Howling:Shadow Proclamation "policed" the Time Lords?

I read on this Wiki that according to a recently published reference book to the series, the Shadow Proclamation policed the Time Lords and regulated their operations throughout history. This just seems a bit unlikely to me; I know the Shadow Proclamation is powerful, but powerful enough to have had any authority over Gallifrey? Nah. What do others reckon? 82.2.136.93 17:31, November 22, 2011 (UTC) &nbsp I don't know what the source for that is, but I would have to agree with you. The Time Lords had their own laws to prevent them from screwing up the universe, and even if they didn't the shadow proclamation could hardly do anything to stop them.Icecreamdif talk to me 18:33, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

Think of the Donation of Constantine. Boblipton talk to me 18:53, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

The Shadow Proclamation called the Time Lords "the stuff of legends". Hardly seems likely they policed them. TemporalSpleen talk to me 19:11, November 22, 2011 (UTC)

the shadow proclomation was probably made as a result of the timelords not being there as someone still needs to police the universe. but i doubt they policed the timelords themselves. Imamadmad talk to me 09:00, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

But Shadow Proclamation from an earlier time could easily be much more influential than what we saw on screen. Just like how current Torchwood is nothing like Torchwood before Battle of Canary Wharf and how Gwen knows very little about old Torchwood. --222.166.181.78 12:44, November 23, 2011 (UTC)

Actually, in Amy's Choice, the Doctor's TARDIS has a dedication plaque stating that it was first authorised for time travel by the Shadow Proclamation, which would seem to support the idea that they had significant links with Gallifrey by the time the Doctor became a renegade, and that the Time Lords required their approval for at least some actions. How this ties in with the Proclamation in the new series speaking of the Time Lords as legends, I'm really not sure. 194.168.208.42 12:21, November 24, 2011 (UTC)

The "legendary" status of the Time Lords is presumably a consequence of the Time War. Memory and records of the Time Lords appears to vary, with some races/authorities clearly knowing quite a lot about them, while others seem to retain little or no knowledge of them. In that situation, someone who had heard only second-hand accounts of them might well regard those accounts as legends, rather than history. Until the 19th century, when its site was found, Troy was often regarded as only legendary. (There's plenty of doubt that Heinrich Schliemann was the real discoverer of the site of Troy but none that he brought the discovery to widespread public attention.) The situation of Gallifrey has similarities to that of Troy before the excavations at Hissarlik. --89.241.76.118 13:07, November 24, 2011 (UTC)

The Shadow Proclamation definitely seem to have had strong ties with Gallifrey in the past, as evidenced by the TARDIS' dedication plaque. And just because someone or something is referred to as the stuff of legend, doesn't necessarily mean that those who say this are unsure as to whether or not they really existed at some point. Just that they've left their mark on culture. 82.2.136.93 19:20, November 24, 2011 (UTC)

I actually have an idea that the Shadow Proclamation are responsible for knowledge among lesser races of the Time War. After the War was effectively deleted from the timestream by Gallifrey's destruction, the Proclamation were one of the few civilisations evolved enough to retain memory of it ever occuring. 82.2.136.93 19:29, November 24, 2011 (UTC)

Moreover, just because the Timelords happened to be mostly a law-abiding peaceful society throughout the old seasons making Shadow Proclamation's appearance redundant doesn't mean it's not possible that they existed. I'm sure there are plenty of people in the world who haven't run across legal issues with the police in their entire life, doesn't mean the police can't exist. If there had been a murder in Buckingham, the police would investigate, but if there's no murder, the police still had the authority despite not appearing. When the Buckingham is tear down for whatever reason a thousand year from now, the police or police-like organization directly related to this one would look at the place and the people in it as legendary. --222.166.181.49 23:16, November 27, 2011 (UTC)

It is specifically stated in The Brilliant Book 2011 and implied in Amy's Choice that the Shadow Proclamation authorised the Time Lord's time-travelling. I agree that, when compared with the Shadow Architect's statements in Journey's End, it seems a bit unlikely, but it deserves at least a mention if an official source stated it. The other thing is that The Trial of a Time Lord implies that the Doctor's era on Gallifrey (one where time-travel in TARDISes is common) takes place billions of years in the future, and the Proclamation seen in Journey's End is in the year 2009. Thus it is possible that the Proclamation later came into contact with the once legendary Time Lords when they became more social with other species and began mapping the Time Vortex or whatever, and began to enforce the Laws of Time. Although the Time Lords did definately uphold the Laws of Time, and quite possibly invented them, it now seems as though it is in fact the Proclamation that makes them enforce this. I also think the fact that the Proclamation oversaw time-travel correlates with the taxing of the Navarinos in Delta and the Bannermen. The preceding comment was made by Bigredrabbit (talk to me) 10:17, December 23, 2011 (UTC)

Even if the Gallifrey episodes that we saw took place in the far future, they could have easily had contact with the Shadow Proclamation before 2009. The reason that the shadow proclamation thought of the time lords as the stuff of legend is that there aren't any Time Lords any more. It is possible that the Time Lords wrere technically supposed to abide by the shadow proclamation's laws, but the shadow proclamation couldn't police the Time Lords if they tried. A few episodes of the classic show made it seem like the Time Lords did bad stuff all the time back in the day, and there has been no mention of the proclamation being able to stop them.Icecreamdif talk to me 18:26, December 24, 2011 (UTC)

Some of those episodes didn't just "make it seem", they stated outright that the Time Lords "did bad stuff all the time back in the day". In The Five Doctors, for example, the past use of the time scoop to "recruit" combatants for the Death Zone was stated as well-known fact and none of the Time Lords in that episode disputed it at all. Nobody but the Time Lords themselves could police the Time Lords. It's not just that they had the technical means to fend off anyone who tried, they also could (and rather often did) edit the memories of any witnesses to wrongdoing. People who can so easily get rid of the evidence can't be policed effectively. --2.96.28.144talk to me 18:18, December 27, 2011 (UTC)

While I am completely fine with ineffective policing, I am also tempted to think that Shadow Proclamation in Rassilon Era could have included Timelords. Judoons were only employed and the Shadow Proclamation probably has more people at some point than just the Shadow Architect. We know RTD's original idea is that Shadow Proclamation is comprised a range of species in its headquarter, and in Rassilon Era, it is quite likely that Timelords were also involved in some of the decisions, seeing that they are a part of the proclamation. I would imagine that Timelords would have been represented in some way.--222.166.181.70talk to me 21:14, December 27, 2011 (UTC)

More importantly, from what we have seen, Shadow Proclamation only deals with things that may potentially cause large scale conflicts between species from different planets. This is certainly not something that Timelords are known for, so I doubt there would have been many opportunities for the policing. --222.166.181.150talk to me 21:20, December 27, 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure that is what we've seen. We've not seen much at all of the Judoon, the Shadow Proclamation's police, and we don't know that what we've seen reflects what they usually do. Also, the first time we saw them, in Smith and Jones, they were chasing down a murderer. The victim was royalty (or a near equivalent) but that could just indicate that you need to be pretty influential to get the Shadow Proclamation involved; it needn't mean there was a danger of a large-scale conflict. It might mean that but we don't have enough to go on to be sure. --89.242.79.177talk to me 01:57, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

We may have only actually seen the Shadow Proclamation a couple of times, but the Doctor has quoted there rules enough times that they seem to be relatively influential, and have laws regarding a wide variety of things, some of which don't seem to prevent major interplanetary conflict. I can't really see the Time Lords of the classic series being a part of the Shadow Proclamation. They were very isolationist at the time. I think it was in The Deadly Assassin that the Doctor said that some of their equipment was ridicuolously antiquated compared to the rest of the universe because they had so little contact with anyone else. The Time Lords considered themselves to be better than everyone else, and would probably think themselves above something like the shadow proclamation.Icecreamdif talk to me 05:54, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

That was my impression, too, but it doesn't totally rule out registering their TARDISes with the Shadow Proclamation. They might have been nominally party to the Shadow Proclamation, as long as the Shadow Proclamation kept out of their way. The Time Lords might well have seen it as useful for minimising disorder among "lesser" races, while they got on with their own thing. The Doctor would probably have known much more about it than most Time Lords, because he had much more contact with (and respect for) those "lesser" races. --78.146.181.169talk to me 12:10, December 28, 2011 (UTC)

The Doctor wouldn't have had any contact with the lesser races, with the possible exception of his human mother, until after he became a renegade. The First Doctor seemed to have very little interest in Humans and other species in the early days. The Time Lords might have allowed the Shadow Proclamation to register their TARDISes, but it really depends on what registering them would entail. I doubt that the Time Lords would let anyone else know how their technology work, but if the Shadow Proclamation just needed to know how many TARDISes were active, then they might have been allowed to register them.Icecreamdif talk to me 08:36, December 30, 2011 (UTC)

Why does everyone assume that Shadow Proclamation was this completely independent authority? The Shadow Architect is probably not the only person in the Shadow Proclamation neither has it been shown that it's composed of 1 authoritative figure only. The Timelords could possibly have been involved in the Shadow Proclamation, much like major nations' says in UN and Interpol in the real world. Just because the Shadow Proclamation policed the Timelords, that doesn't mean there were no Timelords in Shadow Proclamation. The Shadow Architect is in an era far beyond the end of the Timelords, classifying the Timelords as legends would have been very reasonable even if she have heard of Timelords' involvements in operations or even founding of the Shadow Proclamation much like we have all those myths about founding of nations in just thousands of years ago that have intrinsically became exaggerated history that resembles myths.

Even if there were no active involvement in the Timelords' part, Shadow Proclamation's authority over Timelords could have been at one specific point in Timelords' history. In the most pacifist era of Timelords' society, I would not doubt the Timelords willingly agree to abide to certain laws that would maintain peace for other planets.

A more interesting discussion is what really is the Shadow Proclamation. While we have always view it as this law enforcing body, yet, so much of what we have seen have some sort of commercial aspect. --222.166.181.243talk to me 09:38, December 30, 2011 (UTC)

I think most of the answers above are right. The Time Lords had the Laws of Time and the Principle of Non-Interference and so on. If you lock yourself in your house and never violate the laws of the UK, it scarcely matters whether you're subject to the London Police. You can pretend they don't exist, or you can assume they're there to stop low-lifes from breaking into your house and have no other relevance to you. And that's pretty much the situation the Time Lords would have been in. It's not like they had a problem with the very idea that anyone might be above them in principle, since the Eternals and the Guardians obviously were. As long as nobody got in the way of their stately processions and whatever, they didn't care.

Before Rassilon, things may have been different. For all we know, during the millions of years of history before Rassilon's revolution a few thousand years ago, they did need policing, or were involved in the policing. But the Time Lords of the Doctor's era had almost no memory of the old times, so he wouldn't know one way or the other. --70.36.140.136talk to me 03:47, December 31, 2011 (UTC)

Well, before Rassilon and Omega there were no Time Lords, were there? The Gallifreyans may have needed policing before them though. Anyway, the Time Lords of the classic series would have had no interest in being a part of the Shadow Proclamation. They were isolationist, and wouldn't care what lesser species like the shadow architects, and the Judoon, and whoever else were up to, as long as it wasn't a threat to them.Icecreamdif talk to me 08:26, December 31, 2011 (UTC)