Would I Ever Kill Another Time Lord?
Oh yes; I would, and I have. I am not saying I am proud of this fact, but when the need was there, I did what had to be done. Perhaps you are thinking that I killed in self defense, or maybe acted against those who were on a different ideological side from the one that I was on -- and admittedly, that was a large part of the scenario. But causing death just in and of itself is not the worst thing that one can do -- there are manners of death that can be particularly horrific, and that is the thing that causes me to feel that if the religious beliefs of various worlds turn out at all to be true, then I am surely damned.
I try to explain these things by saying that they occured in a Time of War. There was a period of planning and buildup wherein the High Council knew that at a point in the future we would be fighting for the very lives of each and every Time Lord and Lady. We knew that we were facing genocide, and that our Adversary would not pause at niceties or scruples...and if we were to stand any chance at all, we could not stop at such barriers either.
It was at this point that I underwent a regeneration, from my second incarnation into my third. I knew that I was making decisions that I previously would have quailed at, but in this body, this personality, I was hardened and pragmatic. I have always felt that if one is going to have firm control on one's bureaucracy, one should participate in it at many levels. And one level where I personally took part was in seeking out weapons of other worlds and times that might assist our cause...and in the designing of new weapons unique to the qualities of a Time Lord.
One weapon that was my brainchild (after studying amongst other places, the military history of Earth) was a weapon akin to those used by 'suicide bombers', only in a far more devastating manner than just simple explosives. A Time Lord would wear a rucksack sort of affair with an activator button upon the chest. When the button was activated, the device would force-regenerate the wearer through any and all remaining incarnations that he/she might have. What is more, the energy released by the cell renewal would not harmlessly dissipate (as normally occurs during the regeneration process), but would be stored and harnessed...and then released with the first strike of an energy weapon to the Time Lord in question. At that point -- the wealth of energy drained from the wearer of the weapon would produce a mutative field that filled the immediate area, found its way past all conceivable defenses, and changed the foe upon contact. If the foe did not die outright from the resulting effects, they would be far too disoriented to fight back. Of course the Time Lord harnessed into this device would die, and in the most excruciating way that our kind can imagine. But that initial sacrifice could be followed by a more conventional strike force which could take charge of the area previously held by the enemy who were now affected by the mutating force. And that sacrifice, when used with the carefullest of precision, might mean the difference of life or death for untold numbers.
I oversaw the initial testing of this weapon under combat circumstances, during an unforseen uprising of 'Faction Paradox' against the Gallifreyan establishment. FP was a cult, pure and simple, that sought to create chaos, disorder, and perhaps even the rending of the fabric of time itself by perniciously spreading paradox throughout history. If they had been able to overcome authority on Gallifrey, the War might well have been lost even before it began. And so I sent one of my aides, a young Time Lord named Ryssal, into the midst of a Faction Paradox unit of shock troops. He burned through eleven incarnations in a matter of minutes, and reduced our enemies to piles of primordial goo. He had no idea what was going to happen to him, no opportunity to decide whether or not he wanted that fate.
He wasn't the last Time Lord to die in that appalling manner -- the mutation pack was employed in various other battles against the Daleks, as we moved into open warfare with our finally-known Enemy. At least these warriors knew that they were sacrifices, but I still realize that I was the ultimate agent of their destruction.
The blood of my own people drenches me, even as I attempted to preserve and save it. I was therefore surprised when I found myself after the War, alive and in a renewed form. The Slaughterhouse Maven of my third incarnation is behind me now...but I still wonder if I deserve at all to live on.
I try to explain these things by saying that they occured in a Time of War. There was a period of planning and buildup wherein the High Council knew that at a point in the future we would be fighting for the very lives of each and every Time Lord and Lady. We knew that we were facing genocide, and that our Adversary would not pause at niceties or scruples...and if we were to stand any chance at all, we could not stop at such barriers either.
It was at this point that I underwent a regeneration, from my second incarnation into my third. I knew that I was making decisions that I previously would have quailed at, but in this body, this personality, I was hardened and pragmatic. I have always felt that if one is going to have firm control on one's bureaucracy, one should participate in it at many levels. And one level where I personally took part was in seeking out weapons of other worlds and times that might assist our cause...and in the designing of new weapons unique to the qualities of a Time Lord.
One weapon that was my brainchild (after studying amongst other places, the military history of Earth) was a weapon akin to those used by 'suicide bombers', only in a far more devastating manner than just simple explosives. A Time Lord would wear a rucksack sort of affair with an activator button upon the chest. When the button was activated, the device would force-regenerate the wearer through any and all remaining incarnations that he/she might have. What is more, the energy released by the cell renewal would not harmlessly dissipate (as normally occurs during the regeneration process), but would be stored and harnessed...and then released with the first strike of an energy weapon to the Time Lord in question. At that point -- the wealth of energy drained from the wearer of the weapon would produce a mutative field that filled the immediate area, found its way past all conceivable defenses, and changed the foe upon contact. If the foe did not die outright from the resulting effects, they would be far too disoriented to fight back. Of course the Time Lord harnessed into this device would die, and in the most excruciating way that our kind can imagine. But that initial sacrifice could be followed by a more conventional strike force which could take charge of the area previously held by the enemy who were now affected by the mutating force. And that sacrifice, when used with the carefullest of precision, might mean the difference of life or death for untold numbers.
I oversaw the initial testing of this weapon under combat circumstances, during an unforseen uprising of 'Faction Paradox' against the Gallifreyan establishment. FP was a cult, pure and simple, that sought to create chaos, disorder, and perhaps even the rending of the fabric of time itself by perniciously spreading paradox throughout history. If they had been able to overcome authority on Gallifrey, the War might well have been lost even before it began. And so I sent one of my aides, a young Time Lord named Ryssal, into the midst of a Faction Paradox unit of shock troops. He burned through eleven incarnations in a matter of minutes, and reduced our enemies to piles of primordial goo. He had no idea what was going to happen to him, no opportunity to decide whether or not he wanted that fate.
He wasn't the last Time Lord to die in that appalling manner -- the mutation pack was employed in various other battles against the Daleks, as we moved into open warfare with our finally-known Enemy. At least these warriors knew that they were sacrifices, but I still realize that I was the ultimate agent of their destruction.
The blood of my own people drenches me, even as I attempted to preserve and save it. I was therefore surprised when I found myself after the War, alive and in a renewed form. The Slaughterhouse Maven of my third incarnation is behind me now...but I still wonder if I deserve at all to live on.