TARDIS
A TARDIS are living timeship that featured in Doctor Who.
Contents |
History
A TARDIS (which stands for Time And Relative Dimensions (or Dimension) In Space is a highly advanced time and space travel vehicle created by the Time Lords of Gallifrey. The most useful and striking element of a TARDIS is its size- through its transdimensional nature, it is far larger inside than it is outside. A TARDIS contains many rooms, and has more interior space than many mansions. This interior can be manipulated, rearranged, or even jettisoned as need or desire dictates.
Overview
Most of these rooms are unremarkable, but a few unique chambers bear noting. The console room (of which there may be two or more) contains the console, the complex and partially telepathic means of piloting the vehicle. (The console can also be used as a travel vehicle by itself, but this is risky- such an attempt sent the Third Doctor hurtling into a parallel universe.) The Zero Room contains an environment that can help a Time Lord recover from an unstable regeneration, or simply meditate. The Doctor's TARDIS also contains an access to the Eye of Harmony- whether this is common to all TARDISes is unknown.
The Doctor's TARDIS' model is Type 40, but this is a rather antiquated version. The Doctor's TARDIS also contains dressing rooms, hot water baths, a garden plaza he calls the Cloisters, bedrooms, a kitchen, and many other useful chambers. The vehicles are more or less immune to conventional weaponry (no matter their present form), but highly advanced or mass-destruction weapons may break through (such as that of the Time Lords and Cybermen, respectively).
The only normal access is protected by a key, which can be found in various forms. Very powerful or noncorporeal beings can gain access in certain situations. A TARDIS is somewhat sentient, having a sort of rapport with its pilot, and warning them of danger via the Cloisters' bells. It is also capable of changing its form to blend in with any environment via its chameleon circuit. (The Doctor's TARDIS' chameleon circuit is damaged, fixing it in the form of a police telephone box such as existed in the 1960s on Earth.) The default form resembles a simple blank cabinet with a door.
It was said that the TARDIS was always light as if it ever landed with its true weight than it would fracture the surface of a planet. (Episode: Flatline)
Within its structure was the Architectural Reconfiguration System that allowed it to reconstruct particles according to the needs of the user allowing the TARDIS to make, remake and unmake the spaces inside of it. (Episode: Journey to the Centre of the Tardis)
A chamber within included the Zero Room that a neutral environment where zero energy was balanced with respect to the world outside its walls and served as a place for a Time Lord to rest, recover or regenerate. (Episode: Castrovalva)
When in danger, the pilot was able to put the TARDIS into Siege Mode whereby its camouflage mode ended and it appeared as a closed block with symbols on its surface. In this mode, it had no power and life support would slowly fail until a burst of dimensional energy was given to it whereupon it became fully operational again. (Episode: Flatline)
The heart of the TARDIS was the Eye of Harmony that served as a power source allowing it to travel through time and space. (Movie: Eye of Harmony) Time Lord engineering allowed them to take an exploding star that was in the act of becoming a black hole whereupon it was ripped from its orbit and suspended in a permanent state of decay. (Episode: Journey to the Centre of the Tardis)
Users
- The Doctor :
- The Master :
- Rani :
- The Monk :
- Corsair :
Notes
- The TARDIS was created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson where it made its first appearance in "An Unearthly Child" (1963)
In other media
Video games
Books
- In So Vile a Sin, the TARDIS appeared in the setting of the non-canon New Adventures novel with it shown that the Time Lords had created battle capable versions known as a War TARDIS.
Appearances
- Doctor Who: "An Unearthly Child" (1963)
