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The Time Vortex, also simply known as The Vortex, was the dimension through which all time travellers passed. Space-time machines were able to pass through the vortex, including TARDISes and vortex manipulators.
History
The Vortex was built by the Time Lords as a transdimensional spiral that connected all points in space and time. (PROSE: Just War)
In 2004, the Eighth Doctor used the power of the vortex to destroy a group of Cybermen from the future and set time back on its proper course. (COMIC: The Flood)
Inhabitants
Native life in the time vortex included the Reapers (TV: Father's Day) and the Chronovores. (TV: The Time Monster)
The Bad Wolf entity also seemed to be linked to the time vortex. When Rose Tyler looked into the heart of the TARDIS and became the Bad Wolf, she was infused with the time vortex, and the entity spread the Bad Wolf name through time and space, looked at all of space and time, destroyed the Dalek fleet and resurrected Jack Harkness. However she was unable to control it and almost died. The Doctor stated that not even a Time Lord can absorb the energy from the time vortex(TV: The Parting of the Ways)
Travelling through the vortex without a capsule of some kind could prove harmful to humans and Gallifreyans alike; it killed Jack after he hung onto the outside of the TARDIS all the way to the year 100 trillion. (TV: Blink, Utopia / The Sound of Drums) The Doctor advised not to eat or go swimming for an hour. (TV: Blink) The energies in the vortex reduced cirque posters attached to the Doctor's TARDIS to burnt cinders. (TV: Vincent and the Doctor)
Appearance
The Vortex generally had two different colours, red and blue. Red generally indicated forward time travel and blue indicated travel to the past. However the Heart of the TARDIS (which essentially is the time vortex) was white to gold. During the Fifth and Sixth Doctor's eras, the Vortex was shown on the TARDIS console's as a series of boxes moving recursively. (TV: Vengence on Varos)
Whilst being chased by the Daleks, both the Doctor's TARDIS and the Dalek time machine travelled through the Vortex, which had a grey, kaelidoscopic appearance. (TV: The Chase)
The Third Doctor and the Master flew their TARDISes through a time vortex that was comprised of a blue tunnel, surrounded by black nothingness; their vehicles glowed with a white light whilst travelling. (TV: The Time Monster)
Nowhere and no time
On several occasions the Doctor mentioned that, just as people didn't "exist" in the TARDIS, (TV: The Hand of Fear) travel through the Vortex took "no time" and was actually "outside" of time and space (TV: The Time Monster) meaning the Vortex itself was "nowhere." (TV: Colony in Space, The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe, PROSE: The Shadow of Weng-Chiang) While nothing appeared on the TARDIS scanner, the vortex was visible inside the Androzani tree escape pod. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
Mechanics
The Time Spiral existed at the perimeter of the Vortex. (PROSE: The Well-Mannered War) Another spiral, if not the same one, was said to exist at the nexus of the Vortex. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch) Both the Six-Fold-Realm and N-Space were inextricably linked by the Vortex. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel)
The Master explained that E = mc3 in the Time Vortex, as opposed to E equalling mc2 in the main universe. (TV: The Time Monster)
The Fourth Doctor mentioned being on the edge of "a time-space vortex," describing the difficulty in navigating a vortex in response to Sarah Jane Smith asking why it took so long to get to London. (TV: Planet of Evil) Romana I later explained that the TARDIS time travelled by passing through "a" vortex. According to the Captain, materialisation out of the vortex ripped the entire fabric of the space-time continuum apart for ten seconds, putting the whole infrastructure of quantum physics in retreat. (TV: The Pirate Planet)
Travelling backwards in time in the vortex was akin to travelling "up-hill" and required more energy than travelling to the future. (PROSE: Anachrophobia)
Energy
Mrs Wormwood detected artron energy in a body scan of Sarah Jane Smith and concluded that she had travelled in the Vortex. (TV: Invasion of the Bane)
The Cybermen once trapped a section of the time vortex to power their ship. (COMIC: The Flood)
When Rose Tyler became the Bad Wolf, she and the Ninth Doctor absorbed vortex energy into their bodies. Rose looked into the Heart of the TARDIS to obtain it, then the Doctor absorbed it from Rose. In both cases, the energy, which resembled bright white-gold wispy light, threatened to destroy their cellular structure, much like radiation. The Doctor had to regenerate in order to survive. (TV: The Parting of the Ways, TV: Children in Need Special)
According to the Doctor, Time Lords evolved and seemingly gained their abilities from prolonged exposure to the vortex over "billions of years". It has also been suggested that even short exposure to the vortex could change a human embryo into a human/Time Lord hybrid, were they conceived in the vortex or a vessel travelling through the vortex (i.e. the TARDIS). (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
The Eye of Harmony
All TARDISes had a direct link to the vortex through the Eye of Harmony. (TV: Doctor Who) The Eye gave off a light similar to the Heart of the TARDIS.
Behind the scenes
- The same Time Vortex was seen in the opening and closing credits from Series 1 to the 2009 Specials. The opening credits and closing credits for Series 5 onwards used another version of the Vortex.
- Before the broadcast of The Eleventh Hour, promo pictures and a trailer showed the Doctor and Amy falling through a blue, fluid-like vortex. Some people presumed this was the new vortex.[1] When The Eleventh Hour broadcast, the new opening titles showed another vortex, which was a gaseous version of the old vortex.
- It has been a convention of several eras of Doctor Who storytelling that, when the time vortex is shown, it resembles the imagery seen in the opening title sequence. This tradition began with the very first episode, "An Unearthly Child", which used the title sequence imagery within the narrative of the episode. Likewise, the season 6 titles were used to illustrate the vortex seen in COMIC: Land of the Blind; the Eighth Doctor's title vortex was seen at several points in the narrative of the 1996 tele-movie; the RTD vortex was used in-narrative, as in TV: 42; and the Moffat vortex was seen in TV: The Pandorica Opens.
- The Time Vortex appears as the setting of the first and last levels of the online game Doctor In A Dash where, as with all levels, the Doctor's TARDIS (the player) races against a Dalek Flying Saucer, a Judoon rocket, and a Slitheen craft to find a Space-Time Manipulator. Time distortions act as obstacles to the ships.