War Council

The War Council, also called known as Gallifrey High Command or as the War Council of Gallifrey, (TV: The Day of the Doctor, AUDIO: Jonah) was a Time Lord council that coordinated the armed forces of Gallifrey and war effort in the War in Heaven and the Last Great Time War. They met in the War Room in the Capitol on Gallifrey. (AUDIO: Body Politic, TV: The Day of the Doctor) They sat apart from the High Council and the Chancellery Guard, gathering only for extreme instances of battle. (PROSE: How to be a Time Lord)

Gallifrey High Command in times of peace
After being dropped off on Gallifrey by the Fourth Doctor, K9 Mark I (TV: The Invasion of Time) performed a number of missions on behalf of the Time Lords. During these missions, he acted for "Gallifrey High Command", (PROSE: K9 and the Time Trap, K9 and the Beasts of Vega, etc.) under the direct authority of a Time Lord known as the Space Controller. (PROSE: K9 and the Zeta Rescue) During his work for High Command, K9 was called upon to deal with threats to the safety of Gallifrey, such as Omegon's camouflaged war fleet (PROSE: K9 and the Time Trap) or the potential supernova explosion of the stars in the Zeta Cancri system. (PROSE: K9 and the Zeta Rescue) The Space Controller and High Command was subordinate to the authority of the actual leader of the Time Lords. (PROSE: K9 and the Zeta Rescue)

During the War in Heaven
During the War in Heaven, representatives of the Great Houses gathered to debate military strategy. They were led by the War King, who they addressed as "your Majesty" (AUDIO: Body Politic) and who, in this time, ruled Gallifrey as a whole, acting both as supreme leader of the War Council and as de-facto Lord President. (PROSE: The Book of the War)

A subcommittee of the War Council authorised a mission for Homunculette to investigate signs of a Great Old One civilisation in prehistoric Antarctica. The Lord President realised that the subcommittee had fallen for an Enemy trap, so he fed its members to the Loomstacks on Gallifrey Eight. (PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5)

When the War King tried to give House Paradox a seat on the War Council, Lolita protested due to her personal animosity toward the representative, Cousin Justine; she convinced the other Houses that this was indicative of the War King's bad judgement. After she killed the War King, (AUDIO: Words from Nine Divinities) Lolita was elected War Queen and leader of the War Council. Justine sent Sutekh's Mal'akh to slaughter the Council as a warning to Lolita. (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh)

During the Last Great Time War
During the Last Great Time War, the War Council led the war effort against the Daleks. It acted as "Gallifrey High Command", (TV: The Day of the Doctor) with the the General serving as the supreme commander of the armed forces of Gallifrey. (TV: Hell Bent) Though the Time Lords had resurrected Rassilon to lead them in the Time War, (PROSE: Engines of War, AUDIO: Desperate Measures) the founding father mainly concerned himself and the High Council with his experiments to transcend physical form, leaving the War Council to handle most leadership duties in the Time Lords' war effort. (PROSE: A Brief History of Time Lords, AUDIO: Deception, Homecoming)

In the immediate build-up to the Time War, the War Council operated multiple secret bases around Gallifrey to research weapons and grow Battle TARDISes. Their secrecy often brought them into conflict with the Celestial Intervention Agency, with Leela appointed to act as a liasion between them. President Livia eventually forced the Council to concede the locations of their bases to the CIA, however they kept one secret. With Livia’s approval, the Council had a facility in the Death Zone connected to a pocket dimension. This facility housed Project Revenant, a scheme to resurrect deceased Time Lords for the war effort. Following the Dalek destruction of Phaidon, General Trave of the War Council visited the Warpsmith refugee ship along with representatives of the High Council and CIA and negotiated an agreement for the refugees to be permitted to settle on Gallifrey in return for the War Council’s total secrecy, even from the CIA. Frustrated, CIA Coordinator Romana convinced Leela to investigate the Death Zone. After she went quiet, Romana followed her and discovered Project Revenant. Livia and Trave confronted the pair and Livia shutdown the dispute between the agencies, revealing her intent to formalise hositilies with the Daleks that evening. (AUDIO: Celestial Intervention)

In the First Segment of the Time War, the War Council placed munitions factories all over Gallifrey. One was located in the Mountain of Serenity. (PROSE: The Stranger)

The Dalek Combat Training Manual contained an address to recruits from the General, which stated that the War Council had been authorised to use all means possible to win the war, even if it meant breaking the Laws of Time. The Council ordered combat personnel to search for evidence of vulnerability in the Daleks with regard to static electricity. Recognising the threat of the Daleks excavating their Spiridon army for use against Gallifrey, it was recommended that reconnaissance TARDISes make regular sweeps of the Spiridon system, and that any increase in Dalek activity on the planet be reported to the Council immediately so that appropriate action could be taken.

The Council agreed that the technical division's postulation to retroactively insert a Trojan Horse program into dematerialisation circuits before they were appropriated by the Daleks would be an effective defense, though the possibility was recognised that the Daleks could discover such a program and turn it against the Time Lords, with a subcommittee being assigned to look into the ramifications of this course of action. (PROSE: Dalek Combat Training Manual)

When Susan Foreman had been drafted into the war and suggested calling on the aid of the Sensorites to usurp control of a Battle TARDIS from the Daleks, the War Council sent delegations into the past of the Sense Sphere to create a relationship between Time Lords and Sensorites. (AUDIO: Sphere of Influence)

Two months into the War, the Daleks breached Project Revenant's pocket dimension, forcing the Council to commit to an increasingly desperate defence. At the same time President Livia resigned, naming Admiral Valerian of the War Council as her successor. Fearing a War Council coup, Romana challenged the succession to an election. Her election campaign failed when Valerian exposed her secret negotiations with the Dalek Emperor. As the defences crumbled, CIA agents infiltrated Project Revenant to destroy the facility to stop the Daleks taking it. Double agent Karla seized the facility's power core on the Council's orders and took it into the Matrix. Upon his inauguration, Valerian connected to the Matrix and Karla used the power core to retrieve one of the oldest imprints - Rassilon. Rassilon's Matrix projection was imprinted onto Valerian who was forced to regenerate, resurrecting the founder as the War Council had planned. became the Lord President Eternal. (AUDIO: Desperate Measures) After Rassilon re-took the presidency, several actions that had once needed High Council approval, such as granting a new regeneration cycle, could be done unilaterally by the War Council. (AUDIO: Assassins)

General Trave was visited by his future self who warned him that Rassilon's regime would lead to Gallifrey's fall. The future Trave also attempted to deliver a message to Deputy CIA Coordinator Narvin from his future self, but was killed by guards. Trave was publicly executed for his future self’s crimes on Rassilon’s orders. (AUDIO: Havoc)

The War Council and CIA launched rival interventions on Ysalus to change the course of its civil war to ensure the planet would not fall to the Daleks in the future. Their interference escalated the conflict, forcing the CIA to seal the planet in a time freeze to stop its total devastation. (AUDIO: Partisans) General Dalia later collaborated with the CIA to evacuate Ysalus after the freeze was broken, exposing it to scavengers. The War Council eventually decided to erase the planet from history to stop the scavengers passing its minerals to the Daleks, to Dalia’s horror. After the CIA managed to evacuate a few hundred of the Ysalus’ citizens before the planet was erased, Deputy Coordinator Narvin asked after Dalia but was told by Cardinal Mantus that there was no longer any Dalia on the War Council, nor on Gallifrey. (AUDIO: Collateral)

The War Council granted Cardinal Ollistra special dispensation to conduct her own operations and authorised the establishment of off-world training camps. (AUDIO: Assassins)

An agent of the War Council, Lady Zeno, infiltrated the Trell's dimension, Nateus, by transferring her consciousness into Renuncha. She struggled to cope with the non-linear experience of time there and was eventually driven mad, until the Trell granted her requested for death. (AUDIO: Mother Tongue)

During the peacetime caused by the Valeyard erasing the Daleks from existence, (AUDIO: The War Valeyard) the War Council was left to decomission the war effort despite being unable to recall who their enemy had been. When the Eighth Doctor arrived on Gallifrey, Cardinal Rasmus brought him to the War Council and the General reluctantly agreed to work with him to try to discover who they'd defeated. (AUDIO: Dreadshade)

When he decided to take a more personal role in the conduct of the Time War, added a Visionary from the Sisterhood to the War Council. (AUDIO: Homecoming) By this time a Matrix projection of a previous incarnation of Ollistra presided over the War Room, whilst her other self was off-world. (AUDIO: The Passenger)

Leela was forced to serve the War Council by Rassilon. Under the direction of the Matrix Ollistra and the General, she was dispatched to destroy Freme, (AUDIO: The Last Days of Freme) intercept a Dalek vessel piloted by Cato Kelgoth, (AUDIO: The Passenger) investigate the reappearance of a planet from the erased Norvis galaxy (AUDIO: Collateral Victim) and the Daleks' restoration of Phaidon. (AUDIO: The First Days of Phaidon)

Cardinal Rasmus proposed to the Council an alliance with Orrison to obtain their sacred bolt to enhance staser cannons, dispatching the General and Leela to the planet as a delegation to negotiate for half of the bolt. Though Leela tried to undermine the negotiations, Prince Ferdi ultimately agreed. (AUDIO: Collaborators) Wanting to steal Rasmus’ success, Ollistra ordered for all of Orrison’s bolt be seized by force, (AUDIO: Ambition’s Debt) however his conversations with Leela inspired Ferdi to turn the planet’s Time Winds defences on the Time Lords, forcing a retreat. (AUDIO: Collaborators)

With Leela confined to the Capitol for her disobedience, Ollistra subsequently sent the General and Veklin to investigate a research station that had gone quiet. Suspecting a personal reason the General wanted to go due to a distress call from a survivor asking for his aid specifically, Rasmus accompanied them and found the survivor was the General’s niece, Cresta. The trio rescued her and one other survivor, Teblin, from a Berserker Dalek, after which Rasmus recruited Cresta as his aide so he could use her as leverage to get the General on his side in the Council. (AUDIO: Remnants)

After witnessing her treatment of prospective defector Helico, (AUDIO: Transference) and several subsequent executions, Rasmus and the General began manoeuvring against Ollistra. She pre-empted them by allowing false plans for a catastrophic offensive on Dalek-occupied Orrison to leak, compelling them to seize control of the operation themselves and use Leela’s method of contacting the resistance created by Clemantia, who was actually Ollistra’s cousin, to infiltrate Orrison. Clemantia subtly altered the timing of their arrival so bringing down the temporal barriers defending the planet would also destroy the General’s fleet of TARDISes poised to attack, wiping out Orrison entirely at cost of thousands of Time Lords. Ollistra revealed afterwards to Rasmus, the General and Leela that this had always been her true intent, and used their responsibility for the disaster and the evidence she’d gathered of their plotting to reassert her place as leader of the War Room. (AUDIO: Ambition’s Debt)

During the Barber-Surgeon's campaign, the War Council assigned the Master, along with two handlers, to assassinate the Barber-Surgeon. After contact with him was lost, (AUDIO: The Abyss) the "inner circle" tasked the War Doctor with the assassination, though the General had argued against his involvement. (AUDIO: The Mission) In truth the Council also hoped to seize control of the Barber-Surgeon's factory for themselves. After losing contact with the Doctor too, the Council ordered the General to lead Time Lord forces to his last known location. After the Barber-Surgeon and his factory were erased from existence, the Council were disappointed to lose the facility, but the General admitted to the Doctor that, personally speaking, he was happy it was gone. (AUDIO: The Horror)

Cardinal Ollistra sent Veklin on behalf of Time Lord High Command to retrieve the War Doctor from Keska. (AUDIO: The Innocent)

Whilst stranded with the War Doctor on Grend, Ollistra contacted the War Council and requested a time fleet be despatched to defend the planet from the Daleks. The Council only sent 20 Battle TARDISes, not wanting to commit to defending the planet. (AUDIO: The Lady of Obsidian)

Towards the end of the War, surviving members of the War Council, with the exception of the Eleventh General, were all able to be identified as such on sight due to the unique metallic collars that they wore, which were patterned on the insides with carved Gallifreyan text rather than the traditional solid gold.

During the last days of the Time War, the General and Androgar were discussing the War Doctor's part in the Fall of Arcadia when a female member of the Council notified them that there had been a breach in the Time Vaults. The General led a group of Time Lords to the Vaults, where they discovered that the Moment had been stolen by the War Doctor. By this point the War Council held the High Council in little regard. The General scorned reports of the High Council's emergency session, saying their plans had already failed.

Later, with the entire Dalek fleet bombarding Gallifrey from orbit, "all thirteen" of the Doctor's incarnations called the War Council to notify them of their plan to save Gallifrey by freezing it in a pocket universe. Realising something was wrong, the Dalek fleet above Gallifrey increased their fire power, at which point the General gave the Doctor the go ahead. (TV: The Day of the Doctor) From their chamber, the War Council oversaw countless more versions of the Doctor tending to the various natural disasters caused by shifting the planet into another universe. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor)