Where previously we've looked at Gallifrey's beginning and the introduction of the Time Lords circa The War Games, we can now look to quite the implied revelation given its oft-hinted by that point destruction as part of the all-encompassing Time War.
The Doctor, the supposed architect of Gallifrey's downfall, by now seeks only forgiveness for his role in what came to pass. When salvation seemingly quite literally knocks on his door in the form of the hypercube, unseen & indeed unused since correspondence with the Time Lords long ago, it would seem that the killer of his own kind wasn't quite as deadly as he'd believed himself to be, and indeed spent a long time punishing himself for....
But what follows is devastating proof that the worst thing you can do to the man who once warned against putting him in a trap is to not only do that but also strike at his hearts by offering false hope. Proof that the sort of recklessness now being demonstrated by the woman he will become in two incarnations' time is by no means her domain exclusively arrives when he whisks Pond & her Rory out of normal space entirely to head off on what will be revealed as an elaborate wild goose chase!
Before all that, though, time to consider the remarkable in hindsight prescience of Neil Gaiman, who'd earlier dropped the hint of the Time Lords' past with the Kin into Nothing O'Clock, the Eleventh Doctor's entry in the Thirteen Doctors, Thirteen Stories anthology. Here, in his series 6 episode The Doctor's Wife he drops the mother of all revelations concerning the process that allowed Matt Smith to replace David Tennant in the first place & probably nearly break the Internet.....at least before Chris Chibnall actually did.
“There are no Time Lords left anywhere in the universe. But the universe isn't where we're going. See that snake? The mark of the Corsair. Fantastic bloke. He had that snake as a tattoo in every regeneration. Didn't feel like himself unless he had the tattoo. Or herself, a couple of times. Ooo, she was a bad girl.”The caveat that the age-old residents of poor blown to kingdom come Gallifrey can change sex as part of the regenerative process now in effect set in stone. Come to mummy, indeed!
For now though, mummy is still very much daddy. And daddy has important work to do, with help from the old Type 40 that first took him away from home into the farthest reaches of the universe into the bargain. For the same old friend who's been both male & female is in trouble!
“If you are receiving this message, please help me. Send a signal to the High Council of the Time Lords on Gallifrey. Tell them that I am still alive. I don't know where I am. I'm on some rock-like planet.”His/her cry for help is backed by a ghostly choir of similar stranded voices, which leads his/her old friend to the revelation that...
“It's not just the Corsair. Somewhere close by there are lots and lots of Time Lords.”And the thought that they could be ripe for the saving is most likely what sustains the Doctor during the initial stages of his reluctant stay on House's back.
The godlike sentient asteroid has designs on the TARDIS Matrix, the pretext for his luring it here - stirring up unpleasant memories for the man who stole her all those years ago just a bonus hidden in an air of coldly charming gratitude.
DOCTOR: So you're like a sea urchin. Hard outer surface, that's the planet we're walking on. Big, squashy, oogly thing inside, that's you.Proof that he's not as benevolent as he would have liked the latest Time Lord to enjoy his hospitality to think soon arrives once his ultimate ruse is uncovered.
HOUSE: That is correct, Time Lord.
DOCTOR: Ah. So you've met Time Lords before?
HOUSE: Many travellers have come through the rift, like Auntie and Uncle and Nephew. I repair them when they break.
DOCTOR: So there are Time Lords here, then?
HOUSE : Not any more, but there have been many TARDISes on my back in days gone by.
DOCTOR: Well, there won't be any more after us. Last Time Lord. Last TARDIS.
HOUSE: A pity. Your people were so kind. Be here in safety, Doctor. Rest, feed, if you will.
“How many Time Lords have you lured here the way you lured me, and what happened to them all?”An excellent question, posed having heard “cries for help from the long dead.”. One of whom happens to be the Corsair, who is still present in the grisliest of all possible senses - the parts of his body divided up between Auntie & Uncle! His/her old mate is by now a definite non-believer in the loving goodness of this particular house-god.
“You gave me hope, and then you took it away. That's enough to make anyone dangerous. God knows what it will do to me. Basically, run!”The idea that the lonely god is doing any foe a kindness by offering them the chance to leg it in lieu of further crimes of course seeded as far back as The Eleventh Hour. But where the Atraxi eventually heed it & scarper having captured Prisoner Zero, House flat out ignores it in favour of gobbling up some yummy Rift energy all wrapped in a lovely police box-shaped package. Tasty! But not even his boast of having been able to dispatch hundreds of the Doctor's kind is enough to instill fear. His scheme has, as it turns out, in a sense cheated their laws of engineering as well as killing Idris, the chosen host body for what in essence must pass as dear old Sexy's soul.
The death of her physical form almost too much to bear on top of the weight of confirmation that the Doctor's race, at least for now, really are no more....
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