How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TARDIS)

[Iamnotspock]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

I don't like the new eye of harmony. I like the one from the 96 film. My explanation for that would probably have to be that the 96 version is just a fancy doorway to the sun version.

Trouble is, the plot of the '96 film hinged around the Eye being opened for the first time, thus sucking the world into it (at the stroke of midnight on NYE 1999 for some arbitrary and nonsensical reason), so it now being out in the open without such ill effects would seem to create a discrepancy.

 

[Christopher]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

^But it wasn't out in the open; it was deep in the interior of the TARDIS. It was still confined and isolated from the outside world; the characters were just inside its confinement space.

 

[diankra]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

we saw them referred to by Gallifreyans as "TT capsules" in a couple of stories, but there were other references to "TARDIS" as a generic name before then, like mentions of "the Master's TARDIS." And then there was "The War Games," where the War Chief supplied knockoff time machines called SIDRATs, TARDIS spelled backward.

And to complicate it still further, the way Spandrell and Goth use the word in Deadly Assassin makes it sound as if TARDIS is a generally accepted term on Gallifrey, but only for the Type 40.

 

[Christopher]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

Come to think of it, though... we're able to understand what these characters are saying through the graces of the TARDIS's telepathic translation matrix, right? So maybe the TARDIS simply chose to translate the actual Gallifreyan term for a Type 40 capsule as "TARDIS" out of vanity.

 

[diankra]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

Come to think of it, though... we're able to understand what these characters are saying through the graces of the TARDIS's telepathic translation matrix, right? So maybe the TARDIS simply chose to translate the actual Gallifreyan term for a Type 40 capsule as "TARDIS" out of vanity.

Nice thought... IIRC, Spandrell responds to Engin's mention of a Type 40 by saying TARDIS with a wry affection, mentioning that he used one in the old days, and then Goth later says to Spandrell "We'd better have a look at this... what did you call it, TARDIS?"

 

[publiusr]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

Gallifrey and the TARDIS should have exploded.

Maybe it is a slow motion process captured. The Doctor and his Tardis would have infinite power but finate life spans.

People ask why the Doomsday machine doesn't collapse into a sphere. It is--it is just time slowed perhaps.

 

[diankra]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

Or we could just throw in the big get-out clause... if Time Lord science could be understood by the likes of us, then the Time Lords wouldn't have been the dominant species of the universe for as long as they were. :-)

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

After that shit with the TARDIS running out of power in the pocket universe 2 weeks ago, maybe the Doctor actually took a couple months, years, decades break from that whole Clara mess and built himself an Eye of Harmony so that the TARDIS could cross dimensions and not run out of gas... Becuase that was completely shame on me territory.

 

[Skellington]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

I like to think that the rift energy allows the Eye to be kept accessible. Remove the rift energy and the power provided by the Eye can't be transferred to the engines. (It's strange that the question of rift energy wasn't addressed in Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS.)

Since the Doctor said in The Lodger that the makeshift TARDIS could destroy the solar system if it exploded, and since he said in Blink that the Angels could draw enough power from the Doctor's TARDIS to switch off a sun, I think it's reasonable to say that the star from which the Eye Of Harmony was created was at least as massive as the Sun. Since the Sun would apparently have a diameter of somewhat less than four miles if it became a black hole (Exhibit A, Exhibit B), it would therefore be reasonable to say that the Eye's diameter would be at least in that ballpark.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

If the eye is always ALMOST turning into a Singularity... And a Singularity was the source of Omega's immense psychokinetic powers, maybe the eye helps the Doctor do "stuff" and if he let himself, he could probably do a lot more "stuff" if he gave into the eye.

 

[Skellington]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

^ I think he would have leeway with the TARDIS' less-devastating functions, eg when he apparently hand-waved a new room into existence at the end of The Doctor's Wife. Presumably the architectural configuration system did the heavy lifting and it or a related system can produce food, clothes and miscellaneous items to order.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

Or he could do what the Master was doing in the End of Time without using up thousands of years worth of his life force in a couple hours.

 

[Christopher]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

I like to think that the rift energy allows the Eye to be kept accessible. Remove the rift energy and the power provided by the Eye can't be transferred to the engines. (It's strange that the question of rift energy wasn't addressed in Journey To The Centre Of The TARDIS.)

It's not strange to me at all, since the Rift was an RTD concept and it's Moffat's show now. Moffat has taken the show in his own direction and has rarely brought back any story elements from the RTD era.

Doctor Who has never been a franchise known for strong continuity or internal consistency. The specifics get reinvented all the time, so it's wisest not to dwell on them. It's best if you look at it in a more impressionistic light, or as an epic myth. The details of a myth change depending on the teller and the era, but the essentials remain.

But if you want an in-universe explanation, keep in mind that a couple of more centuries have passed for the Doctor than for us. And didn't the Cardiff Rift turn out to be one of the cracks in time or something? Wasn't it closed several seasons ago? So the Doctor would've needed to find a different power source, and would've had plenty of time to figure out how to access the Eye.

Since the Doctor said in The Lodger that the makeshift TARDIS could destroy the solar system if it exploded, and since he said in Blink that the Angels could draw enough power from the Doctor's TARDIS to switch off a sun, I think it's reasonable to say that the star from which the Eye Of Harmony was created was at least as massive as the Sun.

Well, that's a given. Stars don't collapse into black holes unless they're at least 30 solar masses. A Sun-size star would just expand into a red dwarf and slough off its atmosphere as a planetary nebula, with the core becoming a white dwarf.

 

[Skellington]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

It's not strange to me at all, since the Rift was an RTD concept and it's Moffat's show now. Moffat has taken the show in his own direction and has rarely brought back any story elements from the RTD era.

Doctor Who has never been a franchise known for strong continuity or internal consistency. The specifics get reinvented all the time, so it's wisest not to dwell on them. It's best if you look at it in a more impressionistic light, or as an epic myth. The details of a myth change depending on the teller and the era, but the essentials remain.

But if you want an in-universe explanation, keep in mind that a couple of more centuries have passed for the Doctor than for us. And didn't the Cardiff Rift turn out to be one of the cracks in time or something? Wasn't it closed several seasons ago? So the Doctor would've needed to find a different power source, and would've had plenty of time to figure out how to access the Eye.

Well, yes, but rift energy is still a relatively memorable thing (Boom Town, Utopia and the Moffat-era The Doctor's Wife). I think they could have expended a line or two to clarify.

Regarding the crack, I think RTD did say in interview that he was thankful to Moffat as it meant he didn't have to close the Cardiff rift - it could just be another crack, even though he hadn't planned it that way. That raises the question, of course, of whether The Cardiff rift has now been erased from the timeline of the Whoniverse.

Well, that's a given. Stars don't collapse into black holes unless they're at least 30 solar masses.

...or get a push from a stellar modifier like the Hand Of Omega, which was seemingly how the original Eye Of Harmony was created.

 

[Christopher]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

^Well, yeah, but if Omega wanted a black hole potent enough to power all of Time Lord civilization, he wouldn't have gone for a dinky yellow dwarf, but for something far more massive.

 

[SeerSGB]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

On the Eye: Is it possible, that like the Console Rooms, the Tardis has cataloged a future upgrade of herself and is now using/taping into it for power? If she can catalog Console Rooms that haven't happened, what says she can't do it for other necessary parts? Or maybe when she rebooted after 10's regeneration she decided to give herself an upgrade.

On the Infinite Tardis: She can be both finite and infinite. She can have a "X" mass, but since she can exist all time and space at once and duplicate and shift rooms at will and then shift them between time/dimensions, it would be true that from a certain perspective she's finite, but at the same moment she infinite.

 

[publiusr]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

^Well, yeah, but if Omega wanted a black hole potent enough to power all of Time Lord civilization, he wouldn't have gone for a dinky yellow dwarf, but for something far more massive.

That would be a galactic core black hole perhaps.

Now I can't help but wonder if some of the classic Dr. Who--and even the newer ones--still mistake galaxy for star system. In Genesis of the Daleks, we hear about seven galaxies. I think that was star systems.

With the recent Cybermen episode, we see a hole in space. I'm still saying the Desolator destroyed only a star system.

To blow up a whole actual galaxy? good grief!

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

I think it was clearly supposed to be a galaxy in the Cybermen episode and your reaction was the one they wanted to invoke. It was supposed to be such an absurdly destructive event that it had to have been out of complete and total desperation.

 

[Christopher]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

Now I can't help but wonder if some of the classic Dr. Who--and even the newer ones--still mistake galaxy for star system. In Genesis of the Daleks, we hear about seven galaxies. I think that was star systems.

Unlikely. Surely Skaronian knowledge of astronomy would not be limited to a mere seven star systems. And the statement about there being no life in "the seven galaxies" besides their own could work if they were in a cluster of seven dwarf elliptical galaxies, say. That type of galaxy doesn't have much new star formation and thus wouldn't be as likely to have a lot of the heavy elements necessary to form planets that might potentially support life.

Although, of course, Doctor Who is fantasy, so real astrophysics principles don't matter much one way or the other.

 

[Robert D. Robot]

Re: How Big is the Eye of Harmony? (spoilers Journey to the center TAR

Is it possible that the Eye of Harmony is separate from the structure of the TARDIS, but they now exist alongside each other within the pocket dimension? The catwalk we see in "Journey..." is simply a walkway on some 'outer spire' of the TARDIS that allows direct observation of the star. That way the TARDIS itself would not need to be so gigantic as to contain a star. Then again, we are talking Time Lord Transdimensional Engineering, aren't we?.....