If we thought all Physician Who was going to construct its upcoming finale round was the return of 1 traditional villain from its historical past in the Rani, “Want World” informed us to think again in its remaining moments, because it invoked the title of an all-time terror within the historical past of the Time Lords: the dread Omega, not seen within the present correctly in over 40 years. However Omega’s historical past is, becoming for a key participant within the origins of the Time Lords themselves, paradoxically a lot previous and but additionally way more latest than that.
The First Historical past of Omega
A photo voltaic engineer and a distinguished determine in early Gallifreyan society—and, as later audio tales would reveal, an in depth confidant and schoolfriend of Rassilon, one other key participant within the basis of the Time Lords—Omega first appeared in Physician Who‘s first anniversary special, “The Three Docs,” in late 1972. There it was revealed that it was Omega’s analysis that unlocked the important thing to time journey that may radically overhaul Gallifreyan society and create the Time Lords as we’d come to know them. Deploying a robust relic often called the Hand of Omega, Omega made a star go supernova earlier than harnessing its energies to gas the primary acts of managed temporal manipulation.
However whereas the Hand of Omega, and the analysis it bore, can be recovered by Gallifrey, Omega himself was seemingly misplaced within the destruction. Revered as a hero and made legend by his individuals as they used the Hand to grow to be lords of Time, Omega had really survived his experiment, flung right into a black gap and deposited right into a universe of pure antimatter. Not figuring out that his individuals thought he was useless, Omega grew bitter as his acceptance at not being rescued turned to fury that he had been deserted in his second of triumph by the Gallifreyans. In time, Omega sought his personal means out of the antimatter universe, experimenting on his energy to control it and even create his personal life—at a value that he failed to understand, as his personal bodily physique broke down into nothingness.
By the point the Time Lords tasked the First, Second, and Third Docs with making an attempt to cease Omega from destroying the universe in his makes an attempt to amass extra power to gas his escape, all that sustained Omega’s type was the unique swimsuit that he wore throughout his experiments with the Hand. After battling with the Third Physician in an try to commerce locations in exile with him, Omega was left within the antimatter universe because it was seemingly destroyed. However his “loss of life” had not stopped diehard followers of his personal arising on Gallifrey, making a legion of cultists that swore to convey considered one of Time Lord society’s foundational forces again to actuality.
Within the 1983 serial “Arc of Infinity,” a member of Gallifrey’s Excessive Council, Hedin, secretly plotted to steal the Physician’s organic knowledge to create a brand new bodily type for Omega’s will to inhabit. Though the plan was foiled, Omega managed to briefly escape his antimatter universe and emerge on Earth, solely to search out his type destabilizing till he was imprisoned within the antimatter universe for good… once more.
Omega and the Timeless Youngster
It could take Omega virtually 40 years to return to Physician Who on-screen… technically talking. As a result of whereas Omega’s historical past because the creator of Gallifreyan time journey hasn’t modified, his broader half within the creation of Time Lord society on a organic degree did in Chris Chibnall’s re-working of the Physician’s origins within the 2020 episode “The Timeless Child”, during which Omega makes a quick, uncredited look in flashbacks alongside Rassilon and Tecteun. Though the character isn’t explicitly named onscreen, the officially released production script for the episode names two Time Lord figures seen alongside Tecteun as to be assumed as Omega and Rassilon, making them conscious of the true origins of Time Lord society as we come to understand it in that story.
As established in “The Timeless Youngster”, Tecteun was the scientist who discovered, after which efficiently exploited, the genetic materials of the titular baby—the mysterious being who would finally grow to be the Physician—to offer themselves the flexibility to regenerate their bodily type upon mortal damage. In “The Timeless Youngster”‘s transient rationalization of Gallifrey’s historical past, Omega’s discovery of time journey happens throughout a golden age of development for the Shobogans, the native peoples of Gallifrey, in the course of the development of the Citadel and even earlier than Tecteun decides to supply up the genetic inheritance of regeneration to the Citadel’s denizens, formally renaming their society as that of the Time Lords. However Omega remains to be thought of a foundational member of this triumvirate that makes the Time Lords, even when, presumably, his loss in experimenting with the Hand of Omega now comes at a degree separated from his discovery of time journey.
What Omega’s Return Means for Physician Who
Curiously, what little we bought to see—or reasonably hear about, Omega is namechecked however left pointedly offscreen—of Omega in “Want World” retains obscure about the place precisely he has been saved since we final noticed him. The Rani describes Omega has having been saved in an “underverse,” entry to which required a fracture in actuality itself, reasonably than the black holes and matter/antimatter that had been beforehand established in Omega’s prior appearances. Whether or not or not the underverse is meant to be the identical actuality that Omega was trapped in in these unique tales, or someplace else he was doubtlessly despatched to after these occasions, stays to be seen.
However that element apart, Omega’s potential return to actuality is essentially irrelevant subsequent to what the Rani intends to make use of him for: the resurrection of the Time Lords from their newest extinction. Once more, simply how stays to be seen, but when Physician Who does as soon as once more convey the Time Lords again for a 3rd time—after their obvious destruction in the course of the Last Great Time War, undone in the course of the occasions of “The Day of the Physician,” after which the Grasp’s eradication of his personal individuals a number of years later. So far as we know, whereas Gallifrey the planet nonetheless exists in some type, not like its prior destiny within the Time Battle, the Time Lords themselves, save for the Rani, the Physician, and the Grasp had been seemingly all exterminated.
Simply how Omega’s energy might restore the Time Lords, once more, stays to be seen. However with the revelation of the Timeless Youngster, and the Physician’s understanding of their connection to Gallifrey, Omega is now much more necessary to the foundations of the Time Lords than he already was with the invention of time journey—”Want World” even describes him as the first Time Lord, and creator of their society. If he actually is the important thing to their return–or a continuation of their absence from Physician Who‘s present mythology—we’ll discover out as soon as and for all as the present season of Who involves its finish in “The Actuality Battle” this weekend, on Might 31.
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