Do You Really Know the T.A.R.D.I.S?

I’m not going to insult you with the obvious. We all know that the Tardis is an acronym for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space. We know it’s a time/space machine, that it looks like a police box from the 1960′s, it’s owner is a Time Lord known as the Doctor & of course it’s bigger on the inside than the outside. But do you know why, how and by whom?

It’s always been referred to as ‘The Tardis’, however, that term is not entirely accurate as a singular. Prior to the Great Time War between the Daleks & The Time Lords, there were a number of time capsules known as Tardis’ with different models.

Before it’s destruction, the planet Gallifrey, at Galactic co-ordinates ten-zero-eleven-zero-zero by zero-two from Galactic Zero Centre, in the constellation of Kasterborous, orbited twin suns. The majority of Gallifreyian’s, in their hierarchy, were referred to as Time Lords. A name given following the success of two stellar engineers, Omega & Rassilon.

Omega, using a stellar manipulator, detonated a star causing it to go super-nova. The energy produced from the advancement in stellar engineering, was basis for the time travel experiments, however, Omega was sucked through a black hole that formed from the explosion, sending him to permanent imprisonment in a world of anti-matter. Rassilon stabilised the black hole and drew from it’s energy, which he encased in a monolith in the Capitol on Gallifrey. This monolith was named the Eye of Harmony. With this new found energy the Gallifreyan’s were able to develop & transcend technologies of space travel, including matter transmission, de-materialisation theory & transcendental engineering. Thus the birth of The Tardis.

Rassilon appointed himself as Lord President of Gallifrey, with his ‘Time Lords’ monitoring the events in Time & Space, they created the Tardis’ as means of transport. As the Laws of Time strictly forbade interference by the Time Lord’s the chameleon circuit was installed within the Time Capsules. This enables the machine to instantly blend in with objects in it’s surroundings upon materialisation, for example, a pillar in Ancient Rome, a drinks machine on a galactic space station and of course a 1960′s Police Box in a Junk Yard in Totters Lane, East London. (The Doctor’s Type 40 Tardis, had a defective Chameleon Circuit, causing it to remained permanently jammed in its current persona.) A default Tardis form, constructed in cold plasma, is a simple grey cabinet with a sliding door.

So what is Transcendental Engineering? In simple terms, it is allowing the inside to be bigger than the outside! Simple? Well basically, yes. Having established that they can engineer Time & Space, the Time Lord’s decided that they could configure an infinitive sized interior for the Tardis, with the ability to add and remove rooms, depending on their needs. Once the basic interior had been created it is suspended in a specific point in time and space. This point is then occupied by the smaller exterior, but in a different point in time, thus allowing the bigger object to fit inside the smaller one…. transcendental engineering, it’s really big boxes being further away than little boxes! I have attached interior schematics of the Doctor’s Tardis below.

I hope this has been enlightening!