The Other

The Other, with Rassilon and Omega, was one of three founders of Time Lord society. The birth and origin of The Other would remain a mystery for later Time Lords.

Life

 * ''Apart from this famous triumvirate, three other persons would have a major influence on Gallifreyan history. (PDA: The Infinity Doctors)

The Other was influential the Dark Times on Gallifrey after the cult of Pythia had ended. (NA: Lungbarrow) The Other married Patience, Omega's former bride. Because the Pythia's curse, which made Gallifreyans sterile, had not yet come into effect, he had children. (MA: Cold Fusion) He and the Hand of Omega had something of a bond. As Rassilon's rule moved closer to despotism and Gallifrey's borders were sealed, the Other attempted to escape the planet by hurling himself into the Looms to await his eventual reconstitution. (NA: Lungbarrow)

Influence on the Doctor
Accounts differ as to results of this. Some imply that he was re-Loomed some ten million years later to the House of Lungbarrow as the Time Lord who would become known as the Doctor (NA: Lungbarrow). Without realizing it, the Doctor would retain memories of his earlier self. This showed when, in his fifth incarnation, he met Patience. (MA: Cold Fusion). By his seventh incarnation, he seemed once more to have realized his earlier identity or else Lady Peinforte could not have threatened him his revealing it. (DW: Silver Nemesis)


 * How Lady Peinforte knew this, exactly, remains undisclosed.

Influence on Gallifreyan society and culture
Others imply that the presence of his biodata in the Looms gave rise not to one simple reincarnation but to the wider tendency for rebellion and discontent which would characterise the Deca's generation of Time Lords. (This generation included the Doctor's.) (FP: The Book of The War).

Scholars would later call documents concerning these three, the ROO texts. (MA: Goth Opera, PDA: The Infinity Doctors)

A minor Gallifreyan festival known as Otherstide was celebrated yearly in his honour. It coincided with the Doctor's naming day (probably analogous to birthday). (NA: Lungbarrow)

Behind the Scenes
The first intentional and direct mention of the Other happened in Ben Aaronovitch's Target Books Rememembrance of the Daleks novelisation, in the form of a brief flashback to the time of Rassilon. Andrew Cartmel, Ben Aaronovitch had already worked out a backstory to the Doctor in a secret document known as the "Cartmel Masterplan" into which the Other figured.

A popular theory in fanon is that the unknown faces seen in The Brain of Morbius while the Fourth Doctor mindwrestled are incarnations of the Other (DW: The Brain of Morbius). However, this theory can be disproven by the fact that the Other couldn't regenerate (NA: Lungbarrow), even though Patience could (MA: Cold Fusion). Lance Parkin has stated, though, that he considers these the Other's previous incarnations.