Ages ago I found an Inforgraphic giving a view on how much it would cost to build a TARDIS. I have ‘borrowed’ the picture for this post – the original is over here on Pinfographics.

This got me to wondering – whatever it costs, how do you actually make it? What do we know about Time Lord technology…

Grow your own TARDIS

In several of the Eight Doctor Adventure novels (and no doubt elsewhere) we learn that TARDISes are grown from some kind of seed. They are essentially living entities in multiple dimensions and are born (and can therefore die). This has connections also with the ideas presented by Big Finish in the Black TARDIS / White TARDIS stories – here (as explained in Black and White which I reviewed in the Black & White Trilogy) the TARDIS (blue) suffered an explosion which damaged a hitherto lesser known out shell. This left the TARDIS as being white. The Seventh Doctor took the opportunity to bud off a fully capable Black TARDIS and have a whole set of adventures that Ace and Hex knew nothing about (and scramble his timeline even further).

Calculate your own TARDIS

The universe is mathematical (eg Logopolis) and through the power of block transfer mathematics a different type of matter can be made. These allow (the so-called physics is interesting here) Artron Energy to power the TARDIS. This all seems to mean that it takes Time Lords to make a TARDIS and they do it through advanced mathematics. The fact that the whole area was invented by inhabitants of Logopolis means that the Time Lords built the Vortex long before they had TARDISes and therefore why so many other more mundane technologies (non-capsule such as rings and bracelets) can be used for time travel.

All very fascinating.

Construct your own TARDIS

This is the machine viewpoint. We learned in Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS (as reviewed here) that there is a machine in the TARDIS that can create devices and is used in repair and alteration. It has several properties of a constructed artefact with discrete components not easily re-created such as the Time Rotor, Zero Room, chameleon circuit and of course the mercury fluid link.

So – is it alive, a mathematical construct, a machine or all three?