#* ◦ ❝ « 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘰𝘯 . ancient records .

[triple1st]

as i'm making my way through big finish's time war audios, i have noticed the mention of time lords having spouses & children: trave in gallifrey: time war, carvil in the lords of terror, lamarius in war master: anti-genesis (coincidentally both carvil & lamarius commit war crimes because of the deaths of their family at the hands of the daleks, trave is executed publicly on gallifrey after he's threatened with the death of his husband, children & grandchildren should he refuse being made an example out of). while this is pretty clearly a case of big finish following closely with the new series' established canon, where moffat himself said plainly that he views time lord families being just like ours (though like many elements of his era the consistency weavers), personally i wanna play with the concept of implanted memories as motivation for participating in the war

i do crib a lot off the EDAs in how i want to depict the time war on this blog & i've already readjusted project revenant from the first gallifrey: time war boxset to not simply be the resurrection of dead time lords through the matrix, but also the reprinting of fresh time lord bodies as canon-fodder by ripping the looms from every great house on gallifrey & repurposing them for the war effort, which is a few very close steps to having a decoy gallifrey's atmosphere become a soldier production factory. while most of these soldiers are simply mindless, with nothing but raw instinct driving them to eradicate gallifrey's enemies, time lords that die in the war & are later weaved again in a loom can't have their minds scraped of anything but the thirst for blood & thus the war council implants false memories of a spouse, a partner, a child or several, things anathema to gallifrey but a motivation to fight that most other species can comprehend. something to humanize time lords in opposition to the daleks, a justification for being equally monstrous

romana iii, as lord president in the early stages of the time war is well aware of the war council's actions, of the revenants that litter the battlefields across time & space, of how mass-production of willing servants to gallifrey's military makes them not so different from their enemies & while she is opposed on moral terms, this incarnation is far too pragmatic not to see it as an advantage, knowing that rejecting the war council's plans would be political suicide. of course, here much like in celestial intervention i imagine she worked with narvin behind the scenes to spy & stop the war council acting beyond her reach, keeping secrets from her & the celestial intervention agency, but when the CIA's agents failed & were brought before her, she had to betray them to the war council, play along to their whims, reprimand narvin for his scheming behind her back publicly while privately they planned their next move. not even the lord president has the power to stop her people giving in to their base instincts when the war is all encompassing, she can't be on every front, dictate every battle, her power is dispersed among her cardinals & generals, among the war council & the CIA, every one of them using the war to consolidate her power

[triple1st]

A COUPLE OF NOTES & EXPANDED CANON ON : ROMANA'S  BACKSTORY  + ASCENSION TO THE SEAT OF LORD PRESIDENT .

the gallifreyan chapterhouse to which romana belongs is somewhat unclear, while the gallifrey audio series (a primary source which informs several key events within romana’s life & how i characterize her) unanimously agrees that she is from the house of heartshaven, it maintains a relation with house (of) dvora, romana openly referring to herself as : “ the inheritor of the house of dvora & the custodian of the house of everston . ” certain gallifreyans in the expanded universe also retain their chapterhouse in their full name, such as quences .  leela was also given a gallifreyan name containing her husband andred's chapterhouse, who belonged to the house of redlooms in the novels, later retconned to the house of deeptree in the audio series .  as such & in keeping with the history of house dvora throughout faction paradox, i've combined romana’s houses of origin into a single backstory .

romanadvoratrelundar was loomed as one of 20 cousins of house dvora, the house of devouring hounds, one of the oldest newblood houses of the prydonian chapter (newblood, essentially, refers to gallifreyans loomed utilizing an updated version of the universal biodata imprint which all looms on gallifrey draw from in order to weave new gallifreyans .  they possess a secondary heart & better control of their regeneration, something romana displays expertly in destiny of the daleks . every couple of centuries, this universal biodata imprint is updated with new genetic information drawn from the matrix as a way to replicate the natural evolutionary process undergone by every other living species, as all gallifreyans are sterile & thus any natural process is forcibly recreated mechanically using rassilon’s gift of technology) .  house dvora was among the most prideful & powerful chapterhouses in the prydonian academy .  it had, for generations now, ruthlessly & efficiently trained its 'children' for the roles of high office within the capitol .  it was infamous for the steel & ice present within the hearts of its members, a result of their upbringing .  impenetrable  ironic & sharp around the edges, all of house dvora’s cousins strove to achieve great things, obtain the unimaginable power granted by gallifrey’s highest office all to make house dvora & their kithriarch proud .

romana was no different, not at first, she was loomed in the generation following morbius, the last successor of house dvora who went on to become lord president of the high council of time lords, only a few years into his presidency .  she shined brightly among her cousins, commanding, beautiful, smart, endless potential following in her path .  romana was considered by the house kithriarch (the head of the household, its caretaker, responsible for the social well-being of each family member) to be dvora’s finest, the only cousin of twenty who would bring great pride to the house & become everything it wanted of her .  however, romana never felt the pride house dvora took in her .  much like her cousins, she was kept under strict expectations, monitored by her mechanical caretakers, pushed to her limits by the voices trapped within the walls of the house, whispering of the great legacy of her ancestors & their disappointment should she ever disobey .  house dvora’s treatment would only worsen when romana showed a streak of compassion for her fellow cousins, helping them out on one of many brain-buffing (teaching, essentially) exercises .  such things are unbecoming of members of house dvora .  like all gallifreyans, they are taught the values of selfishness, to seek only their own interests first & to curb those interests in relation to the house itself .  romana’s behavior was considered a malfunction of the house loom, an error of birth & something the house kithriarch would take personal responsibility to fix .

fortunately, he never got the chace, as this coincided with the imperator crisis, lord president morbius showing his true nature, putting gallifrey on a warpath with the rest of the universe & overthrowing its anti-interventionist policy .  upon his defeat by the alliance formed by the high council & his subsequent trial & execution by the sisterhood of karn, house dvora would devour itself in shame .  shame to have produced such a warmongering tyrant, shame to have brought disaster & ruin to gallifrey, shame to have had its name tarnished by one of its star pupils . romana, along with any surviving cousins who were not present within the walls of their house as it collapsed in on itself, were taken by the prydonian chapter castellan & dispersed among other surviving chapterhouses .  she became a foundling of the house of heartshaven, one of 35 cousins, & her memories of house dvora were lost when her brain-buffing was readjusted for her new home .  heartshaven was a lesser known house whose members became archivists, officials of more mundane offices, keepers of the matrix & even chancellery guards .  she spent a total of fifty years within the walls of heartshaven, only twenty or so within dvora, still the brightest star among her cousins, with her only surviving memories of house dvora being of the cold breeze that passed through its halls, bitting into her skin, knowing it was the house itself trying to make her feel small .  the harsh voice of its kithriarch, the thunder & fury that followed it, the house slamming doors in its wake .  heartshaven, by comparison, was infinitely warmer .  a candle-lit fire, minuscule & never quite enough on its own, but much greater by contrast .  it was through heartshaven that romana later found work as an archivist in the bureau of ancient records, a library within the capitol which kept volumes of gallifreyan history dating back to the dark times .

the legacy of house dvora would follow romana into the prydonian academy & into the early days of her presidency . the reputation of dvora’s cousins as cold & untouchable landing her the nickname of 'the ice maiden' (probably less gendered in the original gallifreyan language, given that in the expanded universe gallifreyans are generally portrayed to be either genderless or ambiguous) .  she would try disprove these notions, rebel against them, befriend her classmates, sartia among them whom romana considered her best friend only to realize sartia's hatred for her upon being reunited during her travels with the doctor . she found that the time lord academy itself encouraged her to curb her compassion, fend only for herself as to survive as the sole victor among its pupils .  it would only be upon her travels with the doctor that romana’s compassion & care would be allowed to bloom, gifted another perspective beyond that of rigid gallifreyan socialization .  it was a perspective she would later want to impart upon her fellow time lords, wanting them to see the universe as she does, not just coldly observe but to covet & care for all that which gallifrey deems beneath itself & why when she returned to her home planet, romana found herself a seat on the high council & ascended to the office of lord president . though she would never admit it, having travelled with the doctor certainly helped her political prospects, given he left the presidency vacant on multiple occasions despite the time lords insisting upon it . through assassination plots, bids for immortality & one brief stint in office the doctor was unwilling to fulfill his duties, he proved he could never be trusted . who better then than a time lord that had been his travelling companion ?

her enemies in the high council, however, insisted upon romana's inheritance as an argument against her inauguration . that the malfunction in the breeding engines that led to morbius' ascendancy meant all of house dvora's children were tainted & to allow any one of its survivors his power would be tantamount to suicide . though other more conservative elements within the capitol considered the prospect of romana's presidency a return to form, despite the risk that morbius' legacy lives on within her . he understood the power gallifrey held over the universe . at every step of the electoral process romana stressed that she was more of heartshaven than dvora, that everything house dvora represented died when the house sunk into the ground in shame & anguish & that she was defined by her adoptive house more than anything . it's what she wanted to believe, of course, that she was no tyrant & nothing of morbius survived through her or any other of dvora's lost children, but it was never the imperator romana should have feared . morbius lived on through history, through his cult & its adherents, pandora was erased from time itself & she would come to define the first term of romana's presidency, plunging gallifrey into a second civil war .