The School for Scoundrels

“Mortimus, the Rani, that idiot Magnus. And you, Doctor.
All graduates of Borusa's Academy for scoundrels.” - Ruath, Goth Opera

In his time, the Doctor has claimed to be an expert in many things - a scholar of the Universe, with countless mentors and teachers, and, seemingly as many or more fellow students. In the television series no fewer than four fellow Time Lords were singled out as having once studied alongside him, and we ‘meet’ three of his teachers - all between his third and sixth incarnations. Of note also is that of these characters the vast majority became renegade Time Lords, absconding Gallifreyan society for a life of adventure and no small amount of mischief. It could be observed that with every successive meeting between the Doctor and his old Academy chums, the less unique his character appears to be, and the more likely that some form of universal ‘renegade schooling‘ was once set in place during his salad days in the Prydon Academy. In 1999 Gary Russell's BBC Book Divided Loyalties attempted to gather together the disparate elements of the Doctor's scholastic history. This article is an attempt to go one step further - to account for those in Russell's book, those he left out, and the latest implications of this newest revision of his past.

Divided Loyalties sets roughly a third of its action in a flashback sequence within the Academy on Gallifrey. The time period is the Doctor's tenure there as a student; one of ten fellows of similar talents, leanings and interests - a group who christen themselves ‘The Deca’.

THE DECA'S GALLIFREY

Much of what we recognise as the Doctor's ‘modern Gallifrey’ is either in its infancy or is alive and well. The latest model of TARDIS being tested is the Type 30 Mark 2, although models up to the Type 35 are conceivable. ‘Skimmers’ are a common form of transport, perhaps related to air-cars typical to that which Romana received as a birthday present, having been in existence since the Doctor's childhood (when he flew them). Time scaphes are still used and the transduction barriers are already up and working. The President at the time is a male named Drall (apparently Negroid in his present incarnation), and it is his cat which is devoured by Ushas' monstrous pet mice. The present Castellan is named Rannex. The Celestial Intervention Agency and the Matrix are in operation - the CIA wear black and white tabards, which implies that the three Time Lords at the end of The War Games are specifically CIA agents. During the Doctor's first encounter with the Toymaker, the hermit from South Gallifrey who came to be known as K'anpo Rimpoche leaves Gallifrey forever.

THE ACADEMY

The ‘Academy’ is an annexed part of the Capitol and covers twenty-eight square miles in area; it is by virtue a self-contained city. Though ‘school’, ‘academy’ and ‘college’ are almost always used synonymously, we might assume that the Academy is the greater and singular institution of trainee Time Lords, of which the individual chapters are parts - these being, mainly, the Arcalian, Patraxes, and the Prydon. Each has its own characteristics, but it is undoubtedly the latter which are the most famous, the greatest achievers, and who carry the greatest likelihood of producing renegade Time Lords.

The Prydon Academy sits on Gallifrey's highest peak, Mount Cadon, high on its slopes, where in even loftier towers special candidates are trained in dark Time Lord arts. The Chapter is old (all three appear to have been around during the Great War with the Vampires), the Prydons presumably named after the hero Harclav Agusti Prydon, a contemporary of Rassilon. He found glory in battle on Thule, and overthrew the Sphinx, bringing its head as a prize to Gallifrey. Upon his return he denounced the Pythia and was dispatched to Funderell on the Asteroid Archipelago by the Council of Principals. There he acted as an independent observer to ‘a minor territorial dispute between Ruta 3 and the Sontaran Warburg’. Also in attendance at the Academy are extraterrestrial students, such as Gresasaurs.

The Arcalians are less famous for their guile, but may be the Prydons' nearest rivals, so usually are they listed second of the three main chapters. It was the Arcalians who invented the dangerous game ‘Eighth Man Bound’, played infrequently by junior Time Lords. The game is so named because it was an Arcalian who managed to foresee his future incarnations up to his seventh, but got no further. This record was equaled by a certain student in the Prydon Chapter during the Doctor's time.

The Patrexes by reputation appear to be greatly different to their brethren chapters. While the Prydons and Arcalians manned Rassilon's bowships during the Great War, the Patraxes with Rassilon developed the highly volatile N-Form biological weapon, despite the protestations of the other two schools. The Patraxes were also described as “an order of artists, aesthetes [and] shallow Episcopeleans with pretentious minds... but they [lacked] the imagination to achieve high art”. The first gold ever formed in the Universe forms a ball within a gateway of solid light that is the entrance to the Patraxes Academy Lodge. Their colour is, of course, heliotrope - the colour of Gallifrey's moon.

Teachers

Coordinator Azmael trained the Academy students. The Doctor said Azmael was the finest teacher the Doctor ever had, and indeed the Doctor attended some of his classes. Azmael by reputation virtually doted upon the Doctor, and Jelpax worked alongside him in his library. Like his favourite pupil, Azmael tired of life on Gallifrey and elected to leave. However, his expertise and knowledge of often-sensitive matters made the High Council wary for their safety and, in a rash decision, they plotted to have him assassinated by a team of ruthless and barbaric Seedle Warriors. The Warriors followed Azmael to Vitrol Minor, where they decimated the native population, the High Council framing Azmael for this purportedly over the planet's mineral rights. Enraged at the genocide and uncovering the conspiracy, Azmael himself executed the High Council in their chamber upon his return to Gallifrey. He then departed publicly a final time, eventually settling on the jungle planet of Jaconda where the natives elected him President and (presumably) where he also married. The new High Council made Azmael's reputation that of a revolutionary hero, but nevertheless ensured that he would not return. He was reunited with the Doctor during the latter's fourth incarnation, and at the beginning of the Doctor's sixth incarnation Azmael helped the Doctor defeat the Gastropod Mestor, forcing one final regeneration and dying saving the Universe.

The more famous Cardinal Borusa taught some of the Deca, but apparently not the Master, as he failed to recognise Borusa during the events of his return to Gallifrey (The Deadly Assassin). After serving in the Academy, Borusa gradually rose to power within the political structure of Time Lord society, eventually becoming President, and later, Lord President. Whilst vying to secure his rule as President Eternal at great peril, Borusa was tricked by the embodiment of Rassilon and imprisoned in his Tomb. Borusa was eventually freed by the eighth Doctor and returned to rule Gallifrey once more as Lord President, reformed and received by his subjects. Probably.

A particularly fearsome Cardinal was Zass, and the Patrexen Chancellor Delox (who taught a rigid class of Time Lord philosophy) appears to discipline the Doctor for his truculence. Cardinal Sendok's subject was stellar cartography; Lady Genniploritrelundar, an Arcalian lecturer, taught stellar engineering; and Franilla was the name of another teacher. Cardinal Brabbajaggl taught the Doctor that there was no such thing as magic. The Doctor once said his tutor was the most attractive person he'd ever seen. It may have been a robot.

SUBJECTS TAUGHT

Besides the study of certain planets, including Earth, the Academy offers such classes as stellar cartography, stellar engineering, biochemistry, temporal physics, philosophy, cosmic science, elementary geochronometry, temporal theory, and thermodynamics. Drax's ‘tech course’ remains unexplained (were there polytechnics on Gallifrey as well?), but one must assume that practical classes were a mainstay of Time Lord study.

THE FORMING OF THE DECA

The ‘Deca’, a loose band of ten friends of similar interests and academic ability, was exclusive to the Prydonian Chapter, and established in the first semester of the students' ‘freshman’ year. Indeed, the Deca appear to have been together for some years already. This might suggest that the Academy is a secondary or even tertiary institution, although the term ‘school’ is still taken to be synonymous. All but three of the Deca were still in their first regeneration and were forbidden to regenerate until their 500th birthday. It is not explained why this was so, or whether this was routine. The same three, Vansell, Ushas and Rallon, were in their final semester, the rest having two semesters remaining before they could join their friends and undergo the Imprimature. When invested, this would grant them particular Time Lord gifts including the ability to withstand time travel, telepathic connection with one's TARDIS, regeneration, and control over such devices as Time Rings.

The Doctor, Koschei and Magnus met on the first day of their first year in the Academy, brought together by their desire to learn. Despite an apparent age gap, Rallon and Millennia fell in love. Rallon and the Doctor both lived at the Academy dormitory (perhaps Rallon was assigned to mentor the Doctor?). Koschei and Ushas may have known one another through their interest in biochemistry, Koschei admiring Ushas' skill in this area (as he later admitted in The Mark of the Rani). Magnus admired Ushas for other reasons, much to Mortimus' amusement. Mortimus and the Doctor both had an interest in history, particularly that of Earth. Jelpax and Drax lived outside the Capitol, and travelled together to the Academy, their friendship strengthened by their interest (albeit for different reasons) in the Relics of the Time Lords. Drax and the Doctor met on a technical course, naturally. Together with the insular Vansell, they banded together when their scholastic achievements earned the envy and contempt of their fellow students.

MAGNUS

Born from a different House than the Doctor, Magnus, along with Koschei, was a close friend of the Doctor's since their first meeting at the Academy. Magnus' almost hypnotic charisma and influence over the others of the Deca was noted and envied by Koschei. Magnus' specialty was Science and Energies, and after the disbanding of the Deca he was assigned to the Physics section of the Scientific Research Department. There, in at least his second incarnation, his discovery of a sphere of pure artron energy in the Vortex nearly ensured him a reputation as great as Omega's, as he captured the artron sphere and brought it into real space as a power source for Gallifrey. However, upon the intervention of his old classmate Thete (the Doctor in his first incarnation), the sphere was found to be sentient, and the experiment was sabotaged by the interloper. After lengthy deliberations, the High Council decided the Doctor's actions were not criminal and he was instead commended for them. This put an end to Magnus and Thete's friendship once and for all. Disgraced, Magnus left Gallifrey and pursued an interest from his time in the Deca, the culture of an unnamed race of warmongering Aliens. Allying himself with them, he became their War Chief.

KOSCHEI

Like Magnus, Koschei came from a different House to the Doctor - namely the House of Oakdown, and therefore is unlikely to have been a relation - or a close one. His specialty was cosmic science. Koschei and Thete shared a close friendship, along with Magnus, but it was from Koschei that Thete learned elementary hypnotism, and the two of them lashed together a makeshift interface and entered the Matrix undiscovered, discovering the secret of the Old Ones' nemesis Valdemar. Despite this event, and their later penetration of Azmael's system, Koschei kept himself out of trouble, and out of Borusa's sight - though this may not have been enough. Two hundred years after they were last together, Koschei and the Doctor met once more as friends, Koschei being in a much later incarnation, and as he later claimed, a Time Lord of the first rank. The Doctor meanwhile was in his second body. With Koschei was his apparently human assistant Ailla, who was ‘killed’ by accident while the Time Lords investigated a body of Dark Matter known as the Dark Heart. In reality Ailla was also a Time Lord, assigned to spy on Koschei for the High Council. Initially grieved for her death, then confused and enraged by her regeneration and survival (and the logical conclusion this suggested), Koschei lost his grip on sanity and fled alone as the Master, swearing revenge on his friend and his home.

‘THETE’ [‘THETA SIGMA’]

The Doctor grew up in South Gallifrey, in the House of Lungbarrow, often absconding himself from classes to visit the Hermit who lived at the top of the mountain overlooking his ancestral home. Presumably this was Mount Lung; at its foot was the river Cadonflood in which the young Thete and the Hermit used to swim. From the Hermit Thete learned many of the myths of Gallifrey, such as those of the Fendahl and the Great Vampires. On joining the Academy, Thete became friends immediately with Koschei and Magnus. Despite their influence he wasn't very good at Time Lord philosophy (later receiving a lowly double gamma). Koshei thought Thete wasn't living up to his full potential, and the two regularly played truant to drink with Shobogans. Thete once asked Borusa why they learned temporal theory instead of actually “doing stuff”. Borusa famously announced that he would never amount to anything while he retained his propensity for vulgar facetiousness. It was suggested that the Doctor deliberately failed his chapter certifications in officiating and legislating to make others underestimate his intelligence and to try and escape the interminable life of duty on Gallifrey. He failed practical theology, but was highly commended for landscape gardening. Everyone at the Academy agreed that if nothing else, Thete had a reckless streak, made evident by his disastrous adventure in the realm of the Toymaker. After returning without Rallon and Millennia, he was expelled from the Academy to spend 500 years in the records area and traffic control, studying part-time before coming up for possible readmission to the Academy. [This charge was obviously lessened, possibly with help from Amzael, as the second Doctor's age is only 450 in Tomb of the Cybermen.] The Doctor finally passed with 51 percent, probably on his second attempt through the Academy, and had to at least resit his final papers on Temporal Theory. During his Academy days, the Doctor played Eighth Man Bound, possibly on a dare from Anzor. Despite this, the Doctor appeared to be held in high regard by the High Council in his altercation with Magnus, and indeed rose to great heights within Time Lord society - perhaps even to the station of High Council member before he and his granddaughter fled or were exiled.

RALLONWASHATELLARAW (RALLON)

Having the appearance of a Mediterranean man in his mid-thirties, Rallon, from the House of Stillhaven, had olive skin and an imposing stature with large hands. His attitude to the Doctor was one of fraternal protection, but it was Millennia with whom he was romantically involved. As he had already regenerated, it might be assumed that Rallon was either older than the others, or had done so early (as it would appear Ushas had if the Rani is the same age as the Doctor is). He also therefore had the Rassilon Imprimature, which enabled him to pilot the stolen TARDIS on the ill-fated adventure that doomed himself and Millennia, and almost the Doctor as well. His body was taken over by the Celestial Toymaker, but he was later able to help diminish the Toymaker by using up his regenerations and forcing the Toymaker to use his Watcher form. Rallon died executing the plan that would enable him to defeat the Toymaker.

MILLENNIA

Millennia's specialties were applied cosmic science and transcendental engineering. Though Vansell's ‘skill’ had allowed the Deca to penetrate the coordinator's system, it was Millennia's invention that makes sense of what they uncover. She was of the well-to-do House of Brightshore, a family with much wealth and influence - comparable to Rallon's own House. It was expected that the two lovers would eventually announce an official bond between them, if it were not for their fateful adventure. Captured by the Toymaker in his realm, she was turned into a living marionette doll.

MORTIMUS

As a member of the Deca, Mortimus possessed an insatiable appetite for knowledge, especially history - his speciality. He was often researching obscure and potentially forbidden documents and texts to further his curiosity. After ‘dropping out’ of the Academy shortly after the Deca's disbanding, he was used by the High Council as “something of an agent provocateur”, until they betrayed him and he initiated himself into one of the more obscure, secretive scholarly colleges which still practised worship of higher powers. Among these powers were presumably the Elder Gods of Ragnarok and the Eternals, and in the Red Book of Gallifrey, he learned of the Garvond (a primitive life-eating carnivore), and rituals necessary to summon a Kronovore. Some fifty years after the Doctor left Gallifrey, Mortimus too departed to explore the Universe, encountering and working with Yartek the Voord and the Moroks, where he may have helped them pioneer time travel. He met his old schoolmate Thete on Earth in the year 1066. This time Mortimus went under the disguise of an unnamed monk, but did not recognise the Doctor, though the two shared an obvious grudging rapport.

DRAX

From the ‘Class of '93’ also, Drax specialised in practical technologies, sharing a course with the Doctor whom he at least nicknamed ‘Thete’. Though quite resourceful and highly-skilled (living close to the Academy, he had built his own skimmer from scratch), his failing was temporal theory, and along with Mortimus he soon dropped out of school altogether. From there he liberated a second hand Type 40 TARDIS and left Gallifrey to work freelance, replacing and maintaining time vessels. He also spent some time attempting to sell fake TARDISes to Andromedans. It would appear that Drax's absence from Gallifrey was not an entirely permanent one, as he was present at the Doctor's graduation, giving him a fob watch as a present. At some stage after his time in the Academy, Drax worked alongside the future Chancellor Flavia monitoring the Waro invasion of Earth's solar system. When his own TARDIS broke down on Earth, Drax sought the crystals he needed to power his hyperbolic drive (a recurring problem, according to The Armageddon Factor) by breaking into the Tower of London for the crown jewels. He was caught red- handed and served a ten-year sentence in Brixton prison before the [fourth or seventh?] Doctor and K-9 freed him. It is possible that after this time Drax regenerated, as the Doctor did not instantly recognise him upon their later meeting on Zeos, 450 years after their time on Gallifrey.

VANSELL

A mysterious and aloof character, Vansell, along with Ushas and Rallon, was already a junior Time Lord in training before the break up of the Deca. It was probably due to Vansell's personality and skills in subterfuge (supposedly his talents enabled the Deca to penetrate Azmael's computer system) that he had been an early target for selection by the Celestial Intervention Agency, having been enlisted by them from his first day at the Academy. Persuaded to spy on the Doctor and eventually betray his friends, Vansell later became a barely-tolerated coordinator between the CIA and the High Council. He continued to work on Gallifrey as far as the seventh Doctor's incarnation, working closely alongside the Lord President and Castellan. His loyalty, or lack thereof, to the other Deca was demonstrated amply by his willingness to kill the Sixth Doctor during an encounter with a wounded Temperon.

USHAS

Notorious for her cynicism as well as her brilliance in biochemistry, The Mark of the Rani and Divided Loyalties suggest together that Ushas was only in her second incarnation upon the occasion of her later meeting with the Doctor on Earth during the nineteenth century. She wanted very little to do with the conspiracy for adventure pursued by the Doctor, Millennia and Rallon, and appeared to make little impact on the group. Perhaps it was because she was a junior Time Lord and she did not wish to jeopardise her standing. This, of course, had been upset by her own experiments, the most famous of which turned pet mice into monstrous freaks which attacked and ate President Drall's cat. Exiled, perhaps not at great resistance and being able to secure a TARDIS with its own recall device, she never returned to Gallifrey, but settled on the planet Miasimia Goria, adopting the title of ‘Rani’. She was reunited with her old classmates Thete and Koschei while the former was in his sixth incarnation. Tellingly, she was already familiar with their rivalry. Despite this, she was accepted as a member of the Deca, once sending the Doctor a raucous inviatition to her 94th birthday.

JELPAX

Jelpax, like Drax, lived in a House close to the Capitol, and therefore had no need to board at the Academy. This may have contributed to his apparently peripheral membership of the group, made more evident by his somewhat timid approach to misadventure exhibited by the others. He worked alongside coordinator Azmael in Azmael's library, and through this gained knowledge of and curiosity for his real passion - the old texts, especially those concerning the Dark Times of Gallifrey. Despite his curiosity, however, Jelpax was devoted to Borusa, and was celebrated as his finest pupil. In fact, this interest in forbidden knowledge and sharing it with Borusa led to his undoing, as with Borusa's downfall he too was demoted from his lofty position of a major recorder and later coordinator of the APC Net. Jelpax was later to hold the humble title of a monitor of the transduction barriers - a glorified traffic warden [see sidebar].

OTHER STUDENTS

RUNCIBLE

Described in Divided Loyalties as “thin, gangly... pinched and surly”, but in the later novelisation of The Deadly Assassin as overweight. Nicknamed ‘Runcible the fatuous’, he was hall monitor for one semester, and appeared to be unpopular both with classmates and faculty members for his vanity (Borusa had little time for him in The Deadly Assassin and recalled him with distaste). Runcible made a long list of those whom he despised, and who likely despised him more. Something of a toady, he once threatened to report Mortimus to Cardinal Zass. Presumably Runcible never became a Time Lord, though he may well have graduated, but went on to work as a presenter for the Public Register. It is implied that he never regenerated, as he did not instantly recognise the Doctor in his fourth incarnation (thought the Doctor knew him instantly). Shortly after this meeting he was killed by his old classmate Koschei, the emaciated Master.

ANZOR

The son of a former [High] Council member, Anzor attended the ‘Class of the 4th Millennia’ with the Doctor, whom he used to chastise. In fact, he knew of the Doctor by this later title, which suggests that this was most likely during the Doctor's second time through the Academy, and Anzor used the events of the Doctor's previous failure to further torment him. Anzor's bullying did not centre solely on the Doctor however, but also other classmates, one of whom was the ill-fortuned Cheevah, whom Anzor sealed in a lock of crystal and dropped from a great height into the school yard. During his school days, Anzor carried about with him an ‘orb stick’ - a galvaniser with which he tortured others. He continued to use this device until his later meeting with the Doctor (in the latter's sixth incarnation), while he was working by appointment of the High Council. Though clearly intimidating, his temporal knowledge was lacking, and he proved a poor navigator. He was thus easily outwitted by the Doctor, and remains stranded and at large.

RUATHADVOROPHRENALTID (RUATH)

Ruath belonged to the ‘Class of '92’, a year above the Deca in the Prydonian Academy. She was also presumably not a pupil of Borusa. While at the Academy, she and the Doctor used to break into TT capsules together, altered local gravity periodically, and introduced cats into the Gallifreyan biosphere on a whim. The Doctor claimed later that it was Ruath who had first led him astray, but her own unnatural curiosity was not to be underestimated, and though she wished to leave Gallifrey with the Doctor, he refused to take her, claiming that her dedication to her home was stronger than his. After graduating Ruath joined the Temporal Observation Bureau and remained on Gallifrey for some time, during which she located and studied the books of the Dark Time, manuscripts which detailed Rassilon's battles with the Great Vampire. Seduced by the history of the Undead, she undertook to fulfil the prophecy of the ‘Vampire Messiah’ Yarven, and by his hand regenerated and became a vampire. Ruath eventually met her fate at the hands of the fifth Doctor.

GALAH

Described by the Doctor as an old friend from the Academy, Galah and (presumably at that time still) Thete were not close - or perhaps not in the way that he and Ruath were implied to be. Unlike the Doctor, Galah was something of an idealist, divorced essentially from the sometimes cruel reality of life. The Doctor and Galah once debated the existence of a state of pure and absolute goodness, though Galah did not take into account the possibility of evil; the Doctor won. Unlike her classmate, Galah elected to remain on Gallifrey where she lived a long and somewhat tedious life as a sculptor. When she had used up all of her bodies (apparently she was able to keep the same form between regenerations), she bonded with her TARDIS, becoming a combined, living entity, and left her home at last. Alone she attempted to create a place of pure goodness and beauty, but this was spoiled by the arrival of the then seventh Doctor and his companions. With her world driven to chaos, Galah eventually bonded with one of her creations, a Victorian woman named Charlotte, and lived her remaining mortal life within her body.

References

On-screen adventures
The Time Meddler
The Daleks' Master Plan
The War Games
Terror of the Autons
Genesis of the Daleks
The Deadly Assassin
The Ribos Operation
The Armageddon Factor
The Five Doctors
The Twin Dilemma
The Mark of the Rani
Time and the Rani
Doctor Who (the Movie)

Books:
The Plotters
Invasion of the Cat People
The Dark Path
The War Games
‘Prisoner of the Sun’ [Decalog]
The Last of the Gaderene
The Paradise of Death
The Deadly Assassin
The Armageddon Factor
Divided Loyalties
Goth Opera
The Twin Dilemma
Mission to Magnus
Timewyrm: Exodus
Timewyrm: Revelation
Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible
First Frontier
Strange England
No Future
Infinite Requiem
Original Sin
The Death of Art
Damaged Goods
Lungbarrow
The Eight Doctors
Interference
‘Revenants’ [Short Trips & Side Steps]

Comics
4-Dimensional Vistas
Flashback

Other resources
The Sirens of Time
Search for the Doctor

Reference books
Timelink
I, Who
The Discontinuity Guide