The war resulted in countless millions dying endless deaths, as time travel was used by both sides to reverse battles that caused massive fatalities on both sides.[7] These excesses of time warfare eventually led to the whole of the conflict becoming "time-locked", so that no time traveller could go back into it.[8] The Doctor described the final days of the war as "hell", with "the Skaro Degradations, the Horde of Travesties, the Nightmare Child, the Could-Have-Been King with his army of Meanwhiles and Never-Weres" constituting particularly disturbing developments.
As the war progressed the Time Lords became increasingly aggressive and unscrupulous. At one point, they resurrected the Master, renegade Time Lord and nemesis to the Doctor, as they believed him to be the "perfect warrior for a time war". It's implied that they gave him a full new set of regenerations as was done to all Time Lords fighting in the war, and that the Eye of Harmony could be used as a means to gain more regenerations. However, after the Dalek Emperor gained control of the Cruciform, the Master deserted his post, used the chameleon arch to disguise himself as a human and escaped to a time period shortly before the end of the universe. Genetically a human, he escaped the destruction of all Time Lords as well as detection by the Doctor – who was unaware of his resurrection in the first place. The Master also remained ignorant of the latter phase and outcome of the war until told by the Doctor many years later.[9]...
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The Time War concluded with the mutual destruction of both belligerents and their respective planets. The Dalek fleet—reportedly ten million ships—was destroyed by the Doctor.[1] Gallifrey is first described as having "burned" like Earth of the far future, and is "rocks and dust" as a result of the war,[11] but then the Doctor admits that Time Lords and Daleks both burned together[1] and that he personally ended the war, in an act which caused the Time Lords, the Daleks and Gallifrey to burn.[9] The Doctor was, therefore, responsible for destroying his home planet.[9] He is called "the killer of his own kind" by the beast of the Pit.[12]
The specifics and what prompted the Doctor to such drastic measures were ultimately revealed in The End of Time (2009): The Doctor had discovered a way to end the war, described as "the Moment", when he became aware of Rassilon's "Ultimate Sanction".[7] It remains unclear whether "the Moment" would always have resulted in the destruction of both antagonists together or whether the Doctor could have simply used it to destroy the Daleks and chose to destroy the Time Lords as well to prevent Rassilon's scheme. The Ninth Doctor apparently faced a similar situation in The Parting of the Ways when he creates a Delta Wave to destroy the Daleks. When the wave was charged, The Doctor realised that it would not distinguish between Human and Dalek. Firing the Delta Wave would have resulted in the mutual destruction of both the Daleks and Humans (similar to the situation he faced at "the Moment").
The specifics and what prompted the Doctor to such drastic measures were ultimately revealed in The End of Time (2009): The Doctor had discovered a way to end the war, described as "the Moment", when he became aware of Rassilon's "Ultimate Sanction".[7] It remains unclear whether "the Moment" would always have resulted in the destruction of both antagonists together or whether the Doctor could have simply used it to destroy the Daleks and chose to destroy the Time Lords as well to prevent Rassilon's scheme. The Ninth Doctor apparently faced a similar situation in The Parting of the Ways when he creates a Delta Wave to destroy the Daleks. When the wave was charged, The Doctor realised that it would not distinguish between Human and Dalek. Firing the Delta Wave would have resulted in the mutual destruction of both the Daleks and Humans (similar to the situation he faced at "the Moment").
By this point, the entire period of war had become "time locked", so that no time traveller could enter or exit it.[6][7] In knowledge of this and the threat posed by the Doctor's possession of "the Moment," Rassilon and his fellow councillors tried to escape the Lock by retroactively planting a four note drumbeat (the rhythm of a Time Lord's heartbeats) into the Master's brain when he was a child (the sound of which eventually drove the Master insane) and use a Whitepoint Star, a diamond only found on Gallifrey,[7] to create a link between the final day of the Time War and Earth in 2010. The Master could therefore bring Gallifrey and the Time Lords out of the Time Lock and into the present, which he did after increasing the signal by turning nearly all humanity into copies of himself. The plan ultimately failed, as the Doctor destroyed the diamond link and the Master apparently sacrificed his life to prevent Rassilon killing the Doctor, sending the Time Lords back to their apparent doom.[7]
