Doctor Who has revealed that the “Timeless Child” is the dark secret at the heart of Gallifrey’s history. The Time Lords have always been a secretive and manipulative race; they tend to rewrite their own records in order to make themselves out to be the universe’s heroes. This has been a frequent source of conflict between the Doctor and her own people.
Doctor Who season 11 introduced the concept of the Timeless Child. The second episode, “The Ghost Monument,” saw the Doctor and her friends confronted by the Remnants, strips of fabric who have been programmed to kill. The Remnants peered deep into the Doctor’s mind, sensing all her greatest fears. “Afraid of your own newness,” they observed. “We see deep though. Further back. The Timeless Child.” The Doctor reacted in shame and revulsion, banishing the Remnants from her mind. Although this comment was clearly signposting, it wasn’t developed any further in Doctor Who season 11. But it seems the reference to the Timeless Child pointed the way to season 12 instead.
Doctor Who season 12, episode 2 - the second part of the “Spyfall” epic - sees the Master reveal he has personally burned Gallifrey to the ground. The planet of the Time Lords is no more, and the Doctor’s race appear to have been rendered extinct. According to the Master, he did this because he learned the darkest secret of the Time Lords - the Timeless Child. As he observed in a holographic recording left for the Doctor:
It’s a fascinating comment, suggesting that the Time Lords have hidden a great deception in their ancient history. Presumably, this is somehow related to the origins of their race, perhaps to the secret of their discovery of time travel or regeneration - possibly even both. There appears to be some sort of race memory of the Timeless Child planted deep inside the psyche of every Time Lord, which can only be uncovered by the experience of intense psychic trauma. Time Lords are programmed to suppress this knowledge, to shove it down into their subconscious rather than reflect upon it.
“If you’re seeing this, you’ve been to Gallifrey. When I said someone did that, obviously I meant - I did. I had to make them pay for what I discovered. They lied to us. The founding fathers of Gallifrey - everything we were told was a lie. We are not who we think. You or I. The whole existence of our species - built on the lie of the Timeless Child. Do you see it? It’s buried deep in all our memories. In our identity. I’d tell you more, but… but why would I make it easy for you? It wasn’t for me.”
This isn’t the first time there’s been a hint that the history of the Time Lords hides a dark and terrible secret. Indeed, in the 1980s Doctor Who script editor Andrew Cartmell decided he felt decades of explaining away the Doctor and the Time Lords had robbed the of their mystery and mystique. He began planting hints that the ancient Time Lords had been dominated by what were essentially three demigods - Rassilon, Omega, and the Other. Dialogue alluded to the possibility that the Doctor himself was the Other. However, the classic Doctor Who series was canceled in 1989, before the plot could be developed. It was picked up by various novels in the ’90s, but these are of dubious canonicity, and so are unlikely to count.
One thing’s for sure; the Master has set the Doctor on a path that will lead her to discovering the greatest secret of the Time Lords. What’s more, note that the Master singles out both himself and the Doctor; this may just be a demonstration of his ego, but it could also be something far more significant, suggesting that both Renegade Time Lords somehow stand out from the rest of their race. If so, then the truth about both the Doctor and the Master is somehow tied to the Timeless Child - and it’s about to be revealed.
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