Name:
Cardinal Ollistra
Species:
Time Lord
Place of Origin:
Gallifrey
Job:
Cardinal
Affiliated With:
High Council
War Council
First Seen In:
The Innocent
Appearances:
Dark Universe
The Side of the Angels
Day of the Vashta Nerada
Echoes of War
The Conscript
One Life
In the Garden of Death
Jonah
The Thousand Worlds
The Heart of the Battle
Legion of the Lost
A Thing of Guile
The Neverwhen
The Shadow Vortex
The Eternity Cage
Eye of Harmony
Pretty Lies
The Lady of Obsidian
The Enigma Dimension
Main Voice Actor:
Jacqueline Pearce
Other Voice Actors:
Carolyn Pickles
PADRIC’S WARNINGS
When Padrac revealed the imminent destruction of the universe to the council of the Time Lords, Ollistra, together with some members of the Enclave, fled Gallifrey and hid in New York City, Earth during the 1970s. She met The Monk and together, they infiltrated the business industry of the city to create structures and buildings resembling those of Gallifreyans in order to shield themselves when the destruction of the universe comes. She also formed an alliance with the Weeping Angels to power these structures. The plan was to wait for the plan Padrac had set into motion to take place so she and her Time Lord allies could take action. To act as her eyes and ears, she also sent Volstrom and Veklin to the Crucible of Souls to spy on Padrac.
When the Eleven came to New York to confront Ollistra and the Doctor, she was pushed from a building by him, which triggered a regeneration as witnessed by Veklin. (The Side of the Angels)
THE LAST GREAT TIME WAR : WORKING WITH THE EIGHTH DOCTOR
During the Last Great Time War, Ollistra sponsored a Time Lord project to weaponise the Vashta Nerada against The Daleks by altering their biodata so that they could consume Dalekanium. Ollistra met The Doctor, who had arrived at the station independently, just as the Vashta Nerada began to fight back. After The Doctor had got her to safety, Ollistra pleaded with him to join the fighting. The Doctor refused, rejecting the choice to become a warrior. (Day of the Vashta Nerada)
She organised a battle to get The Doctor from a planet and to see the effectiveness of the Type 120 TARDISes. Ollistra had caused the destruction of the planet and corrupted its timeline. (Echoes of War)
She didn’t want to get the Celestial Intervention Agency involved in the interrogation of Bliss. She told Bliss that she could just let her disappear as a casualty of the war. Shortly afterwards she wanted to find more about Rupa Maguire and Quarren Maguire. She only let The Doctor go when The Doctor was to leave. She then threatened The Doctor with death so that she could get his next incarnation to join the war. (The Conscript)
When The Daleks broke into the structure, she left all her guards behind in The Doctor’s TARDIS. She discovered that the Daleks were using a reversal wave on the system. She was after the CIA weapon that was stored on theseus. Using material she got from the CIA, she discovered that Quarren was the CIA weapon, he could rewrite reality with his mind. After escaping The Daleks, she used her Hypercube to get herself rescued. Using a Temporal Flare, a Battle TARDIS appeared but this alerted The Daleks. Quarren sent Ollistra back to Gallifrey. (One Life)
WORKING WITH THE WAR DOCTOR
Ollistra was present when a Gallifreyan reported the destruction of the Dalek fleet and the death of the Doctor. Horrified, Ollistra lamented Time Lord soldiers Bennus and Arverton when they allowed the War Doctor to activate The Dalek Time Destructor instead of them, a blast no Time Lord could survive. Ollistra attended The Doctor’s funeral, sceptical of his demise. With her strong belief that The Doctor was still alive, she sent Veklin to search for him. After gaining control of the Eye of Harmony of the Doctor’s TARDIS, Ollistra pulled The Doctor from Keska when he refused to go home. (The Innocent)
Ollistra signed an order allowing a team of Time Lords, headed by Councilor Voltrix, to open a rift into the universe of the Great Vampires, allowing them to destroy a fleet of Dalek saucers. (The Bidding War)
She later built a team, consisting of the War Doctor, Veklin, Bennus and Arverton, to rescue Seratrix, a Time Lord strategist, in the “Null Zone”. (The Thousand Worlds)
It was later revealed that the scheme underneath the mission was to purge the idea of Seratrix to make peace with The Dalek. The reason why she sent the “rescue team” was because she believed that The Doctor, Bennus, and Arverton were followers of the belief of Seratrix so they should be killed together with him.
After the War Doctor stopped the plan of the Daleks to explode the thousand planets, Ollistra came and revealed her plan to The Doctor. After that, she brought The Doctor to the future of Keska to show how the planet recuperated from the invasion of the Daleks. (The Heart of the Battle)
Ollistra caught up with The Doctor after he used the Annihilator to erase the Technomancers, placing him under arrest as a war criminal. (Legion of the Lost)
She was looking for The Doctor in order for him to understand the whether they should use the anima device. She then decided to take on a mission to Asteroid Theta 12 to discover the secrets that they were the war council was hearing. She was reluctant to save Jarad. She discovered the research that the Daleks were doing. The Doctor got her to use the anima device in order to destroy The Dalek fleet. The Doctor left her behind on the Asteroid. (A Thing of Guile)
Ollistra followed The Doctor to the Neverwhen as his TARDIS was used to travelling to strange places. She was interested in the results of the weapon that created the Neverwhen, especially because it resurrected Time Lords. The Doctor later used it to create a state of peace where both Daleks and Time Lords were farmers. Ollistra planned to use it along with the Neverwhen to destroy Skaro. (The Neverwhen)
Ollistra later got Heleyna to contact The Doctor when the quantum shield around Earth was breached. She was kidnapped soon after this. (The Shadow Vortex)
She went to a retreat to gain information about a Dalek Spy in the High Council, where she was taken by General Fesk to be used as a bargaining chip between the Sontarans and both The Daleks and the Time Lords to let them into the war. She discussed the beginnings of the war with The Dalek Time Strategist. She was rescued when Fesk was trapped with The Doctor with their temporal weapon. (The Eternity Cage)
She was then taken prisoner by Heleyna and who was the spy. Ollistra then used the Battle TARDIS’ to save The Doctor when he was falling through the Rovidian atmosphere. She fell to the lower levels of the TARDIS, and ended up in the infirmary. Heleyna wanted her as she was one of the War Council and had access to the Eye, to punish her for the death of Heleyna’s grandfather and prevent the war from ever happening. After The Daleks were stopped she helped The Doctor to set the time rotor to get them out of the time vortex. (Eye of Harmony)
The Doctor and Ollistra were then captured and sent on an escape capture to be picked up by The Daleks. The Doctor managed to avoid capture by flying the capsule to Beltox. Her main concern was getting back to Gallifrey, but when the Daleks arrived she first organised the retreat of the locals and then the defence of Beltox. (Pretty Lies)
On Grend, she managed to get a message to the war council and asked for a complete Time Fleet to be sent there. Freel arrived to take her back to Gallifrey, but she was annoyed that only a fleet of 20 Battle TARDISes were sent. She then got those 20 TARDIS to defend Grend. Later when The Doctor arrived, he came with the Fifth Time Fleet and Commander Veklin. (The Lady of Obsidian)
On returning to Gallifrey, she was the highest-ranking Time Lord not in deep hiding due to the Enigma. She started to not trust Leela because of her savagery. When the Enigma arrived on Gallifrey she thought that the Daleks had won. She helped to explore the dimension she was in, and helped with The Doctor’s theorising of what was going on and why Leela was being communicated. She thought that the TARDIS was dead and didn’t like The Doctor’s patronisation. She welcomed the Enigma found thecompassion using Leela, and asked the Enigma to destroy The Daleks instead. (The Enigma Dimension)
PERSONALITY
Ollistra was a heartless politician, so much so that Bennus and Arverton joked over the existence of Ollistra’s emotions, and was also deeply patriotic, allowing Gallifreyans to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. She displayed a discontent with the Gallifreyan armed forces, telling two soldiers “The Doctor is worth a hundred of you… people!”. (The Innocent)
Ollistra was regularly callous and decadent and retained the mindset that any act done in the name of Gallifrey’s victory of the Time War was a necessary means to that end, to this extent she threatened to force The Doctor to regenerate in the hopes of making him more co-operative in the war effort. (The Conscript)
RELATIONSHIP WITH THE WAR DOCTOR
Although Ollistra respected The Doctor’s efforts for Gallifrey, she also appeared to despise him, describing him as “a thorn in [the Time Lords’] side” and “An embarrassment for most of his lives.” When he was presumed dead, Ollistra confessed that she felt the universe” a far more dangerous place without [him]”, displaying that she had some level of recognition for his pursuits and actions. (The Innocent). Nevertheless, she constantly butted heads with the War Doctor, hardly ever agreed with his conflicting morals or decisions and was generally only willing to cooperate with him in the direst of situations or if the circumstances aided the war effort in favourof Gallifrey.
CAPTURING THE ELEVEN
After the Eleven opened the Dark Universe, she conversed with Ace about what to do with the Eleven and decided to invade Gallifrey. She was one of the last Time Lords alive and was the most senior after Romana II and her high council were the first to be destroyed by the Eleven’s plans. She helped to then trap the Eleven and gloated slightly when the universe was restored. (Dark Universe)