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The Time Vortex (sometimes just called 'The Vortex') is the place through which TARDISes travel. Through the Time Vortex, someone could conceivably reach any point in time or space or even other universes (by dropping out at the chosen period in time). It is unknown where the Time Vortex is located, but it could be outside of the universes, allowing access to them. Some, but not all, other space-time machines use the Vortex, such as the vessels used by the Daleks (DW: The Chase) TARDISes or Jack Harkness's vortex manipulator.
Native life in the time vortex includes the Reapers (DW: Father's Day) and the Chronovores. (DW: The Time Monster) The Bad Wolf entity also seems to be linked to the Time Vortex; when Rose Tyler became the Bad Wolf she was also infused with the time vortex, and the entity also can spread the Bad Wolf name through time and space, suggesting some power over time.
Mrs Wormwood detected artron energy in a body scan of Sarah Jane Smith, using it to conclude that she had traveled in the Vortex. (SJA: Invasion of the Bane)
This may or may not have a connection with vortex energy, which Rose Tyler and the Doctor absorbed into their bodies, the former from looking into the Heart of the TARDIS, the latter from orally absorbing 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. (DW: The Parting of the Ways, DW: Children in Need Special) The energy gave Rose the power to destroy the Dalek fleet and resurrect Jack Harkness. (DW: The Parting of the Ways)
In all TARDISes, the Eye of Harmony (DW: Doctor Who), has a direct link to the Vortex. The eye gave off a similar light to the Heart, under the console. It is unknown, whether the Heart of the TARDIS and The Eye Of Harmony are the same thing.
- Considering its appearance and life-giving properties, it is reasonable to assume that this is true and that like the heart, this was vortex energy. It is also reasonable to assume that the TARDIS had greater control over this energy than Rose did, and did not make Grace and Lee immortal like Jack. However, this is not certain. (DW: Doctor Who)
The Doctor used the timey-wimey detector to trace the arrival of Billy Shipton, who had travelled back through time to 1969. This device may have been designed to detect the presence of vortex (or artron) energy. (DW: Blink)
Travelling through the vortex without a capsule of some kind can prove harmful to humans and Gallifreyans alike (DW: Utopia/The Sound of Drums), and the vortex's energies were capable of reducing a number of cirque posters attached to the Doctor's TARDIS to burn to cinders. (DW: Vincent and the Doctor)
It is unknown why the Vortex's appearance changes, but it could be the energies re-newing themselves, or, due to the demise of the Time Lords, the Vortex beginning to collapse.
Behind the scenes
- The Time Vortex is seen in the opening and closing credits from Series 1 (2005) to the present. The opening credits and closing credits for Series 5 onwards uses a version of the updated 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], but then when The Eleventh Hour broadcast, the new opening titles showed another vortex, it seemed to be a gaseous version of the old vortex. The vortex seems to be less stable as well, with lightning hitting the TARDIS and throwing it about. This version of the time vortex was first seen from an in-universe perspective in The Pandorica Opens. However, we do not know if the lightning that strikes the TARDIS in the title sequence is the same as the one seen in The Pandorica Opens. It was also seen before the title credits for "The Big Bang" and through the TARDIS keyhole in "The Vampires of Venice".
- Strangely The TARDIS seems to spin slower in the Blue Vortex than in the Red Vortex, where it spins as if it is out of control. The TARDIS in the blue vortex is spinning as if it's in a blueshift where it progress backward through time slowly or at a level speed. The red vortex represents the redshift in which the TARDIS has to be at a certain place in time really quickly as shown in The Lazarus Experiment, the following story 42 and in Utopia.
- The Doctor Who Confidential page of the episode Doomsday stated that the red vortex indicates travel forward in time and blue vortex indicates travel backward in time, though further details were not revealed. This seems to change in The Pandorica Opens since River Song pilots the tardis from the 2nd century AD to 2010 through a blue vortex.
- Series 5 uses different shades of red and blue than the previous four series.
- It is unknown if the mysterious time-sequence in the title sequence of the 1960s is meant to be the Vortex or not. When the TARDIS leaves Earth for the first time in An Unearthly Child, the time-sequence graphic is overlaid on the faces of the Doctor and Susan, and seems to indicate that the graphics in the title sequence and the Time Vortex are one and the same.