TARDIS - General Characteristics

General Characteristics

TARDISes are bioships that are grown from a species of coral presumably indigenous to Gallifrey, as shown in "The Impossible Planet," (2006) and it can take years to complete one. They draw their power from several sources, but primarily from the singularity of an artificial black hole, known as the Eye of Harmony. In The Edge of Destruction (1964), the power source of the TARDIS (referred to as the "heart of the TARDIS") is said to be beneath the central column of the console. They are also said to draw power from the entire universe as revealed in the episode "Rise of the Cybermen" (2006), in which the TARDIS is brought to a parallel universe and cannot function without the use of a crystal power source from within the TARDIS, charged by the Doctor's life force.

Other elements needed for the proper functioning of the TARDIS and requiring occasional replenishment include mercury (used in its fluid links), the rare ore Zeiton 7 (Vengeance on Varos, 1985), a trachoid time crystal (The Hand of Fear, 1976) and "artron energy". The latter is a form of temporal energy, generated by Time Lord minds, which is also said to help power TARDISes (The Deadly Assassin, 1976; Four to Doomsday, 1982; "Death of the Doctor", 2010; "The Doctor's Wife", 2011; "The Power of Three", 2012). Another form of energy, "huon energy", is found in the heart of the TARDIS and (apart from the activities of the Torchwood Institute) nowhere else in the universe ("The Runaway Bride").

Before a TARDIS becomes fully functional, it must be primed with the biological imprint of a Time Lord, normally done by simply having a Time Lord operate the TARDIS for the first time. This imprint comes from the Rassilon Imprimatur, part of the biological make-up of Time Lords, which gives them both a symbiotic link to their TARDISes and the ability to withstand the physical stresses of time travel (The Two Doctors, 1985).

Without the Imprimatur, molecular disintegration would result; this serves as a safeguard against misuse of time travel even if the TARDIS technology were copied. Once a time machine is properly primed, however, with the imprint stored on a device called a "briode nebuliser", it can be used safely by any species. According to Time Lord law, unauthorised use of a TARDIS carries "only one penalty", implied to be death ("The Invasion of Time").

A TARDIS usually travels by dematerialising in one spot, traversing the time vortex, and then rematerialising at its destination, without physically travelling through the intervening space. However, the Doctor's TARDIS has been seen to be able to fly through physical space, first in "Fury from the Deep" (1968) and at repeated times throughout the revived series, most notably in "The Runaway Bride" (2006), in which the TARDIS is shown launching into space (most previous incidents show the TARDIS flying only after it has dematerialised from a location). In "The Runaway Bride", extended flight of this nature puts a strain on the TARDIS's systems. While a TARDIS can materialise inside another, if both TARDISes occupy exactly the same space and time, a Time Ram will occur, resulting in their mutual annihilation ("The Time Monster"). In "Logopolis", the Master tricked the Doctor into materialising his TARDIS around the Master's, creating a dimensionally recursive loop, each TARDIS appearing inside the other's console room. In the mini-episodes "Space" and "Time" (2011), an accident results in the TARDIS automatically materialising in "the safest spot available," which turns out to be inside its own control room. The Eleventh Doctor describes this as "worse than a time loop - a space loop. Nothing can enter or leave this ship ever again." However, a version of Amy Pond from seconds in the future appears as soon as he says this allowing him to rectify the problem.

Apart from the ability to travel in space and time (and, on occasion, to other dimensions), the most remarkable characteristic of a TARDIS is that its interior is much larger than it appears from the outside. The explanation is that a TARDIS is "dimensionally transcendental", meaning that its exterior and interior exist in separate dimensions. In "The Robots of Death" (1977), the Fourth Doctor tried to explain this to his companion Leela, using the analogy of how a larger cube can appear to be able to fit inside a smaller one if the larger cube is farther away, yet immediately accessible at the same time (see Tesseract). According to the Doctor, transdimensional engineering was "a key Time Lord discovery". To those unfamiliar with this aspect of a TARDIS, stepping inside the ship for the first time usually results in a reaction of shocked disbelief as they see the interior dimensions ("It's bigger on the inside!").

Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter, claimed to have coined the name TARDIS: "I made up from the initials." The word TARDIS is used to describe other Time Lords' travel capsules as well. The Discontinuity Guide, written by Paul Cornell, Keith Topping, and Martin Day, suggests that " was a precocious young Time Lady, and her name for travel capsules caught on." The Virgin New Adventures novel Lungbarrow by Marc Platt records Susan telling the First Doctor that she gave him the idea when he was, implicitly, the "Other".

As seen in "The Trial of a Time Lord" (1986), the experiences of the TARDIS and its crew can be recorded and played back from the Matrix, the Time Lord computer network that is the repository of all their knowledge, as well as the memories and experiences of deceased Time Lords. The Doctor implies in this serial, with his protestations of being "bugged", that the TARDIS is not normally connected to the Matrix in this manner.

The TARDIS has been shown to be incredibly rugged, withstanding gunfire (the 1996 television movie, Doctor Who; "The Runaway Bride"), temperatures of 3000 degrees without even scorching ("Forty-Two"), atmospheric re-entry ("Voyage of the Damned"), falls of several miles ("The Satan Pit") and sinking into pooling acid ("The Almost People"). In The Curse of Peladon, after the TARDIS falls down the side of a cliff, the Third Doctor remarks that it "may have its faults, but it is indestructible." This does not apply when facing certain extremely advanced weaponry, often created after the Doctor's Type 40 TARDIS, such as Dalek missiles ("The Parting of the Ways"), for which the TARDIS requires additional shielding. Another piece of advanced Dalek technology which comes near to destroying the TARDIS is the power source of the "Crucible" in "Journey's End" (2008). In Frontios (1984), the Fifth Doctor believes the TARDIS to have been destroyed in a meteorite bombardment, apparently contradicting the earlier claim of indestructibility. It explodes in the Mind Robber and the crew end up "out of the time space dimension. Out of reality." In 2007's Christmas special "Voyage of the Damned", the TARDIS is hit in mid-flight, creating a large hole in the interior wall, although its shields are down at the time. The Doctor later activates some controls and the TARDIS again becomes able to withstand an atmospheric re-entry.