Raven Crowking
First Post
Paradox and Resolution
The Causal Nexus is one of the functions that occurs within (and due to the energies of) the Vortex. Essentially, the Causal Nexus attempts to keep most events from progressing, cause to effect, from the past to the future. Certain powers, such as the Guardians of Time, can affect the way that the Causal Nexus works, accelerating coincidence and creating “chance” occurrences that arrange events to that power’s needs.
When Rose Tyler looked into the Heart of the TARDIS in The Parting of the Ways, she gained access to the Causal Nexus, and was able to use it to spread the words “Bad Wolf” throughout time and space in order to send her past self a message. (She was also able to use chronal energy to destroy the Dalek fleet, but this functioned more like the Dalek Time Destructor).
The Grandfather Paradox: In Father’s Day, Rose Tyler travelled back in time to witness the death of her father and hold his hand. Instead, she pushed her father out of the way of the car that would have fatally hit him…removing her reason for travelling to the past in the first place. This is an example of the Grandfather Paradox, where the time traveller alters events in the past in a way that precludes his travelling to the past in the first place.
A Grandfather Paradox only occurs if the change in the past precludes the traveller being able to make the change. The classic example is killing one’s grandfather before one’s parent can be born, thus precluding one’s birth. In this event, because one cannot be born, the murder cannot occur. Because the murder cannot occur, one can be born. This creates a chronal loop – a sort of wound in time. And time has several means to attempt to seal the wound.
The first thing that occurs is that the Causal Nexus attempts to seal the wound by removing the paradox. Thus, Rose Tyler’s father is hit by the same car in a different location, providing her with a motive to get involved with events. The Causal Nexus might also act to prevent the paradoxical action (i.e., the person who attempts to murder his grandfather has his gun jam, etc.) or even cause the time traveller’s death (or obstruction) before the action can be taken. The Causal Nexus seems to have some form of telepathic sentience, and can act on a premeditated paradox in this way, as the 1st Doctor tried to explain to Barbara Wright in The Aztecs.
If the paradoxical event is spontaneous or accidental, however, or if the initial attempts at prevention or resolution fail, the Causal Nexus becomes more aggressive. It sends in Reapers to “cleanse” the wound by removing all free willed creatures in the vicinity from space-time. This means that time vehicles may cease to function, and the TARDIS interior is ejected from the outer plasmic shell.
If the problem can be resolved before the Reapers complete the sterilization process, everyone is restored with their memories edited to reflect the “new” reality (including the resolution of the problem). Indeed, only the person or persons who are directly responsible for the resolution are even aware that a change has occurred – or who remember the previous reality.
The Butterfly Effect: This potential paradox is caused by the idea that small events can have drastic effects on the future. The standard illustration is that of a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world resulting in a storm in another part of the world. Another standard illustration, where time travel is involved, is that of a butterfly being stepped on in the far past being found to have dramatically rewritten history upon return to the present.
Within the Doctor Who universe, belief in the Butterfly Effect is the result of being unable to see space-time objectively. The universe itself has a form of “elasticity” – resulting in the universe correcting the results of any small changes. What seem like random events are actually part of a 5-dimensional matrix controlled by the Causal Nexus. The effect is that it is seldom possible to create an unintentional major change in history.
See “Changing Histories” for more information.
The Blinovitch Limitation Effect: The Causal Nexus also attempts to prevent time travellers from meeting themselves. This is known as the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. While not an absolute law of time, the Blinovitch Limitation Effect means that time travellers almost never run into previous or later versions of themselves by accident. Moreover, when time travellers run into a later version of themselves, it is almost always caused by the later versions entangling the earlier versions in the later versions’ 5-dimensional temporal “Space”.
What this means, in game terms, is that it is possible to intentionally run into earlier versions of yourself within an adventure, but it will seldom happen as an unplanned event. Crossing your own timeline intentionally to change your personal history is a major paradox.
Time Lords can run into earlier incarnations of themselves without necessarily encountering major difficulties, but people coming into contact with their same bodies from another point in time can release what is known as “Blinovitch energy” – the potential energy from the Causal Nexus used in attempts to prevent this from happening. This is pure artron energy, roughly equivalent to the energy released by a Time Lord regenerating eight times. Normally this energy is released with explosive force, causing 8d6 points of damage at the point of contact, reduced by 1d6 points of damage for every meter away from the point of impact.
If the two versions of the individual are separated by enough time – usually 18 years or more – an explosion may not occur. Nonetheless, coming in contact with yourself, no matter how many years have passed, creates a minor paradox.
Dealing With Non-Sequential Events: In some time travel stories, events happen in the future that affect the past, and vice versa. The 10th Doctor story, Blink, is a perfect example of this. The Doctor’s initial involvement in the story is, in fact, the last event to occur from Sally Sparrow’s point of view (and in the episode), but the Doctor repeatedly saves (or gives information to) Sally throughout the story. Personal timelines are not necessarily straight. They can get all tangled up so that – while each person’s timeline appears to be linear – they are not following the same line.
This is dealt with in The Game of Rassilon much as it would be dealt with in the television series…by following the timeline of the story in question from the vantage point of the Player Characters. Here are some examples referencing episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood:
Changing Histories: Because of the elasticity of time, and the Causal Nexus, it is very difficult to intentionally change history. It should be noted that every time period has its alternates. Not only can powerful beings intentionally change known events, but also very powerful beings can destroy known futures entirely. Also, as with the Butterfly Effect, where you do not know the expected history you are free to make almost any change imaginable.
It is that last bit that makes time travel stories entertaining. If Carrionites invade Shakespearean London and are not stopped, the Carrionites can change established history. After all, they are in their present, and any changes to the future are not paradoxical from their point of view. Likewise, Sutekh the Destroyer had the potential to end the world in the 19th Century, even though Sarah Jane Smith “knew” the world still existed in 1980. The fluidity of time is, effectively, based on a combination of knowledge, intent, and personal power.
In the event that history is changed, it affects all timelines radiating out from its point of origin. This is why, in The Shakespeare Code, the 10th Doctor told Martha Jones that if the human race was destroyed she would fade away like Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Characters with Temporal Sense may be able to resist these changes longer than others, but they will eventually change as well.
How long it takes the Causal Nexus to act is largely at the discretion of the Game Master, depending upon the needs of the story. In some cases, undoing the effects of a changed history before it changes your own personal history can be the story!
Of course, minor unintentional changes happen frequently as the result of time travel. In Carnival of Monsters, for example, the 3rd Doctor returned a ship to its proper place and time that he distinctly recalled as being lost at sea. Likewise, it is impossible to tell whether or not the defeat of the Animus would have been part of Vortis’ history had not the 1st Doctor’s TARDIS arrived there in The Web Planet.
Finally, time travellers seem to have a knack for showing up just in time to prevent history from being changed. This is not an accident. The TARDIS interacts with the Causal Nexus, frequently altering its course to allow its occupants to deal with temporal emergencies.
Oblique Timelines and Temporal Orbits: Because time consists of two dimensions (the 4th and the 5th), it is possible for a particular timeline to be oblique to 4th dimensional time. This was the secret of Gallifrey’s greatest defence. From the point of view of a being trapped in the 4th dimension, the object standing oblique to time is always in the same point of time, no matter what time period you approach from. Thus, for example, a traveller to Gallifrey always arrived at Gallifrey’s present. Even if they travel far into the past, or far into the future, and then take mundane means to travel to Gallifrey, it will still be Gallifrey’s present. Which means that after the Time War, Gallifrey seems to have been destroyed no matter what time one approaches it from.
It is also possible for a vehicle to orbit in a warp ellipse. Essentially, this means that the vehicle is orbiting not only in space, but through time as well, regularly passing through the same set of space-time coordinates. People leaving a vehicle travelling in a warp ellipse can therefore easily end up separate not only in space but also in time.
Time Loops: There are two types of time loops. The first occurs when a sequence of cause and effect occurs in a recursive pattern. For example, in Blink, the 10th Doctor provides Sally Sparrow with information necessary to defeat the Weeping Angels. However, the Doctor doesn’t devise this information himself – Sally Sparrow gives him documentation of what occurred after the events (for her) but before the events (for him). The information itself is thus caught within a time loop, revolving eternally from the Doctor to Sally Sparrow to the Doctor without beginning or end.
This type of time loop is relatively harmless, and seems to occur naturally. It may be that some of these loops are actually “scars” left over from the Causal Nexus healing a wound in time. In any event, when such a loop is discovered, time travellers may almost always safely ignore it.
The other type of time loop – a Chronic Hysterisis – is caused when the same small piece of local time restarts at the beginning when it reaches the end. This is like a vinyl record skipping, or a scratch on a DVD that causes the same scene to play repeatedly. Characters caught in this sort of time loop are completely unaware of it unless they have Temporal Sense. Even then, it requires a DC 20 Will save to notice the time loop. Once characters notice the time loop, it requires a DC 25 Will save to change events enough so that the loop is broken.
Some species with time travel capabilities – including Time Lords – are capable of creating a Chronic Hysterisis as a form of trap. A creature caught in such a time loop disappears from the normal space-time at the point where it enters the loop, and only reappears if the loop is destroyed. Even so, the creature so trapped doesn’t appear exactly when it disappeared. Time continues to flow, and the creature reappears as though all the time that occurred in the time loop actually occurred in the real universe as well. Thus, a creature caught in a five-minute time loop for five cycles is trapped for 25 real minutes.
The Time Lords used this not only to trap individual creatures. At the height of their powers, the Time Lords contained whole planets and civilizations in time loops.
Time Rifts: Weak spots in the fabric of space and time are actually fairly common. Many “haunted” areas are actually nothing more than areas where space-time has worn thin, allowing artron energy and the occasional being to slip through. The ambient artron energy in such areas may cause one or more of the locals growing up within the region to develop psychic powers.
If the weak spot actually ruptures, the result is a Time Rift. Depending upon how large and active the Rift is, beings may drift in and out of history in its vicinity, it might attract aliens and time travellers, and it might be used as a bridge between worlds. Some beings and technologies might even be able to harness the Rift as a form of controlled time travel.
Post Time-War TARDISes can harness energy from Time Rifts and use it for power. Usually, this requires little more than parking the TARDIS in the vicinity of the Rift for several minutes to several hours, depending upon how much refuelling is required.
The Causal Nexus is one of the functions that occurs within (and due to the energies of) the Vortex. Essentially, the Causal Nexus attempts to keep most events from progressing, cause to effect, from the past to the future. Certain powers, such as the Guardians of Time, can affect the way that the Causal Nexus works, accelerating coincidence and creating “chance” occurrences that arrange events to that power’s needs.
When Rose Tyler looked into the Heart of the TARDIS in The Parting of the Ways, she gained access to the Causal Nexus, and was able to use it to spread the words “Bad Wolf” throughout time and space in order to send her past self a message. (She was also able to use chronal energy to destroy the Dalek fleet, but this functioned more like the Dalek Time Destructor).
The Grandfather Paradox: In Father’s Day, Rose Tyler travelled back in time to witness the death of her father and hold his hand. Instead, she pushed her father out of the way of the car that would have fatally hit him…removing her reason for travelling to the past in the first place. This is an example of the Grandfather Paradox, where the time traveller alters events in the past in a way that precludes his travelling to the past in the first place.
A Grandfather Paradox only occurs if the change in the past precludes the traveller being able to make the change. The classic example is killing one’s grandfather before one’s parent can be born, thus precluding one’s birth. In this event, because one cannot be born, the murder cannot occur. Because the murder cannot occur, one can be born. This creates a chronal loop – a sort of wound in time. And time has several means to attempt to seal the wound.
The first thing that occurs is that the Causal Nexus attempts to seal the wound by removing the paradox. Thus, Rose Tyler’s father is hit by the same car in a different location, providing her with a motive to get involved with events. The Causal Nexus might also act to prevent the paradoxical action (i.e., the person who attempts to murder his grandfather has his gun jam, etc.) or even cause the time traveller’s death (or obstruction) before the action can be taken. The Causal Nexus seems to have some form of telepathic sentience, and can act on a premeditated paradox in this way, as the 1st Doctor tried to explain to Barbara Wright in The Aztecs.
If the paradoxical event is spontaneous or accidental, however, or if the initial attempts at prevention or resolution fail, the Causal Nexus becomes more aggressive. It sends in Reapers to “cleanse” the wound by removing all free willed creatures in the vicinity from space-time. This means that time vehicles may cease to function, and the TARDIS interior is ejected from the outer plasmic shell.
If the problem can be resolved before the Reapers complete the sterilization process, everyone is restored with their memories edited to reflect the “new” reality (including the resolution of the problem). Indeed, only the person or persons who are directly responsible for the resolution are even aware that a change has occurred – or who remember the previous reality.
The Butterfly Effect: This potential paradox is caused by the idea that small events can have drastic effects on the future. The standard illustration is that of a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world resulting in a storm in another part of the world. Another standard illustration, where time travel is involved, is that of a butterfly being stepped on in the far past being found to have dramatically rewritten history upon return to the present.
Within the Doctor Who universe, belief in the Butterfly Effect is the result of being unable to see space-time objectively. The universe itself has a form of “elasticity” – resulting in the universe correcting the results of any small changes. What seem like random events are actually part of a 5-dimensional matrix controlled by the Causal Nexus. The effect is that it is seldom possible to create an unintentional major change in history.
See “Changing Histories” for more information.
The Blinovitch Limitation Effect: The Causal Nexus also attempts to prevent time travellers from meeting themselves. This is known as the Blinovitch Limitation Effect. While not an absolute law of time, the Blinovitch Limitation Effect means that time travellers almost never run into previous or later versions of themselves by accident. Moreover, when time travellers run into a later version of themselves, it is almost always caused by the later versions entangling the earlier versions in the later versions’ 5-dimensional temporal “Space”.
What this means, in game terms, is that it is possible to intentionally run into earlier versions of yourself within an adventure, but it will seldom happen as an unplanned event. Crossing your own timeline intentionally to change your personal history is a major paradox.
Time Lords can run into earlier incarnations of themselves without necessarily encountering major difficulties, but people coming into contact with their same bodies from another point in time can release what is known as “Blinovitch energy” – the potential energy from the Causal Nexus used in attempts to prevent this from happening. This is pure artron energy, roughly equivalent to the energy released by a Time Lord regenerating eight times. Normally this energy is released with explosive force, causing 8d6 points of damage at the point of contact, reduced by 1d6 points of damage for every meter away from the point of impact.
If the two versions of the individual are separated by enough time – usually 18 years or more – an explosion may not occur. Nonetheless, coming in contact with yourself, no matter how many years have passed, creates a minor paradox.
Dealing With Non-Sequential Events: In some time travel stories, events happen in the future that affect the past, and vice versa. The 10th Doctor story, Blink, is a perfect example of this. The Doctor’s initial involvement in the story is, in fact, the last event to occur from Sally Sparrow’s point of view (and in the episode), but the Doctor repeatedly saves (or gives information to) Sally throughout the story. Personal timelines are not necessarily straight. They can get all tangled up so that – while each person’s timeline appears to be linear – they are not following the same line.
This is dealt with in The Game of Rassilon much as it would be dealt with in the television series…by following the timeline of the story in question from the vantage point of the Player Characters. Here are some examples referencing episodes of Doctor Who and Torchwood:
* Mawdryn Undead: The TARDIS crew is separated, so that the 5th Doctor is in an earlier time zone than Tegan and Nyssa. Events switch back and forth between the Doctor and his companions, until they are brought together for the story’s climax. This is the same method used to deal with Rose Tyler being sent home in The Parting of the Ways – the action goes back and forth between modern London and the Games Station until Rose and the Doctor are reunited.
In game terms, the action simply switches back and forth between PC groups until they are reunited.
* Captain Jack Harkness: In this Torchwood story, the effects of non-sequential events are slightly more complicated. Tosheko Sato and “Captain Jack Harkness” are shunted by the Cardiff Temporal Rift into 1941. Gwen Cooper and Owen Harper attempt to recover them, but they need information that only Tosheko has or can get. The action switches back and forth between time periods until they are reunited. Over the course of events, Tosheko deliberately leaves information for her modern counterparts. Because events are entangled in the 5th dimension, these clues are not available in the present until Tosheko leaves them in the past – in a way, both time periods are in the “present” and run on parallel time. The villain of the story, Bilis Manger, can travel between the time periods at will, but can only do so following the entangled timeline of the story itself.
In game terms, the action switches back and forth between PC groups until they are reunited. However, the characters in the past can communicate with the characters in the present by leaving messages for them. Part of the challenge of the story is trying to determine how to leave messages that will last from one time period to the next.
* Blink: In this story, Sally Sparrow is saved repeatedly by the 10th Doctor, who is stuck in 1969 (having been sent there by Weeping Angels). It is eventually discovered that the information that the Doctor sends to Sally from the past has in fact been given to the Doctor by Sally at the conclusion of the episode – which still lies in the future along the Doctor’s personal timeline.
In game terms, the players should be playing new PCs, modelling the people actually going through the adventure. The Game Master takes over playing the group’s normal Time Lord character solely for the purpose of seeding clues. Where appropriate, the group can resume play with their normal characters, and run the new characters as well.
At the end of the day, any Action Points, Skill Points, or Experience Points earned go to the primary characters (unless the players wish to keep the secondary characters); players should not to punished for trying something new. This is, by the way, the best way to model any story in which the primary characters are not the most significant element, such as Love and Monsters.
* The Five Doctors: Various incarnations of the Doctor and several of his companions are brought to the Death Zone on Gallifrey to penetrate the Tomb of Rassilon.
At some point, you may wish to create stories that allow various incarnations of the same Time Lord to be active in the plot. In this case, treat each incarnation as a completely separate character. Have the original player play each incarnation, if possible. Each incarnation can gain experience, skills, levels, and so on – and these come into effect if that incarnation is used again in an adventure – but these benefits do not transfer over to later incarnations.
In game terms, the action simply switches back and forth between PC groups until they are reunited.
* Captain Jack Harkness: In this Torchwood story, the effects of non-sequential events are slightly more complicated. Tosheko Sato and “Captain Jack Harkness” are shunted by the Cardiff Temporal Rift into 1941. Gwen Cooper and Owen Harper attempt to recover them, but they need information that only Tosheko has or can get. The action switches back and forth between time periods until they are reunited. Over the course of events, Tosheko deliberately leaves information for her modern counterparts. Because events are entangled in the 5th dimension, these clues are not available in the present until Tosheko leaves them in the past – in a way, both time periods are in the “present” and run on parallel time. The villain of the story, Bilis Manger, can travel between the time periods at will, but can only do so following the entangled timeline of the story itself.
In game terms, the action switches back and forth between PC groups until they are reunited. However, the characters in the past can communicate with the characters in the present by leaving messages for them. Part of the challenge of the story is trying to determine how to leave messages that will last from one time period to the next.
* Blink: In this story, Sally Sparrow is saved repeatedly by the 10th Doctor, who is stuck in 1969 (having been sent there by Weeping Angels). It is eventually discovered that the information that the Doctor sends to Sally from the past has in fact been given to the Doctor by Sally at the conclusion of the episode – which still lies in the future along the Doctor’s personal timeline.
In game terms, the players should be playing new PCs, modelling the people actually going through the adventure. The Game Master takes over playing the group’s normal Time Lord character solely for the purpose of seeding clues. Where appropriate, the group can resume play with their normal characters, and run the new characters as well.
At the end of the day, any Action Points, Skill Points, or Experience Points earned go to the primary characters (unless the players wish to keep the secondary characters); players should not to punished for trying something new. This is, by the way, the best way to model any story in which the primary characters are not the most significant element, such as Love and Monsters.
* The Five Doctors: Various incarnations of the Doctor and several of his companions are brought to the Death Zone on Gallifrey to penetrate the Tomb of Rassilon.
At some point, you may wish to create stories that allow various incarnations of the same Time Lord to be active in the plot. In this case, treat each incarnation as a completely separate character. Have the original player play each incarnation, if possible. Each incarnation can gain experience, skills, levels, and so on – and these come into effect if that incarnation is used again in an adventure – but these benefits do not transfer over to later incarnations.
Changing Histories: Because of the elasticity of time, and the Causal Nexus, it is very difficult to intentionally change history. It should be noted that every time period has its alternates. Not only can powerful beings intentionally change known events, but also very powerful beings can destroy known futures entirely. Also, as with the Butterfly Effect, where you do not know the expected history you are free to make almost any change imaginable.
It is that last bit that makes time travel stories entertaining. If Carrionites invade Shakespearean London and are not stopped, the Carrionites can change established history. After all, they are in their present, and any changes to the future are not paradoxical from their point of view. Likewise, Sutekh the Destroyer had the potential to end the world in the 19th Century, even though Sarah Jane Smith “knew” the world still existed in 1980. The fluidity of time is, effectively, based on a combination of knowledge, intent, and personal power.
In the event that history is changed, it affects all timelines radiating out from its point of origin. This is why, in The Shakespeare Code, the 10th Doctor told Martha Jones that if the human race was destroyed she would fade away like Marty McFly in Back to the Future. Characters with Temporal Sense may be able to resist these changes longer than others, but they will eventually change as well.
How long it takes the Causal Nexus to act is largely at the discretion of the Game Master, depending upon the needs of the story. In some cases, undoing the effects of a changed history before it changes your own personal history can be the story!
Of course, minor unintentional changes happen frequently as the result of time travel. In Carnival of Monsters, for example, the 3rd Doctor returned a ship to its proper place and time that he distinctly recalled as being lost at sea. Likewise, it is impossible to tell whether or not the defeat of the Animus would have been part of Vortis’ history had not the 1st Doctor’s TARDIS arrived there in The Web Planet.
Finally, time travellers seem to have a knack for showing up just in time to prevent history from being changed. This is not an accident. The TARDIS interacts with the Causal Nexus, frequently altering its course to allow its occupants to deal with temporal emergencies.
The Time Meddler said:
Oblique Timelines and Temporal Orbits: Because time consists of two dimensions (the 4th and the 5th), it is possible for a particular timeline to be oblique to 4th dimensional time. This was the secret of Gallifrey’s greatest defence. From the point of view of a being trapped in the 4th dimension, the object standing oblique to time is always in the same point of time, no matter what time period you approach from. Thus, for example, a traveller to Gallifrey always arrived at Gallifrey’s present. Even if they travel far into the past, or far into the future, and then take mundane means to travel to Gallifrey, it will still be Gallifrey’s present. Which means that after the Time War, Gallifrey seems to have been destroyed no matter what time one approaches it from.
It is also possible for a vehicle to orbit in a warp ellipse. Essentially, this means that the vehicle is orbiting not only in space, but through time as well, regularly passing through the same set of space-time coordinates. People leaving a vehicle travelling in a warp ellipse can therefore easily end up separate not only in space but also in time.
Time Loops: There are two types of time loops. The first occurs when a sequence of cause and effect occurs in a recursive pattern. For example, in Blink, the 10th Doctor provides Sally Sparrow with information necessary to defeat the Weeping Angels. However, the Doctor doesn’t devise this information himself – Sally Sparrow gives him documentation of what occurred after the events (for her) but before the events (for him). The information itself is thus caught within a time loop, revolving eternally from the Doctor to Sally Sparrow to the Doctor without beginning or end.
This type of time loop is relatively harmless, and seems to occur naturally. It may be that some of these loops are actually “scars” left over from the Causal Nexus healing a wound in time. In any event, when such a loop is discovered, time travellers may almost always safely ignore it.
The other type of time loop – a Chronic Hysterisis – is caused when the same small piece of local time restarts at the beginning when it reaches the end. This is like a vinyl record skipping, or a scratch on a DVD that causes the same scene to play repeatedly. Characters caught in this sort of time loop are completely unaware of it unless they have Temporal Sense. Even then, it requires a DC 20 Will save to notice the time loop. Once characters notice the time loop, it requires a DC 25 Will save to change events enough so that the loop is broken.
Some species with time travel capabilities – including Time Lords – are capable of creating a Chronic Hysterisis as a form of trap. A creature caught in such a time loop disappears from the normal space-time at the point where it enters the loop, and only reappears if the loop is destroyed. Even so, the creature so trapped doesn’t appear exactly when it disappeared. Time continues to flow, and the creature reappears as though all the time that occurred in the time loop actually occurred in the real universe as well. Thus, a creature caught in a five-minute time loop for five cycles is trapped for 25 real minutes.
The Time Lords used this not only to trap individual creatures. At the height of their powers, the Time Lords contained whole planets and civilizations in time loops.
Time Rifts: Weak spots in the fabric of space and time are actually fairly common. Many “haunted” areas are actually nothing more than areas where space-time has worn thin, allowing artron energy and the occasional being to slip through. The ambient artron energy in such areas may cause one or more of the locals growing up within the region to develop psychic powers.
If the weak spot actually ruptures, the result is a Time Rift. Depending upon how large and active the Rift is, beings may drift in and out of history in its vicinity, it might attract aliens and time travellers, and it might be used as a bridge between worlds. Some beings and technologies might even be able to harness the Rift as a form of controlled time travel.
Post Time-War TARDISes can harness energy from Time Rifts and use it for power. Usually, this requires little more than parking the TARDIS in the vicinity of the Rift for several minutes to several hours, depending upon how much refuelling is required.
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