So what is the impact of the background lore revealed in the “Timeless Children” on
Gallifreyan history? Well not a lot, and everything. Doctor who has had many different and often
conflicting tales from the Dark Times of Gallifrey’s past, I’ve made a video exploring one of
these formation eras recently so that when this episode aired, we’d have some comparisons.
A common theme that reoccurs however, is that the only tales from this time are either mythology
or recounted by those who Founded Gallifrey, often depicted as Omega and Rassilon, one
of which was lost in its formation and the other who was obsessed with his own immortality
and legacy. Basically, there is no reliable narrative from this time. Spoilers ahead,
naturally but before we begin critiquing the new canon, let me quickly ask you a question?
Does the Doctor, being the Timeless Child with now seemingly infinite regenerations,
cheapen the impact of a Doctor’s death? They’re no longer one step closer to the
end, effectively immortal now, although still not invulnerable? Just a question, I’m pondering
and the chief concern I have with this revelation from series 12. If the Master’s interpretation
of the data can be trusted. Alright then. So what the hell does it all
mean? The Master brings the Doctor to his ruined Gallifrey to gloat and reveal his discoveries
to her. Sometime before we saw him as the Spymaster, “Oh”, he was on Gallifrey once
more, messing with the Matrix. The Gallifreyan Matrix has long been established
in Timelord society and is a repository of Timelord knowledge where, at the end of their
final life, their mind is added to the collective library of information at the heart of the
Citadel. It had a myriad of uses, not just to preserve knowledge, but it could facilitate
communications throughout time and be used as a possibility engine to predict and prophesise.
An individual’s consciousness could enter the Matrix, sometimes even with the physical
form reduced to biodata. In classic Who, the Doctor had visited the Matrix several times
before, once to chase down the Valeyard, a renegade dark splinter of the Doctor, but
that’s a whole ‘nother story. Back on track.
While toying with the Matrix looking to see what mischief he could cause, the Master stumbled
across heavily redacted sections of memories and the story of the Timeless Child. Although
heavily edited and deleted, some earliest parts of the narrative remained although these
too had been encoded beneath a false narrative to better hide it, the story of Brendon, a
found child who joined the police of early 20th Century Ireland, miraculously survived
a fall from a cliff and went on to have his mind wiped on retirement. We can revisit all
this at the end. Decoding this filter over the true history,
revealed buried Gallifreyan lore. Tecteun, one of the early pioneering Gallifreyan explorers
had constructed a space ship and begun to explore the universe. This was very early
on in the universe’s history, maybe comparable, or even the actual Dark Times themselves.
At this epoch of Gallifrey, they referred to themselves as the Shobogans, which is a
term derived from the classic era and used to refer to the Outsiders of Gallifrey, people
who in contemporary Timelord society had shunned their way of life and lived as natural Gallifreyans
in the Drylands around the Citadel. Tecteun discovered the Boundry between dimensions,
a tear in reality, but more strangely, a deserted child. Being a curious scientist, Tecteun
took the child back to Gallifrey to study and raise it after continuing to adventure
together for some time. However, she could not make heads nor tails of its physiology
until one day. The child fell from a cliff’s edge in the ravines of the red planet and
died. But then the child regenerated, bursting with light and an unknown power, it was the
first regeneration on Gallifrey and the child was restored to life in a new form.
Tecteun returned to her labs to study the child more now, motivated by the strange ability
and over the course of its life, it regenerated several more times, each time into a new form.
Now how this ability works is still never disclosed in the show, but Tecteun eventually
manages to synthesise a way to pass the ability on. She alters her genetic code with that
of the Timeless Child’s and instantly, in her twilight years, she regenerates into a
new form. A new era was born. The Gallifreyans now had
created a power to extend their lives but Tecteun decided a limit was needed. He restricted
the regeneration cycle to 12 times, 13 lives in total. This ties into to another old theory
that’s been soft canon in Classic who and was confirmed in New Who, and that is that
the 12 regeneration limit was artificial. Originally in the Fourth Doctor’s time,
it was commonly accepted that the 12 regenerations was the natural limit of the ability, but
by the Time War, the Master had been granted a new cycle and eventually the Doctor too.
Well, supposedly. Prominent character and former president, Rassilon is said to have
uncovered the secret to perpetual regenerations but he never passed that knowledge on and
for a long time he slumbered, dead for all intense and purposes in the Death Zone of
Gallifrey, entombed forever with his secrets. However, with the Time War, Rassilon was returned
and restored as President, perhaps bringing with him the secrets he had uncovered to uncapping
the Regeneration limit. Here I want to make a quick speculation, what if Tecteun became
Rassilon? Tecteun injected herself with the ability to regenerate before the Timelords
were even formed and it was limited to 12. Rassilon supposedly never revealed his methodology
of immortality… so could the two be one and the same? Anyway, more food for thought.
But the Founding Fathers of Gallifrey went on to establish the Citadel and the Time Lord
Academy, found the chapters and organise those chosen Gallifreyans into a ruling caste, the
Timelords, gifting its members with the mantles of Time travel and regeneration.
The Master then goes on to insinuate that the Doctor is in fact the Timeless child.
The very notion that the Doctor, always given preferential treatment, was also the same
entity responsible for one of the Timelord’s greatest breakthroughs drives him to spitefully
lash out at Gallifrey and raze it to the ground. Somehow. The explanation for why the Doctor
does not know this seems to be that a small section of Timelords who knew the truth about
him constantly wiped the Child’s memory upon regeneration, thus hiding the Timeless
child among their ranks for ever. It perhaps was not until the Doctor stole a Tardis and
ran away, that he was beyond their grasp and allowed to persists, seemingly as a regular
Timelord, none the wiser that he in fact was privy to an ability only one other ever claimed
to have: Perpetual Regeneration. As for this mysterious Division that was also
introduced? Well this looks to be the organisation responsible for handling the Timeless Child
and be an order dedicated to the manipulation of Time in order to shape events where intervention
is deemed necessary. Again, the whole notion of the Timelord non-interference policy came
much later in their in-universe history, after they’d already established themselves. Even
then, they had their own Celestial Agencies that regulated the timelines and so forth,
so the idea that there was a secretive Division that did interfere in the universe isn’t
really a shocker. It’s also suggested that they, or Tecteun
placed the filters over the early parts of the Timeless Child’s history in the matrix.
Maybe this was done on purpose, so that when all the information was redacted, some parts
would survive the purge to be hopefully uncovered later.
So there we have it. The origin of regeneration, from here on out, it seems that stories were
concocted by the Founders that buried its origin and it became public knowledge that
Rassilon, the great war hero he was, also created regeneration. This also firmly establishes
genetic splicing as one part of the regeneration formula. There is still the proof too, that
exposure to the time Vortex plays some part as well. I believe that such exposure softens
up the DNA, making it capable of receiving the new ability, like wetting clay before
its sculpted. This would still explain outliers such as River Song, who was conceived exposed
to the time vortex and why young Gallifreyans selected to be Timelords were exposed to the
untempered schism at a young age. It prepared them to receive the trademark Timelord power.
So like I said, these big reveals don’t really do much to alter Gallifreyan History.
For me, the reveal of the Doctor begin established as the Timeless Child doesn’t bother me
as much as I thought the idea of prior regenerations to Hartnell’s Doctor would. I think because
of the sheer enormity of the reveal, that there must have been hundreds or even thousands
of prior forms of the Child all throughout Timelord history is grander than just trying
to cram in several Pre-First Doctor lives. Temporally, the Doctor might have been the
same person all those years ago, but psychologically, and biologically, with their memory being
wiped and dropped off in the Gallifreyan orphanage, the First Doctor was still the First. This
whole notion is almost a reinvention of older lore that never quite panned out, that the
Doctor was a reconstituted founder of Gallifrey, born of the same genetic material but a different
individual, long buried by Rassilon, known as the Other.
Giving regeneration an origin, actually doesn’t change much about Timelord lore, many already
speculated that the Timelord’s monolithic and grand history was a fabrication told to
hide their messier, more ignoble formation. The biggest concern for me is the implication
that the Doctor, our hero character has infinite regenerations, literally lives to throw away.
Now of course, as a series, writers were always going to find ways to extend the Doctor’s
lives anywho, the story never ends after all, but there’s something lost by declaring
the Doctor as no longer imperilled by running out of lives. I am assuming of course, that
the Doctor was not limited in the same was the rest of Timelords were as he is the origin
of the ability. Also, I’m not sure I like the idea of the Doctor being a chosen one
and I’m hoping that the Master’s chip on his shoulder has led him to the wrong conclusion,
but I don’t think so. Anyway, that’s my breakdown of the story
and let’s not forget, the show is about change. You don’t like this idea, give it
a decade and someone else will add or adapt the mythos. Time changes everything. Remember
when the Doctor was supposed to be half-human? So I guess, thanks for taking the time to
watch this video, let me know why do you think Tecteun, Rassilon or the Division, why someone,
buried the knowledge of the Timeless Child? Could it be that Rassilon didn’t want the
competition of a political rival in the form of a messianic figurehead? Hm. I’ve been
Ric and I’ll see you later. Goodbye.