I will not be addressing the particulars of reproduction here; this entry is more a consideration of aging and death. Most importantly, I will discuss the concept of regeneration.

Longevity seems to be an inherent quality of the species. A Gallifreyan could live five hundred years or more before dying of old age. But those who have earned the rank of Time Lord have something extra, and that is regeneration. Should the body be injured beyond repair, microscopic robots within the cells will actually create a new one in its place. The physical appearance will be completely changed. My friend is unable to control this process, but he has told me of a Time Lady he knew who actually changed her appearance several times during a single regeneration before choosing her own final form. She did not seem to suffer any ill effects, either, though my friend was very disoriented for the first day afterward.

I am uncertain whether the robots have to be activated consciously. My friend was unconscious and had, in fact, been dead long enough to be taken to the morgue before he regenerated.

The big picture here is that death is much less common on Gallifrey than on Earth. It doesn't happen every day, and among the Time Lords, final death doesn't even happen every year. Because they face a lot of danger in their travels, very few make it to the potential age of six thousand years, but conversely, very few live less than one thousand.

There are many factors within their physiology that protect them from many of the causes of death in humans. I will discuss them in greater detail within the entry for the relevant organ system, but for now I can say they include the redundant cardiovascular system, respiratory bypass, a fully active thymus gland, and a long history of genetic engineering to eliminate inherited diseases.

The most common cause of death of the first twelve lives is injury while visiting another time or place; most will retire to Gallifrey to make their final life last.

Of course, when an entire species can live so long, they would quickly become overpopulated unless either they sent much of the population to colonize other worlds - which they have not done - or if the birth rate were similarly low. And yet, that is not something likely to happen through the normal course of evolution; it had to be induced in some way. I suspect genetic engineering. I will address the mechanism of their decreased birth rate when I detail the reproductive system.

Index by system

Cardiovascular  - Respiratory - Genetics - Life Cycle