Doctor Who - The Game of Rassilon

[Raven Crowking]

TARDISes and Other Time Machines

In The Game of Rassilon, your TARDIS is a combination of home, travel device, and tool. The TARDIS usually brings you into a situation at the beginning of a game adventure, and takes you onto the next adventure at the end. The TARDIS also contains specialized equipment that can perform useful functions during an adventure.

What is a TARDIS?

The acronym TARDIS stands for Time and Relative Dimension(s) In Space. In An Unearthly Child, Susan “Foreman” claims to have invented the acronym – perhaps as an inversion of SIDRAT. On Gallifrey, the usual term is “TT Capsule” but TARDIS has certainly caught on and is used by most Time Lords in the field (which, after the Time War, means most Time Lords).

The Doctor has claimed to have both stolen and built his TARDIS – a venerable Type 40. He has also claimed that TARDISes are grown, not built. In The Game of Rassilon, it is assumed that TARDISes are both grown and built, and have elements which exist as purely mathematical abstractions.

The TARDIS creature itself grows and appears something like coral, and requires approximately 500 years to be mature enough to be turned into a TARDIS. It is very likely that the TARDIS creatures were originally native to the Space-Time Vortex, and then engineered through genetic manipulation and nanotechnology to provide exactly what the Time Lords desired. When the creature is mature, it must be carved into to allow space for the first bits of circuitry to be intruded into it. Thereafter, it is capable of changing its shape and absorbing additional components directly.

TARDISes and Time Lords share a symbiotic link, and a TARDIS has a limited degree of self-determinism. Through the Central Console, Secondary Console, and similar access points, a Time Lord can give a TARDIS precise instructions that it must obey. The circuitry that allows a Time Lord this level of control is partly due to the Rassilon Imprimatur in his own DNA, and partly due to the components of the TARDIS itself. In the case of systems malfunction, a TARDIS can grow eccentric, or even wilful.

A TARDIS has several ways to indicate its own needs and desires to the Time Lord it is bonded to. In some cases, a TARDIS can predict the needs of its Time Lord, and has the capability of acting to meet those needs itself, without being asked.

Dimensional Transcendentalism & Architectural Configuration

A TARDIS is dimensionally transcendental, which means both that it is bigger on the inside than on the outside, and that the interior can be arranged to follow a non-Euclidian geometry. Although the outside of a TARDIS appears to be quite small, the interior maze of rooms and corridors might rival the surface of a planet in area. For this reason, few TARDISes are fully explored by their occupants. Even after centuries of occupation, a Time Lord can be surprised by the twists and turns within his machine – sometimes even to the extent of becoming lost therein!

The non-Euclidian nature of TARDIS interior geometry causes several other strange effects (from the point of view of creatures living in normal space-time). First off, any room can exist in a space that would seem too small for it from outside – not only is the TARDIS itself bigger on the inside than on the outside, but parts of the TARDIS itself exhibit this same trait.

Secondly, doorways and passages don’t automatically lead to, or from, the same place. Two doors might exit the same doorway, for example, and that doorway might lead to either location – or somewhere completely different – depending upon the direction of travel (or who the traveller is!).

Moreover, the TARDIS interior doesn’t need to remain constant. The locations of rooms and corridors can shift. Rooms can change size and dimensions. The appearances of walls can change – roundels give way to brick or tile, brick and tile to metal, metal to wood. Features that are part of the TARDIS can be reconfigured, so that new controls can appear on the central console to meet a particular need (either of the machine or its controller), and the machine can actually absorb items that are left in a TARDIS if it deems it either necessary or desirable.

Finally, a TARDIS can clean itself if it so desires. If a shaky landing causes items to fall over, the TARDIS can set them aright by the time that the crew returns to the ship. The TARDIS usually performs this function only when there is no one to witness it, as its telepathic circuitry allows it to know that most beings would find witnessing this effect somewhat disturbing.

This ability of a TARDIS to alter itself can be controlled by the user, using a system called “architectural configuration”. Architectural configuration allows the user to make specific changes to the appearance and components of the TARDIS interior, including general room layout and location, which the TARDIS cannot change so long as the system is functioning. It can limit the TARDIS’s ability to absorb or extrude items in selected areas of the TARDIS as well.

Most users, for obvious reasons, prefer to limit their TARDIS’s ability to make changes to the TARDIS Control Rooms, the outer access doors (by which the TARDIS crew can move from the interior of the TARDIS to the exterior world, and vice versa), and access to these locations. A TARDIS capable of hiding its own Control Rooms would be a dangerous thing to travel in! Similarly, if you enter a TARDIS that can hide its outer access doors, you may never leave it again. These types of problems, however, are seldom encountered even in very old and very eccentric TARDISes.

Outer Plasmic Shell and Chameleon Circuit

The exterior of a TARDIS is a mathematical abstraction that creates a “plasmic shell” around it upon materialization. The plasmic shell is formed of ectoplasm and fictional energy, and is impervious to most types of damage. In its natural shape, the plasmic shell appears as a grey box, about three meters tall, two meters wide, and one meter deep, with a door.

Every TARDIS has a Chameleon Circuit, a form of disguise that allows the TARDIS to scan the area in which it is to materialize and choose a suitable appearance to avoid attracting attention. Normally, the TARDIS should take its new appearance prior to materialization, having conducted a preliminary scan from the Space-Time Vortex, but sometimes a TARDIS will wait until it has materialized to change. This is an indication that the TARDIS is getting eccentric, and that its plasmic shell may soon be stuck in a single shape (sometimes with some minor variations). Chameleon Circuitry is notoriously difficult to repair, and may require the services of a mathematician versed in Block Transfer Computation – it is recommended that users attempt repairs at the first sign of trouble!

Although the plasmic shell can take any appearance, it is generally limited to appearing as a single object of size Medium to Large (that object can, of course, be composed of several parts). A successful TARDIS Systems skill check (DC 30) can increase the size allowed to Huge or decrease it to Small. If the object mimicked by the TARDIS operates mechanically, the TARDIS may be able to operate as though it were the real object – a TARDIS appearing as a pipe organ can be played, for example – but the TARDIS’s plasmic shell cannot mimic most electronic functions, or functions that rely upon nonexistent connections.

As an example of this, a TARDIS that materializes with the appearance of a Police Public Call Box has a telephone. As this phone isn’t actually connected to anything, it doesn’t actually work. However, as this phone has all of the apparent parts of a real phone, a being that can transmit to a phone without being connected to it can still make the call box phone ring, and can speak over the receiver if it is picked up.

In some cases, a TARDIS can mimic an object through special extrusion. For instance, if a TARDIS took the appearance of a soft drink vending machine, it might be able to accept coins and vend soft drinks either by creating “drinks” from fictional energy and ectoplasm, or by shunting drinks from the TARDIS interior into its plasmic shell.

If the Chameleon Circuit is working, the user may set the appearance of the TARDIS from the Central Console, using a DC 15 TARDIS Systems check to do so.

A TARDIS can appear a doorway, so that one would enter the TARDIS interior instead of the room that the doorway normally leads to. In fact, with an expert user, a TARDIS is able to extrude its plasmic shell in such a way as to appear to be a room, that can be looked into and entered by windows and doors. Because the TARDIS interior can be modified by architectural configuration, the interior can be disguised in much the same manner as the exterior. In this way, Salyavin (in his guise as Professor Chronotis) was able to disguise his TARDIS as his rooms at St. Cedd’s College.

Regardless of what the TARDIS looks like, there is always a door that allows entry into the interior, and there is always a place where the TARDIS key can be used. In some cases, the doorway and keyhole are invisible to observers unless they are aware that the TARDIS is something unusual. If there is an obvious doorway and/or keyhole, the TARDIS will incorporate these into its design.

The TARDIS also radiates a telepathic perceptual induction field, reducing the chance that anyone will notice it is unusual, even when it materialises and dematerialises. A suspicious creature touching a TARDIS exterior may notice a faint hum, however, indicating that a tree or column actually has a power source within it. In effect, the TARDIS makes a Bluff check with a +15 bonus when it lands. Beings in the vicinity must make a Willpower save, with the DC set by the TARDIS’s Bluff check, to even notice its arrival or departure. In general, only important characters (such as PCs) are even allowed to roll this save.

Important things about the outer plasmic shell include:

• Removal of the Chameleon Circuit causes the TARDIS to become invisible. This allows you to seek help in repairing the circuit, but it makes it very hard to relocate the TARDIS!

• Under normal circumstances, the TARDIS will adjust its weight to that of the object mimicked by its plasmic shell. This has no effect on the actual mass of the TARDIS.

• A TARDIS can materialize around an object, so that the object appears inside the TARDIS. Doing so while taking that object’s form requires a DC 20 TARDIS Systems check – doing so without taking its form is DC 25.

• An expert user can create a plasmic shell capable of movement, as the Master did in The Keeper of Traken. This requires a DC 30 TARDIS Systems skill check.

• If the TARDIS interior is separated from its plasmic shell, the plasmic shell becomes an apparently real – but hollow – object. The TARDIS interior automatically reasserts itself into its plasmic shell if it is able to.

• In the event that the plasmic shell is actually breached – which requires considerable force, such as by a meteor strike – the interior of the TARDIS fractures, appearing in representational form across an extremely large area. If the TARDIS interior can be somehow brought back together, it automatically fuses, and reforms the plasmic shell, creating a distinct dimensionally transcendental interior once more.

• Known disguises of TARDISes include a boulder, a cabinet, a Concorde jet, a Corinthian column, a fireplace, a grandfather clock, a horse box, an igloo, an Ionic column, an iron maiden, an organ, an ornate column, a Police Public Call Box, a pyramid, a rocket, a sarcophagus, a sedan chair, a Sopwith Camel, a stage coach, a statue of the Melkur, a stone block, and a tree. This is, obviously, not an exhaustive list.

• The Chameleon Circuit itself is an extremely advanced circuit that comes in two circuit boards. It uses a metal alloy that has plastic-like properties.

• Only the exterior of the TARDIS exists as a real space-time event.​

 

[Raven Crowking]

The Exterior Interface and the TARDIS Lock

The “exterior interface” is also known as the outer access door. This is the portion of the TARDIS interior that connects to the rest of the universe. When the TARDIS door is open, energy and matter can pass from the interior to the exterior, and vice versa. The appearance of the door from inside the TARDIS can, but does not have to, match the appearance of the door from outside the TARDIS.

The exterior interface usually leads into a Control Room – most often the Primary Control Room, but architectural configuration can set this to allow access to the Secondary or subsequent Control Rooms. In some cases, there is an antechamber between the inner and outer doors. All Control Rooms have a link to the exterior interface, even if the exterior interface doesn’t lead into the Control Room again once the door is closed.

The exterior interface is protected through the use of a locking device. Although there are presets that cannot easily be changed – such as the complex timonic locking device of old Type 40 TARDISes that could be opened with Cyber Indent Keys – the user has some authority over the lock configuration through the Chameleon Circuit controls on the Central Console. It is impossible to completely remove the locking device, but the user can add extra security systems.

Some other useful things to know:

* The interface has a biofilter that is supposed to prevent harmful micro-organisms from entering the TARDIS, but users are warned that the biofilter is unreliable as a preventative device.

* Some powerful psychic or temporal forces can enter the TARDIS without using the interface; these often appear like phantoms, but can include powerful transmat beams, Osirians, Mallus, and creatures passing through the Space-Time Vortex in the same area as the TARDIS. Usually, these initiate or indicate a systems malfunction.

* If the TARDIS door is opened during flight, several potential problems can occur. Among these are:

* Unconsciousness in TARDIS occupants.

* The pressure difference causes the TARDIS and crew to adjust their relative dimensions incorrectly upon materialization. This can cause them to appear at a widely disparate scale (usually much smaller than normal), as in Planet of the Giants.

* Allowing access to the Time Winds. Usually, this corrosive force only has the opportunity to do 2d6 damage to Strength, Endurance, Dexterity, and Agility before the TARDIS doors can be closed.

* Ejecting Control Room contents. In some cases, the Space-Time Vortex will create an eddy that tries to pull items from the Control Room, as though with a +2d10 Strength.​

* The TARDIS cannot dematerialize with the key still in the door, as safety protocols disable the dematerialization circuit until the key is removed.

* Common extra security systems on the TARDIS lock include:

* Removable Lock. The lock device itself can be removed from the plasmic shell and carried with the Time Lord. Without the lock device, the TARDIS doors cannot be opened. The major pitfall with this device is that, if the user leaves the lock on the door, it can potentially be removed by another advanced species.

* False Lock. The lock device is actually a mobile facing, which is moved to reveal a number of potential keyholes. Only one of the keyholes is actual; the others are fakes. Putting the key into the wrong hole causes the lock device to fuse – requiring a DC 40 TARDIS Systems check to restore.​

* In the event that TARDIS power is lost, the external doors can be opened with a hand crank.​

 

[Raven Crowking]

Control Rooms

Every TARDIS has at least one Control Room, which is the main room where any action within the TARDIS is likely to take place within an adventure. In addition to the main Control Room, most TARDISes have a Secondary (or even a Tertiary) Control Room. Each Control Room has, at the very minimum, a Central Console, monitor, meters, and access to both the interior and the exterior of the TARDIS. Otherwise, the Console Rooms of different TARDISes (or even of the same TARDIS), can look very different, depending upon the architectural configuration chosen by its Time Lord operator(s).

The Central Console is a hexagonal device, almost mushroom-like in design. Each face contains meters and controls for operating the TARDIS. TARDISes were designed to be controlled by multiple users; up to five Time Lords can Aid Another in TARDIS Systems checks to operate the machine.

Rising from the centre of the Central Console is the Time Rotor. This is generally lit in order to indicate power levels in the TARDIS, and moves when the TARDIS is in flight. The exterior doors usually lock when the Time Rotor is in motion, although there are forces that can open them nonetheless, and a user can intentionally open the doors in flight. Some of the problems this can cause are described on the previous page. The power source for the TARDIS is located beneath the Time Rotor.

Some specialized controls and equipment in the Central Console and Control Room include:

* Coordinate Controls: These are used to set the time-space coordinates when travelling. A TARDIS is very good at hitting a large target. If you are only concerned with reaching a particular planet in a particular era, you only need brief coordinates to do so. However, the more precise your attempt at travel (including things like year, day, and hour, or trying to reach an exact location), the more difficult the trip becomes.

* Setting Coordinates: Properly setting basic TARDIS coordinates is a DC 15 Astrogation skill check. The DC rises depending upon how precise your coordinates need to be, to a maximum DC of 40.

* Faulty Starting Coordinates: If you do not know where you are when setting coordinates, it increases the DC by +10. This is why the 1st Doctor couldn’t immediately return Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright when his yearometer broke in An Unearthly Child.

* Becoming Part of Events: In some cases, when the TARDIS operator becomes part of events that involve second-party time travel (such as in The Girl in the Fireplace), using the TARDIS for travel can disentangle the user’s 5th-dimensional timeline from the timeline of events. Doing so can mean that the operator can no longer influence those events without contravening the Laws of Time. This is why the 5th Doctor was unable to rescue Adric in Earthshock.

* Short Hops: When the TARDIS arrives, it attempts to select the optimal point for avoiding the other versions of the TARDIS occupants (which may still be present from previous time travel, for example) and undue attention. When the user attempts to make a short hop – one of less than 10 years or 1,000 miles – the TARDIS will sometimes arrive at the exact place from which it left, or arrive at some other wildly different “safe” landing zone. Setting coordinates successfully is a DC 30 (or higher) TARDIS Systems skill check.

* Randomiser: A randomiser sets random coordinates. This requires no skill check, but gives you no control over where you go.

* Other Circumstances: There may be other circumstances that modify setting coordinates, such as the interference of space-time energies, the influence of powerful entities, and faulty TARDIS circuits.

* Failed Checks: When a TARDIS Systems skill check to set coordinate controls fails, the TARDIS can literally end up anywhere. Some examples of failed skill attempts include arriving on a different planet than desired, arriving at a different time period, arriving at a different area of the planet, or arriving in circumstances that are hazardous to the TARDIS. In some cases, a failed check can cause systems failures that affect any of a number of TARDIS systems. It was one such failure that caused the 1st Doctor’s chameleon circuit and yearometer to fail in An Unearthly Child.​

* Dematerialisation Circuit: This is the switch used in order to activate the Time Rotor and dematerialise the TARDIS. It switches back automatically when the TARDIS materializes. With a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check, the user can have suspend the TARDIS in the Space-Time Vortex for an extended period of time.

The TARDIS can be materialized around an object (which then appears within the TARDIS) with a DC 20 TARDIS Systems skill check. A TARDIS can be dematerialised so that selected objects within it are left behind. This requires a DC 30 TARDIS Systems skill check.

* Door Control: Generally appearing as a lever on the Central Console, the Door Control opens and closes the exterior doors. The Door Control can be disconnected or reconnected with a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check.

* Drift Control: When set, this system typically prevents the TARDIS from being moved relative to its surroundings by outside forces. The 1st Doctor used Drift Control to prevent the TARDIS from being swept away by the tide in The Time Meddler, and Drift Control prevents both a car and a heavy truck from moving the TARDIS in Bad Wolf.

Drift Control can also be used to move the TARDIS without dematerialising it, although this is difficult to do. Using Drift Control in this way requires a DC 15 TARDIS Systems skill check each turn. In The Runaway Bride, the 10th Doctor used the Drift Control to have the TARDIS participate in a chase scene with a taxi. Using Drift Control from a distance as he did adds +10 to the DC of each check. The TARDIS is able to act as a Fast vehicle when using Drift Control in this manner.

Using Drift Control to intentionally move a TARDIS can cause damage to other systems, and possibly render the TARDIS inoperable for some time if the use is excessive. In The Runaway Bride, the Doctor needed to use a fire extinguisher and then let the TARDIS rest for a couple of hours.

* Electrical Defence: When set, this system causes anyone touching the Central Console to experience a shock causing 1d6 points of electrical damage (Reflexes save DC 10 for ½ damage). This can be set with a DC 5 TARDIS Systems skill check, and turned off with a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check.

* Emergency Dematerialisation Circuit: When activated, this control removes the TARDIS from Space and Time altogether. The 4th Doctor used control in Logopolis to speak to the Watcher, and the 2nd Doctor used this control to escape an erupting volcano, ending up in the Land of Fiction as a result. It requires the TARDIS Systems skill to use, but needs no check.

* Emergency Power: When emergency power is activated, the TARDIS shuts down all non-necessary systems, making it harder to detect the TARDIS’s energy signature. Putting the TARDIS on emergency power is a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check.

* Energy Suppression Field: When activated, this control makes it impossible to use an energy or ballistic weapon inside the TARDIS. This requires a DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check to activate, and a DC 15 TARDIS Systems skill check to deactivate.

* Fast Return Switch: This control is supposed to return the TARDIS directly to the last location it dematerialised from. This requires no skill check, but does require the TARDIS Systems skill to use. If the switch sticks, though, the TARDIS can overshoot the target destination, as happened in The Edge of Destruction.

* Fault Locator: This device aids in determining where a TARDIS fault is located, allowing the TARDIS operator to determine where repairs are necessary. The Fault Locator only locates electrical faults.

* First Aid Station: The TARDIS Central Console Room has a first aid station that includes beds, which can extrude from the walls. Using the first aid station grants a +5 circumstance bonus to Treat Injury skill checks.

* Food Machine: The TARDIS has a food machine that creates nutritious meals in wafer form. While they taste like the food they are designed to emulate, and supply the full effect of having eaten a meal, many travellers find the experience less rewarding than sitting down to an actual meal.

* HADS: The Hostile Action Displacement System, when active, causes the TARDIS to dematerialise in the event of an attack. When the source of the threat is eliminated, the TARDIS rematerialises. This is a useful system when the operator travels to a planet where the inhabitants have the technology to harm the TARDIS’s plasmic shell, but because the TARDIS doesn’t discriminate well between attacks that can breach the plasmic shell and attacks that cannot. Activating or deactivating HADS is a DC 5 TARDIS Systems skill check.

* Holographic Emitters: These can be programmed to deliver a holographic message that is activated under specific circumstances determined when programmed. Programming this system requires a DC 15 Computer Use skill. This system can also be used to project a hologram, allowing someone to communicate from the TARDIS Console Room to an area outside of the TARDIS. This later use requires a DC 15 TARDIS Systems skill check and a tremendous power source. The 10th Doctor was able to use this system to speak to Rose Tyler in another universe by using the power of a supernova.

* Isomorphic Controls: In theory, the TARDIS will only accept instructions (including use of standard TARDIS controls) from its designated user. In actuality, this system is extremely easy to bypass (DC 5 TARDIS Systems check), and in many TARDISes doesn’t work at all. The system can be activated or deactivated with a DC 15 TARDIS Systems skill check.

* Meters: The TARDIS has several meters to supply information about the area outside the TARDIS. This includes a yearometer (to determine the current year, as determined by the local inhabitants), a radiation meter, meters for atmospheric density and composition, and a meter to determine temperature. These meters are a combination of electronic and mechanical systems, and can sometimes stick (and the radiation meter did in The Daleks).

* Monitor: The monitor allows the TARDIS occupants to see the area outside the TARDIS. It can pan 180 degrees, allowing the user to see in a complete circle around the ship. The monitor can also be used as a communicator, allowing to fully patch into any local visual and audio communication system with a DC 10 TARDIS Systems check.

* Video System: This system allows the user to record a video message that can be replayed on the TARDIS monitor. The video system has fast-forward, rewind, pause, and search functions. This system was used by the 10th Doctor to give Martha Jones instructions in Human Nature and Family of Blood.​

 

[Raven Crowking]

The Heart of the TARDIS and The Eye of Harmony

Before the Time War, the Eye of Harmony, a captured black hole that was kept beneath the Panopticon on Gallifrey, supplied the power for all TARDISes. Each TARDIS had a Cloister Chamber located beneath the Central Console. As one approached the Cloister Chamber, one could feel the pull of the Eye of Harmony. In effect, gravity increased slightly, though not enough to hamper movement.

The Cloister Chamber itself could have many different designs, but all contained some direct access to the Eye of Harmony before the Time War. After the Time War, the Cloister Chamber access is used to store residual energy or energy siphoned off of Time-Space Rifts, supernovae, and similar phenomenon (which is then converted to huon energy and used as fuel).

In either event, opening the containment chamber allows access to a phenomenal amount of energy, although it exposes the opener to the energies of the Space-Time Vortex. The Master tried to use the energy from the Eye of Harmony to steal the 4th Doctor’s body in The Deadly Assassin and the 8th Doctor’s body in The Enemy Within. In Bad Wolf, Rose Tyler used the energy of the Heart of the TARDIS to destroy a Dalek invasion of Earth.

Anyone who accesses this energy is able to use it to create a Deux Ex Machina effect (as the Time Lord ability) without spending any Action Points. However, this can be extremely dangerous. A Time Lord who does is forced to regenerate in 1d6 minutes. A non-Time Lord who does so will die in 1d6 x 10 minutes from the exposure unless a Time Lord uses an Action Point to drain the energy with a kiss. In this event, however, the Time Lord will be forced to regenerate – and nothing short of the power of a Guardian of Time can prevent this.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Chameleon Arch

The Chameleon Arch is a device used by the Time Lords to rewrite their own biology, in order to better infiltrate and observe other cultures. Programming the Chameleon Arch requires a DC 20 TARDIS Systems skill check. The operator decides what species to become, where and when, and the TARDIS creates an assumed identity for the operator, downloading the necessary memories to make the identity seem real. The TARDIS is able to sift historical data – including birth and death records – when doing this, so that the operator comes as close to presenting a believable identity as possible.

When using the Chameleon Arch, the operator uses one of a set of innocuous-seeming objects, such as a pocket watch, to store his real memories and biodata extract. A perceptual filter can be programmed so that the Time Lord doesn’t pay undue attention to this item. In some cases of field research, the item would automatically release the Time Lord’s biodata after a set period of time had passed, recalling the Time Lord to his real identity when the planetary survey mission was over. However, since most research TARDISes had multiple occupants, this wasn’t usually necessary (and, indeed, could cause problems if the Time Lord was not near his storage unit when his biodata was released).

A Time Lord using the Chameleon Arch takes a –2 penalty to Endurance, Perception, and Personality and a –4 penalty to Knowledge and Psychic Potential. He has a –2 penalty to Willpower saving throws and cannot use any Psychic Powers. A Time Lord under the influence of a Chameleon Arch cannot Regenerate and cannot use his normal Temporal Sense. He may still use his Minor Special Effect ability, but cannot use Deux Ex Machina.

Post-regenerative Time Lords who use the Chameleon Arch lose their Binary Vascular System and Bypass Respiratory System. They cannot perform a Burst of Energy and do not have Cold and Heat Damage Reduction.

When the storage unit is opened, a creature holding the unit and using Telepathic Focus can extract information from the Time Lord’s biodata extract. Any creature with Telepathic Reception within 100 yards can sense the opening of the item (although they might believe that they are sensing a Time Lord instead). If the Time Lord holds the storage unit, he returns to normal (including the removal of all penalties caused by the Chameleon Arch) in a single turn.

This technology relies upon the unique biological properties of Time Lords, and thus can only rewrite the biology and identity of Time Lords – any companions travelling with a Time Lord are not affected. The Time Lord generally keeps enough residual awareness of his true identity to bring companions with him, but this awareness can fade over time.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Other Rooms

The TARDIS contains literally countless rooms. Among them are usually:

* Ancillary Power Station: This room is often disguised as something else. It allows the TARDIS operator to turn off specific functions and prevent their being turned back on until the Ancillary Power Chamber is located (Search DC 30, requiring at least 1d10 x 6 minutes to locate). Parts can be removed from the Ancillary Power Chamber with a DC 15 TARDIS Systems skill check. This prevents the settings from being changed until the item is recovered and restored (DC 10 TARDIS Systems skill check).

* Bathroom: In addition to standard washrooms, a TARDIS usually contains a “bathroom” that contains a full-sized pool. The Doctor’s bathroom was seen in The Invasion of Time, but it had begun to leak and was ejected using Architectural Configuration by Paradise Towers. According to the 7th Doctor, it leaked.

* Bedrooms: There is usually a bedroom available for every TARDIS occupant.

* Infirmary: A place where injured TARDIS crew members can be treated.

* Kitchens: According the Salyavin/Professor Chronotis (in Shada), the TARDIS kitchens were always too far from the control room.

* Wardrobe: The TARDIS wardrobe contains clothing for a dozen body sizes, and for hundreds of cultures throughout time and space. Generally speaking, any item of clothing that a time traveller might want can be located in the TARDIS wardrobe.

* Zero Room: Even within the TARDIS, universal forces, such as gravity, and the mild artron background radiation of the TARDIS itself, affect occupants. The Zero Room is designed to remove even these outside influences. If a Time Lord has a faulty regeneration, resting for a few hours in the Zero Room can often help the Time Lord to stabilize his new mind and body.​

 

[Raven Crowking]

Telepathic Circuits

The TARDIS has telepathic circuitry that translates spoken and written languages for its occupants. Once a character has travelled in a TARDIS, they hear the dominant language of any area as though it were his or her native language. When they speak, they believe that they are speaking their native language. This function of the TARDIS is dependent upon the TARDIS operator to maintain the link, but isn’t dependent upon the TARDIS operator’s physical (or even temporal) proximity to those who gain the benefit.

Normally, the TARDIS’s telepathic circuits prevent non-Time Lord companions from noticing the translation effect. The translation effect also fails to work if the language being translated is so old, or so from so far into the future, that they fall outside of Time Lord knowledge. If a living speaker of the language is available, the TARDIS will scan that being to provide translation – allowing even the languages of parallel universes to be spoken with apparent fluency – unless that native speaker is using Psychic Defence (in which case, the TARDIS is unable to perform the scan).

 

[Raven Crowking]

Special Problems

TARDIS users can encounter several special problems:

* Nested TARDISes: If one TARDIS is materialized around another TARDIS, the two TARDISes end up inside each other. In order to find the exit, occupants need to go deeper into the nested TARDISes, eventually finding the actual exterior doors deep within. Safely extricating nested TARDISes requires a DC 40 TARDIS Systems skill check.

* Time Ram: If two TARDISes are materialized so as to occupy the exact same space and time, both ships are destroyed and the contents ejected into the Space-Time Vortex. This is generally lethal to everything involved, although there are some extremely powerful beings that can intervene in the case of a Time Ram. Causing a Time Ram requires two TARDIS System skill checks – a DC 15 check to track the target TARDIS through the Vortex, and another DC 25 check to institute the Time Ram itself.

* Remote Control: A TARDIS can be controlled via a remote control with the Universal Roaming feature. Most remote controls, however, are damaging to the TARDIS itself, greatly reducing its lifespan. The Stattenheim Remote Control seems not to have this problem, or at least does less damage than another remote control device would do. Stattenheim Remote Controls were rare and difficult to come by, being restricted to the use of the High Council and Celestial Intervention Agency operatives when Gallifrey existed – they are many times more rare now.​

 

[Raven Crowking]

Other Time Travel Vehicles

The TARDIS is a form of TT (Time Travel) Capsule. Several other forms of time travel exist. Gallifreyan technology included four:

* SIDRAT: The SIDRAT was a primitive form of TT Capsule. The term “SIDRAT” stands for Space and Inter-Dimensional Robot All-purpose Transporter. It was larger on the inside than on the outside, but its dimensions were far more limited than those of TARDISes. They were controlled via remote control, and could usually only be set for one specific journey between two points in time and space. Resetting a SIDRAT requires a DC 20 TARDIS Systems check, and takes 20 minutes.

* Time Ring: A Time Ring allows the user to travel instantaneously without a capsule to any point in space or time. However, the user’s destination must be pre-programmed or remotely controlled. Few Time Rings have survived the Time War. Those that have require a DC 30 Sciences (Temporal Sciences) skill check to reprogram, as well as a TARDIS Systems skill check to set coordinates.

* Time Scoop: The ultimate remotely controlled time travel device, the Gallifreyan Time Scoop was used in the ancient Dark Times by the Time Lords to kidnap beings from all over the universe. These beings were then sent to the Death Zone (a pocket dimension on Gallifrey technically outside of time and space) to fight and kill each other for the Time Lords’ amusement.

The Time Scoop was eventually sealed off – some say on the orders of Rassilon – and supposedly forgotten by the Time Lords. Knowledge of the Time Scoop was kept in the Black Scrolls of Rassilon. In fact, the Time Scoop was never forgotten, although the High Council of Gallifrey rarely used it.

When the 2nd Doctor was tried by the Time Lords, he requested that the Time Lords use their abilities to return thousands of human soldiers to their proper eras and locations on Earth. The Time Scoop was the only thing capable of doing so. Later, the High Council authorized use of the Time Scoop to bring three of the Doctor’s incarnations together to defeat Omega. Still later, the Time Lords used the Time Scoop to intercept the 4th Doctor and Sarah Jane Smith during a transmat, sending them to ancient Skaro to prevent the creation of the Daleks. This led to the Daleks’ creator, Davros, learning about the Time Lords…and thereby to the Time War.

That the Time Scoop still existed became more widely known when President Borussa kidnapped three incarnations of the Doctor and several of his associates, sending them to the Death Zone in order to breach the Dark Tower and the Tomb of Rassilon. The 4th Doctor became trapped in a space-time eddy within the Scoop. The 5th Doctor, endangered by the removal of his previous incarnations from space and time, followed them into the Death Zone. President Borussa, then in his last incarnation, hoped to gain the secret of immortality from Rassilon, and became a living stone figure on the side of Rassilon’s Tomb.

The Celestial Intervention Agency used the Time Scoop to send the 2nd Doctor and his companions on several missions for the High Council, effectively distorting his personal continuity.

Finally, the Time Lords used the Time Scoop in the Time War. It was presumably destroyed with Gallifrey.

* Prison Ship: In the Time Wars, the Time Lords created several remote control prison ships. Like TARDISes, the prison ships were larger on the inside than on the outside, and were thus able to hold thousands of Daleks. They were designed to transport and hold Daleks collected with the Time Scoop and would only open by the touch of a creature who had ambient artron energy (usually gained through time travel).​

In addition to the time travel technology of the Time Lords, there have been several other civilizations that have created time travel. Some other methods of time travel include:

* Time Corridor: Used by the Daleks, the people of Varos (the Timelash), and others, a time corridor (or time tunnel) is a protected path through the Space-Time Vortex that leads directly from two separate points in space and time.

* Time Vector Generator: Used by the human Time Agents of the far future, as well as some aliens (such as the Family of Blood), the Time Vector Generator is worn on the wrist or wired into another machine (such as a spaceship). A Time Vector Generator can be used to follow another time machine, or it can be used to attempt a simple trip (such as that from a Time Ring). It is difficult to set properly, often arriving before or after the desired time period.

* Other Time Machines: There are other creatures and species that have created time machines, including the TARDIS-like time machines of the Daleks and those used by future humans (such as the Time Patrol). Most alien time machines are not bigger on the inside than on the outside, and are considerably more primitive that TARDISes.

* Space-Time Teleportation: There are a number of species that can set up a limited form of Time Scoop, effectively allowing a transmat between two points in space and time. Even humans, in Operation Golden Age, were able to create a limited form of Time Scoop.

* Natural Ability: Some creatures have a natural ability to transport themselves across time, or across both space and time.​

 

[Raven Crowking]

Time Travel


General Principles

People tend to think of time as a linear sequence of cause and effect, but from an objective outside perspective four-dimensional time appears more like a “ball” of temporal energies with causal links that travel in all directions. The Space-Time Vortex touches every point in this “ball”, connecting the entire universe holistically.

The Time Lords view time as consisting of two temporal dimensions – the standard fourth dimension of Time and a fifth dimension of temporal “Space”. When a time traveller becomes entangled in space-time, his “present” is determined by events on both the 4th- and 5th-dimensional axis. This is why time travellers can become entangled in events. It also means that events occurring to a group of time travellers that are within two or more separate time zones tend to happen at the same temporal rate.

This is why the 5th Doctor in Mawdryn Undead, was so insistent that events happening in two different time zones were also occurring in the “present” (although he lacked the means to explain to the Brigadier why this was so). It is also why the Doctor’s granddaughter, Susan, insisted that certain problems couldn’t be solved without recourse to a 4th dimension of “Time” and a 5th dimension of “Space”. A very entangled example of this is seen in the 10th Doctor episode, Blink, where various characters move throughout time and space (all on the planet Earth) while contributing to the ultimate solution to a problem.

Time Tracks: From a four-dimensional viewpoint, time is not a seamless whole. It began at the big bang and proceeds outward toward the expanding universe in a number of discreet (but extremely narrow) layers not unlike a colossal onion. Each of the layers represents a distinct moment of “present”. Layered around these are an infinite number of parallel layers, representing parallel universes. Each universe lies on its own “time track” within the expanding whole, but it is possible for a time traveller to jump tracks into a parallel universe. This is especially possible when the traveller is in an area of time and space where the decisions that lead from one possible future to another are made. In effect, this causes a “scratch” across the tracks that makes the barrier between possibilities thinner.

It is also possible to merely “skip” a track – gaining a temporary window into a possible future that you cannot interact with because you are literally between distinct moments of “present” – before the elasticity of time pulls you back to where you belong. This happened to the 1st Doctor and his companions in The Space Museum. They were able to avert a potential future because they knew it only existed as a potential.

Parallel Universes: There are an infinite number of parallel universes. Before the Time War, the Time Lords had the technology to jump from one universe to another with impunity. However, after the Time War most of the parallel universes were sealed off. While the Time Lords were able to repair any fractures in space-time caused by travel to parallel universes in the past, junctures where travel to a parallel is possible after the Time War should cause deep concern.

The walls between universes are only semi-permeable in their natural state. Objects passing from one universe to another create stresses. Enough of these stresses can cause the walls to fail catastrophically, creating temporal rifts or even obliterating both universes. They can also cause access to the Void. It is suggested that Time Lords who discover access points to parallel universes do their utmost to seal the breaches as soon as possible.

The Void: This is the term Time Lords use for the spaces between time tracks, discreet moments of “present”, and parallel universes. It is known to some as the Howling Worlds, and to others as Hell – an endless darkness without light, heat, hope, or apparent time. Access to the Void should be avoided at all costs. Some of the creatures imprisoned there were chained before the Big Bang, and all of them are inimical to living creatures.