Gallifrey


 * For the Big Finish audio series see Gallifrey (audio series).

Gallifrey was the homeworld to the Gallifreyans and to the Time Lords, amongst them the Doctor. It was destroyed in the Last Great Time War.

Location
Gallifrey was located in the constellation of Kasterborous, at galactic co-ordinates 10-0-11-0-0 by 0-2 from Galactic Zero Centre (DW: Pyramids of Mars). Kasterborous was also known as the Seven Systems so that Gallifrey had the alternative name, The Shining World of the Seven Systems (DW: The Sound of Drums). It was said that Gallifrey was located at the edge of the Mutter's Spiral galaxy (EDA: Interference: Book Two) and was 29,000 light years from Earth. (REF: Doctor Who: The Visual Dictionary) It was in a binary star system, the second star seeming to rise in the south in the morning, making the mountains glow. (DW: Gridlock) The system contained five other planets (DW: The Invasion of Time), among them Karn, Polarfrey, and Kasterbourous the Fibster (an asteroid). (NA:Lungbarrow)

Gallifrey had at least 2 large moons (IDW: Doctor Who #1), one of which was copper-coloured Pazithi Gallifreya, which shone so brightly it could be seen during the day. (NA: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, Lungbarrow)

Gallifrey was duplicated eight times, both to confound the enemy and as a place of refuge. Gallifrey was still destroyed by Faction Paradox during the Second War in Heaven. (EDA: The Ancestor Cell) It was recreated (EDA: The Gallifrey Chronicles) and then destroyed a second time by the Doctor in the Last Great Time War (DW: Gridlock).

Major settlements
Gallifrey's largest city--sometimes also called "Gallifrey" or "the Capitol"--was the glass-domed Citadel, home of the Time Lord Academy and most Time Lords.

Landscape
From orbit, Gallifrey was rust-coloured, with brown lakes and grey clouds. (NA: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)

From the planet's surface, it boasted an orange sky and trees with silver leaves. These reflected the morning sunlight, making it look like the forests were on fire. (DW: The Sensorites, Gridlock) There were also green forests, golden fields and red deserts (NA: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible), but overall it seems to have been a much drier world than Earth. (NA:Lungbarrow)

Continents and regions

 * Wild Endeavour (The Citadel was located here)
 * The Death Zone

Mountains

 * Mountains of Solace and Solitude: possibly two separate mountains (i.e. Mount Solace and Mount Solitude), possibly the name of a mountain range. It/they were near the Citadel.
 * Mount Cadon
 * Mount Lung

Rivers, lakes, and oceans

 * Cadonflood river
 * Lake Abydos

Gallifreyan flora
Gallifrey had a wide variety of plant life which ranging in colour from silver, green and golden. Known plant species include the Schlenk Blossom (PDA: Island of Death) and the Madevinia aridosa (NA: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible).

Gallifreyan fauna
Native animals of Gallifrey include flutterwings (DW: The Pirate Planet), Flubble (PDA: Island of Death), tafelshrews (NA: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible), plumboles (BBCR: The Ghosts of N-Space) and, of course, the Gallifreyans themselves. In the past, the dinosaur-like Gargantosaurs lived on the planet. (DWM: The Stolen TARDIS) Oddly enough, before its complete annihilation from time and space, no animal had gone extinct from the planet. (TDA: The Last Dodo)


 * This lack of extinction was probably due to the Time Lords, who would have brought back species after they had died out.

History

 * See Gallifreyan history

Government
By the Doctor's time, Time Lord society was governed by the High Council, consisting of cardinals representing several electoral colleges, with an Inner Council comprising of the Castellan, Chancellor, and the Lord President. The President had near absolute authority, and used a link to the Matrix, a vast computer network containing the knowledge and experiences of all past generations of Time Lords, to set Time Lord policy and remain alert to potential threats from lesser civilizations. The Castellan was in charge of security, while the Chancellor in turn oversaw the Castellan's actions and acted as the President's second. Security and law were enforced by the Chancellory Guard. Time Lord society was generally complacent in nature, owing to their policy of non-intervention. This led to a stagnation which may have contributed to the decision by the Doctor and certain other Time Lords to leave Gallifrey. It probably also contributed to the demise of the Time Lords in the last Time War.

Culture and the arts
Time Lords appreciated music, as indicated by such artifacts as the Harp of Rassilon and the use of nursery rhymes to entertain children (DW: The Five Doctors). They also appreciated art, although painting on Gallifrey was done by computer. (DW: City of Death)

Like most other sentient species, Gallifreyans enjoyed games. During a darker, more barbarous time in the planet's past, Gallifreyans enjoyed watching time-displaced individuals fight to the death in a dedicated area called the Death Zone, but that practice had been entirely abandoned by the Doctor's day. (DW:The Five Doctors) Academy students sometimes played a (dangerous) game called "Eighth Man Bound". The multidimensional game of Perigosto, played with a ball and a specialized Perigosto stick, was also a favourite, as was a complicated board game called Sepulchasm.

The drinking of tea may have been practiced by Time Lords, perhaps introduced by Time Lord research teams returning from Earth. The question "What's for tea?" was misinterpreted by Borusa as "What is tea?" - to which he supplied a textbook definition of tea as it is normally prepared for drinking on Earth. This implies both knowledge of tea-drinking and an ignorance of the human (and particularly British) custom of a light meal called "tea" or "high tea". (DW: The Invasion of Time)

Gallifreyan defences
Gallifrey appears to have possessed surprisingly few defences from invasion. This may be due in part to the transduction barrier, which covered the planet and which was almost completely impenetrable by outside forces. However, on the few occasions when a hostile force penetrated the transduction barrier, the Time Lords appeared to be unable to competently defend themselves. For example, when a small group of Sontarans successfully managed to bypass the transduction barrier and proceeded to slaughter any Time Lords they encountered, they nearly succeeded in conquering Gallifrey until the Doctor intervened and used an ancient Time Lord weapon called the De-mat Gun to destroy the Sontarans (DW: The Invasion of Time).


 * The De-Mat gun was not a usual part of Gallifrey's defences, as its existence was largely believed to be a myth by the Time Lords.

Another example of Gallifrey's reliance upon the transduction barrier for security occurred when the Daleks bypassed the barrier and exterminated several Time Lords, including the then-current President (BFA: The Apocalypse Element). In both this case and the aforementioned Sontaran invasion, the Time Lords relied upon the Chancellory Guard to deal with the invaders, only to find out that the guards' weaponry (see Staser) was ineffective against their attackers.

Behind the scenes
Although the planet was referenced numerous times previously, and even seen on occasion (DW: The War Games, The Three Doctors, for instance), the name Gallifrey was not uttered on screen until Jon Pertwee did so in The Time Warrior. In the revived series, the name Gallifrey was mentioned for the first time in The Runaway Bride.

External link

 * "Rassilon, Omega and that Other Guy": informally named but very exhaustive website compiled Gallifrey information form all media, with speculation (clearly labelled as such)
 * Discontinuity Guide article on the location of Gallifrey