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| Omega |
|
 Name:
Omega
Format:
TV Show, Book, Audio.
Time
of Origin: Gallifrey (Distant past), spent millenia trapped in
a world of anti-matter.
Appearances:
"The
Three Doctors", "Arc of Infinity", and "Omega".
Doctors:
Second
Doctor, Third
Doctor, Fifth
Doctor, technically the First
Doctor.
Companions:
The
Brigadier, Sergeant
Benton, Jo
Grant, Tegan
Jovanka and Nyssa.
History:
Originally, Omega was one of the three Founders of Time Lord society,
along with Rassilon and the mysterious individual known only as 'the
Other'. As revealed in "The
Three Doctors" and expanded
upon in flashbacks in the audio 'Omega', Omega was responsible for
the Time Lords harnessing the colossal power needed to utilise the
secret of time travel; namely, the creation of the stellar manipulator
known as 'the Hand of Omega' (Named by Rassilon after the apparent
death of Omega), which, when launched at a sun, would create a black
hole that could be trapped and used as power for the TARDISes. Although
he put this idea forward at school (When he was known as 'Peylix'),
his teacher found it foolish and dangerous, and gave him the lowest
grade possible, earning him the nickname 'Omega', leaving the former
Peylix desperate to turn it into a positive.
However,
when his associate Vandekirian tried to prevent the launch by plunging
his hands into the stellar manipulator, since it required the handprints
of all crew members to launch. As only one hand was destroyed before
Vandekirian fainted from pain, Omega had to cut off his other hand
to make it work. Along with Rassilon and the Other, Omega than triggered
the destruction of the star - but he'd miscalculated, and his vessel
was too close to the star when it detonated. His ship was destroyed
in the supernova, and, although Rassilon and the Other survived on
the main ship, only Omega survived his ship's accident, immortal
and bound within a stasis halo, trapped behind the event horizon
when the star collapsed into a black hole...
 |
| The Three Doctors |
|
In
the anti-matter universe he then found himself in, Omega swiftly learned
how to harness the power of the singularity that existed there, creating
an entire world based solely on his will. Although forced to wear
a mask in order to protect himself from the corroding effects of the
singularity, he knew that such a measure would only be a temporary
means of protecting himself, and thus dedicated much of his time towards
finding a means of escape. Although he could create a means of transport
back to his own universe, he swiftly realised it was useless; as he
was the 'Atlas' of his world, it kept him locked into it so long as
he was in control, but the second he abandoned control, the whole
place fell apart around his ears and he had to rebuild from scratch.
Eventually,
however, Omega was able to extend his control beyond the anti-matter
universe, triggering a power drain on Gallifrey and sending a sentient
'time-bridge' to Earth to target the only Time Lord whose location
was a given certainty; the Third
Doctor, currently exiled to Earth and working for UNIT. However,
due to the distance it travelled, the Time Bridge fails three times
to get The Doctor, instead capturing a park ranger who discovers it,
a visiting scientist in The Doctor's lab, and Bessie, The Doctor's
yellow roadster. Forced to retreat into the TARDIS,
The Doctor sends a distress call to Gallifrey, but the Time Lords,
unable to get any more aid, dispatched the First and Second Doctors
to aid their present self (Although the First Doctor was trapped in
a time eddy and could only advise his future selves). Deducing the
bridge's nature, the First
Doctor encouraged the Third Doctor and Jo
Grant to see where the bridge took them, and the two of them were
transported to Omega's world, followed later on by the Second
Doctor, The
Brigadier and Sergeant
Benton.
In
a desperate bid to stop Omega, the Third Doctor faced the dark side
of Omega's mind in a fight, but was nearly killed, and was only saved
by the Second pointing out that Omega needed the Third Doctor in order
to escape. Omega explained his dilemma, and revealed that he wanted
The Doctors to take his place so that he could escape his world. However,
as they removed his mask, they realised that Omega actually couldn't
leave the anti-matter world; the singularity had already corroded
away his entire body. Omega existed only because his will insisted
that he did, and his will was all that remained of him. Outraged,
Omega triggered an earthquake, but The Doctors and their companions
were able to flee to the TARDIS, where they, along with their first
self, discovered the Second Doctor's recorder in the TARDIS force
field generator... and realised the advantage that gave them. Since
matter and anti-matter cannot co-exist without the mutual destruction
of both, when The Doctors and their companions had entered Omega's
world, they had been converted into anti-matter, but since the recorder
had been in the generator, it had remained in its matter state, although
shielded from the anti-matter by the force field. After sending their
companions back to Earth, The Doctors tricked Omega into throwing
the recorder out of the generator, destroying his universe... as well
as himself. The First and Second Doctors returned to their places
in time, and, as thanks for his role in saving them, the Time Lords
lifted the Third Doctor's exile to Earth.
 |
| Arc of Infinity |
|
However,
as the Fifth
Doctor was later to learn, in reality, Omega somehow managed to
survive the destruction of his world, although he now lacked the power
he had possessed before The Doctors defeated him. Somehow, Omega was
able to contact Gallifrey, forming an alliance with a Time Lord known
as Hedin, who believed that, since Time Lords the universe over owed
their status to Omega, his return was all that mattered. With this
in mind, Hedin stole a sample of The Doctor's biodata while Omega
hid in a collapsed Q-star, which generated a radiation that would
allow anti-matter to exist in our universe for a time, at the same
time using a fusion booster element on Earth to provide the power
for the transfer to succeed.
However,
since the element would only work with a certain amount of water
pressure, Omega was forced to station himself in Amsterdam; since
it was under sea level, it was the only place where Omega could work
the generator properly. The Fifth Doctor, Nyssa and Tegan
Jovanka, with the
aid of a technician called Damon, managed to identify the traitor
as Hedin and isolate Omega's location on Earth, but they arrived
there too late; Omega had already grafted The Doctor's biodata extract
onto his own bod and become The Doctor's physical double. However,
the transfer was unstable, and, as Omega left, The Doctor and his
companions raced to find him with the matter converter gun; the only
means of stopping Omega before he reverted to anti-matter. Eventually,
they cornered Omega at the end of a pier as he began to decompose,
but Omega, not wishing to return to the living death of the anti-matter
universe, accelerated the decay of his shielding, determined to take
the Earth with him, and The Doctor had no choice but to shoot Omega
with the matter converter gun, destroying Omega before he fully reverted
to anti-matter.
 |
Omega
(Nev Fountain) |
|
After
this encounter, Omega appeared to become an incorporeal spirit, drifting
listlessly until he latched onto a woman called Senetia - a telepath
whose mind acted as a focus - on a holiday tour where tourists witness
Omega's final moments being acted out. The Doctor arrived and began
to investigate murders that were apparently being committed to turn
the trip into a re-enactment of Omega's final journey - including
cutting off the hand of the actor portraying Vandekirian. However,
since Omega was an incorporeal spirit, he couldn't have been the one
committing the murders...
As
it turned out, Omega had never been dealing with The Doctor in the
first place; he was The Doctor, as the real Fifth Doctor confirmed
when he arrived on the ship. Omega survived the battle in Amsterdam
at the cost of his sanity, for when he copied The Doctor’s bio-print,
he acquired a copy of The Doctor’s mind as well. Thanks to a
telepathic message broadcast by The Doctor/Omega, The Doctor was fully
up-to-date on the situation... but, as things began to collapse, he
realised that Omega's distorted mind had linked itself to The Doctor's
greatest shame. In his madness, Omega believed that the star he destroyed
had been an inhabited one, and Vandekirian had tried to stop him,
but this was simply linked to a terrible mistake The Doctor made once
in his past. Long ago, The Doctor encountered a Lurman colony under
attack by space pirates who used telepathically-controlled weapons
and ships. The Doctor helped the colony to defend itself by creating
a telepathic dampening field... but he didn’t realise until
too late that the same asteroid belt was inhabited by the Scintillans,
creatures of pure thought, and when The Doctor used the telepathic
damper against the pirates, he inadvertently wiped out the entire
species.
 |
The
Gallifrey Chronicles
(Lance Parkin) |
|
In
the final moments, Senetia, realising that Omega had gone over the
brink of madness, sent the ship flying towards the black hole in the
area - and the only other survivor, an actor called Daland who had
portrayed Omega in the tour, set the TARDIS to dematerialise, realising
that The Doctor was too weighed down with guilt from his past mistakes
to make the decision himself; by leaving, he condemned Senetia to
death, but he would have risked the lives of Daland and the tourists
by staying. Visited by two Time Lords from the future as Omega fell
into the black hole once again, Daland left to begin a new career
portraying The Doctor on the future Gallifrey, and, when The Doctor
asked how he was remembered, the Time Lords agreed to tell The Doctor
the story of his battle with Omega as history would remember it -
the story of a foolish Time Lord who did a terrible thing, and the
heroic Time Lord who learned about it.
Whatever
happened to Omega afterwards is unknown (Senetia was torn apart by
the singularity as she crossed the black hole). Presumably, he gained
his control over the anti-matter world once again, but given that,
in 'The
Gallifrey Chronicles' it is implied that The
Master following his battle with the Eighth
Doctor where he fell
into the Eye of Harmony, has gained Omega's kind of power as well,
this is a matter for debate. If Omega did survive, it seems likely
that The Master was able to defeat him and take control of the anti-matter
reality himself, since he certainly seemed in complete control when
he talked to the amnesic Eighth Doctor in 'Chronicles', and neither
he or Omega seem likely to wish a rival for control. |
