Omega


 * This article is about the renegade time lord. For the Big Finish Audio see Omega (audio story) and for the humanised Dalek with the same name see Omega (Dalek).

Originally a great cosmic engineer and co-founder of Time Lord society, circumstances bent the mind of Omega, so that he threatened the universe.

Early life
Omega was one of the most significant figures in Gallifreyan history. He appeared in the so-called ROO texts as later scholars on Gallifrey would call them, along with his fellows, Rassilon and the Other. (MA: Goth Opera, PDA: The Infinity Doctors) According to a story later told by Omega himself, he originally had the name Peylix but adopted the name Omega in response to his teacher, Luvis who would award him the omega grade. (BFA: Omega) By the time of his "death", Omega had married a Gallifreyan known as Patience (PDA: The Infinity Doctors)

Achievements
During the Dark Times, it was Omega, in collaboration with Rassilon (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks) who enabled the people of Gallifrey to achieve time travel. (DW: The Three Doctors) Rassilon (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks) and the Other would assist him in this task. (NA: Lungbarrow) Omega may have also have played a part in the creation of the living metal, Validium. (DW: ''Silver Nemesis)

A stellar manipulator, the Hand of Omega had the power to cause stars to go supernova. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)


 * One account says that not one, but two, Hands of Omega existed. (PDA: The Infinity Doctors)

With the power unleashed by a supernova they hoped to generate enough power to make it possible to travel through time. (DW: The Three Doctors).

As Gallifrey's galaxy in which Gallifrey resided had, at one time, only one Population III star, they decided to destroy that one (PDA: The Infinity Doctors). The star, in the Constellation of Ao (NA: Lungbarrow) bore the name Qqaba. (DWM: Star Death, PDA: The Infinity Doctors).


 * This may relate to the Eye of Harmony, a black hole captured and fixed beneath the Panopticon and said to power all of Time Lord civilisation, including TARDISes.

Later, Omega had finally captured the Doctor in his Sixth form but in the failed and the Doctor escaped. (Search for the Doctor)

The "death" of Omega
Officially, Omega died when the star exploded. (DW: The Three Doctors) Two inconsistent accounts exist describing this event. One says that Fenris, a mercenary working for the Order of the Black Sun (a time-active enemy of the Time Lords from the future) sabotaged the stasis halo of Omega's Starbeaker so as to expose it, and the Starbreaker's crew, to the fury of the black hole. Rassilon prevented disaster from overtaking the other three Starbreakers, though Omega seemed to have died. (DWM: Star Death)

Omega himself, however, described events as having happened differently. (BFA: Omega)

The survival of Omega
The Doctor, like Gallifreyans generally, would grow up to revere and admire Omega as a great hero. (DW: The Three Doctors) The Hand of Omega had, meanwhile, survive and return to Gallifrey. The Doctor himself would later obtain it for himself. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)

Omega, meanwhile, had gotten transported through the black hole into another universe composed of anti-matter. Omega shaped the universe by force of will and access to the black hole's singularity. He could even create life of a simple kind. Radiation destroyed his body, so that the gauntlets, armour and helmet he had designed to protect him from the corrosive effect of the anti-matter now constituted his physical form. In the beginning, he shaped his new world into a paradise, but as the centuries rolled by he grew weary and depressed, feeling abandoned by his fellow Time Lords, and the landscape slowly transformed into a drab, grey desert. The universe that had become his home was unstable, unable to exist without the will of a powerful mind to give it form; he was trapped. (DW: The Three Doctors)

Against the Time Lords
After thousands of years, Omega hit upon a plan of revenge. If he could capture a Time Lord, he could force them to take his place, allowing him to leave and wreak vengeance on Gallifrey. Using the black hole, he drained power from the Time Lords as a means to stop them for interfering. Omega sent an amorphous life form and other, more humanoid amorphous servitors to find the the Doctor currently serving a sentence of exile on Earth, and take him into the black hole. The High Council decided to send the prior incarnation of the Doctor to Earth to help rectify matters and his first self to advise them. Omega removed both incarnations to his domain, entry into which converted all matter into anti-matter.

When Omega removed his helmet to prepare his departure, he discovered that the anti-matter universe had completely dissolved his physical body, so that could not leave his universe. Consumed by rage and despair, Omega swore to destroy all things. The Doctors offered freedom to Omega, in actuality the Doctor's recorder which the Doctor's TARDIS had accidentally shielded from conversion into anti-matter. When Omega touched this object, which caused an explosion. (DW: The Three Doctors)

Though he was once more thought destroyed, Hedin of the High Council made contact with Omega and decided to help him. Omega had gained control of the dimensional gateway known as the Arc of Infinity. Through the Arc, he had gateway between his own universe and the universe of matter, though he still had no physical form. Omega also had a TARDIS and a servant which he had created, the Ergon. In order Omega needed to bond with another Time Lord using his biodata extract. Hedin transmitted to Omega the biodata extract for the Doctor, by this time in his fifth incarnation. Omega established a base in the Earth city of Amsterdam and navigated the Doctor's TARDIS into the Arc and, doing this, began to link the Doctor's biodata with his own. The Doctor faced execution on Gallifrey to stop Omega's return. This was all part of Omega and Hedin's plan: they rigged the execution so that it would hide the Doctor and Omega in the Matrix, safe from Time Lord detection. Omega shifted the Arc to Gallifrey in order to gain control of the Matrix and used its power to create a physical body for himself.

The Doctor, however tracked him down and sabotaged his equipment in Amsterdam, forcing Omega to step into the physical universe before the transfer could be made stable. His new body, a replica of the Doctor's, began to decay and turn back back into anti-matter. Thwarted and maddened by defeat, Omega willed the acceleration of his conversion to anti-matter in order to destroy the Earth rather than return to the universe of anti-matter, but was destroyed by the Doctor using the Ergon's Matter conversion gun. (DW: Arc of Infinity)

Continuity

 * Omega first appeared on television in the 3rd Doctor story The Three Doctors, and reappeared once again in the 5th Doctor story Arc of Infinity. The latter of the two was his last appearance on television for over 20 years. He is rumoured to appear again either in one of the Bank Holiday specials during 2009 or in the finale of Series 5 (Doctor Who) in 2010.