Eternal return

Eternal return, (PROSE: The Eternal) also known as cyclical time, (PROSE: Diamond Dogs) was the concept that history repeated itself in similar forms countless times. (PROSE: The Eternal) By some accounts, this was how Gallifreyan history and also time generally functioned. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors, Cold Fusion)

An ancient Gallifreyan proverb stated that “Time moves in circles”, (PROSE: Lungbarrow, The Infinity Doctors) which was literally true due to the shape of time being a coiled spiral. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) The Pythia, originators of the proverb, (PROSE: Lungbarrow) believed that reincarnation existed on Gallifrey before regeneration. (PROSE: Time Crucible)

By some accounts, regeneration was introduced with the invention of looms at the end of the Intuitive Revelation. The artificial nature of the loom-born created a timeless stagnancy in Time Lord culture, such that little changed in the following millions of years due to every generation being made from the same template. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, Lungbarrow, The Infinity Doctors) Every generation of Time Lord society initially possessed a spirit of ambition towards a golden age of progress which eventually faded as Gallifrey fell back into tradition and change was forgotten before the pattern repeated. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) Ultimately, the society into which the First Doctor was loomed had the same structure and institutions as the society which Rassilon established ten million years earlier. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, Lungbarrow, The Infinity Doctors) This pattern would continue beyond the Doctor's lifetime, with even the final generation of Time Lords, the Children of Kasterborous, being said to fit within it. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

Even monumental events such as Gallifrey going to time war seemed to be caught in this repetition, with aspects of the ancient Time Wars bearing notable resemblance to the Millennium Wars and War in Heaven. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors)

Some time travellers would notice that they sometimes repeated the exact same events in different contexts. (PROSE: Dear Friend, WC: Shadow of a Doubt,)

Behind the scenes

 * Several of Dr Who's Time Tales posit an eternal return of human history, with technological advances of the future leading to a desolation of Earth which leaves only two humans named Adam and Eve, thus causing history to be circular.