"N-Space" isn't the name of the "main Doctor Who universe" - "N-Space" and "E-Space" exist in the same universe, and other universes also have their own "N-Spaces". Something needs to be done about the name, preferably satisfying T:NPOV while we're at it, as "N-Space" also isn't exactly compliant with that either.
Talk about it here.
The prime universe of Gallifrey had several titles: it was Normal Space, N-Space for short, in relation to the smaller E-Space; (TV: State of Decay, Warriors' Gate, PROSE: Lungbarrow) in relation to the fourth universe, it was third universe; (AUDIO: Quinnis, PROSE: Auteur's Abecedarium, Resurrection of the Author) and it was also generally known within and abroad as the Totality. (PROSE: Collective Unconscious, A Bright White Crack) Donna Noble once referred to this universe as the Doctor's World. (TV: Turn Left) Inhabitants of this universe also distinguished it from virtual realities; Second Reality gamers referred to this universe as fleshspace (PROSE: Another Life) and users of Shadow-Space called it Home D. (AUDIO: Masquerade) The part of the universe which was known was referred to as the known universe. (TV: The Invasion)
- You may be looking for Null-Space.
According to the Eleventh Doctor, the universe was born alive, but it could only become aware of itself by developing sensors across its surface, known as life forms, each of which suffered a temporary delusion of separate identity during data collection - called consciousness - but in reality had little to no individual existence. (PROSE: The Day of the Doctor) At the dawn of its formation, an abstract entity called the Solitract attempted to join the universe's laws and concepts, but it was incompatible with the other "pieces" of its existence, and threatened their coming together into a single whole. It was only after banishing it to the Solitract plane that N-Space could properly form. (TV: It Takes You Away)
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The reason that good always prevailed in the universe (TV: Twice Upon a Time) was due to the Time Lord known as the Doctor, whose intervention in the lives and planets across time and space helped keep the universe together. (TV: The Time of the Doctor)
According to the First Doctor, aeons were but a "blink of an eye" relative to his universe's lifespan. (AUDIO: Daybreak) Indeed, the end of the universe was projected to occur in either 60,000,000,000 (AUDIO: Zagreus) or 100,000,000,000,000 AD, (TV: Utopia) and it began 13,500,020,012 years before 2109. (PROSE: Transit) In yet another account, "four-and-a-half billion years" was referred to as "half the lifetime of the universe" by the General and was the span of time separating the 21st century from the temporal position of Gallifrey at "the extreme end" of the time continuum. (TV: Hell Bent)
According to the Tenth Doctor, the universe contained millions, (TV: Planet of the Ood) potentially trillions of galaxies while constantly expanding. (PROSE: The Last Dodo)
It is notable that a few sources claimed that more than one version of N-Space existed. By these sources, not all accounts of N-Space took place in the same reality. (PROSE: Spiral Scratch, AUDIO: Zagreus)
Properties
Entropy
Because of entropy, N-Space should have ceased to exist as a result of heat death some time before the 20th century in the Humanian Era, if not for the Logopolitans. The Logopolitans used Block Transfer Computations to create the CVEs to vent entropy from N-Space into E-Space. (TV: Logopolis) Sometimes the CVEs also allowed physical objects to travel from N-Space into E-Space. (TV: Full Circle)
Co-ordinates
Unlike E-Space, which used coordinates with a negative value, relative to the navigational system of the Doctor's TARDIS, N-Space used positive coordinates. The Fourth Doctor suggested, then, that N-Space was a positive universe and E-Space its negative counterpart.
The TARDIS scanner continued to show images of N-Space even after materialising on Alzarius, which had the same co-ordinates as Gallifrey, though reversed. The Doctor suggested that, rather than relaying visual information, the scanner operated off the absolute value of the co-ordinates and could not process negative coordinates. The scanner system was made functional by replacing its original N-Space image translator with one native to E-Space. (TV: Full Circle)
The Gateway, whose co-ordinates had a zero value (neither positive nor negative) served as a place of transit between N-Space and E-Space. (TV: Warriors' Gate)
Transit points
Aside from the Gateway, objects could have passed from N-Space to E-Space through a CVE, as did the Doctor's TARDIS. (TV: Full Circle) The Great Vampire travelled to E-Space from N-Space by means unknown, as did the human ship, the Hydrax. The Doctor surmised that the Hydrax was intentionally brought into E-Space by the Great Vampire. (TV: State of Decay)
N-Space existed side-by-side with a reservoir of evil that was made of manifest suffering and fear. There were weak points that Dr Colin Dove termed "synapses" through which, at perihelion when the two worlds were at their closest, the evil force could come through with the help of powerful sensitives. The land that Hawthorne was built upon was one such example. (HOMEVID: The Zero Imperative)
History
- For a detailed, N-Space-focused history, see timeline.
During the Dark Times, the Kotturuh distributed mortality to the beings in N-Space. (PROSE: The Guide to the Dark Times)
The Time Lords of Gallifrey, as the first sentient culture to develop within their universe, (PROSE: Lucifer Rising) were responsible for setting the parameters within which the universe operated. (PROSE: Sky Pirates!) They expunged magic in favour of science as the basic governing principle. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, Christmas on a Rational Planet) They also established the morphic field that favoured the development of humanoid life. (PROSE: Lucifer Rising) They established the Web of Time which guaranteed the universe a stable, linear history. (AUDIO: Neverland)
After the Time Lords were lost to the Last Great Time War, the universe became a more uncertain and dangerous place. Travel to other universes became impossible (TV: Rise of the Cybermen) and the creation of time paradoxes had a much more dangerous effect. (TV: Father's Day)
As the Gelth ambassador recalled, "the whole universe convulsed" during the Last Great Time War. (TV: The Unquiet Dead)
In 2007, the Tenth Doctor's the Doctor's TARDIS fell through the Void into a parallel universe. Though he was soon able to return, (TV: Rise of the Cybermen/The Age of Steel) the Cybermen native to the Earth of this universe were able to invade that of N-Space by following the Void Ship containing the Cult of Skaro and the Genesis Ark containing millions of Daleks, whom had survived the Time War. The resulting Battle of Canary Wharf was only ended when the Doctor opened the breach to pull the Cybermen and Daleks into the Void. (TV: Army of Ghosts/Doomsday)
The New Dalek Empire developed the reality bomb within the Medusa Cascade, a second out of sync from the rest of the universe. As a result, the walls between the universes started to break down. To power the bomb, the Daleks used a magnetron to steal 24 planets from N-Space in 2009, as well as an additional three planets from other time periods. The loss of the 24 planets came as an outrage to the universe, with the architect of the Shadow Proclamation declaring war, intending to seize the TARDIS to wage it. However, the Doctor purposely left the Shadow Proclamation behind as he confronted the New Dalek Empire, who intended to use the reality bomb to destroy the entire multiverse, save themselves. Ultimately, the Doctor and the Children of Time thwarted this plan and returned the stolen planets to N-Space, with the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor destroying the New Dalek Empire. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)
The Eleventh Doctor noted 26 June 2010 as the day the universe "blew up" (TV: The Time of the Doctor) in a total event collapse caused by the explosion of the Doctor's TARDIS at the hands of the Silence which, by nature, spread into the past as every sun went supernova at every moment in history, which would have led to the whole universe never having existed along with all other universes. (TV: The Pandorica Opens) However, the Earth remained as the eye of the storm while the remnant of the universe slowly collapsed, with the explosion of the TARDIS taking the place of its sun. In 1996, the Eleventh Doctor used the Pandorica, which contained a few billion atoms or "memory" of the old universe to reboot it in Big Bang Two. As the heart of the explosion, the Doctor was consigned to the never-space between worlds with all memory of him being purged from the universe, however, he was able to return because Amy Pond remembered him. (TV: The Big Bang)
In the 2010s, UNIT did battle with an invasion force of particularly ambitious Cybermen. Determined to hail neither from N-Space, nor the parallel Earth they knew of, these Cybermen had utilised virtual reality technology to conquer numerous parallel universes in a bid to upgrade the entire multiverse. They were, however, unfamiliar with the Time Lords, an ignorance which proved their undoing when the War Master visited a parallel world they had occupied while attempting to escape the Time War. Returning to the Earth of N-Space, the Master chose to join forces with UNIT against the Cybermen, who attempted to convert him, only to be destroyed when he overloaded their systems with power from infinite dimensions, siphoning some of it off to give his TARDIS enough energy to return to "the fray" of the war. (AUDIO: Code Silver, Master of Worlds)
The Kasaavin, who hailed from another dimension, spent centuries embedding themselves across the universe as a prelude to invasion. With the assistance of the Spy Master, they attempted to gain a foothold on Earth in 2020 but were defeated by the Thirteenth Doctor, who exiled them back to their realm. (TV: Spyfall)
"Thousands of years" prior to 200,100, the Daleks vanished out of time and space from the perspective of humanity at a point where, as recalled by Jack Harkness, they were the greatest threat in the universe. They had infact left to fight the Last Great Time War. That year, the Ninth Doctor observed that the Emperor's rebuilt fleet was a danger to the entire universe; fortunately, the fleet was wiped out by the Bad Wolf. (TV: The Parting of the Ways) The Daleks only regained their empire and powerbase (TV: Asylum of the Daleks) when they returned to "[their] own time" to establish the New Dalek Paradigm. (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
Despite Big Bang Two, a structural weakness or "scar tissue" in the universe remained in the form of cracks in time, one of which was situated above the planet Trenzalore. The Time Lords of Gallifrey, situated in a parallel pocket universe following the Time War, sent out a message through the crack which spread throughout the universe. Though it appeared indecipherable, every sentient being that detected the signal had a feeling of pure, unadulterated dread which led "half the universe" to Trenzalore, where the Doctor found the message to be the Question of his name; by answering, he would give the Time Lords the clear to return to the universe. However, Tasha Lem noted that this would lead to the Time War beginning anew; ironically it was the Silence's attempt to prevent by destroying the TARDIS that created the cracks in the first place. After 900 years, the Siege of Trenzalore ended with the closing of the crack and defeat of the Parliament of the Daleks. (TV: The Time of the Doctor) Eventually, Gallifrey returned to the universe, positioned at the extreme end of the time continuum, for its own protection. (TV: Hell Bent)
Universal trends
The Twelfth Doctor claimed that the Time Lords of Gallifrey were the "most civilised civilisation" in the universe. (TV: World Enough and Time) They believed that their Matrix was the greatest source of knowledge in the universe. It was said that, upon being introduced to the Matrix, a President of Gallifrey would have more power than anyone in the known universe. (TV: The Invasion of Time) However, the Twelfth Doctor later expressed that even the Matrix had been surpassed by the Dalek hive mind. (TV: Twice Upon a Time)
The Second Doctor described Omega as "one of the most powerful blokes in the cosmos." (TV: The Three Doctors)
The Thirteenth Doctor claimed that a Dalek was the most dangerous creature in the universe. (TV: Resolution) Earlier, the Twelfth Doctor "welcome[d]" Clara Oswald to "the most dangerous place in the universe" when they entered the inside of a Dalek. (TV: Into the Dalek)
The Eleventh Doctor considered the Romans to be the greatest military machine in the history of the universe, greater than even the Daleks. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
Jack Harkness recalled an Earth saying, taught to him by "a very old, very wise friend", "an injury to one is an injury to all". He went on to claim that when people acted according to that philosophy, the human race was the finest species in the universe. (TV: Children of Earth: Day Four) Earlier, he claimed that that humans were the only race to go camping. (TV: Countrycide)
Warning Ianto Jones against his cyber-converted girlfriend, Lisa Hallett, Jack told him that the Cyber-race would be spreading out across the universe before he knew it. (TV: Cyberwoman)
Kaagh, of the Tenth Sontaran Battle Fleet, believed that power was the most beautiful thing in the universe. (TV: Enemy of the Bane)
Sarah Jane Smith believed that, in all the universe, only the Doctor could know straight away and help fix the Trickster's perversion of history. Ultimately, however, Sarah Jane was forced to stop the Trickster without him on that occasion. (TV: The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith)
In 2009, Major Cal Kilburne, actually an undercover Bane, told Sir Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart that UNIT had to adapt to the challenges of a more hostile universe. Alistair, who served decades prior, considered that it did not get more hostile than in his day. Considering the prospect of joining UNIT, Clyde Langer was "ready to fight the scum of the universe."
Mrs Wormwood suggested that Luke Smith was "quite unique throughout the entire universe. Alone in its darkness, without blood kin. Just as I am." (TV: Enemy of the Bane)
Sarah Jane observed that once one had "seen the universe for real", nothing ever look[ed] quite the same again."
Androvax, who lost his homeworld, believed that the only truth of the universe was death and destruction, noting that all worlds would inevitably die. Luke acknowledged that there was destruction in the universe for billions of years. However, he noted that without destruction, the universe would not evolve, and that survival was really what the universe was about. Sarah Jane concurred:
Parts of the universe are dying all the time. Planets, stars, people. But the amazing part is that it isn't the end. It's only the beginning of something new and exciting being born.
She went on to claim that the "wonderful thing" about the universe was that "you just never know". (TV: Prisoner of the Judoon)
Eve was surprised to find that humans liked being scared, observing that the universe was full of nightmares and they made fake ones. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic)
According to Mr Smith, the Shansheeth were known throughout the universe as the carers of the dead. (TV: Death of the Doctor)
According to the Thirteenth Doctor, the Ux were found on only three planets in the whole universe. (TV: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos)
Other references
Jack Harkness observed that the Sex Gas travelled "halfway across the universe for the greatest sex" yet still ended up dying alone. (TV: Day One)
Before his memory was wiped, Mr Smith wished to "let the universe witness the power of the Xylok once more." He believed that the universe was better served by the survival of the Xyloks over the human race. (TV: The Lost Boy)
Jack Harkness boasted that he had "seen the universe." (TV: The Blood Line) He was told by Toshiko Sato, a fellow member of Torchwood Cardiff, that he had shown her the wonders of the universe. (TV: Exit Wounds)
Rupesh Patanjali recalled a woman who took her own life after the revelation of alien life to humanity, explaining that she saw her place in the universe to be tiny. (TV: Children of Earth: Day One)
The Tenth Doctor noted that the Trickster was a creature from beyond the universe, "forever trying to break in to our reality, manifest himself." (TV: The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith)
Sarah Jane observed that Androvax raged against the universe for the loss of his people. Clyde considered if a whole race of "body-popping aliens" was good for the universe, while Sarah Jane told him that Androvax's crimes did not mean his species was better off extinct. (TV: The Vault of Secrets)
Sarah Jane claimed that "in all the universe I never expected to find a family." (TV: The Lost Boy, The Man Who Never Was)