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As the Seventh Doctor once told Mel, chronons were "discrete particles of time." (TV: Time and the Rani) They were also a unit of time measurement. In River Song's World, Kent described the effect of the presence of the Eleventh Doctor at Area 52 as "caus[ing] the [time] loop to extend by four chronons". (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
Chronons were released by time travel, but time travel also required chronons to work. (AUDIO: The Time of the Daleks) The TARDIS had a chronon shell. (TV: The Runaway Bride)
When weaponised
Time Lords were adept at using chronons against their enemies. They trapped the Mad Mind of Bophemeral in a single chronon following the Millennium War. (PROSE: The Quantum Archangel) Also the Tenth Doctor implied that the Daleks' temporal prison was in some way fuelled by chronons, when he called it a "chronon loop". (TV: Journey's End) Furthermore, the the Rani weaponised chronons when she created a planetary shell of chronons in the atmosphere of the planet Lakertya in order to create a Time Manipulator. (TV: Time and the Rani)
Beneficial usage
Chronons could be blocked, either by a TARDIS or by a special-purpose device. Doing so could prevent a person or object from being erased from the present, even if their past no longer existed. (GAME: City of the Daleks)
In a parallel world, Rose Tyler and UNIT used a Lodestone to bounce chronon energy off a circle of mirrors back into the centre, which Rose and UNIT controlled and decided the destination for Donna Noble to travel back in time to. (TV: Turn Left)
Negative effects
Chronon particles were deleterious to the health of time travellers. After a Dahensa ranger crash-landed near Zarechny, Siberia in 1903 and began to emit chronon particles, the First Doctor and his granddaughter Susan Foreman both exhibited signs of radiation poisoning. (AUDIO: The Wanderer)
A future version of Iris Wildthyme would become afflicted with 'dark chronons' after multiple attempts to change her past self's mistakes, by crossing the timelines and "breaking too many rules" during her efforts. This would ultimately prove fatal. (AUDIO: A Lift in Time)
While the Fifth Doctor was travelling through the Time Vortex, the TARDIS detected dangerous levels of chronon particles, which were causing temporal distortions in local space, emanating from the Jariden Vault of Stellar Curios. He materialised his TARDIS in the Vault and offered his assistance to the Jaridens in order to correct the problem.
Considerably later in the Doctor's personal timeline, his eighth incarnation once again detected the emission of the particles from the Vault. Although his intended destination was the Petrachi Connection, his TARDIS nevertheless materialised in the facility as well. He remembered his younger self's visit, though his memories were initially rather vague. (AUDIO: The Four Doctors)
Behind the scenes
- Chronons were used as a in-game currency in the MMORPG, Worlds in Time. They could be purchased with real money.
- One reading of The Time Monster is that chronons are what TOMTIT was based upon, when it speaks of "atoms of time". This feeling is reinforced by the presence of Chronovores. However that script never mentions chronons directly, leaving it up to the viewer to decide what the technobabble might mean.
Invalid sources
Due to a chronon link, the Doctor's TARDIS once reconfigured the dimensions around its pilot to force her into consistency with the desktop theme. As the desktop theme in question was Minecraft-themed, this meant turning her into a walking Minecraft avatar who resembled the Tenth Doctor, though she retained her own voice. (NOTVALID: Doctor Who Minecraft)