Leadership among the Time Lords remained vague during the earlier phase of the war. Ultimately, Rassilon, founder of the Time Lord society and its time travel technology who had discovered the secret of immortality, returned to assume leadership as Lord President, a position he was first to hold. Refusing the possibility of his civilisation being destroyed by the Daleks, Rassilon prepared a doomsday scenario, the so-called "Ultimate Sanction". This genocidal scheme included sacrificing all of time itself, thereby destroying the Daleks and all life in the universe. The Time Lords themselves would have transcended into a non-corporeal collective consciousness that would be the only sentient form of life in existence. The Time Lords, apparently hardened by the horrors of war, gave near-unanimous support for this plan – only two Time Lords dissented when the issue was put to a full vote. Prior to the vote, when one of the Council, the Partisan, suggested shelving the Ultimate Sanction and that it may be better if Gallifrey were destroyed, Rassilon disintegrated her.