Lifespan of a Timelord

[Crazedwraith]

It's heavily implied that the 200 years adventuring took place between 'The God Complex' and 'Closing Time'

And that more centuries had past between 'The Angels Do Manhattan' and 'The Snownmen'

[NecronLord]

Proves nothing. The Doctor is constantly "absent minded" for effect.

It also changes between the seventh doctor (953, supposedly) and the tenth (900!) and so on.

His overall biological age is also questionable; the first doctor was aged by the Daleks' Time Destructor in the Daleks Master Plan, at least, and possibly on some other occasions; contrary to some people's ideas even the First Doctor's regeneration wasn't due to age alone but exposure to an 'energy drain' the cybermen had been using, though he was reduced in ability beyond the Time Destructor incident.

But the writer's intent is absolutely that he's lying.

The thing I keep banging on about is that he doesn't know what age he is. He's lying. How could he know, unless he's marking it on a wall? He could be 8,000 years old, he could be a million. He has no clue. The calendar will give him no clues.

Rule 1. Keeps banging on about even.

The only place I know of where this is actually shown is Lungbarrow, which gives 7000 as a relatively normal age for final expiry. Lungbarrow more than any other book needs to be taken with a mountain of salt though.

[Eternal_Freedom]

If 7,000 years is a reasonable number, then it means Time Lords out-live beings who are effectively Gods, specifically the Osirans. Which is interesting.

[Havok]

He isn't a million. He doesn't even believe The Face of Boe is that old.
And if he is lying, he could just be fucking 70. He is a time traveler. He could have done everything he has said in the span of one human lifetime.

[DaveJB]

Regardless of what his actual age is, he definitely has much more longevity than a human. The aforementioned Time Destructor managed to turn his (temporary) companion Sara Kingdom from a woman in her 20s/30s to a decomposed pile of dust, while the Doctor (who was exposed for even longer) was "only" aged from being an old man into a somewhat older man.

[Stark]

Does that mean it aged him 200 years and it visibly didn't change much, or that it didn't affect him as much as the poor woman? Bear in mind aging him has been seen to turn him into a hobbit. Please note the Doctor has demonstrated resistance or reduced vulnerability to all manner of temporal technologies and effects throughout the series run.

[Parallax]

7000 seems a bit too young for a full Time Lord life span.
Look at what happened to the 10th - aged 900 or so years under harsh circumstances and, while shrunken, was still quite alive.

I've always assumed that each incarnation, with possible exception of the first, could probably live 1000 or so years. Average that out and you'd expect a Time Lord, barring accidents, to at least reach 10,000.

[Stark]

What's that assumption based on, if not some DW encyclopaedia you read when you were six?

[Parallax]

You're not really one for asking things in a civilised manner, are you? You'll find you get better responses if you choose not to act like a jerk.

Anyhow, giving you the benefit of the doubt, we saw that a single incarnation can live in excess of 900 years thanks to LameMaster hi-jinx with the 10th Doctor. That gives us a lower limit on the lifespan of each incarnation. We have seen similar incidences before, such as in the Leisure Hive, wherein the 4th Doctor was aged several centuries as well. We don't know for sure how old each incarnation is when these incidences happen which is inconvenient.

As for my first Doctor comment, that is simplicity itself. The 1st Doctor had people listen to his chest and they never commented on their being two heartbeats. Indeed, dialogue always used the singular term. Yet come along later and it's up to two. That strongly suggests that in a Time Lords first regeneration, some pretty big biological reworking gets done.

The age of the first Doctor, from TV dialogue can be worked out.
Sound of Drums: Entered the Academy at age 8
The Stolen Earth: 'Just a kid' at 90 when first encountered the medusa cascade
Ribos Operation: Romana states the Doctor was about 750 and he had been travelling in the TARDIS for about 520 years
(going off memory here, so figures not exact)

[Stark]

Stop authoritatively stating shit with no evidence and I'll stop asking for it. Grow a spine too; I read DW encyclopedias when I was six. They were (like all fanon books) full of hilariously made up bullshit, although couldn't beat John Peel's 25th anniversary book.

PS artifical age != real age; we have no idea how the Master aged the Doctor and how this impacted his survival. Using time lord magic aging for the purposes of torture as a 'lower limit' blows my fucking mind. I don't think it's a meaningful example, and its not necessary anyway. Its not necessary because there are way better examples of the same thing which you yourself even quote! It's a joke to me because I don't even necessarily disagree (Time Lords certainly expect to live for millennia on Gallifrey) but zero evidence is still zero evidence. As with the other aging example, do we just forget the Doctor's special relationship with time and temporal changes or technology. I mean, why would his appearance even necessarily reflect physical age at all?

'Simplicity itself' while you smugly quote fanon from 20 year old books =

[Parallax]

'Simplicity itself' while you smugly quote fanon from 20 year old books =

What the hell are you smoking? Everything I quoted is from goddamn TV episode dialogue.

[Captain Seafort]

The age of the first Doctor, from TV dialogue can be worked out.

Actually it was explicitly stated. As of Tomb of the Cybermen, Two was about 450. Since he'd been travelling with human companions continuously since his regeneration, none of whom had visibly aged, it can't have been more than a few years earlier.

[Havok]

The Doctor has stated unequivocally that "I don't age! I regenerate!" When yelling at Rose (or was it Martha about Rose?) about how it feels to watch humans whither and die. The only reason I take it with less salt than normal is because he was being very emotional at the time and that tends to lean people more towards being truthful.

The thing is, from what we have seen, he hasn't really watched any humans grow old and die. So he is either so seriously terrified of it (Time being the one enemy he can't fight for other people) that he avoids it at all costs OR there is a whole plethora of "life" that he has lived that we haven't seen or even know about, including time spent long enough with human companions and friends that he actually has suffered through watching them deteriorate several times.

[SMJB]

As for my first Doctor comment, that is simplicity itself. The 1st Doctor had people listen to his chest and they never commented on their being two heartbeats. Indeed, dialogue always used the singular term. Yet come along later and it's up to two. That strongly suggests that in a Time Lords first regeneration, some pretty big biological reworking gets done.

I wouldn't know, but this sounds like it can be chalked up to Early Installment Weirdness. Or hell, maybe he had to have one of his hearts surgically removed for medical reasons.

[NecronLord]

If 7,000 years is a reasonable number, then it means Time Lords out-live beings who are effectively Gods, specifically the Osirans. Which is interesting.

How do we know an Osirian's lifespan?

[Eternal_Freedom]

At the end of Pyramids of Mars, the Doctor fucks around with the time tunnel, putting the end point "thousands of years" in the future. The Doctor asks Sutekh how long Osirans live, and clearllt states to Sarah that by throwing the end point thousands of years into the future Sutekh would die before he escaped.

[jwl]

Proves nothing. The Doctor is constantly "absent minded" for effect.

It also changes between the seventh doctor (953, supposedly) and the tenth (900!) and so on.

There's a fan-theory that the classic ages are in gallifreyan years whereas the nu ages are in earth years (because gallifrey doesn't exist anymore). Makes sense to me.