering bullying ways with the intelligence that would be required to take out a race that has had Time Travel longer than they had even existed.

Blundering, bullying, hyperscientific ways actually. Don't forget that, extrapolating from the simple fact that something like a TARDIS exists, they were able to build a TARDIS of their own. ("The Chase", from the First Doctor serials.)

A full-blown, dimensionally transcendent TARDIS. Bigger on the inside than on the outside and everything, and fully capable of everything the Doctor's Type 40 was capable of. And they were able to build it simply because they knew, on the evidence of a handfull of encounters with the Doctor in his first incarnation, that it could be done.

There's a reason that the Time Lords feared them enough to try to cut them from the Spiral Politic in "Genesis of the Daleks".

[Curufea]

They were an industrial juggernaut - but Daleks are feared as a mass of mindless drones. The amount of resources required to construct just one Dalek is phenomenal - and yet they are destroyed in their thousands!

This, compared to a race that can change reality with mathematics, regenerate from death with no external energy required, who actually created the web of time and maintained the laws of time.

On several occasions the Daleks have shown such uncreative stupidity that they've needed to force humans and other races to do their creative thinking for them.

They can certainly scavenge and copy things created by others - but they're vultures, not Da Vincis.