Actually the easiest way to explain why it can be on Gallifrey and on the TARDIS, timey wimey. It's a time machine...because if that it can be in two or however many place at once!

I'll go with that. The earlier scene with the rods in the corridor, the Doctor talks about all the fuel being spilled out. It doesn't mean 'fuel' (rift energy) and 'power source' (Eye of Harmony) are the same things.

The appearance of the Eye of Harmony did confuse me.

Specifically, looking back at Age of Steel-ish, the TARDIS couldn't operate in Pete's World because of the wrong type of energy, petrol/diesel comparison.

So..... he crossed into another universe and left his Eye behind?

Or, was what we saw in the Centre of the TARDIS just a very visual representation of the actual Eye, as in it's still just linked to the Original but now the link looks like that instead of a hole in the floor?

Not sure why he refueled in Cardiff that time though, apart from the story needed an excuse to visit Jack.

I do hate to keep harping on this, but I just did a Google site search of www.chakoteya.net, which has transcripts of every episode from both the classic and revived series, for "Eye of Harmony." It comes up in:

- The Movie
- The Deadly Assassin
- The Five Doctors
- Hide
- Four to Doomsday

(The transcript for JttCotT isn't up yet.). In not one of these episodes is it mentioned that TARDISes draw their power from the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey. So where does the idea come from, and why is everyone so convinced of it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_Harmony



The Three Doctors introduces the idea of Omega harnessing the power of a Supernova to allow the Time Lords the power to time travel.


Other Media later said that Omega's Supernova/Black Hole was the same as Rassilons Eye of Harmony.

But that does not explicitly state that the particular Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey beams power to each TARDIS. It does not preclude each TARDIS having its own Eye. And if we are to believe in the power-beamed-from-Gallifrey theory, then we must believe that the Time Lords, the guardians of time themselves, we're building TARDISes without understanding where the power for them comes from (as the Eye was only something legendary until the Deadly Assassin. That doesn't pass my smell test.

The power of a TARDIS, and the power of the Time Lords, is the power to time travel. That could be the power that's referred to.

Or, it's not impossible that the different mechanisms aboard the TARDIS require different types of fuel to run, like having gas central heating and an electric oven. Perhaps the Eye's eternality powers the time drives, while other energy is required for the propulsive engines, or opening the doors, or powering the console screens.

Finally, it's not impossible that there is more than one Eye - after all, we say that Frank Whittle invented The Jet Engine, that doesn't mean he only invented one. Perhaps the Doctor decided to cobble one together after he discovered the original design so that he could be independent of the Time Lords. (I just got a flashback to the first Iron Man movie, where he created an improved miniature version of the arc reactor that had been sitting in his offices for decades.)

Except TARDIS's are grown not built, so maybe they establish their own link as they grow?

The 4th Doctor certainly hinted that the Time Lords were quite pompous and lazy, so maybe all their tech builds its self rather like Star Treks replicator technology and all they do is order it up. It would explain why most Time Lords have no idea how anything works. With just the odd renegade willing get his hands dirty and look behind the proverbial curtain.

Or TARDISes (or proto-TARDISes) have been around for thousands and thousands of years, and just got augmented with technology. We already know that the Doctor's was an outdated model, perhaps they're all some level of old.

Maybe the newer Tardis are upgraded, in the same way that windows 8 is an 'upgrade'. (when in reality it's a simpler (some would say dumbed down) version for those who don't want to go anywhere near the underlying bits to tinker).

It is true that the more that humans progress towards push button technology, the less general knowledge there is about basic stuff like building fires or trapping animals. So the general Gallifreyan populace could be mostly like, as someone said, an episode of TOWIE, but there ae those who want to learn more, go to academies and tinker with Tardises.

I agree that "power of the Time Lords" needn't imply an energy source. As the Fourth Doctor says of the Eye in The Deadly Assassin:


That's really all we ever get about its function in the televised canon, and it could definitely be interpreted as you have done.

I like your idea about different energy sources for different functions/mechanisms as well, and there doesn't seem to me to be a reason that there couldn't be many different Eyes.

Well, not all Gallifreyans are supposed to be Time Lords. There are the primitive Outsiders from The Invasion of Time, and there's talk of Plebeian classes as well, who may or may not be Time Lords. But we've seen a fresh-faced Time Lady straight from the Academy, and she seems to know her stuff to me (The Ribos Operation):


And you routinely get the impression that the Time Lords are masters of the fundamentals of the Universe. 9 says in Father's Day that his people would have stopped the consequences of Rose's paradox--that "there used to be laws stopping this kind of thing from happening" (suggesting those laws were maintained by the Time Lords). 10 dismisses escaping a black hole in The Satan Pit by saying "Gravity schmavity. My people practically invented black holes."--suggesting that his authority and practice in the matter stems from his people's mastery of the phenomenon. It doesn't seem to me that Time Lord laziness has anything to do with their understanding of science and technology (I think that might refer to their non-interference policy instead)

I'm kinda lost. Can you paraphrase for me?

Oh, sorry. I was trying to support my contention that the Time Lords would know what powers their own TARDISes...

I thought it was pretty clear in the episode: The Eye of Harmony is a perpetually exploding star anchored inside the TARDIS.

I thought it was a pretty awesome concept. I don't know how it fits with any previously established lore (I've seen all of Doctor Who multiple times but am not that interested in minutiae like this to mentally note it all) but if it is contradictory I'd rather go with this version simply because it was so great. I love that, perfectly for the tone of Doctor Who, the Eye of Harmony is just incredible, epic-scale science and engineering, and not some pseudo-mystical energy source. And we do already have the Time Lords science being based in solar engineering from the legends of Rassillon and suchlike.

I loved that this episode brought the Timelords back to this concept of simply being an exceptionally advanced race of scientists and engineers. I don't care for the apparent mysticism that has been creeping in, such as the whole Time Vortex thing (whatever they called it) in 'The Sound of Drums'. So the Time Lords were just lucky to evolve on this thing? Rubbish. They're a super advanced human race. I don't even see why we need to assume they originated on Gallifrey. In fact, my personal fancy is that they built Gallifrey, and that possibly it doesn't even exist in conventional space-time. Why would they live on a little planet, vunerable to the ravages of space, time and invasion, when they had the kind of technology that built the TARDIS (which we know isn't even an advanced model)? Perhaps it did / does exist in it's own little bubble and 'time-locking' it was simply taking away the key or destroying the 'engine-room' that was their doorway to real space-time.

That would be brilliantly in keeping with this latest thing of the Doctor being a 'trickster'. He's not some action man who brought down the Time Lords with crazy heroics; he's the impish Patrick Troughton-type rebel who stole a TARDIS and went on the run. I think it fits the Doctor's character so much more to think he sneakily betrayed the Time Lords for the greater good of ending the Time War by simply stealing the 'key' and running... after all, that is well established as his modus-operandi: running.

I'm on board with the theory that the Time Lords are all about the stellar engineering and are all about the black holes and grand-scale manipulation of physics, and discarding the forgetting-about-the-thing-that-supposedly-makes-their-existence-possible.

It seems easier to fit that to the image of the Time Lords than to attempt to reconcile their forgetfulness. It's not the first time that an unexpected piece of Who lore that doesn't fit well has been retconned or ignored in favour of a more interesting explanation.

If you want an explanation, perhaps the engineers and scientists in Time Lord society have deliberately kept it a secret from the political classes in order to keep society ticking over quietly and without change - to prevent anyone seizing the power for themselves.

So, again, I ask this: If there's a vast constantly exploding sun in the heart of The Tardis providing power, then how can it ever run out of power?

Tardis goes to Pete's world, no power.

During Stolen Earth the Dalek's put a 'chronal loop' or suchlike around the outside of the Tardis, no power.

And going back into the classics, in Frontios, the Tardis was completely torn apart, literally into pieces that had to be re-assembled, and there was no sign of an exploding sun, which would have been hard to miss.

I feel that there's only 2 explanations of this.
1) My previous point is correct, it's mostly a visual representation of an external power source, one single Eye of Harmony that cleverly transmits it's energy to Tardis's
or
2) some Doctor Who writers/producers don't give a monkey's about previous episodes and would happily forsake continuity for a cool effect.
or of course, both.

I also thoroughly despise the idea that the inside of the Tardis is infinite. Vastly hugely enormous, sure, but not infinite. Though I put that down to a Doctor lie/exaggeration/boast.

Well, the transcript of Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS is out on my go-to site for Doctor Who transcripts, and whether it had actually been established in canon that the Eye is a power plant, it has been now:


I guess I missed the "power source" line while I was watching the episode. So I'm now leaning toward:


Unless we go with a link to the Eye on Gallifrey (which is supposed to be time-locked), or it being kept in some dimensionally transcendent timey-wimey whatever. But AmazingJim is right. If it's aboard the TARDIS, then why does the TARDIS lose all power when it's outside of the normal universe? And yet Tom Tit is right, it seems to plainly be aboard the TARDIS (it's there enough to liquify cells and set skin afire anyway). You'd think they could hire an intern or two to keep this stuff straight...

Again, there's lots of explanations. As before, the Eye doesn't necessarily provide power to all parts of the TARDIS - it's part of the temporal engineering, maybe that's all it does. It may be something that the Doctor was forced to install, or salvage, during the events of the end of the War. Perhaps temporal stellar engineering doesn't necessarily work in a universe with slightly altered physics, or the dimensional aperture can be disrupted by a chronon loop.

There's probably like a pilot light that needs to be kept running so the eye can provide power. the pilot light needs is own fuel or the power can't be channeled from the eye to the tardis. running out of fuel or power can be explained easily. that one about thetardis being in bits might prove tricky though. but I'll have a go.

how about each subsection has it's own 'bigger on the inside' qualities. so on the outside if you chop up the blue box all you get is bits of blue box.but if you were able to look inside a 'bit' there would be whole rooms in there. perhaps it would reveal the console room only, but other rooms would still be hidden in the bits.

These are both interesting ideas. I would assume there would be other power plants for various systems. But AmazingJim's point stands for me: we've seen the TARDIS appear to lose all power. When it went to Pete's world it was completely dead save for a bit of power in one of its "cells". Which begs the question:


I'm no physicist, but I should think it takes a tremendous amount of power to sustain something like that. You don't just turn off a supernova.

Eye of Harmony was the first, then the technology was used to replicate the procedure to use as a powersource for time travel.

It is a power source and a source of power. Ie power over others through technological/military superiority not just the ability to power a machine to travel in time and space.

No, but you could lose access to it. It may be a dimensional aperture inside a dimensional aperture.

Or, as the Doctor says:
"DOCTOR: We're not meant to be here. The Tardis draws it's power from the universe, but it's the wrong universe. It's like diesel in a petrol engine."
It could be that the Doctor is simplifying - that the Eye isn't the generator as such, but the processing plant. I suppose a bit like the Dalek captured planets to make the parts of a bomb.

Personally, in realistic terms, I put it down to lazy writing, something I think the show has been very guilty of in the post RTD era, but that's a whole other discussion.

To try and make sense of it, I'm thinking like this:
The Eye of Harmony is a real exploding star/black hole event that the Timelords/Rassilon captured at the precise moment in time that produces the most energy, and then shifted the whole thing into a parallel universe next to ours, but anchored inside the Gallifrey capitol.

This Eye Universe is then accessed by every Tardis to use as it's power source, but the connection can be broken by outside interference or moving into a parallel 'too far away' to reach it.

Imagine it like an oven, you can feel the heat in your kitchen, but not if you go to another room. Before the Time War, Gallifrey can act like a connecting vent, so you can get the heat further away, explaining why it used to be easier, but now you're stuck to moving around the kitchen.

What we saw in Journey to Centre was just the view through the oven door, not the actual flame. The real heat was still behind the glass, although still hot enough to bake you.

I just can't get my head round the idea of every Tardis, potentially hundreds or thousands, having it's own sun inside, if just for a practical safety purpose.

And, on a side note which someone mentioned earlier, Tardis's are grown, not built, and while I can understand it growing and manufacturing a console or engine, I don't think you can 'make' a supernova from scratch (have to see how the human Doctor in Pete's world is doing with his Tardis growing in November I guess).

if the single eye of harmony is in it's own dimension then presumably the TARDIS would need some power to open the link to that dimension.

If an external force causes the link to collapse then the TARDIS would need to be refuelled from another source in order to re-establish the link.

So yeah maybe that does square the circle a bit as does the concept that 11 or 10 re-establish the link to the EoH that was lost after the timewar.

Or maybe post timewar the link to the EoH became harder to establish forcing the TARDIS to run on it's own backup power at times.

As an analogy - the TARDIS is like a house with solar panels which is also hooked up to the National Grid - in this instance the EoH = National Grid.

If the power from the grid goes off you can rely on the solar panels for basic needs as long as it's sunny outside but you'd be screwed if it got dark.