Time field

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The Time Shield was a mysterious crack in the fabric of time and space caused by an unidentified explosion. It had the ability to wipe individuals out of time itself and remove events from history, though time-travelers still had the ability to remember them. The Shield can also close and subsequently travel to another time. The closed Shield can be opened by a Sonic Screwdriver. The Shield seemingly erased events such as the CyberKing (DW: The Next Doctor) and the Dalek invasion of 2009 (DW: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End).

One in Amy Pond's bedroom connected it to an Atraxi prison in 1996. (DW: The Eleventh Hour) Later appearances of the Shield were on the Starship UK in the 33rd century. (DW: The Beast Below) and the Cabinet War Room in 1941. (DW: Victory of the Daleks) The Shield later opened to an incredibly large size aboard the Byzantium in the 51st century. It erased Christian, Marco, Pedro, Phillip and the Weeping Angels from existence and subsequently closed. The Weeping Angels themselves had feared it, and attempted to escape. (DW: Flesh and Stone)

For an unknown reason, unbeknown to Amy until her encounter with the Weeping Angels, it was following her everywhere she went with the Eleventh Doctor, appearing wherever she went after she arrived.

The Doctor stated that the only other way to close the shield is for it to consume a complicated space-time event: him or the Weeping Angels (due to all of them being equal to himself). River Song volunteered to let herself be consumed but, the Doctor laughed at her idea and said she isn't even as complicated as one Angel. The Doctor instead sealed the Crack by launching the Angels into it. At the end of the episode, he traced the origin of the temporal explosion behind the Crack to the day of Amy's wedding.

Whether there are multiple Cracks or just one that follows the Doctor and Amy is as of yet unknown.

Shield Gallery

• 

  The first crack, seen on Amy Pond's bedroom wall. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)

• Secondcrack.png

  A crack shape seen on TARDIS's television. (DW: The Eleventh Hour)

• Crack 3.png

  The third crack, seen on the side of Starship UK. (DW: The Beast Below)

• Fourth crack.png

  The fourth crack seen in the wall behind the TARDIS as it dematerialises. (DW: Victory of the Daleks).

• Crack5byzantium.png

  The fifth crack seen inside the Byzantium. (DW: Flesh and Stone).

Behind the Scenes

• The Shield was inspired by a crack Steven Moffatt saw in his son's bedroom.

• Moffat has confirmed that the Shield will appear in most episodes.

• The Cracks arc is, like the previous series (excluding the Bad Wolf meme), foreshadowed in a previous series, in this case in "The Next Doctor" (though, perhaps unintentionally).