Omega (Doctor Who)

Omega is a fictional character from the long-running British science fiction television series, Doctor Who. In the context of the series, Omega is known as one of the founding fathers of the Time Lords of the planet Gallifrey, and is a revered figure in Time Lord history together with the equally legendary Rassilon.

Omega was a solar engineer who developed the Hand of Omega, a remote stellar manipulator which could be used to control the reactions within suns. Using the Hand, Omega performed adjustments on a star near Gallifrey's in an attempt to provide a power source for the time travel experiments conducted by himself and Rassilon. However, Omega was thought killed in the resulting supernova, which then collapsed into a black hole. Rassilon subsequently captured the nucleus of the black hole and used its power to perfect time travel technology, turning his people into lords of time. Rassilon then took control of Gallifrey as Lord President. The nucleus eventually became known as the Eye of Harmony, and Omega's name passed into heroic legend.

Millennia later, during the events of the Doctor Who serial The Three Doctors, it was revealed that Omega had not died, but had rather been sent through the event horizon into an antimatter universe and had been trapped there since then. His exile and solitude turned him quite insane, and he sought revenge on the Time Lords for "abandoning" him. He made two attempts in the television series to re-enter the positive matter universe, in The Three Doctors and in the serial Arc of Infinity. Both attempts were thwarted by the Doctor.

Omega was portrayed in the Three Doctors by actor Stephen Thorne and in Arc of Infinity by Ian Collier. Collier reprised the role in Big Finish Productions' Doctor Who audio play Omega, where he once again encountered the Doctor.

Omega also appears in the 1998 BBC Books Doctor Who novel The Infinity Doctors by Lance Parkin, although the canonical status of this novel, and thus whether this is the "real" Omega or an alternative version, is unclear.