ANALYTICAL: THE NEFARIOUS WAYS OF RENEGADE TIME LORDS: PART TWO

Our study into Renegade Time Lords continues as we examine the second and, frankly, far-more-interesting category. 

If you missed the first part, it would be prudent to still read it. Part Two makes several different references to it. But, if nothing else, you should look at the definition I gave before starting the whole study. 

Here be the link: https://robtymec.blogspot.com/2021/06/analytical-nefarious-ways-of-renegade.html

SOME MORE OF THOSE DARNED RENEGADES! 

As we take a second look at Renegade Time Lords, it should be noted that there will, once more, be "Grey Areas". These are Renegade Time Lords who don't quite properly fall into the category but still, sort of, qualify. When first mentioned, they will have a nice little asterisk (*) beside them. A better explanation of why they are in a Grey Area will be provided in a later footnote. 

This entry will also feature "Super Grey Areas". These are special Renegade Time Lords that don't truly fit into any category but their own. They will also be featured at the end of the essay.  

CATEGORY TWO: THOSE THAT LEFT GALLIFREY

While Gallifrey seems to be infested with criminals that have never ventured off-world, there seems to be just as many that have escaped into the Universe - never to be seen again (or, make only occasional visits back home to create trouble). These are Transgressors of the First Law. They became involved with lesser species - something a Time Lord is never meant to do. As with our first category, there are several subsets to examine. 

The first one would be: 

The TARDIS-Stealers

The Time Lords of Gallifrey are one of the most technology-advanced societies in Time and Space. Which means they have created all kinds of sophisticated forms of transportation. There's Time Scoops and Time Rings or even good 'ole fashioned space shuttles. But a TARDIS does seem to be their favorite way to get around. There's a lot of practicality to them. You're very safe within your own pocket dimension when you want to be. If the Chameleon Circuit is working properly, you can disguise yourself quite nicely. And, of course, you can go anywhere and anytime. So, if you're a Renegade Time Lord who's tired of being on your home planet and you want to go off and see what's out there - stealing a TARDIS is the best way to go. Which is why you'll see quite a few Renegades in this category. 

We'll tackle them in order of appearance. 

Quite obviously, the first one we should mention  is the Doctor him/herself. If the Ruth and/or Refugee Doctor really does take place before William Hartnell, then this might actually be the first Time Lord to ever successfully steal a TARDIS (although, technically, she might be only so successful - the Time Lords do seem to eventually find her and turn her into the Doctor we have all known since Unearthly Child). But, even if we are starting at Hartnell, there are probably not too many Renegades before him who have attempted this stunt. It would even seem that the Doctor intentionally chose an outdated model so that his people would be less likely to notice or care about what he had done. Since he is in every episode of the show (with the exception of Mission to the Unknown, of course), he is the Renegade we have gotten to know the best. We've become quite familiar with his TARDIS, too. It has almost always been in the shape of a Police Box but there have been any number of mild alterations made to its exterior over the years. For almost all of the Classic Series, it has used the "white rondel motif" for its interior (Season 14 excepted). Only as we reach Doctor Who - The Movie  do we start seeing some radical alterations to the decor within. 

The next TARDIS-Stealer that we meet would be the Monk (sometimes referred to as the Meddling Monk). According to dialogue in the story, the Monk appears to have left Gallifrey about 50 years after the Doctor did. His TARDIS is considered a superior model to the Doctor's. Although the "Type" of TARDIS is not mentioned. It is labeled a Mark Four, instead. While we have only ever seen these two clash twice onscreen, a fun little trend developed between them. Each time they met, the Doctor found an inventive way to sabotage the Monk's TARDIS (although the Monk did exact some revenge on the Doctor by messing with the lock on his TARDIS during Dalek Masterplan). On the first occasion, he damaged the Monk's dimensional stabliser and caused the console room to shrink to a size that made it impossible to enter. During their second altercation, the Doctor removed the Monks navigation circuit. Making his TARDIS impossible to steer accurately. 

And then we get to the Master. Outside of the Doctor, this is the Renegade TARDIS-Stealer that has made the most appearances on the show (some might even say that he returned a little too often during Season Eight!).  He's also one of the few TARDIS-Stealers that we have witnessed in multiple incarnations. Once more, a discussion is had in his first adventure about the difference in the Doctor and the Master's TARDIS models (or, at least, the models of the dematerialisation circuits). Again, they talk about "Marks" rather than "Types". 

Quite a bit of drama occurs with the Master's TARDIS. By the end of Terror of the Autons, he has been stranded on Earth because the Doctor "pulled a Monk on him" and stole his dematerialisation circuit. The Master, however, recovers it in the very next story. In the tale after that, Axos seems to seize his TARDIS from him but he manages to get it back by the end of the adventure. We get to see the interior of his TARDIS for the first time during Colony in Space. The Master, during this period, seems to favor the color brown a lot. 

While the Master's TARDIS does have a fully functioning chameleon circuit, he tends to engage in certain familiar exterior shapes. During his "Corpse Master Phase", he likes to keep his TARDIS in the form of a grandfather clock. Whereas when he starts living on borrowed time during the Anthony Ainley period, he uses an ionic column on several occasions. It is most interesting to note that as he transitions from Corpse to Ainley, he possesses two TARDISes for a time. He even keeps one inside the other. 

The Ainley Master seems to become almost obsessed with being the anti-thesis of the Doctor. This is reflected in how the interior of his TARDIS looks. It is, essentially, identical to the Doctor's but done up in black. During this period, more damage occurs to his vehicle. He burns out its power source by Time Flight and replaces it with the collective consciousness of the Xeriphas.  He also gets separated from his TARDIS quite badly at the end of Mark of the Rani and Survival. It would appear that, on both occasions, he does find his way back to it. More than likely, however, he must leave his TARDIS behind again on Skaro as he tries to hatch another scheme to take over the Doctor's body during Doctor Who - The Movie. In a truly bizarre twist of circumstances, he seems to get stranded inside the Heart of the Doctor's TARDIS at the end of that particular adventure.  

It would seem that both the Simm Master and Missy were in possession of a TARDIS. More than likely, it wasn't the same one that we saw throughout most of the Classic Series. Both also seem to have suffered periods of separation from their vehicle. The Simm Master doesn't actually seem to get a proper TARDIS until after The End of Time. There's more trouble with the dematerialisation circuit  during The Doctor Falls that Missy fixes by having a handy spare. Missy, however, is seen to be relying on a Vortex Manipulator during Magician's Apprentice/Witch's Familiar so, perhaps, there's been some more problems with her TARDIS that we never get a clear answer about. 

At last, we get to see the Master's TARDIS again when Sacha Dhawan takes over the role. Once more, he favors a certain exterior for a bit. He likes it to appear as a house. Which also has an influence on the interior decor. This TARDIS appears to have been taken from him at the end of Spyfall by the Doctor. What she ended up doing with it - no one knows! More than likely, the Master escaped the Death Particle exploding in the ruins of Gallifrey by stealing yet another TARDIS. 

It should also be noted that the Master is one of the few Renegades that has successfully managed to sabotage the Doctor's TARDIS (something the Doctor does quite frequently to his opponents). He really messes with the TARDIS' Eye of Harmony during The 96 Telemovie and manages to convert the console room into a Paradox Engine during Last of the Time Lords. We've seen some interesting "TARDIS fights" during The Time Monster and Logopolis as the two TARDISes materialise within one another. There's also some weird thing that the Doctor does to the Master's TARDIS near the end of Timeflight. But I'm not exactly sure what it was. Somehow, however, it's comparable to cricket!  

Okay, that's a complete chronicle of the Master and his TARDISes. That took way more paragraphs than I expected! 

The next TARDIS-Stealer that we encounter in the series is Drax*. But we don't get to meet him for long. He only pops up in the last few episodes of a six-parter. This is the first time in the show that we meet someone with a TARDIS but we never actually get a proper look at it (no doubt, they were trying to save a bit of money on set design!). There are, at least, pieces of it lying around in the cave the Shadow has trapped him in. And Drax does mention he's heading to his TARDIS towards the end of Armageddon Factor to strike his latest dodgy deal. But we don't even get a look at its exterior. Forget about actually seeing inside of it! 

We get the exact opposite situation with the Rani. In both of her appearances, we see her TARDIS inside and out. She actually does a pretty weird thing with her chameleon circuit. The outer plasmic shell takes on forms that don't actually blend in well with its surroundings. In both instances, the exterior stands out quite a bit and even looks alien. She also seems to have done a re-design on the inside of her ship between Mark of the Rani and Time and the Rani. Although it's difficult to say for sure as she doesn't actually appear to be in her console room during Time when we see her inside her ship. We could just be seeing a single room in her TARDIS that looks very different from everything else. 

Oddly enough, the key to the Doctor's TARDIS also works in the Rani's lock. There is a logic to this. Both Deadly Assassin and Invasion of Time have scenes in them that imply that there is only a certain number of styles of locks that exist on TARDISes. The Doctor and the Rani must both have the same sort of lock. When the Doctor breaks in to her ship in Mark, he does some serious sabotage to the drive system which creates magnificent amounts of G-force and time spillage. It would seem that the Rani is, eventually, able to repair this. We were never given an update, however, on how she dealt with the Tetraps that had captured her and were ready to enslave her.

Finally, we have the Corsair. His situation is even more unique than Drax's. Not only do we never witness his TARDIS, we never actually meet him (well, we do see a few pieces of him!). We merely hear about him and his funky snake tattoo. We assume, by the way he's discussed, that he also owned a TARDIS. In fact, it's highly unlikely House would have lured the Corsair into his universe if the Renegade Time Lord didn't. The Corsair is also unique in that it is during a discussion about him that we first get any real evidence that Time Lords can gender-swap during regeneration. 

They Found a Way Off Gallifrey Without a TARDIS

Like TARDIS-Stealers, these are Time Lords that made their way out into the Universe and are transgressing that First Law. We're just not exactly sure how they got off-world as they don't seem to be in possession of a TARDIS. 

For the most part, they base themselves' in one place in Time and Space and operate from there. Some of these Renegades are still up to no good but a few of them are quite benevolent. They didn't agree with the policies of their people but just want to live in peace. In the eyes of the Time Lords, they're still criminals, of course. But there's not anything really all that bad about them. 

Our first Renegade that we meet that left Gallifrey without a TARDIS, however, was not that nice of a person. He was, in fact, one of the more evil Renegade Time Lords we've seen in the history of the entire show. 

The War Lord did build SIDRATs for the War Lords. They may have been constructed by cannibalising a TARDIS he used to escape from Gallifrey. We only join the story once things are well underway between the Time Lord and this evil race bent on universal domination. Who knows, for sure, how he met them or what the early stages of their operation.looked like. But I'm fairly certain that if the War Chief had stolen a TARDIS, he would have kept it as an "ace up his sleeve" rather than sacrificing it to advance the cause of the War Lords. Chances are, the SIDRATs were created from some other resource. The fact that the War Chief also seems to really value the idea that the Doctor has a TARDIS would further indicate he has no vehicle of his own like this. And probably never had one at any point before The War Games. 

The next Renegade that we meet that didn't own a TARDIS is definitely one of the kinder ones. Perhaps the kindest. I prefer to call this particular Time Lord the Mentor. But when he appears in Planet of Spiders, he seems to go by either K'anpo Ripoche or Cho-Je. Depending on which incarnation he is walking in. 

It's generally a mystery as to how a non-TARDIS-stealing Time Lord left Gallifrey. The Mentor would be an exception to this rule. He seems to have developed incredible mental powers. The first evidence of these abilities is unveiled when we learn that he is, somehow, projecting his own future incarnation into the timeline of his current one. Essentially, he is existing in two bodies  at once. But this does not seem to be a case of crossing his own time stream through time travel.  It's something more complicated than that (I've always postulated that the Doctor's Watcher in Logopolis seems to be existing under a similar principle). 

The next display of the Mentor's seemingly magical powers is seen moments before the third Doctor regenerates. He just suddenly seems to appear in the UNIT lab floating in mid-air. He helps to push the whole regenerative process along a bit and then fades out of existence. No doubt, he's gone off  somewhere else to enjoy more adventures. 

It seems clear that the Mentor used some similar means of egress to get off his home planet. Somehow, he can just will himself from one place to another. In this sense, he just might be one of the most powerful Time Lords we've ever seen. If he were to actually use his incredible abilities in an aggressive manner, he might actually be unstoppable. Especially when you consider how much the Doctor treasures him. He would be the only Renegade Time Lord who might stand a chance to defeat him should the Mentor choose a darker path. But he would find it very difficult to oppose such a dear friend. Fortunately for the Universe, the Mentor is a very peaceful being. 

And back to evil Renegades we go as we deal with Morbius. It's entirely possible that he used a TARDIS to first escape from Gallifrey. But that, when he was eventually captured and executed, that TARDIS was taken away from him. It's difficult to say as we only hear so much about what he got up to before he came to Karn. But he was a high-ranking Time Lord before he left his home planet. This would probably give him easy access to TARDISes. 

As we listen to accounts of what occurred when he built up the Cult of Morbius, however, everything seems to take place within one time zone. Which might support the idea better that he was without a time vessel. Having a prestigious position in Time Lord society might even work against him. He might get noticed all-the-more easily and would have to be dealt with for an act of theft because he was such a public figure. We should also be mindful of the fact that most TARDISes possess a recall device. It's presumed that TARDIS-Stealers find a way to deactivate them. But, again, Morbius was probably very quickly noticed when he left Gallifrey. Most likely, he wouldn't have time to switch his off. So if Morbius had stolen a TARDIS, he would have been hauled back immediately. His plans to build an army would have been thwarted before they could even begin. So it's doubtful that he ever had a TARDIS. He found a more discreet means of egress.  

When we meet him in Brain of Morbius, it seems pretty clear that the Renegade has no TARDIS. Surely, if he'd had such a form of transportation at his disposal, he and Solon would have left Karn shortly after his "execution" and set up a decent laboratory somewhere else in Time and Space. They certainly wouldn't have stayed on Karn and worked under such poor conditions. Morbius might not have had a body at that point, but he was probably already in his brain tank with a communications device so he could have just given Solon directions on how to pilot a TARDIS. Instead, they seem stranded on Karn when the Doctor arrives. So it's pretty safe to assume that he was one of those Renegades that never owned a TARDIS. 

Next up is Azmael. Like Borusa, he was one of the Doctor's teachers at the Academy. He's also another one of those more benevolent Renegade Time Lords. 

There's a lot to indicate that the former professor found his way from Gallifrey to Jocunda without the use of a TARDIS. The very fact that he travels on a space freighter to abduct the twins is probably the best piece of evidence to support this. If he'd had a TARDIS, he would have used that to materialise in Romulus and Remus' room and then stolen them away. Hugo Lang would have had no chance of chasing him.

It could be that Azmael had a TARDIS and Mestor was, somehow, able to wrest it from him. The old Renegade talks of how the gastropod knows how to travel in time because of him. But that could easily be because Mestor is a powerful mind-reader and  was able to extract temporal theory from Azmael's memories. It seems to me that if the TARDIS had been taken from the Renegade Time Lord we would have seen Mestor using it in some way. Or would have, at least, heard about it while the Doctor was unravelling the gastropod's whole plot to infest the cosmos with his eggs.  

The Valeyard* is, technically, a renegade who made it off of Gallifrey. It seems that he traveled with all the other Time Lords that were on the space station where the Doctor's trial was held. How they actually got there, of course, no one knows for sure. It probably wasn't by TARDIS, though. The Space Station, itself, probably just did a big time jump.  

He definitely doesn't seem to be in possession of any sort of TARDIS once the trial begins. Surely, if he was, he would have done like the Master and parked it somewhere within the Matrix. And we would have seen it at some point during The Ultimate Foe. 

A SPECIAL SUBSET THAT ENCOMPASSES BOTH CATEGORIES

With the exception of some Super Grey Areas that I will cover shortly in the Footnotes, we've tackled every Renegade Time Lord that has been seen on the show (at least, I'm pretty sure we have. Did I miss anybody? I'm sure someone will let me know if I did!). But there is one more trend I wanted to bring up that I found interesting. It's something we see that spans almost all the types of Renegades that we have discussed. 

Planet Rulers

Many Renegade Time Lords have dreams of ruling the cosmos. They, at least, partially succeed by taking over a single planet for a time. It's quite the common occurrence, in fact. So much so, that it deserves mention in this essay. 

We have a few TARDIS-Stealers that fit this title:

We hear mention of the Rani ruling a planet called Miasimia Goria in Mark of the Rani. Her whole reason for being on Earth and extracting brain fluid is because she is having problems with controlling her subjects. We don't know, for sure, if she is still in power by Time and the Rani. The topic is never brought up in that story. But it seems likely that the people of Miasimia Goria somehow broke out from under her dominance. 

The Master did rule over the Earth for a year during Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords. But this does, sort of, qualify as a Grey Area. His entire reign ends up becoming an aborted timeline as the season finale concludes. 

The most peculiar case of a Planet Ruler hails from the Those Who Made it off of Gallifrey Wihout a TARDIS subset.

Azmael, for a time, was the ruler of Jocunda. But he appears to have been benevolent in his reign. He cares for his subjects and we see some of them respond in kind to him in Twin Dilemma. It's assumed that the only Jocundans that do oppose him only do so out of fear of Mestor. This is one of the few instances we ever see of something like this. Most other Renegade Planet Rulers seem to veer towards dictatorship. 

Since Lord President of the Time Lords is, in fact, the highest position of power on Gallifrey, some Social Climbers from the first part of this essay would also be Planet Rulers. Borusa, then, is definitely a Social Climber Renegade who fits in to this category. Unlike Azmael, he is a malevolent Planet Ruler. Not right away, of course, since he is a Sleeper Social Climber. But he definitely is a baddie by The Five Doctors.

Rassilon would be another Planet Ruler. Although there might be a slightly more altruistic streak to him. He rules with quite the iron fist (pun completely intended if you look at the accessory he wears in End of Time and Hell Bent!), but he is trying to save Gallifrey from the effects of the Time Wars and the Prophecy of the Hybrid. So he's not quite as greedy as Borusa was.

There's a sizeable amount of dialogue that indicates Morbius was a very important Time Lord before he escaped into the Universe and began his Cult. It's entirely possible he was also Lord President for a time. But it's difficult to say.... 

Kelner from Invasion of Time falls into a similar situation. We think he became Lord President for, at least, a little while after the Vardan/Sontaran attack. But we're not sure about him, either...

We can also guess that whoever was Lord President during Trial of a Time Lord was a nasty old bastard. We know the High Council became corrupt and we assume that the Lord President would have been a part of the Ravalox Scandal. But we can't be entirely certain...   

Finally, of course, the Doctor had a stint as Lord President. He would be another rare example of a kind Planet Ruler. Although he did pretend to be a dictator for the sake of fooling the Vardans. 

The Doctor is also the only Planet Ruler that we've seen run two worlds. As he also becomes President of Earth during any extreme international crisis.   

* Grey Areas

* Drax - It's not entirely certain if Drax is truly a Time Lord or just a Gallifreyan that stole a TARDIS. He and the Doctor have quite the discussion about their days back in the Academy and it does seem like Drax never properly graduated. Which would indicate he's not a Time Lord. It's a bit unclear, really. So, if we're splitting hairs, he is a TARDIS-Stealer. But he's not, necessarily, a Renegade Time Lord TARDIS-Stealer!   

* The Valeyard - I don't discuss the Valeyard much in this because, in many ways, we were already talking about him when I covered the Doctor. They are, after all, one and the same. But he is his own independent entity too. So he should get some individual mention. 

Super Grey Areas

No asterisks to be found beside these names as they didn't really fall under any of the categories that I have brought up. But they do qualify as Renegades. So we ought to discuss them, somewhere. 

Omega - By a truly technical definition, he is a Renegade. He does break some of the laws of his people in both The Three Doctors and Arc of Infinity. But it's difficult to truly label him a criminal and not just a really poor victim of circumstance. 

He believes himself to have been abandoned by the Time Lords and, ultimately, just wants to return home. If they won't accept him, however, then he's willing to force his way back. He's not on Gallifrey so he can't really be a Rejector or a Social Climber. He's also not a TARDIS Stealer but actually appears to have built one for himself once he was expelled from his planet. He's even only sort of a Planet Ruler as Hedin does seem to be setting him up as Lord President but his reign is quite tenuous. So he really does have his own specific category.

In the end, he is a Renegade. But a very unique one. Also, a very tragic one.  

Romana - Another very specialised scenario. Initially, she was travelling with the Doctor because she was sent on a special mission by who she believed to be the Lord President (but was, actually, the White Guardian in disguise). She never had any intention of flouting the laws of her people. 

But as the Quest for the Key to Time concludes, she should have requested to have been brought back home. But it's never brought up. This would certainly indicate the beginning of Romana becoming a Renegade. She has, most definitely, begun breaking the First Law as she starts flitting around the Universe and getting in trouble with the Doctor during Season 17. 

One might almost argue that she doesn't ask to be brought back to Gallifrey because the Randomiser would prohibit the Doctor from being able to do it, anyway. But we do see in City of Death that the device can be switched off. So Romana staying on after her regeneration is a bit of a blurry situation. 

As the Time Lords make a formal request for Romana to be returned at the end of Meglos, we finally see her taking a firm stance. She wants to keep travelling the Universe and breaking that First Law. But it took quite a while for this decision to be firmly stated. So we could almost call her a Sleeper Renegade. A good season-and-some-change elapses between Armageddon Factor and Full Circle. During this period, we watch Romana's attitude shift more and more towards rejecting the ways of her people. As the E-Space Trilogy begins, Romana is definitely a fully-fledged Renegade. 

Like Omega, she's not a TARDIS-Stealer, either. But she is going to be building one as Warrior's Gate reaches its conclusion. With a little help from K9 - Mark Two, of course!

Phew! We did it. We really seemed to cover every single Renegade Time Lord there ever was. Again, if I missed anyone, I'm sure someone will let me know!

I got this series done quicker than I expected. So I might play with the theme a little longer but take it into a whole new Essay Category. We'll see. I might just enjoy the rest of June without blogging. 

I doubt it, though.