Gallifrey - Geography

Geography

From space, Gallifrey is seen as a yellow-orange planet and is close enough to central space lanes for spacecraft to require clearance from Gallifreyan Space Traffic Control as they pass through its system (The Invasion of Time, 1978). The planet is protected from physical attack by the impenetrable barrier called the quantum force field, named presumably after the Eye of Harmony, and from teleportation incursions by the transduction barrier - which can be reinforced to repel most levels of this type of technological attack. This prevents all outsiders (with hostile intent, or otherwise) from approaching the planet and allows the Time Lords to maintain their status of absolute neutrality. It also lets them observe the actions of the rest of the Universe without actually taking part in its affairs. These security barriers were breached on occasion by the Sontarans, by manipulating the more technological Vardans, who suborned the Doctor into sabotaging both of these from within (The Invasion of Time, 1978).

The Doctor's granddaughter Susan described her home world (not named as "Gallifrey" at the time) as having bright, silver-leafed trees and a burnt orange sky at night (The Sensorites, 1964), features that the Tenth Doctor reiterates in the episode "Gridlock" (2007). This casts an amber tint on anything outside the city, as seen in The Invasion of Time. Gallifrey's sky appeared blue and Earth-like in The Five Doctors (1983) within the isolated Death Zone.

In "Gridlock", the Doctor also mentions vast mountain ranges situated on Gallifrey, "with fields of deep red grass, capped with snow". In "The Time Monster" he reveals that "When I was a little boy, we used to live in a house that was perched halfway up the top of a mountain", explaining, "I ran down that mountain and I found that the rocks weren't grey at all - but they were red, brown and purple and gold. And those pathetic little patches of sludgy snow were shining white. Shining white in the sunlight". In "Gridlock" he further elaborates how Gallifrey's second sun would "rise in the south and the mountains would shine", with the silver-leafed trees looking like "a forest on fire" in the mornings. In "The Sound of Drums", the Doctor says that Gallifrey was called the Shining World of the Seventh System.

In "The Brain of Morbius" the Doctor arrives on Karn and states "I was born in these parts... within a couple of billion miles", a distance which would place Karn within the same solar system as Gallifrey. The Sisterhood of Karn also state "Our senses reach beyond the five planets", intimating Gallifrey's solar system comprises five worlds.

The Citadel of the Time Lords stands on the Continent of Wild Endeavour, in the Mountains of Solace and Solitude ("The Sound of Drums"), where the capital is also located. Within the capital is the Panopticon, under which is located the Eye of Harmony, the nucleus of a black hole that is their power source. The Eye provides the power required for time travel (The Three Doctors, 1973; The Deadly Assassin, 1976), and all Time Lord TARDIS time machines draw their power from it (the 1996 television movie). Also situated in the capital is the Matrix, the vast extradimensional computer network which acts as the repository of all Time Lord knowledge as well as containing the memories of dead Time Lords (The Deadly Assassin).

The Deadly Assassin mentions the existence of a section of the Citadel's population called the Shobogans and references the "plebeian classes". This implies that not all people native to Gallifrey are Time Lords. Among Gallifrey's wildlife are creatures called flutterwings (mentioned in The Pirate Planet) and The Mark of the Rani implies that a species similar to cats also exists.

Outside the city lie wastelands where "Outsiders", Gallifreyans who have dropped out of Time Lord society, live in less technological tribal communities. The wastes of Gallifrey include the Death Zone, an area that was used as a gladiatorial arena by the first Time Lords, pitting various species kidnapped from their respective time zones against each other (although Daleks and Cybermen were considered too dangerous to use). Inside the Death Zone stands the Tomb of Rassilon, the founder of Time Lord society (The Five Doctors). Somewhere on Gallifrey there is also an institute called the Academy, which the Doctor and various other Time Lords have attended. It is not clear whether this building is in the capital or outside it and equally it is unclear whether it is a single building or different for each group of Time Lords (Borusa refers to Prydon Academy in The Deadly Assassin, but the Doctor in The Time Monster and The Sound of Drums refers to it as a single Academy). Somewhere on Gallifrey is a portal known as the Untempered Schism, a gap in the fabric of reality. Eight-year-old Gallifreyans are brought before the Schism and made to look into the Time Vortex as part of an initiation ceremony into the Time Lord Academy. According to the Doctor, some are inspired, some run away, and some are driven mad. ("The Sound of Drums"). In "The End of Time, Part One", the Master refers to his father's land on Gallifrey which had red grass and stretched across the slopes of Mount Perdition.

When the question of Gallifrey's location is discussed by humans, it is presumed to be located somewhere in Ireland. Examples include episode one of "The Hand of Fear" (1976), episode two of "The Invisible Enemy" (1977) and "Human Nature" (2007).