Cat's Cradle (Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)
The cat's cradle was a pattern of "chaotic fantasia" which enmeshed the universe, criss-crossing its superstrings across Time as a web. The pattern was woven by the Pythias - who were talented as entrelacement - back and forth across history until the start of the design was lost.
On Gallifrey in the Old Time, the pattern appeared in such places as ornate stone ridges on the great Houses, intricate lines of coloured plants and soil in the knot gardens, polyphonic voices in the thought pool, and repeated steps in lordly dances. In other parts of time, the Seventh Doctor noticed the pattern in places such as David's carpet shop and the ration queues of Boom City after the Great Soul Rush. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible [+]Loading...["Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible (novel)"]) The strings further entangled the omniverse, vibrating with Time's music. (PROSE: The Hunting of the Slook [+]Loading...["The Hunting of the Slook (short story)"])
At the end of the Old Time, the psychic webs entangling the universe began to fall apart with the rise of Rassilon. Rassilon found new use for the dimensional cat's cradle in his scientific experiments, repurposing its chaotic strings into the orderly forms of TARDISes and the Matrix. Every TARDIS was thus a "cat's cradle of dimensions", with its infinitely-possible architectural configuration dependent how the strings were held. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible [+]Loading...["Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible (novel)"]) TARDISes received mail from the informational hums of the omniverse's superstrings. (AUDIO: Paper Cuts [+]Loading...["Paper Cuts (audio story)"])
