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The Pandorica was a prison hidden under Stonehenge, constructed to hold the Doctor and ensure the safety of The Alliance.
History
Prisoner Zero mentioned the Pandorica to the Eleventh Doctor, telling him that it would open and that silence would fall. (DW: The Eleventh Hour) River Song also mentioned the Pandorica to the Doctor, telling him she would next see him at its opening and that she remembered it well. The Doctor believed the Pandorica was a fairy tale (DW: Flesh and Stone). He later told Amy that according to legend, the Pandorica was the prison of a warrior or goblin who dropped out of the sky and tore your world apart until a good wizard tricked it and locked it up. The Pandorica turned out to be a prison built by the Alliance for the Doctor to stop him from destroying every universe. They figured that the Doctor would be responsible for the destruction of existence itself.
They used the lure of the Pandorica to trap him. There were many layers of security in the Pandorica including deadlocks, time stops and matter lines. It even had a restoration field to stop the Doctor from dying, which the Alliance believed a form of escape. (DW: The Pandorica Opens) It was used to save Amy Pond. She was locked inside it for 1894 years until revived by her younger self. Her DNA provided the Pandorica the material it needed to fully revive the nearly dead adult Amy. During this time, it was moved several times.
- 118 - Taken back to Rome under armed guard.
- 420 - Plundered by the Franks.
- 1120 - Prized possession of the Knights Templar.
- 1231 - Donated to the Vatican.
- Post 1231 - Sold by Marco Polo.
It was once put into storage in a London warehouse, which was destroyed by the Blitz in 1941. It was found a short distance away, unscathed. The Pandorica was also used by the Doctor to restore the universe. Since all of the traps inside it provided the perfect barrier against the destruction of the universe, it retained several billion atoms of the original universe within, even after the destruction of the rest of creation. Operating on the same principle as cloning a body from a single cell, these atoms provided a 'blueprint' for the universe when the Doctor threw it into the exploding TARDIS which had cracked all of time and space. The atoms from the Pandorica combined with the explosion energy from the TARDIS to restore every point in time and the rest of the universe. Doing so caused the cracks in time to close and allowed Amy to remember her family and the Doctor - all erased by the cracks - back into existence. (DW: The Big Bang)
Appearance
Exterior
The Pandorica looked like an image of Pandora's Box found in the bedroom of Amy Pond. Since The Alliance used her memories to lure the Doctor there, they probably designed it to look like this. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
Interior
The interior was a small room with a chair in it. When someone was placed on the chair, the exterior would close, sealing them in. Many forms of security would stop the prisoner escaping, presumably because the Alliance considered it too risky to allow the Doctor to remain concious during his imprisonment. (DW: The Pandorica Opens)
Known inhabitants
The Eleventh Doctor was put in the chair by the Alliance to stop him from destroying the universe. Using the Doctor's sonic screwdriver given to him by a future version of the Doctor, the Auton copy of Rory Williams opened the Pandorica and released him. (DW: The Pandorica Opens) Amy Pond was put in the Pandorica by the Doctor and the Auton duplicate of Rory while dying. The imprisonment was meant to bring her back to life and she was restored when her seven-year-old self touched the box, causing it to open. Using its restoration field, the Pandorica resurrected the older Amy after it got a DNA sample from the young Amelia. (DW: The Big Bang)
Behind the scenes
- For the Doctor Who Experience (London/Cardiff) part of the interactive story featured a device called the "Pandorica II" as part of its storyline.