TARDIS: HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

Experiments concerning time-travel naturally pre-date Time Lords; it was the mastery of time which prompted the reign of the Time Lords. Back in the mists of time, Gallifreyians lived a barbaric and superstitious life. Although society may have been primitive, technologically speaking Gallifrey was highly advanced, with faster-than-light (FTL) travel technology.

A group of leading Gallifreyians, undertaking temporal experiments, had managed to move an object into the future by using the combined mind power of a group of highly-trained telepaths, along with some focussing crystals. The group later built a craft which they named a time scaphe. This inferior timeship used raw artron energy from the pilot's minds. The artron energy was then channelled and formed into temporal displacement vectors, i.e. the ship propelled itself into the future by the mind-power of the pilots alone. Later, bi-directional time travel was achieved using the procedure, as was spatial displacement. Although not a TARDIS, the time scaphe was the first major step Gallifrey made towards time travel.

One man who was a hero in these times was Rassilon, known to most as the founder of the Time Lords. Rassilon, like all Gallifreyians in those days, was telepathic, and could also foresee the future, as could other gifted men and women. Rassilon was fascinated with this gift, and began dabbling with time-travel experiments based on some elements of time-scaphe technology.

Another figure from this era was Omega, the first and foremost of the Gallifreyian solar engineers. He was leading a research group to develop a stellar manipulator, a device which could customise stars. The aim of his project was to create a powerful energy source, such as a supernova, which could power the time-travel experiments, such as those led by Rassilon.

Rassilon had experimented with devices which could accelerate and slow down the rate of time within a confined field, and had progressed to the stage where he had developed a machine called a time-scoop; a very primitive machine which could pluck small objects out of time and space and deposit them on Gallifrey. The energy requirement for Rassilon's experiments was rising exponentially, and Gallifrey's energy infrastructure could not cope with the demand. Rassilon was now leading the scientific community, and had a significant political influence. Omega and Rassilon, once working separately on different projects, now combined their work with two goals in mind: to create a massive energy source, and to use this source to build and power a time-travelling machine.

Omega, along with his scientific team, developed a working version of his stellar manipulator, which was later dubbed the Hand of Omega. The team had identified a suitable star which has started going nova, and the plan was to accelerate the process rapidly and create a supernova, a task well within the specification of the stellar manipulator. Since Omega was experiencing problems with operating the stellar manipulator from long range, he volunteered to travel into the star himself, and activate the stellar manipulator at close range. Although Rassilon thought the shielding he had developed would protect Omega, it had never been field-tested. Omega piloted a ship into the nova-star, and activated the stellar manipulator. The device functioned perfectly, and the star exploded with an echo seen from the other side of the Galaxy. However, either the stellar manipulator was accidentally re-activated by Omega, or the fabric of space-time was simply under far too great a stress, as without warning the supernova collapsed into a black-hole. Omega was sucked in, and was thought to be gone forever.

This was a great shock for the Gallifreyians, and some called for the end of these time-travel experiments. However, the project had been a partial success -- Rassilon had developed technology capable of harnessing the energy of the black-hole. He had also developed a personal force-field known as the Sash, which would protect him against any great energy source, including that of a black-hole. The Sash worked on the principle of quantum force-fields, which will not be explained here. Rassilon himself then piloted a craft into the black-hole, protected by the Sash, and he managed to capture the black-hole and return. Back on Gallifrey, the black-hole was super-compressed and contained in a region of superspace, a form of warp-space which breaks down at a mass-energy level exponentially greater than real-space, and held in place by quantum force-fields. The device was named the Eye of Harmony.

Although Gallifrey had now in theory a massive power-source, it could not yet be utilised for directly powering time-travelling machinery. Rassilon assured the Gallifreyians that this was not a permanent problem and that he was working on a device called a dynomorphic converter which would solve their problems.

Rassilon realised that if time travel was to be fast and efficient, it would place extreme stress on both vehicle and personnel. He saw that the only feasible solution was to have the interior dimension of the timeship separated from the exterior dimension, thereby saving the occupants from the stresses of time travel. At this point Rassilon had little idea how he was to create this dimension. With help from prominent scientists, he experimented with electro-magnetic fields which had in their inherent nature the ability to warp the space-time within the field (warp matrix fields). At first, they succeeded in causing only local time distortion, however, years later, the breakthrough came. A figure -- known only as the Other -- had finally created a temporary alternative artificial dimension, which was recorded to exist for 3.724 nanoseconds. The efficiency of the process was later greatly improved, so much so that this experiment became the beginning of new science, that of transdimensional engineering.

Many years later, a `permanent' artificial dimension was created, existing for around 7 seconds. Later, figures such as 12s, 33s, 120s and 339s were common for existence times. Unfortunately, even with dimension stabilising circuitry controlling the process, permanent dimension existence was confined to around 366 seconds. Two years later, a circuit by the name of the void locker was developed, which homed into the natural frequency of the newly created dimension. Almost immediately the dimension life was extended to a virtual infinite value. At this stage the Time Lord's abandonded the applied science of tachyonics, as it was obvious that warp matrix engineering, or transdimensional engineering as it was commonly called, had delivered what tachyonics could not.

A prototype machine was quickly built with the interior of the ship existing in a permanent artificial alternative dimension (PAAD). The machine, a SIDRAT, was powered by Zyton-7 crystals, embedded within the master control rods. The control rods allowed a rather crude access to the space-time vortex, providing limited time travel as well as spatial displacement. However, the range of the SIDRAT was restricted, as it relied greatly on operators guiding the craft via remote control, which in turn controlled robotic servos, hence its name, Space and Inter-Dimensional Robot All-purpose Transporter.

Many Time Lords were displeased with the SIDRAT, believing the answer to time travel lied with artron powering. Other Time Lords stressed that the SIDRAT had no defensive functions, and all were hoping for a greater operating range than that which was possible from using the Zyton-7 control rods, which needed to be replaced when exhausted. On top of that, the controls that allowed the pilot to operate the SIDRAT were absurdly simplistic. In the end the engineers effectively scrapped the SIDRAT, and many thought that the days of time travel were numbered.

However, the Time Lords quickly commenced on a new project. Their vision was to create a machine that could freely explore time and its relative dimension. Soon, the machine was named TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimension In Space. At this stage the TARDIS was nothing more than designer's theories and blueprints. The theoretical machine the original blueprints described was named a TARDIS Type 1. The TARDIS project incorporated research and technology from all previous time travel experiments, including time scaphes and SIDRATs.

The Gallifreyian president devoted large sums of money to the research projects and investigations. Many revisions were made in an attempt to perfect the TARDIS, and to avoid the problems the SIDRAT suffered. At the third blueprint revision, theoretical model TARDIS Type 4, the subject of power requirements was considered. Instead of using energy crystals of a finite lifetime, the idea was to create a transcendental link between the TARDIS's power systems and the Eye of Harmony. Rassilon had at long last developed his dynomorphic converter and along with the remote powering system (RPS), TARDISes could at long last obtain their power direct from Gallifrey.

Several advanced time scaphes were built at this stage, which were powered by the Eye of Harmony. Although many people were satisfied with the resultant vehicle, it was later understood that these scaphes were built only as an aside, and that research and development of the TARDIS was still continuing.

The Type 10 TARDIS was the last contribution made by Rassilon. After this stage he left the TARDIS project and began researching into other areas, such as creating a defense system for Gallifrey. The Type 10 TARDIS was very unreliable, and was very crude compared to today's Type 40. One point worth noting is that the system to detect the Rassilon Imprimature was installed at this point; the Rassilon Imprimature had at this time been newly created by Rassilon. Although the drive-systems were powered by the artron-feed at this stage, the computer systems and circuitry were still powered from batteries, as the device to convert artron energy into electrical energy had not been built yet.

Soon more problems arose with the machine the engineers now called a Type 30. By now the timeship has almost perfect space-time travel, by use of two circuits that made proper access to the space-time vortex possible, the dematerialisation circuit and the time dimension tracker. However, the majority of the ship's systems had now been transferred to artron powering, and disaster struck.

The problem was that the PAAD could not be held in place, even with a void locker and dimensional control operating. In a desperate attempt, several physical prototype models was built into apartments, and instead of using the PAAD for protection from time travel, a technique called vortex shielding was used. Although the project was a success the time travelling elements could not function correctly, as a result the range of time travel was decreased. It was realised that a return to PAAD was necessary.

Finally, research showed that the artron powering was disrupting the work of the void locker and dimensional control. The artron power systems were re-built with greater shielding of the artron linkages, and the void locker and dimensional control were modified to mask the artron fields produced.

Type 39 was fitted with a full range of computer banks, which at the time were not fully miniaturised due to cost-saving measures. The isomorphic control mode did not work, and the control console was not fully developed. The chameleon circuitry was not working either at this stage; the ship was constructed into the form of a metal cabinet. The power systems were neither dampened nor finely tuned; as a result a rather harsh buzzing noise was present inside the ship.