Howling:Eye of Harmony in the Doctor's TARDIS

The Howling → Eye of Harmony in the Doctor's TARDIS

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We all see the Eye of Harmony inside the Doctor's TARDIS in the TV Movie, apparently its main power source. Now "The Deadly Assassin" also features the Eye of Harmony, but there it resides on Gallifrey. Some have attempted to solve this discrepancy by saying that the Eye in the TVM was not the same as in TDA, but a duplicate that's part of all Type 40 TARDISes. But when you think about it, even that doesn't make much sense, because by the Doctor's time, no one on Gallifrey knew the location of the Eye; it had long ago been lost in the ancient past, and was regarded as mostly mythical. So how could the Time Lords have duplicated something they had so little knowledge of? 82.2.136.93 19:55, August 13, 2011 (UTC)

Well the real world answer is that the TV Movie wasn't very well written and had a lot of plot points that didn't make any sense. The eye being in the TARDIS makes about as much sense as the Doctor's mom being a human, or a human retinal pattern being neccessary to open the eye. In universe, one could argue that as the TARDIS was already a museum piece when the Doctor stole it, it could have been built back in the day when the Time Lords had more knowledge of the eye.Icecreamdif 21:37, August 13, 2011 (UTC)

It's not just a duplicate; it's also a link to the real thing. The power to run the TARDIS comes over that link, and the Master fell through that link into the Eye.

The idea that it's a duplicate comes from the EDA/PDA novels (The Eight Doctors and The Quantum Archangel). Other novels in that range refer to the TARDIS's link to the Eye. And later, RTD explicitly talked about the link that we saw in the movie no longer being available to power the TARDIS. Of course that was RTD talking off-camera, not the Doctor, so if you really want to, you can argue that the duplicate that we saw in the movie and the link that the Doctor has talked about in the new series are separate things, but that seems kind of silly.

The bit in The Deadly Assassin about everyone believing it was lost, some thinking it no longer existed or was always a myth, has never been officially explained. The best and most popular fan answer I've heard is that everyone knew the TARDISes drew energy over a link to something, but nobody knew that that something was the Eye of Harmony. A bit weak, but I don't think there is a really good explanation. (It's also worth considering The Invasion of Time, just a year after The Deadly Assassin, where it seems like everyone in the universe knows about the Eye. Of course the real answer is that Graham Williams didn't remember exactly what Robert Holmes had written a year ago, just as Matthew Jacobs didn't remember it 16 years later, but in-universe, you have to fanwank it to make sense of it.) --173.228.85.35 05:12, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

Okay, so how do we explain the Eye in the TARDIS only opening in response to a human retina? I think there's a line in the TV Movie about the Eye not having been opened in hundreds of years, so that would possibly indicate that it had been sealed since the Doctor "borrowed" it from Gallifrey, so the human retina scan would have been in place then, right? 82.2.136.93 10:21, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

There are two possibilities.

If you go with the idea from the IDW comics that the whole half-human thing was a ruse to fool the Master, the human retina bit was the whole point of that ruse, so it's just not true.

If you go with him actually being half-human, as in the EDA novels, either he or the TARDIS reconfigured the lock on the Eye to protect it from other Time Lords, since there are presumably very few other half-human Time Lords around. He'd had the TARDIS for at least 500 years (even going by truncated new-series ages), so there was plenty of time to change it and then for it to go unopened for hundreds of years. (If you don't want to accept any media other than TV, then nothing has ever contradicted his half-human statement, so it's the same as this one.) --173.228.85.35 11:24, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

I just remembered, the EDAs _do_ establish that what the Master fell into is the link to the Eye on Gallifrey. In The Gallifrey Chronicles, the Master talks to the Doctor through the same link that's used to channel energy back to the Eye of Harmony at the center of the warped bubble of spacetime where Gallifrey used to be. (Of course the Master also had a new body in Henrietta Street, and was embedded in the fabric of the TARDIS in Sometime Never…, but leave it to him to find three different ways of surviving permadeath…) --173.228.85.35 17:56, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

And one more even less-related thing: According to RTD, when the cracks in time were closed, so were all of the time rifts, which is why Torchwood has no reason to return to Cardiff. So… where is the TARDIS getting its power from now? --173.228.85.35 18:36, August 14, 2011 (UTC)

Isn't there a line in one of the novels or something about the Doctor's TARDIS being well over 5000 years old? Then again, the average Gallifreyan lives for well over a thousand years, so that's probably not really enough time for the location of the prime Eye to be forgotten by the majority of Time Lords. 213.121.200.42 11:32, August 15, 2011 (UTC)

I don't remember exactly that. But in The Gallifrey Chronicles, the Doctor's TARDIS is strongly hinted to be Marnal's (and Marnal definitely believes it is), and Marnal apparently had it for a few millennia before Ulysses got him out of the way. That's close enough to 5000 years, but it's also just one generation before the Doctor (literally; Ulysses was the Doctor's father). And if that's all true, the Doctor had very good reason to change the lock to require his half-human retinas, what with full-Time Lord Marnal stuck on Earth, his full-Time Lord son (possibly the Master) looking for vengeance, etc. Or, putting together that story with The Doctor's Wife, the TARDIS—heading for decomission with her owner lost and stuck on Earth—maybe at first chose the Doctor to get back to Marnal, but quickly decided she liked him better, and made the change so Marnal and the Master could never steal her back. --173.228.85.35 20:19, August 16, 2011 (UTC)

in the doctor's wife, it is stated that the doctor has had the tardis for about 700 years Imamadmad 12:02, August 15, 2011 (UTC)

"Eye of Harmony" could simply be the Timelords' name for Black Hole. TARDISes could have mini black holes with a very weak gravitational field. The Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey was presumably a much larger black hole. It would have been gravitationally shielded so it didnt swallow up the planet, hence it would be impossible to locate it exactly. And actually it *is* theoretically possible to generate power from a black hole, by capturing the Hawking Radation which is emitted from it. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation#Black_hole_evaporation) 187.58.98.57 12:12, August 15, 2011 (UTC)

They talk about black holes many times without calling them "eyes of harmony". The Doctor explained how the Eye and Gallifrey were kept in balance in The Deadly Assassin, so you don't need to explain it yourself. And the amount of energy you'd get from Hawking radiation is so tiny there would be no point, but there are much better ways to use one (Kip Thorne suggested a few, and then there's the Penrose process); in fact, the standard example of what a Kardashev Type III civilization does for energy is to harness a supermassive black hole in this way (the Time Lords are said to be "Kardashev Class 4", but presumably they were "Class 3" in the time of Omega and Rassilon, and time travel and dimensional technology are what brought them a step beyond Kardashev's imagination). --173.228.85.35 20:19, August 16, 2011 (UTC)

In The Doctor's Wife, it was also stated that the TARDIS was already a musuem piece when he was young. Whenever he went back to Gallifrey in the classic series, other Time Lords were amazed by the fact that an old type 40 would still exist, and would often want to take a look inside etc. because they were so amazed at how old it was. It is possible that more modern TARDISes don't contain an Eye of Harmony or link to they eye or whatever, and have developed a new system generating power. I doubt that "Eye of Harmony" is the Time Lord word for black hole, because they didn't use the term at all in The Three Doctors, when all of their power was being drained by a black hole.Icecreamdif 17:02, August 15, 2011 (UTC)

But the Eye of Harmony is not a regular black hole, is it? It's a singularity that's been specially adapted by Gallifreyan technology, right? Even without the prime Eye, the Time Lords could have designed the Eyes inside TARDISes using the same principles. It wasn't until after the prime Eye's rediscovery that all the mini-Eyes were linked up to it. Alternatively, just how many people in TDA don't know the precise location of the prime Eye? I find it a bit hard to believe that the Lord President and the High Council would have lost it so easily. 82.2.136.93 09:22, August 16, 2011 (UTC)

Well, the Eye may be a regular black hole, or it may be the singularity removed from the center of the black hole (it's pretty ambiguous). Either way, it's not said anywhere that they adapted it; they just had to use gravitational engineering to move it, keep it in balance with Gallifrey, and to draw energy from it. (That might involve a simple kind of "adaptation"—if you convert a bunch of its potential energy into angular momentum it's a lot easier to draw energy from, and probably a lot easier to work with. But that wouldn't help you build smaller black holes or singularities.)

As for your disbelief: go back and watch the episodes; it's clear that the Master is the only one who knows its location, until the Doctor figures it out, and some of the top people on Gallifrey believed it was a myth. --173.228.85.35 20:19, August 16, 2011 (UTC)

The link to the Eye on Gallifrey in the TV Movie could be unique to the Doctor's TARDIS. It seems to me that TARDISes are usually powered by the TARDIS Heart, which is seen in "Rose" and "The Parting of the Ways", et al. During the Seventh Doctor's tenure, it was frequently implied that the Doctor was some kind of reincarnation of the Other, a contemporary of Rassilon and Omega, the founders of Time Lord culture, from Gallifrey's distant past. It's my belief that while the "spirit" of the Other resides inside the Doctor's psyche, it only occasionally rises to the surface so he can remember his life as the Other; one such time was during his seventh life (This would explain why the Doctor often thinks of himself as just a Time Lord, while at other times he's aware that he's much more than that). I think the First Doctor might have been partially "possessed" by the Other when he initially fled from Gallifrey with Susan and the Hand of Omega (The Other might well have psychically prompted him to take the Hand, having foreknowledge of his future), and if the Other had been involved in the creation of the Eye, the First Doctor could've utilised that knowledge to build the link to the Eye that we see in the TVM, as a source of extra power. After the Other's spirit went dormant, the Doctor might've forgotten about the link/blocked it from his memory, until his seventh and eighth lives. I seem to recall a line of dialogue in the TVM that the Eye in the TARDIS hasn't been opened for hundreds of years, so I reckon the First Doctor is a prime candidate for its builder. Being linked to the prime Eye on Gallifrey, the TARDIS's Eye would probably be effected by any changes to the prime Eye, which could explain the need for a human retina pattern. Maybe. 82.2.136.93 11:05, August 16, 2011 (UTC)

If you accept everything from the novels, then it's quite clearly not unique to the Doctor's TARDIS. The Eight Doctors explains that every TARDIS after the first few generations has an "avatar" of the Eye like the one we saw in the movie. Later novels tell us that TARDISes in general are powered by a link to the Eye, not just the Doctor's TARDIS. So all of your speculation doesn't work.

It's possible that the last time it was opened hundreds of years ago was right after the Doctor stole it; it's even possible that he did so as part of tinkering with it to add the human retinal scan (to protect it from Marnal and his son the Master), and of course it's possible that he used his knowledge of the Other to do so. But that doesn't mean he created it; it was there when he stole it.

As for the Heart vs. the Eye: the Heart doesn't seem to be an energy source; it's been called the "soul" (Parting of the Ways, The Doctor's Wife), the "space-time element" (Arc of Infinity and Terminus), and the thing that keeps its occupants in time with the outside world. The Heart is presumably powered by (the link to) the Eye, or rather was until the LGTW, and now the Doctor powers it off time rifts (possibly by annihilating time and anti-time, as in Zagreus). Also, notice that the Heart's presence is what makes it impossible for House to eat the energy in TARDISes unless he first removes it. --173.228.85.35 20:19, August 16, 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'm a tad skeptical about the reliability of the majority of DW novels, particularly those written during the "wilderness years" between the end of the classic series and the beginning of the new one. Anything they say, I take with a pinch of salt. But if there are Eyes inside all TARDISes, it could just be that they were initially entirely separate from the prime Eye on Gallifrey, and were artificial singularities named in honour of the semi-mythical artifact. The creation of singularities doesn't appear too difficult for Time Lord science, as the Tenth Doctor stated in The Impossible Planet that his people "practically created black holes." 213.121.200.42 09:41, August 17, 2011 (UTC)

You're free to come up with your own rules for canon and continuity. But if you don't accept anything from the novels, then all of the stuff I was answering there (the Doctor being the reincarnation of the Other, etc.) isn't relevant in the first place. And of course you don't need to resolve the two contradictory answers to the original question (duplicate or link?).

If you want a firm answer to what the Eye is, there just isn't one on TV. RTD gave us one off-screen, and it's the same one that was used in the novels (it's a link to the original—and maybe also an "avatar" or "symbol" of the original), but you're free to ignore that. In that case, we don't know what it is. It could be a link, it could be a duplicate, maybe the Doctor even stole the original the last time he was on Gallifrey or something. Of course all explanations make the two classic stories a little weird, but those stories were already hard to reconcile before the TV movie.

For the retina thing, ignoring everything non-TV makes it much easier: The Doctor is half-human, because the only places that was ever explained as not true are comics and audios; half-human Time Lords are presumably very rare or even unique, so it's pretty obvious that he or the TARDIS deliberately used the human retina scan to protect against other Time Lords—and, as the TV movie showed, they weren't being overly paranoid. --173.228.85.35 04:22, August 18, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, didn't Omega create one using his hand. I doubt that an Eye of Harmony and a black hole are the same thing. We also know that the Doctor didn't open the eye hundreds of years ago, because he told Grace that he had never opened it before. I always assummed that either the writers of the TV movie didn't watch The Deadly Assassin too closely,or all type-40s have an eye in their big creepy basement, but more modern TARDISes have a newer and probably more efficient power source.Icecreamdif 19:35, August 17, 2011 (UTC)

In The Science of Doctor Who by Paul Parsons (not an official BBC guide to the show), there are a few references to the Eye of Harmony and its use as a power source. On p288, it's pointed out that one way to get energy out of a black hole is to drop stuff into it and the stuff being dropped in forms an accretion disc that has a hole in its centre. Viewed from the right angle, such an assembly would look somewhat like an eye. --89.242.66.20 21:44, August 17, 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's exactly Kip Thorne's second design, which is very popular in scifi because it has a cool visual image that's easy to describe. Later, Penrose showed that you don't even really need to continually feed it matter (if it's spinning fast enough), which makes it a little more useful for embedding in a planet or a TARDIS. --173.228.85.35 04:22, August 18, 2011 (UTC)

Well, here's what I think: The TARDIS is so terrifically old that it was built during the rule of Rassilon, which explains the ancient architecture of the Cloister. When automobiles were first designed, they had internal combustion engines to power them. Now, electric cars are becoming slightly used and no longer need an engine. Therefore, as we would be surprised by anyone driving down the street in a Ford Model T or Benz Patent Motor Wagen, the Time Lords are surprised by somebody using Type 40 as a regular TARDIS. Because the Time Lords are so advanced by the time we first see them, they have reached the 'electric car' age, understanding how to power a TARDIS without linking them directly to the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey, as we now have some level of understanding how to power a vehicle without the need of an internal combustion engine.

Gallifrey102 21:48, August 18, 2011 (UTC)

In The Deadly Assassin, Type 40s had recently been decomissioned when the Doctor stole his. So they're not _that_ ancient; they went out of service 700-odd years ago, while Rassilon's time was somewhere around 6500 years ago. Also, a young Time Lady like Romana has no problem with the Doctor's TARDIS, and neither does the Master or any other Time Lord who ever dealt with it, and I doubt that every one of them just happened to be ancient-technology specialists.

Most importantly, we never saw anyone be surprised that the Doctor's TARDIS was powered by (a link to) the Eye of Harmony; the one and only time it was mentioned on screen was the TV movie, and the Master seemed to treat is as a perfectly natural fact about TARDISes. So, I'm not sure what you're trying to explain. --173.228.85.35 02:47, August 19, 2011 (UTC)