Non - interference policy The policy of non - interference was fundamental to Time Lord attitudes towards and dealings with the rest of the universe . Origin . Following the Eternal War ( TV : " State of Decay " ) , the Time Lords abandoned the use of violence , but still continued to involve themselves in the affairs of the wider universe . This had catastrophic results for the people of the planet Minyos , who regarded the Time Lords as god - like beings . However , the Time Lords gave the Minyan s technology they did not have the cultural maturity to use responsibly , and nuclear war broke out , nearly putting the Minyans to extinction . ( TV : " Underworld " ) Around the same time , Time Lord meddling on Klist accidentally reversed evolution for the inhabitants there , and the residents of Plastrodus 14 were all driven mad . ( PROSE : " The Quantum Archangel " ) Horrified by the results of their meddling , the Time Lords adopted a strict policy whereby they would only observe the events of the wider universe , and never become involved personally . ( TV : " Underworld " ) By another account , Rassilon wrote down his principles of non - intervention following a nightmarish vision of a monstrous imperialistic Gallifrey . ( COMIC : " The Final Chapter " ) This rule was ingrained into the brain s of all Time Lords . Challenging this conditioning could result in memory loss , shutting down whole aspects of personality , and madness . ( PROSE : " Time and Relative " ) Exceptions . Like many of their principles , the Time Lords ' attitude to the non - interference policy was somewhat flexible , even to the point of hypocrisy . During the Millennium War , Rassilon broke the policy and joined the fight against the Mad Mind of Bophemeral . ( PROSE : " The Quantum Archangel " ) Before the Doctor ' s departure he was able to make the Time Lords implement a ban on miniscope s , an act which earned him great respect in the wider universe . ( TV : " Carnival of Monsters " ) The Time Lord Irving Braxiatel who organised the Armageddon Convention , which led to the banning of many weapons of mass destruction amongst leading civilised species . ( PROSE : " The Empire of Glass " ) The Time Lords later breached the policy on a major scale when beings from the constellation of Andromeda were able to infiltrate the Matrix and steal its secrets . The Time Lords devastated the planet and moved it light - years across space to conceal what they had done and prevent the secrets reaching Andromeda . They also manipulated events and individuals on Thoros Beta to prevent Crozier from discovering an effective means of immortality . The Doctor eventually discovered what had happened to Earth but was unaware of the reasons . The Time Lords put him on trial for his life , the initial pretext being ( ironically enough ) his repeated breaches of the policy . ( TV : " The Mysterious Planet " , " Mindwarp " ) A major breach of the policy occurred when the Eleventh Doctor was about to die on Trenzalore . The Doctor and his companion Clara Oswald had witnessed a future where the Siege of Trenzalore had ended with the planet as a barren wasteland that was a battlefield graveyard for all who had died there , including the Doctor himself . ( TV : " The Name of the Doctor " ) Having run out of regeneration s , the Doctor was on the verge of dying both from old age and the Dalek s when Clara pleaded with the Time Lords through a crack in the universe connected to the pocket universe that Gallifrey was trapped in for the Time Lords to save the Doctor . In response , the Time Lords sent the Doctor a new regeneration cycle through the crack , enabling the Doctor to change the future . The Doctor proceeded to use his regeneration energy to obliterate the Daleks , saving Trenzalore from being destroyed . Furthermore , the new regeneration cycle bestowed upon him by the Time Lords allowed the Doctor to regenerate into the Twelfth Doctor , changing his personal future and relegating the Trenzalore witnessed by the Doctor and Clara to an alternate timeline . ( TV : " The Time of the Doctor " ) The Doctor . On occasion , the Doctor was used by the Time Lord s to do their bidding for them . As he was a renegade , they could deny they had any influence on him . ( TV : " The Two Doctors " ) It was partly the non - interference policy which led to the First Doctor leaving Gallifrey . He felt that there were evils which should be fought , and positive ways of interfering . Additionally , he claimed he was bored at home and wanted to experience the universe first hand . When the Time Lords eventually located him in his second incarnation , he was put on trial for breaching the policy . In defending his actions , the Doctor managed to convince the Time Lords that there was some merit to his argument of justifiable interference . An ironic result of this was that the Time Lords punished the Doctor for repeatedly involving himself in the affairs of less - advanced planets by involving him in the affairs of a less - advanced planet for an extended period of time : they exiled him to Earth in the 20th century with his TARDIS rendered inoperative . ( TV : " The War Games " ) The Time Lords repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to involve themselves in the affairs of the universe , using the Doctor as an unofficial and often unwilling agent . For a considerable period of time they used his talents to further their own agenda . For instance , they sent the Third Doctor to Uxarieus to stop the Master gaining control of the Doomsday Weapon ( TV : " Colony in Space " ) and to Solos to help the natives complete their natural metamorphosis . ( TV : " The Mutants " ) All of these occurred prior to the formal lifting of the Doctor ' s exile . At some point the Time Lords installed a remote operation module , which allowed them to surreptitiously control where the TARDIS went . They found the Doctor would make the right decision when he believed he was there by choice . ( AUDIO : " No Place Like Home " ) A Time Lord appeared to the Fourth Doctor in person at the start of his mission to Skaro to avert the creation of the Daleks ( a mission to ultimately have dire consequences for the Time Lords ) . ( TV : " Genesis of the Daleks " ) The Doctor believed his arrival on Karn was the result of Time Lord interference . ( TV : " The Brain of Morbius " ) Much later , the Sixth Doctor believed his involvement in the Cybermen ' s attempt to destroy Earth in 1985 was a result of Time Lord machinations . ( TV : " Attack of the Cybermen " ) Individual attitudes to the policy varied - Rodan appeared to regard it as inviolable , ( TV : " The Invasion of Time " ) whereas Romana I accepted being asked to leave Gallifrey and assist the Doctor . ( TV : " The Ribos Operation " ) Breaking of the policy . The Time Lords , in order to survive the Last Great Time War , decided to make the biggest break of the policy : destroy the universe in order to survive as beings of pure conciousness , a plan devised by Rassilon himself . The Tenth Doctor stopped them with the help of his companion Wilfred Mott and . In this instance , the Doctor banished the Time Lords back into the War to die and also prevented numerous other threats from coming through that would have turned the universe into hell , as the Time War was . ( TV : " The End of Time " ) However , Gallifrey was never destroyed , only frozen in a moment and placed in another dimension . ( TV : " The Day of the Doctor " )