Borusa Fuldanquin Borusa ( PROSE : " Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen " ) was a notable and ultimately tragic figure in the history of the Time Lord s of Gallifrey , and a very important figure in the life of the Doctor . At various points in his life , he assumed the ranks of Lord President , Cardinal and Chancellor of Gallifrey . Biography . Early life and career . Like all Time Lord s , Borusa was taken from his family at the age of eight for the selection process in the Drylands . Staring into the Untempered Schism as part of a Time Lord initiation rite , Borusa was driven mad by what he saw in the Schism . ( PROSE : " A Brief History of Time Lords " ) Like the Doctor , Borusa was a member of the Prydonian Chapter . As a junior Cardinal , he chaired the Committee of Enquiry into the activities of Morbius . ( PROSE : " Warmonger " ) Borusa held the degree of a jurist and was a tutor to the First Doctor , ( TV : " The Deadly Assassin " ) the Master , ( AUDIO : " Masterplan " ) and the rest of the Deca at the Time Lord Academy . ( PROSE : " Divided Loyalties " ) When the Doctor was a young boy , Borusa told him off for his attitude , and that he would be lucky to receive a Class Three Doctorate . Borusa taught him to be seen to respect tradition , even though he did not . ( COMIC : " Vortex Butterflies " ) Among the other subjects , he taught mind shielding . He wrote a paper on reason , which the Doctor had read . ( TV : " The Invasion of Time " ) Borusa presided over the Doctor ' s expulsion from the Academy , at a hearing which was also attended by President Drall , who pushed Borusa for the expulsion . ( PROSE : " Divided Loyalties " ) His previous student , Magnus , began to rise rapidly in the Time Lord hierarchy , and Cardinal Borusa saw him as a threat to his own position of power , and persuaded the Celestial Intervention Agency to manufacture evidence of treason against him . Believed to be a criminal , Magnus fled from Gallifrey and became a renegade . ( PROSE : " " ) Involvement with the Master . When the Doctor returned to Gallifrey in his fourth incarnation , he was framed by and Chancellor Goth for the assassination of the outgoing President . By this time , Borusa was Lord Cardinal on the High Council . During his trial , the Doctor proclaimed his candidacy for the President as a delaying tactic . Once the Doctor was shown to be innocent , Borusa set about " adjusting the truth " in the wake of the events , portraying the late Goth not as the Master ' s ally , but as a hero who had given his life to stop the Master . Unsurprisingly , the Doctor was appalled , and was more than happy to leave Gallifrey in return for the charges against him being dropped . ( TV : " The Deadly Assassin " ) During the Sontaran invasion . After the Doctor had left Gallifrey once more , Borusa became Lord Chancellor — illegally , according to the Doctor — and at some point regenerated . ( TV : " The Invasion of Time " ) Though before this point in his life Borusa had managed to live out his regenerations to their fullest extent , since the Doctor had come back into his life , Borusa suddenly went through — and would continue to go through — his regenerations rather quickly due to reasons such as a falling stack of books , a missing decimal point , and an infected toenail . ( PROSE : " Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen " ) The Doctor later returned to Gallifrey briefly to claim the post of Lord President , based on his previous candidacy for the position . The Doctor was secretly working to defeat the telepathic Vardan s in their quest to invade Gallifrey , a ploy which he eventually confided to Borusa . The Doctor asked his old mentor to remain in a lead - lined room to prevent the Vardans from reading his mind . Borusa acknowledged that he was too one - track - minded to employ the Doctor ' s ' trick ' of keeping his thoughts too chaotic for the Vardans to read . Once the Vardans and their puppet masters , the Sontaran s , had been seen off , the Doctor departed , again leaving Gallifrey in Borusa ' s hands . ( TV : " The Invasion of Time " ) Career as Lord President . After the Doctor ' s abrupt departure , Borusa became Acting President of Gallifrey , during which he still made time to tutor the more interesting Time Lords and researching ways to stay alive , knowing the Doctor might turn up again sooner or later . One of his students during this time was Romanadvoratrelundar , seeing much potential in her , but not expecting her to go too far , and was consequently surprised when she left Gallifrey for a short mission and even more surprise when she hadn ' t come right back . ( PROSE : " Doctor Who and the Krikkitmen " ) Some time before the second crisis involving Omega , Borusa was inducted officially as Lord President , and regenerated again . Councillor Hedin left evidence of his own crimes that made it seem that Borusa was the criminal . Borusa corrected the Time Lords , revealing Hedin ' s wrongdoing , and hoped that Omega would find peace after the Fifth Doctor sent him back to the antimatter universe . ( TV : " Arc of Infinity " ) Descending into madness . Regenerating yet again — with his stubborn streak apparently enhanced in the process — Borusa used his presidential powers to investigate the legacy of Rassilon from the Dark Time of Gallifrey . He pursued access to the Tomb of Rassilon , where he believed he would find the secret of immortality , ruling Gallifrey forever as " President Eternal " . To this end , he reactivated the ancient Time Scoop , and revived the long - forbidden war games between captured representatives of various species in the Death Zone surrounding the Tomb . Borusa summoned all of the Doctor ' s previous incarnations to the Zone ( though the Fourth Doctor ended up becoming trapped in the Time Vortex ) , convinced that at least one would gain entry to the Tomb . He also arranged for the Master to be sent into the Death Zone - officially to help the Doctor but unofficially to ' inspire ' the Doctor by giving him a clearer villain to face - and time - scooped at least one Dalek , one Yeti , and a squad of Cybermen to go into the Zone as well . Although the Fifth Doctor was sent to the Capitol and managed to learn what Borusa was doing despite his attempts to frame other parties , Borusa used the Coronet of Rassilon to take control of the Fifth Doctor once the first three Doctors had reached Rassilon ' s tomb and been tricked into deactivating the forcefield blocking transmat access to the Tomb . After reaching the Tomb , Borusa used the Coronet to paralyse the Doctors ' assembled companions , but the first three Doctors were able to link minds to free their fifth self , the four Doctors joining together to stand against Borusa . As the spirit of Rassilon appeared in the tomb , he offered Borusa immortality , but as the First Doctor had realised , the promised immortality was a trap set by Rassilon to capture power - mongers such as himself . Borusa was condemned , like others before him , to live his " immortal " life trapped within a sarcophagus . ( TV : " The Five Doctors " ) Political Legacy . Although Borusa was officially declared missing after the events of the Death Zone in order to preserve the High Council ' s reputation , they were soon forced to acknowledge that Borusa had caused far more problems than the obvious . Certain of his impending immortality and responsibility to be Gallifrey ' s true ruler , Borusa had not only discredited and dismissed many of the more competent Time Lords from the High Council , but had also created a council composed of weak - willed Time Lords who lacked the personal strength to take action without him . Faced with a political system on the brink of collapse , the Time Lords were forced to recall the Doctor to act as President , as he was a relative outsider with no ties to anyone else who would be controversial enough to establish himself as a credible candidate . After spending a short time in the role , the Doctor was able to create a new political system on Gallifrey , dealing with some of his personal perceived flaws in the political process , before handing power over to his appointed successor and departing on his travels once again ( AUDIO : " Time in Office " ) . Revival and retirement . The Eighth Doctor persuaded Rassilon to free Borusa from his immortality to reform the corrupt High Council that had been responsible for the Sixth Doctor ' s latest trial . He was released from his punishment to carry out this duty — simultaneously being regressed back to an earlier , more stable incarnation — but apparently returned to Rassilon afterwards . ( PROSE : " The Eight Doctors " ) He was released once again when the Committee of Three — a group of renegade Time Lords whose careers had been ruined by the Doctor ' s actions — attempted to use the powerful Agonal against Rassilon to make him release Borusa , but , having seen the error of his ways , Borusa instead aided Rassilon , Romana II and the Seventh Doctor in defeating Agonal before he passed on for good . ( PROSE : " Blood Harvest " ) Wartime . During the War , the Lord President reintegrated several barely - reformed renegade s into Gallifrey an society . Allopta trained with Raston Warrior Robot s in the Death Zone under the oversight of an aged figure in crimson robes , with piercing eyes and a silk skullcap . ( PROSE : " The Taking of Planet 5 " ) Rassilon retro - evolved Borusa into a possibility engine during the Last Great Time War . He resided in the Dark Tower in the Death Zone . He had been wired up to the Time Vortex and constantly regenerated through his different incarnations . Rassilon used Borusa to predict the most suitable timeline for Time Lord victory throughout the War . Rassilon came to Borusa to ask him about the most successful way to detonate the Tear of Isha into the Tantalus Eye . The War Doctor later stole Borusa from Rassilon . Being further altered by proximity to the Tantalus Eye , Borusa helped the Doctor to erase all presence of the Dalek s around the Tantalus Eye . He was killed in the process but that was the fate he wanted after a miserable existence as Rassilon ' s experiment . ( PROSE : " Engines of War " ) Personality . Borusa seemed to have been a strict teacher towards the Doctor , and didn ' t give his former pupil much credit for saving Gallifrey from the Master ( giving him a mark of nine out of ten ) . ( TV : " The Deadly Assassin " ) However , the pair seemed to have a love / hate relationship , only for their relationship to completely shatter when Borusa placed all of the Doctor ' s incarnations in mortal danger . ( TV : " The Five Doctors " ) After being set free from the possibility engine by the War Doctor , Borusa was willing to help the Doctor , if in return he would end his suffering from what Rassilon had done to him . ( PROSE : " Engines of War " ) Borusa always said that the Doctor ' s ability to understand logical systems far surpassed his ability to explain them . ( AUDIO : " Equilibrium " )