The auditorium was not as full as it should have been, given that this was a mandatory course, but kids will be kids. Mandatory, as has been noted time and time again, does not mean important.
Even though this was. Vital, even.
The lecturer leaned against his podium and watched up at the seats as the last few students filtered in as the alert for class start issued throughout the building. He sighed and pushed himself upright and wandered around, slowly, to the other side of the podium. This was his usual signal to the class to settle down and prepare for his talks, and as expected, this happened. Everyone was now focused on him as he lowered the lights a little bit and switched the overhead projector onto a blank screen behind him.
“Right,” the lecturer said. He was a tall man, well into his older years. Grey hair spiked out from various locations on his head and his eyes, while vivid and intelligent also exuded a friendliness that previous generations of students had found comforting in times of stress. “Today we embark on one of the most important paths you and I can ever walk down.” His words were dramatic and over pronounced, a departure from his usual, more casual way of speaking and this had the effect of dragging even the most inattentive of students towards him. When this man got serious, you would be in trouble if you missed out on what he was saying.
He pushed a button on a small hand held controller and the blank screen lit up with four words. The Great Time War. “We all know about the Time War, dont we?” he paused, rhetorically, and looked over the class, none of whom made any noise or effort to answer him. “Correct,” he said after a moment. “We do not. We know some things, but its a time war. How can we know all about it when it hasnt happened yet?” Another pause and this time a student raised their hand. “Yes,” he said, calling on them.
“But it has happened,” the student said. Their voice calm, but with an edge of confusion. “We have reports from people like The Doctor who said-”
“The Doctor,” the lecturer chuckled. “He is the subject of another class that I recommend you all take. He should be called The Cautionary Tale, but never mind about that. While he and his,” he coughed slightly. “Friend, The Master, have brought tales of Daleks on Gallifrey back from the future, our own research has indicated that these are overblown at best and nonsensical at worst. The Doctor is not someone to be taken as reliable in the issues presented here, understood?”
“Yes, Sir,” the student said and then opened their mouth to continue speaking.
“But,” the lecturer said, waving his hand to sit the student down. “You are correct, in a sense. It has happened. Is happening. Will happen. After all, as the lords of time, we have domain here, do we not? It is inevitable. Someone else will play at challenging us and start a conflict. Some of us believe that has happened. Our colleague, The Doctor, has said as much.”
“Do you believe that?” a student asked from somewhere in the dim room.
“Do I believe The Doctor? Not as a rule, no. Understand that he is a rogue element. Undermines the High Council at every turn, has stolen a TARDIS and butchered it for his own ends and traipses around the universe as if he owns everything. He is a meddler and we have seen the results of his manipulations first hand. Both him and The Master, and any of their allies, are not people which the High Council, or any respectable Timelord, should take seriously. However,” he pushed the button on the controller again and the screen changed to a timeline. At the far right of the line was the word ‘Today,’ at the far end was the term ‘50,000,000 Years Ago.’ “Sometimes they are correct.
“50,000,000 years ago, Gallifrey was attacked. This is not a secret, nor is it challenged in any serious manner. Timelords, as we are today, obviously did not exist back then. But someone, and sources differ on who, attacked the planet, setting a trap for our great citadel and our other major cities. The armies of Gallifrey were sent back in time and the attack was neutralised. The timeline was maintained and we march on. The important thing to remember is that this was the earliest attack within the context of the Time War, but that doesnt mean it was the first. Does anyone know what the first was?” he looked out over the sea of faces, mostly hidden in the dim of the auditorium and waited.
“The Genesis of the Daleks?” someone guessed.
“Why do you say that?” the lecturer said, his face twinkling with amusement.
“Because Davros vowed revenge on the Timelords and made his creatures as a way of harming us.”
“That is true, yes. Davros is probably the most wanted man on Gallifrey. We have agents across the universe looking for him. He will be found and he will be brought to justice and his creatures destroyed in every nook and cranny they show up in,” the flash of anger passed and the lecturer returned to his normal composure. “But neither him, nor his creations, have the ability to time travel. So how could their creation lead to a time war?” He wandered around to the front of the podium again and paced slowly. “Your idea is not new,” he conceded. “That if we went back to Skaro and stopped Davros, as The Doctor should have done, the Time War would not start. I disagree. I believe that the Dalek, as a concept, not necessarily as we know them today, but as a opposite to us, would arise no matter what. We would always have something opposing us even without Davros, even without his abominations. No, it was not the Genesis that predicated the Time War. Anyone else?”
“Viaturn,” a quiet voice said.
“Aha!” the lecturer shouted and pointed in the general direction of the voice. “Someone said it. Absolutely correct. Viaturn, the stolen world.”
“Isnt that one of The Doctors stories?” someone asked.
“Yes and no,” the lecturer said. “Viaturn was the first world Gallifrey ever contacted. A planet in the next system from ours. A world of intelligent, friendly creatures who were more than happy to have us, or what we were back then, as neighbours. And then it vanished. Gone. Taken. We didnt know what happened, and it would be many, many years before anything came to light. The Doctor was involved with something some years ago which involved the disappearance of Viaturn. He spoke of dozens of worlds being taken. But his story is full of inconsistencies. Whatever he experienced is not the cause of Viaturn being taken. Now, enough about him. Back to the point. Viaturn was taken and our ability to travel the stars was limited. We were weakened and within this context, the people of Gallifrey – we werent yet Timelords, understand this – were sitting ducks.”
“So why werent we attacked and destroyed?”
The lecturer grinned and nodded. “Thats the question, isnt it? The answer is that no one aside from Timelords has that fine a control over time travel. Our TARDISes tower over any other attempt to travel in time. The truth is, the Gallifrey of that time is still vulnerable. It could be the victim of an attack in our future. That is the knife edge we exist on. We know that there are weaknesses in our past that we can do nothing to mitigate. We know that in the future, other species have enough control over time travel to be a threat. We sit here, today, and wonder whether it is tomorrow when we stop existing.”
A silence fell over the room and the lecturer walked back around to the other side of the podium. He flicked the projector. A marker appeared on the timeline, close to the halfway mark, but just on the side of the past.
He considered his next words carefully before speaking them. “Can anyone offer an explanation as to why we might be involved in a time war?” he said slowly.
“Their jealousy at the TARDISes or just our power in general?” someone asked.
“That would be a very petty reason to eliminate us from the universe,” the lecturer chuckled. “Besides which, so far every event we’ve witnessed in this war – and there have been many – has been on a scale big enough to wipe, not only our species, but the planet, out. If jealousy or anything like that is the reason, then shouldnt they try to keep Gallifrey around? To learn the secrets of our power? No, it is unlikely that any species that could threaten us, would for such minor, emotional reasons. Anyone else?”
“Theyre trying to undo what weve changed across the universe. Making things ‘right,’ by their understanding.”
“Getting closer, but still not there yet. As Timelords, we have the records of things that are changed. Our TARDISes send back everything as it was and as it would be, along with what is and comes to be. As such, we are the only ones who know things have been changed. With a few small, but notable, exceptions, no one could know that we changed the universe. Those that do know that something changed are not organised enough to do anything about it. Next?”
“Our meddling in the universe, sparking antagonisms with other species?” someone said, and suddenly the class was shouting and talking over each other.
Unable to get his own words in, the lecturer walked back to the podium and banged a block of wood on it loudly. Over a few seconds, the noise abated and he nodded quietly.
“That will be enough of that,” he said. “There are no wrong ideas here, and even though what was said is considered to be inappropriate in most circumstances, we do not discourage people from participating. To answer the question, though, no, our involvement in the greater universe is most certainly not the reason why other species fly back through the time vortex to attack us. Nor is it jealousy over our mastery of time. Any species that would have evolved here on Gallifrey would have eventually discovered the secret. We arent special in that regard.” He paused and waited for someone else to speak. When no one did, he continued. “All of the things mentioned are symptoms without being causes. The great irony of the Timelords is that we spend so much of our lives preventing an inevitable outcome of our very existence. And that is the root cause, the bottom line, the ultimate factor in why there is a time war: it is inevitable. Someone else will always attack us. If the Cybermen had any form of controllable time travel, we’d constantly be shooting down cyberships. A time war always occurs. We cannot prevent it. We just have to deal with it.”
Somewhere on the far side of the citadel, two old friends sat, glaring at each other over a meal. On one side sat The Master, under the alias of Torlan. On the other, sat The Doctor. The latter had just finished telling the other everything he had learned from the insane Dalek Caan.
“Daleks on Gallifrey,” The Master mused quietly. “How do you suppose that happened?” he asked with a look that The Doctor knew far too well.